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The Ultimates |
One of the first apparently xenosophont races to be encountered by
Terragens, in 3695, the "Ultimates" (literally That/Us (the bionanotech
has reach optimal level) cannot be surpassed (in the sense of to do so
would create a with a destabilising reaction)) remained little known
for over a thousand years, due to the isolationist circumstances
regarding their discovery. Modern experts now believe that the existing
Ultimates have a Terragen origin, though the "Black Acropolis" system
they inhabit was in fact created by an extinct xenosophont species.
They were contacted by an expedition of relativistic space adapted human colonists seeking to escape hyperturing dominance and establish their own civilization out in the periphery. By this time the Ultimates had become a cocooned culture that had lost their expansionistic desire. Some of the more adventurous Ultimates joined the humans and the other terragen clades that arrived in the following centuries to form the now transcended Gerkletoss civilisation. The remaining Ultimates isolated themselves in a number of biospheres, refusing to have anything to do with these crude barbaric newcomers. Some of the Ultimates who joined with the humans were later to populate a number of other star systems.
Ultimates themselves have a very mutable DNA, although this tends to quickly degrade with hybridisation. They communicate through pheromones, chromatopores, and complex body signals. They seem to be the remnants of a very ancient nomadic civilization, and travelled in large amat powered worldships that move at no more than 0.1 c. Their Bionanotech is quite sophisticated, but they lack any of the technologies developed by transapient entities.
Not only is their biotech even more advanced then that of the Genen, the tech from one clade is also incomprehensible to another clade, due to the different styles that evolved in isolation. Consider a plant/coral-based biotechnology in contrast to an insect/mollusc-based or a mammalian technology. Each Ultimate clade or phyle likes to approach and solve roughly the same problem in utterly different ways. A house might be a hollow tree, a chitinous cocoon or a mobile cone of fur. A computer might be much more different, and when you move to the specialities of the different technologies the designs would be totally different. A sessile-style biotech, such as preferred by the Phylum Phyttinu (Lineage B), often involves having huge areas covered with plant-devices producing nutrient and controlling the environment, whilst the molluscan biotech used by Phylum Mhohrr usually involves the use of swarms of small beings doing jobs, whilst the mammalian biotech developed by Phylum GiiBuna adds social capabilities to all devices...
The so-called Ddgvko Culture is based on a symbiosis between MetaAllelle 5c Ultimates and the Vedokiklek
