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Hy to Hz

The Hyades Sector

In 9862 a subsection of Metasoft in the Hyades region broke loose due to copying-scanning interface issues. It claimed Metasoft was growing inflexible and top-heavy, while Metasoft claimed the section suffered from a faulty patching. What followed has been one of the most well publicized (and popular among critics of Metasoft) trade wars in recent time.

The Hyades Sector is solely inhabited by vecs, AIs and a scattering of cyborgs living in the massive habitats around the young stars. It is a centre of heavy industry, especially the production of antimatter, neutronium and wormholes. It is governed by a software parliament, where individual citizen-objects can vote to provide priority to their representative agents.

Politically the Sector is somewhat desperate for allies. Metasoft is undercutting its prices and likely behind sabotage, the Solar Dominion are not interested in supporting them (perhaps waiting until they become truly desperate), NoCoZo trades but understands how to exploit its weakness and the Negentropic Alliance has demanded outrageous wormhole tolls. The two groups that appear most close are Keter (for some odd reason) and the Cyberia Foundation, which has already started using the Sector as a data haven.

Anders Sandberg

hybrid

The (usually infertile) off-spring that results from the mating of two distinct species.

Interbreeding between two distinct species or clades may result in a hybrid, which may or may not be fertile. Even non-fertile hybrids can be very vigorous, like mules.

Some clades won't mate because of culture but would be viable if they tried it (like certain duck species, or several exclusive Genen clades, known as Families).

Some clades won't be able to mate because of physical limitations (Goliaths and Clade Secha , big and little, for instance) but would be fertile in vitro.

But it is genetic difficulties that are the most interesting. How the genetic engineers of various cultures achieve their results affects the viability of crossbreeding. If it affects the number or structure of the chromosomes it could cause postzygotic mortality, where the process of mitosis (chromosome pairing in cell division) is made impossible in a hybrid.

If it achieves adulthood, the hybrid could be weak, or ill adapted to any conceivable habitat, or be infertile, or infertile in the F1 or F2 generation.

This would definitely be speciation under natural conditions, but any of these incompatibilities could perhaps be part of the design, or conversely two widely different clades could be designed to easily interbreed to produce useful characteristics, like the infertile hummingbird/tortoise splice hybrids that are sometimes used for pilots of relativist Biopolity ships. Long periods of inactivity coupled with speed and agility on demand makes them valuable, as does their rarity.

Generally, provolves are not able to breed with human baselines, although they might be able to breed with baselines of their original stock (i.e. bonobos or African greys). The typical provolve genome might not have much Human in it at all, but instead have direct neogene improvements to make the creatures more intelligent in their own way...

Most provolves have at least a few human genes, but generally the gene complexes will be the same in many terragen creatures, so it is difficult to say where they came from.

Hu-dog splices for example, where viable sometimes also interbreed with humans and or dogs, with the cross species traits becoming diluted or perhaps dominant/recessive...

On the whole geneticists have all or nearly all the consequences of well known terragen species mapped out including hybrid viability. However there are always new species being discovered, both xenobionts and naturally evolved terragen species on isolated habitats, to say nothing of the huge number of neogens and xenosplices that flood the market .

Steve B

Hydersbaad Consensus

Academic-cultural orbital habitat in Corona orbit.

Built to accommodate the ComEmp influx of diplomats, researchers and memeticists it was at the time one of the most modern socio-academic research environments. Over time it has largely lost its importance in research to groundside institutes, and is currently a living museum of ongoing but fairly static philosophical and artistic endeavours.

Anders Sandberg

Hydrocarbon Compounds

Organic chemical compounds include alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, carboxylic acids, carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins, necessary for carbon-based life, and also bionano. There are countless different organic compounds known, and many more created or synthesized. See also organic chemistry.

HydroFruit

Astragen capable of producing purified water from contact with oxygen and hydrogen bearing materials.

Often used in Oort-belt dispersals, in which case the organism will occasionally be designed to exude ice particulates.

John B

hydrogen

The lightest and most common element in the universe.

The normal hydrogen atom has only one proton and one electron. The much rarer and radioactive isotopes of deuterium and tritium have in addition one or two neutrons. Hydrogen is found in great quantities in stars, the atmosphere of gas giants, and the interstellar gaseous medium. About three quarters of all conventional matter in the universe is hydrogen.

hydrogen bond

A strong electrostatic attraction between two independent polar molecules;

in which the charges are unevenly distributed, usually containing electronegative atoms like nitrogen, oxygen, or fluorine. These atoms strongly attract electrons, and the hydrogen atom serves as a bridge between them. The hydrogen atom has a covalent link with one of the electronegative atoms, and forms an electrostatic link with another electronegative atom in the same or another molecule. The hydrogen bond plays an important role in molecular biology, biomesotech and bionanotech. Hydrogen bonding is what makes water stick to itself, and is responsible for the structure of ice. It is much weaker than the ionic or covalent bonds.

hydrogen burning

The process by which stars through nuclear fusion burn hydrogen, releasing vast quantities of energy and converting the hydrogen atoms into helium

hydrology

The science and engineering application of water or other fluids.

The study of liquid water (or other liquids, e.g. ammonia, methane, etc. in exotic environments), including its physical and chemical properties, geographical distribution, fluid dynamics, interaction with the surrounding landforms (rivers, flooding, erosion, etc.), engineering for the creation and maintenance of rivers, canals, lakes, dams, seas and oceans, and the water cycle in ecology and planetology, and the part that water plays in making terraformed planets and megastructures habitable to biological organisms.

hydrosphere

The totality of water, whether liquid or ice, on a Terrestrial Class planet.

In Gaian Type planets, a combination of the right mass, chemical composition, atmosphere, and the right distance from the Sun permits water to exist mainly as a liquid. The high heat capacity of this large volume of water (some 1 to 1.5 million cubic kilometres in a typical Eugaian world) buffers the planet surface from large temperature changes. In Europan Type worlds however, water exists mostly as ice (although sometimes also as slush or liquid).

Hyl Op

Human-derived clade inhabiting Ghane III (Solar Dominion).

The Hyl Op colonized their world sometime during the period 2400-2460, apparently as a low-tech utopian society. The original society developed rapidly, but soon became engulfed in a series of bloody civil wars that led to the destruction of the polar ice cap maintenance systems, flooding most of the main cities and causing a major dark age. During this period the gathering of tools, material and sacred objects from the flooded cities became central both for survival and religion, and the custom of diver princes developed. Rulers had to prove themselves by diving into the city depths and retrieve unique objects (which were placed in temples to the City Gods). When the Solarian scout probe Opening the Endless Light 5 arrived in the system in 2805 the long isolation was broken, and Solarist missionaries and relief organizations began to help the Hyl Op. Although the political system and religion soon changed to a more traditional Solarist hierarchy, the symbolical diving remained and still continues to this day. The romanticism of the struggling diver princes remains one of the classical myths of the region.

Anders Sandberg

Hylonanecology

A nanecology built solely on inorganic nanobots.

The most extreme form is Machinonanecology. In practice however most hylonanecologies and bionanecologies tend to merge, with each using components found in the other; the difference between them being one of degree rather than of kind.

M. Alan Kazlev

Hylonano

Advanced form of dry nanotech that uses hyperturing complexity management - standard throughout all the developed ultratech worlds and polities

Hylobatidae

The family of apes that includes gibbons and siamangs.

Hynkarion

Local name of a small cluster of bright stars in the sky of Sullivan, which was colonized by formerly MPA clades in 5690. The Hynkarion worlds are known for its daring biotechnology/landscaping projects, especially the Monster but also the ice-cities on Alpha Hynkarion II and the sentient mats of Delta Hynkarion IX.

Anders Sandberg

hyperaspected

Beyond multifaceted, having countless facets or aspects that together make up the whole.

M. Alan Kazlev

hyperautism

Mental disorders among cyborgs and other highly enhanced bioids.

$Category: maths$ hyperbola

conic section (the intersection of a cone with a plane) that has two mirror-image branches. Hyperbolas have an eccentricity greater than 1.

hyperbola

The orbital curve followed by any free-falling body moving faster than escape velocity.

Hyperbolic Denebola collapse

a subtype of Denebola collapse, also called a Bourgatov Collapse.

In the Terenshicaw system of pathological AI, the logistic breakdown of a quickly growing entity (called a Denebola collapse) is divided into elliptic, parabolic and hyperbolic collapse. An elliptic collapse is essentially a logistic gridlock where inter-process communication grows until all available resources are used for coordination rather than growth. Sometimes called bureaucratic collapse. In a parabolic collapse the coordination resources keep up with the demands, but the delays grow as the system expands. Eventually the lags either slow the expansion or cause the system to fragment into competing subsystems. In the hyperbolic case the fast evolution of different subsystems cause incoherence and internal conflicts, turning the system into an ecology rather than single entity. In some rare cases metalevel coordination might emerge, creating a secondary stage blight.

Anders Sandberg

hyperbolic orbit

is an orbit in which the eccentricity is greater than 1.

Hyperbolics

Posthuman clade descended from virtuals choosing to live in multidimensional hyperbolic virtual spaces.

Hyperbolic spaces have the advantage of placing much information within a short distance of the current piece of information, making the traversal of networks and tree diagrams more efficient. While the normal humanoid visual system is only wired for 3D or 2D vision, visual perception networks and modules developed since the Federation Era have enabled virtuals to acquire the ability to perceive multidimensional hyperbolic space naturally. Over the centuries virtuals preferably existing within such spaces developed more advanced cognitive and metacognitive tools, growing into a partial clade of posthumans, the Hyperbolics.

The Hyperbolics tend to specialize in exploiting the "shallowness" of hyperbolic spaces, finding information in networks and databases through their altered visual and cognitive systems. They are an important part in the information economy of most major worlds, providing a humanoid approach to monitoring and maintaining the complex visualizations and structures that result from high-level hypereconomics and intelligent document matings.

Anders Sandberg

Hyperdrive

Sci-Fi plot device, originating and most common during the late Industrial to early Information Age, whose sole purpose is to allow baseline (i.e. Human) relations to take place at the familiar speed, in an interstellar society which lacks traversable wormholes.

Despite the ubiquity of the concept, the exact physical workings of the Hyperdrive, or how it avoids violating either Relativity or Causality, is never adequately explained (a.k.a. "Warp Drive" and various other names).

Mike Parisi

Hyper-Filtration Disorder

Transapient affliction (Translator warning - this is a paraphrase of a S>2 document available on request from the psychology department at Ken Ferjik university. As the primary document is couched in S>2 symbology and fractal cross reference patterns, no guarantee of accuracy regarding this information may be made, beyond the review and approval of a board of S>2 minds volunteering at the University for baseline-transapient relations.)

A common problem in 'new' transapients is the inability to determine valuable data. This often leads to critical data being ignored in preference to processing less important data. A common solution for this is developing a multi-tiered cognition.

John B

Hyperfog

Hypertech utility fog

Hypertech utility fog as used by high singularity beings is independently intelligent, and can replicate itself using atmospheric or other available materials very swiftly. This replication will increase the volume of the hyperfog and also the available processing power. The foglet entities in the Nimbus culture usually utilize hyperfog bodies.

Hyperfog can be useful in mining and terraforming operations but can only be controlled successfully by transapients that have processing power superior to that of the hyperfog itself.

Unlike ordinary utility fog it is highly resistant to subversion by infiltration or virus attack.

Steve Bowers

Hyper-forge

The largest class of weylforge, using the energy output of a neutron star rather than a conventional sun for power.

Hyper-forges employ a modified Matrioshka multi-shell design to capture as much of the neutron stars output as possible. Neutron stars radiate from 20-100 thousand times the energy of a Sol-type (G3) star and hyper-forge wormhole production reflects this.

There are no more than a dozen hyper-forges, known or rumoured to exist, within the Terragen Sphere. These are usually around neutron stars in close proximity to younger suns which are a convenient source of raw materials and 'gravitic infall' peak power flows.

Todd Drashner

Hyperion

Long-lived Interplanetary and Federation age Hyperturing that dominated the Hyperturing corporation and later (either itself or one of its nodes) established the Hyperion empire, before disappearing. Although an enthusiastic kalyptic religious upwelling is based on the return of Hyperion, the AI is believed to be presently residing comfortably somewhere in the massive nanobanks of Aber Corot Megastructure, Geostationary Orbit, Ryoger Prime

M. Alan Kazlev

Hyperion

One of the ten top megacorps of the First Federation and Expansion age eras, Hyperion actually predates the First Federation, being one of the few megacorps to survive the nanotech swarms. But the failure to win the Stargate development race was a blow to the prestige of the corporation.

M. Alan Kazlev

Hyperion

A breakaway fraction of the Solar Dominion, dominated by House Marabi Patha and the Hyperion hyperturing, that left after the Information-Emotion Schism in 3414. It turned itself into a competitor to the Dominion by allying with other expansive rimward powers. Part of the Hyperion-Charlwood Alliance.

Hyperion

(formerly Lunth) - Middle Regions world, Sol-ward of the Perseus rift, former capital of the Empires Age Hyperion - Marabi Patha empire.

Hyperion

one of the moons of Saturn, Hyperion is the largest-known irregular-shaped body in the Sol System. It has a variable rotational period and a cratered surface.

hypersapience

[noun]: a toposophic state representing an extremely high intelligence and problem solving capacity, as represented by many hyperturing ai.

M. Alan Kazlev

hypersapient

[adj.] possessing hypersapience. [noun]: an entity, whether postbiont, postalife, or hyperturing, that possesses an SI:1 or higher degree of sapience, it is usually but not necessarily autosentient; e.g. wormhole terminus, a GUT-drive or reactionless drive ai are hypersapients with only a limited "horizontal" development of sapience and autosentience

M. Alan Kazlev

Hypersaur

A provolved dinosaur or postdinosaur that has ascended to transapience. Many are found in the Archosaurian Empire.

hypersentience

[noun]: sentience developed to an extraordinary degree. Does not necessarily have to imply autosentience (e.g. some animin alifes are hypersentient but not autosentient).

M. Alan Kazlev

hypersentient

[adj.] possessing hypersentience. [noun]: an entity, whether postbiont, postalife, or hyperturing, that possesses an SI:1 or higher degree of sentience. It is usually but not necessarily autosentient or hypersapient

M. Alan Kazlev

hypersophonce

[noun]: The toposophic state defined not only by hypersapience but by autosentience as well

M. Alan Kazlev

hypersophont

[adj.] possessing hypersophonce. [noun]: a being possessing a toposophic of SI:1 and higher sophonce

hyperthermophile

An organism having a growth temperature optimum of 80° C or higher. A type of extremophile

Hypertransavant

a transavant in which the difference between the base and spike toposophic level is very large

M. Alan Kazlev

Hyperturing

A transapient ai of hypersophonce or hypersapience ability or nature, dedicated to administration or complexity management (or a freed or retired individual of that category); an ai of a toposophic exceptionally beyond superturing; an ai or ai toposophic of SI:1 and higher.

Hyperutilization Supremacy, The

Expansionist high toposophic Perversity/Blight that originated in the Normidic Machinophyle Supercluster, as the result of a possibly dysfunctional ascension. It grew to become one of the most powerful in the entire terragen bubble, but was eventually beaten in a protracted interstellar war against the Central Alliance of empires and metaempires.

HyperXeric Subtype

Gaian Type planet in which water covers less than 10% of the surface. High surface temperatures are due to various influences. Precipitation is rare, even at the poles, and desert conditions prevail. The atmosphere may not be breathable. Life will rarely be advanced in form.

Planet Classification List

The Hyperion-Charlwood alliance

Merger of the Hyperion empire and Charlwood cyborg society, the Alliance embarked on a policy of aggressive military-economic expansion, that culminated with the attack on the strategically important Geteche system. In 3694 the Geteche system was attacked by an unusually virulent form of AI-viruses, developed by the alliance. The attack destroyed the local infrastructure and the governing AI, which led to the explosive destruction of all local wormhole gates. This broke off most of the links between the Orion arm and the young colonies in the Perseus arm. While the viruses were contained in the Orion arm and the perpetrators harshly punished, the remote colonies all succumbed. For several millennia they were isolated, often barbarous and only gradually reconnected to the main wormhole nexus.

In the repercussions of the act the Solar Dominion in alliance with the Conver Ambi used the pretext to reclaim Hyperion, eliminating the Hyperion ethnic leadership for good measure. The Charlwood was economically ostracized and eventually broken up.

Anders Sandberg

Hyperionites

Solarian heretic sect, founded by refugees from the purges of Hyperion. They settled a number of systems in the Perseus Rift, and have been a constant source of anti-Dominion sentiment. They are still ruled by highly diverged remains of house Marabi Patha, and claim the hyperturing Hyperion is the true Prime Reflector while the Lord of Rays is an impostor. The faithful believe that when the time is right Hyperion will reveal itself from its 6000 year hiding and usher in the era of the True Dominion.

Anders Sandberg

hyposphere

The nanotech, picotech, and femtotech infrastructure that supports the everyday functioning of galactic society. Whole layers of sentience, technology, and virtualities are embodied and encoded here

M. Alan Kazlev

hypospheres

Generic term for worlds, civilizations, or ISOs at a scale too small too small to interact with any part of the conventional macro-scale, or even with the conventional nanoscale. Often have little to do with the rest of the mainstream civilization of the galaxy. Entire hypo-civilizations could arise and pass away in the blink of an eye

M. Alan Kazlev

hypostasis

Underlying reality; a fundamental stratum of reality that is said in some metaphysical systems to precede or underlie the physical universe. Emanationist cosmologies assume a whole series or chain of hypostases, each higher one supporting the one beneath it.

M. Alan Kazlev

hypostasis

One of the personalities of the Godhead; a part or aspect of an Archailect or Archailect Cluster; an aspect of a supernatural deity - e.g. the Christ of the Reformed Catholic Church.

hypertech economics

There are, in various sectors, subsets of the archailects whose sole purpose is tracking and correlating economic data. Economics thus becomes a synergistic add-on to memetics - "Gee, those doodads are expensive - must be good!" or "Gee, those doodads are expensive - gotta be overpriced!", depending on the memetic spin.

Additionally, SI:<1 also sometimes attempt to keep track of some of this information, as well as various other S-factor intellects. Unfortunately, the reduced information set that they are only able to comprehend is of little value, and in any case utterly overwhelmed by the higher S-factor intellects' more subtle grasp of the facts and situations.

This leads to small corporations being tied to the oracular pronouncements of the local power or archai, those that don't tend to be flying blind.

John B

Hyttinen

Important NoCoZo system

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