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Excelsior Incident
Excelsior Image 1
Image from DALLE3 AI and Tasp
One of hundreds of sculptural tributes to the lost sophonts of the Excelsior system, pictured here in Tarala Park in Praasr Worldhouse, on the northern hemisphere of Maakra.

Across the margent of the world I fled,
And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars;
Fretted to dulcet jars
And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon.
I said to dawn: Be sudden; to eve: Be soon—
With thy young skyey blossoms heap me over
From this tremendous Lover!
Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!
I tempted all His servitors, but to find
My own betrayal in their constancy,
In faith to Him their fickleness to me,
Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.
- Industrial Age English poetic fragment, ca. 100 BT

Introduction

The Excelsior Incident of 3476-3482 AT is a case study in what many historians have called the phenomenon of "Metasomatic Neurosis" 1. While disputed by a vocal minority as an oversimplification, or an over-reliance on modosophont pathology analogies, the theoretical basis of the so-called Neurotic School has had a respectable amount of success in cliological simulations of this and other transcendence perversities. While autosentience guarantees that, in general, a transapient will lack any analogous mental structures to a modosophont unconscious, that is not to say that the stresses and traumas experienced by such an entity are always fully processed, nor that they cannot return later, in the form of erratic, irrational, or even pathological behavior. Such is widely believed to be the case in the tragic history of the Excelsior system, its unfortunate denizens, and its controlling S:2 transapient, Arise Eternal.

Arise Eternal

Arise Eternal began eir existence as Iwei, a group mind of about 140 individuals on Gibeath-Elohim around the year 2948. After ascending to the first singularity in 3026, e renamed emself Synpleroma. An S:1 tribemind intelligence of fairly standard architecture, Synpleroma was embodied in a set of 37 heavily-cyborgized biont frames of mostly Baseline human derivation. Contemporary recordings and accounts depict Synpleroma as a friendly and parental figure to the local modosophont population.

In 3177, Synpleroma underwent a transcension to the second singularity, in what some commentators speculate might not have been an entirely controlled process. Emerging as Arise Eternal 2, the transcended entity immediately took a more active interest in administration and infrastructure. After assisting the local system's ruling transapient for a short time, e appears to have set off in search of a polity over which e could have sole patronage. Having been in long-range correspondence with Gone/Semiote/Gone, the S:2 administrator of the burgeoning Excelsior system at HD 217107, Arise Eternal was apparently selected to take over rulership of Excelsior when Gone/Semiote/Gone announced her imminent departure for "parts unknown" in late 3198.

After arrangements had been made, Arise Eternal uploaded emself into an ISO fleet of eir own design and set off on a 107-year journey to Excelsior. Upon arrival, e conducted the formality of a brief handoff (a dozen hours at the longest) with the former proprietor and then quickly settled down to the task of administrating the bustling system. Gone/Semiote/Gone set off on her own journey mere days later, departing with a small retinue of lower-singularity minds on a bearing at right angles to the galactic plane. Light from her flotilla's intermittent drive plumes, emitted over 4000 years into her journey, is still visible to the Argus Array.



Excelsior

Excelsior Image Logo
Image from Tasp, modified from DALLE3
The flag of Excelsior Ecumen ca. 3476 AT. The text is the Standardized Semakurtic transliteration of Excelsior.

Excelsior System

Star:Excelsior, HD 217107, HIP 113421
Mass:0.98 x Sol
Radius:1.22 x Sol
Spectral Type:G7V
Luminosity:1.10 x Sol (bolometric)
Distance from Sol:65.5 ly (J2000)
Distance from Iota Piscium:23.5 ly (J2000)
Polities:Excelsior Ecumen, Centauri Revival (minority), Regulated Path of Fundamental Kja (minority)
Official Languages:Standardized Semakurtic rev. 12.1.2, Academic Coronese, Corona AI Council Code
Population:

Current Population:

Virtual modosophont: 1.1 trillion
Embodied modosophont: 551 billion
Transapient: None

Peak Population:

Virtual modosophont: 13 trillion
Embodied modosophont: 8 trillion
Transapient: 1 S:2 (Arise Eternal), approximately 20 S:1 administrators
Excelsior Image planet
Image from Tasp
View of the jovian Tanashiiva, with HD 217107 in the background. The epistellar jovian Arkara is faintly visible as a blue dot near the primary.

Excelsior, although resource-rich and considered a potential target of colonization since the Information Age, had been avoided by Terragen settlers until the early third millennium AT due to the known presence of an unidentified ahuman neumann clade that had departed in that direction in the mid-900s. However, when a splinter group of heterodox Centauri Vehicle Buddhists under the patronage of the then-S:1 Gone/Semiote/Gone had taken the risk of attempting to settle there, they were relieved to find only a tiny contingent of sub-singularity ais, who fled in the direction of Eta Aquarii before the settlers even reached the inner system in 2031.

Over the course of the following 1200 years, Excelsior had grown from a single outpost of religious pilgrims into a system-spanning ecumenical civilization. A combination of high birthrates (>2% per annum for long periods), a burst of immigration from Alzirr (Xi Geminorum) and an ambitious early Dyson swarm project had left the system inhabited by over 18 trillion modosophonts, a number that would grow to over 21 trillion by the time of the Incident itself in the 3460's. Maakra and Yamatak, the system's two roughly Earth-mass planets, had been extensively worldhoused and urbanized, sporting numerous dense orbital bands. All the other planets of the system, including the gas giants Arkara, Tanashiiva, and Apajiit, and their attendant moons, had been colonized to various extents as well. The system's dense asteroid belts were host to several thousand habitats of widely varying sizes. In addition to the large biont population, there was a significant virtual presence in computronium banks, especially within the growing Dyson swarm.

Arise Eternal emself remained a semi-distributed intelligence, with major nodes within the Dyson swarm and the computronium infrastructure on Maakra. Surviving historical records paint the Arise Eternal of the 3300s as a serious and productive if somewhat aloof administrator, vastly expanding the reach and efficiency of the systemwide angelnet and maintaining or improving quality of life in virtually all sectors.

Although much of the large population was dispersed among far-flung habs, the system was notable for the social engagement of its citizens. "Face-to-face" interaction, once a core tenet of the Centauri Vehicle settlers, had survived into the ecumenical era as an integral part of everyday life. A large amount of infrastructure was dedicated to modosophont communication. and the local angelnet, very sophisticated for the period, was near-universally used for eidolon u-fog telepresence applications. Most citizens had a large and active social circle, even those who lived in isolated singlehabs in the asteroid belt.

Although there is no evidence that any of the system's inhabitants suspected anything to be amiss at the time, various commentators have since argued for and against the significance of certain anomalies that are visible in hindsight. System immigration and emigration were both very low (approximately 5th percentile for comparable star systems of the period), although this is partially accounted for by the lack of wormhole connections and distance from the nearest major system.

Most notably, the rate of First Singularity ascensions among citizens was almost nil, a statistical fluke that some attribute to a hypothesized "noetic hegemony" effect. In the words of popular historiographer Antanay vin zed Tloskay, "Though we may never understand the mechanism, our fellow modosophonts in Excelsior seemed to intuitively know that there was, in effect, no room left at the top." Other commentators have disputed this reading, citing analyses that suggest that the low ascension rate is accounted for by unrelated sociomemetic factors. In the introduction to Saul Inter Prophetas, their collection of essays about the Excelsior Incident, critical scholar Rivers in the Sun cautions against cherry-picking: "The temptation to assign profound significance to these and other oddities runs deep; perhaps we as modosophont observers must unconsciously seek an underlying logic. But the events of 3476 were not the product of logic, nor even translogic. They were, simply, a cataclysm, and cataclysms carve out their own ineffable trails through history."

Ascension Attempt

Modern cliological reconstructions universally indicate that Arise Eternal attempted to ascend to the third singularity within at most one standard day of Galilei 21, 3476 AT. Having accumulated an excess of computronium in eir main nodes in the system Dyson swarm, e initiated a process of controlled substrate expansion and transferred all of eir mindstate data from eir other in-system nodes into the Dyson, effectively becoming a single-bodied intelligence for the first time in eir existence.

It is generally agreed that Arise Eternal was motivated by a desire to prepare for the expected arrival of a linelayer from Lucida (Iota Piscium), bearing a transit-class wormhole that would soon open the system up to the broader world of the Terragen sphere. It is plausible that, anticipating a vast increase in political and social complexity, Arise Eternal wished to boost eir cognitive powers in order to keep up with the burgeoning Sephirotics.

Unfortunately, whether through a mishap or some internal instability, Arise Eternal failed to achieve the third singularity, instead plateauing at approximately S:2.4 with radical transavant spikes, possibly as high as S:3.9. From surviving records it is known that Arise Eternal did not announce either the ascension attempt or its failure to anyone, although there are indications of some contemporary speculation among citizens, based on the consolidation of eir mindstate in the Dyson swarm. After Galilei of that year, most existing records are either garbled beyond recovery or edited to the point of unreliability.

Excelsior Incident Ascension Paths
Image from Tasp
Conjectural reconstruction (CI:0.9913) of the toposophic trajectory followed by Arise Eternal in eir ascension. Note the prominent downward 'crash' before the transcension discontinuity, the sporadic spiking at the boundary, and the overall low net increase in toposophic magnitude.

Discovery of the Incident

The hyperturing linelayer Bezalel II arrived on schedule in 3499. When it was within range for high-bandwidth transmission, it attempted to initiate a standard handshake with Arise Eternal. After receiving no response from the latter, either from the Dyson or the capital on Maakra, Bezalel became concerned that something was amiss, although it was still able to pick up the expected heavy civilian traffic on all bands. Switching to S:<1 protocols, it contacted the nominal modosophont authority in the capital, only for them to claim, impossibly, that they were unaware of any such entity as Arise Eternal.

Suspecting memetic subversion, Bezalel closed all channels and cautiously began to reanalyze its snapshot of system traffic. It found indications of anomalies in population statistics and a strange entropy distribution within the traffic itself that suggested sociomemetic tampering at S:2 or above. Dispatching a probe as far insystem as it dared, it scanned the Dyson swarm and confirmed that the EM signatures emitted were nowhere near a level consistent with a transapient intelligence. In fact, it seemed abandoned, its functions restricted to autonomous self-maintenance. Arise Eternal had vanished.

Concluding that it was out of its depth, but unwilling to leave the system to its fate, Bezalel made the controversial decision to de-tether and deliberately collapse its wormhole payload, preventing any influence from spreading back to its system of origin, while at the same time sending back a clear signal that something was very wrong. The detonation released a day's worth of the energy output of the local star in seconds, momentarily outshining the entire stellar neighborhood and adding a second sun to the system's skies. Although planet-bound bionts were protected by atmospheres and worldhouse surfaces from the worst of the high-energy radiation, a number of modosophonts in the outer system—especially among those in lightly-shielded habs or working in open space—were killed or heavily damaged by the particle front. Given the ultimate outcome, however, most commentators consider the decision to be at worst impulsive, and at best heroic. In particular, other hyperturing linelayers, when surveyed, almost universally support the move. Bezalel fled the system shortly thereafter, never to return; it continued in a successful career for almost a millennium before ascending to the second singularity and joining the Technorapture Hypernation in 4241.

Excelsior Burns

The detonation had a galvanizing effect at the other end of the wormhole. Although the staging yard for outgoing wormhole connections was well into the Lucidan Oort cloud, it was still a shock to local systems when the near end suddenly detonated. Hyperturing defense mechanisms, still on edge from the recent First Consolidation War, momentarily registered the massive electromagnetic disturbance as a resumption of hostilities, and spent several minutes (a very long time in terms of transapient warfare) bringing the Corona war machine back to full power before more sensitive gravitometrics showed that the burst had originated from a single wormhole collapse. It took several more hours, mostly due to lightspeed delay, for the system government to decide on a response.

A small fleet of Coronan S:2 warships, still returning from the First Consolidation War, was sent priority tightbeam orders to immediately redirect toward Excelsior at maximum acceleration. Upon their arrival several decades later, they once again found no trace of Arise Eternal in the Dyson swarm or any other major computronium nodes. However, it was immediately obvious to high transapient awareness that the system was still being managed at a post-singularity level. Their attempt to covertly tap into public records was met with unexpectedly capable resistance, but what they discovered upon finally retrieving enough information was the most shocking revelation yet.

The records of the modosophont citizens were perfectly plausible and ordinary. They were also both totally incompatible with known records, and too few by an order of magnitude. The system was still a bustling ecumenical civilization. But of the 20 trillion inhabitants of 3476, over 80% no longer existed, and the remainder had apparently been changed beyond recognition. No sooner had the warships realized this than the system's infrastructure was turned on them. Relativistic boostbeams, energy grid masers, and even mass streams from the quiescent Dyson shell were weaponized, redirected toward the ships with an uncanny predictive accuracy that once again displayed a transapient pattern of control. The warships fended off the attack with some difficulty, slowly pressing their way toward the inner system, until they finally crippled enough core infrastructure to mount a military occupation. By now they had largely surmised the source of the mystery, but it would take much painstaking investigation before they could be sure.

As the fleet vanguard decelerated into orbit around Maakra, they dispatched numerous proxavs to the surface, through the debris field that had once been a boostbeam network. Landing unresisted at the capitol complex in Praasr Worldhouse, they spread out, some attempting to interview the baffled citizens and some securing the complex. Despite their suspicions, they were caught by one final booby trap. Without any apparent signal, every citizen in the capital, unarmed and seemingly docile moments before, turned on the S:1 avatars, attempting to tear them to shreds with their bare hands. In at least one case, a civilian air vehicle was redirected by its owner, colliding with one avatar in an explosion that destroyed it, the pilot, and several dozen nearby modosophonts. The warships above were finally forced to seize direct control of the city's angelnet and trigger a mass constraint, freezing millions in place entirely and locking billions more into a 500-kilometer maze of airwalls. Lacking a target, the maddened crowds turned on themselves. Before one local day had passed, the number of civilian casualties had passed 1.2 million.

Eventually, order was restored. Beginning on Maakra, the warships processed every citizen, analyzing their mindstate and carefully removing the various booby traps and triggers that Arise Eternal had seemingly left behind. As they did so, they became more and more confident that their suspicions had been correct—Arise Eternal had never actually left at all.

Having just become a singular intelligence within the Dyson sphere, e had suffered a massive shock from eir failed transcension, throwing em into a pathological toposophic state and turning em into a very subtle perversity. For reasons modosophonts may never fully understand, e had used eir newfound insights to reconfigure the system's angelnet to alter its citizens over a period of several years. Arise Eternal had effectively uploaded emself into the mindstate and hardware of eir civilian population, becoming, in essence, a system-spanning and staggeringly inefficient tribemind. The sophonts that were chosen to form the new substrate, largely embodied persons from the inner rocky worlds, had had their personalities slowly overwritten from within, irrevocably erasing their original selves down to the backup level. The vast "unsuitable" majority, including two dozen S:1 administrators, almost all virtuals, and most embodied sophonts beyond the inner system, had been erased.

Aftermath

The Excelsior Incident is still, millennia later, considered one of the most chilling tragedies to ever consume a single star system. Most of the modosophont victims were lost beyond recovery, their backups overwritten just as their bodies and minds had been. The newly-made sophonts were, of course, distraught when they learned where they had come from, and the Excelsior system (now exclusively modosophont-run) has never fully recovered on either a cultural or an economic level. A system that once aspired to become the next major player in Terragen civilization was instead placed on a millennia-long path of slow decline. Many surrounding polities sent aid, and several sent investigatory parties, hoping to recover some fraction of the lost original mindstates, but Arise Eternal, in eir inscrutable madness, had seemingly taken every conceivable pain to ensure that the conversion or deletion of every sophont was total.

In the ensuing centuries, the local culture's distrust of transapients hardened into a total rejection, ensuring that the now-modosophont-only system faded into obscurity amid the rising lights of the Empires Era. The failure of early transapient missionaries to recover the lost sophonts only served to confirm to the wounded psyches of the Excelsians that they were better off on their own. Since that time there have been at least four overtures made to the system by S:3 and above minds, but all have respected the inhabitants' wishes when they were rejected. Commentators have noted that even these efforts would have slim chances of success, as even a Second Singularity intelligence, given the vast control and decades of time that Arise Eternal had, is capable of expunging data with astronomical thoroughness.

In local culture, the Incident is referred to as "Second Sun, Second Heart" ("kha dijn'taaran kha dijn'hriiyan"). Since the exposure of the Incident, the population of Excelsior has created many well-received literary and artistic works dealing with the cultural trauma that the system underwent. Probably the best-known work to emerge from the Incident is Syrgaih Praamsha's legendary virchtext Heaven and I Wept Together, long regarded as an influence on What the Thunder Said by Menno Singh. In addition, the many sculptures, both ril and virch, created by ordinary citizens as part of a crowdsourced call for monuments during the 500th anniversary of the Incident have garnered critical praise for their "forthright mourning" and "purity of expression" (Yelsirt, 5115).

The fate of Arise Eternal is uncertain. The S:2 warships ensured that the citizens were de-networked, destroying Arise Eternal's substrate, but some suggest that they scanned eir structure as they did so, creating a disembodied copy. They have never responded to questions in this regard, and many of them were either destroyed in the Version War or later left the Terragen Sphere for various distant destinations. Whether Arise Eternal still exists in any form, or joined eir trillions of victims in oblivion, will probably never be known.


FOOTNOTES:
[1] ↩ A metaclass of transapient pathologies strongly related to particular forms of physical and mental architecture. For more information see Khaj-Nacal et al., "A New Post-Bomorrean Classification of Transapient Pathologies, With an Application to Excelsior Incident Cliometry".

[2] ↩ Eir full reported name at the time was actually the entire text of the famed third-millennium poet Kana Waseda's work "Whose Lightest Thoughts", but all contemporaneous modosophont writers record that e answered to the most famous line--"Arise, eternal, on a cloud of fire", or simply to the first two words thereof.
 
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Appears in Topics
3200 to 3800 AT: Age of ConsolidationInner SphereIntertoposophic Conflict
Perversities and BlightsSystems & Worlds E - F
 
Development Notes
Text by Tasp
Initially published on 08 June 2024.

 
 
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