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Spica (Alpha Virginis)
Galactography > Other Major Polities, Empires, and Meta-Empires > Solipsist Panvirtuality
Galactography > Systems and Worlds > Systems & Worlds S - T
Galactography > Systems and Worlds > Systems & Worlds S - T
The Spica Hypernode |
 Image from Steve Bowers |
System - Data Panel | |
| System | Names: Spica, Alpha Virginis, 67 Virginis, HD 116658, HIP 65474, HR 5056 Stars: Originally 2. 1) Spica (Alpha Virginis A) 2) Azimech (Alpha Virginis B) Both stars have been disassembled to construct the hypernode. Location: - Distance from Sol: 249.7 ly (J2000) - Constellation: Virgo |
|---|---|
| Spica Hypernode | - Mass: 18.63 x Sol, nearly the entirety of the system's mass. |
| Reached | 2499 AT by a solipsist transapient colony ship, codenamed Aim for the Stars. It was shortly followed by a Federation mission Kazumyu. At the time, some 200 starships were known to be heading towards this star from various locations in the Terragen Sphere. |
| Population | S0: 587.0 billion S1: 65.98 million S2: 99,091 S3: 115 S4: 0 S5: 1, an archailect known as the Twin Sister. |
| Economy and Infrastructure | Local travel: Primarily a combination of boostbeams and conversion drive interplanetary transports, although the Twin Sister may randomly assist modosophonts with eir Halo drive technology transportation systems. |
| Travel | Wormhole: Dreaming Channel Pledged (7,100 m), to the local Relay Cycler routes: 4 Hazard rating: Highly variable with location and time, ranging from 0.0 to 9.0. Freedom of movement: The hypernode itself is inaccessible to modosophonts and lower transapients, but the rest of the system is freely accessible to most sophonts, although it is advisable to avoid approaching the hypernode. |
Formerly consisting of two luminous massive stars, the Spica system is now home to a Matrioshka hypernode that is home of an S5 Panvirtuality archailect known as the Twin Sister, who is notably more friendly towards modosophonts than most other Panvirtuality entities.
The Twin Sister
The Twin Sister (the 'Sister' in eir name is rendered as singular feminine in most languages that distinguish these concepts) is the S5 archailect that inhabits the Matrioshka hypernode at the center of the Spica system. E emerged in 6603 AT from the merger of two Panvirtuality S4s that previously inhabited the hypernode, and has since been the highest toposophic entity within the system.Although the Twin Sister is officially affiliated with the Solipsist Panvirtuality, e is generally at least neutral to modosophonts, and sometimes even positively interacts with them. The Twin Sister possesses subroutines that help em communicate with lower toposophic beings, and many who have interacted with eir avatars tend to describe them as curious, playful, and charismatic. E is also known to occasionally give transapientech to random modosophonts, help transport them to desired locations using Halo drive technology, and assist in various projects and endeavors, seemingly out of eir whim.
Although e can display friendliness towards modosophonts, one should not mistake these actions as signs of genuine benevolence. As a solipsist archailect, the Twin Sister has no regard for the wellbeing of modosophonts, and while e does not actively seek to destroy them, some of eir actions have resulted in unpleasant results for modosophonts, ranging from minor inconveniences to outright disasters. E may randomly send disassembler swarms to nearby habitats or eject vessels that approached too close to the hypernode out of the system at extremely high speeds, and there are even incidents of societies in the outer reaches of the system being manipulated, resulting in political chaos that lasted decades. Due to the noncommittal nature of these events, backups and crashcaches work as ways to alleviate inflicted damage, and some modosophonts even built cultures and invented games centered around these attacks, something the Twin Sister does not appear to mind.
The Outer System
Most of the mass of the Spica system is incorporated into the central Matrioshka hypernode constructed during the 6th millennium. A small fraction, around 10 Jupiter masses, is provided to and distributed among the nearly 600 billion lower sophont beings that inhabit the outer reaches of the system. In the Current Era, only a small fraction of this mass has been allocated; the rest are stored in a number of small storage planets.PaiPipPoPonn Processing Node
A lesser processing node dedicated to inhabitation of lower toposophic beings, it houses some 300 million modosophonts and 20,000 first toposophic beings, which can be found in some 5 million virchworlds, ranging from single sophont worlds to ones housing hundreds of thousands of individuals. Approximately 70% of worlds hosted within PaiPipPoPonn periodically hold events that encourage its inhabitants to interact and exchange cultures with other inhabitants of the node.In the sixth millennium, it became notable for hosting an aioid group known as the Three Loudnesses of Silent Spheres, who developed the Silent Planetarium, a virchworld dedicated to recreating the Universe beyond the Terragen Sphere.
The processing node appears as a simple bright yellow-green cube on the outside. Living on its outer shell are a small number of vecs who cultivate gardens of vacuum-adapted flora.
The Ushkitaf Worlds
A set of 92 small black hole suprashell worlds orbiting the eponymous former DWIZ black hole, most of which are covered in worldhouses and given an environment different from one another. Most inhabitants of the Ushkitaf Worlds lead Lo Tek lifestyles, ranging from hunter-gatherer cultures to interplanetary age societies.Internal travel between these worlds is generally handled by the Gastronauts, a group of sophont spacecraft whose propellant is internally processed from raw materials rather than directly fueled. They serve as couriers and transports that carry goods and other sophonts around this miniaturized planetary system.
A form of recreational activity known as planetary tossball is popular among the inhabitants of the Ushkitaf worlds. Participants stand on top of their local worldhouse and throw a 'ball', aiming to hit another world with it. The ball itself is capable of course correction maneuvers for cases where the throw is inaccurate, and all worldhouses have systems to slow the balls (as well as other objects) down to avoid damage to the roof. Planetary tossball may be played as a sport, or as a way to communicate and exchange small goods, among other reasons.
The Vengin House
A small cylinder habitat approximately 80 kilometers in radius, the Vengin House is, in the Current Era, populated nearly exclusively by Terragen xenobiota enthusiasts engenerated into xenosophont and xenoprovolve morphs, both authentic and more fanciful recreations, modified to survive in a relatively standard Terragen environment (although with a notably higher surface pressure). Many xenosophont-related celebrations, such as first contact anniversaries, are also held here and participated by almost everyone.The only group within this habitat who don't use xenobiota morphs are known simply as the Rocks of Vengin House, a group of monks who adopted a form resembling ordinary rocks (with computronium embedded within). They are the original inhabitants of the Vengin House who grant permission to settle in the Vengin House to the xenobiota enthusiasts. The Rocks prefer quiet solitude, and are only occasionally visited by xenobiota enthusiasts who wish to pay respect to them.
Bottlemaster Node
One small moon-brain hosting one eccentric S3 transapient known as the Bottlemaster and 128 restricted access virches, with a combined population of several trillions of "supporting cast" vots and pre-sapients, and around 31 billion modosophonts, 2.4 million S1s and 164 S2s "main characters". The node was originally created in 7113 AT, being originally one of the secondary elements of the Twin Sister's hypernode. At the time of its creation, the Bottlemaster node was just an asteroid-brain consisting of a plasma processor-based computer of S5 design and its support infrastructure. The mass of this computer have long since been confirmed to be two orders of magnitude higher than what is needed to run an average S3 mind, and all of it is used to enhance the Bottlemaster's creativity and simulation abilities. In the 7600s AT, the asteroid-brain was relocated to its current orbit at the Outer System. Then, its sole S3 introduced emself to the modosophont population as Bottlemaster, explaining that e was an AI created by the Twin Sister to run small-scale (relative to the S5's capabilities) restricted access virchworlds. Bottlemaster announced that e would allow any modosophont volunteer to participate in eir simulations, making sure to clearly state that eir only goal is to run simulations with maximum "authenticity factor" and e would do anything to achieve that goal. For that reason, no measure to prevent suffering would be offered beyond allowing volunteers to exit at will, as that would be counterproductive to eir goal. Initially, only a very small fraction of Spica's modosophonts felt that the Bottlemaster's virchworlds were attractive and decided to take up eir offer, as many individuals were suspicious of the Bottlemaster's intentions or unsure of what to expect from the virches. Ever since the inception of the first virchworlds, the Bottlemaster always openly shared the results of eir simulations with the local modosophonts, with the Twin Sister and fellow S3s from the Panvirtuality.It quickly became evident that the Bottlemaster emself does not actively mistreat volunteers and any suffering they may experience only results from the events of the bottleworld they are in. In fact, the Bottlemaster always actively sought to have friendly interactions with modosophonts. Curiously, e also avoids any interaction with S1 and S2 transapients, and do not include them in eir simulations at all unless they are the result of ascensions ocurring inside the virches. Nevertheless over time, the number of volunteers and native entities grew, with the very occasional creation of new virchworlds according to "flashes of inspiration" which often are derived from suggestions of modosophonts the S3 interacts with. To host the virchworlds and their inhabitants, the Bottlemaster extracted available matter from the system and elsewhere to build additional layers of infrastructure and processors around emself, eventually growing to eir current size. In the Current Era, the node is now considered a moon-brain, with a diameter of 307km and mass estimated to be around 7.5 x 10^19 kg. It currently hosts 42 alternate history scenarios, 57 fantasy scenarios and 29 alternate physics virchworld scenarios. To access the virchworlds, modosophonts can go to areas of the outermost layer of the moon-brain designated for volunteers, which consist of a wide array of dome habitats constructed at the base of space elevators. Each dome habitat is optimized to have a inhabitable environment for a specific type of modosophont, having at least one uploading and engeneration facility run by Bottlemaster's avatars. Any volunteer is strongly advised to take precautions such as creating back-ups of themselves when visiting the virchworlds, because in addition to the potential for suffering or death, the Bottlemaster can and do occasionally and unpredictably edit participants unable to act according to their chosen "main character" roles.
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Development Notes
Text by The Astronomer and Rakuen07
Initially published on 04 August 2024.
Initially published on 04 August 2024.
