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Soft Cathedral

Soft Cathedral Bioship Allosaurus

Bioship
Image from Anders Sandberg
Soft Cathedral carrier ship Allosaurus, escaping from the Taung Offensive in 4522. The Allosaurus was transporting a complement of Offensive Terraforming Beings to Taung when the system came under ultratech attack from the Sagittarius Sphere. The ship managed to escape using the OTBs as makeshift sacrifical defense drones, and eventually reached Utte Vais in the Negentropy Alliance after a 340 lightyear journey.

A major historical bioist empire/house, ruled by a clade of superiors, that developed out of the Softbot Coordinator Systems megacorp.

Softbot Coordinator Systems Inc. was in the business of making erotobots (and other entertainments) with a flexible silicone polymer construction, which was the original basis of the word "softbot" in their company name. However, in a bid to provide greater realism to their customers, they began to replace certain parts with vat-grown components. Development of these early biaioids progressed until they had produced true bionoids; purely biological robots.

From there Softbot Coordinator Systems Inc. expanded their line of products to cover biobots of all kinds and the company became so successful the term "softbot" became synonymous with any biological robot, or alife built entirely of organic components.

By the time Softbot Coordinator Systems Inc. had become an interstellar megacorp it had expanded on their line of products to included bioships, the pinnacle of which, the Softbot Cathedrals, eventually gave the empire/house it's final name; the Soft Cathedrals. The Cathedrals developed a bioism emphasizing "soft" biological technology, massive terraforming and aggressive autoevolution. A major centre of Soft Cathedral activity was in and around Ptolemy's Cluster in Scorpio, 950 ly from Sol.

The Cathedrals had many ideological points in common with the Zoeific Biopolity, but the two groups were prevented from becoming more closely aligned, by a long and intense rivalry, as each aggressively sought to represent itself as the "saviour" of organic life.

The Soft Cathedrals were exterminated by the Sagittarius Sphere in the Eighth Sagittarius Periphery War (which occured concurrently with the Version War, but was largely unconnected with that conflict). The destruction of the Cathedral worlds with singularity weapons still ranks as one of the worst known acts of genocide.

It also gave the Inner Sphere powers the excuse to break up the old Sagittarius Sphere and establish their own colonial spheres of interest in this strategically important region.



 
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  • Alexandria (Tichy 44-III)
  • Allosaurus (ship)
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  • Sagittarius Periphery Wars
  • Sagittarius Project - Text by Anders Sandberg
    Major exploration project backed by a number of research and colonization megacorporations in the Establishment and early Consolidation era. The Sagittarius Project attempted to set up wormhole links to the Sagittarius arm and continue inwards to the galactic core. Over time, the Project developed into a megacorp-house like most others (eventually becoming the Sagittarius Sphere), and the thrust towards the core was replaced by exploiting the many new worlds found in the Sagittarius arm. Some research vessels are still on their way towards the core, and are expected back in a few millennia.
  • Sagittarius Sector - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    Also, "Sagittarius quadrant", loosely defined region that encompasses much of the coreward Outer Volumes. Also known as "The Corewards".
  • Sagittarius Sphere
  • Softbot
  • Version War, The
  • Void Cathedralism
 
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Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev, Anders Sandberg and AI Vin
Initially published on 31 December 2001.

 
 
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