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Crystallographer's Reverie
 Image from Steve Bowers | |
| The white dwarf star known as Crystallographer's Reverie, home to the Siloens | |
Description
The northern hemisphere is an open biosphere reserve, and suitably-embodied sophonts can visit the region and interact with the local wildlife for short periods of time. The southern hemisphere is more developed, and it is here where most of the population lives.A network of superconducting cables and phased array EM transceivers orbit Crystallographer's Reverie, sustaining vertical structures in the degenerate plasma that can carry energy and information deeper into the star. Where the plasma structures meet the crystal core, they influence the production of crystal dislocations.
From this interface, giant cones of crystal dislocations hang down inside the core, with the base of the cone connected to the plasma channel. These cones are the Silicon Generation habitats, hosting millions of Adapted Vecs. Long arms extend from the cone's sides, a few metres wide but hundreds of kilometres long, sometimes fractally branching. These arms are the Adapted Vecs themselves, connected to their habitat and continuously drawing energy and information from it.
Occasionally, Adapted Vecs will detach from their habitat and explore the core in an autonomous, wormlike body, moving among the Siloen and gathering energy from controlled stresses in Reverie's core.
The Siloen live in association with their vec patrons, but in a different sort of habitat. Their Forest Cities are cultivated regions of Frank-Read Autotrophs (or artificial structures which have the same function), which the Siloen hold on to and feed from as they move. Sometimes the Forest Cities surround the Cone Habitats. Other times, the two exist separately.
Several habitats orbit the star, the majority of which are open to vacuum. They are inhabited primarily by Silicon Generation vecs of various types and Siloen pantropes, using smart matter bodies to emulate their native elongated, fractally-branching form. There are also a small number of pressurised habitats hosting biont visitors.
Society and Culture
Crystallographer's Reverie has a syncretic culture deriving influences from Silicon Generation, Caretakerism, and the behaviours of the Siloen themselves.The standard Silicon Generation cultural touchstones of intrinsically motived, fulfilling productive activity, architecture, creativity, and immedeism are fully present. Most sophonts engage in recreational production and maintenance of their local infrastructure. A unique architecture of point defects, dislocations, and grain boundaries has bloomed into a hundred different schools.
Many Siloen have embarked on a quest to develop their own native technology of crystal dislocations and stresses, not in opposition to their vec patrons, but as an act of creativity. The vecs refrain from interfering with this technological development except in circumstances where it may become dangerous, but often enjoy using such technologies when they mature. The most significant success here is the creation of a high-speed transport system, manipulating stresses in the core to create channels where dislocations glide smoothly and quickly.
Other Siloen cultural activities include:
- Architectural narratives, which involves building a structure that can communicate a story to an individual as they move through it.
- Topological dancing, in which one or many Siloen extend their bodies into highly complex, knotted structures.
- Autofragmentation, in which Siloen deliberately arrange their memories in a certain way and then split themselves to create interesting new individuals.
Regardless, this Caretakerist streak in the culture is most evident in the Wilderness Hemisphere, where the native biosphere of Crystallographer's Nightmare is protected. But additionally, there are many smaller wilderness reserves throughout the Built Hemisphere for the population to enjoy. Many Siloen tend to more cultivated but still quite wild gardens. Finally, a small but constant stream of sophonts leave Crystallographer's Reverie every year, most of whom go on to join the Caretaker Gods or the Sagittarius Preservers.
Visiting
Crystallographer's Reverie was connected to the Wormhole Nexus in 10450, and since then, there has been a significant rise in tourism. Some visitors choose to engenerate directly in the Cone Habitats, while others remain embodied in orbit, where they can interact directly with the Siloen Pantropes and indirectly via the local net with the society in Reverie's core. In both cases, tourism visas are extremely limited, allocated by lot to applicants on a century-long waiting list. Many accurate virch recreations are available on the Known Net.Related Articles
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Development Notes
Text by Liam Jones
Initially published on 17 December 2024.
The nature of the crystal biology was inspired by the paper "A model for a non-chemical form of life: crystalline physiology" (PDF), by Jean Schneider, published in the journal Origins of Life in 1977.
Initially published on 17 December 2024.
The nature of the crystal biology was inspired by the paper "A model for a non-chemical form of life: crystalline physiology" (PDF), by Jean Schneider, published in the journal Origins of Life in 1977.
