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Gi to Gn

Gaiacene Epoch

Used to designate the new geological period on Old Earth from the nanoswarms and the Great Expulsion onwards.

Stephen Inniss

Gibbon and Siamang

These were 11 species of "lesser apes", all members of the genus Hylobates, sole member of the Hylobatidae; native to Asia, Old Earth, where they lived exclusively in tropical rainforests.

They were the most arboreal and acrobatic of Old Earth's apes, and also the smallest (under 7 kg in the largest males). Depending on the species they were buff, white, or black in various patterns. They lived in small family groups (father, mother, and offspring), and were omnivores. Like all other apes they became extinct during the early Information Age as a result of human actions, and were maintained only in breeding colonies and genetic banks. Several species of gibbon were provolved in the latter part of the Information Age, though these provolves were necessarily made larger than the members of the baseline species so that they could support a sufficiently large brain. Gibbon provolves have since gone on to form several minor spacer clades. It is believed that GAIA has lazurogened the baseline species, though as with other apes there are no unambiguous sightings. The largest confirmed "wild" populations of the baseline species are found at Ao Lai. Space-adapted non-sophont gibbons are common in orwoods.

Stephen Inniss

Gigantopithecus

genus of extinct ape of southern Asia, existing during the late Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs, originally known only from very large fossil jaws and teeth, but believed to be the largest naturally evolved hominoid that ever lived (height up to 3 meters). During the Interplanetary age and later, several attempts were made at lazurogenesis, all were unsatisfactory from the perspective of paleobiology, but nevertheless these neogens were a popular exhibit at local biosphere and wildlife reserves. Some of these were later provolved (including Neogigantopithecus sapiens and Paragigantopithecus lazurus superior). The first and perhaps only authentic Gigantopithecus was restored by the Curator ISO Deep Time Dreaming (FAS) during the early Second Federation period. Today a number of successful populations representing all five of Deep Time Dreaming's lazurogened species have been established in authentic Plio-Pleistocene biospheres throughout the galaxy

M Alan Kazlev

gigo

gigo (noun), gigoical (adj.) results generated from faulty or incorrect original premises

M Alan Kazlev

Gigology

the study of gigo, and how specific faulty information results in specific incorrect output. A popular field among some transapients

M Alan Kazlev

Gilboa Reach

Important STC outpost and stargate plexus in the Serpens sector, consists of a large L5 orbital swarm of habitats and a terraformed world, Gilboa, distinguished by its unusual and lush pteridospermous vegetation (a result of an earlier terraforming attempt where gengineered terragen moss and lichen hybridized with indigenous prokaryotes).

M Alan Kazlev

Gillbank

Crucis Corridor Negentropist world subverted by the Neutral Way, declared itself the Disarchy Alliance, led by the Postscripts of Randomness, as a deliberate parody of Negentropism.

Ginkgo

(maidenhair tree) primitive gymnosperm that was common during the Mesozoic Era, but had only one existing species surviving into the Holocene (Ginkgo biloba). It has fan-shaped leaves divided into two lobes. A large number of extinct species have been lazurogened. A popular and hardy plant. Several provolve species are known

The Ginnungagap Theory

Theory advanced to explain why the entire universe has not been converted to a single technosphere by the earliest intelligent beings or any of their successors.

Most explanations of the "revised Fermi Paradox" fail due to the existence of intergalactic missions - most proposed threats or developments leading to the destruction (or other ending) of a civilization will only affect the part that remains nonmobile and within the same galaxy. Given the number of longshot expeditions outwards it seems unlikely any conceivable threat could wipe out all traces (and hence expansion tendencies) of the terragens.

The Ginnungagap Theory suggests that there exists something in intergalactic space that prevents travel (the passive form) or that intergalactic travel attempts arouse hostile action from these "dwellers in the void". This would explain the longevity of certain alien species that are not particularly expansive, while other species have vanished early on. The nature of the dwellers remains conjectural, but one possibility is plancktech civilizations existing within the extragalactic quintessence field.

A variant of the theory, popular among the more dramatic eschatologists, is the temporal erasure hypothesis. Since even plancktech is limited, it seems unlike the dwellers would be able to catch every escaping being from a galaxy. But if the Imso-545 topos model of torsion theory holds, it might be possible to exploit wormholes for limited time rewriting (this is a highly controversial statement, and not taken seriously by any SI:3+ torsionist). The dwellers would simply reach back in time and make the civilization making trouble never arise in the first place. Adherents to the erasure hypothesis fully expect the imminent unexistence of the terragens.

Mythopoetically the Ginnungagap theory is a typical "here be dragons" model to encourage a ne plus ultra approach to intergalactic expansion.

Anders Sandberg

glacials

generic term for sentients or processes of a much slower metabolic rate or clock speed than one's own. Slow timers, slowworlders. Naturally each scale up is a glacial compared to the next one down (or in)

(analogy with geological processes)