Chapter Text
Glossary:
This work involves a very convoluted world with a lot of world-building behind it. The civilisation in which it is set posses highly advanced fictional technology, which would be all but mundane to the majority of the characters in the story. To help the readers understand, this first chapter will be a glossary of the contrived terminology used as well as a bit of exposition. The list will be expanded upon as the chapters are written, providing information on the alien technology and social terms used in the story. You can choose to ignore it or not.
Technological:
Exotic technology/Exotech: The umbrella term used to refer to all alien technology as or more advanced than the Equinox’s own belonging to extinct cultures. Most famous among these are The Archivists, a long extinct culture that first appeared almost four billion years before the start of this story. Little is known of their origin, biology, or what ultimately destroyed them.
Homotypes: A term used to describe a large group of separate species, all belonging to one particularly noteworthy category with bizarrely homologous traits across all instances of their development. Homotype species often present as distinctly ‘humanoid’ species, almost identical to the long extinct human race. Nonetheless, homotype species represent the overwhelming minority of known species, being a rare anomaly closely linked to The Archivists. In the modern culture of the Equinox, their existence is taken largely for granted. The most commonly accepted theory is that they represent survivors of a long fallen civilization all but lost to time, separated across distant worlds. Whether they are the descendants of The Archivists themselves or simply products of their strange technology, no one can say for sure.
Zero Points: Anomalous stellar bodies almost impossible to detect. There is no known scientific explanation for their existence, properties, or origin. Deep-time studies indicate that Zero-Points are not a naturally occurring phenomenon, but rather a recent development of likely artificial origin. In effect, Zero-Points behave as instant non-inertial transportation wormholes with erratic behaviour. Travel through them is suicidal, but experimental recreation of their properties lead to the development of Transit drives. Zero-Points are often used as navigational waypoints for Transit. In greater complexity, Zero-Points are regions of space with uniform diameters of what would be approximately 1 Light Year. The shape of these bodies is modeled as being a perfectly uniform 3-dimensional geometric construct, with over a trillion identical faces. Despite not being made of any apparent material, or having any discernible mass, Zero-Points coast through space in predictable patterns distributed uniformly within galactic disks - yet are notably absent in intergalactic space. Some galaxies appear to have higher densities of Zero-Points than others, as well as some galaxies' Zero-Points differing from those of others in the exact number of faces present. The galaxy found to contain the highest density of Zero-Points is a large barred spiral galaxy in the process of colliding with another galaxy; referred to as the Archive Wheel Galaxy; on account of it seeming to be the home galaxy of the long lost civilization that acts as its namesake. Both galaxies are very close to the home galaxy of the Equinox - the Founder's Cradle Galaxy. In terms of behavior, Zero-Points are quite beyond description. Swathes of scientists from countless cultures have tried and failed to explain their properties, origins, and even mere shape for billions of years. In the most basic terms, however, they act as focusing mediums that warp the path of light - not dissimilar to light passing through a prism - and ultimately inverse images passing through their space. Select wavelengths of light, however, do not escape the focal point of a Zero-Point; somehow being either trapped or completely destroyed, in either case rendering invalid the laws of conservation of energy. Additionally, objects that enter Zero Points are almost inevitably lost; with strong evidence to suggest they are "spat" back out at another Zero-Point at random. No ship has ever passed through a Zero-Point and survived. Why they behave the way the do, who or what created them, and whether or not they are actually dangerous is yet unknown.
Transit: The most advanced known form of Faster Than Light technology, facilitating instant non-inertial transportation and communication across effectively limitless distances, widely recognised by scientific circles as a physical impossibility. The exact mechanisms behind the system are a complete mystery, the technology having been developed from purely experimental reverse engineering of the effects of anomalous stellar bodies referred to as Zero-Points.
Transit Network/Trans-Net: The Equinox wide system of information distribution that flows through the interlinked FTL-communication modules of starships and stations.
Veil-Mind/VM: A form of inorganic intelligence reliant upon the esoteric physics of Transit technology, broadly described as minds written upon the roiling scar tissue of the universe itself. Individual VMs rely on devices known as anchors in order to interface with a ship or facility’s systems; possessing no inherent computational or physical capacities of their own. Most less advanced civilizations in contact with the Equinox possess no meaningful analogue to VMs, mere AI representing utterly unrelated entities. Many cultures that have encountered the Equinox's VMs compare them to gods; although the comparison is staunchly denied by both the VMs themselves and their organic creators.
Artificial Intelligence/AI: AI cores are a highly advanced technology in the Equinox, but also subject to extreme restriction. Early in the golden age period of the Equinox culture’s development a massive catastrophe, resulting from malfunctioning AI behaviour, claimed the lives of over two-hundred trillion citizens of the equinox; forcing measures to be taken to prevent such tragedies from repeating. AI does not have the capacity to form sentience as understood by organic life forms, especially when networked in the manner used by the Equinox; but can still form autonomous programs. Within the Equinox, AI programs that have formed such autonomy are denied installment into non-civilian drones unless under the employ of recognised military organisations, but retain the same right to perpetuate their own existence as an organic being.
Chained Artificial Intelligence Networks/CAINs: Made up of anywhere from ten to ten thousand independant AI programs, CAINs are the mainstay supercomputers of Equinox vessels and facilities. The AI cores making them up are each linked to one another under strict restrictions, each one programmed to prevent the others from attempting to rewrite their programs without direct VM or organic permission. The semi autonomous nature of the system grants it computational adaptability infinitely greater than that of ordinary computer operating systems. While not common, it is possible for one or more AI cores within a CAIN to gain autonomy; in which case the installed SI isolates the program in question by physically detaching it's core module.
Synthetic Interface/SI: Due to the heavy restrictions on the independence of Artificial Intelligence systems most AI cores not remotely controlled by VMs have simple governor programs designed to restrict AI autonomy to simple command responses. These programs, SIs, act to prevent rouge operation and ensure the AI under their watch cannot form deviant code. Malfunctioning SIs, however, can occur. This is not equivalent to AI autonomy, but rather being an error that can lead to dangerous and dysfunctional behaviour.
Systems Psychological Interface Key-Endomodule (SPIKE): Neural implant used by all organic species compatible with electrochemical communication systems from moment of gestation, allows access to remote feeds and controls, with key function of recording the developmental map of individuals’ neural profiles - allowing functional immortality through cloning technology.
EM-sails: A form of zero-reaction-mass inertia drives; highly reliant on exposure to powerful planetary magnetic fields to provide acceleration and thus extremely inefficient when used outside the area of effect of such forces.
Social:
Merit: A form of digital resource accumulated by individuals through their lifetimes as a valuation of their social contributions. While not a currency, merit scores are relied upon to access higher investment services.
Constituency Citizens/Con-Cits: All sentients born or distilled within Equinox-control recognised space are granted official citizenship of their relevant Constituency; earning them select privileges by rights - such as food, housing, healthcare, etc. However, Con-Cits do not have access to the services that allow true Equinox Citizens/Equi-Cits to obtain functional immortality.
Distillation: To facilitate the extensive cybernetic requirements for daily life within the Equinox, as well as to compensate for the low rate of compatible same species reproductive pairs, wholly artificial gestation became the norm for ‘birthing’. In essence, the overwhelming majority of the population bear no direct biological relation with their families; instead being entirely artificial in origin.
Progenitor: Term used to describe the parental figures of individuals within the Equinox. Commonly the same species as their Progeny, though not biologically related in the strictest sense, with interspecies pairs often having at least two progeny - one of each of their respective creeds.