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Proof-reading EG
The first artificial self-replicating systems are likely to be self-replicating factories consisting of several, or many units capable of replicating the factory system as a whole; I would guess that they would be deployed on Luna, and rather than being sentient or autonomous, they would be teleoperated or at least monitored from Earth. Or - even more likely - these systems would be deployed on Earth first- perhaps to build roads, buildings or artificial islands.

In some respects we already have self-replicating systems- they are called 'industrial economies', and the challenge is to reduce these systems in size until they can be deployed as a unit to convert raw materials (such as an asteroid or moon) into the desired end product.
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Talking of artificial islands, it seems that China is using this idea as a method of expanding their territory in the South China Sea - an interesting way to use this concept.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_wall_of_sand

Any location with shallow seas might become the venue for territorial disputes or just amicable rivalry.
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I've written somewhere on the forums before (but it didn't make it to the EG IIRC) that early neumanns wouldn't be capable of individual replication. Instead it would be a Queen/Drone design with the Queen being a house sized fab (which is about how big they would have been back then, and very slow).
OA Wish list:
  1. DNI
  2. Internal medical system
  3. A dormbot, because domestic chores suck!
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(01-27-2017, 12:56 PM)QwertyYerty Wrote: I found another I missed.

Even before the spread of the pirate "Gloriously Bright" germline cell patch, GeneTEK had already acquired a favourable reputation among genehacks and neobiopunks for its distribution of open source genomes. By the early 4th century a.t (late 23rd century c.e.) GeneTEK, the Orbital Alliance, the Terran and Lunar States, Mars, the Belt colonies, and the mining megacorporations were competing in the development of the outer solar system. Not only was there a rivalry of interests, but also of clades, as different subspecies competed. While the Terran and Terran-aligned orbitals employed neumanns and microgravity-adapted space people (Homo sapiens cosmoi), and the Orbital League used their own tweaks (Homo sapiens superior) in large SIOS vessels, the Lunarians and Martians used unmodified colonists in Luna-standard and Mars-standard gravity medium-sized vessels, the GeneTEK faction had geneered their own deep-space subspecies, the Homo sapiens geneticus.

http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/47fc2ccba05bf

I believe I've patched all the date entries in this article now, but another pair of eyes might find more. I've also added a final paragraph that might help a bit with potential confusion about what 'tweak' and 'superior' might have meant in such early times versus what they mean in the setting's present day. Hoping that will hold for now, pending a more comprehensive rewrite.
Stephen
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Centukry should be century.

Even before the spread of the pirate "Gloriously Bright" germline cell patch, GeneTEK had already acquired a favourable reputation among genehacks and neobiopunks for its distribution of open source genomes. By the early 4th centukry (late 23rd century c.e.) GeneTEK, the Orbital Alliance, the Terran and Lunar States, Mars, the Belt colonies, and the mining megacorporations were competing in the development of the outer solar system. Not only was there a rivalry of interests, but also of clades, as different subspecies competed. While the Terran and Terran-aligned orbitals employed neumanns and microgravity-adapted space people (Homo sapiens cosmoi), and the Orbital League used their own tweaks (Homo sapiens superior) in large SIOS vessels, the Lunarians and Martians used unmodified colonists in Luna-standard and Mars-standard gravity medium-sized vessels, the GeneTEK faction had geneered their own deep-space subspecies, the Homo sapiens geneticus.

http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/47fc2ccba05bf
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The Martian space elevator only operated for 10 years?

185 - Martian space elevator completed (behind schedule and over budget). For the next 10 years it will operate as both a transport system to and from Mars orbit and a test bed for elevator technology, safety systems, elevator construction, maintenance, and expansion techniques, and a symbol of the movement to build a space elevator on Earth.

Also, to double check, EF-1 was an orbital, correct?

186 - Construction begins on EF-1 - intended as an emergency meeting point (and safe haven) for the EF parliament.

http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-topic/45b2b10d8b211
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(01-27-2017, 07:10 PM)Rynn Wrote: I've written somewhere on the forums before (but it didn't make it to the EG IIRC) that early neumanns wouldn't be capable of individual replication. Instead it would be a Queen/Drone design with the Queen being a house sized fab (which is about how big they would have been back then, and very slow).

Replicators of this type were written into the Technocalypse article, so by implication were common in the preceding years. Even later on in the OA setting neumann-capable devices (or persons) might have this arrangement, since it opens up a whole range of strategies and niches that individual replicators miss. After all, even the archetypical neumann-capable forms, biologicals, often make replication an effort that requires cooperation among two or more individuals. In the OA among sophont clades we already have Clade Faber, where members of a reprogroup build a factory together. Is this a topic to move to the general discussion group?
Stephen
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(01-28-2017, 12:17 AM)QwertyYerty Wrote: The Martian space elevator only operated for 10 years?

185 - Martian space elevator completed (behind schedule and over budget). For the next 10 years it will operate as both a transport system to and from Mars orbit and a test bed for elevator technology, safety systems, elevator construction, maintenance, and expansion techniques, and a symbol of the movement to build a space elevator on Earth.
That's one of mine; I intended to say that the Mars elevator acted as a test-bed/demonstrator for ten years, before the first Earth elevator was built - in fact the Mars elevator continued to operate until the Technocalypse era. I'll change it.
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Found another needing c.e. to a.t change in the Space adapted human article.

Several continuously inhabited space stations were in orbit around the Earth by the late 1st century a.t. (early 22nd century c.e.), the oldest and most basic being those established by the NASA/ESA/Russian joint space program. There were also several habitats constructed by various NGOs and large corporations (including the impressive Biosphere III in 10,000km orbit), and the so-called Heavenly Palace habitats assembled by Chinese cosmonauts, one in high Earth orbit, one around the Moon. A major construction project was underway in the L1 Lagrange point, 1.5 million km closer to the sun, where thousands of zero gee workers and millions of semisentient moravec robots were assembling a solar power array. Apart from Biosphere III all the habitats were small and with little or no centrifugal gravity. Coriolis effects made the smaller rotating habitats uncomfortable places to live, and many cosmonauts chose to live in microgravity. Additionally there was an increasing number of spacecraft in the volume between the Earth and the Moon; and several in transit to and from Mars and Venus; few of which had any centrifugal gravity at all.

http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/47f6ce3a74e30
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C.e. to a.t.

(Should these conversions have their own thread? )

Development of the Merpeople

By 130 a.t. (the start of the 22nd century c.e.), attitudes to genetic engineering and advanced technology were changing rapidly, A small but growing population of superbright humans with enhanced genomes was working together with the newly developed artificially intelligent computer systems (known as superturings) to repair widespread ecological degradation. This had been caused by the ill considered use of technology, fossil fuels and industrialised food production, and also by sporadic but environmentally damaging warfare during the previous hundred and fifty years. Particularly badly hit were the enclosed waters of the Mediterranean sea, which after decades of pollution and eutrophication were in large part barren and devoid of life.

http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/47f2faf7f0b2d
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