BY LETTER
Crystal Star Domain
 Image from Qualitum Dragon | |
| The symbol of the Crystal Star Domain. | |
Crystal Star Domain - Data Panel | |
| AI God: | Crystal Star |
|---|---|
| Toposophic level: | Major Archailect (SI:5) |
| Capital: | Rose God Star World Cluster |
| Seraphim: | Neogen first toposophic transapients, with cybernetic bionano, synano, and dry nano augmentation and enhancements, called Crystal Flyers or Kice |
| Origin: | Terragen |
| Founded: | 4980, in the Monoceros Middle Regions; re-established 8400 in the Outer Volumes |
| Population: | Exact number unknown, estimated many trillion, possibly 100 trillion with a high percentage of bionts, cyborgs, and neogens |
| Predominant Phyla: | bionts, cyborgs, neogens, tweaks, and virtuals, few completely inorganic beings |
| Psyche, Art, Culture | Metapsychology/Metaethics: oriented toward worship of life. Calm, serenity, and beauty are major goals. Preservation of life, knowledge, and experience. Flexible perfection. Religion/Ideology: True sentient rights; peaceful, helpful, caretaker memes. Culture and Art: Complex musical compositions that include artificial and vocal parts at multiple frequencies and ranges. Organic sculptures. Many curves in architecture. Maze-like cities. Language: Anglic and Crystal. Crystal is a language of various harmonic frequencies that can only be produced by the Crystal Flyers, or others with appropriate augmentation. Crystal comprises over 1000 symbols and many times that in number of tones produced. Language complexity is musical and usually beyond even augmented baseline abilities or comprehension; Crystal is mainly used by, and the main language of, the Crystal Flyers. |
| Territory and Population | Capital: Rose God Star World Cluster Systems: Portal (HIP 28864), Rose God Star World Cluster, Kapella, many others Location: Outer Sphere Regions near the Rosette Nebula, Rimward of the Orion Federation |
| Government and Administration | Government: AI-ruled via Crystal Flyer Seraphim Constitution: Compact of Serenity Legal system: Judgments by a council of 1, 3, or 7 Crystal Flyers according to severity of crime. Citizenship: All sentient beings who have been judged to be capable of responsible living; they are known locally as Adults. Non-citizens are called Children. Sub-sentient beings are Little Ones, high sentient beings are Elders Economy: Based on energy, with all sentient beings having an energy allotment; the higher beings have greater minimum allotments. Due to various freedoms exact economy in a given region is variable. Crystal Star technically owns everything but allows its subjects to use a given resource indefinitely unless they can't handle the responsibility, in which case control if not ownership is transferred. |
| Economics, Local Infrastructure | Megastructures: Found in all Crystal Star Dominion Systems, largest Artificial Structure Rose God Star World Cluster, which includes several Dysons and Other habitats. Stargate Nexus: Personal Wormhole Web connecting every System, Only One wormhole connection to the rest of the Civ Galaxy, located in the Portal System exit point Orion Federation Capital. Known Net: Personal Net Web but connected to the Known Net through the Portal Stargate Military expenditures: Heavy on defensive technologies near borders Interstellar Trade and Relations: on good terms with much of the Civilized Galaxy, leery of the Non-Coercive Zone, frequent contact with Caretaker gods and MPA, Trade agreements with most Civilized polities, peace treaty with the Solar Dominion |
History
Foundation
The Crystal Star Domain was founded in 4980 AT by a fleet of seven large colony ships ships which departed from the Enremdea System, capital of the Orion Federation with a single comm-gauge wormhole link. Their destination was HIP 28864, a triple star which they called Portal. The fleet was commanded by a S:3 transapient known as Crystal Star. The colonists included many bionts protected inside fluid-filled pods, and virtual sophonts in a virtual environment hosted by Crystal Star.Expansion
The Portal system was the base for further expansion towards the Periphery to rimward. In the region of the Cone Nebula, 2,700 light years from Sol, Crystal Star's domain came to include 100 brown dwarfs and other stars within a volume a little over 12 light years across. Each system that was settled by Crystal Star would include at least one Moon brain or Jupiter brain in residence, connected to the Portal System Main brain through wormhole links. The Crystal Flyers were created during this time in an artificial shell world with 100 levels of Crystal Flyer biospheres.During this time the Crystal Star Domain became independent of the Orion Federation, with little traffic of any kind passing through the wormhole to Enremdea. During this period of isolation Crystal Star decided that expanding to an even more remote location would be desirable. For this purpose Crystal Star built an autonomous Displacement Drive linelayer and sent it off in the direction of the Rosette Nebula in 6925. During the period that it took for the ship to reach the desired location Crystal Star began experiments in further megascale engineering projects. The population under Crystal Star's control prospered and grew. The people of the Crystal Star Domain grew feel genuine, non-memetic-engineered love for their gentle and creative god during this period.
The Displacement drive and wormhole link stopped just short of the Rosette Nebula in the year 9400. The chosen system was a quadruple star system. It was located 300 light years from the Rosette Nebula, which itself is 4720 ly from Sol. The star system was named Rose and contained an A4, G7, M8, and F9 star. Wasting no time Crystal Star inflated the wormhole between the Portal and the Rose systems and began its great project.
By this time the A0 star in the Portal System had been shrunk down into a F5 star due to star lifting. Also three other Crystal Star controlled systems had partial or full dyson spheres. Crystal Star had become very good at star lifting and sculpting by this point. Crystal Star had cleverly shaped every system in its control, stabilizing stars and changing the orbits of planets. The conditions in the Crystal Star dominion systems are some of the most stable in the Civilized Galaxy thanks to stellar and planetary modification.
Crystal Star systematically dismantled the entire Rose star system. What was to be built would be an amazing feat of megascale engineering. Using the iron of the Rose system stars, Crystal Star began constructing 10,000 4500km diameter iron spheres each containing 50% of earths mass in iron. The iron spheres were covered in a layer of computronium and connected to a central point through micro wormholes. This central point would eventually become the Rose God Star. On top of these spheres were constructed Shellworlds. Each layer of the shellworlds would be 10-5 km thick, and would each have 50-100 layers, each layer being made habitable through various means.
Territories
Portal Star System
The Portal system is a triple star system also known as HIP 28864, 1720 light years from Sol in Monoceros. The colonization fleet chose a resource-rich triple system that contained massive debris fields, as well as several planets in eccentric orbits, for colonization. None of the planets found proved habitable or even terraformable. The stars are in order of size: Central a A0 class star, Lifebringer a G5 star, and Darkshadow a large brown dwarf star.Rose God Star World Cluster
This multiple system is located 4416 ly from Sol. The first layer of each of the 10,000 shellworlds contains the infrastructure of the entire planet. They were completed along with a central god star in 9980. The combined living area of the Rose system, thanks to the 10,000 completely artificial shellworlds, reached a combined area of 200 trillion square kilometers. They were placed in very precise electron shell type orbits around the Rose God Star. Even the surface layers were made habitable. Orbiting fusion lamps provided the feel of a artificial sun and even a day and night cycle on the surface layer. The lower layers used conversion reactors to provide the energy for their lighting needs. The shell worlds where also given artificial magnetospheres.Also of note is the appearance of the Rose God Star. It has a deep rose color, due to the surrounding shell of power collection systems and processors which give off waste heat. This gives it the appearance of a Rose-Colored star and is considered an iconic sight by many of the local population. The Rose Star is part of the symbol of the Crystal Star domain: a seven-pointed crystal star over a rose-colored sun.
ShellWorld Biospheres
Each shellworld was given a unique biosphere. Whole new clades, races, and species were made, some similar to earth species, others unrecognizable. The Fantasy sphere is particularly worthy of a visit. Drawing on ancient earth mythology Crystal Star recreated many creatures of myth to inhabit this shellworld: dragons, unicorns, griffons, hive-minded fairies, and many others. It is one of the most beautiful of the shellworlds.Crystal Star Seraphim and Priests:
The priests and seraphim of Crystal Star are always of one species. This species, known as the Crystal Flyers or Kice, are neogen bioborgs of SI:1 level. They are mostly humanoid with 7 limbs, two legs, two arms, two wings, and a tail. The have multi-colored iridescent fur that seems to have a crystal like sparkle. They are hermaphrodites and most closely resemble the felines of earth. They are strikingly beautiful and considered by Crystal Star one of its greatest creations. Each shell world has a Crystal Flyer related biosphere on at least one layer. If one were to study the CF biospheres one would actually think they were natural. All of the life forms are interrelated in such a way as to seem to stem from a common evolution, just like those of natural Garden worlds. Huge trees as well as hexapod vertebrates dominate the Crystal Flyer biospheres.Political Relations
In 10020 Crystal star reopened the wormhole to the Orion Federation. Sending several Crystal Flyer seraphim, Crystal star announced its presence to the Orion Federation and subsequently to the entirety of Terragen civilization. The promotion of the Rose God Star World Cluster for emigration and colonization was also begun at this time. Over the next few hundred years the World Cluster population would increase by leaps and bounds. Image from Steve Bowers | |
| The Rosette Nebula | |
Present Day
The Crystal Star Domain now controls the 12 light year sphere near the Cone Nebula as well as a 24 light year sphere near the Rosette Nebula, it was considered a rather weak empire until the Solar Dominion made an attempt to capture a Crystal Star system. The attacking vessels were returned to the Solar Dominion after having been converted into a structure in the shape of a Crystal Star. Suffice it to say, relations between the Solar Dominion and the Crystal Star Dominion became peaceful very quickly with a treaty mediated by Crystal Flyers. A section of the Deeper Covenent and Beam Rider network has been established during the period since the opening of the original wormhole to the Orion Federation, allowing a moderate level of autonomy within the Crystal Star Dominion. Crystal Flyer Seraphim are still found in local Deeper settlements, though.Related Articles
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Development Notes
Text by James Ramsey
Updated 2/5/19 by Steve Bowers
Initially published on 04 August 2002.
Updated 2/5/19 by Steve Bowers
Initially published on 04 August 2002.
