BY LETTER
Kemmerer
Warning: Restricted World | |
 Image from Steve Bowers | |
| The Restriction Swarm around Kemmerer prevents unauthorised contact with the xenosophont ecology of this world. Each swarm element displays the glyph of the Caretaker Gods to inform intruders that this planet is a protectorate. | |
Kemmerer - Data Panel | |
| Star | YTS 955673 7889 00 |
|---|---|
| Stellar Type: | G3v |
| Companion: | YTS 955673 7889 00B K2 orange dwarf 2000 AU distant |
| Region: | Carina Rush, 3667 ly from Sol, constellation Carina, (1050 ly from nearest alien species, the Cthonids) |
| Planets: | Lysenko -120,000 km dia epistellar jovian -25million km orbit Kemmerer 10000 km gaian dia -140 million km orbit Saint Hilaire 130,000 km dia jovian -300 million km orbit Koestler 170,000 km dia jovian - 500 million km orbit |
| AI | AI overseer: Lady Mondegrin Oncehuman (ascended form of Gimelbenedita Bluesky Dacosta) AI's ethos: Caretaker God |
| Psyche, Art, Culture | Metapsychology: Thanks to exchangeable chemically tagged chromosome microplasmids, desirable traits are selected by the organisms of Kemmerer during its lifetime. This eventually resulted in the development of intelligence, and intelligent self design, in a naturally evolved, all encompassing, intelligent ecology. Naturally evolved environmental minds (envomes) of this kind, are very rare, and the dominant mind on Kemmerer, the The Festuca sophonce, is the most advanced xenoenvome yet discovered. The Festuca sophonce (the so-called 'Decider' entity which makes conscious decisions for the envome) is noncommunicative, and the Joker mobiles are the only elements of the ecology that use sound communication. The language of the Jokers was eventually deciphered, and their conversation was discovered to be almost completely dedicated to verbal display (known as 'wit') and dominance assertion (known as 'sarcasm'). When a Joker mobile dies it is apparently remembered by the sum total of it's spoken wit over the period of mobility or |
| Territory and Population | Population: The entire remaining Ecology on Festuca Continent can be regarded as a single SI:>1 Individual. However the designed mobile forms are independently intelligent, and due to their sarcastic method of dominance assertion seem also to be conscious and self aware, on a similar level to a baseline human. However the self preservation instinct seems to be absent, and individuals have no sense of physical danger as opposed to that of personal insult (which seems to have been artificially enhanced by the Ecology decider). Population breakdown: Turingrade Approximate Created Individuals 700 million (many trillions of less sophisticated mobile forms also present) Territories: Continents: Festuca now the only sophont ecology Spartina remains of a defeated moss-like sophont ecology, now managed by browsing Festuca mobiles Agrostis remains of a defeated algae-like sophont ecology, blue green in colour, managed by browsing Festuca mobiles |
| Government and Administration | Government Type Caretaker God |
| Travel | Stargate: nil (Dismantled 10004) Major Spaceports: Nil Hazard Rating : 9.0 Relativistic explorers advised to comply with all Caretaker God instructions |
When such a macrospecies colonises new territory, it transfers all the available genetic material it has collected to its offspring ecology. However when it produces specialised phenotypes within its own ecology, these phenotypes only express part of the available genome. These suborganisms are in some ways similar to gametes produced during sexual reproduction on other worlds; however the suborganisms concerned are fully functional and independent, fulfilling a function within the ecology concerned. Some suborganisms are autotrophs, collecting sunlight or chemical energy. These autotrophs feed heterotrophic organisms, also produced from the macrospecies genome. Further subspecies prey on the heterotrophs, or act as decomposition agents when other suborganisms die or discard waste matter.
Non-Darwinian Evolution
Macrospecies are known on several worlds, and they will often fill an available environment to exclusion of other species. Sometimes competing macroorganisms interpenetrate each other's territories and come into conflict, while in other cases the macroorganisms enter various forms of symbiosis or commensalist relationships. Sometimes more conventional speciation occurs on these worlds, and the lesser species enter into symbiotic relationships with the macrospecies. On occasion the macrospecies will co-opt the genetic material of their symbiotes, until the independent species are themselves absorbed into the macrospecies genepool.
On Kemmerer the selection process, which decides which gene collections are to be expressed and which are not, appears to have started to select for increased intelligence approximately a hundred million years ago. The ecologies on this world swaps genes around like viruses and several million years ago several ecologies became intelligent enough to self-modify the elements of the ecology at will.
Less than two million years ago there were at least three advanced intelligent ecosystems on this world; two ground-cover steppe macrospecies and one forest-like species. However during a conflict which occurred on a worldwide basis the two ground-cover macrospecies were eradicated or suppressed, and are now managed by the victor, the so-called Festuca sophonce. This entity, an ecology covering an entire continent, appears to have attained a self-awareness and intelligence approximately equal to a first-level transapient (albeit a rather solipsistic one), but some of the self-designed species are also comparable to humans in intelligence.
It is believed that the defeated macrospecies could be reconstituted on other worlds, if the Caretaker Gods permitted it; it is also known that the Joker Leaf-ants are capable of independent existence away from the macroorganism, as several were smuggled away from the world before it was closed; but they are known to be dangerous and aggressive, and possession of such creatures is illegal in most polities.
Joker Leafants | |
 Image from Steve Bowers | |
| Leafants, unlike most animal-like creatures, are not bilaterally symmetrical, but instead show plant-like growth forms | |
The animal-like mobile species that is most like humans is the Joker Leafant, a kind of cross between a monkey, an ant, and a rubber-plant. These creatures grow like fruit on the outside of much larger plant-like organisms, and detach themselves in order to become mobile. But the limited area of photosynthetic tissue these creatures possess is not enough to keep them fully active, so they feed on their parent plants for extra sustenance. The parent plants exude a nectar rich in sugars and amino acids for that purpose.
The Joker mobiles compete with each other in their language of shrieks and sign-language in contests of wit, sarcasm and insults; very often the competition breaks down into mask fighting, which involves duels with their extendable jaws. The most successful of the duellists, both linguistic and martial, have their genetic load perpetuated by the ecology.
Kemmerer is too dangerous for humans, and is surrounded by a restriction swarm which (in theory) keeps any information from coming in or out; but illegal copies of the Joker phenotype occasionally are sighted throughout the galaxy, especially wherever low level brushfire warfare is likely or in progress.
Fiction relating to Kemmerer
Reunion At KemmererArticles
- Benedita Blue Sky (Benedita Dacosta) - Text by Steve Bowers
Long-lived bioxox paraterraformer (949 to recent, various copies) - Envome - Text by Tony Jones
Environmental Minds; entire ecosystems which have become intelligent - Xenecology - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Study and application (in habitat design, biospherics, etc.) of alien (non-terragen) ecologies. - Xenobiont - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Generic term for alien (non-terragen) lifeform. May be animal-like, plant-like, protistan, exotic chemistry, or any other possibility. Does not have to be sophont. In fact just as on Earth, very few alien species ever evolve any measure of cognitive intelligence.
Related Topics
Development Notes
Text by Steve Bowers
Graphic by Steve Bowers
Initially published on 22 July 2002.
Graphic by Steve Bowers
Initially published on 22 July 2002.
