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Post by Dazo on Mar 26, 2005 5:02:36 GMT -5
28,43,47 - G-VI - AA7A8A6-E N Wa 102 Im 1F(32) Siloam also known as Reliquary I know we discussed this world some where but I cant for the life of me remember where. We had the idea of making it a library type world where the high resource value came from the premise of its information exports. There was also the idea of it being a trinary system of cold stars, and possible inquisitorial presence. I thought Reliquary might be the perfect name for it.
All building is confined to small atolls in the world ocean, possibly all connected with a spider web of transport tubes, and starports, it make them look like odd mushrooms. All the important stuff is underground buried in vast vaults that extend beneath the ocean. Origionally it had quite a small population but after the imperium came it got much larger. This required greater fishing yeilds, however the stars of Reliquary where not the best for a teeming eco system so new technology was imported from theta corionis to boost the food stock. However rather than installing it and going home they decided to stay. Corionis now controls all food production on Reliquary, which is not as terrible as it sounds, the origional inhabitants where not really farmers, nor where the new immagrants, they were all mainly scholars and researchers.
The Trinary system itself consists of a yellow sub dwarf, a red sub dwarf and an orange sub dwarf. Simply because I think it sounds cool and has a nice image, a silent twilight world of towers and fishing boats.
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Post by Kage2020 on Mar 27, 2005 17:05:17 GMT -5
And is likely to be burning hot... unless they are all conveniently Far Companions?
Or have you worked up the system in H&E?
Kage
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Post by Dazo on Mar 28, 2005 4:34:51 GMT -5
;DThats always the very first thing I do. And it can be done, the thing about sub dwarves is they are really cold so you can have more of them and get quite moderate temperatures, 25 degrees C in fact, though 0ne of them is in a far orbit.
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Post by Destecado on Mar 31, 2005 14:38:12 GMT -5
I don't care for the name Reliquary, but the concept is an interesting one. Still why would the Imperium allow such a place to exist...unless they have brought it under their control. what may be an interesting twist is that the information is not stored in books or databases, but is passed down from one person to another verbally.
The entire work of a lifetime is saved through oral tradition...Sort of an homage to Ray Bradbury's fahrenheit 451. The databases might exist, but individuals are also tagged as the keepers of certain knowledge. This may be a subgroup within the society or a specialy bred genetic trait.
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Post by Dazo on Mar 31, 2005 15:16:12 GMT -5
Or its in a form that is hard to move, or if the planet capitulated peacefully would there be any need to move the information off world, especially if the catacombs where already highly defensible, the inquisition could just move right in and set up shop there. It makes more sense to use existing resources rather than going to extreme efforts to move everything.
Reliquary it is no longer then, what about Siloam or Sahkhadra
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Post by Destecado on Mar 31, 2005 15:47:57 GMT -5
Or its in a form that is hard to move, or if the planet capitulated peacefully would there be any need to move the information off world, especially if the catacombs where already highly defensible, the inquisition could just move right in and set up shop there. It makes more sense to use existing resources rather than going to extreme efforts to move everything. Reliquary it is no longer then, what about Siloam or Sahkhadra I like Sahkadra. Would that be the world name or the system name? Maybe for the system, we could yuse Avesta. The Avesta
The sacred books of Parsees, or Zoroastrians, and the main source of our knowledge concerning the religious and spiritual life the ancient Persians. This collection of writings occupies the same place in the literature of Iran (ancient Persia) that the Vedas do in India. The designation Zend-Avesta, which is often employed to denote the sacred code, is not strictly correct. It owes its origin to a mistaken inversion of the Pahlavi designation Avistak u Zand, a term which probably means "Text and Commentary"; for the word Zand (in the Avesta itself, Zainti) signifies "explanation" and even in the Avesta is applied to the exegetical matter in the text. It is similarly used by the Parsee priests to denote the Pahlavi version and commentary, but not the original scriptures. Whether the term Avistak, which is the Pahlavi form of the word Avesta, has the meaning of "text", "law", is not absolutely certain. Some scholars interpret it as "wisdom", "knowledge".
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Post by CELS on Mar 31, 2005 16:05:51 GMT -5
I must admit that this is a very original idea and that it holds a lot of promise. But on one condition: The Imperium did not do it. In other words, this information-gathering was actually set in motion by someone other than the Administratum or Inquisition. Someone hoping to make a profit, perhaps? Or perhaps the information was only means to an end. If it's basically just some sort of Inquisitorial library, then I take back everything I've said. Not original at all, and dead boring
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Post by Dazo on Apr 1, 2005 5:29:16 GMT -5
The library is older than the imperium so the inqusition most definatly didn't do it. They just came along later and took over or are you objecting to that. Who created it and why is still a bit of a mystery me as I hadn't thought that far ahead. Would you rather it was compiled by Humans or aliens Cels.
I like that name aswell Des, and the other one you suggest will be good for the system.
I don't think a world like this could go to long with out attracting the attention of every major institutuion in the Imperium, indeed they might all be fighting over it.
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Post by CELS on Apr 1, 2005 7:34:41 GMT -5
I think that this world would be most interesting if the Imperium had not taken control over it. This is simply another 'independent' Imperial world that has a lot of information. Why it has all that information, and where it came from, and what kind of information, is currently up for grabs.
Off the top of my mind, it could have been an early Cult Mechanicus offshoot from Proteus. Breaking off from the Cult Mechanicus, a group of priests formed a new cult, devoted entirely to gathering information about everything. Absolutely everything. This strange cult, while distansing itself from the Cult Mechanicus, has survived even to the 41st millennium in a rather harmless from. In other words, no new gods or anything that would irritate the Ecclessiarchy or the Adeptus Mechanicus. The old religion could have simply dissolved into a philosophy or something.
And that a lot of institutions would want a lot of this information is obvious. Some of them might even just take it by force, if someone gave them a good reason. If it was dangerous, the Inquisition would take it. If it had technological secrets, the Adeptus Mechanicus would take it. If it was heretical or contained new information about the Emperor or the Saints, the Adeptus Ministorum would take it. And so on...
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Post by Destecado on Apr 1, 2005 11:10:49 GMT -5
The following may sound a little odd, but based off of how the Adeptus Mechanicus is shaping up, maybe we can incorporate this world into that back story or into the back story of the Mezzan. I know that Kage still has reservations about the Mezzan, how is this for a possible scenario....
We know that the Stone Men destroyed their creations the Iron Men in some kind of final solution. This may have been a computer virus or perhaps a nano phage that attacked the organic circuitry incorporated into their systems. What ever the case may be, this cataclysmic battle probably took place at the very doors of their last bastion Mars.
Of course any Iron Men on Mars or within the solar system would have been destroyed rather quickly, but would the Stone Men be able to destroy all of the Iron Men at one time? Maybe it was a progression...an epidemic that spread out from the solar system across the Galaxy, carried by ships or delivered by the Stone Men in Specially hardenned Iron Men or ships that acted as carriers of the virus.
Depending on the complexity of the Iron Man (There are after all many different types) the virus may have simply shut them down or sent them into a psychotic killing spree as their systems slowly degraded. This might be why the general public came to fear the Iron Men.
There one time allies against the Stone Men began to turn on them. It may be that the virus effected other forms of technology used by the Stone Men...Sort of like a spoil sport dooms day weapon (If we can't have it no one can).
The Mezzan emigrated to this region of space in order to isolate their experiment of forming an integrated society of humans and robots. This also had the benefit of isolating them from the worst effects of the virus. This might also help to explain why they have a policy of isolationism and only work through intermidiaries from other cultures (such as the people of Hesperus).
During the history of the Mezzan, there was a kind of civil war...actually more of a philisophical schism. One group in particular was at the heart of the troubles. they felt that the machines were multiplying too quickly and would come to dominate and might even enslave the humans if something was not done to curtail their growing population.
They began to creat human only colonies within the Mezzan sphere of control. This prompted the robots to make similar robot only colonies on worlds that would not support human habitation. Eventually, the governmental body put its foot down and inducted laws to limit the "birth rate" of new robots and to institute a policy of emersion...where a new robot would actually live with a human family. By growing up side by side, they hoped to create better understanding.
There were of course hold out on both the human and robotic side. The humans that opposed integration descided to emigrate to another world, with the understanding that once they had left, they could not return...news of the virus had reached this area of space by that time.
It could be that the humans that emigrated from the Mezzan worlds are the ones that came to this planet. They would still have had access to the information databases of the Mezzan and may have actually brought a copy with them.
Maybe they came to this world to start a simpler life. To get away from the proliferation of technology that had started a galactic war and destroyed the "spirit" of man. They would have installed the database on the planet, but perhaps limited acess to it.
The reason for the limiting was not to keep control over the people, but more to control what technologies were released upon the planet. The philosophical bent of the culture that developesd on the world may be one of spiritual growth over technological advancement
The relatively quick advancment technologically had outstripped and in some cases stunted the spiritual growth of humanity. Technology had given humans the power of gods, while the great majority of humantiy operated mentally as children.
The idea was to be the custodians of the technology till mankind was ready for it. Books made the technology too readily available (anyone could use the technology or abuse it). For this reason, they came up with the system of the Speakers, who memorized a given technical manual or operation of a given system.
This would put a human face on technology and also regulate its use. The speakers would be similar to judges (or witch doctors of technology). People would petition them for their knowledge of technology or to release the knowledge to them for a given project.
Such a system seems highly inefficient, but it also makes people respect the technology that they do have and also work to maintain it.
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Post by Sojourner on Apr 1, 2005 12:05:40 GMT -5
Responding to Descetado's blurb about the Iron Men...
Could it be that in the aftermath of the destruction of the Iron Men, it was discovered that some remnants were capable of regenerating, a la Borg nanoprobes? This debris would naturally be found throughout the galaxy and poses a huge threat - disturbing an Iron Man remnant and stimulating it into propogating is a terrible danger if left unnoticed. As such, you have a new class of human technologist emerging - Machine Hunters. These chaps have two roles - firstly, to seek out and properly destroy all remaining Iron Man remains, and secondly to prevent the citizenry from interfering with active remants by whatever means necessary.
This type of character in time evolves into the Tech-Priest, and their philosophy to the Imperium's technological dogmatism.
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Post by CELS on Apr 1, 2005 17:12:11 GMT -5
I don't quite agree with the bit about colonies for humans or robots only, or the human families adopting robots. This part just strikes me as not so cool, for some reason. But the rest is fairly cool. Some of the Mezzan went to do their own thing without robots, sort of like the Eldar Exodites before the Fall.
I wouldn't want these Mezzan remnants to keep the technology used to create those robots though. It just creates a lot of problems, and it is very likely that someone would find out about it, and that this information would eventually reach the ears of the Imperium. Especially later, when this world becomes a part of the Imperium.
On the Speakers, I assume you intended them to have bionic augmentation to store all this information. The idea is kinda original and interesting, but I must say that I'm still more attracted to the idea of a world gathering fantastic amounts of information in a huge network, and selling this information to other worlds and to the Imperium. And I don't mean information such as the designs of ancient warmachines or anything that is of extreme value. If it was extremely valuable, the Imperium would just grab it for free.
The interesting and original part was if they for example gathered fantastic amounts of information, fed it into super-powerful computers and then were able to learn from statistics, or were able to solve old mysteries by piecing together history books from different worlds, etcetera.
If all this world had going for it was a bunch of Speakers with Mezzan technology, then it wouldn't be long before the Imperium either took or destroyed everything of importance. The whole concept of the planet would be obsolete.
Edit: You could, of course, try to combine the ideas by letting only the Speakers access and understand the information stored in this world's intranet.
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Post by Destecado on Apr 7, 2005 11:58:09 GMT -5
I don't quite agree with the bit about colonies for humans or robots only, or the human families adopting robots. This part just strikes me as not so cool, for some reason. But the rest is fairly cool. Some of the Mezzan went to do their own thing without robots, sort of like the Eldar Exodites before the Fall. Just some half formed ideas I'm still trying to work on...the back story about the Mezzan need not factor too much into the history of this planet. The inhabitants may have seperated from the Mezzan soon after their arrival in Anargo. It may be that they delected thisinformation before their arrival on the planet. Or that the databases which contain this information have a lock upon them which is either on a time delay or which can no longer be opened...they may have lost the codes to do so. this may sound strange, but take it from someone who accidently locked himself out of his computer, it is possible. The founders of the community may have locked this information away so that the inhabitants would not have access to the Iron Men. During the Dark Age of Technology mankind came to rely on the Iron Men to take care of the daily duties and mundane tasks freeing them up supposedly for higher purposes. In all actuallity, this could have lead to a sedintary and complacent society. With the elimination of Iron Men, mankind would again be forced to do these mundane and repetative tasks again. It was hoped that spiritual growth could be fostered in giving people goals...even as simple as completing daily tasks. This would not be a rejection of the Iron Men, but more a recognition of the failings within the Stone Men, which lead to the war in the first place. Mankind was not yet advanced enough (philosophically or spiritually), to be able to live side by side with the Men of Iron. The culture which came to this planet did not see this as a failing of the Iron Men, but instead of Mankind. Humanity had enough trouble living with itself, let alone throwing a complication such as Iron Men into the equation. Put in another fashion...Several Science Fiction writers (Robert Heinlein among them) have put forward the notion of across the board contraception for everyone, unitl they reach a certain age. It was an attempt to seperate the act of sex from reproduction and to minimize the occurance of pregnancies among teenagers who would not be equipped emotionally or fiancially to handel being parents. In order to procreate, an individual would consciously have to have their contraception removed. This made the reprodution process a conscious act rather than an accident caused by the overactive hormones of teenagers. Of course Heinlein and others were writing at a time before abortion was legalized, so they were offering alternatives. Still, the idea does have some interesting paralles to the creation of the Iron Men. Originally the Iron Men had been created as tools and nothing more. Created as such, it would be hard to accept them as eaquals. The idea behind this culture is to help mankind reach a level of maturity where if they descide to create machines in their own image, it is done as a conscious effort and as an act of love rather than as slaves. They called this ideal "Children of the Mind"...since the Iron Men were not created biologically, but instead through the advanced sciences available to man. It was always my intent (sory if it was not clear before) that access to the technology would only be in the hands of the Speakers. I don't know if we would need bionic enhancement for the speaker to remember this information. I was instead thinking of maybe having selective breeding program towards a certain cognative ability. One possible method would be to have the speaker be prodigious Savants. Savant syndrome is a rare condition in which people suffering from mental retardation, autism or schizophrenia and other personality disorders nonetheless possess an unusual ability in a single field, most often relating to music, art or numbers. The movie "A Beautiful Mind" with Russel Crowe, about John Forbes Nash, a math prodigy suffering through schizophrenia is a good example of this. It is estimated that there are fewer than 50 prodigious savants alive today, but scientits are currently studying the savant mind using gene mapping and PET scans. The point is to try and identify what causes this miswiring of the brain that leads to genius. Through the Dark Age of Technology, they may have found the cause or even a way to cause the miswiring to occur in a normal brain. Perhaps it is a form of medication used to alter the brain chemistry which causes the synapses to fire in an unusual pattern. Whatever the method, it should be possible for savants to rememebr vast amounts of information or be geniuses in mathmatics or other fields. The speakers would need handlers though, since many of them will have personality disorders. This might make crazy people reveared or at least respected within the society. Someone who is a little crazy might be seen as having part of the gift (potential speaker).
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