BY LETTER
Clesycs (Yardsales)
Semperist-derived Culture/Fashion/Subphyle/Meta-clade.
Among the thousands of off-shoot clades, cults, and independents that developed from early Semperism [see also Neosemperism] are the clesycs or "yardsales", bionts who use robust bionano and hylonano and symbiotic micro-organisms to recycle all their bodily wastes and metabolic byproducts. The ultimate in rugged individualism and self-sufficiency, clesycs have modified their bodies and garments with augments to live a totally closed cycle (hence the old anglic name, CLosEd(S)cYCle, itself indicative of their ancient heritage) existence, only taking what they can carry - often in the form of a mass of bottles, tubes, slaved biomachines, microecologies, remotes, biobots, solar power collectors, pocket nanofabs. and so on, giving them the appearance of a walking yard sale, hence the unflattering nickname.
In original phenotype clesycs come from every clade and species: everything from baseline human to space adapts to assorted provolves and more, but by the time they have gathered their accouterments of tech and modified their bodies to live constantly within their environment suits, they have converged somewhat, eventually acquiring the haphazard form that appears so often in caricatures of the eccentric haloist or old style Semperist. But within that apparent similarity of general lifestyle are a great range of different specializations. Some clesycs possess no more than the environmental suit on their back, others wander around in giant mobile habitat vehicles, others again will cheerfully disengage from their larger accouterments (still keeping close the recycling units) and stroll about like any other humanoid (or provolve, or tweak or neogen or borg). Some are huge in size, like the clesyc neowhales that are often sighted spinward of the near-Carina volume, but will occasionally make the journey to Oro Mistral; others are tiny, like the clesyc Paramecium provolves that move about each in their own mobile stagnant puddles. Some are nanocyborgs, others purely biological and employing nothing other than the most basic bionano and a copy of the Encyclopaedia Everythingana. Some partake happily in the life of the galaxy when they visit the civilized worlds, others want nothing to do with any of the Sephirotics or other metaempires. For some, their clesyc lifestyle is an aesthetic choice, or a matter of clone-tradition, for others it is the only way to avoid the pollution and nano- and memetic subversion of the hyperturings. Even among themselves the different clesycs may strongly disagree, but often with a sense of amicability and shared "otherness" in their mutual rejection of indulgent dependence on ai and the modcons of the civilized galaxy.
Among the thousands of off-shoot clades, cults, and independents that developed from early Semperism [see also Neosemperism] are the clesycs or "yardsales", bionts who use robust bionano and hylonano and symbiotic micro-organisms to recycle all their bodily wastes and metabolic byproducts. The ultimate in rugged individualism and self-sufficiency, clesycs have modified their bodies and garments with augments to live a totally closed cycle (hence the old anglic name, CLosEd(S)cYCle, itself indicative of their ancient heritage) existence, only taking what they can carry - often in the form of a mass of bottles, tubes, slaved biomachines, microecologies, remotes, biobots, solar power collectors, pocket nanofabs. and so on, giving them the appearance of a walking yard sale, hence the unflattering nickname.
In original phenotype clesycs come from every clade and species: everything from baseline human to space adapts to assorted provolves and more, but by the time they have gathered their accouterments of tech and modified their bodies to live constantly within their environment suits, they have converged somewhat, eventually acquiring the haphazard form that appears so often in caricatures of the eccentric haloist or old style Semperist. But within that apparent similarity of general lifestyle are a great range of different specializations. Some clesycs possess no more than the environmental suit on their back, others wander around in giant mobile habitat vehicles, others again will cheerfully disengage from their larger accouterments (still keeping close the recycling units) and stroll about like any other humanoid (or provolve, or tweak or neogen or borg). Some are huge in size, like the clesyc neowhales that are often sighted spinward of the near-Carina volume, but will occasionally make the journey to Oro Mistral; others are tiny, like the clesyc Paramecium provolves that move about each in their own mobile stagnant puddles. Some are nanocyborgs, others purely biological and employing nothing other than the most basic bionano and a copy of the Encyclopaedia Everythingana. Some partake happily in the life of the galaxy when they visit the civilized worlds, others want nothing to do with any of the Sephirotics or other metaempires. For some, their clesyc lifestyle is an aesthetic choice, or a matter of clone-tradition, for others it is the only way to avoid the pollution and nano- and memetic subversion of the hyperturings. Even among themselves the different clesycs may strongly disagree, but often with a sense of amicability and shared "otherness" in their mutual rejection of indulgent dependence on ai and the modcons of the civilized galaxy.
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Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Initially published on 24 September 2001.
Initially published on 24 September 2001.
