For this post, I've grabbed the description of every technology in the game. Some are human only or klackon only, but many are available to both races. I may update the Civilopedia posts with more info later.

Adaptive Farming
It goes without saying that a supply of food is important to the continuing stability of any civilization. Though it is possible to eke out a meager living by growing crops brought from the home planet in various nutrient broths, the better solution is to adapt those food crops to the local soils and conditions. Beginning with small successes in adaptive horticulture (experimenting with nonessential plants), the early colonists gradually discovered methods and means for adapting their invaluable seed crops to thrive in the Funestian ecosystem. This not only guaranteed their long term survival on the new planet, but also significantly reduced the various costs of large scale food production.

Allotropics
The development of biologically allotropic organisms--viable creatures able to exist in multiple forms without significantly changing their internal structure--was a watershed moment in the progress of advanced genetic engineering. This new science not only provided us with a new realm of military units and a greater understanding of morphic energies, but it was at this juncture that the possibility of taking our species intentionally through the next step in our evolution became more than just a philosopher's dream. If we could recreate the legendary griffins, there seemed to be nothing to prevent us from engineering ourselves into intelligent, allomorphic beings--proteus sapiens, shape-shifters.

Mechanized Armor
War machines are one legacy of our home world's technology that many would have liked to have seen forgotten. Unfortunately, on an unexplored and hostile planet, we do not have the luxury of pacifism. Even some of the other nations that have sprung up from surviving groups from our own ship have proven to be less than trustworthy. Skirmishes can escalate rapidly into protracted wars, and we must be able to defend our cities and, if necessary, pursue offensive options to ensure the security of our territory and citizens. New developments in automation, control systems, and weaponry have made our war machines quite different from what we might once have meant by the term 'mechanized armor'. The first generation of mechanized robotic war machines (MRWMs) surpass anything that ever trod the battleground on our home world.

Genetic Artistry
Over time, the sciences that have allowed government funded labs and large corporations to tamper with the genetic code and create different and sometimes improved transgenic versions of existing organisms have gradually become more and more accessible to the common citizen. As the equipment required has gotten smaller and the necessary investment come within the budget of the average household, it was perhaps inevitable that our species creative spirit would make a showing. Nowadays, the design and generation of new, odd, and often beautiful creatures and plants is an enjoyable hobby, a common pastime, and for some a new art form. New museums, galleries, and even a group of genetic collectors have sprung up seemingly overnight. As an added bonus, the government labs can often recruit the brightest stars of this new medium to design useful organisms for use throughout the whole empire.

Aerology
The atmosphere surrounds us, supplies us with oxygen, and protects us from the vacuum and radiations of space. It also produces weather, which sometimes threatens us with extinction. Aerology is the name for a broad category of atmospheric sciences. Understanding the patterns of climate and the resulting local weather on our new planet is not only necessary to efficient agriculture, but also vital to the survival of our little community. Among other things, it allows us to predict where violent weather is likely, so that we do not build there, and gives us the schedule of rainy and dry seasons on which to base our agricultural calendar.

Proteus Sapiens
The creation of the new species, proteus sapiens, was the start of a biological upheaval as great as the ancient change from neandertal to modern humans. Among other revolutionary shifts, this marked the absolute and permanent merging of the intelligent species in this system. Though each nation retained its independent identity, it became impossible to tell the citizens of one from the others simply on the basis of biology. Over time, this common resemblance helped to encourage peaceful relations between civilizations, but--a sad lesson history teaches us--being part of the same species is not enough to prevent warfare when there are religious differences and political ambitions involved.

Quantronics
Just as electronics is the science of engineering devices based on the movement of electrons and positronics depends similarly on controlling their antimatter counterpart, positrons, the field of quantronics has at its source the fundamental "physical" unit of the quantum universe--the quantron. Though the activities of each one are essentially unpredictable, quantrons in large numbers do follow certain statistically determined behavioral patterns. As such, they are vulnerable to manipulation, though not on the order of detail that electrons are. Devices built around quantronic theory give new meaning to the concept of modifying the environment. In fact, some of the larger and more powerful among them are perfectly capable of rearranging chunks of reality the size of small cities. This technology promises to lead to incredibly dangerous weapons, but in the short term, most of its applications have been in the field of computing, not warfare.

Flood Prediction
In every clime, there are underlying causes and patterns behind the weather. Though it can take some time and a great deal of meticulous record-keeping and cataloging effort, understanding the local meteorological phenomena is a boon to any settlement. Especially in areas prone to regular flooding, as seems to be the case over most of Funestis, it is futile to build bridges or roads near any body of running water until you know the schedule and the strength of the deluges. Then, you can use your knowledge to predict floods and avoid the resultant destruction and casualties.

Chaos Biogenics
The science of biogenics concerns itself with the creation of biological organisms. It dates its beginning from the time an unidentified researcher in syncretic biology accidentally discovered a large, unstable protein molecule that turned out to be the long-sought biogen--a sort of biological philosophers stone. When this semi-mythical, hypothetical protein suddenly became real, it opened the floodgates to a whole new realm of biology. Scientist found that they had the fundamental force behind all of biology in their hands. Of course, it wasn't that simple. The instability in the biogen conferred strong chaotic properties on all biogenic energies and materials. The creations of this science, though often powerful and sometimes wonderful, are always unpredictable. Nothing good comes without risk, and in chaos biogenics, that is doubly true.

Hybrid Design
The human technology of biorobotics was a frail and barbaric precursor to true integration of biological and technlogical elements into the same organism. Hybrid design was the next giant step toward the final goal of merging organic parts from any species with whatever mechanical devices seemed fitting to the needs and purposes of the being in question. Robust, microminiaturized plasmatronic control systems enabled the different bits to work together seamlessly, and genetic predesign of organisms prevented rejection. There was some public backlash when these techniques debuted, but as is usual, time eased the fears of many, and success helped to assuage and remove the stubborn objections of even the most strident critics.

Electronic Brains
We are all familiar with the stories of the magnificent computers that helped the pilots to control and navigate the original mother ship to this system from our home planet. In essence, these were devices capable of performing repetitive arithmetic and logical functions far more quickly than an organic brain. What they lacked in complexity, they made up for in brute speed. The electronic brains developed since landing here are not quite the same thing, though we put them to many similar uses--navigation, control of complex and tedious processes, and mathematical calculation. These are true connection machines, perfectly capable of building and retaining logical pathways that were neither programmed into them nor foreseen by their builders. Though no one suggests that these devices are conscious or even advanced enough to be considered minds, they are able to learn, and their capabilities truly pass far beyond those of the legendary computers of old.

Plasmatronics
The manipulation of plasma for control and communication purposes was one of those sciences that began with an accident. The pilot of a Mechanized Robotic War Machine (MRWM), in the midst of a pitched battle, found himself in a dead vehicle. All systems were operational, except that his power line had been severed. Stuck without power, the pilot noticed that his imaging system was turning itself off and on repeatedly. Hunting down the cause, he found that a broken plasma conduit was tapping against one of the imaging relays, intermittently providing power. Thinking fast, the clever pilot tapped into his weapons plasma source for electrical power and reanimated his MRWM. As a result, research engineers began providing every vessel with a plasma power backup. They eventually used the plasmatronic systems as the primary, after they added a positronic brain to provide the necessary control feedback processors.

Code of Trust
A frontier is a rough place. Without some sort of law, even the most well intentioned group of colonists can degenerate into violent anarchy and pandemonium within a remarkably short period of time. Taking a cue from history, most successful early civilizations developed a code of conduct--written or unwritten--that provided some stability and what future theorists would call a "primitive social contract" of sorts. Examples from human history include the legendary "Law of the West" and the Gentleman's Code. This set of rules gives a society an agreed-upon basis on which to build. Without this set of behaviors, a community finds it difficult to realize the bonds of trust necessary for the construction of a true civilization.

Forward Vectoring
Since the first era of space flight, what humans call the "Hohmann orbit" has been recognized as the most efficient ballistic method of traveling between planets in the same system, as long as both of the planets orbit in or near the local ecliptic. Developments in the understanding of the nature of gravity and insights into the pervasive fields that comprise and thus mold the form of the universe resulted in an engineering opportunity that was not at first apparent. Forward vectoring is a complex (to the lay person) system of gravitational and field equations. One solution of these equations allows for the possibility of more efficient--in fact, practically instantaneous--translation of a vessel from one planet to another. The equipment required is bulky, and the trip is hard on the vessel; only the most heavily armored war machines seem able to survive intact.

Xenolinguistics
To communicate with a completely alien species involves more than just deciphering a spoken language (assuming they even use verbal communication). The most basic concepts spring from the way an organism senses the world around it. Anatomy, the structure of the nervous system, types and locations of sensory organs, and many other details determine the methods and forms of communication a species will eventually come to use. To comprehend the language, one must understand the organism and have some sense of its social history. Without intimate knowledge, it's all just gibberish, and any attempt at translation is doomed to failure in a sea of unproven speculation. Once this primary barrier has been breached and contact is made, information floods through and diplomacy can begin.

Collective Rule
Collective rule is an idea taken from the study of social insects, both here on Funestis and on our home world, and made possible by modern information and communication systems. In its simplest form, the collective concept posits a system of government in which resources, production facilities, and authority are the shared property of the population. Individual property still exists, but power over the functions of government is shared. Responsibility and labor are shared, as well, so that each citizen realizes equal duty and equal benefit. Ideally, such a system precludes the existence of a ruler. However, experience has shown the need for an analog to the queen of a hive. Though this "queen" has little authority over the day to day function of the collective, she controls and is responsible for both relations with other civilizations and the overall direction of the society as a whole.

Citizens' Compact
Throughout history, the members of every civil society have lived by a set of unwritten rules that allowed large groups of citizens to coexist without constant aggravation and unchecked violence. These rules, whether referred to as etiquette, a code of conduct, cultural conformity, or a social contract, were without question a useful, if sometimes constricting, tool of civilization. The Citizen's Compact is no more or less than any of these codes of civil behavior. The only difference is that the Compact is written document, distributed and proliferated throughout the population, enforced by the will of the common people, and subject to emendation by vote of the general citizenry. It is an interesting social experiment, and one that has its advantages.

Wireless Networks
The distribution of information is vital for any large, complex society to function efficiently and progress beyond the primitive industrial stage of development. Back on our home planet, we had over time created a world wide network of wires, cables, fibers, and other systems for relaying transmissions. Our first struggling attempts at a planetary info-net were based on this existing infrastructure. On Funestis, of course, the early settlers had no such preexisting system, and they certainly did not have the resources to create a global communications infrastructure from scratch. Without resorting to satellites (which were in their infancy at any rate), our hardy ancestors investigated the characteristics of the Funestian ionosphere and discovered a way to bounce narrowly focused signals great distances without massive hardware requirements. Using this technique (along with a lot of other reinvented communications technology), they set up wireless networks for information distribution throughout civilization.

E-M Repulsion
Although our species has been using various forms of electromagnetic energy for hundreds of years, we still have not exhausted its potential utility. The development of electromagnetic (E-M) repulsion field theory is just one example of the kind of surprises science can provide. The E-M repulsion field is, in essence, a wall of energy that prohibits passage of both material objects and most forms of energy. Though this is an oversimplification, it correctly defines the EMR field's primary function--defense. We can build EMR fields of any size, provided we have the capacity to generate enough energy to maintain it. Military units can carry portable field generators to set up when stationed in one place for a long time. Support units can build more permanent force field structures, and we can even surround an entire city with a giant field of repulsive force. When worn as a personal shield, the EMR field makes armor and weapons unnecessary, and repulsion of the ground below the unit's feet allows faster movement.

Flying Machines
The idea of flight has tantalized all beings since their earliest days. Studies regarding the possibility of reproducing the flying machines we know from the home world date back to the first days after the landing. Various engineers and inventors with leisure time experimented successfully with gliders, and experiments with the rare bits of found and recreated technology met with limited success. The key to success in powered flight on Funestis was not the reinvention of the internal combustion engine, as one might think, but an extension of the new technology of controlled electromagnetic repulsion fields. This new era of flight advanced rapidly from its starting point, primarily due to the memories of a time when our species ruled the skies of the planet of our birth.

Craftsmanship
It's not enough to just do the job that needs to be done and move on. When your goal is to rebuild a civilization from the scraps left over after a star ship crash, you need to learn from every project and pass that knowledge on to future workers. In the early history of our home world, skilled craftspeople set up a system of apprenticeships to just that end. Techniques and skills drawn from trial and error and personal experience were passed from the expert to the students, who then became the next generation of experts. In this way, the knowledge base grew and only little information was lost over time. The reinvention of this system of craftsmanship proved vital in our early days on Funestis, both as a system of data retention and as a strong thread in the social fabric of the early colonies.

Proteocracy
A protean being is a flexible being, and protean citizens deserve a government that is as adaptable and efficient as they themselves are. This is the source of the Proteocratic way. A proteocracy is a system of rule in which modern methods of mass communication--two-way communications--allow every citizen to assert a great deal of control over the actions of the government, both directly and through representatives. Citizens gather often in their favorite virtual forum, and each has an opportunity to speak and be heard, and to vote on issues affecting the community and the nation. Gathering large populations into even a virtual forum can be impractical, so there is sometimes a need to rely on elected representatives to carry a community's views to the ruling managers. Among other benefits, the protean system results in great personal and economic freedom for every citizen, which has proven to contribute vastly to the economic well being and productivity of the nation as a whole. Perhaps the only bane is that leaders tend to become disposable when the population at large has the ability to run things themselves.

Market Economy
The idea of basing a nation's economy on the "invisible hand" of supply and demand is certainly of questionable wisdom. After all, our history is replete with examples of greed and corruption ruining any system that does not have built-in safeguards against abuse. Nevertheless, this sort of market-based economic system is good enough for the purposes of expanding the productivity of our small, growing empire. In time, we will find something better. For now, however, the antiquated ideas of Adam Smith are an expedient, if less than perfect, temporary solution.

Free Expression
Throughout history, citizens have valued the freedom to speak their minds without fear of punishment. Unfortunately, that freedom has often been considered a luxury that those in command could not afford. In the early days of our time on Funestis, the free expression of opinions and conflicting ideas was not always welcome. Times were hard, and minority voices were often ignored or stifled in the interest of common vision and stable leadership structures. Thankfully, those days seem to be over, and with suitable amendments to the Citizens' Compact, the expression of ideas and opinions, in whatever form they might take, has become every being's protected right. Artistic endeavors are among the most notable beneficiaries of this program, and our whole society gains from that.

Omniform Bacteria
From the time heteromorphic RNA became a reality, biological theorists knew that it was possible to create microorganisms capable of changing their form--adapting to fit their situation. More than just a normal physical adjustment, however, the process an omniform microbe would go through could be a substantial rearrangement of its entire structure--the microscopic equivalent of metamorphosis, or shape-changing. Actually creating one of these organisms, however, had to wait for progress in automation. Even the best laboratory staff can only do so much when working by hand. Automated labs brought about great gains in biological research back on our home world, and the same was true on Funestis. The scientists who generated the first omniform microorganisms wisely chose to use a common bacterium with no known connection to any disease. Their caution was rewarded when the resulting omniform bacterium proved unkillable; it immediately metamorphosed to resist any attempt to destroy it.

Plasma Engines
Based on discoveries made while studying the ancient alien plasma chamber found on a platform orbiting Funestis, engineers soon developed a great number of devices that channeled the energies of controlled plasmas into useful applications. One of the most successful of these were the plasma engines that powered vehicles and vessels across the globe and into space. The availability of reliable plasma power freed spaceship designers from the constraints of the effective, but limited, electromagnetic propulsion, liquid-fueled rockets, and solid-fueled rockets of the past. The ancient chamber design included a startling level of miniaturization, which allowed engine designers to minimize the mass requirements of the fuel storage systems, thereby increasing the potential payload and range of vessels using these engines. As has been true historically of most improvements in transportation technology, the development of plasma engines led to a new era of exploration and colonization.

G.En.I.E.s
The Genetically Engineered Integrated Environment (GEnIE) was the pinnacle of pre-syncretic biological engineering. After decades of intense study and millions of hours of creative work in genetic manipulation, environmental planning, and ecosystem design, researchers finally realized success in mating several disciplines into one bold project. A GEnIE is, essentially, an entire contained ecosystem created by biological engineers. Every detail--every organism, every chemical reaction, every enzymatic pathway, and so on--was designed, tested, and put into place intentionally. The complexity of the task is breathtaking and, to anyone not experienced in the field, overwhelming. Nevertheless, the success of the project was undeniable. The beautiful, relaxing GEnIE parks that grace every truly civilized city are a lasting reminder of the potential for science to benefit civilization.

Syncretic Biology
If the different biological systems of humans and non-humans can work side by side in the same organism, as the successes in hybrid design have proven, what prevents the two biologies from coexisting completely? That was the question posed by the researchers who created the field of syncretics. These visionary thinkers believed that it was not only possible but desirable to merge the distinctly different cell lines of all the sentient species in this system. It was not an easy course they charted for themselves, which is why we celebrate their success. Though the meshing of biologies did not, as some had predicted, bring about instant world peace, over time the several species became one. If nothing else, this gave all of us a common purpose--to return to the world of human origin and share this gift with our ancestors.

Transmutation
Transmutation--the changing of an object into a completely different form--began as a sub-specialty of advanced electromagnetic science. The limited early successes--making gold from lead and so forth--provided ongoing funding. When living things proved incapable of surviving transformation, however, biology began to creep into the field. Pretty soon, genetic engineering took over, and transmutation as we now know it emerged. Although the enormous amounts of equipment and energy necessary to perform transmutation is more often than not restrictive and prevents common use, this remarkable process can be used in municipal practice to produce useful raw materials from scrap and garbage.

Arete
Fighting ability is not the only requirement for becoming a professional warrior. The collective term 'arete' includes all the rest. Though the word has come to mean "courage" alone, that is in fact only a portion of its original meaning. Arete, as practiced by the warriors of our home world, involves all of the habits and disciplines necessary to living a warrior's life--organization in dealing with one's personal belongings and activities, cleanliness of body, focus of mind, care for one's weapons and armor. These are the things that make a fighter into a warrior and a warrior into a professional. Recreating the code of arete here on Funestis was one of the first steps toward rebuilding a noble civilization that could reach for the stars again.

Circular Supports
Now that we have discovered them, circular supports (the humans point to them and make a sound like "weelz") seem like the sort of thing that any intelligent species would invent at the very dawn of civilization. It is a testament to the bizarre vagaries of random chance that we did not do so while still on our home world. Used as the basis of a vehicle, these round, flattened objects allow much faster travel than our traditional sledge system, and for a greatly lessened cost of production. Three rolling supports seem to result in a stable configuration, but scientists have experimented with combinations of one, two, four, and even six or eight supports.

The Great Joining
Syncretic biology, which essentially combined all living things into a single great theory of organics, resulted in a revolution in the cultural sciences and philosophies. One aspect of this revolution was the development of an effective method of creating and controlling a mass mind strong enough to encompass the entire population of a nation. This fascinating process unites the entire civilization into a single consciousness. The power of this group mind is incredible, and it is even capable of calling up and dominating the frightening Blue Willie plant creatures. The productivity, military might, and data collection potential of a mass mind is awesome, and there are no problems with insurrection or strikes. Perhaps the biggest downfall of this collected consciousness is that the bliss of connection seems to dull creativity and suppress inventive thought.

Green Attractors
Chaos theory predicts that in many chaotic systems, there will be "attractors"--mathematical "areas" of relative stability in the unpredictable behavior of the system. In the field of chaos biogenics, it took quite some time--and the discovery of allotropics--before scientists finally found the attractors they had hoped existed. These so-called "green" attractors gave biogenic engineers much greater mastery over their creations. Since the public debut of the green attractor equations, not a single biochaotic generator has gone out of control.

Gene Tailoring
In the last years before colony ships began to leave our home world, the art of tinkering with the genetic makeup of various organisms began to seem commonplace. Foods derived from engineered plants were regularly available, and no one protested the advances in designer vaccines and antibiotics. Unfortunately, all access to that useful science was cut off by the loss of the majority of our medical database when we crashed on Funestis. In the rough times after that, rebuilding the infrastructure necessary to conduct advanced biological research was one of our civilization's highest priorities. With the availability of laboratory instruments not unlike those the original colonists remembered, that day finally came. Tailoring genes was the first step in a long journey through advances in genetic science; it was the crucial first step that made everything that followed possible. Nowadays, when everyone simply takes for granted that new beings are designed before they are born, it is easy to forget that it was not always like that--we did not always have control over our own futures.

Genera Nova
Genera nova--Latin for "new classes"--is the commonly recognized name for a revolution in the genetic sciences and engineering disciplines. Certainly observers of science could have predicted (and some did predict) that the skills developed for modification of organisms and genetic artistry would eventually reach a point at which it would be possible to actually create not only new species, but entirely new kinds of living things. This was a watershed moment for biogenicists (as they came to be called) across the planet. After this, it was only a matter of time before the secrets of alien biology were revealed, and the possibility of linking everything into one, syncretic biology became more than just an idiosyncratic dream.

Crystal Thermionics
Materials brought to incandescence (through heating, for example) can emit ions. These ions are referred to as "thermions" because of their origin. The branch of physics that deals with phenomena related to these particular ions is thermionics. Investigation into the properties of delerium-116 crystals and their unusual energy capacitance have led to a surprising result. Although we still do not completely understand how the anomalous crystal lattice generates the capacitance, our researchers have found that delerium also acts as a manipulable-phase conductor of thermionic currents. Without going into too much technical detail, this means that delerium-116 crystals can be used to build micro-miniature power and control circuits in nearly every plasma-based application currently extant or on the drawing board.

Heteromorph RNA
Access to a microgravity environment (space) gave researchers in the field of genetic transmutation an opportunity they had been eagerly anticipating. Advanced theories suggested the possibility of an unheard of type of replicating molecular structure, a form of RNA capable of changing its structure--and thus its physical properties--on demand. The necessary engineering could not be done under even a mild gravity; the intermediate molecular structures were so fragile and the manipulation so delicate that the experiments had to be done in space by skilled microsurgeons. Early failures nearly doomed the project, but finally success came only days before funding for the project was to be cancelled. The results of this breakthrough work are evident in every facet of society even today. Transplant technology went through a revolution, and the benefits brought about by the unleashed power of morphic energy are difficult to overestimate.

The Eight-Fold Way
In a primitive, rebuilding culture such as we were in the early days on Funestis, applied sciences naturally take precedence. There are few if any excess resources for investigations into fields of theory that show little potential for producing immediate, substantial gains. Later in our development, however, we earned for ourselves the luxury of basic science--and its long term benefits. One of these was the intensive study of the way the physical universe works. This broad field encompasses everything from the motions of subatomic particles up through the life cycles of star clusters and galaxies. Though some short sighted philosophers have at times begrudged the funding set aside for researchers in the Eight-Fold Way, the enrichment our civilization has gained from this study has always far exceeded the cost.

Humanics
Humanics is, simply put, the study of human nature. As it turns out, the more we know about ourselves, the better we are able to both govern our passions and turn them toward positive goals. An early key in this enterprise was the development of the so-called "theory of equal consideration"--which was thought to herald the end of destructive forms of intra-species competition. Of course, it wasn't quite that simple, but the economic and social gains that resulted from the brief acceptance this theory enjoyed cannot be denied.

Primitive Machinery
Early in our stay on this planet, recreating the devices that we had taken for granted on our home world was a massive undertaking. Weaving plant fibers into cloth, smelting ores and rolling the resulting metals, firing glass, and many more vital, everyday activities required massive amounts of work and time when done by hand. Therefore, reinventing all of the "primitive" machines that had performed these chores at home was one of the top priorities for the original surviving colonists.

Lab Instruments
The reinvention of laboratory instrumentation--not only beakers and bunsen burners, but also centrifuges, electrophoresis devices, and such--was another of the early, bold steps toward recreating the civilization we knew before leaving the home planet and crashing on Funestis. As it turned out, this was a seminal stage in our development. Since regaining the ability to perform advanced scientific investigations, what was once a small community of refugees has blossomed rapidly into a full-fledged empire.

Basic Automation
The creation of machines to increase the efficiency of manufacturing processes was a natural outgrowth of our reinvention of machinery. The later recreation of computers and their refinement into electronic brains took the possibilities for automation one step further. Computer-controlled machines were designed to perform repetitive or dangerous tasks more quickly than organic beings, but it wasn't until the availability of portable plasma energy sources that the construction and maintenance of large numbers of truly independent automated robots became feasible. After the development of the early mechanized robotic war machines (MRWMs), it was a short step to automated maintenance robots for domestic and industrial applications. These devices, though primitive compared to later designs, brought about a great improvement in the standard of living for all citizens.

Adaptive Automata
We cannot know what progress has been made on the home world in our absence, but whenever our science surpasses what is remembered of the technology there, it is cause for celebration. Automata--robots--that learn and adapt to new situations had not been perfected before our star ship was launched. The ability to independently reconfigure both programming and physical structure to match the needs of a new environment or situation allows the new generation of automata incredible flexibility in all aspects of their work. Industrial and agricultural applications have seen the greatest benefit, but the entertainment value of adaptable robots has not gone unexplored. The military advantages, in the form of new MRMW designs, are clear.

Emergent Systems
Once automata became adaptable, researchers and robot designers defined the next big step as inculcating what they call "emergence" into these machines. Essentially, the newest breed of robots has the ability to not only learn and adapt, but to design and build the next generation of automata and pass their experiences and adaptations on to those robots--their offspring. The dividing line between a series of automata and an organic species has never been more blurred. The long term consequences of giving our creations this sort of power over their own future are unclear, but our philosophers concur (though not unanimously) that it is the most ethical path to follow. Having once given these thinking beings control over the destiny of their kind, it would be cruel and immoral to take it away again. Whatever the long term brings, in the short term, this development has been an unmitigated boon to both the military and civilian sectors.

VTOL
The technology required for Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) of spacecraft and in-atmosphere flying machines was well developed on the home world, but came at some cost on Funestis. This planet rotates on its axis more swiftly than our world of origin, which makes horizontal spacecraft launches more energy efficient and, therefore, more attractive in terms of budgeting. The precision gained though VTOL, however, was well worth the sacrifice in fuel efficiency. The venerable Shuttle alone, with its long service lifetime, justified any research and development spending for VTOL technology.

Xenobiology
Though it is true that some scientists had been studying the biology of the alien life forms we encountered since landing on Funestis, it is also the case that they made very little progress until we better understood the underpinnings of all life. Armed with the expertise gained from decades of genetic engineering projects and the knowledge of the incredible adaptability of heteromorphic RNA (and its precursor molecules and antecedent enzyme and protein products), researchers were finally fully prepared to investigate alien biology in all its oddity. In addition to enhancing our ability to comprehend these strange beings, the study of xenobiology also brought us close to a vitally important breakthrough; understanding their biology gave us the keys that eventually allowed us to decipher their bizarre language.

Positronic Brains
It is not necessarily the case that a computing device based on the manipulation of positrons should be more efficient or more powerful than one based on electronics. However, in practice it has always proven to be the case that positronic brains are more effective computers than their electronic counterparts. No theory explains why this is so, but there is plenty of speculation. A positron is the antimatter counterpart of an electron. Simply put, it is a positively charged particle that, in a typical atom of antimatter, is found orbiting a nucleus made up of antiprotons and neutrons. Most of the speculative theories revolve around the interaction between the positron and the predominantly normal matter universe around it. Whatever the underlying cause, once the positronic circuits are successfully insulated from contact with the surrounding environment (to avoid catastrophic particle annihilation events), the brain works fully three times as fast as a typical electronic brain of the same design and size.

Primitive Weapons
Soon after the landing, it became quite clear that we were to be stranded on this planet for the foreseeable future. With this is mind, our leaders decided that the power in the few weapons we managed to salvage would best be used for life support, and that defense would have to come from other means. One of the very first items of business, therefore, was to reinvent the more effective early weapons used by our forebears--the longbow, crossbow, axe, spear, and so on. Without these, the human presence on Funestis would have been short lived.

Radioplastics
Long ago on Earth, the militaries of a few nations experimented with forms of armor and ammunition that used "depleted uranium" to add density for strength or penetration capability. This depleted uranium was actually U-238 hexafluoride that had been isotopically purified through the removal of most of the U-235 (normally by gaseous diffusion). Although this eliminated the reactivity of the substance, it did not get rid of its natural radioactivity. It is for this reason that the newly developed Isotopically Purified Uranium-238 HexaFluoride (IPUHF) plastic compounds are commonly referred to as radioplastics. The successful integration of IPUHF fibers into the structure of high-strength plastic body armor increased its durability--and the lifetime of the solider inside--dramatically. Of course, there has been a significant upswing in the number of tumors and leukemias reported by longtime veterans, but advances in genetic engineering techniques seem to promise a solution to that problem in near future generations.

Woodworking
Even before the advent of recorded history, humans have worked in wood. From primitive carving with a sharpened stone up through the exquisite inlaid furniture of the Italian Renaissance, local artisans of all regions have used the most basic materials at hand to create useful and beautiful pieces. Through the centuries, workers in wood have developed many skills for getting the intended result out of a particular type or shape of wood, and they have passed on their learned expertise to apprentices, students, and other interested amateurs. Unfortunately, none of the potential colonists chosen as crew members for the interstellar mission had any of these skills. Thus, the human settlers on Funestis have had to reinvent the craft using local woody plants and their imperfect memories of what was possible back on Earth.

Biorobotics
Grafting robotic elements into human bodies was a fertile subject for speculation long before our ancestors left the Earth. As predicted, when the merger of biology with technology became a reality, the overwhelming majority of applications for this technique were in the military sphere. Though many citizens chose to have failed organs or other unwanted body parts replaced with machine elements, most folks preferred the purely biological alternatives--lab grown transplant tissue and such. Thus, it was only in situations that required extra strength and durability--the military--that what had once been called "cyborgs" became commonplace.

Expedient Hierarchy
Soon after regrouping, the survivors of the expedition realized that, though democratic rule was all well and good in theory, it was not effective in the current dire situation. Bowing to the needs of expedience, they quickly moved to adopt the hierarchical structure they had become accustomed to onboard the star ship--with each person assigned to specific duties and the chain of command clearly demarcated. This hierarchy was dynastic; rule of the nation passed to the highest ranked inferior when the current superior officer died or chose to retire. Though it resulted in a greater efficiency and productivity, hierarchical rule often became burdensome and unwieldy as each civilization grew too large for such simple structures.

Applied Hedonics
Hedonics--the study of human pleasure and displeasure--has been a priority for humans since the genesis of the species, though it was only in the twentieth century that someone put a name to this field. Though some primitive religious institutions seemed bent on preventing people from pursuing this basic element of human nature, it goes without saying that individual humans continued their research despite the lack of official sanction. On Funestis, the development of a formalized theory of hedonics led quickly to multiple applications and soon after to an "applied" branch of hedonic science. Keeping people happy has never been easier, although--as is true of any honest science--the hedonicists readily admit that there are flaws and much room for improvement in the current theories.

Piracy
Throughout human history, wherever there has been a system of commerce, an independent society of thieves has grown up around it to take advantage of the vulnerabilities therein. Rather than allowing privateerism to develop of itself, we have chosen to study it and bring it to maturity under government auspice. Brought to heel as a tool of the state, the resourceful individuals who might otherwise become villains serve our interests as Corsairs.

Merchant Marine
The naval vessels of a nation that pursue commerce, and the crews of those ships, are often considered the backbone of international trade. On Earth, the worldwide system of sea trade developed over centuries, through wars and exploration. On the planet Funestis, however, the merchant marine was an intentional construction, developed and built by the various governments to aid the early progress of an intercontinental trade network. In the process, the need became clear for a diplomatic presence capable of carrying on negotiations. Thus, both commerce and diplomacy were served by the same tool--as has often been the case throughout human history.

Psionics
Interest in heightening the mental powers has been endemic in human culture since at least the dawn of recorded myth. God, goddesses, and monsters were frequently imbued with telepathic powers, and many believed that normal humans have the potential for this sort of capability. Though most of these purported abilities are clearly nothing more than hopeful delusion, developments in the psionic sciences have brought about an amplification of sorts that allows some semblance of what has been called "mind control" over others. It is a subtle and unreliable force, but there is no longer any doubt of its existence. Though it strikes many of us as odd that the non-human beings we have encountered seem to have neither abilities nor interest in this area of study, perhaps we should simply count that fact as one among our few natural advantages and leave it at that.

Euthenics
Humans have been practicing euthenics for millennia; it's just the accurate name for the process of bettering the condition of humans through the modification and manipulation of their surroundings and environment. Some would say that this is one of the activities that separates humans from the beasts of the Earth, though others would argue that many "beasts" modify their environments quite effectively. In any case, humans are the only known Earth species to have researched and created formalized theories of euthenic science. Of course, as is the case with any system of information, this knowledge can be put to less than ethical uses. That risk is, perhaps, the price we pay for progress.

Adaptive Eugenics
The term 'eugenics' has been used as the excuse for some of the most cold-hearted and despicable acts of racism and ethnic intolerance in human history. The concepts behind it have been so often misunderstood and twisted to evil ends that few leaders would admit to supporting any project with the word in the title. Thankfully, the applied science of adaptive eugenics shares none of its namesake's animal ruthlessness. The goal of adaptive eugenics is to improve the human species, but not through the harsh and ineffective methods of earlier times. Rather, this program encourages voluntary biorobotic adaptation for any citizen who feels that it is in the interests of his or her future descendents to be augmented in such a way. Though most of the adaptations are heritable, nearly all are also reversible if the offspring in question disagree with their ancestor's reasoning. In this way, the human species can muddle along at its own pace, always in the general direction of becoming a better organism.

Artificial Gravity
Taking advantage of the odd properties of the delerium-116 crystals, engineers have managed to fulfill one of the oldest dreams of the human race--control over the force of gravity. Though our understanding of the force is still incomplete, this development gives us incredible power. We can now provide gravity in our space vessels, build units that overcome gravity without massive engines, and use the tension (stressor fields) between conflicting gravitational fields to generate energy. Our researchers now contend that if we only had knowledge of a theory that unified the known primary forces of physics--what they call a grand unified theory (GUT) or unification theory--we could develop a system for controlling gravity at the quantum level.

Protoviral Warfare
Research into the genetics of contagion, viral mutation and evolution, and variable structure (semi-protean) RNA resulted in an unfortunate discovery. With the development of engineered, hyper-contagious, self-adapting, protoviral strains and the appropriate organic delivery systems (vectors), unethical warfare took a giant step forward into the future--and many see it as quite a bleak future. The only bright spot of hope is that the invention of these protoviral weapons has spurred investigations into creating organisms with hyperadaptive immune systems to combat the spread of these and other biological weapons.

Total Immunity
Throughout human history, our species has been ravaged by diseases and physical infirmities. Aging has always been a process of slow decline, and we have been subject to poisoning by substances too numerous to mention. We have made much progress over the years in this never-ending fight to rid mankind of these curses, but with the discovery of protoviruses, we finally began to make great leaps. The protoviruses are incredibly adaptable, able to change form so as to protect themselves from nearly any threatening environmental factor. The Total Immunity Program (TIP) was an attempt to give human beings the same ability. Though it was only a limited success, the concept proved viable and was later incorporated into the design of the Proteus Sapiens species. In essence, the TIP provided a way to permanently prevent disease, poisoning, and the infirmities of age in a being. (The treated beings do age, but they don't show the usual symptoms; they simply go on as strong as ever until the minute they keel over.) Unfortunately, the beings so treated tend to suffer intelligence deficits as a side effect o