Shepherd. The Charonian term for CORE.
Sphere. See Dyson Sphere.
Spin-storms. Artificial storms, created by gas-giant-breed Worldeaters, resembling hurricanes or tornadoes. They are used to pump atmosphere off the larger planets.
SubBubble. Subsurface bubble: a standard type of Lunar construction that consists of a large excavation under the Lunar surface. A subbubble is usually formed by melting an area of subsurface rock and then placing the interior under pressure. Much of Central City is composed of interconnected subbubbles.
Sunstar. The star in the Multisystem around which the Earth orbits.
Teleoperator, T.O. A remote-control device, generally resembling a humanoid robot but without a robot’s capacity for independent action. A T.O. is controlled by a human operator working in a control harness at a remote location. The control harness completely surrounds the operator and provides her or him with the sensory reactions—sight, hearing, and touch— experienced by the T.O. Servos in the controller operate the T.O. so that if, for example, the operator moves her finger, the T.O. moves its finger. As is the case with most Virtual Reality devices, the sensations reported by the T.O. to the operator can seem extremely real. Virtual Reality stigmata—such as cuts and bruises on the operator corresponding to damage on the T.O.—are not unknown. See Virtual Reality.
Terra Nova. A huge multigenerational starship mothballed in Earth orbit, a victim of the K-Crash.
UNLAC, United Nations Lunar Administration Commission. The old colonial power on the Moon, overthrown a century ago.
VBH, Virtual Black Hole. Currently a theoretical possibility only. In concept, a VBH is formed by an artificial massless gravity source so tightly focused that a microscopic black hole forms. If a VBH of a sufficient gravity gradient survives long enough in the presence of sufficient mass, it should be able to absorb that mass and thus become self-sustaining.
Virtual Reality. The general term applied to any technology that makes a nonlocal environment (real or imaginary) seem utterly real to an observer-participant. In most VR systems, at least vision and hearing are supported with sufficient quality to seem real. Often tactile sensations are supported as well. Typically, the participant will be able to manipulate the simulated environment in some way, through a remote control or sensor glove. See Teleoperator.
VISOR, Venus Initial Station for Operational Research. An orbital facility planned as the headquarters for the terraforming of Venus. The facility is expected to be mothballed shortly, thanks to the financial backlash of the K-Crash.
Von Neumann Cyborg Cluster. A partially living von Neumann system. Such a cluster might, for example, include a life-form genetically programmed to build seedships. The life-forms raised by the seedship would be bred to build more seedships and to deposit fertilized ova aboard the ships.
Von Neumann Machine. Any machine that can precisely duplicate itself. A Swiss army knife that included a Swiss-army-knife-making attachment would be a von Neumann machine.
Von Neumann Tour. A star travel technique in which a von Neumann ship travels to a new star system and duplicates itself a few hundred times, sending each of its replicates out to travel to new star systems.
Worldeater. The Charonian term for the massive life-form known to humans as Landers.
Wormhole. A link between two points in space, formed by creating two identically tuned black holes. The wormhole in effect renders the two points contiguous across a flat plane, no matter how distant they actually are from each other.
The Life Cycle of the Charonians
The Charonians are a spacefaring life-form, a multi-species comprising ten or twenty widely different species, devices, and robotic constructs. The biological components of the system may at one time have been “intelligent,” as the term is usually understood by humans, but no longer are. Charonians are capable of problem solving, task ordering, directed research, synthesis, but are very weak in what humans would regard as creative or independent thought. They can think of how to do things—how to work around problems, for example. They are not as good at thinking of what to do, or why. They work in large part by rote. In the old-fashioned phrase, they are hard-wired, relying on a communal heritage memory of the experiences of previous generations.
It is likely the present-day Charonians started out as seedships for a colonization venture, bearing the original biological Charonians to new homes in the sky, but either by ill chance or deliberate decision on the part of the robotic guardians of the germ plasm, things changed.
The machine-intelligent components of the system redesigned the system, repeatedly modifying both themselves and the genes of the living components. The result: the Charonians have become a form of von Neumann machine, capable of endlessly replicating themselves.
Humans have spent lifetimes studying the idea of von Neumann machines, but the concept, however appealing, has always been out of reach because the cost and engineering challenges were too great. No one ever considered a simple, elegant solution to the problem: that life is a von Neumann machine. We humans can endlessly duplicate ourselves. If our DNA were modified so that we instinctively built a certain type of spacecraft, and that spacecraft automatically carried our germ plasm to another world, then that would be a von Neumann. It is, after all, not the machine itself that must be duplicated and spread across the galaxy for the idea to work, but the plans for the machine.
Several types of life-form and robot compose the Charonian multispecies. The living and robotic components rely on each other in the processes of reproduction and replication. Neither the biotic nor the mechanical Charonians could survive without the other.
The Charonians have proved that faster-than-light travel is possible, but only between points linked by black hole transit pairs and the “wormhole” connecting the transit pair. Natural black holes do not work in wormhole systems—a spacefarer must build his own. Therefore, before faster-than-light travel between two stars is possible, sub-lightspeed vehicles must move between the two stars, building black holes on arrival at the star to be visited. Unfortunately, a device the size of the Ring of Charon is required to form a black hole.
The Stages of the Charonian Life-Robotic Cycle
Robot spacecraft called seedships are grown and manufactured by Dyson Spheres. Each seedship leaves its home Sphere, carrying the location of its home Sphere in its heritage memory.
The seedships travel at sublightspeed out from the Dyson Spheres and move between the stars, searching for life-bearing planets. When appropriate planets are found, the seedships land. They gather needed chemicals and compounds, and clone the first living stage in the cycle, which can be thought of as larvae. With the help of the larvae, the seedship constructs simple spacecraft.
The larvae are large creatures at birth (or, more accurately at decanting), the smallest the size of an elephant. They grow rapidly, and later develop into various specialized types. By virtue of their great size and rapid growth, they can quickly wreck the biosphere of a life-bearing world. Their behavior is in large part hardwired, in some part controlled by the seedship, but in small part volitional. The first few generations of the creatures simply breed as normal male-female pairs, bearing about six to eight offspring per mating. As they mature, most of these larvae are set to work building additional spacecraft, under the guidance of the seedships. Generally, the seedships are cannibalized for parts long before the larvae are ready to leave the planet.