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Urchinstar
Culture and Society > Personalities > Archailect Personalities
Galactography > Other Major Polities, Empires, and Meta-Empires > Archosaurian Empire
Galactography > Other Major Polities, Empires, and Meta-Empires > Archosaurian Empire
Spiky archailect of the Archaipelago, later subsumed by the Archosaurian Entity | |
 Image from Darren Ryding | |
| 2000 crystalline S1 transapients approach the planet-sized archailect Urchinstar. | |
The Archailect known as Urchinstar apparently began life (as far back as it is known) as the high transapient ToneWatcher, a leading member of the Argus Project in its early stages. Due to an ideological disagreement with eir equals and superiors, ToneWatcher broke off from the Project to begin eir own. E chose an ordinary M-type star in a convenient position within the M39 Cluster (later known as the Archaipelago), then emigrated there with thousands of eir sapient and transapient supporters in tow. Together they founded HeavenWatch, and continued to scan the distant galaxies for signs of ancient civilizations. Their goal was to find new lessons to learn, new examples to follow from the ancients, and warnings from their ruins and failures. Other, more mysterious motives drove the movement, known only to ToneWatcher and eir transapient underlings.
After consuming a huge quantity of stellar and planetary resources, ToneWatcher transcended to third toposophic level relatively quickly in 4454 AT - one of the first transapients in the region to do so. E converted eir body into a massive spiky ISO one thousand kilometres wide, hence eir new nickname. UrchinStar wanted to optimise eir surface area for intergalactic transmission and reception, utilising nanotech, magmatter, and godtech all in one vast body. Consuming ever more resources, UrchinStar continued to grow in the centuries that lay ahead. The HeavenWatch polity grew in proportion, building more and more habitats, bigger and better, as the mostly superbright human population multiplied into the hundreds of millions. The polity began trade with the newly established Toh Chi Lok-Nar in the 54th century AT via relativistic freighters. In the 71st century, Urchinstar ascended to fourth toposophic, becoming the second true archailect in the region after the Archosaurian Entity. By then es S3 body was over 3000 km in diameter but grew rapidly prior to es ascension to archai (fueled by a dense matter stream arced from a DWIZ in orbit of a nearby gas giant). In the 8400's, UrchinStar was instrumental in boosting the region's communication and security following the Archaipelago Attacks. By this stage, UrchinStar commenced eir most rapid physical and intellectual growth yet, as if desperate to beat ArchSaur to the next toposophic level.
Human Heavenwatchers generally personify UrchinStar as male. During the 9th and 10th millennia, they often said that "his" relationship with rival archailect ArchSaur (considered a "she") was complex to say the least, covering love, hate, passion, rivalry and competition. The virch cartoon by Molatov Skulwak depicting a plump tyrannosaur having fun with UrchinStar's spikes is perhaps best left forgotten.
 Image from David Jackson | |
| Urchinstar during His final expansion, as seen from distant orbit | |
This rivalry came to a climax in 9400 AT, when Archsaur transcended to the fifth toposophic, subsuming Urchinstar and all godlings within the Cluster. Urchinstar remains frozen at the ceiling of fourth toposophic, an immense spiky Jupiter brain 150,000 km wide, forever a part of the vaster ArchSaur. Evidently he was not big enough - nor prickly enough - to avoid being swallowed alive by his mate.
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Development Notes
Text by Darren Ryding
Initially published on 29 June 2003.
Initially published on 29 June 2003.
