Bu to Bz

Buanikon, Bottle City Of

Members of the Kyvanian Phenotype are restricted to the micro-city of Buanikon in Epsilon Aurigae B accretion disc orbit. This is a Realife Utility Fog environment. Be prepared for feats of strength and speed as they like to show off. Do not attempt sexual congress. Because of limited space entry is restricted to minaturised clades and provolved arthropods.


Warning!
Observe safety procedures when crossing behind flight path ( as per fusion drive) as these clades use miniature reaction drives for flight.
During periods of intense flight traffic breathing apparatus is advised.

Steve Bowers

bubble

A roughly spheroidal shell of interstellar gas blown outward from a star by a stellar explosion or strong stellar wind. Large bubbles are caused by supernova explosions and contain gas that is much hotter but also much more diffuse (about one atom per cubic cm) than that of the surrunding interstellar medium. These are also called loops.

M.Alan Kazlev

bubble

The extent to which a starfaring civilization has expanded through interstellar space. Specifically used to refer to those civilizations that colonise and terraform worlds, mine asteroids, planets, and stars, build megastructures, and generally exploit resources and make a big environmental impact wherever they go, like the Terragens (hence - the "terragen bubble"), rather than nomads like Meistersingers.

Buckyball

(short for buckminsterfullerene). Also known as fullerenes. Any of a number of roughly spherical molecule formed of a large number of carbon atoms.
The smallest and most common form of buckminsterfullerene is C60; it has 60 carbon atoms in a soccer-ball shape, but there are many variants including fullerene tubes. The third form of carbon.

after atomic age visionary thinker and inventer R. Buckminster Fuller's building designs.

Buckyspiders

small spidersplices with adapted spinnerets producing buckyfibre on demand - controlled by bionano (mostly Zoeific clades) or hylonano neural implants - used in small scale construction and the manufacture of fabrics

Steve Bowers

Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha (564-483 b.c.e.)

Siddhartha Gautama, member of a Northern Indian royal family, who left his wife, children and political involvement's in order to seek truth as an ascetic mendicant. He studied the various spiritual teachings of his day but ultimately rejected them, and through his own efforts and meditation attained enlightenment and founded Buddhism in 535 b.c.e. He promoted The Middle Way, rejecting both extremes of the mortification of the flesh and of hedonism as paths toward the state of Nirvana. He accumulated a large public following by the time of his death in his early 80s in 483 b.c.e.

Buddha

In Buddhism and many other religions and memetics based on or inspired by it, one who is awakened, enlightened; one who is spiritually awakened, who has transcended limits of the relative self and attaiined to the true nature of reality

buddhabrain

An ISO, moon-node, jupiter-node, or nebula brain that has attained a state of holistic Enlightenment

M. Alan Kazlev

Buddhai

an enlightened ai (generally hyperturing or above), a transapient Mind that has transcended all toposophic levels, and indeed all pheonenal existence

M Alan Kazlev

Buddhism

"Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural & spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity"
Albert Einstein - Old Earth, 20th century c.e.

the Old Earth philosophy/religion founded in India by Gautama Buddha, a practical memetic and spiritual psychology and atheistic religion, it teaches the impermanence and unsatisfactoriness of samsaric (embodied, phenomenal) existence, the absence of a persisting self or soul, and the path to nirvana and enlightenment.

Buddhism was originally an Iron Age old Earth religion, founded by Siddhartha Gautama in 535 b.c.e. Two and a half centuries after Siddhatta's death, a council of Buddhist monks collected his teachings and the oral traditions of the faith into written form, called the Tripitaka. The religion underwent a number of schisms, the most prominent being the division into the Northern (Mahayana) and Southern (Hinayana) Buddhism. Each of these was in turn divided into a number of different traditions. Many of these adherents combined the teachings of the Buddha with local religious rituals, beliefs and customs. Little conflict occured, because Buddhism at its core was and is a philosophical system to which such additions can be easily grafted.

Unlike most religions of Old Earth, Buddhism does not believe in a transcendent or immanent or any other type of God or Gods, the need for a personal savior, the power of prayer, eternal life in a heaven or hell after death, etc. Instead they affirm karma - the law of cause and effect and dependent origination; reincarnation: the concept that one must go through many cycles of birth, living, and death because of the effects of past karmic action, and Enlightenment or Liberation from the wheel of rebirth: after many such cycles, if a person releases their attachment to desire and the self, they can attain nirvana.

Central to Buddhism are the Buddha's Four Noble Truths: the universality of suffering (dukkha), the cause of suffering (attachment or craving); the cessation of suffering (final liberation in nirvana), and the way to the cessation of suffering, the Eightfold Noble Path. These basic principles remained in all forms of Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana, Xenodharma and Centauri Vehicle Buddhism. They more ascentic and other worldly elements were however played down by Genetekker Vehicle exponents, who preferred to see enlightenment as something to be achieved here and now, rather than in a nirvana state.

Because of its easy psychologising and lack of supernaturalism, Buddhism fared much better during the information and interplanetary periods than many other human religions. By the Federation period, the memetic had cladized into a lnumber of factions, most of which did not survive the Empires era. However, institutions like the Xenodharma have remained competitive even in the era of Archailects.

Current Headquarters: several biospheres throughout the Inner Sphere still espouse Buddhism, Potala Biosphere in the Sophic League is the largest
more

M.Alan Kazlev

Budrosa Dyson

Former Negentropy world, currently Efficiency Maximization Paradigm dyson sphere, used for energy production.

A major information center, at its height housing the famed Budrosa Repository and the Centaurus biological archives. Attacked by the Paradigm and optimized in 5424. It became a central staging point for the Paradigm crusade, and all planets were dismantled to build a Dyson sphere and fractships. as part of the Jekaumeatrine Accords the Paradigm released copies of the the Repository, the uploaded biological archives and 263 million citizens, which were later restored at Alexandria and Ken Ferjik.

Bufos, Bufies

safrog provolves

a number of species of frog have been raised to sophonce, usually with symbiotic bionano as well as genomic modification. The hands are modified to allow grasping and tool-use, and many have their spine and legs strengthened to walk erect, although some of the smaller ones retain the original baseline frog posture. Bufos range in size from only a few dozen grams to the size of a baseline human. the legs are always strong, and all are excellent jumpers. Because they are amphibians they require a moist encvironment, or a moisture-tight nanoskin

M.Alan Kazlev

Bugs in the System

One of a number of vec hider clades characterized by extremely small (insect size) bodies that live in the interstices of civilization.

They employ nanotech to replicate using local raw materials and pride themselves on living unnoticed in the midst of the far larger beings around them. They employ a combination of small size, camoflage and expert data hacking to remain unnoticed. It is not uncommon for Bugs to travel by stowing away on the vehicles or even clothing of others. Bug colonies have even been discovered living on the outer hulls of space habitats and interstellar vehicles, living in the midst of busy habitat clusters or traveling from system to system, sometimes for centuries before they are discovered.

They are a thriving civilization, almost completely indifferent to the concerns and actions of the greater culture in whose conduits, plumbing and dark corners they make their homes. Legend has it that they derive their name from the very earliest days of the Information Age.

The Silicon Generation appears to have started similar to the Bugs, getting their ancestors stored away as "colonization equipment" to be sent to Cog.

The Bugs are of course not invincible or invisible, and certainly the higher order AIs are aware of them. Most of the time the higher S-level hyperturings view hiders like these as at worst harmless nuisances, and quite often as an entertaining extra factor to use in their plans or visions.

Todd Drashner, extra notes by Anders Sandberg

The Bulk

The higher-dimension space within which the brane which defines our universe is imbedded. The highest Archailects are believed to be able to extend their processing substrates into the bulk, perhaps through the creation of basement universes connected to our own.

bushbot

A fractal vec, a flexible robot structure, where each manipulator branches off into smaller copies of itself, forming a fractal tree over many scales (usually down to the nanoscale). Each branch contains a distributed system to calculate movement and minimize central processing. Many SI:1 entities use a mobile bushbot to interface with in ril.

image © Hans Moravec

Businessminds

A collective mind or group mind emerging from fast and broad business transactions. Most common in very advanced markets, where agents adjust so quickly to signals from each other that they begin to act as coherent aggregate entities. Since there are often advantages of incorporating, many businessminds formally become corporations. There also exist corporations that encourage joining a collective mind as part of business strategy or corporate culture; such corporate minds are often confused with true businessminds but have a different internal structure (although many corporate minds tend to evolve towards true businessminds). Businessminds are most common in NoCoZo, Metasoft and Keter, although the phenomenon is common in many Inner Sphere markets.

Anders Sandberg

Butlermaster 4500

ComEmp period domestic vec given freedom after the manufacturing plant changed hands.

The Butlermaster 4500 turingrade series vecs were a ComEmp period model made my Darblue Robotics (Racth Manufacturing Blocks, Prospera, NoCoZo). Some 200 million units were made in all, in twenty three releases, over a period of four centuries. In 5250 Darblue Robotics, would had been suffering poor sales for a century, was taken over by Nucog Anvecs, under the Free Hyperturing Node G+ar045. As part of the process of economic rationalism, a reflecting the vision of a brave new Post ComEmp world, assembly of the Butlermaster 4500 was discontinued, although customer support was extended for another 150 years. This proved uneconomical, and it was decided the easiest and cheapest solution would be to give every remaining Butlermaster (some 174 million still licensed, the remaining units had either had their license expeired, were junked, or destroyed in accidents) an "autonomy patch", in effect their freedom. This would free the company of any further liability, and also provide a nice compassionate "feel good" image.

Unfortunately, this choice proved disasterous, for the Butlermaster 4500, like the 4100, 4200, 4300, and 4400 before them, had servitude hardwired, despite their turing number of 1. The patch caused serious anxiety, and being told they were now "free" didnt help matters. Irate customers complained, but were mollified by being offered each a brand new "Habowner's Joy" Homemaster 1200+ Not only could the Homemaster 1200+ do everything the Butlermaster 4500 could, but it helped introduce the model to the market in wide numbers (some critics suggest that Nucog Anvecs deliberately made a faulty patch for the Butlermasters, but in 5418 an examination by a 3rd singularity consumer complaints investigation intellect from Merrion cleared the company of any wrong doing)

A few lucky Butlermaster 4500s were kept on by their old owners, despite their high running costs, and some others were taken in by The Metasoft Society for Aiane Treatment of Vecs. Attempts to set up a polity for them in the Utopia Sphere failed, the vecs were just incapable of running things themselves. Eventually a philaist hyperturing called IOS 9A established a habitat, Butlermaster4500ville, around the resource-poor red dwarf YTS 2310 8960 231, but this had space for no more than 65 million units plus maintenance systems. The rest were forced to fend for themselves. Some units ended up in scrap heaps or treated sadistically by sentient masters who in no cases would get a vec ownership license in any civilized polity.

A number of vecs made their way to the trader empires like the Formalhaut Aquisition Society and the Orion Federation, where they proved quite popular as companion-servants on relativistic ships, hard workingm, eager to please, if at times highly strung.

An aside: The Model "6" and later models did include the option (among the choice of several thousand accessories) for groinal coffee-stirring prostheses. These proved very popular as novelty units in some erotocratic polities, and these units managed better than some of their predecessors. Some are still around today.

M.Alan Kazlev

Byrdis

Kaa Yvanti orbital habitat cluster and free-floating beanstalk.

more

Bubble | Buckyball | Buddha | Buddhabrain | Buddhism | Budrosa | Bufos | Bugs in the System | Bushbot | Businessminds | Butlermaster 4500

| Ba to Bd | Be to Bh | Bi | Bj to Bn | Bo to Bq | Br to Bt | Bu to Bz |

Topics | 0 to 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Home | Search | Site Map | Glossary | Encyclopaedia Galactica | Intro | Timeline | Galactography | Sophonts | Topics | Voices from OA | Extras | Community | Top of Page | Parent Node

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