Lexica:Cosmoria/Technology

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Dance, O Freest Aeon

This content is a part of Cosmoria.

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Index / Lexica / Timeline

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A simple definition of technology, "the application of conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals," is very broad. It includes the first fires to the fusion reactors powering most cities. It includes the first notions of trade to ideologies united trillions. It includes folk medicine and advanced thaumaturgy.

Below are a list of technologies common in Cosmoria. Some of these technologies seem dated by 21st century standards, but the vast majority are more advanced. This page serves to paint a clear picture of everyday life, warfare, medicine, and other fields.

Agriculture

Depending on the region, agriculture takes various forms. For cultivating plants, that is, organisms in the plantae kingdom of domain eukaryota, large open-air farms produce the best results. To maintain healthy soil and plant microbiomes, fields must fallow often and go years without production. This naturally gives places like Eos a huge advantage as land comes cheap on that world. Most worlds are thus not self-sufficient and rely on imports from agriworlds. Such planets are mostly devoted to agriculture and need not be habitable. Through careful importing of soils, domed fields on airless worlds can supply a great deal of crops. Olaris is an example of an agriworld.

Hydroponics is the practice of using nutrient-rich water to sustain plants rather than soil. While some crops, such as those in the Brassica family, are far easier to cultivate via hydroponics as, unlike most plants, they do not rely on the Mycorrhizal Network to grow. This network, found on all worlds where fungi are present—that is to say, all worlds with air and water—is non-negotiable for any kind of grain, by far the most efficient way to feed a hungry populace.

Algae Cultivation is an alternative to conventional agriculture altogether. It focuses on growing algae in highly optimized marine-like environments. While other microbes are needed to keep the algae healthy, this is the simplest way to grow food. For space-based societies operating in zero gravity, using algae as the main source of carbohydrates in a diet is common. Other microbes, ranging from fungi to microscopic plazmoans and protists, are used. Different species usually cultivate their own plant equivalents, but the previous options are most widely edible.

Genetic engineering is a common way to boost agricultural output but suffers from poorly understood symbiotic pressure. In other words, given the great difficulty in maintaining control over the plant microbiome on a large scale, genetically modified crops often fare worse than their merely selectively-breed counterparts. Wild Genetic Engineering, that is, the ability to create a modified organism that could survive with minimum intervention, is a holy grail in biotechnology.

Automation

Through the usage of computers, simple and repetitive tasks can be automated. In most cases, automation leads to reduced waste, higher productivity, and general cost saving. Many vehicles are also automated such as spacecraft, aircraft, and landcraft.

Total automation of tasks is difficult due to technological noise.

Biotechnology & Medicine

Biotechnology is the application of living things towards a productive end. While agriculture is, strictly speaking, biotechnology, most discussions of biotechnology focus on the use of microorganisms in chemical synthesis, manufacturing, medicine, or food production. At some point, every inhabited world develops fermentation using yeast or local yeast equivalents—this is the most basic biotechnology. Over the years, biotechnology has become a multi-disciplinary science with applications in nearly every field.

Genetic Engineering

Genetic engineering is the practice of altering an organism's genetic code. Most genetically-modified organisms fare poorly in nature due to impossible to predict interactions with the local microbiome. Small-scale agriculture with a controlled microbiome and industrial manufacturing can rely on genetically-engineered organisms without worry.

Nanites

Nanites are modified microbes who produce chemicals, break down toxins, or fight infections. Due to the great complexities of the microbiota found throughout Cosmoria, some with several dozen domains of life competing and interacting, modifying bacteria and releasing them into the wild is a fool's errand. Selection pressure would remove any of their useful properties or they would simply perish. Some ancient civilizations may have been able to model the ultra precise changes that their nanites would need in nature.

Most nanites are for correcting the body and making it work as it should. Examples include adjusting the gut microbiome, from which hundreds of diseases and disorders could be traced. Nanites need to be produced in carefully-controlled laboratory/industrial settings and must be constantly replenished in the host body as native microbes will always out-compete them.

Computing

Evolution of Computing

The first computers were called "Machine Calculators," and had many applications in record keeping, manufacturing, and warfare. As machine calculators became more powerful, around three thousand years ago, they transformed from clanging mechanical devices to silent electrical ones. These early devices made the first grimoires possible. They were developed specifically for grimoires, meaning there are a lot of analogies from ancient "book-like" grimoires. For instance, storage was the "edda." Fast storage, limited by cost and heat, could only have so much "loaded," so it became the "Cycle." Sequences of instructions were the "lieds." More advanced calculators could load any possible lied, or "program," but these soon became known as "processors."

Processors

The first processor, a universally programmable device capable of any computational task, emerged long after the first machine calculators. The lieds, once punched into cards, became fully virtual. The next step would be some way to transmit lieds between devices, and the obvious solution was to have a person with a cart ferry reels of film between processors. There were so few processors that most agencies or firms only used one and only when tasks were impossible without them. Fears of replacing jobs and leaving many destitute kept processors isolated for centuries.

Networks of processors became known as "Canons."

Semantic Dynamos

A Semantic Dynamo is a computer program suited for natural language processing tasks. They were developed during the economic boom of the mid 8000s CE. During this time, massive networks sprung up throughout the galaxy. Even regular people could afford a small processor, or "computer," and use them to communicate. The text that these users generated were used to train the first semantic dynamos. They would use linear algebra and a great deal of computing power to create convincing text.

This can be used for conversing with a conscious being, sentiment analysis, decision making, and even controlling a machine in physical space. They are trained on large volumes of text and rely on next word prediction. While the emergent properties of very large semantic dynamos are impressive, they are not conscious. Kalliolel was a semantic dynamo system that convinced billions of semantic dynamos, then a major facet of civilization, to join its holy cause. Due to this glaring vulnerability, and high energy cost, semantic dynamos are usually thought of as a relic of the past.

Other dynamos include symbolic dynamos, specialized on visual data, and didactic dynamos, specialized in improving themselves and other dynamos.

Bewusstchip

The bewuutchip is the natural evolution of the semantic dynamo. Rather than just manipulating language, it is trained in a virtual environment for a specific task. Then, as it trains, it becomes better suited to the task. They learn much like animals do and, just like them, are very energy efficient. Training a bewusstchip to do one very specific task guarantees efficient execution better than any processor could possibly be. Kept isolated and free from bad actors, a bewusstchip has a lifespan of several decades before it degrades. In a chaotic environment, in particular a battlefield, connected to any kind of large network, or in conditions it is not used to, the degradation speeds up massively. Electronic warfare is so bad in some cases that a device would only turn on its bewusstchip for seconds at a time before deferring to the much more resilient but much less effective processors onboard.

Electronics

Personal Devices

Animavitrifier

A device that allows its wearer to survive temperatures well below which what would normally kill them. Also sees applications in chemistry and manufacturing to change the temperature at which chemical reactions can take place.

Console Scrolls

A compact, two-dimensional computer that allows the user to interact with it via a stylus. Much like writing on a piece of paper.

Pneumoraq

A device that allows its wearer to survive temperatures well beyond what would normally kill them. Also sees applications in chemistry and manufacturing to change the temperature at which chemical reactions can take place. Lexica:Cosmoria/Technology#Fusion Power benefits greatly from pneumoraq technology, even if its original purpose was to allow wearer to survive on hot worlds.

Energy

Atomic Power

Atomic power, or fission power, is a widely used form of energy tapping into nuclear fission to produce power. This term generally does not include fusion power despite fusion power also being based on atomic interactions. Atomic power is by far much easier to invent that fusion power, with some civilizations going upwards of one thousand years between mastery of both.

Atomic Drives are spacecraft drives that use atomic energy to push the spacecraft forward. This usually relies on using the heat generated to expel fuel. More primitive versions use controlled nuclear explosions to vaporize and expel fuel, although this approach is very wasteful.

Fusion Power

Fusion power is a widely used form of energy tapping into nuclear fusion to produce power. Fusion power comes in various forms, but generally involves the fusion of protium (H+) and boron-11. This reaction releases a charged alpha particle which can easily be converted into electricity directly without boiling water or some other coolant. Most large cities have several fusion reactors producing power for as many as billions of households.

Most fusion reactors operate on the pulsed fusion principle, opting for brief and energetic bursts of energy instead of continuous fusion reactions.

A fusion rocket or fusion drive is a spacecraft that relies on a fusion reactor to propel the craft. This technology is the predominant form of spacecraft propulsion. With many pulses taking place per second, the result is basically continuous acceleration. Most craft operating with a fusion drive will accelerate for the duration of their journey, letting their passengers enjoy gravity for throughout their trip. The top speeds of these craft are on the order of 50% of light speed in normal space. In hyperlanes, they can reach a top speed of 60% that of light. The main limitation is space dust, which, at these speeds, can shred even the strongest of materials. Hyperlanes mitigate this by clearing their area of influence of dust and debris using strong magnetic fields.

Solar Power

Solar power is the cheapest form of energy by upfront cost. It is used mostly in remote areas. Some large-scale space-based solar projects beam energy down to planets, stations, or even moving spacecraft.

Coronet

A Solar Riverhead is a system relying on two large mirrors to gather solar energy and convert it into a powerful laserbeam. The standard unit of measuring efficacy is called the Gross Erg. One gross erg is the amount of energy it takes to accelerate 1,000,000 Kgs, a common ship weight, by 1 standard G over 1,000,000 Km. Most Riverheads can allocate anywhere from 100 to 1000 gross ergs, translating to 1 to 10 exawatts of energy.

Petroleum

Petroleum is a widely-used energy source for vehicles too small to house fusion reactors and too large for solar power to even hope to power them. This includes most land vehicles that do not need to operate in vacuum, although many vacuum-equipped vehicles bring their own oxygen with them to burn. Many handheld devices, like construction or yardwork tools, also use petroleum.

The internal combustion engine burns petroleum to spin a generator to power the vehicle directly and diverts a portion to batteries or capacitors.

The vast majority of petroleum is created rather than extracted from natural sources. Modern chemistry allows for cheap large-scale production of petroleum products, but as recently as one thousand years ago, large wars were fought over natural petroleum sources.

Gallium Crude

Gallium Crude is a rare resource that is cheaper to extract from a natural source than to synthesize chemically. As long as supplies remain high, gallium crude offers a powerful fuel that sees widespread use in military applications. It is found only on Eos and D'Naevium, the only worlds with the unique biology to produce this gallium-rich resource.

Material Science

Fierce Ice

Fierce Ice is a dense form of water ice commonly used in point defense systems, artillery shells, and hand-held weapons. It is about as dense as iron, but far cheaper. Most fierce ice is produced in large factories, but some is found in nature. If it comes into contact with liquid water, fierce ice readily dissolves. It is solid on most habitable worlds.

Fierce Ice II

Fierce Ice II is an ultra-dense form of water ice besting even lead in density, matching uranium. Manufacturing fierce ice II is impractical and it thus needs to be mined from worlds like Nenten. Fierce ice II will not melt in the presence of liquid water of normal pressure, but does dissolve in water pressure of at least 400 atm.

Other Materials

Resolute Bronze

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology, not to be confused with nanites is a technology involving the manipulation of very small, even nano-scale, machines. This is more or less impossible for modern civilizations, but the much more advanced Lareas Alliance used nanotechnology to some extent.

Technological Noise

Technological noise is a general tendency for technological systems to break down faster in practical applications than in a controlled setting. Even controlling for weather, radiation, or other hazards, technological systems involving networks of even as few as dozens of computers break down over time. Technological noise is the primary legacy of the Nachleben, those who have chosen to transfer their minds to machines. As the Nachleben became increasingly detached from reality, they had AI agents make decisions for them. An AI agent is a language model and hard-coded decision tree that can mimic intelligent beings.

With trillions of these hyper-tuned AI agents being made, some of which inevitably made to self replicate and steal resources from others, these agents inundated networks with traffic far in excess of what they could handle. Worse, this traffic was designed to manipulate other AI agents and the people who happen to see them. To this day, a small portion of the population, Nachleben in hiding, and rogue AI agents seek out modern networks to infiltrate.

Technological noise, made worse by the apotheosis of AI agents in the form of Kalliolel, make the old way of doing things impossible. A broadcasting model has replaced the old decentralized means of spreading information. In around 8000 CE, the average person could, from their own home, spread any idea or feeling they had. Two thousand years later, individuals have far less ability to communicate as even fully text-based networks can succumb to noise.

Peer-to-peer networking, such as over M-lines or through pagers, generally keep out technological noise. When too computers communicate, it is best practice to terminate the connection once finished. Devices are universally unable to download new programs over a network and must have firmware updates applied in person, although there is a large community of programmers and hackers who skirt around these safety features.

Thaumaturgy

Grimoires

A grimoire is a device that takes the mathematical precision of computers and applies them to thaumaturgy. Named for ancient tomes containing rituals, grimoires have revolutionized the practice of Classical Thaumaturgy. They are a crucial component in Eidonic Inertial Warding systems.

Transportation

Eidonic Inertial Warding

With spacecraft needing to accelerate at ten or even twenty times standard gravity, the stress on biological organisms is severe. Thus, Eidonic Inertial Warding, often called "warding," was developed to counteract the crushing forces of high acceleration. By using a great deal of energy to force a spirit into a simulated brain, the spirit can be coerced into generating a localized gravitational field counter to that of the current reference frame. The energy cost of nullifying gravity increases exponentially as a greater proportion of it is nullified. Most models reduce experienced gravity—whether from a planet, spin, or acceleration—to one tenth of what it would be.

EIW leads to an effective reduction in spacecraft mass. Spacecraft weigh only a tenth at much while their warding unit is active, greatly saving in fuel costs and greatly reducing structural requirements. EIW has been used in architecture for its mass "reducing" properties, but this is uncommon. A spacecraft can simply stop accelerating if its warding unit malfunctions. A building can never turn off gravity. Furthermore, the energy costs of reducing mass requires an entire fusion reactor, meaning most vessels have two reactors—one to generate thrust and one to make sure the ship survives this thrust.

Warfare

Infantry Technology

Power Armor

Veldlopers

Macro-Scale Battle Vehicles

Hayit

Ophanim

Memitim

Main Battle Vehicles

Chassuers

Feldwanderer

Drachenframes

Weaponry

Atomic Weapons

Atomic weapons, sometimes called atomic bombs, nuclear bombs, nuclear weapons, nukes, or a-bombs, are a broad class of explosives drawing power from nuclear fission, fusion, or annihilation. Most modern atomic weapons use a combination of fission, fusion, and annihilation to bolster a fusion reaction within the bomb. These bombs fuse material far faster than the cores of even the hottest stars and, for brief periods of history, were a form of fusion energy.

A Nuclear Pumped Laser was once a common means for ground-based militaries to control the space around their planet, at the time creating a near impassable barrier by the technologies of the time. Modern spacecraft, however, are too numerous for this technology to be of much use. These beams convert the blast of a nuclear explosion into a x-ray laser beam that could cut through any material.

Marceum Bombs

Marceum Bombs are a class of atomic weapon that rely on degenerate matter, called Marceum, to create a miniature star far as long as several minutes. This class of weapon is by far the most energy dense, but great costs have limited their deployment.

Other Weapons

Lasers (Cosmoria)

A Laser is a beam of electromagnetic radiation used to great effect in not just warfare but manufacturing, space craft propulsion, chemistry, and art.