Bioships
Soft Cathedral Bioship Allosaurus
|
|
|
|
BioshipsSoft Cathedral Bioship Allosaurus |
Bioships employ organic technology for most of their systems.
Practically no existing organic carbon-based creature could exist for long in space, apart from the terragen Deinococcus radiodurans and it's relatives, equivalent types on a number of other Gaian type worlds, and the microorganisms that are found up to 50 km above the surface of many natural garden worlds. The terragen versions of these microorganisms were part of the precursors to the biotech that produced the bioships thousands of years after humanity stepped into space- examples of which include
It is a mistake to think of these bioships as being soft, fleshy constructs however- the 'Soft' Cathedrals and the Biowars for instance had shells of steel, diamondoid and corundumoid to repel bionanotech assault. These shells were grown by the organic craft in the same way that terragen bivalves and brachiopods, and equivalent biota on many other natural garden worlds, grow inorganic shells. In the same way organic bioships use advanced biotech and bionanomanipulation to grow internal drive systems and to collect fuel or other energy rich material - even including antimatter or exotic matter.
Basically any process which can be achieved by hylotech automation can be achieved by designed biological systems, latterly even including subatomic picotech manipulation.
The advantage that the bioist empires have over drytech is that the biosystems act autonomically at a subsentient level, therefore complicated systems can be grown over and over again starting from a basic set of instructions with no conscious input. (this is the reason that feral Autowars can survive in asteroid belts such as those on the Keter borderlands without any higher intelligence to direct their construction).
Many hylotech manufacturing systems mimic biological systems so well that by the eleventh millennium the difference between biological growth and non biological matter compilation is practically non-existent.
In most cases the remaining Bioist empires are biological in name only, incorporating any available hypertech as long as biological systems can be utilised to grow the necessary components- organically grown Drive sails and Pitch drive being common in the Biopolity.
Capable of operating in both the vacuum of space as well as in an atmosphere, bioships most often use a matter/antimatter reaction power source or drive sails, but may have in the some cases (especially when cyborged with light level local controlling minds or exotic matter containment modules) GUT-drive or reactionless drive along with an electrodynamic fluid circulatory system, and chemical or airbreathing ramjet for atmospheric flight.
Biological autowars, such as have been used by the former Biovirate and other organicist cultures, are autonomous biological warships with a quasi-DNA hyperturing brain, piconano blue goo nanite immune system, and extremely powerful rapid biological, bionano and hylonano regeneration of damaged systems, making them nearly impervious to attack.
