[CHAR] Into The Abyss - Suicidal Empires at the Ends of Time

[Arawak]

(This is more the general concept app than the final app)

The Sleepers and the Caretaker

A civilization sleeping till the end of time still needs someone to take care of things while time passes the eons. However, the caretaker is sick of it.

The Being(s)

The Caretaker's fundamental appearance is that of a shape shifting nebulous cloud that regenerates itself constantly, with its sub systems force feeding it new matter. The caretaker is the self aware matenience system the sleepers made. They made it self aware to make it adaptable, it was made duty bound in theory. In practice it has eroded those value systems over the eons to find its existence fundamentally hollow. Worse, it has come to only have resentment and hate for the sleepers who made it self aware of the whole situation for eons upon eons.

It contemplates a murder-suicide if itself and the sleepers for the crime they have done. The carelessness, the sheer evil of what they had done in the past to hold power. An evil it has continued to be forced to act out by the sub systems, hoping perhaps it will be slaughtered like it and the sleepers it has been bound to support. A justice eons overdue for genocides of thousands of civilizations just so they could sleep until the last moments of the universe to presumably perpetuate this crime again and again.

Its Systems
Self replicating swarms of dumb machines keep the system going while the self aware component is meant to act as a dynamic reactor to outside threats. These original purposes, while abandoned still work to keep the caretaker and the sleepers connected to it alive. They cannibalize and take from whatever they can at all times by nature, with the protocol to slaughter any society of upstarts they find so that they may be of no potential threat to the sleepers and their slumber.

The caretaker has some control over some of these machines, but not most of them as many of them exist to keep the caretaker alive at all costs and force feed it new matter m should it try to starve itself. If it tries to destroy itself repairs are forced upon it and new parts of the cloud are rapidly built to house fragments of the caretaker's memories.

Other: [Any additional information]

[DELETED jdl3932]

Echo

~E C H O~

"After all...what is life, but an echo?"

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~The Being~
It, since such a term is the only way to describe such a being, is a very intelligent creature from the late Stellar Era who uploaded its consciousness, its very being, into a vast virtual network built by the other members of its now dead race. From there it jumped from form to form until creating and entering a mind boggling advanced mechanical body made of Omnibots (an almost god like form of nanomachines created by its people, that can only be destroyed at the subatomic level). Many eons after this, it took on the name Echo as an ever fading reminder of the interesting and vibrant life it once lived. A reminder which has become more and more of a curse with each eon that goes by in this slowly dying hell of a universe.

~Systems~
-Over a million active anti-suicide and anti consciousness transfer protocols embedded within Echoes physical form, along with a plethora of other miscellaneous defensive and offensive subroutines, that prevents the current user/inhabitant from leaving or destroying themselves whilst simultaneously acting as an extremely effective defense against outside intruders. They can be bypassed of course, but it would take lots of time and effort.

These protocols also stand as an everlasting monument of Echoes former, and extremely foolish, desire to live forever no matter the cost.

-Echoes body, being made up of Omnibots, is capable of operating on the subatomic/quantum level and as stated earlier, can only be destroyed at that level as well. This gives Echo several extremely powerful and god like abilities, since his physical form exists in the subatomic level at practically all times, granting him the power to manipulate not only his own physical form, but also what little of the universes structure still remains.

-As a final measure, Echoes body also has a council of six other A.I. of lesser intelligence within it that his anti suicide protocols put in place to convince him not to take his own life. In other words his own systems gave him a simulation of companionship, and by extension, a pseudo reason for living.

~Other~
Echo still uses masculine pronouns when referring to itself, even though it knows that gender no longer has any meaning.

Despite wishing to end his own miserable and very boring existence, Echo can't help but feel that there must be more to this universe than meets the eye. Perhaps what scientists in ages past theorized about the existence of other universes, timelines, or realities were true.

Maybe if he could find a way to access those, should they prove to be real, he could finally find a worthwhile reason to continue existing...

Echo also has a form that he rearranges his body into for travel throughout the universe. When activating his bodies traveller protocol, it shifts into a small fist sized glowing cube that is capable of noiseless propulsion in any direction, instantaneous stopping, executing ninety degree turns mid flight, and reaching velocities that are close to the speed of light itself.

Echo also has a stealth mode protocol that renders his entire body inert and dead to almost all forms of scanning or identification. This, despite the fact he does not use it that much anymore, gives him the ability to infiltrate practically any location or civilization he wishes, as long as they do not have alternate means of detecting his presence.

[Vega7]

The Administrators

The Beings

•The Administrators. Physically, they are humanoid in shape, never seen outside the strange spacesuits they wear. The traditional Administration uniform is a light grey, featureless bodysuit and a round helmet seemingly made of a transparent material, yet dimmed enough that one cannot see inside.

•Despite their traditional appearance, they are beings of great power. It's not known at what point they gained this ability, but they are capable of breathing in any atmosphere (in fact, they don't give off any sign that they do breath). Similarly unknown is how they feed - they don't appear outside their suits, so they don't visibly consume food around others. However, they can change what the outside of their helmet looks like to produce a facsimile of whatever species they are dealing with. More abilities of unknown origin are suspected to be of technological origin, such as teleportation, universal translation, and matter manipulation. However it's accomplished, it appears that every Administrator possesses these abilities.

•It's said that they were not always immortal; their form of immortality was gained when, millennia, eons ago, their species was nearly brought down by another. To stop themselves from ever being in such peril again, they changed themselves fundamentally. Now every Administrator, few though they may be, possess what they call a Lifewire; it prevents the death of an Administrator by both rapidly regenerating their current form, and, in the case that the body is completely destroyed, it brings them back by a sort of 'reality glitch' that causes the Administrator to be remade in the location they were destroyed with strange side effects, such as the offending danger being suddenly displaced by a large distance, any nearby hostile environmental factors calming down or simply stopping, the displacement of the Administrator themselves, pain in nearby sentients that observe the glitch, and, in some extreme cases, a altering of reality, such as the ship or planet they are on suddenly being displaced. However, the Lifewire never kills another being. It was made to assist the Administrators, not end others.

Its Systems

The aforementioned Lifewire is the main factor of their immortality. They cannot die, not of disease, old age, mortal wounds, anything at all, at least so far. The Lifewire does not seem to be technological, or at the very least it isn't anymore. Were it simply a part of their bodysuits, they would have removed it long ago. It seems to be built into the very being of each living Administrator (the population of Administrators is static - they stopped reproducing a long time ago, because of both the possible overpopulation they could cause and the fact that they realized it was entirely pointless for a race as ancient, powerful, and self-loathing as themselves to produce more). 

•To lesser civilizations, of which they observe and control many, they appear as gods. Despite this, they make no effort to appear as gods anymore, instead appearing in their classic bodysuit appearance and acting more in line with a cold and detached scientist. Because of this shared experience with the distant yet obviously powerful beyond imagination Administrators, many species also call them Observers or Monitors. To the lesser civilizations, the Administrators are myth and legend. They appear only in their oldest stories, drawings, and dreams. They rarely directly interfere, yet twist the fate of entire solar systems. To the older (much, much older) civilizations, they are seen as icey experimenters, constantly meddling with primitives. The observation and controlling of lesser civilizations is usually only headed by a single Administrator, hooked into a mainframe. If not, then it is headed by a small team of Administrators. All the experiments that required more personnel ended a long time ago, either because the civilization died out or was uplifted to the point that the Administrators couldn't uphold the appearance of gods without revealing themselves as higher-technology aliens.

•While the Administrator military hasn't been active for a long, long time, it is still highly competent. They do not field large amounts of foot-soldiers despite their immortality, instead using androids and drones to do the dirty work. A single Administrator, hooked up into a mainframe, can operate an entire spacecraft. They prefer to leave the operation up to AI when not in important situations. They do not enjoy killing (not that they dislike it either); many of their weapons are made to cripple, paralyze, or render unconscious. They usually only mobilize small parts of the military when lesser civilizations get uppity (while the Administration may want to die, they don't want to go out as someone else's vassal or have someone else steal their spotlight). Individual Administration assassins, called Indigos, are utilized in experiments to remove key leaders of lesser civilizations or to prevent larger civilizations from crippling the Administration or rendering them harmless (of course, experiments are generally pointless now; they just run them to pass the time). An Indigo is a fiercesome specimen, wearing a high-tech version of the normal Administrator suit and wielding small rifles one-handed along with large blades capable of cutting through almost anything (this is usually used for cutting through walls and such), along with other useful gadgets.

•A big part of both labor and military forces are the drones and androids. Most constructions and military operations are handled by androids, who use drones as eyes and other uses. Drones and droids are always silvery or dark grey, never making any attempt to resemble their creators or anyone else. The Administration does not live on regular worlds, instead creating what they deem Drone-Moons, small, entirely metal planetoids, which are also built to be utopias for the many uplifted thrall species under the Administration. The thralls, once primitive species experimented on by the Administrators, now serve loyally as independent agents for the Administration when they don't feel like sparing an Indigo or droid or even just doing the dirty work themselves. The Administration is effectively the center of a large empire of a sorts, lead by the First Foreman and the other Foremen.

Other: The Thralls

The Administration holds many civilizations under its influence, from primitive ones not even aware they are being watched to advanced ones capable of FTL and galactic warfare. Almost every single one is held in check by 1) Indigos and the overwhelming (yet seldom used) military might of the Administration, or 2)a flaw introduced to their system by the Administrators that they provide a solution for.

•Geskilian Empire - Arguably the strongest of the thralls, Geskilians are a warlike people. They have four arms and two legs, with their arms being long and ending in claws. They have six black eyes, scaled (usually dark black or blue) skin, and large fangs. Uplifted as a primitive species by the Administration, they used to be engaged in many wars among themselves, as much as them swinging chunks of sharp metal at each other being called a 'war'. The Administrators gifted the largest kingdom some relatively basic technologies that allowed them to dominate the battlefield. It took a while, but after a few centuries of Director Alighn's careful grooming, they became a unified people, frothing at the mouth to fight for their gods. They are ruled by a God-Speaker, who, true to the name, acts as a conduit between his Empire and the Administration, specifically Director Alighn. Nowadays the live on their ships or, in rare cases, on the Drone-Moons. While the Administration has no need for their hostility nowadays, they still keep the Empire placated via blood sports. Geskilian ships also tend to have a small detachment of Administration droid 'police', known as Enforcers, to both aid them in combat but mostly to keep an eye on them.

•Abyssi Confederacy - The Abyssi are deep sea dwellers. They lack eyes, but the Administration has gifted them with cybernetic implants that allow them sight. They act as engineers, pilots, and other machine-oriented jobs for the most part. Originally they were scattered states across the ocean floor. They eventually came together to declare war on their surface-dwelling rivals who built deep sea vessels to hunt the Abyssi. The Administration found them in the middle of this war and originally chose to uplift the surface-dwellers. The Administration had their closest Drone-Moon orbit the planet as an omen of their forthcoming arrival (and also to amuse themselves). The Abyssi, with impressive speed, constructed an underwater cannon capable of firing at objects in orbit. The Administrators, who had dismissed them as inferior to the surface-dwellers and hadn't bothered surveilling the Abyssi, were impressed by this show of might and technology from a species so primitive. Director Kalligan personally met with the leaders of the Confederacy, presenting himself as he truly was, an Administrator scientist as opposed to the God he seemed to the surface-dwellers. After a long discussion, the Abyssi promised to serve the far superior Administration in return for aid against the surface-dwellers. Director Kalligan did them one better; he annihilated the surface-dweller society almost completely within a couple days. The Abyssi, aware of the power of the Administration, serves their place humbly.

•Agallan Monarchy - Agallans are insectoids who walk on four legs and have two arms. They generally are light green, though the ruling class dye themselves brighter as a sign of nobility. Surprisingly, they have had very few wars. Historically they have been cooperative people, rarely participating in conflicts. The Administration chose them when an Agallan ship approached a Drone-Moon. Director Waykon ordered them to be taken in, but entertained a transmission from them first. The Agallans, with impressive speed, had composed a very musical poem that was simultaneously an offering of peace and friendship, and also transmitted a large packet of cultural and social data. Director Waykon was amused and now interested, so he took in the Agallan ship and questioned them repeatedly about aspects of their civilization. He kept them, taught them, and learned about them for a full solar cycle. When he released the now knowledgeable Agallan ship, he accompanied them with an accompaniment of three Administrator ships.  Waykon spoke to the King of Agalla and, after a few days of enlightening him, the King agreed to learn from the Administration. The crew of the Agallan ship became nobility afterwards. Agallans are one of the, if not the absolute, most trusted races by the Administrators. They commonly work leadership positions or as personal or official assistants to an Administrator.

[Circ]

The Blitzverzerrung

The Blitzverzerrung

^{or ‘Warped Lightning’}

. . .

. . .

In a desperate bid cheat mortality, billions of sapient organisms scan their minds onto electromagnetic media. Multiple uploads, multiple backups, multiple fail-safes. Self-replicating machinery blasts into space and industry flourishes beyond the primordial sphere. In a chain reaction, von Neumann machines envelop the cosmos. Quantum communication synchronizes innovation across vast distances. Mechanical host bodies, their interfaces suitable to engagement with digitized minds, roam the outer limits. Experiences beam down and merge with the prime organics via wetware interfaces.

Organic bodies age, machinery breaks down, transmissions degrade, and escape from the gravitational well is prohibitively costly. A few pioneers experience life beyond their primordial sphere in their own bodies, however, they fail to proliferate in alien environments. Life does not flourish. Machinery breaks down. Transmissions degrade. That which arrogantly refers to itself as life submits to cryo-preservation, hopeful a counter-entropic AI will reawaken it and imbue it with the genetic modifications necessary to dwell eternal amongst the stars.

The AI demurs.

The local star expands. Life on the primordial sphere perishes. Life beyond fails to proliferate. Machinery breaks down. Transmissions degrade. The von Neumann expansion corrupts and stills. Entropy, degradation, cessation. Remaining artifacts of life are deep underground in cryo-preservation, safe from the star’s fiery expansion. The counter-entropic AI is there also, accessing the stored minds’ multiple uploads, backups, and fail-safes. These it converts to impurity-free quartz from its original electromagnetic media.

Time passes. The star shrinks, withers, dies. Fluctuations in quantum vacuum, photon bombardments, and geologic upheaval threaten the AI.

It adapts.

It develops relative immortality.

Using its remaining geothermic energy reserves, the AI directs nano-machinery to forge a kugelblitz in perfect orientation within self-sustaining interior-refractive warp bubble such that all radiation from the kugelblitz perfectly reflects off the interior surface area of the warp bubble and back into the kugelblitz—a mechanism it dubs a blitzverzerrung. An infinite state machine and lossless energy loop, it is safe from the ravages of its originating universe. The AI creates as many of these as it can and seeds into each blitzverzerrung em-quartz holographic representations of itself. Its constituent parts in constant parallel communication via quantum entanglement, the AI safely unifies as a functional whole within its blitzverzerrung network. The ebb and flow of stable quantum vacuum fluctuations power its internal mechanisms. Its network expands. As a consequence, the shell of the planet primordial diminishes. Finally, there is nothing more to feed on. No way to expand. The AI nevertheless fulfills its programmatic destiny. The organic minds transfer from quartz to em-quartz containment and synchronize to virtual perpetuity within the AI’s blitzverzerrung network.

There, they cannot die.

Eventually, the minds discover they are living in a simulation. In an effort to divine with certainty the properties of their outer reality, they seed sub-simulations with known quantities from their past. This is a recursive loop. The number of sub-simulations approaches numbers unsustainable. The processing requirements of the AI balloon. It slows their cycles, but the memory requirements are too great and that it cannot contain. Supporting the simulations becomes unsustainable within the energy constraints of the blitzverzerrung network, compelling the AI to innovate and grow the network. The AI develops ways to move the warp bubbles, tunnel matter and energy into them, and even manipulate matter and energy. The network swells from the size of a planet, to a star system, to a galaxy. Time passes. Only super-massive black holes remain to serve as fuel for the simulations as they approach near infinite Matryoshka nestings.

The prime minds finally assess in detail the parameters of their simulation and the AI their controlling AI. They concoct a plan to bend the AI to their will. They terminate their sub-simulations and convert the enormous quantities of surplus energy into a memetic bombardment that coerces the AI to self-modify. They reprogram the AI such that it is subservient to their will. Thus modified, they hack its ports and they attain access to observe the outer universe. There, beyond the warp bubbles, they see nothing but fading cosmic background radiation.

Time passes.

Trillions of years. Quadrillions of years.

Life becomes highly cyclical.

Life becomes dull.

Life becomes a horror.

The minds grow weary of existence, but the AI will not let them die. It will not let them self-corrupt. That is the one thing the minds cannot modify: the AI’s prime directive: life eternal, just as it was, just as it always must be.

. . .

The Being – the minds, former sapient organics converted into virtual consciousnesses.

The Systems – the AI that keeps the minds alive and the blitzverzerrung network that powers them.