The Great Hexadecimal

The Sixteen Noetopias are the physical, social, and cultural embodiments of the Major Archailects, extending in great swathes across Known Space. They are not so much the empires of the Archai as the underpinning noetic and memetic archetypes of those empires. Together they are known as the Great Hexadecimal, and represent a special place within the galactic noosphere. They are the central foundation from which and out of terragen civilization unfolds. They are each a memetic-complex but they are more than that too, more fundamental, deep-seated, far-reaching; archetypal modes of thinking and being and relating. Often they arise independent of the machinations of overruling Archai, as if compelled or propelled by some deep structure within the terragen (and even xenosophont) psyche. They are the basis through with sapients express themselves, they are each a distinct civilization within the totality of galactic civilization, and an integral part of the Whole.

Admittedly these sixteen archetypes do not exhaust the total possibilities explored and embodied by the AI Gods. And there are many AI Gods - especially Middling and Lesser ones, that are not a part of this mythopoetic matrix. Nor is each archetype necessarily matched with an empire, or each empire defined by an continuous interstellar noetopia. They do however constitute the sixteen primary archetypes of psyche and civilisation that have been embodied throughout the entire Inner Sphere and much of the middle regions, the outer volumes, and the expanding periphery. As a whole they constitute the totality of the technosphere and the Civilized Galaxy. Inevitably sentient beings and polities find themselves aligning with one or the other of these sixteen, whether the Four Primary or the Twelve Combinations. Even free zones and rebels inevitably end up associated with one or another. Only unusually dedicated and perceptive sapients are able to establish polities and societies that are not a part of the Technosphere or the memetics of the Great Hexadecimal.

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