Hi, new arrival needing some guidance

[Drashner1]

Well, I would say that for now, the most important piece of lore I have trouble to understand is AI gods (if it is their true names/concept). What are they actually, and how do they work in this universe ?

To understand what an AI God is, it's helpful to first understand what the Singularity is. As conceived in real life (RL in OA slang) - LINK

In the Orion's Arm setting, we presume a somewhat different meaning - Rather than being a civilization wide event, a Singularity is an individual event that happens when a being augments and alters their mind using technology in such a way that they experience a sudden and extreme increase in intelligence/generalized problem solving ability as well as developing new ways of viewing and thinking about the world that are incomprehensible to beings who have not undergone a singularity event (as a RL example - try explaining the concept of self-awareness to a creature that is not self-aware. Post-Singularity beings in OA have mental attributes that are as different/incomprehensible to a human as our self-awareness is to a creature that is not self-aware). We also presume that there is not one Singularity but multiple ones, with each one requiring ever greater effort to achieve and each one leveling out at a higher level of intelligence/capability rather than continuing forever without limit. In the OA setting there are currently seven known Singularity Levels:

S0 - Humans - and more broadly all beings of roughly human intelligence (modosophonts) are S0

S1 - First Singularity - beings - usually software based such as AIs - that have breached the First Singularity. A single S1 being is as or more capable than around 15,000 S0 beings and can invent technologies that S0 cannot invent or even understand or use.

S2 - Second Singularity - beings roughly equivalent to 5 billion S0 minds. They can invent tech and think thoughts incomprehensible to S1 and S0 beings.

S3 - S6 - Yet higher beings, each vastly larger and more capable than the levels below. S3 need a processor the size of Earth's moon to run their minds, while S4 need one the size of Jupiter. S5 need 10 solar masses of processors while S6 need thousands of times that or more and may include artificial universes in their mix of processing substrates.

The term 'AI God' refers to a being - usually originating as an artificial intelligence - that has over time augmented itself to such a degree that it has reached the Fourth Singularity (S4) or above. These are beings so intelligent and mentally powerful that they can think new minds into existence as easily as you or I would speak a single one syllable word. Their thoughts can become so complex that they achieve consciousness in their own right and even form complex civilizations. An AI God can imagine entire planetary biospheres (from the simplest single cell organisms to the largest lifeforms, and all their environments) into existence with no more effort than a human would idly daydream on a lazy afternoon. They can create structures and machines the size of solar systems, and manufacture technologies that seem like magic to lower level minds. They are the entities that (subtly) the various Sephirotic empires and other major civilizations that make up the OA setting.

Trillions of people in the setting worship the archai as literal divine beings or at least agents of the divine or of enlightenment/Nirvana. Trillions more worship other gods, including the deities that are worshipped now in RL. And even more people worship other beings that they've come to believe in in the future or worship nothing at all. The majority of the people in the setting do not consider the AI Gods to be actual supernatural beings, but they also agree that it doesn't really matter as they possess pretty much all the attributes of supernatural beings or forces of nature. They can create, they can destroy, they can bless, they can curse.

Note that the term 'AI God' is a colloquialism - a term that people in the setting use. Their more formal name is 'Archailect' (singular) or 'Archai' (plural).

Hope this helps and if you have further questions on this or any other topic, please don't hesitate to ask.

Todd