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Clarketech
Culture and Society > Myths and the Unexplained > Artefacts (Artifacts)
Technology > Technology Levels > Transapientech / Godtech / Clarketech
Technology > Technology Levels > Transapientech / Godtech / Clarketech
 Image from Keith Wigdor |
Clarketech is any form of transapientech or godtech that can be used by modosophonts in some useful way, a way that may or may not be related to its originally intended purpose. However this technology cannot be replicated by modosophonts though it may be self-replicating and the exact method of operation is not known for certain even though its modosophont users may have reasonable-sounding hypotheses on the subject.
The broadest definition of clarketech is technology which can be used by entities of a lower toposophic level, but not understood by them. It is rumoured that the most powerful clarketech devices cannot be used by modosophonts, but need a transapient or low level archai to control them, but such things cannot be reliably confirmed.
Clarketech is generally created or left behind by transapients and archailects, or — much more rarely — left by alien civilizations. Locations which have been abandoned after a period of occupancy by advanced entities may or may not yield items of this kind; on the other hand clarketech artifacts are discovered drifting in deep space. Often clarketech takes the form of a relatively small artifact, with a control interface that adapts itself to the user; sometimes the control interface is more challenging, and may take the form of a series of mental or practical challenges. Rare examples of very large clarketech devices are occasionally discovered.
Because it has properties that cannot be replicated by modosophont technology, clarketech is greatly valued by Terragen civilizations. But like most artifacts, clarketech eventually wears out. For this reason, adventurers and entrepreneurs known as Clarkers are always on the lookout for any new discoveries of clarketech, and countless fortunes have been made and lost in the search for this galactic grail.
The name originated from a famous saying by Arthur C. Clarke, an late Industrial Age to and Early Information Age fabulist:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
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- Godseed - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Generic term for any device that can bring about a radical ascension in the user's toposophic status, or the toposophic status of any sentient or sub-sentient to which it is applied. Many godseeds can exert a catastrophic effect on the user, or result in ascensions among the unprepared or maladjusted that result in perversities. For this reason the technology has become proscribed in many polities. Some well-known godseeds include Atzilut Sparkles, SNARE , the Olympus Pill, and Vinge's Revenge. There is a flourishing blackmarket traffic in godseeds, especially in less regulated regions of the galaxy. - Magic - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Apparent or claimed use of psychic (non-physical, non technological) powers to affect the outcome of physical events - Magic (technological)
- Magic Toy
- Magic Toy Box
- Null Box
- Omega Key
- Pseudoclarketech - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Technology that in all ways pretends to be, or appears to be, clarketech, but, although advanced, still shows itself to be amenable to study and reverse engineering. - Supersophonts
- Transapient-derived Technologies
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Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev
amended by Steve Bowers
Initially published on 25 November 2009.
amended by Steve Bowers
Initially published on 25 November 2009.
