Into the World of Up and Ahead!

This is the perfect thing to read if you are bored!

The world of U&A has been under construction for a whole year now (since it became kind of official) and a lot of progress has been made. I mean, a lot. And I haven't had the opportunity to share it with you guys, mostly because I didn't know how. I figured that writing a journal about it would be the best way!

Besides, with those awesome U&A characters we've been getting on , I figured you guys had the right to know more about the world where the story takes place!

So yeah, here I'll talk about some of the cool stuff and the not-so-cool stuff, but mostly based on things you guys have been asking me, such as "But how come they live among humans and no one finds it strange", or "What's their relationship with other animals" and etc.

All of the concepts are still in a very early stage, since this is a thousand times more complex than OMFA. Any kind of suggestion, idea or constructive critic is very welcome (and wanted!)

I hope you enjoy it!


A very direct answer would be no, it doesn't. After some thought (well, not really thought, I'd say that it kind of happened naturally), I realized a while ago I was creating too many events on U&A which couldn't possibly happen in our world. Long story short, U&A happens in the same world as OMFA, only in another country.

Geologically speaking, their country is mostly like a mix between US and South America. They got those rocky deserts, mountains, pine tree forests, sand deserts, forests, even rain forests! The weather around Gold Marrow is rough, very hot during the summer, with some sand storms and all, very dry depending on the year.
The winter is really cold. Sometimes it might snow, tho it's not very common. Even though, It snows a lot in the mountains (Gold Marrow is very close to the mountains, since it's a mining town). Very crazy weather.

-A Country Just for dogs-

How come dogs can act like humans?

A long time ago, around 200 years before Steban and Martin were born, their world was pretty much like ours. Altias (the country where the story takes place) was a colony and a new country, and people came from bigger nations to make a living there. Towns were being built, natives were being fought, territory was expending. It was a rather slow process, because of the rough environments, Altias couldn't expand as fast as the other countries, so it stayed behind in technological matters and development.

Some time later, the world entered a war over leadership, and a huge technological race started between the three greatest nations (Which, to one of them, Altias was a colony). One of the rival nations discovered a mineral with chemical properties, which was extremely lethal to humans, although it showed no effects over other animals (at least none they could observe in a short time).
Turns out they decided to attack Altias, to destroy their rival's main economy source. A bomb was launched, and the main city was devastated by the explosion, and the few survivors had to urgently evacuate the area, and most of the cities and towns had to be abandoned. Animals survived. Cats, dogs, horses, and domesticated animals were left alone, left behind.

With time, all dogs started wondering about all the things that surrounded them. The buildings, the factories, the human technology left behind. Some dogs still had memories of how their dear owners used those tools, and through trial and error, they learned how to use them for their own benefit.

"Nowadays", there are only three human towns left on Altias (Dantan, Claredon Hills and Easthollow), and no person dares to go beyond their limits, only to travel between cities, since they know the radiation is still active.
Dogs took over all the other abandoned towns, far from the human part of the country, and built a whole new way of life.


Each dog shares a very different view over humans. You could say there are three types of dogs: those who still have human owners, and chooses to act like a normal dogs, those who never had an owner, and would love to meet a human, and those who hate humans.

This thing about humans became very mystified with time. The great majority of dogs has never seen a human, but heard stories about them. Stories about how they were some kind of demigods with extraordinary powers no other animal had. And how they were friends to dogs (that is, at least most of them), and how it was a dog duty to guard and protect a human family.

Still, others are completely against that. They see humans as highly destructive beings. They think dogs should grow free of that stupid wish, and follow their own path.

Dogs who have owners act like normal dogs, for the sake of it. They enjoy being with their humans, and love to play with children, like normal dogs normally do. Some though, don't seem to adapt to a life behind a wall, and may run away.

Humans still have no clue about anything



As some of you might have noticed, the dogs of U&A have surnames. Martin Bennett, Steban Eveler, Edgar Hall, Lester Lawson, and etc. Those are human surnames, and you might think that it obviously doesn't fit. In fact, dogs who have human-ish surnames had once had ancestors who belonged to human families. In order to honor them, they kept their surnames as their own
Dogs who's ancestors were stray dogs have surnames like "Bones" or "Sneaker". Socially speaking, they are not well-seen.



By observing the humans, the dogs soon realized that trading was the best way to get anything. Their currency started out based on food, like meat and chewable bones. With time, they began to understand how human money worked, and began to appreciate the shining coins.

Now, they use three values of coins: Bronze, Silver and Gold. The currency has no name, they just say "that would be two bronzes" or "One silver".

10 Bronzes = 1 Silver
10 Silvers = 1 Gold

-The Indians -

Are there Indians?

The natives are naturally tribes consisted of wolves and coyotes, who were there for thousands of years before the dogs. Their culture varies from tribe to tribe, and so does their language, but in most cases, it only varies a bit from the dog language (imagine what kind of language difference there would be between a dog and a wolf. it's definitely remarkable, but they would probably manage to understand each other).

But "understand each other" is the last thing dogs and wolves would ever do. It's the old tragic story that all americans are probably familiar with, northern, central and southern. All dogs think of themselves as superior beings, and see wolves as inferior animals who got behind in evolution.

While trying to expend territory, there are many, many conflicts between them. wolves, coyotes and wolf-dogs suffer a lot if they choose to live among other dogs.
PS: Wolves and coyotes don't get along at all either


Yes, human guns. Of course some dogs might be familiar with them, with both their image and their sound, while seeing humans hunt and kill. But rarely there has been a time a dog dared to touch that mysterious, terrible, magical weapon.

There once was, indeed, a group of dogs who tried to understand how it worked. They did figure it out, but since they didn't have good thoughts in mind, they soon went from town to town spreading terror with their human guns, and conquering everything on their way. Thankfully, this didn't last long, and they were soon ambushed and caught. Since then, guns are the strictly forbidden, and the penalty for being seen with one is death (yes, it's that bad).

Even the big bad dogs are afraid of using one, either because they are afraid of the consequences or because they fear the "black magic" behind human guns.
But we never know how long this fear will last…


Naturally, other animals share the lands where dogs now live. Snakes, lizards, eagles, turtles, horses, bisons, pumas, bobcats, wolves, coyotes, foxes, bears and many, many other species live and share the same environment as the dogs, only they don't like to mix. They can communicate with each other, but some might have different accents, different intelligence levels and even different languages. Horses and cats are the most evolved, in a sense of forming some kind of "society". Cats naturally hate dogs, and formed colonies of their own (will be better explained along the story). Horses like to live free, running in the wild like their ancestors. Some even formed "Freedom Fighters" rebel groups, where they go traveling around the country freeing other horses from the hands of men.

In the matter of dogs have a natural preference for meat, so big dogs with some muscle can handle cattle, but it's a cruel process, since they can, even if limitedly, speak. So it ends up working more like a hunt.
But mostly, chicken are more common. Chickens really don't have enough intelligence to develop thinking process, and they only speak words like "Worm!" and all of them start repeating it. Sheep kind of follow the same line.


if you have more questions, please leave them on the comment section!
have a lovely end of day everyone!