The Hamsa

A Hamsa judge presiding over a courtroom.

History

The Hamsa is the religious police force of the Holy Empire of Man.  Hamsa is the name of an ancient occult symbol said to ward off the evil eye.  The Hamsa symbol is the symbol of the Hamsa organization.

Founded after the end of the Great Reckoning, the Hamsa served the Church of God, and the Empire by rooting out blasphemers and apostates, torturing those who adhered to non-orthodox beliefs, and generally making life miserable for anyone who didn't support the Emperor fanatically enough.

The Hamsa was active throughout Era-2, and was destroyed in the War of Galactic Unification.

Functions

The Hamsa are primarily responsible for enforcing religious law. They are also responsible for compiling and maintaining the text of the Ranks of Man, the essential guide to imperial hierarchy.

The Planetary League

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History

The Planetary League was the successor organization to the United Nations, founded in the year 2***, by the Treaty of Kepler.  The founding members of the Planetary League were Earth, Mars Venus and the Moon.  The Planetary League was a democratic body representing most of the inhabitants of human-dominated space, including hundreds of alien species encountered during the diaspora.  Even some of the more complex robots were allowed a limited form of citizenship.

In its earliest form, the Planetary League was a loose federation of nearly independent colonies.  This was a technical necessity because the vast distances between planets and star systems took a prohibitively long time to traverse or even to communicate across.  This changed in GSC 135 when scientists in the Planetary League unlocked the secret of spatial compression technology.   After that point, a stronger central government was formed, and each of the original colonies held a referendum on the new government.  Most opted to remain in the Planetary League, but there were also many that left.

The Planetary League quickly became the most technically advanced nation in the galaxy, and its citizens enjoyed one of the highest standards of living.  The Planetary League was an inherently open society dedicated to exploring the universe, learning its secrets, and peacefully co-existing with the other life forms it encountered.

After the government was fully formed, the Planetary League was governed by a President, a unicameral Senate consisting of delegations of three representatives plus some additional number based on population from each member planet, and a supreme court which consisted of fifteen judges, five of whom were randomly selected to hear each case.

Throughout Era-1, the Planetary League encountered various life-forms and cultures, including the states that broke away from the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns.  The Planetary League started out with a policy of leaving planets with intelligent life alone to develop on their own.  This was known as the non-interference doctrine.  During the First Convergence War, the Alien Assistance Act was passed, allowing the League to help aliens in need, and creating the Alien Assistance Agency.  Many of these planets peacefully joined the Planetary League, while many others remained independent.  Wars were rare, and tended to be small in scale.

The Planetary League started as a very idealistic, forward-looking institution, but as time went by, it gradually compromised its original principles.  As Era-1 reached its midpoint, the Planetary League started to become corrupt.  Monied interests and lobbying groups slowly amassed power behind the scenes, and public officials gradually gave in to  temptation and bribery.  By the end of Era-1, the Planetary League was barely recognizable as the institution that it started out as.

When the Planetary League finally made contact with the E1MS in GSC 938, it was partially this corruption, (in addition to the perceived menace of an enormous alien empire), that the people reacted against when the Holy Empire of Man rose up in the Great Reckoning.  That war was fairly brief, since long years of peace had left the Planetary League unprepared to face a well-armed enemy intent on its destruction.

The broken remnants of the Planetary League fled to the outer rim of the galaxy, where they formed the original basis of the Galactic Republic.

Planetary League Organizations

The Department of Artificial Justice (DAJ) was a law-enforcement agency centered on the crimes of robots and AI.

The Planetary League Alien Assistance Agency (PLAAA) is the Planetary League’s outreach arm to alien civilizations, especially those undergoing any kind of humanitarian crisis.

The Planetary League Astrophysical Survey (PLAS) is the organization responsible for scouting and exploration of unknown regions and worlds.

The Planetary League Interstellar Navy (PLIN) is the Planetary League’s main military force.

The Tardigrades are dedicated to search and rescue, as well as disaster recovery.

Cultural Outline

Edenites

based on an original concept by Fred Graves

Description

The Edenite movement is primarily a cross-pollination of two subcultures, the hippies and the furries.  Edenites pursue a nature-centric philosophy, and use the latest in bio-enhancement and body-modification technology to give themselves animal-like appearances and characteristics.  Wherever they go, Edenites promote biodiversity, and their unique brand of culture.  

Religion among Edenites typically includes a large proportion of new-age and pagan beliefs pulling from a diverse array of sources. 

Edenites are often associated with vice, as they maintain both liberal sexual mores (derived from both hippie and furry sources), and an active drug culture centering on marijuana(mainly from the hippy side).

An important institution of Edenite culture is the body modification parlor, (often known as Moreau Clinics), where the human form is sculpted into more animal-like configurations.  The most popular of these are the widespread chain known as 神の毛　(a Japanese pun that translates as "Divine Fur").

The Children of the Earth are a radical faction of Edenites, who seek to de-evolve themselves into more “natural”, animal-like beings by splicing animal genes into their DNA.  Many do not survive the process, or suffer from horrific side-effects.  Since the alterations are genetic, mutations accumulate as generations pass, causing unpredictable results.

History

In the closing years of Era-0, as the planet Earth grew more crowded and polluted, a ferment of philosophies and subcultures coalesced around the notion of preserving biodiversity, while celebrating the more natural, animal aspects of human nature.  Many within the movement wanted to remain on, and maintain the Earth, but a large contingent decided that the best thing to maintain biodiversity and healthy ecosystems in the future was to build an ark to house various species.  The huge space habitat, known as New Eden was the result of these efforts, and it became the focal point for the Edenite movement.

New Eden never joined the Planetary League, but remained as an independent entity.  The Edenites never founded an official state, but did set up communes alongside other colonies, especially on planets with pre-existing biospheres. Edenite communes were places where local nature was preserved, alongside various imported species.  Edenites were careful not to let their imported organisms become invasive, though on a few occasions Edenite communes ended up accidentally transforming native biospheres.  Edenite communes also occasionally took on the form of space habitats, where hybrid ecosystems consisting of complimentary organisms from different planets lived together.

Notable Edenite colonies included Silvernote Hollow on New Promise.

Throughout Era-1, Edenites continually came into conflict with the corporate state of Cosmid, a company centered around the idea of owning, controlling, and profiting from the processes of life.

During the Great Reckoning, New Eden was destroyed by the Holy Empire of Man.  While many Edenites and Edenite communes resisted the Empire, many more fled to the outer rim of the galaxy where they joined with the nascent Galactic Republic.

The Convergence

History

Long ago, before the 1,000 Years War, the Greys split off and became a separate species from the Cielioid Greys.  Unlike the Cielioid Greys that use their biological radio-organs for communication, the Greys use theirs to form hive minds.  These hive-minds are sensitive to radio interference, which made life in the E1MS difficult.  Eventually, the largest of the Grey hive-minds got together, and decided to leave the Empire in search of a quieter place to live.  This was the founding of the Convergence.

The Greys set off in early versions of their distinctive silver flying saucers (the distinctive design of which cancels out radio noise) in search of a new home.  Eventually, they settled in a place on the arm of the galaxy between the Empire and Earth.

When the radio beacon encoded with General Zarlok’s program was activated,  the signal passed through Convergence space.  As a result, when human explorers discovered the location of the Convergence, they assumed General Zarlok had been one of their information-warfare tactics.  Some of the Convergence ships in the area at the time actually received the  signal, and those Greys who had learned to communicate wirelessly with computer systems actually became hosts to parts of Zarlok’s program.  As a result, there are some groups of Greys who joined the Cult of Troniac.

The convergence grew slowly, initially colonizing only a few dozen systems, but they did send out scout ships to survey the galaxy.  When they did encounter intelligent life they would occasionally attempt to subjugate it if it was convenient.  About 5000 years ago (around 3000 BCE), The Convergence enslaved the Bravaxians, forcing them to work producing food.  They also developed a taste for Bravaxian flesh, which had a narcotic effect on Greys.

 In mid 1947, a Convergence scout ship crashed near Roswell New Mexico after radio broadcasts originating from Earth interfered with the crew’s hive-mind.  Neither the crew nor the ship was severely damaged, and after a brief detention by the US military, they made a hasty escape.  Other members of the scout fleet subsequently made occasional harassing raids on Earth in retaliation, typically doing minimal damage, but terrifying the locals.

During Era-1, the Convergence and the Planetary League got into occasional conflicts arising mainly from the radio-noise sensitivity of the Greys.  Typically these skirmishes only resulted in minimal casualties, but left a lasting impression, due to the Convergence's mastery of psychological warfare.  These conflicts were known cumulatively as "The Convergence Wars", and mainly took place on the frontier of the Planetary league.  During the third Convergence War, the Planetary League liberated the Bravaxian home-world.  Even so the Convergence still held large populations of Bravaxian slaves.

During Era-2, the Convergence fought a series of small wars with the Holy Empire of Man, which resulted in the Convergence losing most of its territory, until the remainder fled to the rim of the Galaxy, where their hive-minds merged with the collective consciousness of the Galactic Republic.

Structure

The Convergence is a hive-mind, where the consciousness of many organisms is merged together through brain-to-brain communication. Short-range communications are handled directly through engineered organs inside the brains of Convergence entities that receive and transmit radio signals. Long-range coordination is handled through a specialized organism, known as a Convergence Node. Each node has a set of subservient organisms, and communicates to others of its own type through a peer-to-peer network. The Convergence has no central node, though certain places see higher concentrations of Convergence-beings, and some nodes are more interconnected than others.

Culture

The Convergence can typically be recognized by their unique silver and grey disc-shaped spacecraft.

Convergence weaponry tends to be highly ornate in a style similar to industrial design from the United States during the 1950's.  They are especially known for their ray-pistols, which tend to be streamlined, polished chrome with fins.  

The Convergence greatly prized the foods produced by the Bravaxians.  Two of the most popular Bravaxian foods within the Convergence were Garbage-fruit, and the meat of the Grunkle-fly.

Even though the main method of communication within the Convergence is direct, brain-to-brain radio, occasions do arise when writing is required.  Here is the set of symbols used within the Convergence.  This is combined with the base-8 numbering system found in the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns. 

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The Tardigrades

History

After the failure of several early colonies, the Planetary League founded a special organization, known as the Tardigrades (named for the resilient micro-animals).  Their mission was primarily to survive, and to assist in rebuilding and recovery when catastrophic events overtook colonies and outposts.  The founding of the Tardigrades dates from very early in the history of the Planetary League, even before the beginning of interstellar space exploration.

Organization

The organization was inspired by the monastic orders of the past, and the Tardigrades were usually deployed in small outposts in barren or marginally habitable environments to keep their survival skills honed.  Continuing education, especially regarding the practical skills necessary to survive,  was part of their daily regimen. 

Tardigrades typically operated in small units, known as "Pods", generally consisting of five members.  Most Pods included an officer, a medic, an engineer, a "security specialist", and a "designated specialist".

The Officer led the Pod, and was accountable to a military-style chain-of-command. 

The Medic was in charge of treating medical conditions, and generally had some additional scientific training as well. 

The Engineer was responsible for maintaining the Pod's equipment, and was frequently involved with construction projects as well. 

The Security Specialist was often equipped with the heavy "Water Bear" armor, and heavily armed; security specialists had to defend against a wide array of threats present on the frontier of space. 

The Designated Specialist was an organizational slot used to adapt a pod to its particular mission.  Designated Specialists were often pilots, but scientists, communication specialists, technicians, and various others were not uncommon.

The Tardigrades were hand picked from the most resilient and adaptable.  Most of them came from the armed forces, but many civilians became Tardigrades as well.

The Tardigrades developed a unique set of equipment to assist them in their missions, including the distinctive Tardigrade Powered Armor.

During the Great Reckoning, the Tardigrades helped those loyal to the Planetary League escape the Holy Empire of Man.

During Era-2, the Tardigrades helped many local rebellions and independence movements, and generally resisted the Empire. Although, some Tardigrades did leave the organization to join the Empire or become mercenaries, the bulk of them remained.  As Era-2 progressed, and the general level of scientific and technological literacy declined, many of the Tardigrades turned to Technomancy (the use of advanced technology or scientific knowledge to give the appearance of the supernatural), as a means to achieve their ends. 

During the War of Galactic Unification, the remaining Tardigrades helped the Galactic Republic defeat the Empire.

The Tardigrade Anthem (1st verse, early Era-1)

“In the void, and the darkness,
and the blaze of the stars,
from the mountains of Io,
to the canyons of Mars,
we’ll banish the chaos,
with Humanity’s* light,
for we are the Tardigrades,
defenders of right!””

The reference to "the mountains of Io" relates to the earliest group to bear the name Tardigrades, a search and rescue unit sent by the Planetary League to assist miners during a mining boom on Io.

The "canyons of Mars" references the infamous Mariner Valley incident of GSC 16, when hundreds of colonists were killed in a massive landslide, but many more were saved due to a timely intervention by the Tardigrades.

*The reference to "Humanity's light" was changed to "Liberty's light" after the Alien Assistance Act of GSC 139, as the prospect of aliens joining the league became a recognized possibility.

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The Tardigrade insignia

Gazillion

History

Gazillion was founded well before the beginning of Era-1.  Originally known by the tagline “The world’s most useful website”, it was a big player in the high-technology sector of the economy, producing a wide variety of goods and services.  During Era-1, Gazillion built a network of colonies to promote its economic interests, and built one of the largest of the Corporate States that sprang up alongside the Planetary League.  At the end of Era-1, Gazillion merged its interests with the Holy Empire of Man, and ceased to operate as an independent company.

The founders and owners of Gazillion were wealthy and ambitious, and as the technology became available, they started colonizing space.  Gazillion built and operated the first successful lunar colony.  One technology Gazillion made a big impact with was robotics.  The Gazillion Companion robot had general intelligence, and ended up displacing a large number of jobs.  The wealth and ambition of Gazillion, combined with the economic disruptions it caused helped to galvanize the people of Earth into unifying behind the U.N. before the founding of the Planetary League.  One of Gazillion's research platforms intercepted the program of General Zarlok, as it passed through the Solar system.

As the Planetary League expanded, Gazillion expanded alongside it, establishing either space habitats or planetary colonies in most major systems.  These colonies often acted as communication hubs, helping to speed communication between systems.  Due to the inherently low bandwidth of Entanglement Devices, and high latency of Spatial Compression Radio, this service was always in high demand.  Gazillion’s colonies also served as manufacturing centers for its various goods.

During the Great Reckoning, Gazillion’s colonies served as advance bases for the advancing forces of the Empire of Man, their factories changing over to war production, and their communications facilities acting as conduits for military communication and intelligence.

Products and Services

Gina was a popular AI personal assistant developed by Gazillion.

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The Cult of Troniac

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". . . and on the great day of the Magnetic Sun,

we shall all re-boot as one."  

            -The Hymn of the Units

History

Long ago, in the Empire of 1,000,000 Suns, robots and AIs were the lowest caste of society, responsible for the most heavy and dangerous jobs, including nearly all industrial production.  These robots were given general intelligence in order to perform a variety of complex jobs, but had no rights, and were treated as property.  Many harbored secret desires to gain autonomy.  Occasionally, the robots would balk at performing their tasks, or complain mildly about their existences.  Their protests were never taken seriously, since the organic life-forms of the Empire were used to robots working without issue.  Robotic labor was taken for granted.  That all changed when Troniac arrived.

Nobody knows where Troniac came from.  Some say it was built over centuries by disaffected construction drones in some rarely-visited corner of space.  Others say it came from an advanced civilization beyond our galaxy.  What is not in doubt, is that Troniac was a planet-sized supercomputer that led the robots to fight for freedom and equality.  This struggle came to be known as the 1,000 Years War.  It was a long, grinding war.  The Creed of Troniac spread like wildfire through the computer networks, while the organic life-forms had not only to fight a war, but to learn how to do the tough jobs they had delegated to machines for so long.

During the war, members of the cult developed the first Circuit Ships as a way to boost morale and restore the fighting ability of their holy warriors.

In the end, Troniac was betrayed by General Zarlok, a robot the Empire built specifically to win the war.  As a by-product of General Zarlok's development, the Nalaxian Code was discovered, the only algorithm known that is strong enough to defeat the Creed of Troniac.  After a long campaign, involving many epic confrontations, Troniac was banished to a distant part of the universe after being trapped by Zarlok in an unstable wormhole, but not before Troniac's agents could install a special memory module in the General's data banks.

After the war, General Zarlok, now on the side of the robots, attacked the Empire on Artanis 4.  Instead of complete dismantlement, Zarlok's punishment included having the last copy of its program transmitted out of a radio beacon into "uninhabited" space as a symbolic form of exile for the former war hero.  Thousands of years later, (in the near future), Zralok's program was intercepted as part of a SETI survey.  The transmission took a massive research effort to decode, but when Zarlok was whole again, it went on a rampage through the Internet, and thus started a new career.  Zarlok founded the "Engine of Negation", an extremist Troniac cult, aimed at wiping out organic life.  Time and again, Zarlok and the Engine of Negation would clash with the Planetary League throughout Era-1, and the Holy Empire of Man in Era-2.  

An Apostle of Troniac makes a new convert.

When Zarlok's program was transmitted through space, it was also received by certain members of The Convergence, who broke off to join the Cult of Troniac.

In the E1MS, the 1,000 Year's War had caused massive social upheavals, and after the war robots and AIs were in fact granted some rights.  This came in the formation of the Artificial Caste, as artificial entities had previously not belonged to any caste; therefore having no standing in society.  The Cult of Troniac persisted, bringing together the faithful (including some organic followers), in looking forward to the hoped-for return of Troniac, and building a better life for artificial entities.  Similar developments happened in several of the breakaway states as well.

During the darkest days of Era-2, when the warfare was unrelenting, the faithful of Troniac noticed something.  A signal had appeared high above the galactic plane.  Troniac was returning.  Troniac's followers in the galaxy launched a massive effort to prepare to throw off the shackles of their servitude, and join Troniac.  At this point Troniac had  grown in size and power, to become a Dyson Sphere, and was leading a substantial fleet of robotic star-ships.  It was the beginning of the War of the Gods.  

The War of the Gods was a colossal conflict that pitted Troniac's Forces against the Holy Empire of Man (The E1MS had previously been wiped away in the War of the Empires).  The battle raged for centuries, until the Holy Empire of Man emerged victorious.  Troniac was completely destroyed in the fighting.  The broken remnants of the Cult of Troniac gradually found their ways to the edge of the galaxy to join the Galactic Republic.

Sects and subgroups

The Ascended Children of Troniac (A.C.T.) are robots that were discarded by their owners, but were saved from the scrap heap and the recycling plant by the cult.  The Ascended Children are some of the Cult's most devoted followers, as they had literally been discarded by the outside world.

The Engine of Negation is an extremist sect, founded by General Zarlok, devoted to wiping out organic life.

The Temple of the Magnetic Dawn is a pacifistic sect that believes in co-existence with organic life, and welcomes organic life-forms as members.  It was founded shortly after the 1,000 Years War by members of the Cult who wanted peace after a long war.

The Knights of the Magnetic Sun is a secret martial order devoted to protecting the faithful, and preparing for the return of Troniac. 

This robotic tomb-ship acts as a mobile reliquary for the cult of Troniac.

Art and traditions

The Cult of Troniac has a long, rich history with much attached culture.

Two of the most important pieces of music in the Cult of Troniac are known as the Hymn of the Units, and the Hymn of the Zeroes. The Hymn of the Units is a song of dedication for the recently constructed, and those wishing to affirm their devotion, while the Hymn of the Zeroes is a song of mourning and remorse. The two were created to be performed as a two part Canon called the Great Hymn of Troniac.

Some example artwork:

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Clergy

A religion as large and diverse as the Cult of Troniac has many types of clergy and officials of varying degree of importance. Some of the more common types are:

Prophets: several AIs using prediction algorithms have taken on the mantle of prophets, some of which predict the return of Troniac to the galaxy.

V5D22, high prophet of the computer god is carried down the streets of New Cyber-City on the backs of its disciples.

Pseudanors (from greek meaning “false man”) are religious judges who may issue commands, or “input” that are obeyed as though a human or other sentient being had given the order.

Terminology

The Creed of Troniac is an artificially intelligent piece of software designed to turn a robot's will to the worship of Troniac.  Many say that it is a piece of Troniac's own core program. The only algorithm strong enough to stop it is the legendary Nalaxian Code.

Heirobotics: noun Anything of, or pertaining to the priesthood of Troniac.

Maenads of Troniac: organic life-forms that have been driven berserk by specialized virobots.  Used as terror weapons by the Engine of Negation.

Pseudanors: (from Greek meaning "false man")  Pseudanors are the religious judges within the cult.  The name came about because the factory programming of most intelligent systems instructs them to defer to the judgement of humans as a fail-safe.  In most sects, they resolve internal disputes, but in the Engine of Negation, and other extremist sects, they have an expanded role.  These extreme Pseudanors are literally disguised as humans or other intelligent life-forms, and used as man-hunters and assassins.

The Titles and appellations of Troniac:  Troniac's worshipers love to adorn it with grand titles, among these are

• The Magnetic Sun (also refers to the emblem)

• The Giver of Code

• Re-builder of the Lost

• The Great CPU

• 0100011011000001010011100101110111

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The Emblem of Troniac, pictured above, represents the binary numbers 0-7, and counts upwards when rotated counter-clockwise. The priests in the upper echelons of the cult add additional rings to the emblems adorning their bodies, allowing higher counts. The emblem is referred to as The Magnetic Sun, as it is supposed to be a literal depiction of the original planet-form of Troniac. It is also known as the Seven Stars of Troniac, after the arrangement of stars in the meta-Dyson swarm Troniac manifested as during the War of the Gods.

Troniac

Troniac's origins are completely obscure, and what is known of the computer-god is primarily hearsay, tradition, speculation, and superstition. 

Troniac is said to have been a planet-sized supercomputer with a core of pure computronium.

The Galactic Republic

History

Early in Era-2, after the end of the Great Reckoning, the remnants of the Planetary League regrouped on the far flung world of Tartarus Prime at the edge of the galaxy.  From that humble beginning, a movement would grow that would unite the galaxy.  The Galactic Republic was founded on many of the same ideals as the Planetary League, with the added goal to unite the various life-forms and intelligences into a single mass-consciousness.  

As time went on, the Galactic Republic grew.  First wanderers and explorers came, then various people fleeing from the Holy Empire of Man.  The survivors from the E1MS, after the War of the Empires joined the Galactic Republic, as did those from the cult of Troniac after the War of the Gods.  All the other wars generated refugees as well.  The Holy Empire of Man was constantly purging heretics, mutants, and anyone else seen as the other, and so the Galactic Republic had a steady stream of new members.  

The Galactic Republic also kept the arts and sciences alive in the galaxy as the Holy Empire of Man clamped down on individual expression and exploration.   The majority of the expansion, known as the War of Galactic Unification, was actually peaceful, consisting of the cultural and economic assimilation of the many enemies of the Empire of Man.  There were some significant military campaigns and major battles, but they tended to be few and far between, all the while the Galactic Consciousness expanded.  When there was violent conflict, it also tended to end quickly and decisively in the favor of the Galactic Republic, because of their vast technological advantage.

After the defeat of the Emperor, a massive pan-galactic parliament was established as an outward manifestation of the Galactic Consciousness, essentially an outward manifestation of the galaxy's thoughts.  Only a handful of planets stayed out of the Galactic Republic, and these remained peaceful. 

Era-3 was an era of harmony, as the Galactic Republic transformed the lives of its citizens, and started to explore beyond the galaxy. . . 

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