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Picopixies |
The picopixies were an attempt to create a baseline picotech mind by the earliest femtolect AIs. As always, the motives for the AIs were somewhat obscure - though some archailectologists suggest it was because the pixies are more space efficient than standard biont and vec baselines.
A pixie usually stands about twelve inches (30cm) high, supported by between four and twenty thing legs placed equidistantly around the body. The body itself is a sphere two inches (5cm) in diameter, and holds the pico-brain and the power source (usually fusion, though it can be replaced by an amat or even GUT reactor). Pixies also have two large radiators, and because of the energy level of eir brain, ey radiate a lot of heat - the radiators (and sometimes the whole body) glow white - hence the name.
Some pixies have adapted to a life in space, equipping emselves with drive sails and expanding eir radiators to several hundred meters in length - to compensate for the lost convection heat-loss that is available in an atmosphere.
A Pixie's psychology, being of a picotech type, follows a quantum indeterminacy form, with multiple wave function thought patterns that collapse into a single though - it is not unusual for a Pixie to come up with several different (and sometimes contrasting) ideas at the same time.
The high temperature of Pixies makes it rather hard to interact with most bionts, and ey are often found working alongside heat-resistant vecs, AIs and occasionally sybonts. Also, because of eir small size ey tend to work in places to small for ordinary sophont bionts and vecs. Also, eir high energy requirements tend to force them to stay near the sephirotics and other AI gods who are willing to accept them - though Pixies living in the wild, scavenging eir own amat are not unknown.
Pixies usually reproduce by seeding inert matter (sadistic pixes in the outer regions do sometimes use sophonts) with picotech; and subverting it to become another pixie (or collection of pixies).
There have been rumors of femto-pixies in some areas of Terragen space, though these are most likely unsubstantiated.
