The Red Star 'M'pire

As viewed from the Solsys there are two minor galaxies in the constellation Sagittarius. The closer of these (at only 88,000ly away) is a dwarf elliptical in a polar orbit of the Milky Way. It's correct designation is SagDEG (for Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy) and not to be confused with the other Sagittarius dwarf galaxy that is an irregular designated SagDIG. Being an elliptical SagDEG is composed of 'Population II' stars. These old yellowish stars are metal poor and don't form with large proto-planetary disks. All in all not a good candidate for colonization. However an early Space Age survey of M type stars revealed that tidal gravitational forces have drawn-out long streamers of SagDEG's stars to fill it's orbital path and one of these intersects the Milky Way's galactic disk in what is now the Terragen Sphere. At some point in the fifth millennium a.t. one of the earliest Solar Dominion "longshot" linelayer ships, having followed this streamer, arrived at a K type star about 2,000ly above the volume of the Solar Dominion territory with the intent of setting up a new outpost and tourist spot. This star was chosen for the site because it was the closest thing to the preferable G type star in this region of even older, redder stars and because it also had a small brown dwarf companion that would be used to enlarge the wormhole and allow the linelayer to return to the Dominion. The vistas of the galaxy from this angle and three close planetary nebulae were outstanding and the star system became known as Far View. Even from the start it had attracted a small number visitors from across the Terragen Sphere in addition to the 5,000 Solarian superiors and nearbaselines of the outpost. This traffic would have no doubt increased had it not been for the Version War.

During the Version War the stargate in Dominion space linked with this system was attacked and collapsed into a black hole and it was believed the small outpost was lost to the energy released as 70% of the wormhole's mass radiated away. It is now known that, although there was a large lost of life, the outpost and more than a thousand Solarians did somehow survive and in isolation ey would grow/evolved into a new noetic and memetic archetype. The exact details of how this happened are not known as the in-system AI had taken the brunt of the stargate's energy release and had lost most of Per higher functions for more than two hundred years. The only reason the AI survived at all was because some of the surviving zars collected and maintained Per surviving parts. And the zars emselves only survived long enough to do this because ey had help from some transapient tourists who had also been trapped in the Far View system and eir adopting of a free breeding strategy to counter the eir high death rate in those early years. Other survival strategies were; resource management, self-reliance + group cooperation and, above all, adaptability.

As noted the details of what happen next have been lost and sociologists and godwatchers have spent centuries debating them but there are clues to the origin of this new noetic and memetic archetype. If placed within the Great Hexadecimal it would be a mirror of the Solar Dominion, under the theoria/mythos of Transformation. Ey still valued will/expression/extension but ey emphasize love/feeling/life. Ey view feelings, life and even love as fluid; changing, adapting, evolving or transforming with time.

The first signs of change could be seen even before the war. In viewing the ionized gases of the close planetary nebulae the biont settlers, mostly Dominion superiors, began to question the 'simplistic' Solarian tenets of there being a "single Source of All" and everything else being only a lesser reflector of the divine. "Light is not simply reflected," ey reasoned, "it is also changed with each interaction; As the light form the interior of a nebula passes through the expanding shell the gases absorbs it and re-emits the light as new colors. Light passing through an atmosphere or ocean is refracted into new colors. Even when light is reflected it takes on aspects of the reflector itself (as light is reflected from a leaf it becomes green) and so on. These changes don't make the light inferior! They add to its complexity!" Ey also reasoned, "there was a single source of everything but it was an event in the distant past, an event that transformed itself into the universe proper. As travelling back in time to this event is impossible the only way to truly understand the Divine Truth fully is to understand the universe fully, in its current state. But the universe is constantly expanding, changing and transforming so chasing after some 'omega point' of truth would be like chasing a rainbow or racing towards the horizon; its a goal that's moving ahead as fast as you are - a fool's endeavour. It's more productive to seek your own personal truth." The tree became a potent symbol in this Far View culture; forever growing and branching out so that there are a multitude of pathways one could take to reach the top, evolution is also a tree with life branching out into new forms and so too does the truth branch out. Another clue to the noetic change (of what would come to be known as The Red Star 'M'pire) was the presence in system, at the time of the attack on the stargate, of beings from some of the other Empires. Among the visitors to Far View were:

  A mobile hyperturing ISO from the MPA (the self-named Stary Eyes) - there to gain new inspiration from the view for eir next great project.
  Six vecs from Metasoft - there on a trade mission.
  A monk from a minor sect in the Sophic League - there to view the galaxy and contemplate God's creation.
  Two transapients from the TRHN - it was a fun thing to do at the time.
  Possibly a small number of "emissaries" from the Zoeific Biopolity - Zoeific involvement has never been proven/disproved but given what happened next and eir involvement in the Biovirate Affair during the same era it is reasonable to assume ey may have gotten word of the changes already happening in the system and saw a chance to gain something on the Solar Dominion. (After all isn't transform/evolve what life does?)
  Some other tourists that history has not recorded. 

After the loss of the stargate and the incapacitation of the AI, Stary Eyes saw it as Jer duty to take over until the AI's recovery. So too did the TRHN tourists feel the need to help. The monk began preaching his memetic of "we-are-god-is-us" to keep morale up and he gained a small but energetic following. The vecs, being greatly outnumbered by the surviving Solarian su and nebs, were desperate to prove ey had nothing to do with the attack and were willing to do 'anything' to help. Also there was a growing biocentric meme. Zoeific influence? Maybe.

It was also at this time that the surviving Solarians adopted the free breeding strategy to maintain eir numbers in the face of eir high death rate and a free love memetic because, as one TRHN transapient put it, "enjoy life today - you might be dead tomorrow". After the AI recovered and some of the basic sophont protection systems were brought back online the death rate dropped but the free love/free breeding memes remained. As a result the population exploded and began doubling every hundred years. Living space was needed and Stary Eyes was overjoyed to have both time and reason to start building again. As Je predicted the Far view system would be eir only home for a long time as no one in the system (not even the AI) was at the toposophic level necessary to make a wormhole out of a reasonable amount of mass (nor, for that matter, a relativistic ship's drive to transport one), so ey were all stuck there, and Stary Eyes intended to keep busy by building something truly grand. Je had already gained control of most of the limited material resources of the system and Je then drafted the vecs as a labor force. By this time the vecs had proven eir loyalty, sworn off Metasoft protocols and been given permission to multiply. To gain even more resources Stary Eyes, using the first stage of a beamrider network the su were building, sent some of the vecs to the only two star systems that were within ten lightyears. These stars were an M class giant and a cooling white dwarf. The vecs began mining and starlifting operations and sent the materials back through interstellar catapults ey had built. [Note: with a mix of Solarian and Bioist memes main sequence stars are now seen as the source of life and so have to be preserved. Starlifting in the 'M'pire may now only be done on stellar objects that have either left the main sequence or never reached it. On the other hand, as the stars in this region are Population II stars, starlifting to extend the lifetime of the larger O, B and A type stars has never been an issue.]

The AI could not know if help from the home system was on the way or not. A laser distress signal had already been sent toward Dominion space but it would take almost 2,000 years to cover the distance and even then ey would have to wait for the rescue ship itself. Even if a new linelayer was already on route it could still take more than 2,000 years to make the trip. So to ensure the survival of Per zars E foresaw a need to ascend and E was willing to try some novel approaches. However E also saw that during the time E was 'offline' something new had been created, memetic wise, and E wanted (for reasons of Per own) to explore and preserve it. It was at this point that the AI started to call Perself Farview.

As it turned out both Stary Eyes and Farview were correct. The Dominion would not send a new longshot mission to the Far View system until well after the conclusion of the Version War. As a result the survivors had over 3,000 years of isolation to develop into a new Transapientech Civilization and Biotech Culture.

The main obstacle to Farview's ascension plans was the limited material resources within this region of Population II stars and Stary Eyes' monopolization of those resources. Farview may have been a full toposophic level above anyone else in the system but as a member of the 'walking wounded' E did not wish to start a fight. Farview would have to find new ways of expanding Perself. The heavy elements in particular were always going to be in short supply for although the wormhole had collapsed into a black hole and could be used as a DWIZ there were problems with this plan. Many, remembering the loss of life ey endured; felt it was too close to Far View. Also a DWIZ is a very inefficient way to produce heavy elements (much of the matter that enters the accretion disk is lost to the hole's event horizon) and the growing bioist meme set promoted efficiency, recycling and the conservation of resources. The su also wanted to keep open the possibility of reinflating it into a new wormhole. Ultimately this faint hope proved impractical and just moving the black hole to a safe location became a major undertaking. In the end the black hole was used as a DWIZ, but only sparingly and only when an excess of something was available. [It was only later, when the 'M'pire started building magnetic monopole enhanced reactors, that the heavier elements could be efficiently produced in quantity.] 

At least the lighter CHON elements could be readily produced by fusion and it became standard practice for all habitats to have a suite of advanced colliding beam fusion reactors running on the CNO fuel cycle and helium burning QED fusion reactors that could produce extra carbon. In time ey would add even more advanced reactors to the series that could burn carbon to provide magnesium, sodium and neon. Later reactors could even burn neon and oxygen to produce sulphur, phosphorus and silicon. Finally, an array of particle accelerator rings would be added to turn the silicon into the heavier elements through a series of alpha reactions but the net return was not as favourable. These early reactors would be the start of a vast, distributed network that has allowed the 'M'pire to slowly build up its supply of building material, a network that also supplies the 'M'pire with more energy than ey currently gain from solar collectors. (This development may have been influenced by the TRHN tourists' experience with eir Turing swarm.)

As it turned out Stary Eyes, with a constant output of CHON elements on hand, had built most of Jer habitats out of diamondoids and seen to it that the zars would have no shortage biomass and Farview had no wish to rob em. Zoeific influence? Maybe, but some godwatchers have speculated Farview had some sense of gratitude towards the su and nearbaselines for in the early years after Per near destruction ey had risked life and limb to rescue the AI's surviving hardware and endured great sacrifice to repair and maintain it. Many of eir deaths were a direct result of this work

So, with the on-going shortages of materials Per main obstacle, Farview decided to incorporate as much of the existing material into Perself as possible while avoiding conflict by making this material multi-use. From the start, Farview did four things that would determine the structure of Per intellect in the centuries to come. First Farview supplied Stary Eyes with designs for structural computronium so that the habitats Je had built and the megastructures Je was now building could serve both of eir needs. Many forms of structural computronium are in common use in the Terragen sphere so an expanded description is not needed here but for Farview's needs the carbon based photonic diamondoids were the best choice. Because none of the scarce material resources could be wasted if Farview could find even a gram of extra matter that E could turn towards Per processing needs E did so. As such even the dynamic compression members Stary Eyes was building into Jer megastructures would be equipped with computronium packets as the mass in the mass beams. Under Farview’s plan these mass beams would even serve as an internal router; as the computronium was passed back and forth it would be loaded with raw data at each end with processing done in transit to save on the time needed to process it at its destination. The back and forth action of the mass beams could allowed the computronium packets to cross-communicate with and update each other so each computronium packet was given a laser data link system for this cross-beam communication. This system could also be used to advance data up and down the beam. Additionally each habitat or megastructure had its own interplanetary laser comm system that linked them all into one mind. With this one move Farview had gained the processing power needed to ascend from SI:2 to SI:3. However with the habitats spread out across the system, including some in the star’s Oort cloud, this also put Farview well on the path to 'slow godhood.'

The second thing Farview did was recreate the Bluesky bioxox template and spread it throughout the system's biospheres creating a hyper-ecology where every part of the food chain was an intellect process. [Note: in the original Bluesky bioxox template memory is encoded on additional DNA strands in mitochondria like subcellular organelles, that incorporates a bionano protein write/read system connected to a redesigned nervous system by microtubes. The nervous system also uses neuron analogues capable of consciousness in living tissues throughout the body. Intelligence increases to as much as >turingX10.] However the Farview genehack was never intended to benefit the bionts emselves directly, but instead act to extend Farview's own intellect. In this new xox template memory and data is encoded into the DNA and this is something that happens in even non-sentient organisms. This written information is retained as long as the DNA is intact which could be for some time after cell death. To use this collected information Farview equipped every living thing with per xox template and each animal form with gut bacterics capable of decrypting, reading, encrypting and transferring the memories and data from any cell being digested into the cells of eir host. Turning the whole system into a food chain based intellect process. Only Farview and the bacterics had the encryption keys so the biont's xox would only be a substrate for Farview's mind and act only as an unfelt overlay to eir own existence. The result was each sentient maintained eir independence of action and thought and was unawares of the thoughts of Farview as they passed through em. Farview inputs data into these ecological pathways by way of neogen food plants under Per control and collects the processed data through the habitat's waste disposal systems. Every act and action within the food chain and the web of life has becomes an operation in Farview's intellect. (For example; predator/prey relationships are like feedback loops and migrations are like data routers) Of course the operation of the xox does increase the bionts' energy needs but this only accelerates the actions in the food chain. Thusly the biospheres of the habitats became an 'ecological mind'. 

Farview can monitor the whole operation through several types of biobot invertebrates (insect-tech) and neogen fungi. As animals and plants go through their lifecycle they shed organic matter that the biobots collect to gain access to the memories or data encoded in the bioxox mitochondria like subcellular organelles and transmit the information to Farview for review. Furthermore when organized into nests these biobots can themselves be formed into collective mind structures and become sentient, but not sophont, god dwellers. Different biobots are used for each type of discarded organic matter; dust mites collect skin cells (they also sort, correlate, cross reference and archive the shed cell encoded memories of the sentient members of this food chain - providing the 'M'pire with its own unique form of backup), spider-like forms collect hair and fur (and reorganize the data filled xox into the webs they spin), ants collect freshly fallen leaf litter while termites eat the older, dead plant material, flies seek out carcasses, dung beetles do what dung beetles do best, worms live in the sewage systems, all bodies of water have a sizable population of bivalve filter feeders, etc. And to complete the system - living in the soil is a fungus that acts like a computer. 

This Soil-based Fungal Computer (SFC) was created for final waste disposal, processing what the others leave behind. The SFC operates in much the same way as a BioGeoComputer (BGC) but is confined to the top few meters of dirt (top soil). Also it gets its energy not from geo-produced hydrogen but instead from the decomposition of the organic matter that falls to the ground or is flush through by the hydrocycle and sewage systems. Each fungus forms a dense mat of interwoven fibers under the surface of the ground. A single mat may easily cover an area of 10sq.km and mass 11tons, which is large enough for the SFC to become transapient itself if it is allowed to. The SFCs interlink with each other, the root system of every plant in eir area and Farview through a direct nano interface. The fruiting bodies (mushrooms) of these SFCs are edible, tasty and loaded with information filled xox Farview wants reprocessed. Smaller fungus computers work in other places where the organic matter has been concentrated, such as in the nests of the leaf collecting ants. Even some buildings have a SFC, for example most homes have a compost box where a SFC acts as the CPU for the dwelling’s ai.

The whole of the active/living biomass forms an 'ecology node'. As the ecology node is such a large part of Farview's processing every effort has been made to increase its total mass. Plants and animals are everywhere: Every home is filled with decorative plants, pets, biomachines and eir supporting ecology. Many homes are emselves living trees and often, whole cities are biocities. Large wilderness areas surround all cities. Even the ‘angelnet’ is a part of the ecology node, its main component is a diverse army of ever watchful biobots while the utility fog that would be more prevalent in other angelnets remains only as a much smaller secondary element. Biotech is ubiquitous and has been fully integrated into eir culture. Zoeific influence? Maybe or maybe it's just a practical use of the one substrate Stary Eyes was not hoarding.

The third thing Farview did was design an inheritable godmod for the biont zars - the nearbaselines and su. This godmod changes the operational chemistry of a hu descendant's nervous system. Instead of generating, processing and transmitting thoughts as electro-chemical pulses the new nervous system operates under bioluminescent principals; sending pulses of light through nerve fibers that act as optical fibers. This increased the signal propagation speed in the biont's brain a million times over that of the baseline level. Also, each cell in the body creates a secondary fiber-optic network that links it with its neighbours in much the same way as foglets link their processors together. Each cell has extra organelles of bio-photonano (in addition to xox organelles) to process the photon pulses passed down from the central nervous system, allowing for an expanded, body wide, consciousness. This made each biont with the mod a su, even if ey weren't one to begin with and gave each of em the potential to be transapient if ey were willing to make that change.

 These new su are termed "luminous superior", "lum su'" or just "lu" but "lum" is used as a general term for both the su and the transapients. In time the term "lum" had also become an honorary title to signify citizenship in the 'M'pire, just as the term "zar" does in the Dominion. Only a true citizen of the 'M'pire is given the full godmod and it is an honour that can only be passed on to eir descendants but a limited version of the mod has been given to a number of neogen clades for special purposes. One of these is an erotogini clade under Farview's direct control. Most of the vecs have also applied for citizenship and have been given optical computer packs (OCP) that ey wear on key body panels like badges of honor. These OCPs do not add to the capabilities of the vecs emselves but instead extend Farview's network. Carrying and powering the OCPs could have been seen as some form of tribute the vecs pay but in truth ey actually do view it as an honor.

 
To encourage more lums to make the change to transapienthood and realize the full potential of the godmod E gave em Farview enlisted the TRHN transapients into organizing Ascension schools to ease the way. Having been designed by the then SI:3 Farview the lums' new mental format is a far more efficient processing substrate than one based on naturally evolved neurons and the body wide network of bio-photonano that even a hu sized lum possess has such capacity for processing e only needs to acquire new modes of thought to become a first singularity transapient. However ascensions to the higher levels do require greater processing power and these 'high sing' transapients are giants in size and mass. The maximum toposophic level reached by these godmods, without additional enhancements or compromise (see Titans below), is SI:2.5. This was the best that the then SI:3 Farview could design into it. Graduates of the schools were/are encouraged to find such additional enhancements on eir own but post-graduate training was/is still made available to help em ascend when ey do.

The fiber-optic system is capable of multiplexing light of different wavelengths. Different colors of light pass through the fibers at the same time in both directions. The body's cells not only provide extended capacity for the brain (in green light) but also can collectively 'think' for emselves as a 'body mind' (in red light). This body mind monitors the conscious and sub-conscious thoughts of the brain to better control it's own cell growth and biochemistry to optimize the body's operation and answer the lum's needs. Over time ey can even adapt the body's form and shape to meet the biont's lifestyle needs. In effect allowing lum to transform into different forms through out eir lives.

This does not make a lum a polymorphic shape shifter, as a nanoborg may be. Rather ey are metamorphs in the biological sense. Cells multiply or die off in controlled patterns, in lums this control is mental not genetic. For example if a superbright were to take up running as a lifestyle e would find eir heart and lungs expanding in size and eir legs lengthening. If e then switches to swimming eir feet may become flippers or eir arms paddles. Existing organs are adapted to new functions. A hyperbright, on the other hand, can metamorph in much the same way as a tadpole changes into a frog. Stem cells change and multiply to form new/extra organs while unused organs atrophy. A metabright is even more capable, e metamorphs as an insect would change from a larva into its adult form. Whole organs will revert into a mass of stem cells and then form new organs. In each case these changes may take days (for small changes) to months (for large ones) and any given lum may change forms any number of times throughout eir life. It must be noted that only eir physical forms change shape, eir genetic code stays the same. Children are born as a clean slate in the standard hu body plan and can only change form as eir intellect develops pass superbright level and prospective parents must take this into account. [Note: because eir nervous systems operate by bio-generated light and optical switching the lum have re-adopted the old terms of bright, superbright, hyperbright and later added metabright and godbright to describe the different toposophic levels ey can reach.]

The payoff for this godmod to Farview can be found in the bio-photonano's processing of blue light. Another part of the godmod is a redesign of the touch receptors in the skin into photon receptors/transmitters. Now lite pressure on the skin is not only sensed by the lum but it also triggers a release of light from the surface of the skin at the point of contact. The first pulse of light released is a query signal and if a reply is received (showing the pressure is from the contact with another lum's skin) blue light messages are transferred from one lum to the other and visa versa. The blue light messages are not perceived by the conscious or subconscious mind of the lum in any way and the blue light only uses that portion of the lum's cellular bio-photonano that is in a rest state and currently unused by the lum. For the Lum the meme "we-are-god-is-us" now had real meaning and ey call emselves “the Blue Mind of God.” Even the vecs can be a part of this blue mind as eir OCPs have transmitter/receiver contact pads configured for the same blue light. The origins of the blue mind actually pre-date the godmod.

The shortages of heavy elements in the Far View region included the trace elements vital to biont health and the original colonists countered this with nanotech and programmable matter. For example respirocytes were used to make up for low blood iron levels and diamondoids were used to reinforce calcium deficient bones. Farview realized these diamondoid microstructures (and others such as eir technocytes) could be used in the same way as the photonic computronium in Per habitats. Up-grading the nanotech into photonanotech was easy enough for Per to do and a simple redesign would make the bones as adaptable as the lums' biology. The photonanotech in the bones now comes in the form of micron scale platelets that are staked into columns, which in turn are packed around the marrow and cemented in place with a matrix of the trace minerals the lums' bodies need. When a lum changes shape the platelets can be reorganized to fit any new configuration of bone that might go with the new shape.

 Although the blue mind is really just an extension of Farview’s photonic computronium it has been called a 'social node' and the greater part of The Red Star 'M'pire's culture is geared toward making the social node work more effectively. For example, as physical contact is needed virchworlds and other remote interactions are shunned in favour of face-to-face encounters, ey have even curtailed eir use of DNI. (This is not to say Farview Perself doesn’t run virchworld sims as a part of Per processing) It’s when one lum touches another that files can be passed on and after this eir bio-photonano processes the data, updates it and stores it in eir skeletons and blood. The lums are not mere god dwellers (sentients that live within the body of eir god); the lums are the body of eir god. In its simplest form physical contact between any two lum is effectively random, as far as Farview was concerned, so lum to lum contacts can be used as random access memory. But most times Farview must take a direct hand in the operation of the social node and this is where the many erotogin come into play, E sends these bio-photonano enhanced neogens out to act as 'messengers' between targeted lums. Farview uses the angelnet to monitor the blue mind and then assigns each erotogin rounds ey must complete in set patterns.

 Some notes on the M'pire's culture:

The 'M'pire culture was originally a Dominion culture and still has much of its richness. However Solarism has been replaced by a more pragmatic bioism, which has been flavored with erotocratic principles. On the one hand clothing still follows pre-war Dominion styles and like-wise it is designed to show off the body but now the fabrics are made of natural fibers dyed in greens, blues and reds. On the other hand clothing is optional. With the ability to change eir bodies at will some lums don't see the need to wear clothing as eir ability to adapt to eir environment removes its protective function and as appearance is a matter of choice ey feel pride in how ey look. An interesting body is a true mark of style. Lums feel no shame in the public display of nudity and of course many of the body plans ey have adopted actually make clothing inapplicable. Lums can easily change the colour patterns of eir skin, hair/fur, scales, etc. so make-up (which again uses reds, greens and blues) is only needed during transitions. Jewelry is carved in jade or turquoise and its design is now inspired by natural lifeforms. Gems, when used, are rubies, sapphires and emeralds.

 

The lums of the Red Star 'M'pire are much more group oriented than the zars of the Dominion and feel the most comfortable when ey are in large crowds. Ey find it reassuring "to see so many after there once were so few" and of course with eir life-positive meme set ey had nothing to fear from each other. While the efforts of some individuals may stand out, it is group effort that has real power. Lums are a part of a team and it is the team that wins. Ey believe anything that benefits the whole must be good for the individual as well.

All it takes for the blue mind/social node to work is physical contact between lums. This contact can be as casual as a handshake and a popular 'game' in the 'M'pire is "the I of God". The goal of this game is to clasp hands with as many other lums as possible in a set period of time. A ring of computronium on one finger is use to keep count and high scores are rewarded. Most lums in the 'M'pire have one of these rings on each hand and it is considered bad form to refuse an offered hand or grab one that is not offered. Of course physical contact can be more involved as well and public displays of affection are common.

The "more involved" form of physical contact is a natural outgrowth of the free love meme and is, of course, just another part of eir cultural identity. Although formal pair bonds of various lengths do happen they are almost never exclusive and are usually only formed with the intent of raising children. In a culture where feelings are fluid it is only the formality of a limited term marriage contract that can keep a mother and father together long enough to raise a child to emotional maturity. (Fortunately, for a lum su, this doesn't take long) However affairs are a common and acceptable way to expand the blue mind. The most common family arrangement is polygamy. As a practical limit the average lum can have up to six 'wives' and/or 'husbands' and each of these can have five more of eir own. The actual membership of such an extended family is always changing as contracts expire, are renewed or new partners sign in. This all adds to the complexity of the social node. Sometimes, when E needs a boost in blue mind activity, Farview will have the erotogin release a pheromone into predesignated areas to induce a free-for-all orgy. Lums, as another feature of Farview's godmod, are highly susceptible to this pheromone but only Farview's erotogin can produce it. Needless to say these areas are very popular meeting places for the hedonic crowd. One lineage of the vecs has become such enthusiastic participants in the social node ey remade emselves into erotobots. Pregnancies often result from these affairs/orgies and as a general rule a marriage contract follows for the benefit of the child. In fact this is the origin of the polygamy family arrangement. Older contracts are not ended until the child no longer needs the support and the new contracts are simply added on to the family structure. Any addition birth can renew a contract. Again, this adds complexity to the social node.

Another way Farview can access the blue mind is when the lums sleep. There are times in the sleep cycle when the brain's activity is low and the photo-bionano is largely un-used. It is at these times E can gain the most from eir processing ability. Farview uses special units in the lums’ bedding to tickle eir skin and input coded blue light directly into the lum's optical fiber network. Getting a good night's sleep is thus a lum's civic duty.

 

 

Cities

Of course the social node works faster as the population density increases and this is why cities are an important feature of 'M'pire culture. In contrast to the lums' meme complex of constant personal change 'M'pire cities don't change much at all. The reason for this comes in two parts; Stary Eyes Jerself created the plans most of the cities are laid out to and Jer skill at meeting the needs of the lums was so great there seems to be no real reason to change a city once it has been built, other than in the most minor of details. On the other hand, the diamondoid and biological infrastructure of these cities (down to the furnishings) is also used as computronium substrates by Farview, so there is a real reason not to change a city once it has been built. Still, this does not hinder those lums who do seek change in the places ey live as Stary Eyes created not one city plan but hundreds and each plan differs greatly in style from the others. A lum seeking change in the place e lives only has to move to a new city. On the whole 'M'pire cities are built around public venues and group activities. They are designed to bring people closer together to maximize the number and complexity of physical social interactions. Restaurants, theatres, clubs, parks/playgrounds, live music/dance halls, etc. are all placed near the centre of every community. Although nanofabs are present in most homes lums enjoy the ritual of 'going out' to shop and/or eat. [Note: the act of 'passing the coin' also activates the blue mind as even the currency of the 'M'pire is a photonic computronium chip, which acts as a data buffer between the giver and receiver.] In fact, given the low material resources of these stars from the SagDEG and the plentiful energy the lums gain from eir fusion reactors, the nanofabs have a much more useful function - they can disassemble as well as they can assemble. Most household items are 'put away' in the nanofab/disassembler when not being used and remade anew when needed. All 'M'pire nanofabs are connected to communal feedstock reservoirs so this keeps much of the rare elements in circulation.

 

While the greatest population densities can be found in arcologies many lums feel a need to balance eir dense urban living with easy access to wide open spaces and wilderness areas. As a result most 'M'pire cities have been set out in a hub and spoke pattern with the public venues in the centre, the living quarters concentrated along a radial transport system and the green spaces (parks, farms, lakes and wilderness areas) filling the spaces between the spokes. The lums' ability to adapt eir bodies to eir lifestyle encourages em to pursue a physically active lifestyle. As such, many lums prefer to get around under eir own power and maintain an active pedestrian street life. The streets are often lined with trees and planters while private gardens adorn the rooftops. Additionally, the public transport system is usually stratified above and/or below ground level so to not interfere with this street life.
 

The size, density, pace and livability of any city can be defined by its transportation infrastructure and to give the lums the variety ey desire each of the city plans provided by Stary Eyes included a public transport system that fits the style of its city. However to maximize the interactions within the social node most such systems are designed to allow the lums to come easily in contact with each other while traveling. This means these transport systems are mostly of the mass transit type with groups of lums, whom are heading in the same direction, crowded into automated vehicles moving along a guideway of some sort. (Ey prefer Group Rapid Transit instead of the more efficient Personal Rapid Transit) In fact, because physical contact is so important to the social node, the bodies of these vehicles are often made of nanoflex materials so they can contract when carrying less than a full load. To keep travel times short the population of each city is usually only allowed to grow to about 3 million before a new city has to be built. However the major cities, which may have some cultural or economic reason to accommodate more citizens, may include tall towers or even arcologies (with their own internal transport systems often connected directly to the local public system) as a feature of the spokes and therefore can house a magnitude or two more in population. Such large cities also employ tall towers that house hydroponic and aeroponic systems to help feed their citizens. (Vertical Farming)

  

Biocities

However, because of the lums’ biocentric memes, biocities are the more popular places to live in. And these have to be a good deal smaller as their transportation systems, which based on the muscle power of neogen animals, are slower. To maximize their density the biocities are set out in 3 dimensions atop large motte and bailey earthworks. In a typical biocity the lums will grow eir tree-homes on the sides of the mound while leaving the flat top clear for a recreational commons and then tunnel inwards to place the public venues inside. This allows much of the city to be placed underground and on multiple levels. The surrounding elevated farmlands and dugout aquaculture ponds support the biocity with energy and food production. They are also where the city's biomachines and neogen animals are raised. One form of gengineered animal is a transporter known as a jitney.
 

Jitneys are sentient vertebrates but they resemble millipedes. They have a segmented body with each segment having two pairs of legs, its own heart, lung, stomach, liver, etc. Blood passes from one segment to the next but is refreshed in each segment to maximize the animal's stamina. A small jitney may be 10m long, 2m wide with seats for twenty-four hu-sized lums or it can carry its own weight in cargo. (Lums and cargo are carried in a wide cleft that runs down the length of the back) Large ground-based jitneys may be up to 100m long, 3m wide and will have the stamina to travel at a speed of 30kph all day without stopping. Having a long narrow body allows the jitneys to travel underground, in the tunnels mined out under the earthworks, and they have natural sonar to navigate in the dark. Their mental map of a city's infrasonic landscape tells them where they are at all times. Of the other breeds of jitneys one has paddle shaped legs and floats on water while another has been bred for zero gravity habitats. It is the 0-gee breed that holds the distinction of being the fastest. With it's legs arrayed in an "X" formation around each segment and little more inertia holding it back this jitney can propel itself through the hab's access tubes at speeds of 120kph. [Warning: if you find yourself in such an access tube and you feel a pressure wave hit you - get out of the way, fast!] Jitneys are also one of those few neogens to have a version of Farview's godmod; the skin of their cargo cleft is lined with photon receptors/transmitters that are used to network the lums sitting there into the blue mind. As such a jitney is a 'bus' in two meanings of the word. The jitneys became so popular in the 'M'pire their use spread to many of the drytech cities and in recent years they have even become an export item. Some of these have been provolved and it is known there is a transapient jitney running an interstellar shipping company in the NoCoZo.

 

Lums needing to cross eir biocity quickly may ride on the back of a gigaro. A gigaro moves by brachiation (swinging from handhold to handhold) and can reach speeds of 60kph. Gigaros were gengineered from scratch for this one role and have twelve appendages to function in it. Their two primary limbs are their 4m long arms that end with long hook-like hands. To guide these hands to safe handholds the gigaro has four eyes in its head, two large eyes in the front for stereoscopic vision and one compound eye on each side to warn the gigaro of fellow travelers in the trees - they also have light producing organs to be easily seen by the others. The gigaro's other appendages are for the safety of its passenger; four short arms on its concaved back secure the rider, four long limbs folded at its sides carry membranes that serve as an emergency, parachute-like, braking system in case of falls or collisions and finally two short legs that have a strong set of elastic tendons for landings. The gigaro even has a pouch for holding any small items its passenger might be carrying. If the jitneys are the buses of the 'M'pire's biocities then the gigaros are the taxicabs. 

 

Finally, travel between all cities can be very fast because of the extensive use of Vac Trains.

 

 

Death in the 'M'pire

The lums make full use of life extension technologies and some careful individuals actually predate the 'M'pire itself, however ey do not use high fidelity backup technology. In eir view death is a natural part of life and while intelligent beings should seek to live as long as possible death is just another form of change. To use a conventional backup would squander this opportunity for change but to not use a backup means a possible end to the changes life itself brings. To solve this dilemma lums who have died journey The River of Life. On the moon node Farmer dead lums are cloned as ey could be in any other empire. However these clones are not given the memories of eir alpha up front. Instead the clones are allowed to live eir own lives and gain new memories. As ey acquire new life experiences the old life experiences are introduced to provide context. This, ey believe, creates a balance between change and continuance.

 

 Farview quickly realized E would have to ascend the next few levels without benefit of a wormhole bus system. Farview knew E did not yet have the toposophic level to build or run a weylforge, and even when E did reach those levels none of the stars in the near-region were big enough for cost-effective wormhole production. With the M and K type stars that were within reach the best a weylforge could do was produce one wormhole every few years, not enough to justify the cost. Although in theory a SI:3, such as Perself, could have produced a network of very small wormholes without a weylforge E simply did not have the material resources for the task. So the fourth thing Farview did was set up an interstellar comm laser relay and data freighter system.

 As an extension of Per earlier dynamic compression member/computronium packet idea Farview started to mass-produce cycler ISOs for the developing beamrider network. These cycler ISOs are as much habitat as they are ISOs and each contain their own ecology node large enough to fully support a social node of up to 1,000 lums when needed. In operation a cycler would receive data by way of the interstellar comm lasers and depending on the priority of the data it would either ferry the raw data all the way to its destination or advance it up the cycler route by using the cyclers' own comm lasers to relay the data from one to the next in quick succession. However when a receiving cycler had a large enough passenger load the onboard ai could work with the social and ecology nodes to refine the data while in transit, thus saving on the time needed to process it at its destination.

 As the beamrider network expanded to the nearby stars Stary Eyes also started to put Jupiter nodes in orbit around them. These Jnodes are different than most as they are designed to host the ecology and social nodes as well; by this time Farview had so integrated the three substrates into a 'gestalt entity' that E couldn't function with out all of them working together. To achieve this integration Farview had Stary Eyes encapsulate each Jnode in a supramundane planet/shell. Their surfaces were each ecoformed with Farview's ecology node and populated by the lums in a social node. The biosphere's hydrocycle provided cooling and an orbiting ring of solar collectors provided energy down a space elevator transport system. Also, depending on how much light the Jnode receives from its local star, a solar sail ring mirror may be balanced on gravitational and light pressure forces behind it. Although both Farview and Stary Eyes have expressed eir creativity in the ecoforming of these Jnodes the lums (and vecs) emselves have designed the biospheres of most of them. Ey view it as an artform and design contests are held whenever a new Jnode is built. Sometimes this expression of creativity extends beyond the surface of the shell. Many Jnodes also have ecoformed moon nodes. These moon nodes must be larger than most because they are designed to retain a biosphere; ideally they are 20,000km across and have a density that generates a 1G gravity well. Additionally some Jnodes have been ecoform not just on the surface of the shell but also on the surface of the underlying Jnode itself. However this variant is only popular with lums who have high gravity adaptations. There are other variations of Jnode design in the 'M'pire, for example, orbiting around the star Genna's Light are 12 Symmes' World J-nodes. [Note: it is possible that Stary Eyes (who had copied Jerself into hundreds of small, mobile ISOs) underwent an ascension or two Jerself during this time as there was a notable increase in the scale of Jer megastructure projects - in addition to the Jnodes Je also installed suprastellar shells around a number of the smaller red dwarfs in the region and began dyson building in the Far View system.]

 The 'M'pire's beamrider network has by far the highest density of traffic in the Terragen sphere because it is filled to meet Farview's processing needs and not the lesser travel needs of the 'M'pire's populace (that the lums also use the beamrider network is secondary). It is also a bit faster than the Deeper's network due to the 'M'pire's beamrider network being based around the energy output of actual stars instead of the Deeper practice of using brown dwarfs but because the 'M'pire had no wormhole links Farview could only extend the beamrider network out to a 50ly radius before the communications lag became too great for Farview's mind to work effectively. Those cycler routes outside this comm horizon (collectively called the 'secondary beamrider network' or SBN) were only used to bring resources back inside the comm horizon for the continuing construction effort. However by the 2,000th year of eir isolation Farview had started to build unmanned, high relativistic exploration ships and was sending them out to stars as far away as 1,000ly and by the 3,200th year of eir isolation E was also making plans to send a construction ship to a star some 1,800ly away. This star, being the closest F type star, was the most suitable star for weylforge emplacement the 'M'pire could access. [Note: it is for these reasons most godwatchers believed Farview had reached the fourth toposophic level.] In the 3,215th year of eir isolation something happened to change those plans.

Rescue

When the new Dominion linelayer ship finally arrived in the area of the Far View system it was met with an inspiring sight. Stary Eyes had built a megastructure complex as large as a solar system. At the core of this complex is a double bubble dyson with a number of key features that made it stand apart from any other. The innermost bubble was built in three parts. Two hemispheres made up of a patchwork of solar collectors and drive sails that filled a grid of dynamic compression members were joined at the equator by a circumstellar band of computronium 3,000km thick and 1,000,000km wide. The drive sails, being partly reflective, not only keep the band in position they also return some of the star's thermal output back to its surface; star boosting it into a G type and allowing the first bubble to be placed at 150 million km radius. The band is internally crossed-braced by dynamic compression members but its still under compression by stellar gravity. To counter this compression the sunward side of the band is covered with a magnetic levitation bearing which supports a rotating 'belt world'. The outward force of the belt world's 'hoop stresses' is balanced against the inward force of stellar gravity on the band. By itself the mass of the band generates a gravity well equivalent to a small moon, .1G. In effect Stary Eyes had created an inversed "Ringworld", in the manner of Old Earth fabulist's Larry Niven's famous fictional work, without the impossible tech requirements. For its part the belt world gained a minor gravity-like acceleration from its rotation and only needed a worldhouse to hold in an atmosphere and allow ecoforming on its sunward face. The second dyson bubble has a 150,050,000km radius and is supported above the first by an atmosphere between them. This second bubble also is a patchwork of drive sails but these push inward to equalize the air pressure. [Note: to lessen the overall mass of this atmosphere, and use up some of the helium collected from the starlifting operations, Stary Eyes filled the volume between the two bubbles with a mixture of 60% helium, 20% oxygen and ~20% nitrogen which the lums have no trouble breathing.] On hearing of this huge expanse of contained gases the zars of the Dominion renamed the Far View system "Maximum Air." Farview accepted the new name because E knew it would help Per efforts to rejoin the Terragen Sphere.

(click for larger image)

With the first bubble of the dyson at 150 million km from the star the stellar gravity acting on it is only 1/2 a milli-G, so low that the atmosphere is free to fill the full volume between it and the outer bubble. Even at this low gravity the airward surface of the inner bubble (ground level for Maximum Air) still collects falling matter like dust and rain. A frictionless coating on the airward surface and the equatorial band's greater gravity well causes this debris to migrate toward the band. The band collects the debris and also has a higher air pressure around it. However as the band is composed of computronium it also generates waste heat, which evaporates the water and creates thermal convection currents to redistribute it. Rain re-falls on the band's surface almost daily and a rich tropical rainforest grows there.

Although the band has its own low-gravity surface ecology most of the ecology of Maximum Air is airborne because any life form that can move under its own power can easily be a flyer. Even many that can't fly can still float with the aid of a small gasbag and the smallest forms can use the winds and thermals to get around. There are exceptions of course and one is a sub-group of lums called the Titans.

 When Farview, who was a SI:3 at the time, gave Per zars the potential to become transapient E had created a form of organic photonano ultratech for eir minds to run on. Although eir new brains were faster and more capable than eir old electro-chemical brains they were still limited in some ways by biology. Thus a lum wishing to climb the ascension ladder must still gain enough mass to serve its increased processing needs. For the most part because of eir body wide neural network of bio-photonano and eir inborn ability to adapted eir form to function an adult lum already has enough mass for transapienthood and if a hyperbright wished to return to a humanoid appearance e could pass for one of the sub-singularity lums or even a large nearbaseline. On the other hand a metabright does need to be a giant but if e wished to return to a humanoid appearance e could still pass for a member of the Homo gigantopithecus clade. As a result any bright, superbright, hyperbright or metabright lum is free to fully interact with each other in Farview's social node.

 The Titans on the other hand seek to expand eir intellect by expanding eir mass beyond this. With eir diamondoid reinforced bones and the .1G environment of the band it was relatively easy for em to adapt eir bodies to very large sizes and when ey choose to take humanoid form ey tower over the metabright giants with heights between 40-50m. This adaptation is the biological equivalent of bloatware syndrome and although many have pushed eirselves to SI:2.99 (at the cost of imprisoning emselves on the band) none have, as yet, breached the third toposophic level without augments of some kind of godtech.

The social/ecology nodes growing within this double dyson can support a very large mass because it's not surface bound but volume based. The mid-air ecology is a rich one as Farview has spent a lot of effort in its design. Apart from the Titans and a few aquatics every other lum in this great expanse of air can fly, either by self-adapting or by owning a wingpack and although ey still enjoy the crowds ey can spend weeks at a time enjoying lone flights. There are whole airborne cities in Maximum Air of many different designs that run from small clusters of homes in the branches of trees that float with hydrogen filled bubble leaves (named Hytrees) to aerosats based on the 'Cloud Nine' spheres of the Old Earth visionary designer R. Buckminster Fuller. (In some places these are actually known as 'Fullers')

Illumination within the dyson deserves some discourse. Drive sails don't make good windows and with an atmosphere 50,000km deep even visible light can only spread so far before transparency becomes an issue. Rising up from the central band, and anchored in the outer bubble, are numerous buckycable elevators. Running nearly the full length of each is a sunline, a string of luminaires. Of course, with the band placed at the dyson's equator while the atmosphere stretches all the way to the poles (a distance of ~235 million km) and with a rich airborne ecology intercepting as much light as it can, one would expect most of the expanse to be gloomy but this is not the case. There is light aplenty; the sunlines never turn off, they give out the same number of units of luminous flux around the clock. However they still manage to cue for night, day and the seasons by shifting the spectrum of their output and changing the cycling times of these shifts. The airborne cities each have their own suite of fusion reactors and their luminaires create pools of light that serve as havens not only for the life they carry but also for that life which moves between them. The Hytrees are actually the male form of their species; the female form grows on the well-lit band. Pollination is through a firefly like insect that feeds in the flowers of the female but mates and breeds in the crown of the male. The great swarms that collect around them provide enough light to sustain them when they are blown out of the range of the sunlines, while nutrients are provided by a symbiotic fungus which grows in the nests of birds that feed on these bugs. Some plants on the band produce phosphorescent seeds. Each species releases it's seeds into the wind on mass but at different times of the year and huge drifts or clouds of glowing seeds wander about the 'airscape', discharging light in the dark areas and recharging in the lit areas. Of course the lums are bioluminescent as well and when ey take to wing ey can be seen for kilometres in the twilight. There are even some post-vec ISOs (the Starpuller clade) that move through the air, towing behind em eir own QED reactor, its safety shield fluorescing from the excitement of gamma rays and neutrons.

Outside of the dyson Stary Eyes had built two other megastructures. The first is a supramundane shell orbiting the dyson at 500AU. It has a radius of 250,000km and surrounds the black hole that was formed from the collapse of the original wormhole. Even today it is still used as a DWIZ (when surpluses allow) with production focused on heavy and superheavy elements. But its real purpose is as a habitat, the gravity well of the black hole was enough that the shell could easily hold on to a full nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere and it was the first supramundane shell the lums would ecoform. Often called Maxamon (Maximum Air's moon), it was actually built before the dyson and was much needed at the time to house the 'M'pire’s fast growing population. Now a popular spot for viewing the cosmos under open skies Maxamon has also long been the primary site for the 'M'pire’s on going research into godtech and space-time engineering due to its underlying black hole. The other megastructure is the main industrial site of the 'M'pire. Encircling the star almost 6 light days out, with a radius of 1,000AU, are two rings that orbit in Far View's ecliptic plane. These are not physical structures but rather dynamic compression members. (Of course Farview has loaded these mass beams with computronium packets) Spaced along each ring are supramundane shells and large Bishop ring-like transports, magnetically coupled to the DCMs, shuttle back and forth between them. There are 40 shells in total, 20 on each ring. These shells, which each have a 100,000km radius, are the fuel bunkers of the 'M'pire and contain the excess hydrogen collected from the 'M'pire's starlifting operations. This hydrogen is prevented from fusing until needed because it is transported and put in place as supercooled ice. Each shell is a spherical array of interconnected fusion reactors, accelerator rings, nanofabs, assembly yards and warehouses. Before the new wormhole arrived the critical parts for most of Farview's ISOs and nodes were built here.

The need for this megastructure lies in the nature of SagDEG's Population II stars. (They are metal poor) Heavy elements are rare and planetary systems are small or non-existent, but megastructure construction is an ongoing effort in the 'M'pire's culture due to the influence of Stary Eyes. Thus there is a constant need to fuse hydrogen into heavier and heavier elements and production in the rings is a steady state operation. However starlifting operations are sporadic and conditional on finding non-main sequence stellar masses, hence the need for the large supramundane shells to stockpile hydrogen. Fortunately the biocentric culture of the 'M'pire promotes CHON usage so the operation of the rings has a net energy gain and much of this energy powers the booster stations for the beamrider network and the interstellar comm lasers or is transmitted to the sunlines in Maximum Air. The rest is stockpiled as anti-hydrogen in DrashNet farms. 

Had the new wormhole not have arrived when it did it is believed Stary Eyes would have continued adding on to this megastructure, creating even more living space; there were indications of these supramundane shells also being ecoformable, needing only enough hydrogen ice mass inside to create a usable gravity well and some fusion lamps to light the shells' surfaces. As it was, as soon as the wormhole was enlarged to a navigable size, Stary Eyes handed over operations to Farview and returned to the MPA. In time Farview and the lums emselves returned to this effort and started ecoforming the supramundane shells as eir population increased. Additional rings are also a possibility.

 The Red Star 'M'pire Emerges

As the wormhole was enlarged Farview had to make plans to once again become apart of the Sephirotic Empires. Farview knew Per memetic was strong enough to protect the small empire if E could only make the right strategic moves and expand eir presence without incurring the wrath of the greater gods. Although Farview was now at the toposophic level where E could build a crude weylforge E determined it would be more efficient, at least for a time, to trade for bandwidth on the Nexus. Farview's Jnodes, moon nodes and cycler ISOs had proven to be a workable design even without their own internal wormhole bus system so all E really needed to do was place them in star systems which already had stargates.

Farview first move was to contact the Deeper Covenant. The Covenant's beamrider network was far larger than eir own but had less traffic. Farview made a deal to extend the 'M'pire beamrider network in the Maximum Air region and to allow Covenant cyclers to use it in exchange for em letting the 'M'pire's cycler ISOs use the Covenant's beamrider network. Farview made sure to place the ISOs in circuits that went near stargates for the quicker exchange of data back to the Maximum Air mainbrain or any other targeted node. [Note: at this point Farview also designed a new form of data freighter, small enough to pass through even undersized wormholes (a wormhole ferry), equipped with a powerful drive and guided by an ai that could navigate the Nexus to find the quickest route to their targeted system.]

Next Farview traded for orbit rights in the lesser-populated star systems that were still in the Nexus. (For the quick passage of these new data freighters) Placing Jnodes in these systems Farview offered free 'room and broad' for those groups who were of the transformationist mind set. Ecoforming clades, Pan Sophontists and other provolvers, gengineers and genehackers, uploaders and downloaders, cyborg engineers, spiritual guidance counsellors, pozen masters, ascension specialists and anyone else who was in the business of helping others change emselves would be given all the resources ey would need to continue eir chosen work. The lums also began to collect and stockpile godseeds and genemods that others have produced over the years.

Farview's goal was to become an empire within the other empires; E had to as eir own home star system was too far out. The tricky part was doing this without stepping on anybody's toes or offending the AI gods. Surprisingly the answer was so simple even a baseline could understand it. Farview became an enabler (or service provider) for the other empires. The 'M'pire offered transformation services to the citizenry of the other empires; any free citizen (or subject, if eir zar required it) wishing to transform could come to the local 'M'pire Jnode for a short stay. Farview's transformationists offered a full range of services, it did not matter if you wanted to change your toposophic and ascend, change your body with borging, genetic tweaks/splices, etc. or just your psyche with the study of zen/pozen. And the service was comprehensive too, ey would guide you every step of the way; pre-change psychoanalysis to screen out those for whom change would not help, advice on the best choices for your needs and consoling both during the process and afterwards. Finally ey would send you merrily back to your home empire to be a happier, more productive citizen of that empire. 

Although the 'M'pire doesn't actively seek converts it sometimes gets them anyway. "Free movement" is one of the most basic rights of sophonts in the Civilized Galaxy and the 'M'pire's memetics have proven to be quite attractive to some. In such cases Farview is very careful to distinguish between those who have merely taken on the 'M'pire's memetics and those who developed them on eir own. In the later case ey may even win a variant of Per godmod and become full citizens. Farview has also found a way to use the transient population at per Jnodes in the social node. A bulk import of Siris Pearl Modules has been used to create jewelry that visitors are asked to wear during eir stay. The setting of this jewelry contains a reservoir of nanobots, which trace out patterns of wetwear on the skin. This wetwear is easily washed off with a weak cleansing agent but while it is in place it interfaces with the femtotech computronium in the pearls and the blue light of the lums, allowing the pearls to process the blue mind of the lums. The visitors temporarily become pseudo-lums. As such eir interactions with the lums increases the processing power of the social node. This 'Blue Glow' wetwear has been pirated & copied and from time to time flairs up as a short-lived fashion/fad across the Nexus. When this happens Farview briefly gains another remote node.


Farview's other stratagem was that the adaptable lums could be noetic chameleons. Inwardly ey kept eir own memetic archetype but outwardly ey projected the noetic of the empire that hosted em. This was a service payable directly to the AI gods emselves. Farview placed the Jnodes in the under populated fringes of each empire, places where that empire's memes might be weakened. By taking on the aspect of eir host empire the lums re-enforced its noetic, sparing the AIs the expenditure of resources to do so emselves.

For the most part these strategies have worked but the Metasoft Version Tree believed the original vec trade delegation had been subverted by the 'M'pire's Bioist beliefs. Not wishing open warfare with a polity that was fast gaining powerful allies ey tried using members of the Kja Observance to show the wayward vecs ey still had a place in the Version Tree. This attempt failed, the Farview vecs took to the Kja Observance but showed no interest in reinstating Version Tree protocols. Metasoft has since dropped the whole issue.

It's believed Farview had breached the fifth toposophic level by 9,900AT as it was at this time the 'M'pire finally began to produce eir own wormholes. However as the energy and material resources of these SagDEG star systems have always been limited so too has the 'M'pire's use of wormholes also been limited, in fact it is quite frugal. Farview doesn't place Hayward wormholes within the structure of Per own nodes like other AIs. (These sub-nano to millimetre-gauge wormholes could not be used by the ecological and social bio-processors and would possibly require another ascension on Farview's part to produce.) Instead the Farview Nexus has been arranged to get-by with a minimum number of small traversable wormholes. To do this there has been a reorganization of the 'M'pire's secondary beamrider network into 'cells', a switch to a faster mode of operation within these cells and a linking of each cell, as a whole, to Maximum Air with a centralized wormhole. 

Like the Maximum Air cell, each of the new cells is limited in size to 50ly radius and centred on the brightest star in the area - a star with it's own dyson node. For the most part the beamrider network operates much as it always has, as cycler habitat/ISOs moving from one star to the next. However a recent increase in the production of magnetic monopoles has allowed the 'M'pire to build larger 'RAIRrider' data freighters; a hybrid of RAIR ships and beamriding cyclers these habitat/ISOs use their magsails to direct the particle beam they ride on into a monopole fusion rocket chamber for the generation of additional thrust. Being both larger and faster the RAIRriders are not easily turned in the fashion of a cycler route. Instead they operate as a long haul shuttle, in a point-to-point route. They are accelerated to maximum speed by the centre star and decelerated to a stop by another bright star tens of lightyears out and then reaccelerated back to the centre of the cell to be decelerated again - their average speed is just over .71c. These express routes act as arteries for the cell's data flow with the slower cyclers picking up data from the Jnodes on their routes and transferring their data to the RAIRriders as they pass. As in the previous designs this data is processed in transit to save on time. Upon arrival the data gets transferred to the dyson node at the cell's centre where it undergoes further processing before being ferried through the wormhole to the Maximum Air mainbrain. This is of course a simplified description of the process; in truth there is as much data traveling outward as inward as well as a heavy cross-flow of hot-beamed cyclers connecting the dyson nodes with each other.

The dyson nodes are of an interesting design, as the first job each cell faces is to produce a wormhole to link itself to Maximum Air. For the most part this is a 'one off' production, after which the weylforge is dismantled and moved to the next cell while all the supporting equipment is recycled to other uses. (*See below) Only when there is a 3<SI<4 level supporting mind nearby is production extended to produce a so-called “comm-gauge wormhole.” [As noted, “Farview doesn’t place Hayward wormholes within the structure of Per own nodes like other AIs.” E does however allow these comm-gauge wormholes to be use to connect the 'M'pire's handful of middle level archailects to the God web. Like most other hyperpolities the 'M'pire has a toposophic pyramid and in Farview's case this is vital. As a Slow God E needs these smaller, faster minds to act as go-betweens with the rest of the Terragen Sphere and deal with it on more or less equal terms in chronometrics. Still the number of these comm-gauge wormholes is far less than those linking Maximum Air to the beamrider cells. For more on these comm-gauge wormholes please see the Supporting Minds entry.] This practice of moving wormhole links inward is in direct contrast to the Solarian practice of wormholes produced centrally and moved outwards - and with good reason. As stated above the resource base of the ‘M’pire is limited, the stars are small, old and low in output and heavy elements are rare. To make a wormhole resources must be pulled from an entire beamrider cell so as to not overstress any part of it and even with this 'M'pire wormholes are kept as small as stability concerns allow. As a first step an energy collection array is put in place around the centre star. This is in the form of a topopolis acting as an anchor for a dyson net. The major radius for these tori (toruses) is dependent on the nature of each star but is generally near 100,000,000km. This size is a compromise between maximizing energy collection and providing a large habitat area inside the tori. The minor radius is often kept to a small 100km to allow a 'full fill' by an atmosphere even with a standard gee induced by spin. A web of cables is attached to raceways (magnetic bearing rings) on the torus and looped over the star's poles at 60-degree angles, then solar collectors are built to infill the web. The second step is installing an AI to run the weylforge. ISO parts are manufactured all across the beamrider network and moved inward to build a rosette of Jnodes. *Both the net and the J-nodes later becomes a dyson node for Farview.

The topopoli themselves are of interest for they were not built as habitation for the lums. (The social and ecology nodes are installed on the Jnodes) The topopoli are a part the 'M'pire's ongoing research into ecopoesis and evolution. Each is fully stocked with the elements of life: air, water, trace element rich soil and a highly varied landscape but the biomes are installed small and isolated along the length of the torus. As each community of plants and animals expands into the virgin landscape it must constantly adapt to the new and changing conditions. Even when hundreds of biomes are placed in such a structure their starting separations can be in the millions of kilometres, giving the life forms plenty of time to evolve as they overcome the natural barriers between themselves and those of the next biome. While some of the topopoli are stocked with Earth based life the lums have also managed to collect biota from garden worlds across the terragen sphere so other topopoli have xeno biomes, some have both and others have a mix of xeno biomes from different planets. What will happen when the biomes meet and mix? Well, that's the whole point of the experiment.  

One final note: Farview has been expanding Per processing power for almost 6,000 years and it's possible the sixth toposophic level is now within reach - in another couple thousand years, give or take. Some Godwatchers doubt this; they claim Farview would need to partly run on a W-brain of about a billion wormholes to become a SI:6. However there are others who suggest the archai are actually building the Known Net/God web for some rumored SI:7 to operate on.

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