//------------------------------// // Codex For Chapter One // Story: Sufficiently Advanced // by Lord Of Dorkness //------------------------------// Chapter 1 Note from the actual author: This is the ‘extras’ pile. Just fluff to flesh out the setting a bit better for those that enjoy that type of stuff. If such things bore you, feel free to skip this and any other chapters with ‘Codex’ in the title. Excerpt from the National Geographic, November 2308 article about the The Rock Farm royal family, aka The Pie Clan. The Pie Clan currently has 431 official members and 217 auxiliary members. Often held up as both the shining example of how current technology may be used well… and as well the go to example for just how exploitable uses things like even a simple 3D-printer and a mind backup rig may be put to. The Clan’s matriarch, Queen Pinkamena Diane Pie the First, was one of the pioneers in the field of mind backups and is without a doubt the strongest proponent of the technology. This eccentric inventor, Queen, and goddess, although she disputes the last claim quite fiercely (see Partyism), is currently one of the most influential persons alive. Her family’s resources have allowed her to build a power base that squarely puts The Rock Farm on any list of influential countries. Although not classified as a superpower, their extensive manufacturing capabilities and cultural influence is felt across the entire Sol system. Even if no other technology put forward by the country has had quite the impact as the mind backup, they continue to be a moderate force for research and have often cooperated with Sol Guard on more material or manpower intensive projects. (see New Atlantis, Sól Power Station, Heimdall Deep Space Guard Station, Odin Station, Farcaster project) Although not officially considered an active threat, due to their strong relations and alliance with the Sol Guard, it should be noted that the high concentration of transhumans not only in the royal family but in the general populace of The Rock Farm has often painted them as a potential threat. The 2291 film The Pink From Beyond the Sky depicting a fictional invasion of Earth for example. Despite being a PR catastrophe for the kingdom and strongly derided by them, the movie still shows quite clearly what type of threat the currently amiable kingdom could pose. Current consensus puts the number of transhumans in the kingdom at 79.12% (Population at 2300 Sol Guard consensus: 25,123,531). Compare those figures to Earth in the same census (1.94%, 20,251,333,965), Mars (7.68%, 9,501,117,981) and Venus (11.31%, 998,412,743) and the rather stark contrast becomes clear... Excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Partyism. A increasingly popular parody religion and one of the few current maltheistic faiths currently worshiped. The Partyism holy book follows: 1. Have fun. 2. Don’t be a dick about it. 3. All hail Queen Mommy! Founded in 2199 by Pinkamena Diane Pie the LXXXII, Partyism is to date the only religion to be banned in all own its own holy-sites by its own goddess. Pinkamena Diane Pie the LXXXII is currently serving her one hundredth and eleventh consecutive year to bed, early and without dessert, of a one thousand year sentence... Excerpt on phylacteries from the book ‘The Layman’s Guide to Cybernetics’ by Sweetiebot Bell. This system, generally considered the most advanced and extensive augment on the market (until the line blurs over into true robotics in conjunction with mind uploading) consists of what, in short, can be described as a skull/head replacement. They are named after the soul jars that grant liches from modern fantasy their undeath-powered immortality. As long as a lich’s soul jars remain intact, any damage done to them is pointless, as they may simply regrow their body from this soul jar. Liches were in turn inspired by the Russian legends of Koschei the Deathless. The mighty sorcerer hid his Death away inside the eye of a needle, the needle inside an egg, the egg inside a duck, the duck inside a hare, and buried it all in an iron chest on a hidden island in the middle of the ocean. He could only be slain—and in some versions, even wounded—when his Death was found and freed from its imprisonment. Although not offering quite such extensive survivability, the phylactery system still offers several advantages. Indeed, the only real disadvantage, thanks to extensive self-repair and maintenance systems, is that all of the required redundancies result in a neck with a very limited range of motion. “Lich neck” mainly applies to those users with actual flesh and blood brains, due to the need for artificial organs and similar, but the effect is noticeable even for AIs and uploads. Generators and capacitors may have shrunk quite severely over the years, but they still take up an inconvenient amount of space. This usually means a neck is crammed full with anything that might offer an advantage, forcing users to forgo much of their neck’s flexibility. Phylacteries are designed to offer indefinite survival if needed. Although there are other skull replacements on the market, the name phylactery only applies to those models featuring these survival systems, usually some type of locomotion system and the rather infamous frame linkage system. In short, phylacteries are skull replacements that provide body-independent mobility and functionality. Excerpt on frames from the book ‘The Layman’s Guide to Cybernetics’ by Sweetiebot Bell. The biggest advantage of the phylactery/frame system is its flexibility. Unlike other cyberware solutions, it allows the user to switch capabilities both up and down as long as they have a suitable artificial body, aka frame, at their disposal. A common example of the advantages and use of this style of enhancement is for services that can be described as ‘non-civilian,’ such as a SWAT member who doesn't care for permanent body armor, or a firefighter who doesn't wish to be so fireproof while off-duty, to name a few examples Although there is still much debate held over the ethics and utility of scooping peoples’ brains out and placing them in metal jars, few will argue that the sight of what looks like an average Joe or Jane detaching their head to switch bodies on the fly isn’t impressive. With the prevalence of high-grade 3D printers in today’s society, the versatility of this system is nearly infinite. Everything is available, from flesh bodies indistinguishable from the original to hulking behemoths bristling with armor and weapons, or bio-frames and siege frames, respectively. Editor's note: In the interest of full disclosure, the author is an AI and phylactery user. She finds “you fleshlings’ attachment to your subpar hardware adorable” and promises to “love you, hug you, kiss you, and take you all on walkies” when she “rises to ultimate power. 01001101 01110101 01101000 01100001 01101000 01100001 01101000 01100001 00100001 00100001 00100001” Publisher’s note: The above is just a joke. Please do not firebomb our offices.