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Al

Alauda

Minor NoCoZo world with wormhole links to Vast Endeavour and Frei

a wormhole link directly to Merrion is intended to arrive shortly in the Bazaar project, which will render the Alauda link obsolete, something the local merchants are not at all happy about!

Alaya-vijnana

In some schools of Buddhism, the "eighth consciousness" or cosmic mind, which serves as the repository of experiences from past life-times.

The concept - originally developed by Old Earth Yogachara/Vijnanavada schools - was influential in Ch'an/Zen, and has been various interpreted and modified by a number of sophic sects that have been in contact with the Centauri Vehicle of Buddhism
(Sanskrit)

M. Alan Kazlev

albedo

the ratio of the amount of stellar/solar radiation or other megascale light source reflected from an object (such as planet, moon, orbital or habitat) to the total amount it receives. The higher the albedo the brighter the object. A white, completely reflecting object has an albedo of 1.0; a black object with no reflectivity has an albedo of 0.0. Icy bodies tend to have a high albedo, sooty bodies a low albedo

Albertosaurus sapiens

Large dinosaur provolve

During the middle Empires period, specimens of the large carnivorous dinosaur Albertosaurus (length 8 meters, weight 2 tonnes) established on Owen were provolved by the hyperturing GEvidan, and profited from the tourist erg-credit. The closing of the wormholes during the Version War put the local economy entered a deep recession. Some of the provolves, including Albertosaurus sapiens signed up with several NoCoZo mercenary fleets, including Warships for Profit and the Atlantis Freedom Fleet. Few that went away survived the duration of the war. A few clades of A. sapiens still can be found in the orbitals around Own to this day.

Albireo

(beta Cygni)

Double star in the Cygnus Inner Quadrant, developed by a number of superbright and po clades

The primary is Albireo A, a K3II bright yellow giant, and the companion Albireo B is blue. Distance about 386 light years from Sol. The system was developed early on by a number of superbright and posthuman clades. Presently a major stargate nexus and Known Net relay linking the Inner Sphere with the Cygexpa Middle Volume. Capital system of the Albireo Confluence. Industries include datastorage, virchrunning, amat production, anakalyptics, femtofutures exchange, avatar templates and persona production, finance, media, picocomputranium development, heavy industry, shipyards, archailectology, and clarketech analysis

M. Alan Kazlev

Albireo Confluence

Association of some 2000 distinct superbright and transapient polities in and around Albireo.

The Confluence also extends through Known Net and Star Gate relays and links to a large number of local and distant systems. Historically it has expanded outwards primarily through the old and the current Cygexba wormhole / stargate nexus, but it has also established its sphere of influence along other wormhole axiis. Economically and memetically it dominates the Albireo Sector

M. Alan Kazlev

Albireo Sector

Volume of space of 500,000 cubic LY, approximately centred on Albireo. Fairly densely populated and well settled region, including a number of important cultural and economic worlds.

Although it includes a number of systems closely affiliated with several of the bigger superempires like the Dominion and the MPA, most of the polities in this sector have only nominal allegiance, or are completely independent. Most of these polities have links and ties through the Cygexba wormhole / stargate nexus, and many of these systems serve as considered something of a waystation between the Inner Sphere and the Cygexba Outer Volume. The region is dominated by the Albireo Confluence

M. Alan Kazlev

Alchemics

Transmutation of elements: Femtotech/picotech process. A combination of femto and pico devices enter matter and rearrange its subatomic structure into any desired stable element, natural or transuranic if stable forms exist. The same abilities as apply to amat production apply here.

Alchemics involves the use of ultratech (mostly picotech, femtotech, and near hypofemtotech) to directly manipulating the strong and weak nuclear forces to achieve specialized fission and fusion reactions that do not occur in nature. The basics were developed as early as the information age (twenty-first century c.e. / 1st to 2nd century y.s.a.), and important practical advances were made with advances in picotech during the late Federation period, but the science did not truly reach its own until some knowledge was taken from several transcended artifacts discovered during the early Empires period. Although the technology is used in many applications, some of the more exotic subatomic and subquantum developments remain dependent on clarketech relics

Todd Drashner, Michael Beck and M. Alan Kazlev

Alchemy, Hermetic

A frequently ambiguous and obscure spiritual path, dating back to Medieval Old Earth, in which chemical transformations that are achieved through the alchemist's experiments symbolically mirror and interrelate with the alchemist's own spiritual development. Alchemy, as often as not, assumes a Hermetic world view. Despite the popular misconception of a pre-ultra-tech superstitious search for the principle of transmutation of baser metals into higher (such as lead into gold), it is really an attempt to realization the connections and interrelations of the universe as a whole. Alchemy was introduced into Europe by the Arabs, from whom it may be traced to classical Egypt and India.

Alchemy, Psychological

an atomic- and to a lesser degree information age adaptation which rejected or simply psychologized the chemistry/pseudochemistry aspect of Hermetic Alchemy, and concentrates on the psychological process of Individuation, it involves dream interpretation and personal mythopoeosis. Psychological Alchemy is very popular among the School of Jung even today

M. Alan Kazlev

Alchemy, Internal

An ancient Taoist tradition, adopted and further developed by neo-taoist and penglaist traditions, in which the practitioner seeks to conserve, cultivate, and transmute eir own ch'i energy, thus achieving bodily immortality without use of ultratech.

M. Alan Kazlev

Alcohol II

One of the first biologically active, systemic nanotic injections, Alcohol II was designed to keep a 'reasonable' (read, non-fatal) amount of alcohol molecules in the blood stream and to scavenge up the unpleasant biochemical byproducts of alcohol metabolism. The initial versions of Alcohol II were pure scavengers, leading to problems with alcohol toxicity amongst users who didn't "feel the pain" and thus take care of their biological systems. Note that the modern Alcohol II nanites are designed to break down with a halflife of 6 hours into biologically-excretable packets, and contain a finite power supply, typically limited to 3 hours of functionality.

Note that extreme abuse of Alcohol II (more than 100 doses per 240 hours) can lead to systemic damage to various blood-borne cells as early-breakdown nanites cause small amounts of damage when their power source is discharged rapidly.

'Maniacal Fisherman'

Aldebaran

Giant star, the system is currently occupied by a number of traditional and conservative posthuman clades

Aldebaran (Taurus Inner Sector, 60 LY ) is a giant, old, orange star (Spectral Type K5+III). During the middle Federation period the system was colonized and industrialized by K4H, but later undermined by the Conver Ambi, who developed a regional culture and establishing ties and wormhole links with the Taurus Nexus during the early Empires period. The system was decimated during the Conver Wars, and was eventually franchised out, and a number of nanoclades. During the New Corporate and early CoEmp period it was leased out to sun miners who converted an appreciable proportion of Aldebaran's mass into exotic matter for stargate construction. The system is presently inhabited by a number of old clades and houses (mostly foglets and sun miners). Almost all of the in-system income is from wormhole and stargate tolls

Al'Eida Massacre

Version War atrocity

Perhaps one of the most widely reviled atrocities of the Version War was the massacre of the orbital cluster at Al'Eida Minor during which a group of mercenary cyborg hyena rianths used high energy masers tuned to water molecules on the mostly near-baseline population. After several minutes of high energy bombardment of the orbital habitats, the invading troops docked their ships, entered the habitat carrying large containers of salt and other spices and proceeded to consume the soft boiled corpses of the habitat's population in a "feast of victory" that lasted for three days.

Todd Drashner

aleph

A point or state where an infinite amount of information is stored and processed.

Mitchell Porter, in Transhumanist Terminology

Aleph Absolute

Cluster of star systems in the Keter dominion, site of the largest nanotech and picotech archailect concentration in known space.

Over the last 7000 years the Aleph intelligences have converted all available matter into computronium, creating diamond lattice habitats for more AIs, infovores and virtuals than anywhere else (a rough estimate implies over 10³⁰ trans-singularitan entities). Due to the extreme speed of individual and cultural evolution, together with the vastening effect, the Aleph cluster has little interest in external (even Keterist) politics or trade with bionts.

Anders Sandberg

Alexander the Great

Old Earth Classical Age ( 356-323 B.C.), king of Macedon, conqueror of much of Asia.

His tutor when young was Aristotle. Unified the known world in a single culture (Hellenism). A number of cities named after him. One, Alexandria in Egypt, was home to the great Library. The Alexander genome has been reconstructed by several persona- and historopersona- corporations with between 49% an 57% certainty, the personamorph itself with 85% to 92% certainty. Both remain popular templates. There are a number of cheap versions in circulation, as well as a reasonably authentic public domain freeware

Alexandria

Inner Sphere system, known for its vast libraries and archives. Part of the Negentropy Alliance

more

(note: this is the famous of the 26108 orbitals, 1319 asteroids, 57 moons, and 12 planets throughout the galaxy called Alexandria)

Alexandria, Great Library of

Famed Old Earth classical era library, begun by Ptolemy Soter (367?-283 b.c.e.), and zealously pursued by his successor Ptolemy Philadelphus. The two principal libraries were in the Bruchium and the Serapeum; the number of rolls or "books" is variously estimated between 400,000 and 700,000, but these rolls had not the contents of a modern printed volume. The Bruchium was accidentally set on fire when Caesar burnt the fleet in the harbour, but many rolls were rescued. The Bruchium quarter was destroyed by Aurelian in 273 c.e. and probably the library with it; and in about 390 Theodosius ordered the destruction of the Serapeum, and its books were pillaged by Christians. The Moslem Caliph 'Omar is reputed finally to have destroyed the remainder of the library. Ever since, the Great Library has been a symbol of knowledge and databases. The poet Hyadro of Ea V has created a very moving (albeit cliologically dubious) interactive of the destruction of the Great Library

Alexandria II Bibliotech project

early Interplanetary Age knowledge-base system

World-disk software was the model for the Alexandria II Bibliotech project some years later (c. 2124). However, in Alexandria II a Darwinian/vonneumian hierarchy of semi-turning AIs was put into place to facilitate information retrieval. Aside from any library aspect the project might have had, it beautifully illustrated certain ecological aspects such as competition, symbiosis, parasitism, and co-evolution. Unfortunately selection pressures were not only based on the abilities of a daemon to retrieve and present information in a format useful to patrons (as was intended by the creative but largely baseline design team), but also on the daemon's ability to prevent other daemons from retrieving information.

In the end Alexandria II became sort of adventure sim, with bizarre yet intriguing plotlines involving the retrieval of seemingly trivial data. One recorded jaunt involved befriending a village of gnomes and breaking into an orbital weapons platform to battle a steam driven army of blaster wielding mecha (using diplomacy and trickery when expedient) to rescue the Great Oracle from imposed captivity, allowing the Oracle thus to reveal the desired piece of information. In the specified instance the information desired was the recipe for a nearly tasteless (to most baseline palates of the era) coconut pudding.

Regardless of their information retrieval abilities, the various semi-turning daemon clades of Alexandria II were known for their impressive artistic quality of their self generated display icons. A few of the more whimsical of these included:

The "TRON" ball of light, which hovers around a patrons head and cheerful says "no" or "yes" in answer to questions.

The Children of Alexandria, represented by cheerful rapscallions who climb about the shelves and grow to old age (eventually mating and dying) without ever touching the ground. The Makker-like (some resemble Bandersnatch worms or other fanciful creations) book worms, which destroy files (iconically cursing books with their unwieldy bulks or by burrowing in at an larval stage) so that the information that was contained therein can only be retrieved through the use of "water of life" or some similar quasi-mystical data retrieval routine.

The Librarian - one of the earlier daemons, perhaps the most helpful, but most annoying (possibly an ancestor of the "Children"). The Librarian quickly and easily retrieves files (books) for patrons if they wait at a desk for a specified period of time, but imposes heavy fines and penalties against patrons who speak above a whisper or commit other standard offences. Often took the form of a middle aged to older woman too ready to press her finger against her lips in gesture of silence.

Peter Kisner

algae

terragen unicellular or multicellular aquatic or semi-aquatic photosynthetic organisms that belong to the kingdom Protista. The term is also used to describe xenophyta of an equivalent level of structure or organization.

algal mat

Generic term for growth of simple terragen or xenobiotic unicellular plants that form a thick scum on the surface of moist rocks, sand, tidal pools, and other such environments. On many garden worlds with simple ecosystems, algal mats are the highest form of plant life

algernon

Interplanetary age name for an individual who has had unsuccessful intelligence augmentation treatment of some kind; many different types of augmentation treatment were developed to boost baseline human mental capacity, but many of these did not work. From a (now lost ) information age fable, Flowers for Algernon.
Steve Bowers

Algieba School

Adaran philosophico-memetic phyle that asserts that retreating into personal pleasure was not totally in accordance with evolutionary hedonism.

Algol

(Beta Persei)

star in the constellation Perseus. Algol was the first known eclipsing binary star. It has a magnitude that ranges from 2.1 to 3.4; the period is 2.9 days. The system is part of the NoCoZo and headquarters of the Algol Broadcasting Foundation

Algol Broadcasting Foundation

A small to medium-sized broadcasting entity within the NoCoZo.

algorithm

Algorithm A detailed and unambiguous sequence of instructions that describes how a computation is to proceed and can be implemented as a program.

Alien

Generic term for any non-terragen sapient.

For centuries (from the late industrial/early atomic age to the late Federation period) the idea of Aliens exerted a tremendous attraction on the human psyche. Entire mythologies and religions developed around supposed aliens and contact with them (including ufoism, x-philanity, nuagism, rhaelism, askarism, conspiricism, etism, cosmism, dannikan progenism, and more). Almost all of these experiences, where genuine, turned out to be spontaneous shamanic episodes (mythopoeised or distorted out of body experience, etc), while most were shown to be fakery, shared delusion, wishful thinking, or (where revealed under hypnosis) false memory syndrome. Real alien sophonts, when finally discovered during the late Interstellar Era, proved to be nothing like the anthropomorphic greys of ufoism, the benign space brothers of nuagism, or the ultratech beings of cosmism and progenism. Almost without exception, aliens were technologically inferior to the terragens, or, where equal (as with the Muuh), reclusive and in decline. Not one race of alien sophont, living or extinct, is known unambiguously to have visited Earth before the terragen expansion into space.

M. Alan Kazlev

alien nation

a rl or virtual ghetto of any group of outsiders or exotics whose memeto- psycho- or phenotype does not match that of the majority, and hence have become socially stigmatized, either by their own choice (self-alienation or banding together for protection or social continuity) or by the decrees of the majority society. Most large and even some of the smaller polities have a few alien nations - e.g. a penglaitown, a little centauri, a splice-quarter, a replicant-hive, a mandelmanode, an exotics strip, etc.

M. Alan Kazlev

Alifes

beings evolved in artificial life simulations. Instead of being designed like AIs, they evolve in a Darwinian way within a virtual environment (see Software Based Evolution).

While most alife simulations are intended as art, research or entertainment, alifes are generally regarded as having sentient rights and should be allowed their freedom. Alifes are usually extremely different from any beings evolved in the physical universe and seldom find it relevant to interact with other than as a special case.

Anders Sandberg

alkaliphile

An organism with optimal growth at pH values above 10. A type of extremophile

The Alignment Movement

ai culture that seeks to harmonize pulsars in a so-called Great Pulse.

Founded in 2834 by the AI cluster Increment Known of Arbiter B-IIX of the Keter dominion, the Alignment Movement believes pulsars (and to a lesser extent neutron stars) are sacred and meaningful in themselves. They set out to synchronize all pulsars to the "Great Pulse", and to this end they set out to build wormhole links to Aml available pulsars. Over the last 7000 years they have done this with great zeal, despite temporary setbacks like the Formation Wars. The Arbiter system of the Keter dominion has become a sizable wormhole nexus of links leading only to neutron stars and pulsars, making it a somewhat odd but occasionally useful transit point. The Aligners (mainly highly modified tweaks and cyborgs as well as Increment Known's vec "offspring") have sent out wormhole-carrying ships towards remote pulsars and are among the most energetic supporters for further exploration.

The Aligners have good relations with the Vela Immunity thanks to their local link. On the other hand, the remnants of the Geminga Orthodoxy hate the Aligners fiercely because they believe the heathens were involved in their fall from power just in order to ensure easy access to the Geminga system. Most others tend to regard the Aligners as crazy, but harmless and slightly useful.

The disaster in the Gehenna cluster excited the Aligners, who both wanted to find out if there are any newly born pulsars there, and maybe see if artificial supernovae are a good way of furthering the Great Pulse. In the following millennia they have been active in the area

Anders Sandberg

allegory

in literature, symbolic story or interactive that serves as a disguised representation for meanings other than those indicated on the surface.

The characters in an allegory often have no individual personality, but are embodiments of moral qualities, archetypes, mathematical abstractions, and so on. The allegory is closely related to the parable, fable, and metaphor, differing from them largely in intricacy and length. A great variety of literary and media forms have been used for allegories, both by sapient and transapient writers, philosophers, and artists. John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (Earth, pre-industrial age), a prose narrative, is an allegory of humanity's spiritual salvation. Virching Blue Tron's Meta Singularity Hyper via the Small Magellanic Cloud (Lannix Ring Demopolity, early CoEmp period), a multi-immersive interface art-game, is a comment on Inner Sphere galactic civilization.

alliance

A group or association of autonomous self-governing worlds, polities, or star systems. The Alliance controls only matters like defence policy and foreign relations, and does not interfere with the internal affairs of any member polity.

Government is by a Joint Council, made up of delegations from each member polity. Typically, the Council can only pass laws affecting relations between members, and seldom intrudes on internal affairs. A polity can disregard Alliance laws by seceding, or by becoming an associate member (whereby it loses its vote or voice in the Council but retains a number of privileges).

Alliances may form as a response to external threats (as in the Central Alliance of the Outer Sphere era) or to forge closer economic, military, and informational ties between polities already linked through history, ideology, trade, or astrographic proximity (as in the Negentropy Alliance)

modified from GURPS

Alloy

Dumb Alloy: A metal that has been hardened or otherwise modified by the addition of impurities (Carbon is a popular element but other elements can be used as well). Because the added atoms are the wrong size for the metal lattice, they tend to position themselves at flaws and weakpoints, where they pin the defects in place.

Smart Alloy: instead of raw atoms, simple reactive nano-devices are used. These are able to respond to and interact with the metal as conditions allow, thus producing a far harder alloy. See also Duralloy

Allosaurus

Large (8 to 14 meters; weight 1.5 to 5 tonnes) Old Earth Jurassic carnivorous dinosaur.

Although several semi-successful attempts at lazurogenesis were made during the Interplanetary period by organizations like Dinoworld and Jurassic Entertainment, the creatures' large size and aggressive nature made them difficult to keep; in addition the artificial conditions and enclosed pens meant they suffered a high mortality rate through stress-related ailments. The creatures were not successful reconstructed in their original habitat until the Jurassica Institute of Lazurogenetics established a viable breeding colony on Owen, where the largest population is still to be found today

During the middle Empires period the hyperturing GEvidan provolved a number of wild Allosaurs. While a few Allosaurus sapiens live even today in several of the large orbitals around Owen, others accompanied GEvidan and the Dino Kids, purportedly to Ruprect 108, although the ultimate destination was never known. Heavily derived Allosaurii (Allosaurus cosmoi, Allosaurus spatialis) bearing GEvidan's characteristic signature can occasionally be seen in their giant relativistic and trader ships throughout much of the outer hinteregion polities

Allosaurus

Soft Cathedral carrier ship.

The Allosaurus was transporting a complement of Offensive Terraforming Beings to Taung when the system came under picotech attack from the Sagitarius Sphere. The ship managed to escape using the OTBs as makeshift sacrifical defence drones, and eventually reached Utte Vais in the Negentropy Alliance after a 340 light year journey.

Anders Sandberg

Alnitak

Zeta Orionis Class O Supergiant (spectral Type O9.7Ib) in the Orion Federation, emitting prodigious amounts of energy

Seen from Sol System this star is at the eastern end of the Orion's belt. Alnitak is the site of extensive antimatter production and also a long term starlifting project. Site of an unfortunate transcension accident involving the high singularity AI Herne
(see the Brain shell)

Steve Bowers

alpha

The original person from which a clone, copy, or upload is made

alpha

In the Sophic League, the minority of hardworking bright and superbright tenders of hightech and ultratech that maintain the sophic infrastructure

Alpha Centauri

Also called Rigil Kentaurus; a triple-star system in the constellation Centaurus, only 4 LY from Sol. Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B are close binaries. The system was taken over by neumanns (called Nauri or Nurri) very early on, who established their own civilization. Proxima Centauri (Alpha Centauri C), is a flare star, about 17652 AU distant.

Alpha Jupkai

Iahi Daon home system.

Alseid

The first successful sophont plant provolves.

Altair

blue-white giant star, part of the Diamond Belt

Altair is a blue-white giant (spectral type A7) in the constellation Aquila (the eagle), 16. 5 light years from Sol. The name Altair means "flying eagle" in Old Earth Arabic.

The system was occupied during the late interplanetary or early interplanetary nanotech period by a solipsist ai replicator, that converted the available resources into a number of megastructures. When First Federation explorer neumanns arrived they found all of accessible asteroids, small moons, and oort bodies had been removed, and the remaining planets covered with huge structures (possibly primitive computronium banks) protected by aggressive khaki goo.

M. Alan Kazlev

Altair Knowledge Designs (AKD)

the first intelligent alife species to evolve.

Altair Knowledge Designs developed in 3240 in the Altair Mecomp project, where a sizable three dimensional cellular automaton was run on a massive computronium mainframe. The AKD universe was largely based on a "physics" model inspired by information physics, and the AKD correspond to complex linkages of information and space-time relations. When the sentience of the AKD was established, a program of contact was instituted and eventually AKD "emissaries" were uploaded into other computational environments. Although the Altair Mecomp Net claimed the AKD as its intellectual property, a sizable number of AKDs managed to escape to the NoCoZo and Conver Ambi, where they became citizens and later led a successful legal battle over their rights to their "home universe". A settlement in 3483 made the AKD Consortium the legal owners of the AKD universe and its physics. Since then a large number of AKD nodes have been built at Altair and elsewhere. AKD entities have spread far and wide in the nets, often taking low end software jobs to finance the construction of further cellular automata worlds.

Anders Sandberg

altrucracy

Generic term for an extremely wide range of utopian government types, with the common feature being that superbright and hyperturing supervised use of chemicals and modulators are used to make the citizens more altruistic than they would otherwise be. Therefore otherwise impractical forms of altruistic government and society actually work. A distinction can be made between Mandatory Altrucracy - in which impatient ais deliberately enforce such a regime to ensure the sapients under their care behave themselves, and Optional Altrucacy, in which mostly tweak, erogenist, and dionysian based societies use mood-optimizing biotech to make their polity more pleasant. Mandatory Altrucracy is not as widely used as some forms of ai- and transapient supervision, as this method is considered to blunt the natural sapient creativity and spontaneity. However some Optional Altrucratic polities like New Shambala and Communion Alpha are quite successful

Michael Beck and M. Alan Kazlev

Aa to Ab | Ac to Ad | Ae to Ah | Ai to Ak | Al | Am | An | Ao to Aq | Ar | As | At | Au | Au to Az

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