The Tyrkenian Institute
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The Tyrkenian Institute |
A scientific institution located on
the large Tyrken asteroid in the third asteroid belt of the Clark 8
system. While the Tyrkenian Institute declares no alliance some of the
inner planets and all three asteroid belts are being mined by NoCoZo
corporations and as such the entire system is generally considered
NoCoZo territory. The institute seems to have two general purposes:
research and
education. All significant research in the Tyrkenian Institute is run
by transapient
AIs, with some token help by the foundation's students.
Though all research is conducted by the transapients there are plenty
of lower-toposophic beings in the institution. A few are dispatches
from different powers seeking some kind of aid to solve a problem or
simply an answer to a question. Most, however, are scholars or students
being educated on every subject imaginable, by the AIs willing to spend
time on such. Especially the master Geryon seems fond of teaching the
lesser toposophics and generally is generally running at least 100
classes on various subjects every day.
A plaque somewhere in the
asteroid-wide complex marks the opening of the Tyrkenian complex as
2958, the date leading some residents to believe that it was part of a
Ynity project (a failed attempt to create projectable wormhole gates,
abandoned when it succeeded only in proving that such gates could not
be achieved). However nothing more than the date is known about the
beginning of the complex and the teachers and masters are quiet on the
subject. The earliest reliable reports of the Tyrkenian Institute is
from the
early 8200s in which scholars began arriving to the system in
relativistic ships and found the complex, the 3 AI masters and a few
lesser AIs already conducting research on a variety of subjects. Most
of the scholars weren't aware what they would find in the system, but
had been influenced by various memetic cues to seek it out. Though they
came unaware what they would find, most quickly settled in once they
found that the transapients were willing to teach them.
The institute is commonly thought to
be run by the 3 AI masters Foundling, Geryon and Delian, which are
believed to be second toposophic AIs. Below them are the teachers
consisting of an unknown number of
transapient AIs which conduct their own research and (in some cases)
teach the students. All modosophonts in the complex are generally
called students even if they are only passersby, merchants or envoys
from other polities. The facility is maintained by subsapient vecs
commonly known at "the
staff".
While these tiers exist within the Foundation they are not enforced.
They simply seem to be 'the way things are'. Sometimes a teacher will
sponsor a students research, but it is commonly thought that any
results are purely due to subtle teacher influence. Teaching by the
teachers are conducted in a variety of ways. Most
common seems to be different forms of 'classroom' education in virch,
but ril classroom education, individual tutoring (often a hundred or
more students at once) and other forms are also common. The research
is, as all things transapient, often above the
understanding of the students. It is known that large areas of the
complex are filled with godtech equipment and believed that some of the
education is dumbed down versions of the results achieved on the
teachers level.
