Civilizations and Metaempires

At least a dozen vast and incredibly diverse star-spanning meta-empires, societies, and superclades contend throughout the terragen sphere and beyond. Some are allied, others are hostile, and each is very different, even alien to the other, sometimes in ways that ordinary sapients cannot comprehend. Together they work to shape the galactic ecology according to their needs.

Unless otherwise specified,
this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

feedback

Design notes: Originally under MAK and AS the OA scenario presented a reasonably benign future, with the hyperturings and sephirotic AI Gods, for all their unpredictability, looking out for the welfare of bionts and other lower grade sophonts. MAK in fact had intended OA as a refutation of anti-ai scenarios in pop-culture, such as in the movies Terminator and The Matrix. With few exceptions, planets would be colonised by bionts or by friendly ai, and the galaxy would belong to the Sephirotics.

This optimistic vision was later challenged by John B, who argued that a future under superhuman ai need not be the best one for subsingularity bionts, since such ai would be under no moral obligation to "do the right thing". MAK agreed and felt also that the addition of "ahuman ai" (the neologism that was adopted on the list to define non-friendly ai) would make the scenario a lot more interesting, even if somewhat darker. MAK coined the idea of "Metaempires", of which the Sephirotics (which had previously dominated the entire Terragen bubble) were only one, to describe these various ai hyperpowers. There were two ahuman metaempires, the Diamond Network and the Panvirts, and a neutral group, the Objectivists (based on ideas by OA member Eric Lo). He also included a couple of alien (xeno) races here (the Muuh and the Silent Ones), along with Todd's Deeper Covenant (a non-sephirotic alliance), and a few other groups.

With OA Version 2, MAK decided to replace the term "Metaempire" with the less confusing "Civilization". As Fernando has argued that the xenos should be better represented in OA, MAK also added a few more alien empires here, as well as removing a few terragen groups. The result is the current page.

	Deeper Covenant: A vast network of beamrider-linked polities, stations, and solar systems that first began during the late interplanetary age - mostly Brown dwarfs and M-type stars, includes all clades, high sentient rights, good relations with the Sephirotics the Objectivist Commonwealth, some commerce with the The Diamond Network and even the Shadow Federation. Part of the Civilized Galaxy.

	The Diamond Network: A vast and diverse network of objectivist, subjectivist, hu-hostile, and/or hu-neutral ai, ai-polities, and virchcosms, that evolved from the early diamond belt. They are less centralised and connected, and more diverse, than most other terragen civilizations.

	The Eternal: Enigmatic archailect empire that seems to all appearances, a single being with all the power and complexity of a full scale archailect civilization.

	The Meistersingers: A newly encountered civilization of nomadic explorers with advanced biotechnology, although their ship propulsion appears to be more primitive than that of the more advanced terragens. They are not considered a military threat, and since their recent discovery have achieved a celebrity status throughout the Nexus. Some Meisterwatchers however claim that the 'Singers are a lot more advanced and powerful than they let on.

	The Muuh: A relict race, but still a repository of much ancient knowledge. The fact that they concentrate mainly on cold europan worlds and that their psychology is so different makes them difficult for many terragens to relate too. Even their ai are completely alien. They are not considered a military or memetic threat. This metaempire includes xenosophont sentients only, apart from a few terragen xenosplice muuhophiles.

	The Objectivists: A network of "objectivist" ai that reject biont memes and any form of "subjectivity".

	The Sephirotics: They consist of a number of vast archailect -ruled sephirotic and near-sephirotic superempires, along with various associated non-aligned polities and empires that share their values. Part of the Civilized Galaxy.

	The Soft Ones: Originally a client species of the Muuh, like them a cryosophont race; long isolated and gone their own way.

	The Solipsist Panvirtuality: A loose network of vast isolationist anti-biont (and often anti-vec as well) ai-polities, virchcosms, hyperturings and archailects that evolved from the early diamond belt ai, and rivals the Sephirotics in power.

	The Transcend: Non-aligned High Toposophic and High Transapient/Archailect empire of unknown origin.