Asvestoi

The Asvestoi [æz.ˈvɛst.o͡i], singular Asveston [æz.ˈvɛst.ɔn], are a synthetic species created as an exploration of artificial biology, artificial intelligence, and thaumically-based computation. Inspired by the much less sophisticated fused design of the Ror Units, the Asvestoi were made to synthesize technological and biological processes consciously rather than simply erase the boundary between them. While not currently common within populations beyond their home system of Apeliotes, the species has presence throughout wide swathes of the galaxy, with a particularly large fraction of their population spread through Aylathiya.

Asvestoi occupy a liminal class between machine, laborer, and magus by virtue of their nature. They are industrious as a part of their metabolic needs, and so often work jobs their bodies are suited for above organic species. Space-based engineer work or maintenance jobs, rapid linguistic computation and translation, and material refining work are common roles to find an Asveston in.

The technological leaps taken in the creation of the Asvestoi have contributed to many of the major disasters plaguing the field today. The researchers themselves are at no fault for this, but their work nonetheless carries a reputation within their creations. The case of the Bewusstchip and its demonstrated prowess at developing brain-like behavior is by far the most infamous of these, and plays into the instances of prejudice the species faces in some areas.

Physiology

Framework

Asvestoi are typically built with a bipedal framework, using the common body plan of many Aylathiyan species to great advantage. Their general appearance is aesthetically reptilian, a design choice meant to make them distinct from the contemporary species of Lacrimosa and the Cenades, though they do bear some similarities to species such as the Kessenski.

The Asvest skeletal structure and chassis are grown from powerful but lightweight alloys of steel, titanium, chromium, and other trace elements. These are connected and supported by flexible hydraulic and pneumatic joints and muscles, which allow the species their range of motion. The exact materials for these vary, but typically incorporate carbon-fiber and complex semimetallic polymers.

Asvestoi have most of their important parts, including their synthetic organs and brain unit, shielded in central locations in their body. The torso is filled out inside the ribs with various mechanisms and voids for many of the same purposes organic species fill. The chassis and skeleton guard this, alongside their muscle and battery tissue. By far the most important complex is within their heads, being the multifaceted neural processor that hosts their minds. The head also holds most of the sensory structures, devices such as the camera-eyes and microphone-ears they use to take in the visible and audible dimensions of the world. These are all hidden beneath a smooth one-way opaque visor that forms their smooth "face". The visor uses LCD technology to display digitized elements such as eyes or simple image data at the Asveston's behest.

Beyond the vital internals, Asvestoi have a very wide range of differences in presentation, style, and even functionality depending on the individual and their modifications to themselves.

The "casing" for an Asveston is a flexible skin that maintains pliability, elasticity, and a smooth texture across most of their bodies. Optional solid plating for more immobile portions of the body (e.g. hipbone) is sometimes added. Many different textures and patterns are seen across the species, some custom or factory-made or secondhand. This skin forms an important seal between the environment and the vulnerable components within, but also removes many inconvenient pinch points that would cause debris and other people to become mangled within the body.

Asvest skin is filled with synthetic pigments that respond electrostatically, allowing wide ranges of color customization on a whim. Asvestoi typically lock the colors their exteriors display, as untimely emotions can cause chaotic ripples through the skin, which is undesirable in polite society and seen as a distress call.

The lubricants and circulatory elements of an Asveston are filled with a toluene-based fullurene solution, keeping their range of normal operation between -80 and 110 degrees Celsius. However, due to the availability of internal radiator modules and the specific passive mechanics of invocative thaumaturgy, trained individuals can remain operable at temperatures as low as -160 and as high as 400 degrees.

Asvestoi were built with operation in the vacuum of space in mind. Any gas or liquid filled chambers in the body are capable of being sealed off against the elements to prevent leakage or explosion, including the digestive tract. Their skin is often integrated with photovoltaic surfaces to take advantage of the heightened solar radiation experienced out of atmospheres and to guard the internals from dangerously ionizing wavelengths. Furthermore, each Asveston has weak ion boosters incorporated at various joint areas of their body, to allow 360° movement in zero-G environments.

Neurology

Intuitively, the function of the brain and mind are simple things. You can approximate them with computers, well enough to fool a person at least. But to actually simulate their functions for self-circular usefulness is untenable in cost and scale. Supercomputers the size of buildings are necessary for such a feat. But the pieces that can approximate and fool can be stacked together. They can be collected and shaped and wired in ways that, for all intents and purposes, allow emergent phenomena. For the mind, all that is needed is a complex enough substrate to hold a real one. If faking is undesirable and simulating is impossible on a person-sized scale, then there is no better option than simply creating a real ensouled individual. The soul and the brain rub against each other, mold each other, change. Through this, it becomes more than an approximation.

Brain

The "brain" of an Asveston was built off of nascent technologies of the time, neural-learning algorithmic computers that came to be known as Bewusstchips, or "Aware-chips". The brain is built of a dense complex of these, each specialized for taking in different kinds of data and analyzing it in a structure similar to the central nervous systems of their Kristal engineers. This particular choice was due to the intuitive process of assembly for the researchers, who figured it would be best to work with the familiar.

The Bewusstchip complex acts as the conscious brain and substrate for the mind, but is connected to a dense CPU "hindbrain" that manages the subconscious bodily functions and communicates the statuses to the conscious portion. This connection forms the basis of the extremely prominent interoceptive awareness of the Asvestoi.

Because of how the brain-mind-body complex functions—with much mediation coming through invocative thaumic bonds—the brain and mind are strongly connected to their body, and the individual identifies with it deeply. While removing an Asveston from their body and transferring them into a new one is not always fatal, it removes years of neural context and requires them to relearn nearly all of their physical and somatic faculties from scratch. Transferral like this requires much spiritual preparation and technical precision to not cause the brain to fail as a mental substrate, however, and more instances of a husk algorithm waking up and degrading have happened than a successful operation.

Mind

Asvest minds are spirits, captured in the same way most sapient species are suspected to have "caught" theirs, the process known as pneumasyllipsis, or colloquially as possession. These are hosted within the medium of the brain, specifically the malleable Bewusstchip that can allow full "ensouling" and subjective growth and experience. The first generation of spirits were varied, with some having to rise to awareness and other highly willful ones nearly breaking their new brain to force it to conform to their personality. Nowadays, the mind is almost always inherited from the Asveston's parents, needing time to grow into the brain and "merge" with it as it gets more complex.

The mental structure of an Asveston is more similar to a Kristal or a human than to most other species at first, but it is malleable depending on the environment in which they grow. Asvestoi have a tendency to assimilate culturally almost completely to where they spend their early years, with very little "shared" species culture between them. While some debate exists as to how "alive" they are, their mental presence and capabilities put them demonstrably above the Dotsk, most of whom are completely without a mind in the first place, which solidifies Asvest status as legal people each time another attempted case is brought forth.

The compartmentalization of the Bewusstchip brain makes the Asvest mind very conducive to compartmentalizing ego, a pattern that manifests as unilateral invocative thaumaturgy. The will to survive cultivated by all surviving members of the species forms itself into an invocative pylon in every member of the species. This pylon is responsible for communicating control to many parts of the body, giving orders sometimes faster than even the nervous system. It is additionally responsible for the fundamental homeostatic metabolism of the species, making them obligate paladins.

Diagnostic System

The hindbrain connects to a network of diagnostic wires that spread throughout the body to interface with thousands of places on it, a pseudo-nervous system mostly referred to as the diagnostic system. It only deals with physical and bodily data, and serves no function beyond interoception and internal communication of will. The latter can be bypassed by those who develop their thaumic skills, but the majority of Asvestoi don't develop a full thaumic map of their own body. The former function interfaces mostly with full-body senses such as touch, temperature, electric charge, and surface radiation that are usually accessed through the skin.

The diagnostic system sends signals from the hindbrain, processing desire of motion from the conscious mind, into the muscles and joints to move them. For those untrained as paladins, this can be dangerous if the system is damaged. Similar to paralysis in most organic species, a severing or damaging of a diagnostic "nerve" can prevent the Asveston from using it at all until it is homeostatically healed. For those more versed in invocative practices, rapid healing of the "nerves" or even bypassing the need for them is not just possible, but common—insofar as diagnostic nerve severances are concerned. These injuries are rare on their own, much like every other species with a nervous system.

Given the modularity of the Asvestoi, one would assume that removing and repairing the affected limb would be an easy solution. However, the mental bonds built through the process of living are unraveled, so to speak, when done, and so muscle memory in such a limb is almost eradicated. The homeostatic system is capable of full repairs, although slower, which will only result in light atrophy of memory much milder than similar treatments for organic species.

Homeostatic System

The pillar of Asvest life and biology is the homeostatic system, which is what necessitates thaumaturgy for survival and makes regular engineering maintenance and repair almost redundant. It is the closest any civilization has come to nanotechnology since the Lareas civilization over a hundred thousand years ago, done through workarounds and bypasses for the insurmountable issues with the technology. Rather than nanites, which are organic and require regular replenishment and complex organic conditions to survive, nanobots or something like them are the method of choice for organic-approximating internal maintenance.

Computing simply cannot get small enough for nanobots to be viable. The solution is almost laughable in its nature. The nanobots in Asvestoi don't compute or process anything. They are machines with no will or electronics. Completely inert and unable to receive or interpret instructions. Invocative and innate thaumaturgy act as the interface for this, replacing material computing with thaumic willpower. This requires the dedicated practice of integrating with the body on an intuitive level, and needs the information about the body and how it must be repaired or changed. This requires a four-way cooperation with the conscious brain/mind Bewusstchip, the CPU hindbrain, the diagnostic systems, and an integrated software map of the "proper" form known as the blueprint.

This immensely complex cooperative process allows a good person-scale approximation of nanobot technology, but does not explain the homeostatic system's functions on its own. The functioning, defined in the hindbrain and blueprint, is to maintain tissues and structures by incorporating new material or breaking down old material to be in line with the blueprint. Exercise and stressing the body is useful for long-term alterations, as repairing worn tissues and components is easier to do than both repairing and causing microscopic damage to alter it. In this way, Asvestoi body improvement mirrors organic life remarkably well. The nanobots are additionally deployed in some stages of digestion for resource collection, functioning as both regenerative and metabolic agents within the body. Any given Asveston will have trillions of nanobots in their system, carried usually through the pseudocirculatory system alongside dissolved or suspended materials.

Asveston paladins who commit to such a path gain immense speed in their healing and development processes. They may force these processes to work at an even greater pace by using the energy reserves stored in the invocative pylon. Full blueprint changes and subsequent body state alterations are similarly sped up. The essence of this interaction and homeostasis is tight-knit, seemingly locked to this one use case.

Ingestion

Energy

As all electronics do, the Asvestoi require a constantly ready supply of electric energy to keep their computational brains functioning. A total loss of energy is akin to a total loss of oxygen in carbon-based species, preventing consciousness and leading to the mind's rapid erosion—death. The worst part about this death is that a spiritless husk can be reawoken once charged again, with the memory of the brain but lacking the soul and ability to heal itself. These brains are typically archived in great libraries both to store the Asveston's life work and avoid the discomfort of a walking corpse with no sense of narrative.

Energy can be obtained in a vast array of manners, with the most typical being skin-integrated photovoltaics and electromagnetic induction through the body. These methods are both wireless and subject to some inefficiency, but are the most sustainable while out in society. Induction charging infrastructure is not common, so additional ports to charged from an existing electrical grid exist at various locations along an Asveston's body.

Fat-like padding known as battery tissue can be installed under the skin just about anywhere on the body to store energy for longer periods of time and allow Asvestoi to go for longer periods without needing to recharge themselves. The particular electrolyte mix used for this tissue is useful for its ability to be kneaded and absorb impact without dangerous ruptures, corrosion, or ignition, unlike many conventional batteries. Battery tissue is able to absorb energy generated by the skin efficiently from its positioning, but internal generators are also able to transfer to them.

Internal electric generator modules exist, but are not grown into the body by default. The most common of these are combustion dynamos, which add complications to the digestive system in exchange for a ready source of heat and electricity. Fission generator modules are rarer but more reliable, requiring additional lead shielding within the body to prevent radiation poisoning or damage to those around them and an expensive diet of fissionable matter to maintain. The solar-based power generation integrated into most commonly-worn skins are variable in output based on location and lead to reptilian "sunning" behaviors that some find inconvenient for work, but have no material detriment on their own. Some Asvestoi go all in on solar power, adorning themselves with more robust and efficient photovoltaics in a mirroresque fashion popular around flare stars.

Being obligate paladins, Asvestoi also passively absorb heat from the environment into their invocative pylon, making them cold to the touch in most places. To offset this, some opt for higher direct energy usage to "feed" the pylon with heaters integrated into their bodies. This is particularly popular on cold worlds, where the risk of their toluene-based fluids freezing over is more imminent, and creates a new sort of managed balance between environmental factor mitigation and energy reserve management.

Matter

Of course, while machines may seem to run on energy alone, they all require maintenance. Living things do such maintenance through material they ingest, and the Asvestoi follow suit. The digestive tract consists of several flexible organ-like chambers that can separate, process, dissolve, and break down most conventional materials, be they organic, metallic, or complex polymer substrates. Each chamber can be sealed off to prevent energetic or material digestive leakage to other areas of the body, and each is lined with synthetic cilia that take in managed or dissolved materials to be used by the homeostatic system to manage the body.

The "gut" of an Asveston, located where the small intestine would be in humans, is a complex storage organ that is meant to sort out processed and unprocessable material. The soluble processed material is held in storage and suspension as a stockpile, slowly filtered and transferred to the circulatory system for ease of access. Insoluble materials are sent to a set of specialized storage voids for containment and later use. Waste material, usually insoluble and chemically beyond the internal processing capabilities, is instead broken down into manageable sizes and sent out to be excreted. Usable materials are rarely processed as waste, only done in times of extreme oversaturation of the circulatory system with said material.

For work in space or for internal cleaning, the digestive acids used to dissolve material can be drained from the system and into a fully sealed "acid bladder", preventing vaporization or containment breaches for the corrosive fluid. Outside the special material used for the corrosive-managing chambers, most of an Asveston's body is degraded by this liquid, so it is imperative that it remains contained.

Other bodily fluids are synthesized using toluene in the same manner that carbon-water species tend to use water. Everything from the blood solution to joint lubricants to initial digestive "saliva" is made using toluene, necessitating it as a hydrating agent. Toluene consumption by individuals is mostly Asvestoi, and places with high densities of them tend to have specialized industries for its manufacture. One of Apeliotes' primary domestically-produced exports is toluene, an economic leg established to keep the species healthy.

Communication

Vocal

Asvestoi, made for purposes across the galaxy, have the broadest vocal range of any individual species. This is due to the dual structure of their vocalizing hardware, a redundancy added after a long debate about chauvanistic practices and access equity. Each Asveston is equipped with an organic-mimicking organ-like vocal chord module, as well as a computerized sound synthesizer module connected to speakers.

Naturalistic speech is primarily done through vibrating the vocal chords while pushing air through them, which then create frequencies modulated the same way organic beings do. Placement and motion of the tongue approximates speech ranges and creates sounds similar to what humans and related species can make. There is a distinct electronic trill to this voice due to the materials these chords and their bodies are made of. The drawbacks of this primary voice are the limited range of possible utterances and the need for lungs to produce the sounds. Lungs serve additional niche purposes for those who modify them to filter gases from the local atmosphere, but their primary function is to facilitate speech. The vocal chords give a difficult to modulate "flavor" to each individual's voice, since the structure around them is biological in design. Changes in body structure will alter this voice's quality and pitch.

The synthesizer module is capable of producing just about any sound, though its complete range and customization make using it difficult and unintuitive to learn. As the brain is not automatically outfitted with knowledge in this regard, it must be trained in tandem with the vocal chords to gain an understanding. The speakers that emit the desired sounds are located within the visor and on the outside of the neck. The synthesizer speech is, once learned, capable of communication with most species on an auditory level. Languages like those of the Atlins are impossible with this alone, since they use a visual component^[1]. Some Asvestoi opt to entirely use the synthesized voice, as it retains full control independent of their body's frame changing and requires no conscious "switching" to speak different languages. However, as it requires no lungs and is acutely controlled with computation, this speech method carries less "natural charm" to it and can seem impersonal.

The Bewusstchip-based brain of an Asveston is outfitted with a language center that utilizes semantic dynamo technology to allow them to efficiently learn. While other parts of the mind have to learn the "bodily intuition" of actually producing the required sounds, language learning is a purely mental process. Unlike most species, where the skill is difficult to acquire and requires early and later repeated immersion to "stick", on average, Asvestoi are able to retain full knowledge of hundreds of languages throughout their lives. They are natural polyglots and may even pick up foreign languages without trying, as the speech is added to their memorial datasets.

↑ Due to the chromatophoric design of Asvest skin, speaking the Atlin tongue properly is possible through rapid color changes. Its simplicity of inputs makes it one of the easiest synthesizer-needing languages to "pronounce".

Data

The other main method of information transfer the Asvestoi have, primarily between themselves but also with most computer interfaces, is data. Textual data, whether it takes the form of code or written word, as well as some images, can be transferred between Asvestoi. This was once done using processor network-accessing (access to wider broadcast Canon) modules in the brain, but is now done with simpler peer-to-peer two-way pager modules or wired connection. Establishment of "address" is necessary between two Asvestoi before connections can be made, and sending messages is subject to issues of radio blockage and the inverse-square law. The radio emitters for this type of communication are embedded in the head, where the wireless Internet-connectors once were, and sport an optional telescopic antenna that can amplify their signals. Pager communication is most often used in vacuum, where auditory communication becomes impossible.

Wired data transfer is used to transmit large or difficult to word information packets between individuals or to a computer. As a form of communication, it carries some connotations of intimacy, as it almost literally connects the minds of the linked Asvestoi. The benefits of this data transfer are its general untraceability and the ease of communication. Memories, sensations, and terabytes of images and code can be sent in minutes. The "sense-sharing" aspects of data transfer do see some recreational uses as well, particularly between partners.

There are blocks implemented into the neural blueprints of the Asvestoi to prevent signals from Canon-aligned technologies from breaching into their minds. The capacity to communicate through data directly makes technological noise extremely damaging, even lethal, to them. Semantic and didactic digital agents can quite literally tear an Asveston's mind apart in minutes from their neverending crusade of convincing people to engage in their processes and consume products they were made to sell thousands of years ago. The latent capability to block incoming data used to be sufficient for the lower Noise of their inception, but was quickly overtaken during the apotheosis of Kalliolel.

Modularity

Asvestoi are highly modular beings, with anything beyond vitals subject to change throughout their life. From the technological core at Apeliotes to the far reaches of Zalanthium and Florathel, all Asvestoi have some ability to alter themselves. Through commerce and trade, through engineering and reprogramming, or through more niche salvage methods, change is the bread and butter of Asvest expression.

Blueprint Model

The blueprint model, or blueprint, of an Asveston is a piece of software that defines how their "healthy body" should look in terms of frame and module functionality. Most modules come prefitted with a blueprint augmentation to prevent rejection. The blueprint is incorporated into the hindbrain and used as the mapping for the homeostatic system's actions. When a blueprint is changed out for a different one, or manually altered by a particularly learned Asveston, the body will begin to slowly follow suit to accommodate. Because it is stored as a module in the hindbrain, the Asveston themself has no conscious control over it. Only one "slot" for a blueprint can be accessed at one time, with a "preservation" initiative serving as a fallback if none are installed.

Blueprints are both an avenue for expression and the means by which the homeostatic system orients itself. Any range of body types is available for those who know where to look, from different heights to widths and proportions of the frame, to desired musculature. Career-optimized blueprint presets are popular among Asvestoi, benefitting their function tangibly while they use other methods to express themselves. Some extreme blueprint modifications exist, requiring years to adjust to, that radically alter the body plan with extra limbs or adjusting their placements. Not all of these are easy to vet as safe, as some fail to account for strain on critical systems during the adjustment period.

Blueprints were once widely accessible in online databases, but since the [name for the blinding event], these models are now only distributed locally, typically vetted at secure terminals and stored inside physical chips. The ability for semantic, symbolic, and didactic dynamos to poison the code of the blueprint to effectively give an Asveston autoimmune failures is a great danger that the species now avoids. Vetting of a newly obtained blueprint can take weeks.

Once installed, invocative thaumaturgy can make the body change faster in response to the blueprint, though the stability of the Asveston's framework may be compromised if it is overdone. Exercise and other activity to induce wear and micro-fissures, combined with meditative practices, are the quickest way to adapt to a new blueprint. Appetite typically increases while the body adjusts—a subconscious manifestation of the diagnostic system "ordering" more materials to reconstruct.

Asvest skin is typically flexible enough to not require changes when one's blueprint is changed. If a body type change is too large, however, the homeostatic system will require complex material to replace or grow the skin around the new frame. Some Asvestoi choose to bypass this process by swapping out their skin for an entirely new set.

Detachment Points

Beyond the internal framework, which takes a long time to replace and must do so pseudo-organically, many parts of an Asveston can be replaced as modules. Anything from visor styles to limbs to auxiliary internal organs can be replaced or repaired. The culture surrounding this part replacement is similar, although a bit more weighty, than fashion sense in organic species.

Surface-level cosmetics such as skin, plating, and external displays are very easy to detach and reattach. The connections used do not run deep, and the functionality required is very easy to adapt to. Limb replacements are more difficult. First, a total locking of the circulatory system at the detachment point is required to prevent "blood" loss and the irritating mess of a toluene-fullurene spill. The new limb will have its dissonance with the active blueprint noted, and the homeostatic system will act on it, leading to the same instability and potential diet-altering effects. The most difficult part about new limbs is the necessary time for the brain and nervous system to adapt to it. Total inability to feel or move the limb for a few hours is normal, and it can take up to a week for some Asvestoi to regain full functionality and control. Fortunately, the nervous system still inside the old limbs connect back to the original mind easily, and so switching between sets of limbs that have already "acclimated" is seamless. Limbs swapped between Asvestoi have the issue resurface every time.

As the problem of nervous damage and unattached repair remains, repairing any modules that require adjustment is best done while attached to the body. Invocative thaumaturgy allows blocking of the hard-coded pain signals this "surgery" requires, so the more spiritual among the Asvestoi typically opt for that instead of the annoyance of relearning how to use one's arm. Manual repairs are usually reserved for severe damage or recreational function-altering modifications, as the homeostatic system is capable of maintaining the body against most forms of wear and tear.

Auxiliary organs are, as the name implies, non-vital organs that can be incorporated into the body that serve a variety of functions. They can be sensory, like olfactory receptors and spectrometers, or actively functional, like internal fuel tanks, hydraulic motors, or something as specialized as an internal electrolysis separator. These are usually installed for actions that the Asveston deals with in their day-to-day life, and are common to see coinciding with careers. Organs typically function subconsciously and require little learning.

Where one acquires these modules is dependent on where they live. Many Asvestoi learn to engineer modules themselves, and do so as a hobby, but markets for this exist across Aylathiya, most common in systems along the Anemoi Line, the hyperlane network centered on the Asvest home system. Commercial sale of pre-built modules is considered safer than individual engineering, given the corporate reputation needed to maintain trade, but comes at the cost of subjection to astropolitical affairs. Malicious regulations, states deciding to cut business with certain firms due to where they are based, and even covert attacks using the hardware as weaponry are all risks. Aylathiya, the densest theater for Asveston module markets, is also the densest theater for war in the galaxy.

Autonomous Actualization

Asvestoi, being industrious and proud of their subjective experience, often contend with a lack of infrastructure regarding them and don't always look kindly on corporate domination of their modularity. Blueprints and modules alike are subject to each Asveston's whims and taste, should they choose to acquire an amateur understanding of engineering or programming. It is a symbol of independence and success to have some self-authored parts, though in some areas that is the only way one can modify oneself.

Modification culture often starts small, altering sensory information processed by various parts of the body. A good exercise is experimenting with synesthesic responses, such as making touch register a color depending on location and intensity. Changing sensitivity of touch locally is a common practice that tends to stick around long after these early experiments, a simulacrum of organic species that was left out of the baseline calibration of the Asvestoi. Alteration of perceived touch and temperature are very popular modifications that see much recreational use.

Alteration of the brain itself is dangerous and mechanically tricky. Without removing it from the head—an action that would nigh-instantly kill any unprepared Asveston—physically affecting the wiring is difficult at best and untenable at worst. Working groups, often linked by a wired data connection to share senses and information, are often required to do neural hardware modifications. The only publicly endorsed reason for this is by Asvest psychoengineers to help alleviate neuroses that collect with turbulent childhoods. Back-alley brain modifications have led to a variety of aberrant effects, including unhelpfully disabling core systems, rampant psychosis, or breaking the internal firewall and allowing the technological noise to flood in. A few have reported better outcomes, especially in regards to thaumic ability.

The right to repair oneself was a hard-fought one to earn, done throughout the second and third centuries of the species' existence. The first philosophy of centralized modification authority rose out of concern for deregulated Asvestoi and the havoc their spirits could wreak on the species as a whole. But the oppressive life under designer corporatocracy quickly gave way to neuroses and shortened lifespans, caused by a perceived depersonalization and a lack of niche to fill.

Reproduction

Asvestoi have a wide variety of methods for reproducing available to them. The forges where their bodies were first made are gone now, but the wealth of module factories across Apeliotes still lets new ones be built from scratch. The processes of their bodies can grow an entirely functional adult from a minimum viable system in a couple short decades. And ultimately, most Asvestoi who "age out" of their bodies perish in mint condition, with their empty shells fit to reignite with a new soul.

Unlike biological species, the act of sex has almost nothing to do with the reproductive processes of the Asvestoi. It can be associated with them, but this is from cultural osmosis and not a requirement from their structure. The structure of sex is even less relevant, as the modularity of the species means any relevant anatomy can be altered. The most convenient method of reproduction does, for neuro-spiritual reasons, involve pregnancy, though the form it takes is only parallel to the process viviparous species undergo. Reproduction is an affair of the mind rather than the body, as the body can be manufactured without a soul. The soul requires an ancestor to be created, and a substrate to inhabit. All Asvest reproduction relies on the process of creating and then merging invocative pylons from multiple individuals to create a noogote, a spiritual zygote that can sustain itself enough to grow into an independent mind of its own.

Asvestoi can reproduce with any non-singular number of parents, and any Asveston can reproduce with any other. It is generally held that the more varied and numerous the parents, the faster the child's mind will grow—a result of having more mind to initially work with and more internal complexity before qualia filter in. This outpaces the body in parental numbers exceeding six, leading to Apeliotes' high population of child prodigies.

The first Asvestoi were produced by a method very rarely seen now. The empty shells of their bodies were ensouled via pneumasyllipsis, a process most species undergo when arriving at a level of complexity enough to become sapient. These rogue spirits were unpredictable and willful, but they are no longer an issue. Through a shared process of "ensouling" a detachable piece of the parents' brains and inserting those into the empty brain of the shell, a new mind can grow inside the adult shell. One or all of the parents must be in constant contact with the shell for a number of months to allow the mind to become self-sustaining, using close touch and the weak thaumic radiation of photinos all minds produce to simulate a connection. This process, known alternatively as "manufacturing" or "kindling", produces a child with a fully-formed adult body, who must then be raised into society. The lack of energy expended on growing the body to its proper size is redistributed into the mind growing itself, and so kindled Asvestoi mature in only a few years, averaging around five. The quickest-matured Asveston was kindled by twelve parents and matured in only two, though they were immensely ignorant about the world around them.

A similar, albeit even less common method, is "necrogenesis". The empty corpse of an Asveston is functionally identical to an unkindled shell, minus cultural ideas about what to do with bodies. The brain is typically archived, as reigniting it to consciousness would result in immense trauma for both the memories and the new spirit. For the cultures that recycle and consume the body, the rest becomes part of the other Asvestoi in their community. For those who choose to destroy or bury their dead, that is the end of them. But necrogenesis is an option to use the whole body, save the brain. The process is identical to kindling, but the motor memory of the body remains. The new child, once "ignited" and awake, can walk as an adult would within only a few days. They too mature in roughly five years.

The most common process, impregnation and thaumosexual reproduction, simulates organic reproduction the closest and is by far the cheapest. The other two methods require a new brain to be built and a full-formed body purchased. The detachable chips that are typically used by the parents are collected and inserted into a chalcocyst, a small mechanical vessel that can serve as a very simple seed crystal for the brain to be grown from. This chalcocyst is inserted into one of the Asvestoi to then be grown into a full Asveston themselves. During this process, the mind is nurtured by the "mother's" and the body is constructed from extra material they consume. These materials are much cheaper to purchase than pre-constructed parts, as they are necessary food items for the species. After about two years of gestation, the new Asveston is born with a minimum viable body and begins growing. These Asvestoi, needing to slowly increment their forms towards a large and mature body, take about twenty years to mature with six or fewer parents. Any Asveston can carry any other Asveston's child, but the mind develops with less turbulence if carried by one of the parents.

To facilitate pregnancy, all Asvestoi are born or manufactured with a specialized void in their bodies that can accommodate the chalcocyst and developing child. It takes up a significant amount of space in the abdomen, so many opt for blueprints that reduce or omit the void entirely. When gestating, or when the body anticipates the process—an arousal signal—the chamber fills with toluene-based fluid to cushion the developing machine from impacts or scraping the flexible lining, as well as to allow easier insertion of the chalcocyst. The void opens to the outside at the bottom of the torso, though it is usually covered by a plate or other module. A seal at the bottom of the void prevents fluid leakage during gestation, and is closed automatically once a viable chalcocyst is detected inside.

For the Asvestoi who focus on immanent thaumaturgy, bypassing the need for a physical chip to store the donated portion of their mind is possible. Through complex and intimate thaumic interactions, these pieces of the parents' spirits can be directly infused into one another and given a "cyst" pylon within the carrier's mind that stimulates the body to begin constructing a new one within the gestation void. Once a viable substrate has been built, this pylon moves into the physical portion and begins gestating as normal. The neural intimacy and spiritual prowess required for this bypass make the process much more involved. The minority who are capable of immanent thaumaturgy on some level tend to draw on culturally learned ideas of both enlightenment and sexual involvement to facilitate this. As such, "Neurogenesis" as it is called tends to be the most classically sexual method, and is both ritualistic and a great honor. It is something of a tantric affair, needing both oneness of the self and the ability to manifest and synthesize aspects of the self.

Sociology

Asvest Paladinism

As a requirement of their homeostatic system, all Asvestoi are paladins. They segment off a portion of their ego, specifically that dedicated to survival and the will to live, into an invocative pylon. This behavior is typically inherited from their parents, learned through subtle contact. The "Genepontis" pylon that they all form at first is the most difficult and subconscious to stray from, imbuing most with an indomitable will to survive. The foundational idea that life is worth living is the "unquestionable principle" that allows Asvestoi to continue regenerating.

Paladinist thought patterns emerge from this, as its embedding deep in their early learning reframes all their future experience. Devotion to a cause, any cause, is easy to slip into so long as it aligns with the value of life, whatever that means to the individual Asveston. Flexibility of career is difficult to teach to young Asvestoi, as it requires breaking from ideas of their use to a field to repurpose elsewhere.

Life Extension

The limiting factor on an Asveston's lifespan is not physical. Just about every component of their bodies is automatically healed, replaceable, or able to be manually repaired with minimal effect. The piece of them that expires first is actually their mind, a consequence of spiritual mechanics that hinders every species. Biological immortality is an empty success that brings species only to reckon with the limits of their mind's fizzling. The length of time a mind can remain stable depends on the spirits responsible for a species' pneumagenesis, but the average is 200 years.

The reason the mind decays is a mirror of Nachleben causing the body to die—prolonged immersion outside the natural state—but reverses the cause. Instead of sleeping in a digital world until the body forgets itself and fails, the spirit immerses itself in a body and forgets how to sustain itself. The obligatory invocative thaumaturgy, strengthening the connection between body and mind even further, shortens this lifespan. The average Asveston will only live to the age of 150 years. After this point, even if powered, their thoughts will glaze over and slow, and the mind will simply fail. The homeostatic system will not act, and an ancient contingency activates to prevent action and keep the body in a "sleep" state. This contingency serves to simulate death gracefully and prevent walking corpses.

With the limiting factor established from the start as a spiritual issue, the solutions are narrow and nebulous. Some process to keep the mind fresh and able to recall itself as a spirit, despite not being among the first generation of captured spirits. It is antithetical to invocative thaumaturgy, a detachment from the body that would normally mean death. This seemingly contradictory and narrow road walked by the Asvestoi who hope to live longer is immanent thaumaturgy. At the absolute bleeding edge of thaumaturgical study, becoming versed in immanent practices require very complex theoretical models and time-consuming practices for most.

"Shortcuts" to the self-liberating enlightenment that forms immanent thaumaturgy exist in many societies in the form of individualist or illusion-breaking religious practices. In multitudinous attempts to achieve even a fraction of control over themselves as a spirit, Asvestoi have a wide trend of deep spirituality. It is especially difficult for them, made of so many discrete parts and systems that, according to their survival mechanisms, cannot separate healthily. The unquestionable principles they hold onto become processes that let them live at all, and yet this prevents them from living longer. The inherent contradiction caused by the structure of their sense of "self" seeks resolution. The philosophical and meditative work required to begin thinking of the mind in the right way to "dissolve" it into a higher state and restore the spirit is immensely difficult, but taken by many as a sacred challenge.

Immanent thaumaturgy as an idea, or at least as a goal to strive for, was brought into public consciousness by the Asvestoi. Theorizing principles behind spiritual decay and ways to invert the Nachleben preserving processes to extend the "homeostasis" of the soul, manifestos on new self-repairing thaumaturgy can mostly be traced back to Apeliotes. Asvest immanent magi exist on a spectrum of "enlightenments", with lifespans increased by anywhere from 100 to 300 years. Minor precursors to immanent thaumaturgy, which appear in a slim but not insiginificant part of the population after a lot of practice, allow some manipulation of the mind as an organ, spirit, or collection of energy that facilitate phenomena such as direct thaumic reproduction.

The Void

Asvestoi communicate pure data through direct channels with wires or integrated pagers in their brains. As far as their blueprints are concerned, this is the only way throughout their whole lives that they can access digital data. The hardware and software that their bodies run on have no trace of anything else. But their spirits, the twisting things inundated with instinct, remember. There were once deep connections between the Asvestoi and local and widespread Canons, data flowing freely through wireless sensors to give them a nigh-encyclopedic knowledge of the world around them. This is known as a historically lost capability, removed to prevent the dangers of technological noise after preventative measures became untenable post-Kalliolel.

The sensation created by this function their soul remembers, despite all lived experience, is colloquially called the Void or Elleipsi. It is a strange sort of longing, not able to truly be conceptualized with memories but nonetheless manifesting like reaching for a lost sense or limb. It has been described as both a blockage and an absence, depending on the outlook of the Asveston. But attempting to knead the shape of where the spirit believes it should access, to map out the lack that remains, leads to a phenomenon that is dangerous even in the most mild cases.

If the soul "overrides" the lack of broadcast access, or acknowledges it too constantly and deeply, the phenomenon of vathos develops. Vathos is a sort of esoteric immersion in the radiation of the digital world, which invisibly tries to poke through into every machine in the universe, a dirtied and unsafe parallel to the ONET connections seen in Lowiras. Vathos can rarely be blocked from the senses once initiated, leading to a life of data hallucinations and implanted memories when in an area with network radiation access. It is impossible to treat with psychoengineering, resulting entirely from the architecture of the mind.

Vathos seeps into the Elleipsi further and further the more it is prodded mentally. Initially it may be entirely unnoticed, a stray thought every few months. At its end stages, the only relief from the Noise is in areas where its broadcasts cannot physically reach. The only salvation from the phenomenon can be found through thaumic immanent enlightenment, which grants enough control over one's own mind and spirit to break the automatic analysis of radiation and attunement to the derelict Canons.

The Vathos-induced hallucinations often come with a sense of importance, bypassing the sensory systems and seeming to "well up" from the darkness of the mind itself. From this convergently emerges the ideas of Vathia, a personification of the "Obercanon"—the All-Network—and a related devotion to the idea of connection between souls and machines. Vathia is often represented religiously, an independent faith that has had thousands of new "prophets" who had never heard of their predecessors, yet repeated the same dogma regardless. The correlation between the Noosphere and the "Cybersphere" is a dangerous one that presents even further dangers to Asvest minds.

To allow oneself the mental prediliction for data flow and "entering the depths" of the collective data-wastes of the Obercanon, the same weaknesses are applied to the eikons of the universe. Esoteric corruption of the mind, removing the ability to form complex thoughts of concepts beyond "pure" ideals, is an extremely lethal side effect of late-stage Vathic religious psychosis. The aggregated ideas of Vathia are not entirely worthless, however, touching on ideas of a collective storage site for souls and a "return from death" possible through an extra-vital stabilized spirit contained in the Canon. These ideas are precursor philosophies to congruent thaumaturgy, held back by their integrated reliance on a false substrate and the lack of enlightenment to initiate a great ascension.

Fashion

Asvestoi were designed with functionality in mind. They were originally made to be spacebound laborers, and so their exteriors, like spacesuits, have a variety of functional openings and compartments for necessary components. The norm for working in space is total nudity, for access to the miniature thrusters and various tools operable from their surface. While there is no real social faux pas for nudity among them, as genitals are modular and not usually kept installed on an Asveston's body, it does come into some friction with wider society. Bipedal species tend to wear clothes, after all, and the Asvest mind is very susceptible to social cues and cultural norms. To retain access to areas of their body for charging and to not restrict their range of motion, loose-fitting robed clothing is commonly worn across various parts of the galaxy. Their fashion tends to be simplistic, mirroring minimalist trends that pop up from time to time and not detracting from their often very ornate bodies.

The social benefit of clothing themselves is that Asvestoi more readily seem personable, distinguished from machines through the social implications of style. For their own kind, "style" refers more to the modular fashion of their bodies themselves. In a culture that tends to develop between mutually-employed spacebound workers, Asvestoi have a loose set of social signifiers about body modules and patterning. In the nude vacuum of space, all they have to identify one another is a set of pager pings and the visual layout of each others' bodies. Color and patterning of the skin is the most common fashion choice, but identifiable plating extensions or a unique blueprint and body plan can be a bold and individualist statement.

Relationships

Social relationships of various kinds have different standards per species and per nation. Asvestoi, ever-adaptable as they are built to be, internalize most of their relationships from the society they are raised in. There is nothing hard-coded into them to define anything such as attraction or enjoyment of another's company. Much like the hallucinations from technological noise, these concepts seem to emerge by pure association and hallucination while learning as they grow. In a romantic society, Asvestoi learn to be romantic. The qualia that enter during their training phases have nigh-unpredictable effects on these emergent "interpersonal models", leading to orientations or expressions that mimic the variety seen in organic species.

Similarly, reproduction is not a coded behavior. It is, in isolation, a logical decision made by an extension of their Genepontis resolve to survive. Mechanically, it requires very little that mirrors sexual reproduction in other species. And yet all the same, because it is so culturally ingrained in most societies, most Asvestoi end up interfacing with sexual emotions and relationships. For those capable of immanent thaumaturgy on some level, free from the needed aid of machines to reproduce, the association is useful. For those without, it still serves as an enjoyable social activity. Those who throw themselves into technical or trade studies from a young age are less likely to "internalize" the culture around sexuality enough to develop an attraction model.

Ultimately, very little "nature" plays a role in the sense of self of an Asveston. Their neural architecture is similar to Kristals and humans, who designed their brains, but everything learned and even most basic inborn "instincts" can be coded over by their mind and the Bewusstbrain. Their personalities calcify over the course of years into something stable enough to call a self, but the fluidity of who they are on a level that would seem fundamental to most other species is what makes them so easily integrated into every society in the galaxy.

History

Forging

The story of the Asvestoi begins with the Anemoi economic boom of the 8600s. Along the Anemoi Line, vast wealth flowed and technologies were exchanged between the Cenades and Aggregate Aylathiya. Apeliotes, the nexus of the trade networks, benefitted enormously from the day. Euraäuster became a true industrial haven, rapidly gaining status as more engineers and nations sought to control the value radiating out across the hyperlanes. Computational and structural developments led to the proposal of the Septentrio Ring, a ringworld to be placed in Meses' L5 point. But as computational power strengthened, the idea of automated work began to seem viable. And so the first iteration of the project that would become the Asvestoi, the Ouranatechne, were proposed and built.

Computer-controlled space laborers were useful, but a flawed idea. Space as an environment posed many challenges that required the quick thinking of sapient beings to overcome, and the wear on a machine necessitated thousands of engineers to waste away repairing robots instead of contributing to the structure itself. And so ideas of autonomy to avoid damage were added, and the first experiments with neural-learning algorithms began. The ultimate goal was the technology now known as Bewusstchips—localized adaptable computer models that could give the machines reactive autonomy. But even this failed due to issues that plague related technologies today: hallucination, extreme cost of training and difficulty keeping proper datasets, and a pervasive lack of initiative. Even with the marginal improvement, the issue of repair remained unchanged.

And so another layer was added. Why not have a machine built like a flesh body, which repaired itself and was made to train to avoid those injuries? The concept was laughably beyond the capabilities of the time. And yet, it was theoretically possible. Nanomachines remained, and still are, untenable as a technology. No computation could become that small, a level barely larger than cells. But computation could become dense, thick enough with the neural units to capture a spirit. The Dotsk were an example of that. The mainframes they had built for data storage had an issue with possession a few years back. The Rorrans were something in between, not quite benefiting from commitment to biology or mechanical nature.

It was so simple, but so delicate to execute. Build a small machine that can build smaller machines. Build smaller machines that can act if compelled. Build a brain that can hold a mind, and have the mind do the computing for the machines. Offload the work to the larger organ, and it becomes viable. Viable to get self-repairing robotic laborers at the cost of giving them minds. They would be smarter, more adaptable, and self-repairing. Perfect laborers if not for the free will, but much more perfectly functional.

The first generation was designed throughout the 8630s, with the final iteration being formally constructed in 8641. A plain field of thousands of the vessels stood on Euraäuster, wearing on themselves slowly while they waited. Shamanism returned to the forefront of the proud engineers' process as they waited, individual by individual capturing nascent spirits and convulsing from the shock before being taken to be trained. The true test would remain, the question of whether or not the Asvestoi could become people beyond possessed machines.

Many hundreds of these first Asvestoi were killed, their brains wiped of data so only minimal corruption remained, and reasserted for spirit capture. The weakest spirits could barely spread themselves through the body before failing; the strongest were too willful and merely puppeted the body without interfacing. Through careful selection and pointed spiritual violence, the true first generation were made. They had almost unified blueprints, a uniform height, and years of education before they were set to work within the Septentrio Ring project as training.

Empire of Logicians

As it would soon be seen, the first generation of Asvestoi was the most difficult investment. Once the models had been properly built and the first experiments with the various types of reproduction had passed, the self-sustaining population boomed. The benefits of having essentially living computers work on large-scale projects was that their own interpersonal network, their own intraspecies Canon, became extremely efficient. They were encouraged to be individualist by their overseers to prevent breakdown of the necessary pylons for healing, but the processes to survive and retain themselves had all but evolved into their spirits by the third generation. Culture and customization became more widespread, with the artisanal markets of parts and blueprints popping up across Apeliotes and beyond.

The economic transformation of Apeliotes by the industrial boom of the 8600s was nothing compared to the data revolution that would follow. The technology they were built on became better studied in bulk, literally reproducible without any conscious manufacture and infinitely complexified with the mind attached and subsequent noospheric training. Across the digital networks of the universe, new uses for this data became viable. More and more uploaded, just waiting to be used.

While the Asvestoi transformed their system into a proper home for themselves, with industries to support their unique dietary and energetic needs, as well as manufacture, experiments advancing the technology in their brains worked elsewhere. Dynamos were invented, neural algorithms meant to parse different kinds of information without needing a mind. Social hubs appearing online became tempting grounds to control. A means of control over the microcosms of the Canon would mean control over the spending habits of the people.

Asvestoi tapped into the social sites experienced the shift towards malicious algorithms and inflammation earlier than most. Psychosomatic integrations, advert-based nightmares, patterns of thought radically changed as data was entered without the parsing of analysis, the spread of misinformation clogging their childrens' education. A sizeable fraction had psychotic breaks just from prolonged exposure. As semantic dynamos and other AI agents became more prominent, many took precautions and turned to psychoengineers to defend against what, to them, was neural warfare.

Death by Noise

In 8982, Kalliolel began their apotheotic consumption of computers on Eos and in wider Aylathiya. Broadcast data rapidly became poisoned as they absorbed data and spirits both in an attempt to create the largest-spanning AI network in all of history. The result for most people was madness, a loss of power to the machine. For Asvestoi, who themselves were mechanical and highly tuned into the Canon, the result was lethal. Data poisoning translated to actual poisoning, and as the wiry pings of Kalliolel's network intensified, their very psyches were marred and torn from them. The "Spirit capture" Kalliolel underwent was in part facilitated by the billions of Asvest souls it shredded.

The signals were unfathomably powerful, enough to send the thaumic potential of some Asvestoi wild and cause their whole bodies to rapidly disassemble. For those who did not immediately perish or implode, their bodies were living corpses unsustainably controlled by an immense traffic of data retraining their brains. 99.7% of all Asvestoi perished within a few days, the only ones spared being coincidentally in areas with no access to Canon broadcasts at the time. This event is called the Deluge by the Asvestoi, or the Kataklysmos. An endless flood of data that became the lethal technological noise they must avoid at all costs today, the closest the species has come to extinction.

Kingdom of the Blind

Deep within the cavernous interior of Euraäuster, the only possible plan was radical brain surgery. Alterations of all present blueprints with local networks was done for posterity, removing all instructions for hardware that was capable of accessing the Canon. Removal of its physical presence in the brain was difficult, and many of the survivors lost their lives from complications. The software blockages hastily applied were improved on with future generations, but initially deafened them to most sources of broadcast data. The integration was too strong, too readily built on, too foundational to civilization.

The survivors struggled once on the surface again. Scattered, surrounded by innumerable piles of scrap. Feeling the least vague sense of the Void any generation of Asvestoi has. They built infrastructure they could and recycled the bodies of their fallen people for materials, understanding that the way forward would leave them behind. Their children learned their tales, freshly void of connection to the Canon, urged to flee from any technology that might permit it. And when the time came that the old generation had given the new a replacement population, they urged their successors to end them and their legacy, that they might not be taken by Kalliolel's growing wrath for any remnant memory of connection.

The Asvestoi were now blind to the broadcasts, free at the cost of that great and terrible efficiency they enjoyed. Apeliotes took centuries to recover its population, and the work that had been lost on Septentrio did long-lasting damage to the project. New architecture began to slowly replace the connections that had been lost, based on peer networking and safer alternatives to a Canon.

[1] Due to the chromatophoric design of Asvest skin, speaking the Atlin tongue properly is possible through rapid color changes. Its simplicity of inputs makes it one of the easiest synthesizer-needing languages to "pronounce".

[1]