Silent Ones

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Silent Ones

A monolithic city on the homeworld of the species known as the Silent Ones
Image from Anders Sandberg + Worldtree
A monolithic Silent One city on the hidden surface of Quietus. As a demonstration for visiting Terragen diplomats, the optical phased arrays on the lower surface of the worldhouse dome have been adjusted to highlight the edges of the panels. On many areas of the planet, the worldhouse dome is built closer to the ground.

Hush (System) - Data Panel
Names	Hush, YTS-4376519-4032
Location	- Distance from Sol: 2445 ly - Constellation: Puppis
Physical characteristics:	- Mass: 2.49E30 kg ( 1.25 x Sol) - Radius: 835,608 km (1.2 x Sol) - Spectral type: F5V - Luminosity: 2 x Sol (bolometric)
System	Hush and its orbiting planets received their common Anglic names following the discovery of the Silent Ones on YTS-4376519-4032 IV (now known as Quietus). 1) Murmur: Hermian - Semi-major axis = 5.8E7 km (0.39 AU) - Mass = 3.15E23 kg (0.05 x Earth) 2) Mumble: Adamaean - Semi-major axis = 1.1E8 km (0.75 AU) - Mass = 6.1E24 kg ( 1.02 x Earth) 3) Mutter: Mesojovian - Semi-major axis = 1.65E8 km (1.1 AU) - Mass = 1.78E27 kg (0.93 x Jupiter) 4) Quietus: Supergaian - Semi-major axis = 2.28E8 km (1.53 AU) - Orbital period = 1.1 standard years - Orbital eccentricity = 0.0 - Mass = 4.68E25 kg (7.84 x Earth) - Radius = 14,101 km (2.21 x Earth) - Surface gravity = 1.6 g - Atmospheric composition = 75% nitrogen (N2), 23% oxygen (O2), 2% argon (Ar), carbon dioxide (CO2) and other trace gases - Surface atmospheric pressure = 1.62 standard atmospheres Note: The surface environment of Quietus is camouflaged by a worldhouse shell, the outer layer of which is designed to imitate the surface of a lifeless Arean world.
Reached	First visited by Zoeific Biopolity exploratory vessel Hygrobia in 6125 AT
Governance and Administration	System polity: Silent One Council System System Transapient Overseer: Multiple Caretaker God ISOs (names, number and toposophic status currently unknown) Overseer Affiliation: Caretaker Gods
Economy and Infrastructure	Economy: Post-scarcity autotopia Angelnetting: Ubiquitous and comprehensive
Travel	Wormhole: None Spaceports: None Freedom of Movement: Heavily restricted; as per the Silent Treaty, physical visitation of Quietus or any other planet in the system is prohibited, and any attempts at landing or close approach will be met with gentle but firm resistance by the local Caretaker God ISOs. On rare occasions, the Silent Ones have allowed modosophont visitors to observe their society using temporary

First visited in 6125 AT by a Zoeific Biopolity explorer class ship, which left an outpost seed behind after concluding their survey and moving on to their next destination. More than two centuries later, a mining operation discovered the hidden Silent One civilization beneath the false surface of YTS-4376519-4032 IV, which subsequently became known as Quietus. Currently uninhabited apart from the Silent Ones and several Caretaker God ISOs, who allow a limited number of visitors using relativistic craft (Hush is not currently a part of the Nexus).

As the Silent Ones do not permit scanning, chemical testing, or invasive examination of any life-form on their homeworld, the biochemical makeup of life on Quietus is unknown, although it is assumed to be carbon-based. Observed categories of life-forms include a ubiquitous class of plant-like sessile autotrophic photosynthesizers which use green pigment, several classes of motile and immotile fungus-like heterotrophic organisms, and various motile animal-like classes, the largest of which consists of six-limbed creatures which exhibit a diversity of shapes, sizes and lifestyles. With a few exceptions, the animal-like classes reproduce sexually by releasing gametes in water; this is one of the few common traits the Silent Ones share with the other motile organisms of their homeworld, as they otherwise do not resemble any other lineage in outward appearance.

Quietus (YTS-4376519-4032 IV)- Data Panel
Planet	- NoLWoCS classification = Supergaian - Semi-major axis = 1.53 AU - Orbital period = 1.1 standard years - Orbital eccentricity = 0.0 - Mass = 4.68E25 kg (7.84 x Earth) - Radius = 14,101 km (2.21 x Earth) - Surface gravity = 1.6 g - Atmospheric composition = 75% nitrogen (N2), 23% oxygen (O2), 2% argon (Ar), carbon dioxide (CO2) and other trace gases - Surface atmospheric pressure = 1.62 standard atmospheres

Quietus (YTS-4376519-4032 IV)- Data Panel

Planet

- NoLWoCS classification = Supergaian
- Semi-major axis = 1.53 AU
- Orbital period = 1.1 standard years
- Orbital eccentricity = 0.0
- Mass = 4.68E25 kg (7.84 x Earth)
- Radius = 14,101 km (2.21 x Earth)
- Surface gravity = 1.6 g
- Atmospheric composition = 75% nitrogen (N2), 23% oxygen (O2), 2% argon (Ar), carbon dioxide (CO2) and other trace gases
- Surface atmospheric pressure = 1.62 standard atmospheres

The Silent Ones

The Silent Ones are an enigmatic, relatively advanced xenosophont species, first encountered by Terragens in 6392 AT. They are one of the few known examples of a hi-tech xenosophont civilization that currently inhabits only a single world.

While Quietus appears from space to be a desolate, airless world, this is in fact a pretense: the planet's true surface is hidden beneath a worldhouse roof, the outer surface of which is covered by a layer of rock and dust carefully sculpted to resemble a naturally-occurring Arean planet. Beneath this roof, the surface environment of Quietus is that of a fairly typical life-bearing Gaian world, with an oxygen-rich atmosphere, abundant liquid water, and a thriving biosphere.

The Hush system is surrounded by a Bok globule nebula, which blocks most of the primary's outgoing light and renders remote telescopic observation difficult; this nebula is widely assumed to be artificial in origin, a hypothesis supported by Muuh records indicating that it appeared relatively suddenly around two million years ago. The Silent Ones have not confirmed this, however, and what few historical documents they have shared with Terragen xenologists do not suggest any form of past or present astroengineering capability that would have enabled this feat.

For reasons that remain incompletely understood, the Silent Ones have dedicated considerable effort to obscuring all evidence of their civilization from outside observers. Their home star system is located within a Bok globule nebula, which may or may not be artificial in origin, and which renders remote telescopic observation of their system virtually impossible. Their homeworld and sole inhabited planet, a high-gravity supergaian with a thick atmosphere and a lush biosphere, is covered in a worldhouse shell camouflaged by a layer of rock and dust meticulously arranged so as to give the appearance of an airless, dead Arean world. They were first contacted by Terragens centuries after the system had been visited and surveyed by Zoeific Biopolity explorers, when a mining operation belonging to a traveling vec polity unexpectedly stumbled upon their civilization hidden beneath the false surface of YTS-4376519-4032 IV (now known as Quietus). Prior to this, they had not been in contact with another intelligent species for at least two million years.

The fact that such an advanced civilization was able to remain undetected for so long, in a system well within the relatively well-explored Middle Regions, has led some to suspect that many such "silent" civilizations may exist throughout the galaxy, hiding in plain sight, awaiting discovery by Terragens.

Image from Steve Bowers
A typical Silent One individual.

Biology

Apart from having a few basic traits that seem to be common to all life on their home planet, the Silent Ones do not strongly resemble any other organism they share their world with, and it is unclear how they evolved. Based on various aspects of their anatomy, xenologists have hypothesized that their ancestors may have been small, omnivorous creatures living in the reef-like forest ecosystems girdling their homeworld's shallow seas, seeking out burrowing creatures using their excellent hearing. However, many consider it equally likely that their current form bears no real resemblance to their pre-sophont ancestors, having been extensively modified through genetic engineering. Very little is known about their internal anatomy or biochemistry, as the Silent Ones do not allow any form of scanning or biological sample collection by visiting researchers as part of their standing treaty with Terragenkind. Likewise, no close examination of any other lifeform on their planet is permitted, aside from basic handling and visual observation.

The Silent Ones are stocky, bipedal creatures, measuring nearly two meters across their longer horizontal axis, 70 centimeters in height when standing erect, and 50 centimeters across their shorter horizontal axis.Their short, thick legs terminate in flat, padded feet lacking any toes or digits, and their elongated bodies are balanced around a center of gravity between their hips. There is no defined anterior or posterior direction to their anatomy; in one direction the body narrows into a flexible snout/tentacle, and in the other it ends in a ridged bulb which contains the mouth. A Silent One may choose to walk with either of these ends facing forward, or "sideways" along the axis of the legs. Both the tentacle and bulb are highly extensible and capable of curving around to manipulate objects on either side of the creature, as well as holding objects above their center of gravity, if necessary. When resting, they lay their bodies on the ground, stretching their legs orthogonally to their bodies.

The bulb contains a sharp, tetrapartite beak, which is used to chop food into small pieces during ingestion; the mortal Silent One population subsists on a variety of wild subterranean plant- and animal-analogues, which they dig up using their tentacle and then consume by lowering the folded mouth-bulb over them. The immortals consume only a form of nutrient paste, made in part from the processed remains of deceased mortal adults and larvae. After the nutrients are absorbed, any hard or otherwise indigestible parts are expelled through the mouth, along with any liquid metabolic waste products. The bulb appears to be soft and flabby, but is actually very muscular and capable of holding or crushing objects. The snout/tentacle is equally strong but more dexterous; it ends in a pyramidal nail or claw, and can extend two parallel rows of smaller thorn-like claws along its length to assist in grasping objects.

The central part of the body is assumed to house the "brain", which based on indirect evidence is thought to be relatively large, potentially making up as much as a third of the total body weight. The skin is hairless and silk-like in texture, and is an even dark yellow tone across the entire body. Among the Silent Ones' most striking features is an array of long, thin, jointed "whiskers" across much of their bodies, which are both linked to their senses of touch and hearing and used for fine manipulation. Though they appear fragile, they are surprisingly strong and well-articulated, and can be moved in concert to seize and lift lightweight objects or manipulate technological devices. They are almost always in motion even when a Silent One is at rest, reflexively feeling out nearby surfaces and objects.

The bulb and tentacle each have a single small, lidless eye on the upper surface, which grants the Silent Ones a rather limited sense of vision. However, their senses of touch and hearing are excellent; they can pinpoint a noise source underground from several meters away within a few millimeters. They do not appear to have senses of smell or taste.

It is unknown if or how Silent Ones breathe, as they lack respiratory openings and seem to be able to survive while underwater or buried in soil for extended periods of time. It is speculated that they may use some form of passive gas exchange through their skin. They do have a form of auditory communication, but this too does not involve any visible openings that would allow air intake/expulsion; it is speculated that they have internal pockets of gas which are squeezed and shifted around to produce sounds. Silent One "speech" is audible as a series of faint grunts and squeals, likened by many Terragen observers to the sounds made by Earth guinea pigs. This mode of communication is supplemented by visual signaling with their whiskers, which can rapidly flex in semaphore-like movements.

Silent Ones reproduce sexually, releasing sacks of eggs and sperm in lagoons or large puddles; this is one of the few commonalities they have with the other motile life-forms on their home planet, as most use a similar strategy. The gamete sacks are dropped from an orifice between the legs while an individual stands in shallow water; there is no external sexual dimorphism between male and female Silent Ones. The eggs and sperm cells seek each other out and secrete floating masses of jelly-like material within which they combine, with the jelly serving to accumulate nutrients from the water and deter predators. The fertilized eggs develop into embryos, absorbing the surrounding jelly and unfertilized eggs and quickly growing into aquatic worm-like larvae. Over a period of days these grow into small, furred, amphibious snake-like creatures, which later become fully terrestrial, losing their thick fur and developing legs.

It is speculated that as the Silent Ones' pre-sophont ancestors developed toward sapience, they began to dig their own nurseries and protect them from predators, leading to the development of persistent communities and inter-generational social groups.

Culture

The original culture of the Silent Ones has been almost completely erased; according to the immortals, it was fundamentally flawed, forced upon their species by "outside necessities" and never suited to their way of being. The modern Silent Ones have worked quite hard to destroy any remains of this former culture, including bombing areas of their homeworld.

The new, immortal culture is apparently based on the archetypes and ideals expressed by the most ancient myths of their species, which are viewed by modern Silent Ones to be older and more powerful than rationality. They speak of a synergistic unity between interpreting the world and events according to these primordial archetypes and a more logical, scientific approach to understanding reality, to which they attribute their species' near-perfect cultural stability. Dreams and visions from the subconscious are treated with the utmost gravity, and are interpreted according to a system of symbolic meaning that has been optimized to fit reality over countless millennia. Every occurrence is viewed as having double, triple or quadruple meanings, either intentionally planned as such or interpreted to be so after the fact. The Silent Ones describe this in terms of a "closed ecosystem" of meaning and behavior, where every conscious or unconscious action is taken in accordance with a greater metaphysical plan, and this plan is in turn shaped by actions.

Beyond these broad outlines, much of Silent One culture is difficult or impossible for nearbaseline humans to understand, as it involves subjective emotional states that only the Silent Ones experience, as well as a host of concepts which the Silent Ones are either unwilling or unable to explain.

The Silent Ones have several spoken/signed and written languages, each of which are used in specific contexts. Their written characters are flowing and calligraphic, with words and sentences being arranged in blocks of rectangular spirals. Many nearbaselines find the visual aspect of their writing to be highly aesthetically pleasing. Likewise, the movements made by their arrays of jointed whiskers during speech, especially during sermons given by the elder immortals, are often described as hypnotic and alluring.

While modern Silent One culture evidently developed in large part out of a desire to cut all ties with their original civilization, the Silent Ones are strangely fixated with art produced by their ancient forebears. The few remaining examples of original art, mostly interactive sculptures from the pre-immortal era, are treated with apparent reverence and duplicated and imitated in countless ways. All examples of more recent art, no matter how seemingly original, are in some way designed to allude to or emphasize the qualities of these older works. No Terragen scholar has been able to satisfactorily explain this behavior; one popular theory is that the Silent Ones in fact regard these examples of ancient art with deep hatred and disgust, as they represent what they willingly left behind, and their modern obsession with these pieces is meant to constantly remind them of the superiority of their current cultural system.

Image from Steve Bowers and Artbreeder AI
A Silent Vec interacting with an Immortal on their homeworld

Society

Terragen observations of Silent One society remain limited due to the restrictions imposed by the Caretaker Gods and the Silent Ones themselves as part of their Silent Treaty, along with the local angelnets and worldhouse dome preventing observation of their civilization from space. Nevertheless, after several millennia of communication, scholars have been able to reach certain, limited conclusions.

Silent One society is divided between "immortals," a ruling class of individuals who do not biologically age and make up the majority of the population, and a minority of "mortals," who are effectively second-class citizens. Many of the currently living immortals are among the original founders of the current civilization, although a growing number are younger immortals bred from the mortals.

Immortal society is extremely hierarchical, with every individual assigned to a unique office associated with a specific set of duties and accorded a certain level of prestige. In most cases, the youngest immortals are found in the lowest ranks. As the infrastructure of Silent One civilization is completely automated, these offices rarely have anything to do with physical labor or maintenance; instead, they involve complex duties and rituals which to outsiders frequently seem to serve no useful purpose. Some individuals are tasked with orchestrating carefully designed interruptions and complications into the daily routines of others, both to teach lessons and to encourage conformation to societal norms. Almost every activity performed by any individual has a symbolic meaning; daily life is celebrated like a hermetic ceremony, where events, work and thinking are all intended to fit together with the synergistic vision.

The mortals live in huge reservations, consisting of wilderness interspersed with carefully-manicured park-like areas. They lead relatively simple lives, living off subsistence farming and wild food organisms, and unquestioningly obey the immortals. Their hatcheries are temple-like buildings where the larvae are raised according to unknown customs, and are occasionally chosen to be made into immortals. The vast majority of larvae are killed and become food for the immortals; adult mortals are also regularly culled and processed into food paste.

Also present is a small population of apparently sophont robots labeled by Terragens as the "Silent Vecs". These have evidently been a part of Silent One civilization for many millions of years, and are even less understood than the Silent Ones themselves. They do not speak with visitors, and communicate with each other only via unbreakably-encrypted transmissions.

This system has remained essentially unchanged for hundreds of millennia, and may appear very rigid and cruel to an outsider. But the Silent Ones apparently consider it to be ideal, and seem to regard themselves as the only civilized species in the universe. Even the mortals, when questioned, say they are content with the status quo.

According to the Silent Ones, the only source of dissent (minor as it is) is between the young and old immortals. The young immortals accept that the old immortals have much more experience and wisdom, but take exception to the system of single-term offices - when an immortal dies, its office is discontinued and replaced by a new office, with a slightly different purpose and set of duties as determined by the Councils of Office (which are exclusively staffed by the old immortals). Many younger immortals would prefer to have some form of upward mobility, though it is often difficult for outsiders to see how any particular office is supposedly better or more prestigious than any other.

The Councils of Office are supervised by the Councils of Vision, who design and execute the elaborate manipulations needed to bring society closer to the archetypes of the ancient visions. These Councils are very secretive, and oversee each other in a round-robin fashion to keep intents and visions pure. They seek to understand the lessons of the ancient visions, and implement them in reality to keep society healthy. This ranges from redesigning customs to become more "authentic" to ordering bizarre projects intended to fail in order to give the right emotional "tinge" to society.

Over the past 4000 years of Terragen contact, the Silent Ones have permitted a small number of diplomatic "embassies" where Terragens can "experience the honor of serving" using artificial bodies supplied by the Silent Ones - widely assumed to be outfitted with psychoware to prevent retention of most, but not all, of what visitors have seen upon leaving.

Over the last thousand years, Terragen diplomats have occasionally reported catching glimpses of entities within Silent One society which do not match the appearance of either the Silent Ones or the Silent Vecs. These have been speculated by some to be "alien servants," perhaps enslaved during the days of the Silent One's ancient empire, and kept alive as a captive population to the present day. Others have suggested that they are neogenic experiments or biotech constructs, or possibly Silent Ones that have radically modified themselves; the Silent Ones have displayed a distaste for genetic engineering in the modern era (outside of the modifications necessary to create the immortals), but it is possible that this is a pretense. Whatever these beings truly are, they do not resemble any life-forms known to Terragens, and the Silent Ones refuse to acknowledge their existence when queried.

Image from Anders Sandberg + Worldtree
A monolithic Silent One city on the hidden surface of Quietus. As a demonstration for visiting Terragen diplomats, the optical phased arrays on the lower surface of the worldhouse dome have been adjusted to highlight the edges of the panels

Technology

The Silent Ones' civilizational infrastructure is completely automated, consisting of a planetwide angelnet-like mechosystem of nano-, micro- and macro-scale machines. Their most advanced technologies are believed to have either been purchased from other species long ago, or retained from the pre-immortal civilization; no new technologies are known to have been invented for the past several hundred millennia, and the various Councils have compiled extensive lists of proscribed and permitted technologies. Their resource processing and recycling systems exhibit efficiencies rivaling those of the most advanced Terragen modosophont polities, and their energy infrastructure, mostly powered by deeply buried fusion reactors, and geothermal generators, has been optimized to produce as little thermal or electromagnetic "noise" as possible, presumably to avoid technosignatures that might lead to discovery by outsiders.

Automated assistants and vots are common for helping to manage the daily activities of the immortals, and to a lesser extent mortals. Advanced computing systems are likewise ubiquitous, often integrated into clothing, or as DNI implants for the immortals that serve to enhance their memories beyond natural limits, among other things. Personal and communal Memory Banks are known to exist, though in the latter case, access to the contents is limited by status. The AIs used by the Silent Ones apparently occupy a very different toposophic phase space from those developed by Terragen civilization; the Silent Ones claim that many of them have the approximate capability of Second Singularity minds, but there is little evidence to support this beyond the effectiveness of the planetary angelnet. Terragen transapients have neither confirmed nor denied these claims.

The pervasive angelnet covering the entirety of Quietus serves to enhance the immortals' quality of life in myriad ways, and also prevents any attempt to penetrate the worldhouse roof (which is strictly prohibited by the Caretaker Gods and the terms of the Silent Treaty). The worldhouse itself is a fairly impressive feat of engineering, being nearly a kilometer thick and packed with layer upon layer of radiation-absorbing shielding, thermal regulation systems, vibration dampeners, and various other known and unknown countermeasures designed to prevent detection of the activities taking place beneath it. The roof is supported by regularly-spaced pillars, which are barely visible at a distance due to their wisp-like (but deceptively strong) construction. The lower surface of the roof is an optical-phased array, which projects an artificial sky that follows a normal day-night cycle and simulates the motion of stars and planets. The outer surface is covered in a layer of natural rock and dust, presumably harvested from another world or from Quietus itself, arranged in a naturalistic fashion to resemble the surface of a nondescript Arean world.

The cities of the Silent Ones are vast arcology-like constructions, mainly built out of artificial polymers or diamondoids. Many are mountain-like or pyramidal in shape, ranging from monolithic blocks to diaphanous wisps of crystal supported by carbon nanotube cables. Many feature huge voids and galleries filled with gardens, illuminated by automated systems of mirrors and refractors. In the simulated sunlight of their planet's ceiling, Silent One cities glitter like immense dreams. The cities are exclusively occupied by a relatively sparse population of immortals and Silent Vecs, with each individual living in a large complex of rooms based on their office, linked to the rest of the structure by moving hallways and maglev (magnetic levitation) tubes. The vast majority of any given city is unoccupied most of the time.

Outside of the cities, the Silent Ones' ancient homeworld is kept almost completely natural, aside from parts of the mortal reserves. They currently seem to regard genetic modifications as abhorrent (aside from the universal longevity treatment used to create immortals), and have apparently spent a long time undoing the genetic changes they made over millions of years to many of the other species they share their planet with.

Silent Ones use clothing made from a variety of natural and synthetic materials, which typically resemble blankets or ponchos that are hung or wrapped over their elongated bodies. These have many perforations to let the whiskers out, and sometimes also feature artificial whiskers which can reach great lengths and extend the wearer's reach. Their foot-pads are often protected by sandal-like shoes. As described above, many Silent Ones, both mortals and immortals, also have computers or telecommunication systems integrated into their clothing.

History

The Silent Ones have revealed very little of their history before Terragen contact, but a small portion of what they have volunteered has been confirmed through archaeological excavations of their former, abandoned interstellar colonies. Other sources of information about their history include fragmentary records of a number of xenosophont civilizations contemporary to the early Silent Ones, all of which are now extinct save for the Soft Ones and the Muuh [1]. As a result of their history of exchange with other ancient xenosophonts, the Silent Ones are regarded by modern xenologists as a valuable source of information on various extinct civilizations; however, while their records are generally regarded as more reliable than those of the Muuh, the few documents they allow to be viewed by visiting scholars are invariably heavily redacted, and in some cases considered likely to have been edited.

According to available evidence, the Silent Ones became a unified planetary civilization around 3.5 million years ago, achieving interplanetary and interstellar spaceflight shortly thereafter. At some point they achieved a peaceful, post-scarcity society, having developed into a relatively advanced MEEC which controlled a dozen star systems and had limited contact with other nearby xenosophont civilizations at its height. However, the Silent Ones failed to develop the necessary technologies to link their star systems with a wormhole network and fully transition to HEEC status.

Eventually, they encountered problems with overpopulation, which were exacerbated by the advent of the immortal class. These were individuals who had undergone gene therapies that halted their biological aging, allowing them to live indefinitely if not killed by external factors. The treatment also rendered them effectively sterile: if an immortal reproduces, their larvae do not lose their fur and develop legs, but instead grow into balls of adipose tissue with undeveloped nervous systems. It is speculated that the treatment was intended as a kind of birth control originally, because the existence of older life-extension and youth-preserving technologies without these flaws are strongly hinted at by the available records. Nevertheless, the treatment was rapidly and universally adopted as a life-extension method. For some unknown reason, the flaw in the treatment that results in aberrant larval development has never been corrected, despite the Silent Ones having clearly demonstrated the capability to do so at any point in their subsequent technological development.

At some point, following a series of events which are poorly-documented, their interstellar expansion halted and a war broke out, both between the mortals and immortals and at least one other contemporary interstellar civilization [2]. Following its conclusion, the survivors (all of whom were immortals) decided to reshape everything - themselves, their worlds and their culture. As much of their society as possible was automated, and the remains of the old culture were dismissed as "agewritten" and mostly destroyed.

The post-war immortal population was small, and gradually began to dwindle as immortals were killed by accidents or the extremely rare homicide. The immortals thus eventually decided to reinstate a class of mortals for the sole purpose of breeding viable larvae. A few immortals during this period elected to have themselves modified to reverse their sterility (and consequently their immortality), and used genetic engineering technologies to guarantee acceptable levels of genetic variability in their offspring. All such immortals voluntarily committed ritual suicide once a sufficient number of mortals were born, in an event that modern Silent Ones and some of their older artworks respectfully refer to as "the great sacrifice".

The new class of mortals was initially controlled using addictive substances, psychoware, implants, and diets of specially engineered foodstuffs, all of which were designed both to keep them complacent and also to maintain their health and fertility. Over successive generations, however, they simply became accustomed to the system, and today the mortal population requires no external means of control. The rigid society of immortals continued to develop in strange and decadent ways; cannibalism of mortals by immortals was institutionalized, initially as a means of population control and later as a cultural practice. As the centuries passed, the Silent Ones became more and more reclusive, eventually going so far as to hide their worlds from the outside universe under camouflaged worldhouse roofs.

Eventually the Silent Ones' population reached a stable maximum, and their interstellar colonization efforts faltered once again. Most records seem to indicate that for unknown reasons they decided to retreat to their original home system, abandoning all of their colonies. However, it is also possible that their colonies simply failed and the local Silent Ones became extinct for a variety of reasons, with the most likely one being an inability to maintain a lasting and cohesive interstellar-scale civilization with communications being limited by lightspeed delays. It is suspected that around this time the Silent Ones created the dusty nebula surrounding their star in an effort to hide their presence, though they have not confirmed this, and the extent of their current or former astroengineering capabilities remains unknown. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that several Muuh historifics describe a gradual decrease in the apparent size and luminosity of Hush somewhere between two million and half a million years ago, after which they couldn't detect the system any longer.

Today the Silent Ones are regarded as one of the most isolationist xenosophonts civilizations in the Terragen Sphere. They very seldom interact with the rest of civilization, and even then, usually only to reaffirm standing policies and occasionally add new ones. They seem to be surprisingly aware of events happening beyond their system - though it unclear as to how this could be - but they continue to use an outdated ontology, making communication difficult. Many among the more conspiratorial and paranoid sophonts found throughout Terragen civilization have suggested that they are not at all as static and decadent as they seem, and that their entire society is a facade intended to misdirect attention from various covert (presumably nefarious) activities.

For a brief period, owing to the significant overlap in conditions considered habitable by both Silent Ones and many Terragens, several attempts were made by various groups to colonize worlds that had formerly belonged to the Silent Ones in the days of their interstellar empire. These were halted by a newly-formed faction of the Caretaker Gods, who blocked any development of the systems in the name of preserving the native xeno-ecologies and archeological sites. Currently, all such worlds are surrounded by restriction swarms and even access to the surrounding orbital space is forbidden to most sophonts. Though the local Caretaker God ISOs have allowed several scientific missions to study some of the abandoned colony worlds under strict supervision, the Silent Ones appear to strongly disapprove of such 'tampering', though they decline to explain why. It is unknown if the Caretaker Gods are in communication with the Silent Ones, or if they are subject to the same aloof treatment as everyone else.

One recent (and to some, rather worrying) development is that the Silent Ones have apparently begun producing and stockpiling antimatter in the time since their discovery by Terragen civilization. This was discovered totally by accident more than two millennia after first contact, when a visiting diplomatic vessel experienced a malfunction and was forced to scavenge resources for repairs from an inner-system planetoid. While approaching the planetoid, the vessel crashed into a massive orbital optical-phased array, behind which were a series of huge automated installations obviously designed for antimatter production, along with numerous dodecahedral structures presumed to be storage systems for harvested antimatter. The ship suffered minimal damage from the collision and was able to continue to its destination for repairs, but the incident resulted in a tense standoff with the local AI-controlled security systems, which initially refused to let the ship leave until an agreement was reached between the Silent Ones and the embassy of the visiting diplomats. Prior to this, there was no evidence to suggest that the Silent Ones had been engaging in any sort of activities outside their worldhouse dome since their discovery.

The Silent Ones have refused to acknowledge this event further, and it remains uncertain what their intentions are with the antimatter-production project. They are certainly aware that far more advanced technologies such as conversion exist and have been widespread across the Terragen Sphere for millennia, and they lack any military capabilities that would render them even a remote threat to any of their neighbors (though this point is disputed by the aforementioned conspiratorial and paranoid sophonts who generally believe that the Silent Ones are far more advanced than they seem to be). Various explanations have included a large-scale scientific experiment of some kind, an autonomous energy-production system that the Silent Ones wished to keep hidden for unknown reasons, an oddly antiquated attempt to deter invasion, or something else potentially relating to the Silent Ones' bizarre culture.

Timeline of Events
6 billion years BT:	Life evolves on Quietus (according to information obtained by visiting Terragen researchers from the Silent Ones' scientific databases).
2.5 million years BT:	A war breaks out between the Silent Ones and at least one contemporary civilization, coinciding with a civil war among the Silent Ones between the mortal and immortal populations.
2 million years BT:	The Silent Ones abandon all of their colony systems and withdraw to their homeworld. Muuh
0.5 million years BT:	The Hush system is visited by an unidentified xenosophont civilization, who do not detect the presence of the Silent Ones. Evidence of their exploratory activities can be found on the false surface of Quietus.
6125 AT:	Zoeific Biopolity explorer-class ship Hygrobia visits the Hush system as part of its mission to find and catalog new Garden Worlds. Upon surveying the system and finding no evidence of life, the Hygrobia drops an outpost seed and leaves for its next destination.
6392 AT:	First contact with Terragens. A mining operation belonging to a traveling vec polity drills far enough into the crust of Quietus to breach the worldhouse dome, revealing the presence of the Silent Ones below. A series of diplomatic exchanges ensue between the Zoeific Biopolity and Silent Ones, eventually resulting in an agreement that has since become widely known as the 'Silent Treaty'.
6503 AT:	Hush and its planets are formally appropriated by the Caretaker Gods, who oversee the emigration of all other Terragen parties from the system.
8560 AT:	A visiting diplomatic vessel inadvertently discovers the presence of antimatter-production facilities in orbit around Hush. No parties are harmed during the incident, but mistrust of the Silent Ones in some quarters deepens.

Footnotes:

[1] While neither the Muuh nor the Soft Ones had interacted with the Silent Ones prior to their discovery by Terragens, they were aware of their existence, having observed some of their early activities at a distance using telescopes.

[2] It is suggested by some records that at least one faction of the older Silent One interstellar empire defected, and became an independent interstellar civilization that would later participate in the war. Their modosophont members would include a population of "mortals" and there are mentions of "aliens", who are most likely Silent One derived clades that do not exist in the Current Era. However, due to the great scarcity of information about these "aliens", the view that they were actually a different xenosophont species is popular in some circles .

Related Items:

Hush Puppies - a name sometimes used by Anglic-speaking members of various neighboring polities to refer to the Silent Ones; usually derogatory. Refers both to the location of the Silent Ones' home system Hush in the constellation Puppis, as well as their apparent resemblance to a food item once consumed on Old Earth; the full etymology of this aspect of the name is unclear. See also Bunker-Bugs, Basement-Dwellers.

Silent Treatment - another name for the Silent Treaty, commonly used by those who are mistrustful of or otherwise dislike the Silent Ones.

Articles

First Contact - Text by Steve Bowers
Strategies and policies for contact with alien life forms (xenobiota) and Xenosophonts (intelligent alien life).
Garden Worlds - Text by The Astronomer, Steve Bowers 2020
Worlds that support a complex biosphere and macroscopic life forms.
Silent Vecs, The - Text by Steve Bowers
Apparently sophont robots found in the YTS-4376437-4376 system of the Xenosophonts, The Silent Ones
Xenobiont - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Generic term for alien (non-terragen) lifeform. May be animal-like, plant-like, protistan, exotic chemistry, or any other possibility. Does not have to be sophont. In fact just as on Earth, very few alien species ever evolve any measure of cognitive intelligence.

A monolithic city on the homeworld of the species known as the Silent Ones

Hush (System) - Data Panel