Greetings, people of OA

[Rho Ophiuchi]

Unfortunately, I am not a master of the quote function - it didn't work well in an earlier version of the forum and I developed a workaround I still use to this day. But one of the other members or moderators here might be able to offer advise on this.

In the meantime we won't take your head off for including some quoted text (we mostly do that a good bit, but try to trim out the parts we aren't directly replying to).



Yes, this would be fine.



I'm going to have to refer this question to those members of the community who are into exotic biology. Not my area of expertise/interest/focus, I'm afraid.

Anyone who wants to weigh in on this question, please feel free.

Archailect writ runs thin in the Outer Volumes and Periphery - but that also means there's little to no protection against everything else running around out there - including rogue transapients and modosphonts who may be quite...unpleasant. Also note that the 'Civilized Galaxy' is constantly expanding into the outer regions, which themselves are constantly expanding. So someone living out in those regions will eventually have the 'Civilized Galaxy' catch up with them.

If you're thinking in terms of a civ wanting to be left alone to live an energy conserving lifestyle, a political solution might be a better option  - meaning being part of the Negentropy Alliance say, which is unlikely to object to their way of being as long as they don't go nuts on the population growth front.

Ok - gotta start my work day.

Hope this helps,

Todd

Hello Todd,

Thank you for your feedback - I will thus look more into the Negentropy Alliance in that case. Good luck with your work! I think I might have a better idea of the quote function now, but I still am not entirely sure how it works.

Sincerely,
Rho Ophiuchi

P.S. Who would currently control the Rho Ophiuchi system in the setting?

[AstroChara]

On a slightly different note, what is the highest temperature genetically-engineered humans that were originally baselines could plausibly live in? Could a clade of genetically-engineered humans exist on a supercritical pyrohydrothallasic world, for instance? Also, would there be a region on the fringe of human colonization where the archailects had no influence due to being temporally disconnected from those locations (e.g. at a radius of 9000 light-years or so)?

Past the first few thousand years from today or so most Terragens have the option to simply upload and download themselves into new bodies whenever they want to change their bodies, so the limit is simply how high temperature one could design a functional body template for. Exactly how hot it could go is something we don't know, but we do have descriptions for organisms living in magmatic environment - see the Rheolithoids - and even more extreme environments.

The edge of the Terragen Sphere, IIRC, is some 7,600 ly away, although I don't think this takes the displacement of wormholes further from the center into the future into account. Either way, no matter how far away you may be, it's dubious that there is anywhere in the Terragen Sphere that's truly devoid of archailect influence. At least that's how I understand the situation anyway.

[selden]

Rho Ophiucihi,

Welcome to OA!

You don’t have to write your posts by using only the tools provided by the forum software. You also can write a (plain) text file on your computing device and then copy and paste the results into your post. Indeed, editing a long document in the forum software over the network can be unreliable. I know people who’ve lost hours of work due to a network or server glitch.

Instead, you can use  whatever text editing tools you are comfortable with. Note I used the terms “plain text” and “text editing”. The binary formatting codes generated by tools like Microsoft Word, iPad Notes, etc. are not compatible with the forum software. You should use something like emacs or Microsoft’s Notepad. (There are many others, some unique to each type of computing device.) To control formatting, the forum software does textual markup by using (a subset of) BBCode. There are extensive documents available on the Web describing the BBCode markup language.

I hope this helps a little.

[Worldtree]

also condsider all of the energy that might go to non-human infrastructure.

Welcome to OA! 


but Selden's advice is definitely good for longer posts. or save a post as a draft halfway through writing it. 
the more casual conversation happens in Discord

or make many quotes within quotes

Deleting the quote inside another quote , or copying it and altering the authorship, would involve highlighting the text when going back in full edit mode and deleting the highlighted text. 

or post a reply to a post, then go back in using quick edit and you'll see the markup language around text like [ quote= 'first quote' pid='64526' dateline= '1629204559' ] [ / q u o t e ]

[Rho Ophiuchi]

Past the first few thousand years from today or so most Terragens have the option to simply upload and download themselves into new bodies whenever they want to change their bodies, so the limit is simply how high temperature one could design a functional body template for. Exactly how hot it could go is something we don't know, but we do have descriptions for organisms living in magmatic environment - see the Rheolithoids - and even more extreme environments.

The edge of the Terragen Sphere, IIRC, is some 7,600 ly away, although I don't think this takes the displacement of wormholes further from the center into the future into account. Either way, no matter how far away you may be, it's dubious that there is anywhere in the Terragen Sphere that's truly devoid of archailect influence. At least that's how I understand the situation anyway.

Hello The Astronomer,

Thank you for the information; I was referring more to the maximum temperature of lifeforms based on something similar to traditional biochemistry (proteins, etc.). Still, the page you linked was very interesting and informative.

Sincerely,
Rho Ophiuchi

Rho Ophiucihi,

Welcome to OA!

You don’t have to write your posts by using only the tools provided by the forum software. You also can write a (plain) text file on your computing device and then copy and paste the results into your post. Indeed, editing a long document in the forum software over the network can be unreliable. I know people who’ve lost hours of work due to a network or server glitch.

Instead, you can use  whatever text editing tools you are comfortable with. Note I used the terms “plain text” and “text editing”. The binary formatting codes generated by tools like Microsoft Word, iPad Notes, etc. are not compatible with the forum software. You should use something like emacs or Microsoft’s Notepad. (There are many others, some unique to each type of computing device.) To control formatting, the forum software does textual markup by using (a subset of) BBCode. There are extensive documents available on the Web describing the BBCode markup language.

I hope this helps a little.

Hello Selden,

Thank you so much! I found an online guide to BBcode and figured the quote function out - I am extremely glad for your assistance in this regard - Thank you, again!

Sincerely,
Rho Ophiuchi

Welcome to OA! 


but Selden's advice is definitely good for longer posts. or save a post as a draft halfway through writing it. 
the more casual conversation happens in Discord

Hello Dfleymmes1134,

Thank you for your help - I should note, however, that I have had concerns over Discord's privacy policy for a long time, and thus am not inclined to use that pariticular service.

Sincerely,
Rho Ophiuchi

[selden]

You’re very welcome.

[Worldtree]

Thank you for the information; I was referring more to the maximum temperature of lifeforms based on something similar to traditional biochemistry (proteins, etc.). Still, the page you linked was very interesting and informative.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160209-...ilin-water

the hottest temperatures we -know- organic, water-soluble life can exist in would be right below boiling temperature 100 C

Conditions are so challenging that no complex organisms can survive them. Animals generally struggle when they are exposed to temperatures much above 50C – true even of the Pink Pompeii worms that live next to deep-sea hydrothermal vents spewing out water at 400C onto the ocean floor.
Desulfurella acetivorans, for instance, is a bacterium that thrives in pools at 58C. It feeds on organic acetate in the pool. Rather than breathing oxygen, these microbes get their energy from volcanic sulphur through a process known as sulphur reduction.

Then there is Thermoproteus uzoniensis. This new species of archaea was found thriving in the hot springs, steam vents, mud holes and soils in the Uzon Caldera and Geyser Valley.
The rod-shaped microbes can survive in waters close to boiling point by feeding on the fermented remains of organic molecules called peptides. They also use sulphur reduction for energy. Scientists believe that strains of closely related T. uzoniensis are so common across the region because they are being carried between pools by wind, water, birds or even bears.
Acidilobus aceticus is so named because of the extreme acidity – pH2 – of the hot spring in which it was found. The acidic water was also very hot, at 92C. The microbe feeds on fermented starch and, again, uses sulphur to power its metabolism.

as for in Orions arm,
there's probably some extremophile clades or tweaks which aren't described yet in detail AFAIK- though clades adapted to a vacuum environment can probably withstand higher temperatures 

To'ul'h has a lot of organisms that we'd consider extremophiles living in a high temperature environment as well
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/48f71d38d2c56

[Rho Ophiuchi]

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160209-...ilin-water

the hottest temperatures we -know- organic, water-soluble life can exist in would be right below boiling temperature 100 C




as for in Orions arm,
there's probably some extremophile clades or tweaks which aren't described yet in detail AFAIK- though clades adapted to a vacuum environment can probably withstand higher temperatures 

To'ul'h has a lot of organisms that we'd consider extremophiles living in a high temperature environment as well
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/48f71d38d2c56

Hello Dfleymmes1134,

Thank you for the links - I am basically imagining a planet (colonized by terragens) with a smooth transition between the atmosphere and ocean, above water's critical point. As that is way higher than the article you mentioned (I am thinking around 400 C as a surface temperature, on a planet about half supercritical water by mass), could a cyborg clade work?

Sincerely,
Rho Ophiuchi

[Drashner1]

Backing up a bit to an earlier question:

It doesn't appear that the Rho Ophiuchi complex is currently 'owned' by any particular group or polity in the setting.

There are some passing mentions of a Rho Ophiuchi sector, but not of the system itself.

Looking at the description in Wikipedia, it looks like an interesting place with lots of possibilities in OA terms.

Hope this helps,

Todd

[Worldtree]

Rho Ophiuchi complex  is mentioned here in "Ammonite" , but it's from 20 years ago so you can basically do what you want
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/45f0d075d7101

and technically Rho Ophiuchi is  mentioned in 3 other places , but that doesn't matter. you have free reign, as Todd says

"Ammonites are classified in the phylum Mollusca, class Cephalopoda, subclass Ammonoidea. With the notable exception of a number of bioborged and biochipped pet clades of the Psyke Genesis Superbrights of the Rho Ophiuchi Complex, ammonites have not been provolved; their brains are less developed than those of coleoid molluscs, and many suffer from faulty genome templates (stemming from poor lazurogenics by a number of amateur mesozoic enthusiasts) making them somewhat difficult to work with."

Thank you for the links - I am basically imagining a planet (colonized by terragens) with a smooth transition between the atmosphere and ocean, above water's critical point. As that is way higher than the article you mentioned (I am thinking around 400 C as a surface temperature, on a planet about half supercritical water by mass), could a cyborg clade work?

Technically yes, but making habitats protected from some of the higher temperatures might be a good idea anyway 
I think categorizing them as 'cyborgs' specifically is limiting? Bioborgs, and tweaks also might work as a description. I personally don't know enough about organic chemistry to say whether multicellular life could exist at 400 C in high pressure water, (maybe with OA tech, but I'm guessing, nobody in the present day knows if life can adapt to such an environment... yet) but... AFAIK that might be pushing a limit? there's definitely interesting possibilities for creating an artificial ecosystem in such an environment. I or someone else can ask our more knowledgeable members
do these colonists need to be humanoid? maybe they're a dolphin clade of Terragen? Mostly sentient octopi?  Bioborg tweaked whales with a hundred arms and nanofactories inside their bodies? all three? bioluminescent manta rays? swarms of kaiju-like hive minded bodies that eat the farmed extremophile ecosystems?  Aside from the tempuratures/ pressures, the trouble here is human bodies aren't so useful in an ocean obviously.



random idea: as a potential source of conflict, if you like, could be a failed terraforming effort (failures in histories are welcome!) that tries to lower the temperature to something within earth range, but displaces the initially extremophile adapted life from the original colonists. But then due to political+ technical pressures, they end the terraformation effort in favor of orbital habitats again, which are what most people live in anyway. or something else.