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Dr to Dt

Dragon

EuJovian Type planet in the Penglai system - inhabited by Mirrored Owl swarm-nets Advection of Pure Drylines during the 4000's

Dragon's Egg

: A "Trojan Horse" virus powerful enough to subvert a minor archailect, occasionally used in the most subtle forms of memetic engineering.

It can only be generated by other archailects, either unstable or with an unknown agenda, and always at least one singularity level above the intended victim. A more blatant form of Dragon's Egg involves a higher form of Perfect Art. The victim archailect receives an inconspicuous, compressed information package that eludes all available scrutiny, only to open it and undergo what could only be described as a mystical vision (exponentially removed from anything a sapient could experience). The victim archailect "feels" exactly what the creator wants it to "feel", thus making e more susceptible to specific suggestions. Usually the effect filters down to all lower intelligences connected to the victim. This technique is used in forced networking and even total subversion. Fortunately, this frightening tactic has rarely occurred throughout Terragen history, with the victims being exclusively minor archailects of small colonies - especially those involved in listening for alien signals. Some moderate versions of Dragon's Eggs are suspected to be of alien, even extragalactic sources. The evidence is far from conclusive (as far as sapients have been informed), but the implications are obviously staggering. Some have theorized that the Archailects are withholding information regarding even more advanced AIs elsewhere in the universe - perhaps even much fabled "Galaxy Brains". Unsurprisingly, such theorists are usually dismissed as alarmists and crackpots.

Darren Ryding

dragonfly

terragen paleopteran carnivorous insect (order Odonata) that hunts on the wing, can hover in mid-air, and feeds on smaller insects, grasping them with their spiny legs.

Dragonflies have the largest compound eyes of any baseline insect (25,000 lenses). The larvae are aquatic, living in freshwater and feeding on small vertebrates and aquatic invertebrates, catching them with a "trapdoor" face-mask. Dragonflies evolved during the Carboniferous Period; some early giant forms (Meganeura) with wingspans of up to 75 cm. Giant dragonflies remain a popular biont of choice among some hobbyists and breeders, especially in oxygen rich low gravity environments, where bioborg forms with powered spiracles can reach wingspans of many meters. The Vacuum Soarers are heavily bioborged space adapted dragonfly provolves

Drake Equation

An early (pre-interstellar age) attempt to estimate the number of civilizations in the galaxy, according to the statement that the fraction of stars harboring intelligent life equals the number of all stars times a sequence of fractions, such as the fraction of all stars having planets, the fraction of planets that are habitable, and so on.

Atomic age Old Earth radio astronomer Frank Drake was the first to formulate an equation which represents the probability of there being other civilisations in the galaxy capable of communicating. However, owing to the limited knowledge of the time, there was little solid data on which to base the numbers, and the answers vary widely and according to personal preference. The equation was to be greatly modified by the Rare Earth Theorem during the early Interplanetary period.

The equation is :

  N = Rs x Fp x Ne x Fl x Fi x Fc x L

where :

    N   number of civilisations capable of communicating
    Rs  Rate of star formation (per year)
    Fp  Fraction of stars with planets
    Ne  Number of planets per star with suitable environment
    Fl  Fraction of planets on which life appears
    Fi  Fraction of life-bearing planets on which intelligence appears
    Fc  Fraction of intelligent societies which develop communication
    L   Longevity of society in communicative mode (years)

See also Fermi Paradox, Ginnungagap_Theory, Transcendent Burn-out

DrashNet

Energy collection and storage device

Most empires are engaged in the long term stockpiling of energy for future use or they are engaged in the export of said energy to those that do. Typically this involves dyson swarms that convert sunlight into antimatter and large antimatter traps for storage. One of the more popular traps is known as a DrashNet, name after the hyperturing AI which worked out the final details of the design.

AI Vin

Dreadnought

A Capital Ship of the largest scale (term now rarely used)

A very large (> 1 km, sometimes 10 to 20 km), very expensive, very heavily armed and defended, relativistic Capital Ship, crewed by a compliment of both hyperturing and SI:<1 sentients, equipped with an efficient biosphere and self-repairing nanotech, and capable of extended and independent operations across interstellar distances. Usually a Dreadbnaught is supported by a fleet of smaller front-line warships, including cruisers, tenders, and escort vessels. Only polities and empires with a strong ultratech industrial base can afford to construct and maintain Dreadnaughts. The development of the wormhole nexus, and the rise of higher archailects rendered the dreadnought obsolete in the Inner Sphere and throughout most of the developed regions; but some dreadnoughts are still used by expansionist barbarian empires in the outer volumes

M.Alan Kazlev

Dreadnought

A mech or exoskeleton of maximal size or offensive/defensive capacity

Dreadnought

A heavy, massively encrypted and equipped ai virus, stealth virtual, or persona

Dreadnought

A military or medical nanobot/mesobot that is excessively over-armed and armoured; replication speed and flexibility is sacrificed in favour of heavy duty actions, or offensive and defensive capacity

M.Alan Kazlev

The Dream Rejection Tendency

The Stellar Umma Survey ship Scheherazade in 3332 made contact with a binary culture based around several brown dwarf stars at the spinward edge of Umma space. Each lithium dwarf had a dynamically supported shell or ring above its surface typically at a distance of one hundred thousand miles, with energy collection facilities on the internal face. These suprastellar shells had been built over the last two thousand years by a clade of relativistic cyborgs who had eventually thrown off their biological components and lived now inside the shell material in a vast series of virtual cybercosmoi.

On the outside of the superstructure, protected by the shells from the brown dwarfs' harder radiation, but warmed by the waste heat from the simulation machinery, were the descendants of the few borgs who had rejected the dream state. As the surface gravity of the shells were on average three quarters earth standard, an atmosphere of helium, hydrogen and lithium had originally built up, and after the borgs had imported cometary ice and rock this was gradually converted to an oxygen/helium atmosphere with soil supporting tailored fungi. To this date the Dream Rejection Tendency still live on the vast starlit plains parasitizing the waste energy of the buzzing cyber worlds.

Steve Bowers

Dreck Wrangler

The most common nickname for a Tech Wrangler when they're noticed by beings from an angelnetted community or other high-tech enclave.

John B

drex

a drexler, a molecular assembler, a nanomachine.

drexler

a molecular assembler

(after Information Age visionary Eric Drexler, the founder of nanotechnology)

droidlocks

Bionic hair, often decoratively braided, matted, or transmorphic, consisting of large nanobots or small microbots. The bots derive their energy from the subject's body heat or movement, or from external vibrations.

after original term by Jeff Noon]

drone weaponry

the drone weaponry that emerged during the information era allowed a bewildering array of "smart munitions" that could attack different kinds of targets. Hammer of Thor systems circling above an area, striking down targets as soon as they were recognized, small scoutdrones telling heavy weapons the coordinates of targets, autonomous ground-air missiles that are dropped and then fire themselves when needed, flying carriers that could launch air-air and air-orbit missiles and so on. Satellite-based orbit-air weapons became possible, especially as nanotech began to enable truly powerful lasers. Drones are essential to all modern warfare

Ndege Diamond

Drummon Duran

Centauri sector, important regional Negentropist system during the Second Federation period, the stargate links were destroyed by NoCoZo forces during the Version War but casualties were not as high as in other nearby systems, the system regained some prosperity (including major catapult facilities) during the ComEmp period, was then conquered by the Paradigm in 5468, became a major Paradigm industrial center by 5500, the half-constructed dyson sphere was destroyed by PCO forces in 5553, over the objections of the Negentropist Alliance. The system has been rebuilt, and includes a war museum and a memorial to all those of both sides who died during the Paradigm Containment War. Prospecting for war artefacts (remnant nonfunctional goo, pieces of the original dyson sphere, paradigm wreckage) is illegal under the local Heritage Act but widely practiced - the authorities seem unable to stop the trade. There are rumoured to be a number of pirate colonies in the local kuiper belt and in some of the outer dyson detritus, but this has never been confirmed and is probably just a story cooked up by the local tourist industry.

M.Alan Kazlev

Dry Empire, The

Informal name for the coalition of aioids expanding out of the Inner Sphere that do not participate in the affairs of the bionts.

The Dry Empire originated with the earliest pure ai colonisation during the interplanetary era, but became a more coherent force during the age of expansion when a number of the aioid clades began to communicate with each other and the more pro-bioid clades. The Dry Empire has since then participated in interstellar politics at high toposophic levels, in general taking an expansionist position not favoring the major empires. Many Dry Empire settlements exist across the wormhole nexus.

Anders Sandberg

dryware

The non-biological part of a cyborg (c.f. hardware, software and wetware)

Anton Sherwood - in Transhumanist Terminology

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