I whenever I try to plot out a story I like to keep architects in the background- more as a force of nature or a corporation than anything else- mostly because I like to write stories about near baseline people. Whenever I try to write about a transapient at any sophonce level higher than s1, I simply treat the interactions as 'smarter than a human' and then mention the actual scale of the structure that houses the transparent/ archilect if necessary. Basically, the protagonist would rarely be sure of what the actual intelligence or scale of any unknown transapient would be beyond "much smarter than me"... until of course something very impressive happens at the transapient/ archilect's command.
All those stories that Todd mentioned are good examples of transapient characterization.
Mostly, at least for me, you are only able to create characterization for the representatives of a transapient and beyond that, you'll be characterizing the entity as you would a government, a company, or some natural phenomenon.
All those stories that Todd mentioned are good examples of transapient characterization.
Mostly, at least for me, you are only able to create characterization for the representatives of a transapient and beyond that, you'll be characterizing the entity as you would a government, a company, or some natural phenomenon.