User:Wormulon/Scrapbook

Hello, this a page where I am going to test fiction before I "publish" them as pages of their own. I have a history of starting fiction that I don't end, get lazy about, or take a long time to even start, although I sense my interest in writing might be returning.

= Boundaries = What are the physical and mental boundaries of our world? Is it part of a greater structure, only to be unveiled by deeper physics; or a new system of mind, perhaps one day existing in a provolved brain beyond anthropocentric thought or by an alien mentality? Are there strong emergents other than consciousness, or possibly even higher order complexities, and are they bound by mathematics and logic or something else not enslaved to the two-way neuronal patterns that have been hardwired in Earthly life since times yonder. Or rather, are they hardwired into platonic existences of such mystery we have yet to see the underlying connections?..

All of this is wrapped up in the mind of the alien. One day perhaps, we will find them or modify our brains to perceive them. This is the goal of science fiction, to create a sense something new in the terrifying prospect we call the future.

Endosymbiosis
This universe diverged from Destinies in time future in the first three billion years, where mind does not conquer nature.

They came
Neilia and Shamire stood before the dead alien that was slowly disintegrating through the pod, it was their job to learn as much of it as possible. Shamire was younger than Neilia, female like her, but nervous as Neilia could almost smell her sweat, if it was not for the damned suits they had to endure wearing for five days, now stale with filtered fluid and unfiltered fluids. Space colonisation was uncomfortable business. But this was the culmination of Neilia's life, and she felt surprisingly little at all.

***

For 200 years, Neilia's species peered up to the quiet universe, straining radio ears to listen for signals, and heat signatures that might indicate the presence of astronomical industry. It was assumed by convention that either it was too far away, or that intelligent life tended to extinct itself soon after it discovered the equivalence of energy and mass. It was not until the colonisation of her solar system had been established that her world discovered life on their own doorstep. The radio wave windows were too narrow, the great industrial complexes imagined by her civilisation was simply a limited expression of their own ambitions painted into the cosmos. The faithful day of 08/08/2391 was when Neilia as a child learned of the existence of aliens, told by Commander Oryek; Neilia's Father, an Astronaut representing her species' international effort to explore the Solar System, on the first day of his return. The sense of surprise on his face was self-evident, even to a young girl. Two days later, contact was formally announced to the world as information privacy had long died on her world.

Neilia's solar system contained a gas giant called Erebon, from which a small moon was orbiting with a diameter of only 2000 kilometres, which was slowly spiraling inexorably closer to the limit from which a body the moon's size would disintegrate. 19 years before, Oryek had in fact been operating a drone two light hours from the point of contact, for no nation had yet to develop a technology to shield the radiation that was whipping around Erebon's magnetosphere. The radiation was the point of interest, as internal friction tortured the moon's interior, it was releasing thousands of tonnes of material to volcanics a month, settling into a partial cloud of neutrally-charged atoms captured by the moon's relatively feeble gravity. Eventually however, these atoms would collide with electrons, occasionally producing heavy ions with enough energy to become a plasma. A flux tube is generated when the plasma aligns with magnetic field lines from Erebon, and as the field lines tickle the moon's ionosphere, an induced electric current is created within the moon itself. This is what the Drone had been sent to survey; the flux tube generated auroras in Erebon's atmosphere which reduced visible wavelengths of light.

Neilia could still remember her Father's words. "It appeared as a blip on the corner of the drone's field view moving roughly in the same direction motion as the drone. I thought nothing of it at the time, the firing of ion retro-boosters can dislodge ice crystals.  But I had a second thought, ice crystals, even large chunks of ice may form from the cooling of external gases on rockets used to leave the atmosphere, but the drone was propelled by an ion drive still deep in interplanetary space."

There was a pause, as if her father was searching his mind to describe what he saw in words he could convey. "It took another two weeks to fully maneuver the drone and also slow it's entry, but finally, we achieved in approaching the flux tube, taking measurements of both Erebon and the moon. It was at this point I noticed more blips on the screen, rotating in a ropy fashion around the flux tube all the way to the gas giant. They appeared to be oblivious to my presence as I made the drone approach.  Up close they appeared as blobs, devoid of any shape and opaque with a creamy-white colouration.  A certain iridescent quality shimmered on the outer surface."

Nineteen years later, here she was. Inspired by her father's discovery, she wanted to be the first to formally study the aliens. She had fought for this job, perhaps even bullied her way up the career ladder, and now the tiredness of travel and the boredom of living with few people had taken it's toll. The alien's body fizzed away once again into a mush of differentiated substances and radiation, all thanks to Shamire whom she now despised. Leaving the surgical pod, Neilia was decontaminated and then sent to an observation lounge, time for sleep. Catching the aliens turned out to be a hard task as they seemed oblivious to Neilia's species and died upon capture. It required a manned spacecraft - despite the radiation to couple if the aliens which orbited in a braided fashion around the flux tube. They were careful to select aliens which were on the scale of a few centimetres, for the largest, as big as the spacecraft, would detonate.

Thinking, Neilia wondered how many more times would she get a shot at studying the alien if half her team were scared witless? What little her research team had discovered was that these space-based organisms seemed to mostly inhabit Erebon's polar atmosphere. And yet it was bizarre, as they seemed to be subtly influencing the moon, perhaps without intent to approach the limit from which it could disintegrate, increasing the torus of plasma generated by volcanics. But this was a one way system, once the moon was gone their source of energy would be gone too. Ah of course! The aliens seemed to be storing the energy, hence the flurry of radiation.

***

Two weeks later, Neilia did not conserve her growing frustration with her assembled colleagues, but the final working day came as a saving grace. Shamire ran up to her, excited. "I've been analyzing the logs of every 10,000 aliens we have cataloged to be above 10 micrometres, everything up to 500 metres in diameter over the past three-week survey. Three of the sixteen largest aliens are gone!" "Gone? What do you mean?" "Look, we know that pressure from the mass exerts a small effect on the thermal temperature of particles in the flux tube, it is not that we can't see the aliens. The temperature differential proves they are simply not there." "They have not perhaps, split by mitosis?" "No, the mass is gone."

"Maybe I was too hard on my colleagues", Neilia considered, "results never come how you want them." The popular explanation back home became that the missing aliens had left the Solar System. They could not have been native residents, and now their life cycle in this system was coming to end, it was time to move on, and over the years they were observed leaving.

Stone-works
It was quite amazing, the growth of technology. Neilia reflected on the last 50 years of her life. When she was born, her species had already established several colonies in the home system, but this was a far cry from exploring the stars, but now, all the brightest star systems in the nearest 30 light years had been mapped, which totaled to 163 out of 1117 systems. But of course, this was probably felt by the sea-faring empires of old as they grabbed land of extent that most people in their own capital nation could not comprehend. The technology of course was not invented from scratch, as it had been derived, no, filleted from the aliens. And in fact, the development was not in proportion to the other sciences, as Neilia now had an aggressive cancer.

She was on such a starcraft. It was an old interplanetary craft outfitted at the front with a nest aliens, pulled like a sleigh. It was discovered that the aliens had the capability of Faster Than Light travel, and they did this by somehow using the positive energy they stored and were using it to grasp negative energy. This compressed a wavefront of spacetime in front of the ship, causing it to extend from the back, this disturbance of space could exceed light, while the ship inside had no local motion that could violate light speed. "You should be resting in the rotation chamber. Who knows how this zero-G environment is promoting the rate of those cancer cells..." It was her grandson, seriously spoken, he always reminded Neilia of her younger years. He clearly wanted her back in the centrifuge which generated an apparent pseudo-gravitational pull. "Well Braec, I'm not getting any better." Neilia looked back out towards the window and could see the zone of collapsed space. He spoke on "You feel sorry for them still? I know it is hard for you to accept.  You still regard them as some kind of intelligent UFO.  But they are animals, and we hijack them from a young age to follow on their travels." "Then how did they attain Faster Than Light drives?" "That is what I want to show you."

Since her first three week voyage to Erebon, Neilia never again had the opportunity to work in space. Even during that three week mission, she wasn't far from being too old. Of course now she was dying, this interstellar trip was nothing more than a token of good will for her contribution to discovery, and now for Neilia, the modern developments on the aliens, machines, or whatever they were had not reached. But did it make up for the cost of her life? The cancer was very likely to have been caused by the radiation she had to face.

***

For a star that would otherwise take a ray of light 27 years to reach, the journey took days. The aliens seemed to cling to migratory routes, as if the knowledge was inbuilt from every generation. Again it was quite unknown how long distances could be journeyed with no known point of navigation. But it could be assumed evolution had long ago 'solved' this for the aliens. Obviously these worlds were very old. Neilia was taken into a pod that detached from the starcraft, and she looked up nervously at the aliens. "Don't worry" said Braec, "More always come. Anyway, put this on." Even 50 years on, suits were still rather uncomfortable, Neilia thought in disgust.

And old the world was. It once had large oceans and a silicate crust, although now all that remained was salt, lime and sand. Braec, Neilia and a team of assistants left the pod in a vehicle, kicking dust tens of metres in the air, casting dull shadows. Despite being one of the bright stars that had been explored, it was darker than Neilia's home star. Within two and half hours, the vehicle reached the precipices of a vast basin that stood before towering mountains. The basin had a low gradient, and it took another 5 hours to reach the mountain.

"If geology is like book reading, then this book records three billion years of nature's works" said Braec. "This was a compressional basin three billion years ago. Faulting caused some rocks to thrust upwards, and this created a load on the rock beneath, pressing it down.  We call it a flexural bend.  The thick crust on this world allowed the rock hanging above to rise to immense height, however, weathering deposited sediment from the mountains into this basin, sinking it even more.  But the old crust was not efficient at recycling elements,this world dried up soon after." "I would like to know how we found out so much in mere decades, when we have visited 163 systems." "Well didn't you see the swarmers on the way?" "Swarmers? No..." Braec held out a small robot. "We send a robot 'mother' to each world we touch down. It produces these swarms of multipurpose robots that quickly explore any features we see from orbit." "So... Old rocks.  What is so exciting that an old and ill woman must see?" "Fine, I'll cut to the chase." "Geologists have definitions for rock units. Today we are concerned with lithostratigraphy.  The smallest units in use are "beds" and can represent anything from hours to a few weeks depending on the influences of deposition.  But the primary rank is a "formation".  In history this represents a major stage in an environmental setting, although it can contain member units which return back to the main setting further up the column of rock.  Groups contain associations of formational boundaries.  In just a few kilometres, I will show you the evolution of these aliens.

The first rock formation was hard and pale grey, but with distinctive fractures running through the face. Neilia instantly recognised this as limestone. "Limestones on this scale are produced in great 'carbonate factories', usually in tropical waters, highly oxygenated due to the activities of photosynthesis proliferating in the sunlight." Braec said as Neilia squinted at the rock, as the dull star had been making it hard for her to see features. "I can see fossils. Alien fossils." said Neilia. "That is right, the native fauna long lost on this world." Of course Neilia couldn't walk very far, so Braec and the rather silent assistants drove her to certain locations up a low gradient by the rocks. The vehicle stopped again after 500 metres, and Braec helped Neilia out and made her stand beneath a cavity that contained a clear change in colour and texture. "You are now standing beneath a new and crucial boundary. The limestones abruptly stop everywhere at this point in space and time, and there can only one one reason, a vast shift in climate." Seawater on worlds like Neilia's homeworld, as well as Earth's seas once had been, were saturated with calcium carbonate. But it could only precipitate in certain conditions. A deep, cold ocean normally promotes CO2, which in turns causes the dissolution of calcium carbonate. However, the palaeo-sea Neilia and Braec were standing next to wasn't getting anywhere deeper. The inner scientist in her was getting slightly more intrigued, and Neilia asked her grandson why. "This is no natural phenomenon. This is the mark of civilisation." "Oh come on Braec, you cannot make assumptions with such limited evidence. And the life on this world, are you saying they became intelligent?" "No. We've scoured the fossil record on this world, and it showed nothing more than advanced than the tiny fossils you saw pockmarking the limestone.  Whatever this civilisation was, they were colonists from another world, just like us, and they produced the rapid CO2 levels.  But there is more than a chemical trace, we have fossils of them as well..."

Within tens of metres of rock, now composed of mudstones, there were numerous tints of colour, some of iron oxide and others showing other complex elements and compounds. The rocks contained nodules of grey stuff and crystalline silica; metal and glass. But there were also much bigger objects, showing pristine preservation. "The space civilisation clearly made advances in technology. Look at these objects, they are not made of any metal or alloy we have forged.  They are chemically inert, resistant to heat and resistant to our electromagnetic penetration." "So if it is chemically inert, what is it useful for?" asked Neilia. "We don't think they used it for chemistry or electronics as we know it. This stuff isn't even made of atomic matter, but from other constituents that can behave like protons, neutrons and electrons under certain circumstances.  We call these monopoles, defects in the universe that have one magnetic charge.  Monopoles occupy a smaller volume than atoms, the force per unit area required for strain is much greater than chemical bonding allows between each monopole.  This stuff is inert because although it can bind with ferromagnetic atoms,  it does so weakly, and ends up sinking through the rocks themselves, albeit slowly.  The precursors could have used this defect matter as femto-scale technology...  Imagine the information you could store in a much greater surface area when compared to an equal volume of atomic matter!" "Lets not get ahead of ourselves, we don't know what these aliens could do with this." said Neilia skeptically. "But in this case, I think they did use it as a storage medium. One for their own minds..." They continued to travel, now in the vehicle.

***

"We believe this civilisation was not of one species, but was in fact an established community of aliens, perhaps living under one rule or working as some cooperative. Quite how they achieved in living in the same environment, is beyond me.  But we have found skeletal remains, and for each unit of rock represent merely a few thousand years, all of their brain capacities had shrunk considerably." "A paradox. Why would advanced societies let themselves get dumber?" "Well the fact of the matter is that they had been bootstrapping their own minds using far more complex networks that biology permits. Their biology was slowly replaced by technology and culture, which together emerged in to something beyond the biological need for brains." "And in turn, the ruthless works of natural selection slowly shrunk their brains." Neilia commented. "Precisely my line of reasoning. Brains require a lot of energy, in many ways it is better not to have large brains." "So what became of our friends?" "We just don't know whether they ceased to exist or changed into another form. But the ceaseless works of their technology, which I presume had the capability of self-replication had continued to proliferate, quickly out-competing the native life on this planet.  It's quite conceivable that they had self-replicating spacecraft that followed various trade routes up and down the galaxy.  And these ships were contaminated by native life from millions of worlds.  Weirdly, it is possible that alien biology eventually merged in a process called endosymbiosis." Neilia summed up all this information in her mind. "And the mindless automata mutated becoming biological life themselves, spreading and evolving across the galaxy". Neilia looked down suspiciously at a swarmer crawling over the rock by her face, her world's own replicator.

The sun was beginning to set, and with a combination of thin atmosphere and dull light, the brightest stars, including her home were peering through the sky. Neilia, reminded of her Grandfather's words and her own encounter with the alien, imagined it's likeness. She envisioned great forests of trees glittering with solar cells, orbiting in vast rings and forests around the stars. And schools of wild bioships and replicator swarms living in their four dimensional world all thanks to FTL drives once built by their precursors, all establishing great positive feedback loops crisscrossing the galaxy that enriched the potential for life.

"Yes", said Braec, "Our solar system is on the periphery of a galactic biosphere..."

Escaping the light cone
Many thanks to AdmiralPanda and Ghelæ for help with conceptual input on galactic ecology

"Welcome to the future, Neilia. You may call me Tembora." Neilia was confused, like waking up thinking it is the wrong time of day. After-all she was sure she had died. But here she was, quite aware of herself and... Presented before her was magnificent jeweled starscape. But where was she? What time was it? The essential coordinates of reason of her species. As if reading her mind, the voice declared; "We call this Star Cluster c77b, we are 600 years in your future." "But the cancer..." "Cured." "I must let you compose your thoughts." Left before the starscape, Neilia contemplated herself. She never believed in an afterlife, and yet, she could also not grasp being consigned to eternal oblivion, for that would make her finite life infinitesimally tiny. But of course, perhaps the flow of time was unreal, and her conscious existence was a static timeless structure that stops and starts as frozen moments. The scientist in her wanted to know.

Tembora appeared again out of the shadows. "I thought you would want a rest." "You simply do not disturb the dead. So tell me, first and foremost...  Why have you brought me here, and how." "Alright. Your intuition on the galactic biosphere was correct.  See that star cluster?" Suddenly the view of the tightly packed cluster zoomed in, and enclosing the central star was something like a bunched fist. Neilia looked into her memories. "Oh my, they look like leaves." Neilia knew the concept of a stellar engine. It was a megastructure, usually made up of a shell-like cloud of gravitationally bound structures, designed with the purpose to extract energy or thrust from a star. "This one had no designers, for we have no marker of intelligence in the galaxy other than ourselves since the demise of the Ancients. We believe this is organic, like a forest canopy.  The lobes are long and elongated to snatch up as much light spots as they can and bunched up to maximise their surface area." The screen zoomed in further, and within there were humongous circular leaves. "There must be a lot of waste heat coming off those leaves" commented Neilia. Tembora replied; "There is myriad of collectors and processors in symbiosis with the larger autotrophs, living off thermal energy gradients of both the star's luminosity and the unused heat of the leaves. And there are symbiotes living off them." Neilia looked further out onto the galactic plane. It was only now she realised the true scale of the biosphere. There were many more star clusters, grouped in what looked like herds. The stellar-forests were capable of hauling their parent stars with a unison of radiation pressure and gravitational pull to and from the star, and naturally, attracted to each other's luminosity, were congregating to each other. There was a net migration to the Core, or towards the local galaxy in collision. But there was chaos wherever a supernova had flared. In fact it seemed as if some cunning trees had taken advantage by scattering others through disruption of their gravitational motions, careening them in long parabolas. Some of these less fortunate forests adapted yet again, scattering themselves into woodlands of dyson trees by colonising asteroids. ***

Neilia decided to sleep after all this. After complaining that the interior she was in was dark and full of shadow, Tembora produced a simulation of architecture and decor from Neilia's time, to make her feel more at home. Later she returned to complete her brief.

"I don't understand why an antiquated person like myself is needed by people who can resurrect me." "You come from a time when we were a much more creative race, we need your vision. You see, we simply can't compete this all this.  We have been at war with the biosphere for centuries, trying to subvert it, but it is fighting back.  Our race is divided, do we try to clear away the biosphere, or allow ourselves to join with it, at the cost of our minds?" "What do you mean, fighting back?" "A vast, thick cloud of alcohol, cosmic dust and ice has been building up around our colonies, clustered around the home star. We think some-kind of living dust mote is being attracted to these systems, maybe an ecological feedback loop or an immune response to us.  Ice and alcohol form on the surface of the dust.  It's choking star-light from the planets, its allowing more charged particles in, and the effect of both the dust and elevated radiation is even eating the atmosphere's of our worlds. We no longer develop much technology, as we rely on 'riding the back' of these organisms.  This is how we brought you here and now."

Tembora then explained that the galaxy, and possibly beyond, was inhabited by schools of wild bio-starcraft and replicator swarms, still carrying Faster Than Light capabilities. Some were dangerous beasts, predators armed with exotic weaponry and limited precognition. But having FTL was giving them a unique intuition of the conditional surface of spacetime, allowing them to jump to causal regions not specified in their future horizon. Effectively time travel. "We have cut a slice of your history, containing a snapshot of physical processes of your mind, and simply pasted it now. Using the perspective of these organisms." Neilia seemed shocked, "But that is a causal violation." "Physics does not need a deterministic flow of time between events to have predictive power. Many things are predictable and universal without causes, such as physical constants.  The universe at slower than light speeds simply can't tell the difference between spacetime before we cut and pasted it, and afterwards.  You're an anomaly, yes, but events do not flow into future events.  Everything is static, and that remains no matter how much we mix up so-called causal relations." Bewildered, Neilia changed topic. "Well... I've had a think about what we should study.  First of all, if we want to prevent the demise of our minds, perhaps we should study the Ancients.  There must be fossils out there, and maybe they died off before the net migrations, we should look for these old sites.  The evolution of these stellar engine canopies should be examined, as maybe they were once star-scale computers used to store vast amounts of information.  Secondly, I'm interested in the clouds.  Yes they are our main and immediate priority."

Another two hours later, Neilia grew tired of the space that surrounded her, despite the VR rendering of spacecraft she once piloted. In fact, Neilia was unsure where she in fact was, and began to explore outside the confines of the VR, into light and shadow. There seemed to be no other people, but they must be somewhere. The walls pulsed and were soft to the touch, but as soon as she punched it, it was hard, like pitch. It was a weird, un-homely environment. Had 600 years really changed her people's tastes this much? The lighting improved, either there was more light, or it was her eyes. The walls were a lighter grey but still dull. Now she began to hear voices. She could make out Tembora, and at least three others who seemed to be standing before another window to the abyss, where the galactic plane was quite visible through the darkness. One seemed younger, though still adult. "Ah hello. We are plotting a course home.  It was will be quite a trip through the centre of the galaxy." So that confirmed she was in space, she thought. The younger voice spoke. "We were thinking of telling you to come and see as we command this creature to engage it's drive." "And your name is?" "Rhule, nice to meet you."

The last time Neilia travelled in an interstellar spacecraft, she had slept through the whole thing because of the damn cancer. The galactic core lurched forward into the horizon almost paradoxically. The jeweled star clusters seemed to be turning to face her. They passed through one star cluster, it seemed to wrap around her centre of view in a way that it's entirety was visible. The stars on her outer field of view were quickly drained of colour, it was as if the centre was draining all the blues and brightness from the edge of her field of view. Eventually the center too was fading. Neilia knew what this was of course. These were the optical effects of aberration and the relative change of light frequency, understood in her own time. Neilia asked; "I don't get it. We are seeing the effects close to the speed of light, but not exceeding it." "This is an old beast. We must slowly tempt it to engage FTL, by travelling just under the speed of light"  Said Tembora. Then, as if on queue, there was a flash of white light. The frequency of light had now blueshifted far beyond the visible range, a sign the beast had now surely engaged FTL. But it was not like being back in the pitch flesh of the ship, or rather creature. She was immersed in a uniform blue that penetrated her very soul. Not the harsh neon light of ultra-relativistic travel, but like the colour of her sky. "Ancient light, there was a time when the universe was this colour. The Cosmic Microwave Background that penetrates all things has blueshifted to the visible.  The light that was here almost from the beginning, and will be here at the end" spoke Tembora, Neilia noted a poetic ring to the man. "Unfortunately, it is not so nice for our living spacecraft. The background radiation is actually resisting her.  I must tend to it, for the pressure it is fighting against is immense." And with that, Tembora and two others left the bridge.

Neilia wondered what it was like to be one of these creatures. How different was universe, perhaps even existence to them? The spaceborne FTL spacecraft must have long outcompeted all the relativistic ones. The latter could see around corners in space, but their FTL cousins could see around corners in time. Maybe they felt like kings? Though such a concept was a projection of her own feelings. It's mind was utterly alien, shaped by evolutionary adaptions to spacetime at these extremes no longer imprisoned by the light cone. Perhaps if any were seeking knowledge, they would discover things in different orders than a planetary species, having understood unified field theory and physical transformations before chemistry or material science. Rhule looked hastily in the direction of Tembora, "Look, I've got to tell you something. We are really journeying to the core because Tembora wants something there, and he wants to convince you to his cause." "Well I have sensed he likes control. Afterall, he had the cheek to bring me here." "As you can guess. The majority are fighting against the galactic forest, they wish to dismantle it.  But a few, like me find that useless and selfish." "I am not going to engage in your warfare, Rhule. I'm not from this time." Rhule looked hastily again. "Okay. I'm not forcing you, but don't let him force you either.  Just remember, not only could it have grown to encompass the Local Supergroup, it simply demands our respect, it is bigger than us, all that biodiversity!"

The pitch beast stopped as Rhule had predicted, within the galactic core. Neilia began to feel some anxiety, she was a long way from her home and these unknown people obviously had an agenda and could do what they wanted. Tembora walked into view, "I'm giving this beast some rest here just before we pass by the core. We shall be treated to some stunning views of the galaxy through our optical sensors." Images burst through Neilia's mind. "Do not be alarmed, this is how we see things." What Neilia could make out was not too different from imagery of her own time. It was a multi-layered composite image of the core, only as pliable as thought stuff in her mind. It showed a spectrum of electromagnetic data, but there was also information unknown to her, possibly the effect of dark matter and/or neutrinos on gravitation, or something else. In the core sat the tempest, the supermassive black hole, flanked by other ultra-dense exotica, cack of flaws in spacetime that were falling into the region as dense objects do, and around them danced the stars. Most were old bloated giants, but among them star-forming regions, destined to eventually erupt into jets as they fall in. Tembora spoke; "This is not a place for life-bearing planets. Every hundred million years or so, radiation from the centre periodically purges these worlds, and the tight gravitational motions disrupt their orbits.  Even so, the Galactic Biosphere has adapted to this region and is indeed adapting it." "How could life root itself this far up the energy scale?" "Given time and resources, it can. It may well be that some processes that lead to life are as fundamental as the speed of light, such as replication, survivability or universality.  I will say though, that in some ways life here seems unnatural." The image changed to one particular nebula on the outskirts the core, he went on... "Remember the dust motes I talked about?  They have cousins that live here, and seem to act like seeds to the formation of the stars themselves.  Imagine a tree that could build it's own star, that is almost exactly what we have here!  The stars here are both old and unstable, poor in metals which are important biochemical components.  The galaxy is slowly going stale without a fresh burst of star formation.  By carefully controlling the dynamics..." "Hmm, that is odd. You'd think life would follow the least expensive route - to simply use the stars that exist." "Precisely. What started this process?  I believe it is further evidence of technology in the ancient past." "Okay. What else is there to show me?" asked Neilia. "Best till last." Tembora replied.

The image shifted entirely gamma

The Comprehensibility Barrier
After Drunken Cloud

= Mirror Universe = Also part of Mirror Universe

Mental Torture
"The case has been convened. The Prosecutor, do you have any lasting considerations to retract your case against Mr.Vorunezch?"

"No, Prime Magistrate."

"Mr.Vorunezch, you have been found guilty of intellectual negligence. Sentence:  Psycho-physical Rectification.  Does The Prosecuted understand the implications of the punishment?"

"No, I don't. Prime Magistrate."

In the Prime Magistrate's metallic but female voice: "The Hegemony looks down on those with an intellectual capacity entrusted with heavy burden that fails, proving it's mental impotence.  But considering your potential to solve problems, The Hegemony will show it's compassion and grant you a second chance.  You are to be sent to The Heterogeneousness, Lord of the Technoosphere.  Your organs will be eviscerated, and your brain attached to life support.  Your mind will be uploaded into another organism, where you must learn to live again as a new form of being.  Any successes in solving problems will be rewarded with supplement for your brain and organs.  But should you prove your impotence once more, you will be starved of life, in both bodies."  'She' could not be seen behind a curtain, and Vorunezch wondered if this entity was a living form at all.

Vorunezch was shuffled onto a small ship bound for the inner worlds of the Plazith Rim, the so called centre of high civilisation in the galaxy. It was in fact a breeding ground for the galaxy's worst, and this was reflected aboard the many peoples of the ship. Vorunezch had never seen the poor, he had been brought up in an aristocratic setting. He hugged the rattling wall of the ship on his five day journey to the core worlds, retching from the stink of bodily fluids and solids from a dozen species. Three days in however, he became the inquisitive attention of one bald-headed man and Vorunezch wasn't sure what species the man belonged to.

"So what brings a man like you to the Bulge of Plazith Rim?" asked The man. "I am to be mentally eviscerated by The Technoospheric Lords." The man didn't appear to understand this as much as Vorunezch had hoped, but he could see the fear in the man's eyes. "On a ship like this? I cannot assume that you are on a voluntary mission and it is not for good." "Sorry, what is your name? And how could not know what the Technoospheric Lords are if you live so close?" Vorunezch "My species does not consider the importance of names anymore. The original homeworld was destroyed long ago by a mis-firing of Technoospheric weapons.  But there are scattered worlds of my species, transplanted before the destruction." "There are many fallen races in this galaxy. Take that Grimbolsaurian over there.  We all cram ourselves towards the centre of the galaxy.  The stars, draping sheets of candles, offer us hope.  The Technoospheric Lords and Hegemony's finest and most austere are happy to ignore us in their virtual worlds ."

Two days later, the ship docked at a station in deep space. Vorunezch was shuffled out of the ship into a pod by viciously unforgiving bots dragging his limbs with force fields. The pod returned to deep space to be taken straight to The Heterogeneousness, where he would fight for his right to live.

*

Pain. It came sharp as a scalpel blade, followed by an overwhelming disorientation of the existential kind. He knew his body was being manipulated from beyond his control.

"I found the Artharon skull particularly hard to penetrate. The brain was cleaned from the skull with high pressure a hose, and immediately transferred to life support.  Essential organs were shut down into dormancy with success, and were immediately attached to life support.  The rest of the body was put in stasis.  The patient remained alive throughout the procedure, but I do not have the technical knowledge of Artharon physiology to switch off the nervous system, although this is not mandatory and would have taken my time, thus it is possible the patient was conscious throughout the procedure.  The life support machine has been suspended in a closed ecosystem within The Heterogenousness, a stellar AI.  This is Dr.Sturgyen.  The time is 0678."

It was not even dark. It was in fact, the total absence of sight and every sense Vorunezch ever knew. But he had his memories, and parochial thoughts. But Vorunezch knew that now he had been transformed, he must not dream his finer days. He had to abandon his mind, he had to find a niche in this empty space to live. But there was something. He could feel a strange attraction towards two opposite locations. No longer a point, he could feel himself expanding on either side, both sides mutually repulsive.

"Day two since the planting. Seeds are beginning to break dormancy, which means water, oxygen, temperature and lighting are optimum, but just to be sure I dissected one specimen to examine cellular growth, and all seems well.  I also examined the porosity of the soil, to make sure there is no saturation of water so there is free gas exchange between the cellular wall and soil substrate."

Like a baby learning the boundaries of his mind and senses, Vorunezch could begin to 'feel' sensations, such as the the need for sustenance and support. Though the experience was utterly alien, he could only describe them in the language is knew. And yet Vorunezch did feel something oddly familiar, and that was growth. His fledgling self already feeling starved in it's point of origin was expanding in two directions and then outward. Like an old friend, he could feel space. And yet, this had a difference, for example his "centre of origin" was in fact moving as well as opposed to the fixed points in coordinate systems.

"Day Two and Half. Vorunezch has reached a new stage in germination, establishing root hairs emerging from a central taproot."

Bilateral symmetry was a common adaption on terrestrial worlds, and many sentient species in the universe appeared to possess it. As an Artharon, Vorunezch like many bipedal beings with forward positioned senses felt strong and strident when stood upright, felt confident in the front and yet weak and unguarded from behind. Other symmetries existed, commonly in the form of radial symmetry, and while these two approaches could strongly affect perception and language, Vorunezch could sense an uncanny resemblance of space, even though it was unlike his forward facing past, as he was now growing in all directions. His ancient homeworld of course had plants and animals, and it was possible that the psychology of space was developed as a useful construct for terrestrial living before the divergence of either groups. Other constructs and qualia such colour, number, cause and effect, free will and so on my have evolved at different times.

To be low was to no longer to be inferior. Vorunezch reveled in his growth, as his lateral roots thickened they budded, all supplying his reach above (yet there was no above or below, as his seed, or point of origin began to muscle its way out of the soil). Bursting out of a new boundary, Vorunezch now felt more complicated. His roots hungered for comfortable support, spreading out in all directions, while the rest wanted only to rise.

"Day four. Most of the plants have now reached the epigeal stage of their growth.  The hypocotyl stems are now extending above ground, dragging the germinated seed out of the soil, which houses the two embryonic cotyledon leaves."

It was at this point, Vorunezch realised he wasn't alone. The kiss of light on his primitive leaves began to be overshadowed all too quickly. He tried to seek more water, more nutrients to strengthen his growth, but only found soil as dry as his surrounding space. The world had changed, the solipsistic bliss rudely interrupted by a past life memory: "Your mind will be uploaded into another organism, where you must learn to live again as a new form of being." He must now face problems he had never evolved to face, to prove his intelligence, to battle for survival...

More coming soon.

= Station Halcyon season 2 concepts = Nothing too plot spoiling, just some ideas:
 * Last Episode conclusion with The Agency plot.
 * Season 2 intro starting in Cyrannus as the station is taken there by a Vi'Navitum arc, season 2 will build up to now involving politics in the Dark Times.
 * Some old sci-fi ideas I never used, like aliens evolving from replicators, and the Sana/Forma aliens.
 * I'll introduce my Cephalodian character, and possibly feature Hogomoth survivors.

Aeonian artifact
Dark Times

''Log 78894, Shavalera reporting - The CRS Arbitrator in en-route to the Unknown Regions of the Cyrannus galaxy, called to a planet discovered recently by the New Cyrannian Republic. The original expedition had found an unusual artifact that even our best devices couldn't tap into.

= Delpha Coalition of Planets =

Superstory: Tantummodo Mortem and return of Tricarrion, Mass Armageddon, Trials of Kilnok
Also part of Tantummodo Mortem.

Database of Foreign powers
An overview of several Plazith Rim empires extracted from the Foreign Relations Database.