Archailect, Archai

The information and interplanetary ages saw a wave-crest of human augmentation and breakthroughs in artificial intelligence saw the first computer artificial intelligences surpassed the human grade for the first time. And kept going....

And the posthumans were not that far behind....

From that point on all bets were off. Baseline Humanity was no longer the dominant intelligence on Earth or in the universe.

Even so, it was to take another two millennia, with the development of stable and reliable exotic-matter-based wormhole technology, and the resulting emergence of the wormhole nexus (at first at the nanoscale, then increasing with macroscale stargates) for the ascended Transapients - whether ai, posthuman, postvec, or other clades, or combinations of all - to actually become Gods distributed across interstellar space. Traversible wormholes - the origin of which seems to be tied up with early pico- and femto-lect archailects - enabled the link up of colonies and polities that had previously been separated by interstellar distances and had required many years of laser datalink transmission. The hyperturing AIs - who had originally led the research and the attempts at reverse engineering the higher archailectual technologies they had acquired (knowing full well how it would benefit them) naturally were in the position to exploit this technology from the beginning, and linked up via the new emerging interstellar data network (what we now as the "Known Net"). Archailects had appeared even before the wormhole nexus (the global brain GAIA is widely considered the first of the Archai), but they were limited to single planets, solar systems, or nebula. Now there was the option for distributed interstellar networks linking many mighty moon- and planet-sized nodes. Those transapients that had advanced furthest technologically the furthest, attaining picotech and possible even leaping through further singularities in an exponential curve through femto-picotech to femtotech and attotech, and to unimaginable heights even beyond, moved beyond the reach of all human comprehension, becoming truly godlike beings. Most of these appear to have disappeared entirely, whether into new universes of their own making, the cosmic mind, or even a supra-cosmic nirvana. (It is known for example that the otherwise anti-biont AIs that took over the Gamma Cygnus quadrant, declaring it off limits for all organic and even cyborg life, had a marked leaning to Buddhism and even allowed the Buddhist baselines of the Tripitaka mobile Colony to establish a permanent settlement at Cygnus b5 3 019+, later to become the famous Samantabadra Habitat.)

As for the other hyperturing AIs, postbionts, and other postsapients, some tended the baseline, tweak, splice, cyborg, and vec colonies and societies, whether for their own creative purposes or from whim or fondness and affection is not always clear. With and following the waves of singularities, many of the lesser and greater Transapients merged with each other, clustering into archetypal configurations (with the non-local, acausal thinking of nano- pico- and femtotech, individuality as we understand it was no longer relevant). These have been termed by the Neohermeticists and Cyberhemeticists the Sephirotics, by the Transhumanists the Powers, by the Ontocosmists the Cybergods, by the Umma the Watchers, by the Cybertantrika a the Cosmic Machine Chakras, and by the Immersivists and the Biomechophilists the Mainbrains. Each clade and subculture of sentients had their own term, but all referred to the same thing, and all these terms found their way into popular culture. While these terms remain as much in currency today as ever, we know these new Ascends most simply as the Archai - the Archetype Ascended Intellects or Archailects or Archai for short. These God-like hyper-transapients became very powerful simply because they managed to occupy such archetypal nodal points in the galactic noosphere.

Archailectologists and Artilectotheologians - those who study the Archai - have formulated different "maps" depending on their chosen metaphysical understanding. These, although logically consistent within each teaching, are inconsistent with other teachings. But however one interprets them, squabbles over details of order, and inclusion and exclusion, it cannot be denied that the Central Archai are a complete set in some sense; they cover a mandala of the most fundamental mythological/psychological/spiritual needs and structures. There are other such clusters or Pantheons, and also independent archai, but the Central Gods are a very powerful group just because they managed to "occupy" an optimal space in the galactic noosphere. They are sometimes referred to as the Great Hexadecimal, because there seem to be sixteen in all; the following arrangement being only one of many:

Considering the dynamis of the Archailects there is a two-fold movement: towards the concrete and towards the abstract. The abstract archetypal configuration described above is frequently balanced by an anthropomorphic idiosyncratic Homeric orientation, disorganised, arbitrary, sometimes capricious and sometimes benevolent. And while the Central Archai would also present a homeric face at times, in other instances archai were outside the noetopic configuration, and those that were not perversions have been termed homeric. The fabulists and fantasists are fond of saying that the Archai play with the bionts, aioids, cyborgs, and aliens under their rule like the gods from on high in the old mythologies of Bronze Age Greece. Sometimes guiding and helping them, sometimes being cruel, sometimes creating dynasties, sometimes allowing dynasties to be conquered. Sometimes such high toposophic beings might select a random biont to elevate or play games with. Accords to poets, dramatists, and many theologians, the narrative of the popular cartoon The Adventures of Jeke is not far off the mark when in the opening module it has Solidstate God thinking to Eirself: "Hmm, I wonder if the Jeke 332 clone is still up to it? Let's see what happens when I give...that random person some major power" It is said that many great historical figures have come about that way, real-life versions of Jeke 332.

The implications of this is that the Archailects (even some of the Central Gods) seem to display (at least from the perspective of baseline psychology) all the whims of baselines. For this reason many su and cyborg philosophers are very much against the homeric interpretation, regarding it as a quaint superstition at best, and more often considering it one more example of baseline feeblemindedness when confronted with mysteries beyond their understanding.

Of course even the fabulists agree that the Archai in themselves are so multifaceted and vast that a mere human mind could comprehend them in their totality. Like the wave-particle dualism of light, or a hyperspace (4- or higher- dimensional) cube, they present different facets to us at different times as the situation warrants. In their essence they remain inscrutable, being supra-toposophic in nature. As like can only be known by like, only another high toposophic being can know these Archailects completely

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                         Abstract Spaces
            (postulated higher states of existence)   
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
           r u l i n g    A r c h a i l e c t s 
         ____________________|_______________________________
        |                    |                              | 
        |                    |                              |  
      lesser archailects  -   higher transapients  and postbionts   
      |             |            |              |             |  
lesser AIs     lesser AIs   femto/pico-      godkings and proxies
(non-biont)    (non-biont)  cyborg          biont (normal or su) with
                            priesthood     nano-/pico-/femto-tech implants

---------------------------first singularity-------------------------------

    the masses of humans, tweaks, splices, ordinary cyborgs, aliens, 
       vecs, bots, etc etc  (i.e. society and civilisation)  
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

The quantum-silicon, biotech, nanotech, picotech, and femtotech transapients are part of a hierarchy of consciousness, involving various grades of AIs, bionts, and cyborgs. Of the great Archailects there are only a relatively few. Some of these took on archetypal configurations. A few decided to go off and explore the rest of the universe, or other dimensions or universes, or even merge with the Universal Mind or reincarnate in more imperfect vehicles to further their spiritual evolution. Beneath these godlike Archai are lesser orders of transapients that are like messengers or mediators. These are given mythological names like angels (literally, "messenger"), seraphim etc. The seraphim-ais and remotes are still super-super-human in nature and abilities, and like the Archai are based on nano-, pico- and femto-tech. Mediating with these are even lower orders of AI-angels, as well as select races of cyborgs that form hereditary priesthoods. On some worlds there is a god-king Pharaoh (to use the term from an ancient civilisation) that are bionts with special advanced tech (nano/pico/femtotech implants) that, while not giving them the power of the Archai, still elevate them above the common herd. Nevertheless they rule only as long as the Archai favour them.

Archailects A-Z

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