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Design / SPOILERS - Storyline proposal
« on: December 14, 2010, 09:29:48 pm »
This post is not a brand new storyline proposal, it aims to deepen the current one. I will write my explanation in orange and in italics the edits. Of course the edits are modular and can be singuary taken or rejected.
TIMELINE
- Roughly 1,000,000 years ago and subsequent years
The beginning is quite short-cut. The base idea is goot, and I expanded to a struggle. And i changed a little the nature of the organism - instead of a virus (so destroying cells and weakening the target, with immunitary responses and so on) is a genetically programmed biological nano-bot, created engineriing a virus or bacteria wich replicates using raw biological materials introduced with food. And it didn't born as a psionic intelligence, the nanobots are the branches of a central executive. This is not "Nemesis" from Asimov anymore, and the advantage is that the Hivemind now has it's personal struggle toward perfection.
Also, a more detailed explanation of "how psionics work" can be helpful for the psionic warfare tech description!
On a remote planet in our galaxy called Antares, a viral life-form is engineered in a bio-weapons lab of one of the largest nations on the planet. This blood-borne organism -- not a virus anymore-- was programmed to infiltrate living beings, replicate and change the neural structure of the victim. Then it would have infected others in the traditional way a virus does.
The politicians of this nation begin founding of this technology to subvert Antareans of opposite viewpoints. However, the first experiments were a failure. Since the static nature of the programs, nanobots were to take control only for a few time, while external stimula changed the only things nanobots were to leave behind them were just psichic disorders. The next project involved the theoretic study of neural networks and information theory, and the nanobots were given an unique capability for devices of such a small scale - long range bulk communication using Low Frequency EM signals, and an improved short-range coordination capability (bulk groups of nanobots compute the EM LF signals and behave properly in the brain). Using a device to send information as crypted low frequency signal they were able to give new instructions to large groups of infected population. The device itself was using a biological neural computer, as Antaresians were using from centuries. As the Network grew in numbers there was an unpredicted result - the Network centers - the infected individuals - were able to coordinate between themselves, and they soon replicated and overcame the control imposed from the Device. At the end, the roles were exchanged and the feedback signals from the network were able to re-adjust the Device purpose, from control device to Central executive of this new extended brain. The central executive was necessary to coordinate the centers - if left alone, the moviments of people on the planet would have led to a chaotic continuos reassembly of the network, making it less efficient. The central executive device role was to re-adjust cognitive paths as people moved through the Network, to keep trace of stored information and integrate them for decision-making. The politicians weren't aware of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontal_lobe
The virus gains enough intelligence to become self-aware, developing a will of its own as well as a powerful need to grow and survive. It starts to think of ways to shake its masters' control. In the shadows, it begins using its hosts to subvert innocent Antareans. It is cloak-and-dagger work; the virus spreads by directly injecting intended hosts with infected blood. Meanwhile, the Antarean state grows more and more totalitarian, absorbing other nations into itself with the help of XVI -- which is now using them to gain more hosts.
Then the virus manages to infect the first of its masters. With his knowledge and direct access to the other rulers, the rest of the masters quickly suffer the same fate. Within two years after this event, the virus takes possession of 98% of the planet's population. Conflicts and resistance cease as the hive mind assumes dominance over the planet.
- Roughly 998,000 years ago
Antares has become overpopulated to the point where the planet's resources cannot sustain the growing number of hosts anymore. Yet the hive mind must keep growing, this is its most basic instinct and its only desire. It sees only one way out: up.
Strip-mining the planet's remaining resources, the virus starts to build a massive starship in orbit around the alien homeworld, on which to transport its hosts to other sources of metal and energy in faraway star systems. It has a reason: The ark must be big enough to house the entire planetary population of hosts. All of them are coming along.
The viral mind cannot voluntarily divide itself for more than a few days, much like a sane human being wouldn't voluntarily lobotomise himself. After a few days the XVI organisms in the hosts' blood will begin to re-organize an independent neural network and resist reassimilation into the original mind, growing their own new mind instead. If left alone, these could grow more powerful than the original whilst outside supervision, and would undoubtedly come into conflict with the original over the same resources, or worse take control of the entire network with altered cognition, such as the original did few years before on the Device. The original is well aware of this and has no intention to be anything but number one.
Here I made XVI more intelligent, more "Chessy", instead of a disordered-growing-allconsuming cancer, as you would expect from something with frontal lobes
- Roughly 997,980 years ago
The ark is complete and sets out at sublight speeds to the next star system, intent on finding new resources to maintain the host population and producing new hosts so that the hive mind may keep growing. Also the Central Executive Device was expanded to have more computational power
- Roughly 860,000 years ago
XVI, foreseeing the weight of population manteinance took complete control of breeding procedures, mantaining his neuronal centers to an optimal level between computational power and resource consumption. However,the travel time between star systems is taking too long; shortfalls and famines loom on the horizon.
As everything, this part is optional but makes XVI a more cool and reflective guy... and it justifies why the technological leap of wormholes came just now. And give a dramatic background to Ortnoks
In a relatively nearby Star System, for the first time in its long trek, XVI finds another inhabited planet, bearing an intelligent species -- Ortnoks -- in its Dark Ages. While the necessity of new resources was starting to be the first priority, XVI calculated some loss and developed a different plan. Using a cautous approach he studied then infected part of the population. Such a primitive host would have made good work force and strong soliders but nothing best on the long run. After mapping the Ortnok genome and adjusting for their physical irregularities XVI studied the primitive societies of that race, recognized theyr priests and leaders, selectively infected them and use them to puppet the efforts of the population toward technology and religion. While this was happening, XVI archieved something new - he moved the important information from some infected individuals to others, leaving useless ones behind, then brought two/thirds of population into death, saving theyr genetic codes for future cloning. So he ensured the remaining resources would have been enough for a millennia. Then he waited, weakened. The Ortnoks evolved at a very high rate with the benign assistance of XVI, but still indipendently. They created theyr own social structures, theyr own scientific method and approach. But still they were waiting the "Gods" from the sky, as XVI plotted once he taken control of the first spiritual leaders. After a few centuries the Ortnoks were beyond the modern era, and theyr race was worth assimilation. So the Ortnoks welcomed the invaders as theyr Gods, drank theyr holy blood for the sake of salvation, and the nanobots spread and replicate themselves in the whole population in a matter of weeks. This assimilation compensated the loss of many network centers. And those who were once post-modern scientists, philosophers, thinkers, politicians, workers begun excavating theyr own planet as acquired slaves, and XVI had new resources. XVI merged the almost closed scientific path and knowledge of Antaresians with the Ortnoks' fresh scientific method. The old knowldges merged with the new method allowed XVI to a huge technologic leap: The Whormhole FTL drive.
The ark can now travel to new resource centres in weeks instead of centuries; a new fleet of scout UFOs is sent all over the galaxy to find hot spots. When XVI resumes its nomadic trek, it takes the Ortnok hosts with it, leaving only a barren, lifeless shell.
More to come, if you liked it
TIMELINE
- Roughly 1,000,000 years ago and subsequent years
The beginning is quite short-cut. The base idea is goot, and I expanded to a struggle. And i changed a little the nature of the organism - instead of a virus (so destroying cells and weakening the target, with immunitary responses and so on) is a genetically programmed biological nano-bot, created engineriing a virus or bacteria wich replicates using raw biological materials introduced with food. And it didn't born as a psionic intelligence, the nanobots are the branches of a central executive. This is not "Nemesis" from Asimov anymore, and the advantage is that the Hivemind now has it's personal struggle toward perfection.
Also, a more detailed explanation of "how psionics work" can be helpful for the psionic warfare tech description!
On a remote planet in our galaxy called Antares, a viral life-form is engineered in a bio-weapons lab of one of the largest nations on the planet. This blood-borne organism -- not a virus anymore-- was programmed to infiltrate living beings, replicate and change the neural structure of the victim. Then it would have infected others in the traditional way a virus does.
The politicians of this nation begin founding of this technology to subvert Antareans of opposite viewpoints. However, the first experiments were a failure. Since the static nature of the programs, nanobots were to take control only for a few time, while external stimula changed the only things nanobots were to leave behind them were just psichic disorders. The next project involved the theoretic study of neural networks and information theory, and the nanobots were given an unique capability for devices of such a small scale - long range bulk communication using Low Frequency EM signals, and an improved short-range coordination capability (bulk groups of nanobots compute the EM LF signals and behave properly in the brain). Using a device to send information as crypted low frequency signal they were able to give new instructions to large groups of infected population. The device itself was using a biological neural computer, as Antaresians were using from centuries. As the Network grew in numbers there was an unpredicted result - the Network centers - the infected individuals - were able to coordinate between themselves, and they soon replicated and overcame the control imposed from the Device. At the end, the roles were exchanged and the feedback signals from the network were able to re-adjust the Device purpose, from control device to Central executive of this new extended brain. The central executive was necessary to coordinate the centers - if left alone, the moviments of people on the planet would have led to a chaotic continuos reassembly of the network, making it less efficient. The central executive device role was to re-adjust cognitive paths as people moved through the Network, to keep trace of stored information and integrate them for decision-making. The politicians weren't aware of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontal_lobe
The virus gains enough intelligence to become self-aware, developing a will of its own as well as a powerful need to grow and survive. It starts to think of ways to shake its masters' control. In the shadows, it begins using its hosts to subvert innocent Antareans. It is cloak-and-dagger work; the virus spreads by directly injecting intended hosts with infected blood. Meanwhile, the Antarean state grows more and more totalitarian, absorbing other nations into itself with the help of XVI -- which is now using them to gain more hosts.
Then the virus manages to infect the first of its masters. With his knowledge and direct access to the other rulers, the rest of the masters quickly suffer the same fate. Within two years after this event, the virus takes possession of 98% of the planet's population. Conflicts and resistance cease as the hive mind assumes dominance over the planet.
- Roughly 998,000 years ago
Antares has become overpopulated to the point where the planet's resources cannot sustain the growing number of hosts anymore. Yet the hive mind must keep growing, this is its most basic instinct and its only desire. It sees only one way out: up.
Strip-mining the planet's remaining resources, the virus starts to build a massive starship in orbit around the alien homeworld, on which to transport its hosts to other sources of metal and energy in faraway star systems. It has a reason: The ark must be big enough to house the entire planetary population of hosts. All of them are coming along.
The viral mind cannot voluntarily divide itself for more than a few days, much like a sane human being wouldn't voluntarily lobotomise himself. After a few days the XVI organisms in the hosts' blood will begin to re-organize an independent neural network and resist reassimilation into the original mind, growing their own new mind instead. If left alone, these could grow more powerful than the original whilst outside supervision, and would undoubtedly come into conflict with the original over the same resources, or worse take control of the entire network with altered cognition, such as the original did few years before on the Device. The original is well aware of this and has no intention to be anything but number one.
Here I made XVI more intelligent, more "Chessy", instead of a disordered-growing-allconsuming cancer, as you would expect from something with frontal lobes
- Roughly 997,980 years ago
The ark is complete and sets out at sublight speeds to the next star system, intent on finding new resources to maintain the host population and producing new hosts so that the hive mind may keep growing. Also the Central Executive Device was expanded to have more computational power
- Roughly 860,000 years ago
XVI, foreseeing the weight of population manteinance took complete control of breeding procedures, mantaining his neuronal centers to an optimal level between computational power and resource consumption. However,the travel time between star systems is taking too long; shortfalls and famines loom on the horizon.
As everything, this part is optional but makes XVI a more cool and reflective guy... and it justifies why the technological leap of wormholes came just now. And give a dramatic background to Ortnoks
In a relatively nearby Star System, for the first time in its long trek, XVI finds another inhabited planet, bearing an intelligent species -- Ortnoks -- in its Dark Ages. While the necessity of new resources was starting to be the first priority, XVI calculated some loss and developed a different plan. Using a cautous approach he studied then infected part of the population. Such a primitive host would have made good work force and strong soliders but nothing best on the long run. After mapping the Ortnok genome and adjusting for their physical irregularities XVI studied the primitive societies of that race, recognized theyr priests and leaders, selectively infected them and use them to puppet the efforts of the population toward technology and religion. While this was happening, XVI archieved something new - he moved the important information from some infected individuals to others, leaving useless ones behind, then brought two/thirds of population into death, saving theyr genetic codes for future cloning. So he ensured the remaining resources would have been enough for a millennia. Then he waited, weakened. The Ortnoks evolved at a very high rate with the benign assistance of XVI, but still indipendently. They created theyr own social structures, theyr own scientific method and approach. But still they were waiting the "Gods" from the sky, as XVI plotted once he taken control of the first spiritual leaders. After a few centuries the Ortnoks were beyond the modern era, and theyr race was worth assimilation. So the Ortnoks welcomed the invaders as theyr Gods, drank theyr holy blood for the sake of salvation, and the nanobots spread and replicate themselves in the whole population in a matter of weeks. This assimilation compensated the loss of many network centers. And those who were once post-modern scientists, philosophers, thinkers, politicians, workers begun excavating theyr own planet as acquired slaves, and XVI had new resources. XVI merged the almost closed scientific path and knowledge of Antaresians with the Ortnoks' fresh scientific method. The old knowldges merged with the new method allowed XVI to a huge technologic leap: The Whormhole FTL drive.
The ark can now travel to new resource centres in weeks instead of centuries; a new fleet of scout UFOs is sent all over the galaxy to find hot spots. When XVI resumes its nomadic trek, it takes the Ortnok hosts with it, leaving only a barren, lifeless shell.
More to come, if you liked it