Adumbrans
Tropospheric Adumbrans monitor a developing cloud cell on Darwin
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AdumbransTropospheric Adumbrans monitor a developing cloud cell on Darwin |
Adumbrans (sometimes known as Cloud-Vecs) are
the sophont descendants of robot clouds formed out of utility fog
that were originally created during the First
Federation period to act as a means of weather control and
atmospheric regulation. Originally mere non-sophont devices, the
complexities of the weather and its chaotic nature, as well as the
necessity to deal with the unexpected and natural disasters, and the
effects of the Adumbrans themselves on the atmosphere, forced upgrades
of the original designs. This first gave them idiot savant levels of
cognition where atmospheric physics was concerned, and then later
upgraded them to full sophoncy. In most types of Adumbran they still
retain a level of cognition relating to atmospheric physics and
management over and above their intelligence in other areas.
As utility fog, the Adumbrans are very large and light, with a
sufficiently low density that they float in the air. They drift with
the wind and have a shape that shifts and flows with it. By controlling
their surface configuration, they can create or remove nucleation
centres and so control the condensation of water into clouds. They can
control their albedo to regulate temperature, as well as store and
re-radiate heat as required. By controlling their shape and creating
barriers and channels for air flow, they can regulate air flow and
control their movement through the air; although they normally drift
with the wind they can move against it if they need to, using their
foglets as motors. Controlling their density (how closely packed their
foglets are) and using stored heat also allows them to control their
altitude. Many Adumbrans can also remove pollutants of various kinds
from the air, concentrating them until they can be safely disposed of.
They are mainly powered by solar energy, but can also extract energy
from the air that passes through them if that is what is required at a
given moment, and from atmospheric thermal and electrical gradients.
The smallest Adumbrans are hundreds of metres across, and individually
influence the weather only in an area somewhat bigger than themselves;
these are sometime employed to protect individual facilities on a
planetary surface. The largest form a single entity extending
throughout and thus influencing an entire planetary atmosphere. They
can all pack down into much smaller and denser forms if necessary, such
as for transport to other locations. All Adumbrans are hard to damage
or dissipate, by their very nature, and their foglets are designed to
be resistant to hostile atmospheric phenomena such as lightning.
In terms of senses, Adumbrans have extraordinarily acute vision and
hearing, their widely spread foglet units giving them eyes and ears as
large as they are with sensitivity into the infra-red and ultraviolet.
From the air passing around and through them they can feel atmospheric
pressure, temperature, composition and wind speed and direction. Most
Adumbrans communicate via subtle variations in their surface
reflectivity (albedo), though some types use laser emitters in their
foglets to talk to one another. Some have radio communications
abilities, although this requires the Adumbran to have thread antennae
longer then their foglets running through them.
Because of their original raison d'être, many Adumbrans form part
of an Angelnet.
Over the millennia Adumbrans have spread from their original
environments, the atmospheres of Earth-like worlds, to all kinds of
planetary atmospheres, including those of gas giant and Venus-type
worlds. They are now found in the atmospheres of worlds all across Terragens space.
In addition to their size there is a great deal of
variation among Adumbran types. Some have clearly defined borders and
while they can meet and make contact with others they remain definite
individuals. Others have no such defined borders, and should the wind
take them they blow through one another, merging and splitting off
again, sharing thought processes and foglets as they do so. These
latter types tend not to have much in the way of individual
personalities, as their mergings tend to erase any variations between
them.
There are various different Adumbran civilisations. Some are an
integral part of the ground-bound civilisations of the worlds they
inhabit; this is particularly the case when the entire planetary
atmosphere is inhabited by a single Adumbran. Others live in isolation
from them, or on worlds that they inhabit alone. Many of them have a
culture based on wind and energy transactions between individual
Adumbrans.
Adumbrans are capable of reproduction. In many cases
they create new utility foglets out of dust and other elements found in
the atmosphere they inhabit. In others these have to be supplied
externally, or the Adumbrans extract them from the ground of their
world. Some grow to the point where they split into a number of new
individuals by a process of fission. Others create new children that
grow and develop as biont children do.
Some Adumbrans transcend to higher toposophic levels, at about the
average rate.
Over the centuries most types of Adumbran have acquired
very good protection against viruses, mental intrusion and hacking.
This has arisen from the desire of planetary populations not to have
their atmospheres taken under the control of hostile outsiders.
