BY BERT EHRMANN

Proto to Late 1997 | Early 1998 to 2000 | 2000 | Late 2000 to 2003

It's hard to believe that Dangerous Universe has been around so long. From pre to post Internet boom, Dangerous Universe has been there earning it's creators absolutely no cash and sucking up valuable time and resources. Cheers Dangerous Universe!

Proto Dangerous Universe; "Astro," Late 1997
Back in late 1997, the seeds of Dangerous Universe were germinated out of a college project in Computer Art & Design 2. I chose to build a web site called "Astro – The Non-Official Aliens Web Site." (Not that anyone would confuse this site with something that was officially created, the site's design was horrible and content stolen/non-existant. Yeah, I know nothing's changed!) The site was an extremely simple fan page that featured items from the movie "Aliens."

Oddly enough, I later found out that a copy of this site was still on my school's web server several years after I had graduated. I was able to copy it off for my records.

As a side note, the "Astro" title would be reused in another school project this time built in the program Director. The "Astro Design Facilities" CD-ROM project.

Ideas used in this site would become the first Dangerous Universe built a few weeks later.

D.U. Early 1998
The design for the first incarnation of Dangerous Universe has been lost to time but was very close to the "Astro" site. The main idea was a web site to feature the most dangerous creatures in the galaxy in a realistic National Geographic/National Archives manner. In fact, the original title was "Dangerous Galaxy" but changed since "Universe" was "a lot bigger than Galaxy."

A lot of the inspiration for this site came from the now defunct LV-426.org web site dedicated to the movie Aliens. In my opinion it was the first great site on the Internet that featured an excellent design along with great content.

According to Dangerous Universe, the most dangerous creatures in the galaxy were, in order: The Predator, The Aliens, The Arachnids (from Starship Troopers), and an unknown virus that was spreading itself throughout the galaxy.

Major inspiration for this version of the site was LV426.org, anyone else remember that, and The Anchorpoint Essays.

D.U. Late 1998
The first Dangerous Universe that set the mold for everything that followed was built at school as a personal project, lived at Geocities, and was updated with content during my lunch hour at my first art direction job. I had to update it at my lunch hour at work since I didn't have a computer at home. At this time, the tagline for the site alternated between "Fear the Unknown" and "Welcome to the Unknown."

The image below is the only visual representation of the site that exists. Everything else died in a Zip Disk death.

Proto to Late 1997 | Early 1998 to 2000 | 2000 | Late 2000 to 2003