The Harmony of Wo
Species Description:
The Wo are a transcendent species. Once, they were large, bulky humanoids with four upper limbs, but now they are not so constrained by the limits of the flesh. Having made the irreversible decision to transfer all of their minds into a massive electronic network, they are now an entirely mechanical, almost unliving race. As such, their individuals, being AI's now - although they refuse to be called such a derogatory term - may now enjoy all sorts of physical vessels via mind uplink, from simple bipedal walkers that allow a Wo to take some time away from the constant stream of information they receive every nanosecond in the network, to gargantuan, awe-inspiring battleships that have been built to protect the sanctity of the Harmony. As the Wo have mastered modular engineering to the micro level, the only standardized designs are those of starships and other large constructs, and every other physical platform is extremely varied and personal. All Wo, being untouchable outside of their homeworld, see warfare as a mere game as a result.
The Wo are
not a collective consciousness or a hive mind. Each Wo has kept his or her individuality intact after ascending.
Their faces were humanoid in appearance, possessed of distinct eyes, a nose, a mouth and ears. Four arms sprouted from four shoulders. Their skin tones were incredibly varied, and individual Wo sported any two hues of any intensity from the visible spectrum.
The Wo of today are able to create platforms that mimic almost completely their former biological selves. Such platforms are made to be as aesthetic and as physically perfect as possible, consistent with the Harmony's philosophies of physical perfection and the form of the body. They take quite some time to create, however, as they are modeled after individual Wo, so such bodies only available to diplomats and ambassadors so as to soothe other races during negotiations.
International representatives of the Harmony are almost entirely female.
Area in the Galaxy:
Technological Description:
As stated above, the Wo are an entirely mechanical race, having made the decision to transfer their minds into a massive electronic superhighway that they have named the "Harmony." The main infrastructure of this network is in their homeworld of Hi, a former terrestrial planet now made artificial with conduits, transistors, and tectonic plates of metal covering the entirety of its surface. Whereas once it radiated organic warmth, now it buzzes with electric energy and exudes the cold confidence of plasteel alloys. The entirety of the Wo race lives on Hi, whose location is kept from other races in total secrecy. Offworld endeavors are conducted via relay stations that allow the Wo to project their consciousness outwards to control the appropriate vessels. In the event that a mind tether is cut, most small Wo constructs - and all of their larger creations - have built-in, simple AI's that allow them to function to a limited extent.
The Wo are masters of engineering, and have no qualms with stripping whole planets bare of resources if it means bettering the Harmony in one way or another. Their refineries and smelters are almost perfectly efficient, and their assembly bays so powerful and versatile that retooling to create something different is but a mere thought away, a command to switch modes. This is only for smaller constructions, however, and the individuality of the Wo can be seen in the great variety of their roughly human-sized physical platforms. Larger objects, such as starships and mining facilities, require dedicated shipyards and prefabricators, and designs of such size are standardized. The Wo build their things to be as modular as possible, to make retrofitting and upgrading easy. It is needless to say that they have a deep understanding of metallurgy.
Their main method of energy production is Fusion technology. Physical platforms make use of compact and highly efficient batteries that allow them to operate for weeks without recharging.
Where weapons are concerned, the Laser is king for the Wo. They adore this line of technology because of its scalability: the techniques used to create a Laser Rifle can also be used to create a battlecruiser's main gun battery, only on a larger scale. The Wo also make use of shielding technology and their armor schemes are decent, but the currently reigning military theories in the Harmony conclude that offense is the best defense - and so, to face the Wo in combat is to experience massed laser batteries pouring sustained and intense fire at you, but the vessels doing so are relatively frail.
The Wo mainly use wormholes as their method of faster-than-light travel, due to their need to keep their minds tethered with their creations. As they hold their lives dearly, individual Wo refuse to transfer their whole consciousness into such fragile things like starships. If the Wo must expand in any great capacity, they must transfer infrastructure from Hi onto another planet or other suitable object - but what kind of madman would want to leave Home?
They are also extremely adept at technologies centered around deceit and misdirection - electronic warfare, cloaking and signature masking. This stems from their fear of their homeworld being found. A minor penetration of Wo space will see one's instruments malfunctioning coupled with visual and audio warnings to turn back, but delve any deeper and dedicated AI-killer programs will attempt to force their way into the trespasser's computer architecture and destroy it as best as they are able. Systems critical to the operation of a ship, such as life support, engines, and fire control are prime targets for such viruses. If these do not take care of the intruder, then they will be engaged by a powerful Wo Battlefleet.
History:
The galaxy at large knows but little of the Wo's history due to their reluctance to share information about themselves. The common belief across empires is that the Wo have always been mechanical, either made by another race or the result of rare, but natural, circumstances. These rumors are, of course, untrue: the Wo were once a race of organic, bipedal humanoids with four upper limbs, and a short tail indicative of their semi-reptilian ancestry. Their women were slender and graceful, while their men were large and strong. They were a race that admired physical development and self-improvement above all things, and their religions and beliefs were centered around this. Of the arts, the martial ones were the most numerous. And for a time in an era now mostly forgotten, when the still-verdant world of Hi revolved serenely around its mother star for years and years, the flags that partitioned her continents, islands and archipelagos often featured a sword or two. In this bygone age, the Wo reveled in their own mortality, aspiring to experience all physical pleasures. They were an arrogant, foolish and hedonistic species prone to narcissism and degeneracy. These traits would remain with them forever, but with the steady and exponential growth of the sciences, the manner in which these characteristics were expressed would radically change.
The ushering of an industrial revolution and great advances in medicine triggered a massive baby boom for the Wo. As the Empires of Hi entered the modern age, they experienced the problem of overpopulation. High literacy rates and the similarity of languages across the globe dissuaded any global war from culling significant numbers of Wo, and the scientific and governmental elite attempted to install a policy of birth control. However, as Wo culture revolved around mortality, physicality and pleasure, this was mostly ignored. So it is fortunate that they developed computing technology remarkably early, or the Wo today might not exist as they are.
Food shortages were soon becoming a problem. Many times did governments have to step in, opening the stockpiles, and feed the people out of their own hands. The problems that come with unsustainable population growth had finally caught up with the arrogant Wo, and parents realized that yes, maybe having five children as a minimum number was quite bad in some ways. Alleviated to a point with the introduction of genetically-engineered agriculture, the most stunning development was that of artificial intelligence - and more importantly, the ability to become one.
Unpopular at first, the notion of installing yourself into the Pathways - their planetary electronic highway - gradually became a socially accepted norm, because one becomes a god in the electronic plane once they make the switch. No longer limited by the flesh, the Wo in cyberspace can now fly, make love, and rule in their own, personal universes. If, for some reason, they ever wanted to leave, advances in engineering allowed for personal bodies that completely mimicked one's biological form and senses, except their function was wholly mechanical.
A leveling off of population growth was finally met by catching up agricultural technology. For the first time in several decades it was quite safe for any couple to make five or more children again, as food was no longer an issue. At this point, however, their civlization's hedonism was fully in-love with cyberspace, to the point where they equated uploading your mind into it as some sort of divine or spiritual ascendancy. When a full quarter of all living Wo existed as ghosts traveling in massed circuitry, the Pathways were renamed to "the Harmony."
Afterwards, the transition to being a fully electronic and mechanical race was a quick one. It was a social imperative: if you were still organic by this point, you were looked down upon. The lure of the pleasures that awaited in cyberspace was also strong. As the first Wo starships began to leave Hi in order to mine minerals and gather resources to feed the incredible power drain of the Harmony's infrastructure, men and women came in droves to Shrines of Ascendancy to give up their bodies, intent on becoming something more.
In the end, Hi's forests, lakes and oceans were destroyed as a new life - that of the machine - slowly consumed its surface. And the species that it nurtured with its own bosom, the Wo, had given up their souls to become gods.
Government Description:
The Harmony is, surprisingly, a
republican democracy. They are not a hive mind or a collective consciousness that operates on absolute mechanical consensus. When they gave up their organic forms to become complex AI's, the Wo never sacrificed their lives, only enhanced it. As they are a race that revels in pleasure, most of them would rather play in their own personal universes within cyberspace rather than do anything productive. The few that care about the prosperity and welfare of the Harmony beyond a nominal point are elected to positions of power: to guide the explorer fleets, to command the battlefleets, to oversee the production lines and to otherwise better the Harmony in other capacities.
Their most important ministers are as follows. They hold these offices for terms of ten solar years - a millennium for the Wo:
The Most Harmonious One - Head of State and Government
Destroyer of Barbarians - Minister of War
Giver of Life - Minister of the Economy
Hand of Creation - Minister of Construction and Production
Starwalker - Head of the Exploration Fleets
The Most Serene One - Ambassador and Primary National Representative of the Harmony
Cultural/Religious Description:
The Wo are self-centered hedonists. Perhaps it should not be surprising to learn, then, that they are also atheists. They hold joy and pleasure above all, and being the masters of their own universes in cyberspace, no experience is beyond them. They are limited only by processing power, which is distributed by The Most Harmonious One in quantities depending upon the importance of one's task at hand: battlefleet command, for example, will give one more computing power to work with than if you were, say, having a fantastical tryst with another Wo.
Though wasteful in virtual space, they are, in contrast, very pragmatic and utilitarian in realspace. As stated before, they are very efficient and highly skilled engineers. Nothing less than perfection is expected when improving or adding upon the Harmony's infrastructure.
Within the world of the Harmony, where anything is possible, they may do whatever - or whoever - fancies them at the moment. In virtual space, they take on idealized forms of themselves before they ascended: the men are large and handsome, rippling with muscle and exuding masculine confidence; the women are well-endowed and beautiful, elegant and graceful - although there are some Wo that would deviate from this norm. They are able to replicate these perfect bodies in realspace through their sheer mastery of engineering, and such are their diplomats and ambassadors' preferred forms. They do understand that applying the same aesthetics to combat platforms in the event of war is profligate, and will not waste resources trying to make their soldiers look good; their fighting units are truly mechanical in appearance.
