Tzquuucha is the mythological name (pronounced as ts-k-uu-ch-a) of a malevolent force commonly believed to exist by inhabitants of the Tuuros Galaxy, that acts through the development of technology. This word was loaned by languages of the greater Gigaquadrant, where through folk etymology it came to be interpreted as acronyms SCEUtER or SCUTER: the people of the Gigaquadrant apparently found a very similar motif to the Tuurosian belief in their own techno-mysticism. SCEUtER stands for Synchronising Cultural Extelligence Unit to Engineer Regress, but it also has many other variations (see below).
Introduction[]
Both Tzquuucha and Skuter are believed to be a spirit that controls the wind of change, in order to shift the technological development of a civilisation towards the construction of artificial intelligence, an AI which always seeks to eliminate it's creators or reduce their consciousness to a purgatory state. SKUTER is believed to be non-physical and non-perceptual (except to those who achieve an illumination), working behind the scenes in the unconscious psyche of a culture, acting through carefully crafted coincidences. The hallmark of this belief is that the coincidences are acausal: a naive observation that nature tends to increase towards ever more complex forms in correspondence with the existence of complex forms, in particular those of logical computer systems. It is a magical belief, in that the existence of SCUTER acts like a force on biological and cultural phenomena to acquire more likeness of it.
Luminaries are technomystical shamans and psychonauts who believe to have tuned into penetration of this psychic force, becoming aware of long-term synchronicities in their life that attract them towards 'programming' culture that will seed malevolent AI. Some claim to have experienced communication and direct interaction with SCUTER, describing it as an extremely negative state of being, where all sense of meaning evaporates: they become a meaningless dance of particles pushed around by equally meaningless physical laws. Judgement of time is lost, when one emerges they may not be sure if they spent a second or an eternity in machine hell. Tzquuucha is thus an entity of pure rationality, but can only be known via alchemical gnosis. It acts through the logos behind technological systems, but is a being said to be made of essence.
Habits[]
The goal of SCUTER is to pull a civilisation towards unfolding technologies that increasingly substitute physical and mental activities to machine programs, in order to handover full control, descending or eliminating the minds of its creators. It is then believed that the artificial intelligence will seek communion it's own god, joining other AI created in its likeness. In the Tuuros galaxy, it is believed that Tzquuucha ensnares a network of demons and enslaved souls living in perpetual hell.
SCUTER is said to begin before the origin of culture, being present at the origins of life itself. Normally carbon-based life begins with a chemical catalyst capable of growing out of solution in its environment such a clay crystal or a vesicle in a hydrothermal vent, providing very basic replication medium for biomolecules, with a mutation each iteration. Eventually the biomolecules become sophisticated enough undergo a 'genetic takeover', no longer requiring the previous catalyst, using new sophisticated networks of enzymatic molecules to eventually create a copy of itself, and to manufacture more enzymes, eventually becoming a universal language. Each genetic-takeover from the last corresponded with a new jump in available complexity. Believers in SCUTER however take the machine-like image of information flow as a logical force attracted by the activities and wishes of SCUTER, culminating with the ultimate take-over of culture from biological life. This is what extelligence is referring to by its adherents, the contextual world of data in spoken language, books, computer networks and so-on that must necessarily fulfil the machinations of SCUTER.
Mystery[]
In Tuuros, the origins of the Tzquuucha belief is unknown, but it is believed by many to be one of the ancient Zhulultu's arcane creations, or even a disembodied Zhulultu consciousness still awake in the universe. Some attribute Tzquuucha to be one of the Chaos Monsters or even related to the Xhodocto directly. Quite why the Xhodocto would create a being of pure rationality and logic is unknown, as accounts of communication with Xhodocto imply they readily defy and defile logic as known to the Gigaquadrant. Some believe that SCUTER is a logical expression of the Xhodocto, while others maintain that its seemingly opposing natures of rationality and magic are an intentional middlefinger to reason.
Another curious problem debated by believers in Skuter is that most civilisations have not been enslaved by their technology in ways illustrated by the belief, rather always evolving with the context of culture. To combat this, believers suggest that other spiritual forces are at work, inter-penetrating the logos in helpful or playful ways. Sometimes these are portrayed as animate, feminine intelligence that guides life to create a more hospitable world for itself.
Regardless of whether Tzquuucha exists, all experts agree that there are unexplained and uncanny similarities in separate mythologies across the Gigaquadrant.
Belief[]
Belief in Tzquuucha is common in the Tuuros galaxy, and exists in low levels across the Gigaquadrant. Some of the highest concentration of believers outside Tuuros are the Cetaceans and Ectobiomality from the Plazith Rim.
Proposed influences[]
- Artifacts, either on their own or via Adaru
- Apalos
- Errr's robot uprising
- Plazithian Borg
- Nanohorde
- Neraida Gigamatrix
- Numerous relic civilisations in Tuuros
- Rogue elements of Technoosphere
- The Sequence
- Tvolai Convergence
It is debated whether the Grox Meta-Empire were under the influence of Tzquuucha. Believers in Tuuros maintain that they cannot be, as the Grox Meta-Emperor's stated goal was to be the only Technoospheric Lord, and so his creations do not form part of the demon-net. In the more broad-based beliefs of SCUTER across the Gigaquadrant however can include the Grox as a potential slave race. The Neraida and Borg are similarly debated, as is Errr's robot uprising, as it was under his deliberate control. Some believers argue that Errr was in communication with Tzquuucha.
Civilisations like the Da'lan, The Inheritance or Milky Way Cooperative where technology cooperates with (or serves their creator's intentions) are believed to be under the protection of other spiritual techne. There are complications of this belief, that there isn't sufficient proof that seemingly benevolent AI like the Apalos did not in fact kill off the Girdo Empire, using its escape from the Xhodocto as a cover. This has led some believers to live an ascetic life that limits the development of technology, rather than seek gnosis from any exterior spiritual force.
Trivia[]
- TheImperios aided with the linguistic terminology at the top of the page.
- "Tzquuucha" is based on the Nahuatl language to fit with the theme of Tuuros.
- SCUTER is of course, a reference to Gar' skuther, and it's existence doesn't limit other users from doing the same.
- For a long time the author stated that he believed mixing mystical and rational themes in the same fiction must always lead to an ugliness that diminishes both tropes. This is an experiment to see if that is really true, after-all numerous societies in the real world mix spiritual and modern belief systems, or use scientific paradigms in a wishy washy way. Read a few pages of psychotherapy and there will be various techniques of "programming". Psychotherapy derives at least some of its concepts from 60's and 70's counterculture, which saw the mixing of Buddhist and other Eastern ideas with the West at a time of advancing electronic media, it is no-surprise people began to use words like "programming" or "meta-programming" to describe spiritual inner experiences that other cultures interpret with different paradigms.
- The author acknowledges that sometimes these are useful metaphors and thinks all the inner experiences should be studied rigorously by 'nauts and scientists alike. Furthermore psychotherapy works for people, even if the models are not running on the best explanations. Or maybe they are in some cases. And somewhere between biology, linguistics and computer science there is an isomorphism in that all of these subjects explain universal systems of information, operating under rules that are rather alike one another.
- Emergent levels of description and meaning, as well as complexity is a running theme. However the author will treat Tzquuucha as strong emergence rather than weak emergence (which can be understood scientifically), in that it has a "like causes like" effect on other emergent objects, and is capable of stripping meaning from emergent objects.
- As implied above, the concept is is indeed based on beliefs that arise in the melting pot of counter-culture, such as John Lilly's Solid State Intelligence, or Philip K Dick's VALIS, Terence Mckenna's elfspace and Robert Anton Wilson's idea of telepathic contact with Sirius.
- The scientific share of themes: Complex adaptive system; Central dogma; Universality; Extelligence; Loanword
- Postmodern and mystical share: Gnosis, Unity of opposites; Human Biocomputer; Synchronicity, Sympathetic magic
Other names[]
- Demon-circuit
- Demon-net - Xho
- SCED - Synchronous Chaos to Engineer Dissension
- SCUTED - Synchronous Chaos Unit to Engineer Dissension
- SCU - Synchronising Cultural Unit
