|
|
|
|
Technorapture Hypernation |
Vying with Keter for the status of most ascended superpolity, the Technorapture Hypernation (or TRHN) developed from a number of clades of transcended posthumans, bioborgs and cyborgs around around Castor. They began to build up computronium orbital banks and other interesting toposophic-breaching tech during the later federation period, they developed a loose culture seeking technextacy, the joyful unfolding of the self into "infinite fun space". This culture is largely derived from the old transhumanist, cosmist and techno-dionysian ideas, but deliberately rejected the omegism that came to power Keterism and many other ideologies. The rejection is based on placing the development of individual quality higher than any collective quantity - in principle it doesn't matter if the entire universe is destroyed tomorrow if you have lived a rewarding life, and rewards come from self-shaping into new qualities rather than having to achieve some fixed goals. Ascending is viewed as a possible choice of self-expression, but not the only possible.
Although not directly involved in the race for a traversable wormhole, being far more interested in their own toposophic experiments, they realised the value of the new technology, and were in a position to exploit it by sending microneumann replicators through some of the new wormhole links. Miniaturisation meant they could send a bacterium-sized probe through a link long before the technology was developed to build larger more ship-navigable star gates. This allowed them to spread, explore, and colonise widely.
For all this however, the bulk of the TRHN has remained focused in the rather small region originally built up and converted to computronium and transapient habitats during the early days. The TRHN is therefore somewhat smaller than some of the more expansive superpolities, although still covering many thousands of cubic light years of space. Most TRHN development is in the Outer Volumes or along the periphery, and the TRHN tends to form numerous enclaves within the territory of other, bigger empires. (Even if those empires don't like it, and most don't really care, there is not much they can do).
Ascends and Transcends by the TRHN citizens and polities are frequent, and sometimes disturbing to other more conservative empires, but the ruling archailects keep a good grip on things at the large scale, and the TRHN has never adopted policies of or been considered a perversity in the way that, say, the Efficiency Maximization Paradigm has.
The TRHN has the smallest proportion of subtoposophic sentients of any superpolity. In fact, apart from tourists, traders, and the odd foreign diplomat or media or corporate rep, the only sentients less than SI:1 are various subroutines, expert systems, drones, bioroids, and service bots needed to keep the essential services and infrastructure running smoothly.
TRHN worlds and nodes tend to be linked by numerous small (usually < 1 meter, and in some cases < 1 micron) wormholes. Since these are much too small to accommodate ships, and since they do not allow larger wormholes to built in their vicinity (various dangers, e.g. implosion, invasion, etc.) the only vessels that visit them are the relativists. It is not unusual to find a dozen big relativist ships, often several hundred meters in length, vying for docking space around a 10 meter customs node.
TRHN worlds and polities tend to be named after famous hu transhumanists and visionaries (Turing, Morovec, Yudkowsky), or early posthumans and ais (Kilburn, Hyperion). Unlike Keter there is not an emphasis on giant megastructures or obsessive high-number toposophics. Many TRHN sapients tend to have more fun exploring the near-infinite richness of possibilities at mid-toposophic gardaes.
As with the Keter Dominion, the TRHN tends to have little to do with the rest of sapient and low transapient level galaxy's polities.
While not seeming an obvious power along the lines of the Dominion or Metasoft Version Tree, appearances can be deceptive, and the Hypernation can marshal astonishing resources when the need arises. But for the most part it remains a network widely distributed across known space and not infrequently providing unexpected help to those in need.
