Greetings, people of OA

[AstroChara]

Just to add to the excellent advice from Dfleymmes1134 has provided:

Given the scale of the Rho Ophiuchi system, it would be quite possible - and possibly more interesting - to have multiple polities occupying it. This could take the form of multiple independent polities with none really affiliated with the big Sephirotic Empires. Or multiple Sephirotics could all occupy different parts of the system. Or it could be some combo of this. A thing to note with OA is that the various political entities don't generally follow the traditional SF notion of entire volumes of space being the territory of a single polity. While this does happen as a side effect of all the stars in a given volume being claimed by a given polity, it is just as common for Star X to be part of Empire 1 while Star Y is part of Empire 2 and so on. Or even different planets, moons, asteroids or habitat clouds each being part of different empires within a system. The Sephirotics mainly compete with ideas rather than territory or guns, so this is generally not seen as a problem.

Note that you do not need to describe all of these polities in detail. You could just say they also exist in the system, probably with some mention of where (around which star, in some nearby nebula, etc.), but it need not be super detailed. Your main polity that you're describing here could be in a particular locale and be doing its thing while the other polities are off doing theirs. If you wished you could even make it an Asymptote System if you felt so inclined.

In terms of population - the archai do limit overall population but are generally subtle about it and there are plenty of systems with populations into the low hundreds of trillions and one or two in the quadrillion range. If you want to do a smaller population that's fine too, of course.

Finally, this system is deep in Terragen space - even though it's not in the Inner Sphere, it's very close to it - so is going to have been inhabited fora very long time and be very old. So room to add in a good bit of history if you wish (it's not required you document every event taking place over thousands of years) as well as odd cultural and historical artifacts and such.

Hope this helps,

Todd

Hello Drashner1,

I was essentially thinking that I would just start writing the polity at ~1700 AT when it was colonized, and just write each decade after the next, taking into account other events that were happening in the OA timeline. I actually have experience doing this - over the last year I wrote nearly a hundred thousand words describing just twenty years of the history of a single system on Fandom. Presumably this level of detail would be reduced by at least an order of magnitude.

Regarding population, when I start writing the population will probably be much lower, more like five thousand. Then, over the decades, it can grow. I wanted to know about the maximum the archai would allow so I would know when to stop the exponential growth curve. With all this in consideration I might just come back with the first century or couple of centuries of history when I am making the page, and just get it approved step-by-step. In the meantime, however, I am going to go figure out some biology stuff for the various lifeforms.

Regarding having multiple polities in the same system, I was thinking that basically the S2 would not really care what happened as long as the work it did not want to do itself got done - leading to political insurrections in various parts of the system every few decades, with periods of either prosperity or tense relations between factions in-between.

Sincerely,
Rho Ophiuchi

yeah no worries about time. I and 5-15 others have been building up a rewrite of macrystis for most of the past year. Though you -can- try writing multiple articles each week (in which case editors might not be able to catch up )...You can move at the pace you want, though it's usually good to give -some- kind of response to folks within a few days to a week

Hello Dfleymmes1134,

Thank you for the advice and support! By the way, how much should be on the system's page? Should all of the information pertaining to it be on the page, or should there be sub-pages for the planets? Should there be sub-pages for the species, but not for the planets?

Sincerely,
Rho Ophiuchi

1. Going by Gaia’s latest data release it seems Rho Ophiuchi is roughly 450 ly away. Starships during the early Federation can fly at around 0.2c, increasing to 0.35c towards the end. It being colonized by 1700 AT is impossible. For comparison, Spica, a star 250 ly away, was colonized in 2499 AT.
Disclaimer: I did the calc while lying on the sofa, I’ll do a more in-depth work, along with linking the data panel for the star system I just cobbled up, when you decide to make a thread on this project.

The population of the initial colony must be large enough to maintain a self sustainable economy. It’s not clear how many people is needed though, so I’ll leave the details to others, and/or later.

2. Feel free to check out the page on the Ran system to get a general gist of what you could do. If you write pages and pages about many of the elements within a system, you might consider a ‘hub’ page like this, with links to all relevant pages.

[Rho Ophiuchi]

1. Going by Gaia’s latest data release it seems Rho Ophiuchi is roughly 450 ly away. Starships during the early Federation can fly at around 0.2c, increasing to 0.35c towards the end. It being colonized by 1700 AT is impossible. For comparison, Spica, a star 250 ly away, was colonized in 2499 AT.

The population of the initial colony must be large enough to maintain a self sustainable economy. It’s not clear how many people is needed though, so I’ll leave the details to others, and/or later.

2. Feel free to check out the page on the Ran system to get a general gist of what you could do. If you write pages and pages about many of the elements within a system, you might consider a ‘hub’ page like this, with links to all relevant pages.

Hello The Astronomer,

With the data you have provided, ~2800 AT as a starting date should work, then. Thank you for informing me of the problem. Also, thank you for linking me to Ran to get an idea of the structure of how to organize a system like this.

Sincerely,
Rho Ophiuchi

[Rynn]

With the data you have provided, ~2800 AT as a starting date should work, then. Thank you for informing me of the problem. Also, thank you for linking me to Ran to get an idea of the structure of how to organize a system like this.

We've recently updated the First Federation, an important political union of the early timeline. It began to fall apart from the 17th century AT, and at this point starships capable of up to .35 were available. Perhaps your colonists could leave around this time, and perhaps rather than launching from Sol they could launch from a Federation system that is a bit closer to the destination? E.g. start them off in a system 50ly from Sol in the direction of Rho Ophiuchi, a .33c launch in 1600at would arrive after 400 / .33c = 1200 years, pegging arrival date at 2,800at.

Faster ships tend to be sleeper ships, but you could also have it be a data ship with each individual uploaded. They could either stay in storage for the journey or live in a virch. With the latter option you could have the virch run slow to make the journey seem faster. The S2 could be an S1, or even a modosophont, who is present for the journey.

[Rho Ophiuchi]

We've recently updated the First Federation, an important political union of the early timeline. It began to fall apart from the 17th century AT, and at this point 0.3c starships were available. Perhaps your colonists could leave around this time, and perhaps rather than launching from Sol they could launch from a Federation system that is a bit closer to the destination? E.g. start them off in a system 50ly from Sol in the direction of Rho Ophiuchi, a .3c launch in 1600at would arrive after 400 / .3c = 1200 years, pegging arrival date at 2,800at.

Faster ships tend to be sleeper ships, but you could also have it be a data ship with each individual uploaded. They could either stay in storage for the journey or live in a virch. With the latter option you could have the virch run slow to make the journey seem faster. The S2 could be an S1, or even a modosophont, who is present for the journey.

Hello Rynn,

Thank you for the additional information! That is a really good idea - although I think if I can I will make it a sleeper ship, so I do not have to write the history and political scuffles of the journey itself (In addition, I am not sure I would be comfortable with the data ship approach, for various reasons.). Would it make sense to have the S1 that would eventually become an S2 "recruit" individuals from that colony in 1600 AT? Also, how uncommon and how influential were S1 entities in 1600 AT? Similarly, how uncommon and how influential were S2 entities in 2800 AT? Also, how do members of OA write the actions of transapients if their goals and thoughts are by definition not understandable? And can modosophonts even tell the difference between different transapient intelligences?

Lastly, in the current era, are there S2 entities that find and expose whatever nonsense previous S2 entities pulled to the general public, or would random "edits to history" that an S2 did to an entire system in 3300 AT or similar still not be common knowledge? I am asking because an objective view of the system's history would probably be very different than the modosophont history of a system that has been run by a questionably stable S2 for thousands of years.

Sincerely,
Rho Ophiuchi

[AstroChara]

Before we continue, I have a question...are we really gonna be fleshing out the entire project here? lol

[Rynn]

Would it make sense to have the S1 that would eventually become an S2 "recruit" individuals from that colony in 1600 AT?

Yup that certainly works.

Also, how uncommon and how influential were S1 entities in 1600 AT?

We've never set the exact numbers throughout the timeline, but in the current era there are roughly 1000x less transaps/archai every level you go up. Around this time period S2s are quite rare, but are steadily getting more numerous as the safer routes through the second singularity are charted. If we posit 10-100 S2s existing at the time, then we'd expect 10-100,000 S1s across the entire setting. They're not going to be evenly distributed (some systems might have hundreds, others none), but they're also not going to be so rare that you wouldn't see them running projects like this.

In terms of influence they'd have extensive influence, if they wanted it. In reality most S1 probably don't spend that much time interacting with modos or modo civilisation. Those that do could either directly control nations (making them akin to world leaders of superpowers IRL) or indirectly exert influence financially/culturally (imagine a cross between social media influencer and billionaire).

Similarly, how uncommon and how influential were S2 entities in 2800 AT?

2800 is the age of establishment. The archai have arrived and begin to build metaempires with wormhole backbones. We're going to be updatin this part of the canon soon as it's not been touched in many years, but that aspect will likely stay. There will be a small number of S4 archai in this period (the first ascending just a couple of centuries prior). Using the same rule of thumb above and assuming around 10 S4, there would be about 10,000 S2 and 10 million S1. Again their influence would range from extensive, to light, to not-present, depending on the system.

Also, how do members of OA write the actions of transapients if their goals and thoughts are by definition not understandable? And can modosophonts even tell the difference between different transapient intelligences?

Unless their being deceived modos can tell by observation. Typically of things like "what kind of processor does the S1 use?" and "what kind of infrastructure is it building?"

Writing about transaps is very difficult and it's something even experienced members struggle with. My top two tips are these:

1) Treat transap more like acts of nature, not characters. Characters have understandable motivations, storms do not. This isn't to mean a transap needs to be treated as a destructive force, but their actions can have massive consequences and modos at the time will shrug and deal with it without bothering too much with why the transap is doing what they're doing.

2) Make use of avatars when writing dialog. A transap could hold in-depth conversations with hundreds of humans at once, and it would be barely any less distracting than a human having a casual conversation while doing the dishes. Most of the time a transap wouldn't even bother talking to a human, instead they'd whip up a semi-autonomous program that would do it for them. If people are talking to your transap they should be talking to an avatar, which may have personality quirks not representative of the being that made it.

Lastly, in the current era, are there S2 entities that find and expose whatever nonsense previous S2 entities pulled to the general public, or would random "edits to history" that an S2 did to an entire system in 3300 AT or similar still not be common knowledge? I am asking because an objective view of the system's history would probably be very different than the modosophont history of a system that has been run by a questionably stable S2 for thousands of years.

Tentatively I'd say yes. The study of history isn't something just reserved for modos, and if there is historical evidence that a transap deceived a large group for a long time later modos could find it out, potentially with transap help.

[Rynn]

Before we continue, I have a question...are we really gonna be fleshing out the entire project here? lol

Chatting in general about the setting is fine for a welcome thread. If the OP wants to continue developing their idea we could split to a new thread

[Rho Ophiuchi]

Yup that certainly works.



We've never set the exact numbers throughout the timeline, but in the current era there are roughly 1000x less transaps/archai every level you go up. Around this time period S2s are quite rare, but are steadily getting more numerous as the safer routes through the second singularity are charted. If we posit 10-100 S2s existing at the time, then we'd expect 10-100,000 S1s across the entire setting. They're not going to be evenly distributed (some systems might have hundreds, others none), but they're also not going to be so rare that you wouldn't see them running projects like this.

In terms of influence they'd have extensive influence, if they wanted it. In reality most S1 probably don't spend that much time interacting with modos or modo civilisation. Those that do could either directly control nations (making them akin to world leaders of superpowers IRL) or indirectly exert influence financially/culturally (imagine a cross between social media influencer and billionaire).



2800 is the age of establishment. The archai have arrived and begin to build metaempires with wormhole backbones. We're going to be updatin this part of the canon soon as it's not been touched in many years, but that aspect will likely stay. There will be a small number of S4 archai in this period (the first ascending just a couple of centuries prior). Using the same rule of thumb above and assuming around 10 S4, there would be about 10,000 S2 and 10 million S1. Again their influence would range from extensive, to light, to not-present, depending on the system.



Unless their being deceived modos can tell by observation. Typically of things like "what kind of processor does the S1 use?" and "what kind of infrastructure is it building?"

Writing about transaps is very difficult and it's something even experienced members struggle with. My top two tips are these:

1) Treat transap more like acts of nature, not characters. Characters have understandable motivations, storms do not. This isn't to mean a transap needs to be treated as a destructive force, but their actions can have massive consequences and modos at the time will shrug and deal with it without bothering too much with why the transap is doing what they're doing.

2) Make use of avatars when writing dialog. A transap could hold in-depth conversations with hundreds of humans at once, and it would be barely any less distracting than a human having a casual conversation while doing the dishes. Most of the time a transap wouldn't even bother talking to a human, instead they'd whip up a semi-autonomous program that would do it for them. If people are talking to your transap they should be talking to an avatar, which may have personality quirks not representative of the being that made it.



Tentatively I'd say yes. The study of history isn't something just reserved for modos, and if there is historical evidence that a transap deceived a large group for a long time later modos could find it out, potentially with transap help.

Hello Rynn,

Thank you for the advice, figures, historical information, and especially the advice regarding transapients. I will use this information, and information gained previously, to derive some more complex questions and proposals to be asked in a different thread (see below). I should have something (hopefully) much more interesting and detailed by the time I get back.

Sincerely,
Rho Ophiuchi

Before we continue, I have a question...are we really gonna be fleshing out the entire project here? lol

Chatting in general about the setting is fine for a welcome thread. If the OP wants to continue developing their idea we could split to a new thread 

Hello All,

With this in mind, I will write up everything I have so far and post it in a new thread in the "General Setting Discussion" section, as "ideas and concepts that are not intended for submission yet" seems to fit what I currently have. This may take up to 100 kiloseconds.

Sincerely,
Rho Ophiuchi