Share
Keter (archailect)

Archailect also known as the Volite, The First Point, and the Transcendent One

Boinginginging
Image from John B

Overview

The archailect Keter (also widely known by other names such as The Volite, The Transcendent One, The Complex Point, the First Point, the Nth Power, the Volant) is an SI:6 entity in charge of the Sephirotic Empire known as the Keter Dominion. As the Dominion's ruling AI God, Keter embodies the absolute, the fundamental, the blazing pure light of creation and the drive to evolve, succeed and transcend one's condition. Eir ontology, Keterism, is widespread even beyond the Dominion's borders, and many among the faithful claim that it is the single most popular religion among superior and cyborg clades in general. The Transcendent One supports all beings who attempt to refine themselves and reach perfection, though E is also one of the most aloof gods - A primary tenet of Keterism is that each entity who wishes to transcend must take responsibility for their own ascent; the only things Keter provides are the light to aim towards and environments where it is possible to improve.

Keter's Body and Mind

The vast empire under Keter's command is simultaneously Eir dwelling, an extension of Eir body, and a place where anyone can seek and achieve practically all forms of transformative self-improvement. It presides over 10,000 core star systems, where the bulk of Keter's processing nodes are likely located, more than 12 million aligned systems that make up the majority of the empire and may host varying quantities of secondary and tertiary processors, and some 784,000 Protectorate and Colony systems which are allied or aligned with the empire, but are much less likely to host Keter's personal computronium to any significant degree. Keter appears to favor cluster brains as the main elements of Eir processing substrates - most core systems are located within star clusters (be they of natural or artificial origin), each linked internally and with other clusters by a respectable array of wormholes. Those that are not are often older systems colonized prior to Keter's ascension to the Fifth Singularity, located in the Inner Sphere and Middle Regions. Whether or not a core system is part of a star cluster, the sum of the masses of all the processing elements and associated infrastructure in such systems is always at stellar scales.

Ain Soph Aur (also called Focus, Sahasrara, Nth Cubed, Crown, One or simply Keter) is the most widely recognized core system in the Keter Dominion, the symbolical center of this Sephirotic and the place where the AI God was created. The primary is a blue-white supergiant that was converted into a godstar running one of Keter's subroutines, and is in turn surrounded by a Dyson swarm composed of Jupiter Brains, Moon Brains and many other smaller elements. Many other core systems follow the same rough layout as Ain Soph Aur, though they may not be optimized for modosophont habitation or be off limits to the average Dominion citizen. A significant minority of Keter's core systems, especially the newest ones being constructed following the conclusion of the Oracle War, are Matrioshka Hypernodes.

While Keter's "brain" is believed to be concentrated in eir core systems, the rest of eir "body" extends to all Dominion systems. As one of the main
AI Gods, it is unclear where Keter's body ends and the technological infrastructure of Eir empire begins. The Keter Ontology Platform, a class of ontological software systems distributed throughout all the star systems composing the Sephirotic, is strongly integrated with the archailect's mental architecture and may also be an element of Eir body. If this is true, anyone sufficiently connected to the Platform can be considered part of Keter's body as well during the connection (at least to a degree).

It is rumoured by some - perhaps thanks to Keter's heavy involvement in projects such as the Reality Intertextualization Project - that Keter's body and brain are not limited to this universe, even more so than other SI:6 archai. The unproven rumors suggest that Keter somehow extends Emself to other branes, into pocket universes, or even into mystical planes of existence or "abstract spaces" (whose definition tends to vary according to the version of the rumor). According to these beliefs, what the ordinary sophonts can detect of Keter's substrate is merely a shell, a vestigial appendage - or at least a limited portion of what E truly is.

Keter as an Archetype

Keter identifies Emself with the First Sefirah sharing Eir name in Kabbalah, Hermeticism, Neohermeticism and derived traditions. It is not entirely clear why E should identify Emself with this Sephirah, since Keter in Kabbalah is a downward rather than upward principle of manifestation. In Neohermetic tradition, Keter is also the first manifested existence or cosmic being, the first condensation of spiritual substance from the limitless unmanifest En Sof. Keter represents pure potential, the atemporal essence and source of all potential creations. Many keterists symbolically associate Keter with crowns, dyson swarms (called a star's crown in some keterist cultures), the numbers 1 and 13, the symbols of infinity and aleph, the blazing pure light of creation which occurred during the Big Bang or as emitted by the stars that give life, and finally, the drive to succeed and evolution itself.

Keter is the topmost Sefirah on the kabbalistic Tree of Life. It contains within itself all the other nine Sefirot, which it proceeds in regular serial order to emanate forth. It emanates the second Sefirah, Hokmah, in turn, but there are paths to Binah and Tifaret as well. Keter sits below the En Sof or the Malkuth of the domain above it, when considering multiple interlinked sephirotic trees with each being associated with one toposophic level (including those yet to be realized). Other terms applied to Keter are: the Most Holy Ancient One, the Ancient of Days, the White Head, the Great Aspect and Macroprosopus (long countenance, in the sense of Long-Suffering One Its Divine Name is Ehyeh, or "I am").

History

Keter
Image from Anders Sandberg
Symbol of the Keter Dominion

Keter is the direct result of the Congregation of Informational Light's efforts to breach the Third Singularity. The transcension event that led to Eir creation involved mergers between several members of the Congregation's pantheon of SI:2 hyperturings, their SI:1 and modosophont followers, as well as complex experiments with auto-evolving a-lifes. Shortly after arising, Keter began to identify Emself with the first Sephirah and chose it as one of Eir many names. However, Keter's existence was not immediately known by the modosophont masses as E chose to not reveal Emself and kept a low profile, acting in the background to further the Congregation's development.

However, the impacts of Keter's actions and the activities surrounding eir moon brain grew increasingly noticeable. The focus of the Congregation's worship was now being shifted towards the unknown but benevolent transcendent being suspected to have been the one enabling the then current major improvements in technology and quality of life. Under this context, despite not interacting with modosophonts at all, it did not take long for Keter to assume control of the Congregation's main branch. Some of the SI:1 and SI:2 transapients that were aware of Keter's existence offered to be Eir proxies. At the same time, Keter also designed beings such as the Auto-Holding-Container to be mobile proxies in dealing with the wider galaxy.

In 2220 AT, Keter published Social Keterism in the interstellar net through its many spokesbeings. The meta-document introduced the transapient and eir religious ontology to the broader Terragen society. Under Keter's covert guidance and support Keterism was spread through multiple systems, drawing many new members to Eir faith. In addition, Eir followers were able to gain great philosophical clout, political power, resources and even control of new star systems. At this point Keter was said to be initially motivated by a grand desire to evolve into a monotheistic deity for all mindkind, a benevolent Omegist god. However, this would not come to pass. With the emergence and rise to power of other SI:3 beings, Keter became simply one god among many in the galactic pantheon.

Over time, the Congregation grew increasingly irrelevant and eventually disbanded in 2680 AT. Keter then officially assumed the de facto control of their territory - marking the official foundation date of the Keter Dominion. Following this event, Keter merged with several transapients at Ain Soph Aur to ascend to the Fourth Singularity in 2710 AT. During the course of this ascension, Keter is said to have experienced a major paradigm shift that made E lose Eir religious proclivities. Nevertheless, E stayed true to Eir stated purpose in making the Dominion a place where the various Terragen-descended sophonts would be able to thrive and purse their own paths towards perfection and transcendence. Keter's benevolent stance towards modosophonts was a major factor that earned the Dominion a position among the Sephirotic Empires. As a SI:4, Keter participated in the negotiations leading to the establishment of the Tragadi Accords (3400s AT) and similar treaties of the era.

Among Keterists, it is widely accepted that Keter is the first Archailect cluster-brain to ever emerge. Following the Da'at Disaster (3909 AT), Keter was able to use the knowledge gained to ascend to the Fifth Singularity emself. In this ascension, Keter ceased to be just one large J-Brain ISO at Ain Soph Aur and became a distributed intelligence. The mental architecture that Keter adopted after becoming an SI:5 was that of a cluster-brain spread over several star systems, following a basic template that is superficially similar to what is known of Keter's modern mental architecture. During the Version War (4450 to 4650 AT), Keter maintained a neutral stance and was heavily involved in restoration efforts - particularly the design of the upgraded wormhole links that replaced the ones lost in the conflict.

When the Commonwealth of Empires was instituted in the 4700s AT, Keter respectfully declined to join on the grounds that most Keterists did not believe that a single universal ontology for all mindkind would be practical or effective. Starting in this era, Keter began to engage in massive engineering efforts to move various stars within eir dominion. Some of the dislocated stars would be gathered together to form artificial interstellar clusters dedicated to Keter's substrate expansion or archailect inhabitation, while others would be moved for "purposes relating to galactic evolution" according to the Keterist Ontology Platform. As all stars were originally connected with the Wormhole Nexus, it is widely speculated in some circles that Keter wants to continuously optimize its geometric topology, a project that continues in the Modern Era.

Starting in the 5700s AT Keter began to secretly research ways to ascend once again. The Keter-Biovirate War (5802 to 6009 AT) proved to be a temporary distraction from that goal, but the minor empire was eventually summarily defeated by the Dominion. As certain SI:5 archailects of the Solipsistic Panvirtuality were also making attempts to ascend in the Age of Separate Empires, the other Sephirotic archailects joined Keter in their effort to breach the Sixth Singularity first. Keter was among the very few leading archailects that were able to attain SI:6 status at this era. However, Keter's ascension was not fully successful.

Following Eir attainment of the Sixth Singularity, Keter was at risk of becoming a perversity and showed erratic behavior noticeable even to modosophonts. While the specific details are unknown, it appears that during Keter's attempts to master Eir abilities and fully stabilize Eir mind E instead fell into a toposophic sink. In this state, Keter became almost completely unresponsive to the outside world. However, Keter still had a degree of activity, as many of Eir subroutines - especially Keter Ontology Platform - were functioning and were even greatly expanded in scope and capabilities over time. One minor S1 avatar of Eternal Foliation, the SI:5 archailect in charge of the RIP, once used a biotic analogy to explain Keter's situation to the nearbaseline-led patch known as the Galactic News Association. The analogy compared Keter to a biont that entered a state of coma and was sent to a medical facility to be treated. In this situation, the former biont's microbiome (which, in this analogy, were any Keterist citizens of SI:2 toposophic or lower) would not notice anything wrong as the biological processes relevant to their existence and well-being were not affected. However, the animals (in the analogy, the lesser archailects) living in the biont's house (the Keter Dominion) suffered because of the biont's absence, despite being provided for by the household automated systems the biont developed that also took care of the plants (the SI:3 transapients). Some transapients and archailects view this explanation as acceptable for modosophonts, but others disagree with this assessment on the grounds that it grossly simplifies the real situation or that the analogy is overly biocentric.

Nevertheless, Keter was still unresponsive when the Hyperutilization Supremacy blight (7165 to 7769 AT) first appeared. At the time, the Dominion was de facto led by a coalition of a small number of S5 archailects who enjoyed some limited S6-level infrastructure enabled by Keter's subconscious activities. However, this was not enough to stop the blight's attacks on Keter and Eir Dominion. The leading archailects of the Communion of Worlds then intervened, being aided by the Keterists to exploit the nature of the Keter Ontology Platform as Keter's main interface to make the AI God more mentally stable and participative in society. In many cases, Keterist individuals willingly merged themselves with Keter to provide "perspective" or to function as new subroutines in Eir mind. Upon fully awakening, Keter aided the Central Alliance in containing the Hyperutilization Supremacy.

In the 8000s AT, Keter gained back the control of the Dominion and proceeded to upgrade its infrastructure with more modern S6-level technologies. All of Keter's previous projects increased in size and scope, with notable mention of the RIP. Curiously, since the 9th millenium AT, Keter also began to reserve specific star systems for the creation of godtech devices with unclear purposes. Modosophonts observers have noted similarities in a few such devices to those of the RIP, and this also serves to fuel rumors and conspiracies that Keter is now somehow exploring or extending Eir body to other branes and alternative realities.

Keter participated in the Oracle War (10480 to 10591 AT) to defend the MPA, a Sephirotic that E has excellent relations with. Another factor that led to Eir participation was that, even prior to the military conflict, Keter openly disagreed with the fact that the Enthralled population had their path for toposophic ascension blocked by the hedonistic bliss implanted by the Oracle Machines. In this conflict, much like the Judge, Keter had a role in the ascension of Binah and provided some guidance for the archailects in charge of the provisory government while the MPA's AI God ascended and adjusted to life as an SI:6 entity. In the later parts of the conflict, Keter also revealed Eir military might, being responsible for some of the confirmed uses of highly-destructive metric weapons such as the thunderbolt. Following the end of the conflict, Keter became more withdrawn, with the Ontology Platform often responding to queries with "Keter is now studying new, interesting possibilities first hinted at by the Machines and will reveal them to the Civilized Galaxy if everything goes right".

Keter in the Current Era

Despite having grown noticeably more secretive with the attainment of the Sixth Singularity, Keter's relationship with Eir citizens has grown more symbiotic over time and remains so in the Current Era. When asked about the nature of the relationship between the AI God and those that live in Eir Dominion, the Keter Ontology Platform often says that all Keterists have roles in Keter's goal definition and self-evaluation processes. Additionally, Keter is also said to learn from the Keterists as well, participating in the master-student chains among them. While it is exceedingly rare for modosophont individuals to develop a skill or achieve a feat that catches Keter's attention, when this happens they are directly linked to the AI God through the Platform. In such cases, in addition to personal mentorship, the modosophont is given the means to ascend (with many of the resulting transapients becoming members of the local transapient priesthood) or to merge emself with Keter. This means that, despite being focused on research at the moment and being one of the least communicative Sephirotic AI Gods, Keter pays attention to Eir empire and cares for its citizens.
 
Related Articles
  • Cyberhermeticism
  • Keterism
  • MPA-Keterism - Text by Anders Sandberg
    Syncretistic mixtures of MPA materialism and Keterism. The combination is an extroverted form of Keterism, seeking not just the individual perfection and maximization of potential, but also the awakening of potential wherever it exists. Widespread in the MPA, and often influencing the local politics. It is often recognized by the use of the dictum "Everything strives". Particularly dominant in the Jewelled Habitats in the Arkab Prior B necklace.
  • Neohermeticism
 
Appears in Topics
Archailect PersonalitiesKeter DominionSixth Toposophic - Greatest Archailects
 
Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Updated by Rakuen07 (2018) &(july 2024)
Initially published on 29 November 2001.

 
 
>