[OT] - Xenology - Story driven PBW.

[Unknown_Enemy]

Eden.

The planet was such a volcanic hell that it systematically destroyed all complex life forms by denying them the time needed for evolution. Only a few plant species achieved long term survival, by spreading massive amount of spores before volcanic annihilation.
Nineteen million years ago, some small trees developed a natural infrared sensor. These vegetable creatures used it to release their spores should one of the frequent volcanic fire threaten them. This species achieved survival. And began to prosper. Some of the offspring changed, mutated, and adapted as life always does. One of the mutation involved the emission of a small wave of ultrasound, which was a signal for all nearby trees to release its spores. Then, some other vegetable species started to rely on the ultrasound trees, with rudimentary eyes catching the spore ejection, which in turn started their own.
It took 9 million years for these plants and some others to evolve into an ant like society. During this time, the planet was getting more stable, volcanic activity was diminishing and animal life started to appear everywhere. The vegetable society had to learn to defend itself from herbivore predators. Thorns, poisonous fruits and even carnivorous plants started to appear. Several vegetable species depended upon one another to prosper. But the limited range of ultrasound signals was causing havoc. Frequently, instructions from different parts of a large nest were conflicting. A vegetable nest could be competing for vital space with another nest, or even with itself.
Around 7 million years ago, an Orchid specie evolved a limited form of telepathic transmission, which was not restrained by the ultrasound range limitation. The consequences were tremendous. While the flower spread on the planet, all nests quickly disappeared and merged into each other. As a matter of fact, the node was composed of two levels, the first one was the most basic, the multitude of vegetable consciousness that was busy keeping themselves alive on a day to day basis, with as much awareness as most earthlike vegetables. But, as the old terran saying, a team could be much more than just the sum of the teammates' capacity.

"Indeed."

The network of linked vegetable was much more than a larger node, as in effect, it created a consciousness. It took only a few thousand years for the Master Node to evolve from an instinctive intelligence to a sentient one.

"We are one."

Reportedly, this was the first thought of the newly formed collective mind. From then, began a long period of physical stagnation. But on the mental point of view, the Mind was a fury of thought. Subjects on scientific, mathematics or philosophical grounds were explored. But always on a theoretical point of view. As the Mind lacked any way to interact with its surrounding, any practical study was out of his reach, but that did not bother it, as it had little use for experiments.

"Then came the Hammer."

The Hammer took the form of a wandering asteroid which fell on Eden 6 million years ago. The northern continent was badly hit, but the nuclear winter that followed almost wiped out the Collective Mind. Several of its constituent species could not survive the century of reduced luminosity, nor the overall lower temperature. Luckily, the Mind discovered that some seeds could survive the cold for this long. When the cataclysm's effect slowly faded, the Mind was fully aware it had come very close to disappearing. The notion of death, which was only a distant possibility a century ago suddenly became a threat.

"What was that ? Where did it came from ? Will it come back ?"

These questions needed answers. As soon as its survival was assured, the Collective started to devise his course of action. To work out that problem, the Mind would need to interact with its surrounding. Some particular trees were bred, associated. The Mind could not modify the DNA sequences of its components, it was just breeding some species and trying to obtain the desired results. But it had time for itself. Three thousands years ago, after countless failed experiment, the Mind achieved a result : the fruit of a certain tree, once fallen would follow a predetermined path with rudimentary legs, and perform a simple action before burying itself in the earth. That simple tool enabled the Mind to create dams and irrigation systems. But more than that, it added a whole dimension to the Collective's actions. These first tools were used to create more efficient tools, which were in turn used to.......

"Today."

After the first fruit-tool, the slow pace with which the Mind viewed time had to change. When born, the Mind was perceiving time by the passing of seasons. After the Hammer, it switched to the passing of days. After the first fruit tool, it subdivided days in 9 time units, each time units being divided in 9 sub-units. Most of animal species had been disposed of, and the remaining were absorbed by the Mind as tools. The planet was completely acclimated, a garden in which no predators lurked. The mind had established full control on the ecosystem, and most of his duties were to respond to the problems of supply and demand. When a component of him needed something, the Mind checked what or who could fulfill it, and arranged the transportation of the goods where they were in need. The main subtlety was to establish priorities between demands should a bottleneck of production or transportation arise. The sky is regularly filled by Zeppelin like plants which transports goods and sub-species from place to place on the behalf of their Master Mind. Due to his level of understanding and exploration of the solar system, the Mind does not fear the Hammer anymore, it has the power to prevent it. But an irresistible force is pushing it out of his birthplace, even out of his own solar system. Something that was absorbed with some animal tools long ago.

Curiosity.

[civ2buf]

Interesting start with the Floral race, I'm having a bit of trouble with the Robotians.

I like my idea but I'm slipping too much into a terran type race. It may not be the star trek terrans, but the only differences you can see from my story are recharges, the Justice as head of everything and the extreme lack of any authoritarian tendencies.

I wanted to play an extremely brutal capitalistic race for the Foundation, but it seems like its becoming too terrany. Since we have capitalism in many parts of our world, it lacks newness.

The thing is, the Robotians are supposed to compete brutally and yet have a huge amount of freedom, represented by the fact that two of the colonized planets are independent republics allowed by the Justice.

Anyone have any ideas or comments on whether the Robotians are too terrany, and if so, some ideas on what I should do.

I have the idea of many citizens looking up to the previously secret ship Discipline and its crew. They achieved more than the colonists have so far, and they have a much more repressive political view. It may spread quickly among youngsters since the Robotian mind is extremely affected by the environment.

[Unknown_Enemy]

Thread cleaning.

[ August 26, 2003, 12:40: Message edited by: Unknown_Enemy ]

[Raging Deadstar]

Amazing additon Unknown Enemy. I'm impressed. I don't think anyone has explored the organic race idea so deeply and effectively. I look forward to more from you!

[civ2buf]

Discipline rewards the Control Alliance

"Captain, we show an interlink formed on the outer edges of this solar system. Its not formatted according to any of our standards."

"Another ship. It isn't responding to any business hails." Any ship built by the Foundation and manned by anyone, politics aside, accepted business communication frequencies. Who would forsake a beneficial trade?

"Could it be a Fazrah ship? But we wouldn't know until we got too close."

"By then nothing would be left of us."

The communications officer interrupted, "The Fazrah are biological, its unlikely they could interlink. We only can interlink because the Creator built support for it. Whomever it is, I can't join their interlink. I tried adjusting the formats, its just universally rejecting my entry."

"Can you send some sort of message by any means?"

"We can send an interlink under their format, as much as we know of it."

"Well, just tell them a bit about the ship and our purpose, and offer trade and exchange, confidentiality. If they trust us, the rest of the Foundation will know nothing about it, and we can set up a nexus of ships in this territory. Its outside of anything the Foundation would want to parcel as well. We could even disable our business comm and change to their format, and build our industrial empire in a nebulae onboard ships."

"I sent your message captain, I've ensured them no one has to know about any transactions. They may only get a garbled message, or they could be uncooperative,..."

"Or they could lead to our alliance becoming its own industrial and military power."

[civ2buf]

"Its a bit cryptic Captain, but we got a reply. First they thought we were part of them. Then they went to some sort of mixed imperative/conversative. I get the main idea of it through translation, that they wonder if we are a rogue subnode. They also want to know about our main().

I sent back a note for you, I gave some of our asserts as they were unsure about our trustworthiness."

"You should have waited. I know what they need to know. Send this as soon as is prudent without intefering with the Last message," the captain handed another message to the communications citizen. "Leave the ship on course for now, we will see what they say."

An agent of the FFCC happened to be on board, slipped on by them just before launch. Anything secret is worth checking out. The agent decided it was time to transmit, and managed to do so while the bridge was unoccupied. He sent a large package of everything collected, stellar information, treasonous activities of the Control Alliance, and most importantly the foreign ship and message.

Later

"Someone has sent us a large pile of information," said a clerk to the President of FFCC.

"Send it to Anarchista construction yard. Tell them the offer stands and this time we have something extra. We are willing to construct a warship for free for the Anarchists to chase down the Control Alliance. The information sent should give them authorization to do so."

[Unknown_Enemy]

Thread cleaning.

[ August 26, 2003, 12:38: Message edited by: Unknown_Enemy ]