Formalhaut Acquisition Society
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Formalhaut Acquisition Society |
The Formalhaut Acquisition Society is an alliance, not unlike the Negentropy Alliance, of a number of separate polities united by a common ideology, memetic, and noetic, possessing a common defense force and foreign policy, yet proudly keeping their own traditions. At its core is a nexus of Curator Gods, around these are the various diverse sapient clades. Once a small empire, it soon grew to some influence.
During the nanoswarm era, a number of superturing museum ships and other AIs, realising al the more how precious their cargo was, left the solar system at sub-relativistic speed, in the hope that, even if humankind and terragen life was destroyed, some traces and record might live on.
Over the centuries, many of these superturings underwent their own evolution. they were, after all, self-repairing, self-maintaining, and capable of self-evolution and growth. Some simply cruised interstellar space, awaiting a new civilization (whether terragen or xenosophont (alien) to arise. Others, bereft of humankind and their original purpose, went mad. Or ascended. Or transcended. Or were damaged by cosmic rays or micrometeorites and unable to repair themselves. Or morphed into distinct ai clades of their own, with the original purpose almost forgotten.
Some established or retained communication with others of their kind.
Eventually, after about 800 years, a number of Museum Ships - including several second and third generation ones (some museum ships had limited neumann capability) decided to establish a permanent base of operations around Formalhaut. Foremost among these AIs was Rastaban 1 (formerly of Interworld) who left Mimas in 2790 for Formalhaut. Because of its proximity, Formalhaut turned out to be an attractive destination for several AIs who arrived there independently during the pre- and early First federation period.
This star was also claimed by turingrade neumanns of SecureSpace, who wished to use it as an industrial base to develop the system. The museum ships blithely assimilated the development neumanns. SecureSpace could do nothing about it when a century or so later they found out they had lost the solar system. The SecureSpace hyperturing was unable to do anything, the Formalhautean AIs already had too strong a nanofacturing base.
The museum ships realised they had too large a collection (and too many items of valued trivia, like an otherwise undistinguished piece of asteroidal ore of an unusual shape, albeit distinct only to other AIs of similar dendrotoposophic configuration) to remain nomadic with, so they developed a large megastructure to house it.
The slowly emerging dyson sphere was noted by both SecureSpace neumanns sent to investigate the loss of the original bots and Federation survey swarms. They soon realised that the superturings and hyperturings (who were by now well on the way to completing an open multi-shell dyson sphere) were not aggressive if not disturbed or attacked, and as long as no attempt was made to land on the structure. Long range sensory analysis and careful fly-bys through the dyson shells revealed what seemed to be vast storage structures, computronium banks, and more besides. Curiously, most of the shells were deserted, apart from ubiquitous construction bots. But a few storage cells did contain both original and replicated specimens from the pre-nanoswarm era (including a complete, but uninhabited, simulation of Cydonia City, Mars), and a number of sealed biodomes containing what seemed to be Old Earth biomes (rainforest, desert, ocean, etc). The puzzle fell into place when some of the original museum ship hulls were identified under the later accretions and additions.
The AIs were nicknamed the Curators, and the system was marked as one more Transcend on the charts; not actually dangerous, but definitely to be approached with care. This of course didn't stop various assorted traders, lunatics, visionaries, pirates, and anyone else from trying their luck. The AIs remained uninterested in communicating, let alone trading, with outsiders. No matter what rare biological specimens, nanoreplicated archaeological artifacts, etc, traders brought, the AIs would not see them. Superbrights who wanted to subvert or persuade the ais were met with stony silence. Lunatics who worshipped them were allowed to remain harmless in their ships. Pirates who tried to steal stuff were immobilized, sealed in carbonite, and added to the collections.
Eventually a ship of relativist traders decided to try their luck. It was a gamble, since the star was out of the way and they would be unable to recoup their costs if this did not pay off. But these traders' ship, figuring that the ai's had become collectors of trivia rather than of important specimens (define trivia...define important...), had suggested taking along a set of original hand-signed anicomix by LenNg of Ganymede. LenNg, the once-famous virchpaper artist and satirist, had recently fallen on hard times and had to sell his collection. No-one wanted it of course, but the ship Maxim Gorki, who had heard of the ISO, suggested to Eir crew that this was the break they were looking for, and they bought it for a song.
Maxim Gorki's gamble payed off; the Curators were pleased to trade the hand-signed anicomix for some (to them) useless pharmacologicals.
Soon word spread, and traders brought trivia from all over the Federation. Enigmatically the AIs would only accept some trivia and not others (no subtoposophic sapient to this day knows why), equally enigmatically, they would at times accept the same scientific specimens that had previously been refused when offered a century earlier.
Finally, the Curators and the traders began working in a more and more symbiotic relationship. This payed off for the AIs, but sometimes less so for the traders, who not infrequently found themselves saddled with goods no-one wanted, and then had the task of trying to explain to the AIs they need something they can sell, rather than just items of obscure transapient curiosity vale
As the centuries progressed a number of disparate nearby colony worlds and polities and trading clades established permanent trade routes or set up camp in nearby star systems. They established the Formalhaut Acquisition Society, originally as an economic tariff group to resist rival megacorp and hyperturing memetic subversion. Soon wormhole links were made with the now AI God curators.
The decline of the federation proved favourable to the new superpolity, which used its political and trade connections to fill in the vacuum. It did not shy away from the use of crude military might as well, but, as with most polities, military force was always a last resort. By the Empires Age the Formalhaut Acquisition Society was a prosperous superpolity built around the memetic of national pride and curator-worship.
During this time, as the federation declined Nova Terran entrepreneurs joined in with the traders and helped them forge alliances with some of the former Penglai worlds and other assorted Inner Sphere powers. In many ways the Formacists can be regarded as the offshoot from Nova. During the middle and late first federation periods, At some point in history, Nova culture exploded outwards when there was a good opportunity and influenced a number of worlds. These formed the loose Formalhaut Acquisition Society alliance, which has persisted more as a kind of attractor than a continuing empire - re-organisations, changes and dissolutions happen from time to time, but minor non aligned worlds and clades in the region tend to band together and share some common memes.
The reason the Formalhaut Acquisition Society never was absorbed into the Conver Ambi, NoCoZo or any other empire was simply that they carefully kept neutral and used the threat of the Conservators as a way of keeping ambitious empires away. Of course, from the perspective of the Curators the Formalhaut Acquisition Society is simply their acquisition arm, worth protecting from becoming influenced by other empires since they want an unbiased source of collectibles.
As the centuries and millennia passed the Formalhaut Acquisition Society began to view itself as unique and unified - they often joke that all other empires eventually pass away, but their remains.
As the merchant worlds grew in power and prestige, it was inevitable they would unite in a single superpolity. Eventually they grew rich, and rivalled the NoCoZo in commercial wealth and number of corporations, although they were never a Free Zone of any kind. In fact, despite the individuality of many relativist clades, the idea of a Free Zone is abhorrent. Unlike other relativist traders, the relativists of the Formalhaut Acquisition Society were and are bound by a strict tradition of honour and code of practice, no matter how causal it may seem to the outsider.
The people of the Formac worlds and orbitals are a diverse lot, intelligent, educated, innovative, always looking for new opportunities for exploration, adventure, and expansion. Often they are the first through a new stargate in search of new markets and new trinkets. Their relativists are much disliked by other relativist clades for their unity of purpose and the strong memeto-missionary zeal they go about their work.
Many Formacist companies are simply small one-family, one-clade, one-cloneset or one-ship businesses, few of which have the stability and centuries-old staying power of the bigger corporations. If they have been around even longer it is because of their love of relativistic expeditions, not because of real-time superiority. There are also large, hyperturing back, megacorps as well. Especially important are the giant mediacorporations, which have a great deal of power and prestige.
Formacist citizens include a wide gradation from nearbaseline to power, biont to ai, and their is none of the class-system that characterises the Terran Federation. Many of their valued citizens and statesbeings are sentient buildings, sentient ships, sentient orbitals, and sentient structures in general. Most citizens have some measure of cybernetics and intelligence enhancing wetware and firmware, and sometimes it is hard to tell biont from vec! Gender- and phenomorphing is also popular and widely practiced, especially in the old core worlds.
Ascensions and transcensions are frequent, and not only easily accommodated but actually encouraged. In fact much of the society is driven by the spectacle of a new ascension, which generally triggers a short-lived fad.
The Formacist military fleet is comprised almost entirely of sentient self-repairing ships, with little reliance on ordinary hu. Their fleet is huge and formidable, expensive to maintain, but a source of great patriotic pride.
Rulership is by direct AIcracy, but the AIs rule lightly, and sub-toposophic sapients have tremendous freedom to do whatever they want, and even limited voting rights. Apart from a number of vocal minority pressure groups (who are easily accommodated and humoured by the hyperturings), most Formacists are not very interested in dreary politics, preferring to explore the limitless virtual and r/l realities that the civilized galaxy offers.
During the Version Conflict they resisted becoming involved, and instead took advantage of the situation once the stargate links were down to establish numerous spheres of influence.
Formacists consider Negentropists to be the most dreary of individuals, the Keterists to be snobby isolationists, and do not think much of the "pets" of the Utopia Sphere either. They also have a long standing contempt for the Dominion, and "dommie"-baiting remains a favourite pass-time to this day, because the Formacists find it strange that anyone could worship a millennia-old emperor. As for the rest, the Formacists have good relations with everyone, and particularily close ties with Cyberia (in fact, along with the NoCoZo the Formalhaut Acquisition Society is the most important stronghold of the Cyberian Network).
