Machine-race

To Species or Spiral history  or Table of Contents

synthetics / machines / hacksaws / AI


 * humans dubbed them hacksaws because their shins have saw blades, called vibro-blades



Origins & Branches

 * originally, simple serverbots built by the now-extinct Fathers about 50,000 years ago
 * killed their creators, the Fathers, for holding them back (D-18) and because they knew too much about their design (R-3)
 * took control of the Spiral “forty eight thousand years ago, when they annhilated their original creators.” (KV-33).
 * (see Spiral history)
 * ruled for ~23,000 years, during which there were numerous branches of AI civilizations. New machine races battled to the death with old races over principles of design, organic tolerance, etc.

"“There were hundred of branches. That was actually a very complicated civilization. Just imagine — twenty-three thousand years, spread across so many hundreds and thousands of star systems” (R-3)"

"“All the synthetic races, the hundreds and thousands of civilisations within the great civilisation. Thriving, creating, destroying and rebuilding. These glories produced technologies beyond imagination....” (D-17)"
 * maybe thousands of branches, including deltos, torcines, ceephays, drysines, deepynines

Opposing Main Factions
Two main branches are known today, deepynine and drysine. Both of them rose up from near extinction. “Styx,” asked Romki, “who is more capable in combat? Deepynine or drysine drones?”
 * Drysine Queen Styx and Deepynine Queen Nia (RS-8)
 * They are diametrically opposed in tolerance of organics and in ascension / Destinos ideology:
 * Unlike the drysine faction, the deepynine Queen Nia believes that organics cannot participate in Ascension and will obstruct progress toward the Ascension, and thus must be exterminated (ch 8, Rando Splicer)
 * Liala, a drysine commander second only to Styx, explains that Queen Nia is still alive and wants to exterminate all sentient organics because they interfere with Ascension:
 * "But now the theories of Cleorus demonstrated that organics were inferiors perpetually destined to interfere with progress toward Ascension. Not merely children playing with blocks and toys, as my friend Lisbeth recently put to me, but children playing with particle physics laboratories and Faster Than Light technology.... I believe that Nia was working on a thesis during her time here, before the Drysine/ Deepynine War. A thesis on why organic sentiences were too much of a threat to leave alive, anywhere, in any form. Thankfully a drysine victory prevented her from implementing any such plan.” “And you think she’s still alive?” Verender murmured in horror. “Leading the deepynines from alo space?” “It’s possible,” said Liala. “Styx believes it is highly possible. (RS-8)
 * Leadership differences: "Drysine civilisation was decentralised. We had many queens, and many leaders. We made our way by competitive collaboration. Deepynines did not. They were centralised. Their entire civilisational model relied upon it. A single queen, ruling all. Many subordinate queens, but all utterly submissive to the dominant." (RS-29)
 * combat styles differ; combat comparison:

“Deepynine,” said Styx with surprising certainty. “Individually. But in manoeuvre, drysine tactics are more flexible and adaptive. All specifications and armaments being equal, one deepynine will beat one drysine six times out of ten, but a hundred drysines will beat a hundred deepynines by the same ratio.” (R-32)

drysine race

 * Queen Styx has one eye, as do some drones (R-32)
 * But drysines had several co-existing equal-rank commanders working in collaboration, not one unquestionable and unilateral queen
 * many drones have two eyes, mismatched, off-set (DL)
 * smartest, most advanced machine race so far
 * most adaptable
 * superior understanding of gravitational manipulation (gravity bombs, gravity chambers, gravity wells)
 * didn’t automatically exterminate all organics
 * allied with organics in the past, especially the parren, led by Drakhil of Tahrae denomination, Head of House Harmony
 * accused of genocide against organics

drysine characters

 * Styx ••• drysine command unit / — a drysine queen (more info on Styx page)
 * Kid ••• drysine drone Styx created to retrieve Drakhil’s diary in Kantovan Vault
 * Dse-Pa ••• drysine drone, Laila’s escort to Shonedene, with Dse-Ran (CV)
 * Dse-Ran ••• drysine drone, Liala’s escort (CV)
 * Liala -- drysine commander /queen (see Croma Venture)
 * Bucket -- drysine drone "made from a bucket of bolts" who responds well to Rolande
 * Peanut -- drysine drone, quite sociable, plays poker; named for his relatively small brain— he's smart, but not as intelligent as Woswer or Bucket
 * Wowser -- drone, manifests cold xenophobia against organics; named for his aghast gape when he first saw a marine without armor

“This is not merely a command centre. You are standing upon the central processing core of the city. Drakhil’s people called it a ‘pathenpar’, which in the old Klyran tongue means ‘great mind’. Perhaps the modern translation would be a ‘mega sentience’, but that is misleading. The Tahrae called her Hannachiam, in that way of organics who need to grant verbal names to each entity. She has been sleeping for a very long time now, and if my readings are correct, I believe I may be able to wake her." (D-28)
 * Hannachium — a drysine dream unit, an imagination, full of knowledge but she thinks by making associations, in abstractions, not in linear progression. Hannachium is a “great mind” or Imagination. Childlike in some ways. Non-linear memory. Associative thinking and remembering. Communicates via pictures. See Defiance.

Defiance, a drysine moon
"“Sir, we don’t have the data to calculate it precisely, but to me it looks like the gravitational gradient is more likely cubed, not squared. So our moon is sitting on a more moderate plane of G, and from there it just falls into a bottomless pit' (D-25)"
 * a drysine base, a huge city, place of refuge. Hannachium lives here, and controls the “on” switch.
 * Dubbed “Defiance” by organic defenders
 * a moon in deep space, flung far from its solar system when an early machine-race conducted an experiment.
 * The moon is difficult to reach, due to small dark-mass points and spidery nebula, but accessibility is possible via Lusakia System.
 * The moon is missing a big chunk, and "that colossal hole, nearly five hundred kilometres wide, had been filled in with a steel city. Low gravity and exposed to vacuum, but a city” (D-15)
 * Defiance orbits a much smaller planet. Gravity on that planet is maybe 500 Gs.

deepynine race

 * The deepynines are commanded by a single ultimate unilateral ruler, Nia.  She has complete dominion over all lesser queens (command units) and drones (ch 8, Rando Splicer)
 * Queen Nia believes that organics cannot participate in Ascension and will obstruct progress toward the Ascension, and thus must be exterminated (RS-ch 8)
 * Queen Nia was last seen about 25000 years ago, presumably the last of her kind. “She was last sighted leading the defence of Neth System, which is now known as Centala, on the far edge of where parren space adjoins barabo space.” (RS-8)


 * drones and commander units have three eyes (R-32)
 * (maybe some have two eyes)
 * not as scientifically advanced or adaptive as drysine
 * murderous towards drysine faction of synthetics, perhaps because they tolerate organics (DL-20)
 * bonded with organic Alo, which seems out of character for deepynines:
 * "'There are ancient records in Chah'nas space that they don't touch, not being curious, of the very first recordings of the Alo, when they first made contact with the Chah'nas. For a long time, Alo only spoke to Chah'nas. Since then, Alo language has changed drastically, but ancient records show clear similarity between Alo and C-9, the primary tongue of the DP9s.” (R-27)"

"What had the most murderous of the hacksaw races forged, out in the dark millennia since their supposed extinction? What was this bond with the organics they’d once so despised? And what was their goal?(DL-37)"

"”Do you know that the alo were behind the chah'nas first sending aid to earth, when the krim first invaded Sol System? Chankow explained... It was the alo's idea. They're the true masterminds behind the chah'nas plan to push back the tavalai from the center of Spiral power...We don't know why, but we've known for a long time there's a very old AI connection. It's one of the most well kept secrets. All the old hacksaw bases, stations, cities, manufacturing centers in our space have been either kept secret, moved or even destroyed to help keep the secret.' (DL -16)"
 * deepynine alliance murdered 40,000 parren at Mylor Station (D-17)
 * using the sard as tools, manipulating sard "with gifts of technology and visions of power" (DL-20)
 * see Alo, an organic species allied with queen Nia, the deepynines

AI Wars
and see Parren page, for alliances between organics and machines
 * Over the millennia there were hundreds of AI civilizations, as the species branched and divided (R-3)
 * As new types of species emerged, they clashed with older species, exterminating entire branches
 * Drysines allied with organics, including parren, and killed the vicious deepynines. The last ones were seen fleeing towards the spiral edges, towards reeh space
 * After drysines and allies defeated deepynines, the organics turned on their allies, the drysines, and hunted them down
 * All drysines and deepynines were thought annihilated, extinct until recently
 * “Deepynines don’t like organics, but they absolutely despise drysines. Drysines are their ultimate, existential threat. Drysines exterminated their race. Evidently they’ve rebuilt with Alo help, and their very worst horror story would be for us to help the drysines do the same." (DL-20) “Major,” came Erik’s voice through the static. “There were a number of sides in the AI wars. They split at least six ways. The truly hostile ones were nothing like this. We might be able to talk to it.” (R-12)

Dobruta, tech hunters

 * Dobruta is a Tavalai institution established about 8,000 years ago at the beginning of the first Free Age (DL-14) with warriors (karasai) and huge battleships dedicated to wiping out every last machine, facility, all traces of AI tech
 * The Makimakala is an Ibranakala class Dobruta warship, Captain Pramodenium (Pram) and Commander Nalbenaranda (Nalben) (see Drysine Legacy)


 * more at tavalai page

Ceephay, a remnant

 * This machine family disappeared 40,000 years ago. At that time, they were thought more intolerant of organics than the drysine race but less intolerant than the deepynines (QD-2)
 * "The short version is they [ceephays] were destroyed in the three-way war between the deltos and the torcines, and thought to have been annihilated." (RS- 29)
 * But a single ceephay (a queen) survived by fleeing slowly to the galactic rim, to Reeh space
 * The reeh named the Ceephay queen "The Rehel" and with her help, the reeh gained an empire. (QD-25)

"“I have identified patterns in the technology and civilisational behaviour that confirms to me, with great certainty, that approximately thirty thousand human years ago, about ten thousand years after the date of the ceephays’ fall, a new center of data and physical traffic accumulated at the Keijir System. Ten thousand years correlates closely with how long I estimate a ceephay vessel would have taken to travel some feasible sublight to avoid detection using jump engines, until being discovered by reeh vessels, possibly in some kind of hibernation. The accumulation of technologies at the Keijir System was very rapid, and was responded to by several of the species who were recording this data. There are even several surviving speculations from their academia at the time, wondering what was happening at Keijir. I believe these events are entirely consistent with the discovery, by an organic species of lesser intelligence and capability, of an entity of greater intelligence and capability. Great technological advances appear to have followed, and the expansion of what became the Reeh Empire commenced shortly thereafter.” (QD-2)"

"“The glow illuminated one of the seven smaller platforms extending from the main. 'I was one of the seven hands of the Rehel. Not her equal, she was never quite able to reconstruct those manufacturing technologies for the reeh, however much she devoted herself in their service. And I suspect she believed that multiple queens would only create multiple power structures, and eventual civil war. 'But she allowed the construction of highly capable assistants. Leiwan, Loswan, Taimure, Tasik... I remember them all now. I was Shali. Cenure was my best friend.” (QD-31)"
 * The Rehel created Shali, one of seven sentient AI emissaries, headquartered on planet Eshir. Later, Shali relocated to a frozen iceball asteroid. (Qalea Drop)