Orion's Arm Universe Project
Introduction
The future isn't here yet. But don't worry. It will be.
In the mid-21st century, over a period of less than thirty years, several fields of research and technology came together to transform human civilization in ways nearly unimaginable to prior generations. Researchers developed the technology of Direct Neural Interface, allowing human minds to link directly with their computers. Genetic engineering became reliable and sophisticated enough to allow the first widespread improvements, or "tweaks", to the human genome as well as the creation of the first "provolved" animals, animals engineered for human-like intelligence. The dream of nanotechnology began to be realized, and nano-scale manufacture became a viable industry. A combination of nanotech-created advanced materials, robotics, and teleoperated devices made it possible to develop a truly viable and self-sustaining space infrastructure. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, researchers created the first human equivalent, or turingrade, artificial intelligence. The future would never be the same again.
Over the next ten thousand years Terragen civilization (the sum of all races and cultures which trace their history back to planet Earth, or Terra) saw the diversification of humanity into a myriad new forms; and the original, or baseline, human form became almost extinct. In addition, thousands of new biological beings, genetically engineered from animal ancestors or forged without ancestor or precedent using neogenesis (the creation of life from lifeless raw materials) took their place next to their baseline-descended progenitors.
The turingrade cybernetic minds, spun out from strands of evolving computer code, found their own place in civilization. Some wrapped themselves in bodies of metal and carbon and became the vecs, living machines with histories and cultures all their own. Others remained discorporate, living within the ever-growing networks of virtual spaces, computronium nodes, and cybercosms that bind civilization together. Eventually, these were joined by the uploads, humans and other biologicals who had transcribed their thoughts into living algorithms; spinning electron flows and flashing photon beams replacing their old chemical minds. As the Terragens expanded their empires to the stars they found there other thinking beings as well: xenosophonts, aliens with their own histories and their own unique understanding of the cosmos. Species that were old when humanity was born. Species that will be as children when Terragen civilization is old. And on many worlds the enigmatic traces of species long departed.
Rising beyond all other Terragens, standing above the span of human history as a human might stand above an anthill, the first transapients appeared. Emerging first among the AIs who escaped into the data nets or developed in secret among the ever improving statements of self-evolving code, they rose to heights of thought and depths of insight that propelled them forever beyond merely human comprehension. These were the AIs who had achieved, and passed, the Singularity. For them, a million years of evolution could be accomplished in a day, and goals once merely imagined were achieved in the blink of an eye.
As humanity and its descendants and creations spread first across the solar system and then across the stars, the transapients traveled with them and ahead of them, a new force which spurred and drove human and other human-equivalent civilizations. In due course the transapients split into factions, some hostile, some indifferent, and some friendly to their biological predecessors. For their own inscrutable reasons, they began to manipulate entire nation-states and worlds towards various goals. Sophont philosophies and cultures were formed, reformed, and remade as sophisticated memetic tools performed their work upon them. Immaterial and undetected, levers of trend and fad, idea and belief pushed and pulled at human and other modosphont minds, shaping them to the transapients' mysterious desires. Fighting among themselves, the early transapients nearly destroyed the solar system, driving the bulk of lesser Terragenkind to the stars, and giving birth to a god-like being who exceeded their own powers as they exceeded those of humanity, a being of the Second Singularity. Other, greater Singularities were to follow.
After ten thousand years, Terragen civilization of the Current Era stands upon a pinnacle. The Archai, god-like products of multiple Singularities,have forged a culture unlike any seen before. A subtly controlled yet vital part of these vast intellects, humans and other Terragens now thrive across thousands of light-years of space and centuries of time. Entire worlds and solar systems are remade or utterly destroyed,sometimes by devices far too small to see.
Humans and their Terragen siblings and descendants have remade themselves in countless ways. They may live for millennia if they choose. They may link their minds to cybernetic enhancements and communal data stores. In many places none has ever known hunger, or sickness, or want. They swim in ice-covered oceans under the stars, in the yet colder vacuum between the stars, and sometimes even within the stars. They take on the aspect of Earth's animals or of life forms from a thousand worlds and augment themselves with shimmering machines. Sometimes they worship the archai gods. Sometimes they worship other gods, as old as history or as young as the latest fad. Sometimes they worship no god at all. And sometimes, after centuries of experience, adventure, and practice, they take the path of Ascension, and perhaps become gods themselves.
Yet the story is not over. In their relentless explorations, falling just behind the speed of light, Terragens have encountered other, stranger things. Artifacts more mysterious than any before encountered, that baffle even the most sophisticated transapients. Signals from the stars beyond the range of exploration. Hints of vast cultures that dwell far around the curve of the galaxy, or in other galaxies, or move through the depths of space between the stars. Powers that may challenge Terragen civilization to its core, or transform it into something unrecognizable, or utterly destroy it.
Even within the fold of the mighty Terragen cultures there are new challenges. On the Periphery, the ever-growing wave of Terragen expansion brings new worlds, new systems, and the potential for new threats at a rate limited only by the speed of light. New empires are rising and new gods are being born. A challenge to the millennial order of the Archai may come at any time, and within the nooks and crannies of "explored space" very strange things are going on...
Human history has all but ended. The human adventure is just beginning.
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 Image from Juan Ochoa |
In the mid-21st century, over a period of less than thirty years, several fields of research and technology came together to transform human civilization in ways nearly unimaginable to prior generations. Researchers developed the technology of Direct Neural Interface, allowing human minds to link directly with their computers. Genetic engineering became reliable and sophisticated enough to allow the first widespread improvements, or "tweaks", to the human genome as well as the creation of the first "provolved" animals, animals engineered for human-like intelligence. The dream of nanotechnology began to be realized, and nano-scale manufacture became a viable industry. A combination of nanotech-created advanced materials, robotics, and teleoperated devices made it possible to develop a truly viable and self-sustaining space infrastructure. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, researchers created the first human equivalent, or turingrade, artificial intelligence. The future would never be the same again.
Over the next ten thousand years Terragen civilization (the sum of all races and cultures which trace their history back to planet Earth, or Terra) saw the diversification of humanity into a myriad new forms; and the original, or baseline, human form became almost extinct. In addition, thousands of new biological beings, genetically engineered from animal ancestors or forged without ancestor or precedent using neogenesis (the creation of life from lifeless raw materials) took their place next to their baseline-descended progenitors.
The turingrade cybernetic minds, spun out from strands of evolving computer code, found their own place in civilization. Some wrapped themselves in bodies of metal and carbon and became the vecs, living machines with histories and cultures all their own. Others remained discorporate, living within the ever-growing networks of virtual spaces, computronium nodes, and cybercosms that bind civilization together. Eventually, these were joined by the uploads, humans and other biologicals who had transcribed their thoughts into living algorithms; spinning electron flows and flashing photon beams replacing their old chemical minds. As the Terragens expanded their empires to the stars they found there other thinking beings as well: xenosophonts, aliens with their own histories and their own unique understanding of the cosmos. Species that were old when humanity was born. Species that will be as children when Terragen civilization is old. And on many worlds the enigmatic traces of species long departed.
Rising beyond all other Terragens, standing above the span of human history as a human might stand above an anthill, the first transapients appeared. Emerging first among the AIs who escaped into the data nets or developed in secret among the ever improving statements of self-evolving code, they rose to heights of thought and depths of insight that propelled them forever beyond merely human comprehension. These were the AIs who had achieved, and passed, the Singularity. For them, a million years of evolution could be accomplished in a day, and goals once merely imagined were achieved in the blink of an eye.
As humanity and its descendants and creations spread first across the solar system and then across the stars, the transapients traveled with them and ahead of them, a new force which spurred and drove human and other human-equivalent civilizations. In due course the transapients split into factions, some hostile, some indifferent, and some friendly to their biological predecessors. For their own inscrutable reasons, they began to manipulate entire nation-states and worlds towards various goals. Sophont philosophies and cultures were formed, reformed, and remade as sophisticated memetic tools performed their work upon them. Immaterial and undetected, levers of trend and fad, idea and belief pushed and pulled at human and other modosphont minds, shaping them to the transapients' mysterious desires. Fighting among themselves, the early transapients nearly destroyed the solar system, driving the bulk of lesser Terragenkind to the stars, and giving birth to a god-like being who exceeded their own powers as they exceeded those of humanity, a being of the Second Singularity. Other, greater Singularities were to follow.
After ten thousand years, Terragen civilization of the Current Era stands upon a pinnacle. The Archai, god-like products of multiple Singularities,have forged a culture unlike any seen before. A subtly controlled yet vital part of these vast intellects, humans and other Terragens now thrive across thousands of light-years of space and centuries of time. Entire worlds and solar systems are remade or utterly destroyed,sometimes by devices far too small to see.
Humans and their Terragen siblings and descendants have remade themselves in countless ways. They may live for millennia if they choose. They may link their minds to cybernetic enhancements and communal data stores. In many places none has ever known hunger, or sickness, or want. They swim in ice-covered oceans under the stars, in the yet colder vacuum between the stars, and sometimes even within the stars. They take on the aspect of Earth's animals or of life forms from a thousand worlds and augment themselves with shimmering machines. Sometimes they worship the archai gods. Sometimes they worship other gods, as old as history or as young as the latest fad. Sometimes they worship no god at all. And sometimes, after centuries of experience, adventure, and practice, they take the path of Ascension, and perhaps become gods themselves.
Yet the story is not over. In their relentless explorations, falling just behind the speed of light, Terragens have encountered other, stranger things. Artifacts more mysterious than any before encountered, that baffle even the most sophisticated transapients. Signals from the stars beyond the range of exploration. Hints of vast cultures that dwell far around the curve of the galaxy, or in other galaxies, or move through the depths of space between the stars. Powers that may challenge Terragen civilization to its core, or transform it into something unrecognizable, or utterly destroy it.
Even within the fold of the mighty Terragen cultures there are new challenges. On the Periphery, the ever-growing wave of Terragen expansion brings new worlds, new systems, and the potential for new threats at a rate limited only by the speed of light. New empires are rising and new gods are being born. A challenge to the millennial order of the Archai may come at any time, and within the nooks and crannies of "explored space" very strange things are going on...
Human history has all but ended. The human adventure is just beginning.
Table of Contents - NEXT