Kappa Cassiopeiae - the Mucoid Empire
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Kappa Cassiopeiae - the Mucoid Empire |
The secretive Solipsist Panvirtual cluster ak##~#~ that arrived at Kappa Cassiopeiae in 7002 began to exploit the fabulously energetic star almost immediately, extracting mass and energy at the equator and poles, and slowing down the evolution of the star (which had been a few thousand years from becoming a natural supernova). Mass extracted from the star was arranged into computronium nodes with many different recipes in a series of orbits out to 80 AU, and the Panvirt cluster ak##~#~ blossomed into a myriad secretive virtual universes about which little is known.
A Negentropist Institute Probe of Information Conservation (the "Dewey Decimal") arrived in the star's Oort cloud in 10344 and negotiated a certain amount of data exchange with the ak##~#~ cluster. Very little of what was exchanged has yet been decoded, but the most interesting body of information relates to an entire virtual civilisation which the ak##~#~ cluster are maintaining in their isolated virtual cybercosm, developed from the discovery of a single icebound relativist ship of an unknown species of alien in interstellar space at 3000 ly from Sol.
The alien ship was completely inactive, but the data within was mostly viable, so a virtual representation of the ship and its crew were created, together with a virtual solar system for the aliens to colonise. It is believed that the simulation has been running for three hundred years, but the subjective speed of the simulation was at first much faster and the unknown alien species now occupy a virtual cybercosm many times larger than the Terragen bubble.
The information obtained by the "Dewey Decimal" indicates that the unknown aliens, nicknamed Mucoids, are soil dwelling wormlike organisms that form collective superorganisms by secreting thread filled mucus when in close proximity, and have developed a diverse space faring civilisation similar to certain terragen swarming phenomena.
As the Mucoids are beginning to develop virtual cybercosmoi and star lifting projects of their own, the simulation has had to be slowed down. Rather than running faster than real life it is now simulating a civilisation of such complexity that the ak##~#~ can only simulate the entire Mucoid complex at a much slower speed than real life, with long periods of time when the simulation is closed down completely for detailed assessment.
Although they do not say so directly, the ak##~#~ appear to be asking (in an elliptical fashion) for assistance from the Negentropist institutes to successfully continue with the simulation. Commercial simulation nodes within the Technorapture Hypernation and the NoCoZo are also believed to be interested in bidding for this cosmos, although a few hypercynical cosm watchers think the Mucoid empire might be a complicated joke by the Panvirts at the expense of the Negentropists.
