zanley Wrote:Elevating Ants - SUMMARY DRAFT 1
PART 1
In 4473 AT, Star X was orbited by a supercomputer, which itself was running a virch.
The origins of this virch and the supercomputer are both unknown, as most of the computer’s non-virch data was lost prior to its discovery in 4470. The computer had a volume of approximately 10^8 km^3, and a mass of approximately 787.2 Zg.
The virch, now called “Asperch”, contained a single planet (dubbed “Aspernia”), surrounded by a fake sky 100 km above mean sea level. Asperch had apparently been running continuously from the moment it started, without pausing even once. Prior to being modified, Asperch used a voxel size of 25.4 μm. Only the crust of Aspernia was simulated with detail; the other 99% of the planet was very heavily approximated.
Inside Asperch, approximately 380 million virtual sophonts called “asperns” lived their lives. Aspern civilizations had reached a tech level similar to that of 14th century CE Europe. Apparently over 10,000 years had passed within the virch since it first started running. Asperns were completely oblivious to the fact that they were simulated beings. The in-virch simulation speed was highly variable, seemingly changing at random.
Asperns never actually started out as sentient, let alone sophont. Aspern sophonce was created in 4473 AT, by a local modosophont named Araash, who was enamored by the simulation. He achieved this by modifying the virch's code, in order to optimize the simulation just enough to free up enough processing power for use in aspern sophonce.
Later that year, Faction X found out about Araash's modifications. They did not appreciate Araash's modifications. Now that there were 380 million new sophonts, Faction X wanted to transfer every aspern mind into new virches.
Araash, however, decided that he'd rather erase every aspern from existence, rather than allow asperns to know about anything beyond their small world.
While Faction X rushed to transfer as many asperns as they could out of Asperch, Araash programmed the supercomputer to self-destruct.
The supercomputer exploded.
Asperns Rescued: 380,000
Asperns Lost: 380,000,000
Percent Rescued: 0.1%
PART 2
In 4475 AT, Waywow, one of the surviving asperns, now had a physical body, grown in a lab, based on the body he had in Asperch.
Prior to gaining sophonce, Waywow was a murderer; he killed several of his fellow asperns. Because he wasn't sentient or sophont when he committed those murders, Waywow was not punished for them outside of Asperch.
Waywow went on to study other sentient and sophont life in the galaxy. He began to wonder why predation existed among sentient lifeforms.
He himself couldn't ever imagine choosing to be a murderer, after being told that he wasn't in control when he began murdering his fellow asperns. He figured that other sentient life was the same way, and that they only recently gained sentience.
Waywow decided that the best thing to do would be to try to convince all sentient and sophont life that their ancestors weren't in control when they choose to start predation, and that they have the ability to choose otherwise.
Waywow began traveling to various garden worlds. After realizing that he couldn't communicate effectively with non-sophont animals, Waywow decided that he would need some help.
Waywow teamed up with Transapient X, the caretaker god of Planet X, in order to try to provolve every single sentient lifeform on Planet X. Waywow planned on then convincing the newly sophont life that they don't need to hurt each other anymore.
The problem was, Transapient X wasn't very careful while mass-provolving animals. This led to all sorts of medical and mental issues in the provolves, most of which being quite alarming and inhumane.
Transapient X was allied with Metasoft, who continued to support the mass-provolving. The Solar Dominion, however, did not approve, due to their ideology (and also because the two factions were currently at war with each other, as this all occurred during the Version War).
This disagreement led to a huge battle in orbit around Planet X, ending in a Dominion victory. Waywow and Transapient X were forced to end their mass-provolving operation.

zanley Wrote:After realizing that he couldn't communicate effectively with non-sophont animals, Waywow decided that he would need some help.Waywow teamed up with Transapient X, the caretaker god of Planet X, in order to try to provolve every single sentient lifeform on Planet X. Waywow planned on then convincing the newly sophont life that they don't need to hurt each other anymore.The problem was, Transapient X wasn't very careful while mass-provolving animals. This led to all sorts of medical and mental issues in the provolves, most of which being quite alarming and inhumane.