NationStates Jolt Archive

The surveing pod went swiftly through the huge openings that went from one side to the other of the pulsating structure. As the small vessel went by, the three piloting engineers could withness how new extensions and parts grew from the kaleidoscopic surface, that slowly switched it's colors from deep blue to fiery red. Shapes that ressembled twisted apendixes grew in strange ways from the main structure, thanks to the lack of gravity, forming increasingly tight nets of interlocking tentacles.
Among the misshapenly orchestrated grow, the pod keept it's way.

"Grow seems steady in this area of the structure -began one of the engineers, while holding his infopad with the right hand near the mouth- fladd surfaces seem to be spreading without problem in all directions, succesfully allowing for macroreplications in the selected zone" He looked at one of his companions "Activity scans?"

The alluded made a few selections on the holographic touchpad before him, and a large image came up, showing areas colored in strong red while others remained white. The points of greater activity (strong red), where marked with several symbols and switching numbers, that gave numerous details about the ongoings of the production.

The engineer took the infopad near his mouth once more "Activity cores berhaving as predicted, moving towards the ecuator of the planetoid, interlocking nets growing under the precalculated fractal figure. Full saturation of the area expected in six weeks. End of log" He finished, and the infopad inmediately switched screen, and the engineer took it into his pocket "We are done here. It's now up to those tubulon clones. By the way, when are they arriving?"

The engineer in front of the activity screen turned in his chair "Today, at most. They will arrive with the new cargo ships of the FBC. I belive we will be able to deploy them before the week ends"

The other man noded "Very well, I hope they get here on time. We are already falling behind schedule after the acciden with the asteroid. Speaking of accident, take this thing to the impact area. I want to make some surveys there"

Said this, the pilot increased the speed of the pod, and traveled outside the organic superstructure, towards the indicated area.

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The organic superstructure, labeled as the Corpus, was the main structural piece of the titanic mechanical marvel that would be constructed in the years to come. With a diameter of roughly one hundred kilometers -about 1/10 of the total projected size of the finished Craftworld-, it stood motionless among the frozen asteroids that composed the Outer Solar Belt, selected as the construction place both for it's high mineral reserves and it's relative isolation from outsider spheres of jurisdiction.

Designed to construct itself, the Corpus is, literaly speaking, the largest living being known to the federation, and, most likely, to anyone else. It has been, though, the result of generations upon generations of study, testing and development, that finnaly gave as result the original substance that was induced to become the actual Corpus.

Although still uncomplete, lacking it's finnal mass for about 22% of the total, the structure already began giving signs of it's intended goal: controled self awareness. The Corpus had been designed as a supra computer, capable of keeping the entire Craftworld under strict care, managing every aspect of it, ranging from power suplies to atmospherical recycling. It will not be a machine, but an entity by it's own.

However, the Corpus is but the first step in a gigantic endeavour. Most of the megastructure was either under development at a myriad of different places around the Solar System, or still far from being barely constructed.
The base, nonetheless, was already set.

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The huge crater ressembled an open wound of mythical proportions. Located near the northern pole of the structure, it grew deep and wide, with a hard cluster of rock incrusted on it's center.
Two and a half weeks ago, the still growing Corpus was hit by an unpredicted stray fragment, that broke off from a mayor asteroid. The causes of the rock's projection are still uncertain, although there is a wide concensus that it was caused by an unmonitored hyperpressurisation of gas, encapsulated deep within the main asteroid.

The hit had been powerful, yet not deadly. The complex supra-cell based system on which the Corpus relies allows for it to remain perfectly functional, even if part of it is destroyed. In other words, there is no other main part than the whole structure itself.
The accident, however, had created a mayor disturbance within the organism's semiautomated replication, thus increasing the required time for completion by at least four weeks. And keeping in mind that the project was already delayed three months, adding one more had really generated all forms of complains from the homeland.

But the works keept going, and the system slowly began to regenerate itself. The asteroid would be soon ejected from the structure, as it has been recognizes by the organism as an external body. The closure of the crater would be closely monitored, and special regeneration nodes would be injected to the area to increase the speed as much as possible, but having care to avoid generating missformations and dead zones.

Already on the perifery of the crater, the pod came to a halt. From it's possition, the engineers could easily gaze at the entire impact zone.
Tentacular structures already rose from different points, and a thin crystaline membrane covered most of the still nailed asteroid.

"The system seems to be responding well to the patogenic attack. It seems that is has developed some kind of antibodies that currently surround the rock, aparently in an attemp to either break and expulse it, or to assimilate and incorporate it to the system. Take us near the asteroid, please" He asked to the pilot, who complied.

As the pod came near the rock, they got a much better image of the system's response. The crystaline membrane was actually composed of several "scales", each one the size of a stadium, that mounted over each other. Growing froms of these scales could be seen in the upper part of the membrane, already starting to cover the still open parts of the rock. It will be a matter of days, perhaps hours, until the membrane fully encloses the asteroid.

"Interesting. Any reports of when this membrane began growing?" Asked the head engineer.

"Our monitoring systems first detected the new composite about three days ago. It has grown faster each day"

"Send a signal, and order for a collector unit to pick up samples of the membrane. If we can manage to replicate it, it may prove to be a quite interesting element. Just look at the base of the wound, where the rock digs into the body" He pointed through the front window. Under the traslucent membrane, the rock showed large crackings "The membrane seems to be crushing the rock, perhaps in an attemp to pulverize it, and make it easier to assimilate. The way the Corpus is responding, it's facinating"


//OOC: Very well. With this post, I formally open the roleplay of the Craftworld Project, which has been closed until now (mostly because there was needed some basic construction to start). WTE and SFN nations who have already expressed their commitment with the project are called to join, and those who had not, the communication channels are always open.
As for now, we will be rping mostly about basic design systems, parts construction and other related issues, ranging from material processing and transporation, to bussines "pacts in green" and the like, as well as disclosing technical aspects.
If there is any external doubt, please reffer to the private boards. Further inter relation with the Artificial Sol System project will come soon as well.//

In the darkness of space, jumpgates started to open at three different locations, with the Craftworld being the rough middle of their respective positions. For a short moment, nothing was to be seen but the purple of the open gates, leading deep into hyperspace. Then, as if they were spawned just there and then, the bows of numerous ships started to emerge from the portals. An entire fleet had come to assist in the creation of the Craftworld. From the Kharakian Colonies came a fleet of several Imperator Class carriers. These vessels, once military craft, were now used in civil service, and were completely loaded with resources designated for construction of the Craftworld. Following directly behind them was a Mining Group, consisting of Drones, resource collectors, salvage corvettes, Workers and also two bulky Resource Control stations. These vessels would mine additional resources during construction.

Whereas the first group from Kharak consisted mostly of very large vessels, often carrying resourcers inside, the second location on which Corporate vessels exited hyperspace was more chaotic in a certain sense. Dozens of smaller portals had opened, and a true mass of ships was now travelling through them. These were the vessels dispatched from the Caelu system. there, the S'Jet and Paktu had strong power basis, and these scientific Kiithid had sent their Drone Frigates and Spider Drone workers to aid in construction. Also, many smaller firgates and corvettes came through, carrying human workers, engineers and scientists for the project.

On the third location, perhaps the most impressive vessels exited their portals. Two massive Battlecruisers came through, with the rest of the third fleet in their wake. Not a single vessel fell out of formation, and in almost formal manner they proceeded to their designated positions. The fleet would act as command and coördination center for the TVC workforce, and also provide security while at it. Behind the fleet came a group of several support frigates and civilian barges, chartered by the Riif Kiith. This Kiith had volunteered to provide the workers with food and water, as well as other needed personal supplies during construction.

"Caulum workforce here, we're coming in hot. Please designate flight vectors."

"Kharak workforce, approaching. Good to finally get this thing started"

"This is Admiral Soban of the third fleet calling FTR control. All our elements have made the jump into the system. We're ready to get things started."

The radiation levels jumped up as the 3 ships made their jump to the Craftworld. One Leviathan transport, and two Avalon cruisers as escort.
The Leviathan carried 250,000 people, along with 322,930 tons of cargo.

"Greetings. this is Transport 5. We are carrying construction crews and materials."

Unlike most other SFN/WTE members, DA didn´t use FTL tech.

It didn´t matter, though.

Their last stop had been Triton, for refueling, and as a short break, then came the last (and longest) part of the journey, until they finally arrived.

Protected by 11 military vessels, and joined by 11 civil transporters for the construction crew, the 66 construction vessels arrived, carrying building materials, construction equipment... everything.

On board of the Götterfunken, Maxwell Clauser looked upon the right now tiny structure.

The future. He thought. Our future. He watched the structure, It`s sheer size... it`s beauty... imagined what it would like, later, years, decades later, when it`s finished... Wonderful.

He listened to the ships song. It´s CPU, an Indiastani telepath, already composed and send the arrival message to the FTR command.

"Lets get it on."

"Admiral Soban, this is Engineering Command. Please proceed to wait in the coordinates we are transfering to you" Said the flight coordinator, while checking numerous data entries and security codes sent from and to the newly arrived corporate fleet. Turning in his articulated mechnochair, he called for his superior "Sire, fleets from the Corporation, imperial Diablo and Der Angst have arrived, as expected. They bring extensive amounts of crew. Where should we direct the transport ships?"

The bearded head engineer walked near the flight coordinator "Make them dock in Hab Modules 4 and 5. I belive we have plenty of space there, and the life support systems have been installed one week ago. Send them there"

The coordinator noded "To all transport ships carrying human resources, please proceed to the indicated coordinates" He said, while he gave the system the order to transmit the locations. He switched microphone "Hab Modules 4 and 5 Docking Overseeing, prepare to recieve support transports in a few minutes" Then returned to the first one, and checked some screens, switching comms channels "Diabloean fleet, please proceed to the indicated coordinations. Additionaly, all your transport ships carrying human resources must be docked in the locations we have provided you" He switched comms channels once more "Angstian fleet, please proceed to the indicated coordinates. Additionaly, all your transport ships carrying human resources must be docked in the locations we have provided you"

The head engineer turned to another controler "Send messages to the fleets, asking for construction materials tonnage. Also check our free space in the storage facilities, I belive we are getting short of space there. Now where are the FBC ships? We need those storage modules urgently"

"They are expected to arrive tomorrow, arround midday. However, the allied cargo ships came two days before what we expected. Most of the cargo will have to remain on the ships, at least until we install the new storage modules"

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FBC Minning Group, Inner Asteroid Belt Coordination Offices:

The officer went through the message on his infopad with angry eyes "They blame us for delaying the operations? I can not belive these engineers. Tell me, Astor, how far are our ships already?"

The alluded checked his infopad "Ten thousand kilometers away from Charon. They should be arriving tomorrow, in schedule"

The officer noded "Then I don't understand why they are complaining about the modules. They better be pacient with them"

ooc: off to calculate tonnages and carrying capacities

Bump for more people to read and join

It was a few days after they docked.

The work was going smoothly, still, the main part hadn`t even begun yet.

The craftworld...

Although far from being completed, it already looked... wonderful.

It... this was the future.

The construction workers, few enough, since DA tends to use automated drohne systems, were truly impressed by the work of the FTR scientists. Yes, this was something worthy of their attention, their work, their... admiration.

Watching the craftworld grow, expanding, reshaping, the organism...

Magnificient.

This was the beginning of a new age, and they werre there...

OOC: I'll post later. I will participate as actively as I can, but outtimed right now :wink:

TAG!
ooc:
god i wish i didnt have all this political rp going on... i could have more si fi fun :(

TAG!
ooc:
god i wish i didnt have all this political rp going on... i could have more si fi fun :(

The massive cargo storage units slowly rotated over their axis as the correction thrusters slowed them down. Dozens of small but powerful pusher pods crawled like spiders over the module's featureless hull, occasionally sending propulsion blasts from their engines in order to perform more delicate adjustments to the storage unit's position. Other eleven of these gigantic, four miles long modules awaited quietly to be picked up and sent to it's destination.

"How long until the storage modules become operational? We can not stretch the schedule any longer! Shipments of cargo materials do not stop, and if we keep telling the ships to remain on hold, someone will strike the table. Fingers are already pointing in our direction from the homeland" Commented a tall, rotund man through his infopad, while he walked with long strides through one of the conducts that connected the living quarters with the central command station. Usther Fehrnroy was his name, and he held the highest seat of control in the building site. If someone was to become angry at the late arrivals was him.

A five minutes walk took him to one of the elevators. He was thirty levels above the control bridge, and the crystalline, capsule-shaped elevator took him swiftly down there. As he traveled downward, through the border of the stations -that had the shape of a bowl, with it's base at the bottom being the control bridge- the always impressive scenario of the massive construction site filled the scene. The almost forty cargo ships, all of them showing the different styles and designs of their respective nations covered a wide expanse of space, attached to improvised docking networks wherever there was free room. Most of them had all their load still on board, situation that has become critical due to the delay on the arrival of the new storage units. All of this has pushed the schedule almost one more week, and bringing various other problems due to the discontinuity of cargo shipments.

The glass doors of the elevator swung open without a sound, letting the man walk into the command bridge. It was a wide, round room, surrounded by windows that gave a perfect overview of the entire site. The multicolored mass of the still generating Craftworld seemed a small planet floating hundreds of miles below them, surrounded by several glowing points and shapes -the monitoring ships. The center of the room held a large array of computers, monitors and screens, grouped on a circular way. Almost thirty people worked frantically over them, checking data reports, task statuses and sending myriads of orders.
One of the men stood as soon as he saw Fehrnroy walking into the room.

"Chief Overseer, glad you could make it here" Said the man, with a barely noticeable head bow.

Fehrnroy gave him a side look "Make it here? Of course I made it here! It is just a ten minute walk. Anyway, where are the reports on the current operation? I want to know how are these storage units being placed"

The man quickly nodded, raising his right arm and checking his infopad "Here. I have uploaded all the information into your 'pad. As you can see, everything is going as planned"

"You mean everything is going as we planned, one week after it was supposed to -he spoke as he checked the data- Everything seem in order" He closed the infopad and walked toward the monitors, the man following behind him "Open communications with Monitoring Control. Get me Ikthor Norm on screen, now" He ordered to a young woman sitting at one of the command nodes.

An old, thin head covered in a profusely grown gray beard showed up at one of the monitors "Norm here. You wanted to speak with me, Overseer?"

The alluded nodded "I want to how is the sample recollection at the impact site going. Give me a quick report"

"We have gathered enough samples for testing. This membrane is fascinating, and the way the tissue we collected is behaving is even more..."

Fehrnroy interrupted his speech "Very interesting, yes, yes. Send it up here so we can give it to the Biopreparat"

Norm seemed confused by the Overseer's words "The Biopreparat? But I believed we were going conduct all the testing here, in our labs"

"We were, yes, but we aren't. Apparently, someone at the martian offices became aware of the situation, and now we have the Biopreparat preying upon us for the samples. If we do not send them what they want, we will have hordes of bureaucrats with scientific titles getting into our business, and I definitely would prefer to avoid that situation"

"But then we will have to wait for any reports instead of conducting in-situ research right here. Furthermore, I am sure they will block us from any major discovery until they see fit" Came Norm's indignant answer.

Fehrnroy released a long breath while waving his head "They are the ones in charge here, in case you had forgotten the administrative chains, Ikthor. If they ask for the samples, we send them the samples. If they wish to keep the information for themselves, we turn around and avoid asking questions. Is that clear enough? Besides, they have much better facilities there than we have here, so we can trust they will conduct extensive and detailed investigation. Fehrnroy out"

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Biopreparat Central Laboratories, Chasma Dominia, Planet Mars:

"This tissue is amazing indeed. I have never seen such a fast replication rate for cells, let alone macro cells" Claimed an incredibly short, bald man, while tapping the crystalline surface of the glass container capsule. Inside, a kaleidoscopic mass of semi-liquid biomass seemed to be passing through a serie of spasms and contractions, changing colors in fractal sequences "The generation rate is, well, alarming"

The small man turned to face a group of six other biologists, all of them dressed in long, dark green robes. They were all with their eyes wide open, clearly interested in this finding.

"Has the sample been tested in combination with base fladd paste?" Inquired one of the biologists, a mid-height old woman, without hair on her head.

The small man nodded "Yes, and it reacts violently. The fladd paste is assimilated at an incredibly fast rate. The sample kills the organic mass and then spreads over it like cancer, but at a much quicker rate. It took but a few hours for a test sample of one hundred grams to completely overrun ten kilograms of base fladd. Amazing, I tell you"

One of the biologists, a young, short bearded man rose both eyebrows "And what do you get from this, Hobras?" He asked the small man.

Hobras shook his head "I am unsure of what exactly to think. This can be both an excellent thing or a terrible discovery. The uses I can foresee for this on biomass replication are incredible, but we do not yet know how does the sample behave on a long term situation. It may become unstable, or, even worse, become overloaded from the excessive reproduction and die. On both last cases, I fear for how this may affect the Craftworld"

"What do you mean?" Continued asking the young scientist.

"The Craftworld, right now they are building the base, the so called Corpus, which is entirely composed of fladd paste. Although it is a highly modified form of fladd, the sheer strength of this substance gives me reasons more than enough to fear for the stability of the biostructure. It may literally eat away the whole thing!"

The other biologist nodded and looked each other. A middle aged fat woman broke the sudden silence "But this substance was generated by the fladd itself. It could be just an aggressive response to external threats. As the report they sent us goes, the only place were this substance is found is on the asteroid's impact site. Perhaps it will, instead of making it more unstable, strengthen the structure itself, granting these impressive healing properties we see. It may be a very good thing after all, Hobras"

The man didn't seem so convinced "It may, but it also may not. Every piece of data we have on the substance's origin indicate that it is an unwanted result. All the softwares currently being used to control the nanobiobots on the fladd are strictly for replication and assimilation. No evolution algorithms are used. They are forbidden by federal law, as you should know. So it is a pressing issue to discover why in tarnation has the system generated this substance. And until we do, the works on the Craftworld will have to stop. They may be risking too much"

A message is sent to Technocratic Republics.

We have started the preliminary designs for a ecosystems for the Craftworld. Please send us any requirements you have for the ecosystem so we can fully integrate the desires into the ecosystem.

Kuiper Belt, Sisgardian Craftworld

"There we are. The seed is ready?" Nasami asked, only her short, black hair visible under the bioluminiscent parts of the hull.
"Yes. We can begin immediately. Say, did you hear about the recent... troubles the FTR techies have?"
"Yes. To be honest... I don´t know what to think about it. It`s their department, not ours."
"But still, contact with the seed..."
"Yes. Yes, I know. Listen, Marcel..." She hesitated, looking at the ceiling, a part of the ship... the ship that was now Marcel`s body. "We did the calculations. Together. And they are correct, right?"
"Yes."
"And if we wait with seeding the craftworld, we will get problems. We know that. Now, we might get problems if we do it, too. But we don´t know that. So..."
"Yeah..." Marcel wanted to continue, but Nasami was faster.
"And in any case, you know how our superiors are."
"True. Well..."

Outside the ship

Nothing happened. Well, actually, there was something happening. Some... capsules were released from the (small) ship, slowly descending downwards...

The seed.

If all went the right way, it would land... and it would gorw, following its program. If the data they had got from the Technocratic Republics was correct, the... organism that was the craftworld shouldn`t defend itself, but would embrace the seed...

And if it did that, Nasami would be very satisfied.

And very rich, since she had developed this particular kind of telepathy- enabling organics.

"Telepathic Element -said the operator- At least that is how they define these... seeds" The operator was sitting in front of a group of screens, that showed the area on which the object had impacted the organic surface of the planetoid.

"Telepathic. I just do not like that word, if you know what I mean -answered Norm, while checking the different angles of the zone in question- Using living materials to create machines and structures is one thing. It allows them to grow and regenerate, and makes them highly adaptable. But granting them minds, or anything like it, is something completely different..."

The operator interrupted Norm "But it would be much like those semi-sentient ProdClones used back on Earth"

Norm made a short pause "Not the same thing. You try to compare a bullet with a bomb. This is a planet, one massive sized organism. ProdClones have had severe failures more than once, and let us not even remember those models that came out of the grow vats with full awareness, the HW-3 MPU Goliath. Good scientists were killed by those beasts, once they understood where they were -his eyes went to another screen, and he spoke absently- Just to imagine that something like that could happen with this... it sends cold shivers down my spine"

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The speed with which the organism adopted the strange object was impressive. Once it was recognized as non-harmful, the seed was literally assimilated by the system. What seemed to be a quite basic form of neural network grew from the same spot during the following days, to later spread over tens of kilometers over the interior of the organism. The thick mass of synaptic connections seemed, however, inactive, or at least dormant. The monitoring buoys installed deep inside the body showed no electrical impulses traveling through the network, although they did show a continuous thickening of it, almost as if this seed had forced the system to grow a primitive type of brain. Or primitive at first glance. It was simply too massive to give any definitive conclusions, and new theories would have to be formulated now.

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Reports on the neural development of the Craftworld's Corpus reached the labs of the Biopreparat on Mars about two weeks later. They had been conducting extensive research over the sample of evolved fladd, and much had been found about it's incredible, and at times unsettling, qualities.

"Everyday it passes, this... thing leaves me speechless -commented Hobras, after going through the ten-pages report detailing the recent events- Now it happens to be developing a neural system"

"A what?" Asked surprised the scientist next to him. Hobras handed her the report, with a broad smile on his face. She went through the pages, skipping the useless formalities that plagued the material "Incredible -she finally said- But I have to say that our experiments showed previously that such event could be possible. We were awaiting for such thing to happen sooner or later"

"Indeed -came Hobras- The fladd has the capacity of generating any form of tissue, or even organs, once given the appropriate genetic material. How far can it get is just a matter of how much can we feed it" He ended, with a joyous tone.