Sophont Categories and Phyla
Sophont beings vary according to the
nature of eir body, whether organic, artificial, virtual, cyborgs, ai,
and so on. Some of the major Categories or Phyla and Superphyla of
sophonts are included below:
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Sophont Categories and PhylaSophont beings vary according to the
nature of eir body, whether organic, artificial, virtual, cyborgs, ai,
and so on. Some of the major Categories or Phyla and Superphyla of
sophonts are included below:
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Biological
(Biont): This category includes life that has evolved naturally from organic compounds, whether terragen-like or exotic chemistry, as well as gengineered sentients. This category, the largest of all, includes bionts (biological intelligence) such as nearbaselines, tweaks, su, provolves, splices, bioborgs, neogens, etc, as well as animals, plants, xenobiota, bionano ecologies, etc. |
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Artificial: Generally, a constructed being, or one that evolved from such. e.g. a vec, aioid, or bot. A sentient with an inorganic body. May occupy a non-humanoid body - e.g. a sentient ship. |
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Cyborg:
Combination of the above two. |
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Sybont:
A sophont syborg or sybornetic neogen. Based on sylife and synano principles, these completely artificial organisms are neither pure organic or pure artificial, nor a cyborg-like patchwork, but rather a uniform mixture of artificial and biological. |
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Virtual:
A sentient that does not have a physical body, or uses one only temporarily. |
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AI:
A combination of artificial and virtual. A self-evolving Mind that is an "artificial intelligence", AI may embody through a biological, artificial, or cyborg substrate, or choose a virtual environment. The highest ai, the hyperturings, and the archailects beyond them, are the dominant form of life in the known galaxy. |
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Po:
A biological (or in some cases an artificial) that has transcended its previous condition, usually through toposophic ascent. Includes posthuman, postalien, postprovolve, postsplice, even postvec. |
