Generally what the hell kind of philosophy/metaphysics am I going for?
Mon Mar 18, 2013 3:13 pm
TheKebbit
Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2009 10:24 pm Posts: 3939 Location: NORTH
Re: AFTERLIFE: CRUEL DAWN
I didn't mean to state earlier that Humans and Boltzmann Brains would be in any way restricted in their power selection to Real or Virtual abilities. I simply meant that one kind of being has more of a physical presence that the other. Sorry if that came out confusing.
Anything goes, so long as it isn't so relentlessly applicable. Here are a few suggestions;
nuclear, gravitational, base kinetic, chemical (organic, inorganic), quantum-physical, noötic, genetic, cellular, geological, electromagnetic, phlegmatic (fluid dynamics), probability, information-theory, perceptual phenomenology
Actually, perceptual phenomenology is the closest thing to Kant's original statements on the noumenal world; i.e., that it was the "real" plane which we perceived via the distorting filter of our senses. So you could go with manipulating phenomenon (the opposite of noumenon), a different and not so exploitable mechanic; you would be able to distort external sensory inputs and influence organs of perception.
I don't know. I really liked your original idea, it's just that being able to enhance/reduce/duplicate any characteristic in an abstract manner leads to game breaking.
Remember, part of the fun is figuring out what to do within the constraints of your abilities!
IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE Players do not have to be immobile structures. That was just the example that was given.
Mon Mar 18, 2013 3:31 pm
Saza
Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2013 12:18 am Posts: 4
Re: AFTERLIFE: CRUEL DAWN
TheKebbit wrote:
On an unrelated note: one slot is now reserved for a grand IRL friend, who will be arriving shortly.
"grand" you make me laugh, you know that
YOU ARE: A Child of Earth
Name:Haturak
Anatomy: Known to some simply as the Great Windbag, Haturak is nothing more than the husk of a torso - or what appears to be - of an ancient form of the human race. Collectively, it is the ripped torso of an Ancient One. There is nothing more than the lungs - which, by a miracle, still function - secured by a few ribs. Some of those are broken. Mostly the ones on the right side. The left arm is still (mostly) present, and movement is aided by seven low-power rotary actuators. The entire metabolic system is powered by the lungs. Additional biomatter and synthetic matter is provided by a crude filter-feeding method. Cilia line the inside of the lungs, and an eighth servomotor acts as the diaphragm.
Domain: Probability - I shouldn't need to explain this, other than the fact it's a double edged blade, and quite often things go exactly opposite of what was meant. Damn you, O Fortune, it was my LEFT arm that itched!
Mon Mar 18, 2013 5:00 pm
Miggles
Data Realms Elite
Joined: Mon Jul 12, 2010 5:39 am Posts: 4558
Re: AFTERLIFE: CRUEL DAWN
YOU ARE: A Child of Earth
Name: Topionsis
Anatomy: A complex, ever expanding system of interlinked trees, made of a somewhat-fleshy-but-nonetheless-woody-as-well substance, (As the treeflesh itself shouldn't be confused with true flesh, treeflesh is hard and calloused, and of course looks similar to but not entirely like wood.) connected via roots, with a comparatively larger "central" stem. Interestingly, each tree is of a different species, and consists of a variety of odd horrific scarrings and deformations on it's flesh, such as tumors, bumps, rashes, bruises, cysts, etc. The Father Tree, as it is to be called, is filled with a complex set of passages and hollows. These hollows are somewhat "biofactories" for the system, genetically manipulating and birthing new trees from seeds which are then swept up by mind-controlled animals, usually avian in nature, to expand the reach of the Topionsis. The Father Tree itself has thousands of terrifying, highly contorted faces; most seem to scream in agony or horror. Each tree is somehow created to fit a niche; the specific environment, humidity, etc. of the surrounding area it is to be planted. It is unknown how the system is aware of the surroundings ahead of it, but one theory is that the roots of the trees contain hypersensitive nervous system which can feel far beyond its physical grasp. Another states that areas controlled by the system create a "bubble" of insight, in which other living creature's thoughts can be tapped into to gain knowledge, not only of the physical realm but of abstract concepts and the being's personal thoughts and feelings, explaining how Topionsis is capable of reading minds. The fauna of Topionsis is of high density, but nearly all of them are entirely carnivorous, as those of the vegetarian variety swiftly learn the consequences of feasting on Topionsis: swift signals of pain sent directly by the system's neural and chemical abilities. (it also tastes nasty) As such the forest is quite dangerous, being filled with many violent creatures, of course including the forest itself.
Domain: Neuro-chemical - Able to control the chemical composition of organic creatures, allowing genetic manipulation and others, such as directly adding chemicals to one's bloodstream seemingly from nowhere. Furthermore, the creature can directly affect the neural systems, accessing and manipulating the minds of biological creatures, and also exploiting this to cause pain without injury.
Name:Siseon Plus Constituent Matter: Stile need ideas for this, god damn. Domain: Perceptual Phenomenology - Control over Extra/Sensory Perception; Warps Phenomena/Simulation/Qualia experienced from Noumenon/Simulacrum/Quanta
Mon Mar 18, 2013 11:40 pm
TheKebbit
Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2009 10:24 pm Posts: 3939 Location: NORTH
Re: AFTERLIFE: CRUEL DAWN
Feel free to borrow the composition from Bolide Four if you're having any trouble.
Mon Mar 18, 2013 11:45 pm
TheKebbit
Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2009 10:24 pm Posts: 3939 Location: NORTH
Re: AFTERLIFE: CRUEL DAWN
We really need a sixth player.
If worst comes to worst and neither Arcalane, good old Caek, Izen or maart3n sign up, I may be forced to call in another IRL friend-crony.
Tue Mar 19, 2013 5:31 pm
caekdaemon
Data Realms Elite
Joined: Sun Nov 01, 2009 3:00 pm Posts: 4144 Location: Hell.
Re: AFTERLIFE: CRUEL DAWN
You rang?
I always help a friend in need. Character construction commencing!
EDIT : Construction complete.
Name: Gorl-Otho, Son of Earth.
Anatomy: Gorl is an abomination, simply put. Real time genetic restructuring can cause some interesting results, especially when the power is given to a perfectionist. Gorl has a thousand eyes, to see all. Gorl has a thousand ears, to hear all. Gorl has a thousand noses, to smell all. Gorl is the monster with a thousand maws, the Great Devourer of all that come near. Gorl covers just under a mile of flesh, covered across the ground like a carpet. Horrific tumors of genetic editing gone wrong plague his surface. Of all who have set out to find the center of the ground that is Gorl, none have returned.
Domain: Genetics - Real time editing of genetic code. Of course, it takes some time for the changes to come into effect.
I trust that Gorl is eldritch enough?
Last edited by caekdaemon on Tue Mar 19, 2013 11:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Name:Siseon Plus Constituent Matter:A 25 Mile Deep Volcanic Dyke made bare by nuclear cross fire, located on a nondescript war ravaged planet. Among the mountain it was part of are unrecognizable massive ship remains, and life has mostly resumed with light forestation. Domain: Perceptual Phenomenology - Control over Extra/Sensory Perception; Warps Phenomena/Simulation/Qualia experienced from Noumenon/Simulacrum/Quanta
Whatever, the handle has never been broached, that is how far I don't know what to think of.
Last edited by Foa on Wed Mar 20, 2013 5:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
Tue Mar 19, 2013 11:33 pm
Arcalane
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 10:32 pm Posts: 1609 Location: UK
Re: AFTERLIFE: CRUEL DAWN
TheKebbit wrote:
We really need a sixth player.
If worst comes to worst and neither Arcalane, good old Caek, Izen or maart3n sign up, I may be forced to call in another IRL friend-crony.
I'm still not grasping the actual concept and overall aim here beyond vague notions of Lovecraftian horror.
Wed Mar 20, 2013 1:18 am
TheKebbit
Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2009 10:24 pm Posts: 3939 Location: NORTH
Re: AFTERLIFE: CRUEL DAWN
I deliberately left gameplay information mysterious. This may have proven to be a pants-on-head retarded decision, but it appears my shitty introductory image of static bleeeaaargh attracted enough people to get this thing going, so it doesn't matter.
Where was I?
Ah, yes. Foa, you should probably contact me via PM or on Steam so we can finalize the details on your character. I go by das kebb.
Boltzmanns tend to show up only in clouds of semi-organized matter; not a genius loci so much as a particular storm pattern that becomes locked in a self-replicating loop, or a decaying power grid that develops self-routing signals among its substations. It behaves in the manner of an assortment of neurons... but isn't. Feel free to steal either one of those concepts, by the way.
See this article for further reference. Any physical substrate, given a certain form of organization, can form a mind (though the "China Brain" example might be a tad ridiculous).
Name:Siseon Plus Constituent Matter: A large cloud of dense, and hyper-conductive wreckage orbiting a strange active sun. It is around 50-miles along its greatest diameter, and the remains of a fleet of planetary vessels. It boasts incredible electromagnetism, and often arcs with plasma. Its components are in a constant state of flux, being molten, or heavily irradiated. Domain: Perceptual Phenomenology - Control over Extra/Sensory Perception; Warps Phenomena/Simulation/Qualia experienced from Noumenon/Simulacrum/Quanta
Wed Mar 20, 2013 5:27 am
TheKebbit
Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2009 10:24 pm Posts: 3939 Location: NORTH
Re: AFTERLIFE: CRUEL DAWN
MILLENIUM.ONE It is an age far removed from what we know today.
The stars grow dim and red, but life thrives in ways beyond imagining. The genetic legacy of Earth has seared its beautiful brand on distant worlds, and thought even touches dead matter.
You wake from death-like sleep.
The Human Hive is long gone. Two of their laws survive. Obey them or suffer.
"GO FORTH. BREED AND MULTIPLY." "YOU KEEP WHAT YOU KILL."
It is a war of all against all. Do not once hesitate; lash out, take, maim, slaughter.
The others only stand in your way.
Omnatom, Herald of Core and Burn [BearsOfInsanity]
Code:
TRANSCRIPTION. LOCK ONE. [Achaemenide]: Mark note, scrivener.
This is a world of shattered earth, bled dry by ancient boreholes and the cities of Man's vile offspring, then left to seethe in blackness and dead air. Nothing grows but speeding crevasses of stone, which intertwine and mate and consume one another, breaking mountains down and vomiting silicon clouds into powdery skies.
FLESH - Tissue Nodules Uniform, fleshy nodules roughly six feet in diameter that make up Omnatom's decentralized body. Surprisingly fragile, and composed entirely of exposed muscular tissue. -- Stratum I --- Basal-Subcortical Matter Capable of semi-conscious reactions, including the extension and retraction of nerve coils, automated reproduction, and biomass sifting. --- Nerve Coils Thick, fleshy cords of myelinated nerve tissue that allow individual nodules to rapidly fire synchronized bursts of nerve impulses, conducting small packets of information at speeds of ten seconds per nodule and streams of continuous information at one minute per nodule. Extended with apical stem cells to root new flesh-nodules and thereby spread Omnatom. --- Seismograph Organs Bulbous protrusions of extremely sensitive flesh-matter, exposed tendons and fixed Golgi fibers that line the exteriors of perimeter nodules, allowing them to gather information on geological activity and give Omnatom a miles-web field of touch, vibration and dull pain. --- Biomass Wells Grossly elongated, spiked cordlike appendages that sink deep upwards into fields of surface dust, chemically sniffing out deposits of viable organic material and siphoning it to the primary nodules. PSYCHOKINETICS - Primitive Nuclear Manipulation Hive-like distributed cortical networks and vast arrays of noötic flesh projections allow Omnatom to bend the nuclear force to its will, setting off fission chain reactions in heavy deposits of radioactive metals over a roughly-five hundred kilometer radius around its epicenter and modulating them to generate greater burn or lower yield at will. With extreme focus and coordination among nodules, capable of fusing simple metals into their higher and heavier analogues. EVOLUTION - Diatom-Analogues Microscopic, protocellular colony creatures with limited genetic codes composed of nitrogen amines and a variant form of ribonucleic acids; typically live off chemical deposits in surface fields and shelter from the atmosphere in piles of their own silicaceous corpses. -- Basic Chemoautotrophy Allows the mining of organic deposits for minimal energy, thrives at lower depths but is incapable of surviving due to pressure differentials. -- Basic Organization Tends to cluster into groups of four and then grow massively in size, expanding through multiple layers of silica shell. On the verge of developing more organized layer-like structures. -- Membrane Cracking (!!MUTATION!!) Rare specimens of these diatomaceous animals have begun occasionally to crack the shells of nearby life with acidic chemicals, bursting their membranes and killing them over a brief period of time after the costly acids are produced. These predatory specimens can now sift additional bulding material and chemicals from the dead, and maintain small micro-zones of exclusion by acidifying competitors.
Samarkis, Herald of Flesh and Work [Harzipan]
Code:
TRANSCRIPTION. LOCK TWO. [Theophanii]: Come and see.
This is a world of radiant sands, accelerating over burning halide ocean with speeds that strip flesh and devour metal in a storm of sparks. Above northern latitudes, bitter, metallic rain falls forever, hissing with infrared and barely impacting the ground before melting away. Rivulets of alkaline earth salt the ground, ensuring its perfect sterility as oases vanish in the wind.
FLESH - Ossolayer Impenetrable layers of lamellar bone tissue, composed primarily of calcium hydroxylapatite and riddled with meteor scarring and vast, open wounds of alkaline corrosion. -- Neural Fracturing Conscious functions are distributed between multiple sections and fleshy bulkheads of the structure, allowing sections of Samarkis to retain basic consciousness, surveillance and defense responses even when partially destroyed, in shock from blood loss and completely severed from the central nervous ganglion. -- Pressurized Vascular Network Hemoglobin-based blood, oxygen, nutrients and hormones are conducted to their proper locations by an extremely high-pressure system of vascular bundles, which split into millions of individual looping capillaries that saturate every living part of Samarkis. This vascular network has the capacity to grow and extend at unnatural rates, enveloping soil in a framework of veins before locking it within bone and substituting it with flesh and nerves. -- Eye Indentations Scattered pockets within the external ossolayer contain fist-sized jumbles of compound eyes, shielded from the harsh external environment by a constantly-weeping solution of mild acids. Can detect movement and overall activity from an astonishing distance, but incapable of resolving much detail or color. -- Autophagia Dormant Samarkis contains all that it needs to survive on its own, and constantly feeds off fat-rich marrow to power the minimal operating functions necessary to keep it alive. With no biomass arriving from the Human Hive and a potential Vile Offspring blockade choking the system, Samarkis will need to find an alternate source of fuel within a few millenia. PSYCHOKINETICS - Primitive Proteomic Manipulation With the levels of neural connectivity ingrained in Samarkis' nightmarish nervous ganglion, its tangled webs of dripping tissue have manifested an ability to tamper with basic protein-like structures, spurring them to form and malform, loop into themselves, harvest atoms, assemble amino acids and lock together. Restricted by the sheer, terrifying complexity of the structures (and the difficulty of calculating all their potential fold states) to small-scale work on the primary sequences of non-motile proteins. EVOLUTION - Alkali Mites Microscopic proto-insectoid creatures with severely chemoautotrophic metabolisms, contain a primitive genetic code of nitrogen amides and semivariant ribose nucleic acids; typically shuffle in slow-moving swarms of segmented legs across the tiny rockpools in which they live, breeding constantly. -- Basic Chemoautotrophy Capable of absorbing dissolved metals in the waters it inhabits for whatever scraps of energy it can produce. Its tiny metabolic pore-organs are often impractical for the purpose, and cannot intake larger organic molecules for harvesting. -- Basic Reproduction Carries dozens of smaller offspring within a saclike organ of nutrient broth, releasing them in clusters as they become of age. Extremely fast breeding cycle, but asexual and changes only via mutation. -- Hydrophobic Setae (!!MUTATION!!) Small numbers of these swarming mites have developed dense, hairlike setae composed of protein that trap bubbles of air near their spiracles, granting them increased respiration ability and longer periods of time spent in the more distant, chemical-rich waters of deep rockpools. Occasionally causes mites to detach and float helplessly off into tidal currents.
Haturak, Herald of Storm and Static [Saza]
Code:
TRANSCRIPTION. LOCK THREE. [Safavid Nine]: Take heed.
This is a world of sunwarmed seas, rippling slow under miles of choking poison and inexorably washing the continents into silent homogeneity. Static arcs refract and burn through gelatinous clouds, drowning kilometers of ocean in acrid green light upon which amoebae shift and gorge, blindly raising a thousand starving tendrils to heaven.
FLESH - Central Mass Towering, necrotic ruin of a human torso, distorted by millenia, corroding flesh drooping inward from every direction at once. Its limbs are barely intact, three half-severed, vivisected open and reduced to dragging tentacles of gore. -- Spinal Consolidation Lack of a defined single brain or cranial cavity has given rise to one of the most unusual nervous systems exhibited in an anthropomorphic product of the Human Hive; in place of the standard agglomeration of neurons, Haturak disperses through its spinal column a chain of segmentary fist-sized partial brains that each regulate sectors of the organism's decaying trunk. Each ganglionic brain periodically disgorges biometric information to the rest of the system and will actively shift via muscle contraction to open communication with others of their type. -- Armature One Sixty-foot limb of raw muscle that blends the qualities of a human arm and a technical machine into a disturbing whole, broken up by three exposed socket joints, wormed through with load-bearing fibrous bodies and tipped with eight nailless fingers capable of bending in either direction from the palm. Used to physically drag Haturak from location to location, physically molding the surrounding environment to its whim. -- Chemosensory Ciliae Waves of macroscopic ciliae line Haturak's pentalobic lungs, the largest two of which are left open to the outside atmosphere by wounds that refuse to shut, perpetually vacuuming up stray metabolites and refining trillions of breakaway atoms into a coherent picture of the world around it. Extremely blurry, cannot make out single objects but rather categorizes chunks of space into shifting fields of elemental composition with their own characteristic molecular "taste". --- Redox Organelles Microscopic cellular bodies contained within the chem-ciliae, adapted to leach, diffuse and store atmospheric NH3 for the subsequent cracking and paired reduction/oxidation reactions that provide Haturak its steady stream of metabolic energy. PSYCHOKINETICS - Primitive Probabilistic Manipulation Chains of metallic, severely bloated and perpetually interweaving neural circuits bind Haturak's spinal semibrains into a whole that seems unnaturally adapted for the manipulation of statistical analysis and base probability; with electrified gouts of terrifying psychic force, Haturak may crush the mathematical static of reality into an arrangement that suits the decaying monster. Limited to shifting masses of a few grams, limited in complexity to nonliving objects and constrained in scope to the ionosphere surrounding its homeworld. EVOLUTION - Pseudoxenophyophores Slow lipid-bounded masses of bright cytoplasm the size of a large grain of sand, containing in bands of chromatin a cheap, lackluster and extremely short genetic code of bulky nitrogen amides only sufficient enough to ensure the organism breeds before bursting its soap-bubble exterior and washing away. -- Basic Chemoautotrophy Rolls slowly across the seafloor in gelatinous clusters, inefficiently absorbing simple chemical metabolites via diffusion and digesting them in large vacuole pods for the dribble of redox energy it needs to keep sifting through the sand. -- Basic Signaling Upon dying in a tragic fit of puncture-induced membrane decompression and flailing pseudopods, the typical XP-type organism will vent its insides in a brightly colored chemical display that causes others to turn their amoebic tendrils and flee. -- Depthdwelling Hydrostatics (!!MUTATION!!) Small subsect clades of these xenophyophores have begun to absorb and inhale toxic quantities of metallic solute, raising their internal osmolarity to a near-lethal level that causes them to bloat dangerously with water; at the same time, these clades incorporate metallic elements into hardened membraneous layers that resist crushing by external water pressure. This poisonous and short-lived offshoot breed gains the ability to dredge high-energy chemicals from caustic deep ocean vents at the price of overall reproductive fitness.
Topionsis, Herald of Mind and Swarm [Miggles]
Code:
TRANSCRIPTION. LOCK FOUR. [Kilimanjaro]: Tear away the blinding caul.
This is a world of boiling steppe, solar terminator crawling over permafrost to flash-melt it to a devouring hurricane. Wastes of methane-laced snow fracture moonlight into retina-killing kaleidoscopes of color, as storm grinds the sunlit side of the world to dust and torches clathrates in fuming eruptions of caustic steam. A blood-red film breeds across the tundra and waits for the gamma rays that sate its hunger.
FLESH - Central Mass Kilometers-wide grove of cancerous arboreal structures, pillars of human tissue armoured in frozen rime and molting chitin. Rare spots of exposed muscle are black from frostbite necrolysis, pocked with organic radiators exhaling steam. -- Metaganglion Concentric circles of delocalized brain matter radiating straight from the Father Tree, primitive neural nodules dispersed through the xylem and digestive roots of each structure to keep each individual venting waste heat and sinking probes for fuel. Specialized ganglionic trees with cylindrical cores of Purkinje matter act as neural authorities intertwined directly with the Father, spewing a storm of cacophonous static input to and from fifty to one hundred attached slave structures, pressed into breaking down an unpleasant geological obstruction or simply synthesizing a slurry of undifferentiated proteins. --- Nerve Rhizomes Wrist-thick ropes of keratinous nerves snake across the area of Topionsis seemingly at random; lengths of dead tissue hang limp, burnt out with electrochemical signaling as live rhizomes writhe at their interfaces (threads of white matter split wire-thin), severing and regrowing ends constantly to burrow into the ice and spawn more biomass for the collective organism. Subtle organizational patterns become apparent. -- Subtympanic Arrays Perimeter structures resembling lilies of cyanotic flesh unfold to reveal hundreds of macroscopic eardrums, locked on a nervous hair trigger for the infrasonic rumbling of the coming storm. Capable of resolving movement and rate of movement of distant threats, but easily subverted by environmental conditions and registers low-velocity objects as a static blur. -- Clathrate Metabolic Roots Tendrils of maw-tipped cartilage that drill downward for hundreds of meters into the permafrost to puncture and digest concentrations of methane-rich permafrost, oxidizing the ice as gut-burning reaction mass to fuel the insatiable energy greed of the anointed Hiver. PSYCHOKINETICS - Primitive Neurochemical Manipulation Crackling swarms of nervous coils feed into the core brain at the epicenter of the flesh grove, hemorrhaging a caustic storm of chemical signal; having stripped down consciousness to its base elements, Topionsis may coerce lesser organisms within a five-hundred kilometer radius to synthesize or cease the production of simple ionotropic agents. With extreme coordination and the intercession of the metaganglion network, capable of permanently altering the structure and function of one simple neurochemical receptor. EVOLUTION - Blood Mildew Silent membrane-film life, genetic code bound in a relatively complex sequence of corrupted amides degenerated by oxidation and sunlight, littered with waste introns from multiplied coding errors. Typically clings to rocks as a gelatinous aggregate organism, undifferentiated cellular mass stained a corrosive dark red by high concentrations of light-absorbing protein. -- Basic Radiotrophy Absorbs the lethal gamma backscatter of the planet's atmosphere via a toxic melanin derived pigment in order to harvest high-energy photons for metabolic fuel and chemosynthetic reactions. -- Basic Terraforming Sharply decreases the albedo of regions it occupies by sheer area of antireflective biomass, forcibly triggering a rise in constant atmospheric temperature to liquefy surface permafrost, extract and digest frozen organic compounds from the millimeters-thick slush. -- Hygroscopic Cysts (!!MUTATION!!) Evolutionary splinters of this pervasive film have begun to develop thick-walled vesicles of desiccatory chemicals, lined with water-sensitive protein assemblies that, on contact with the boiling rain of a planetary hurricane, burst each cyst and chemically dry out the surrounding area of mildew into a dormant phase (to be taken up and spread like plague dust with the wind). An effective reproductive strategy and survival reflex rolled into one, it fails to mix well with high-temperature terraforming and often kills off entire breeding populations due to premature detonation of the intrinsically poisonous desiccant. Conflicts between strains often end in square miles of dead, contaminated mud.
This is a world of shearing iron, pressurized sulfur and heat, two-thousand mile thick heavy mantle spewing magnetic distortion into the gulf and bubbling with radio static. Corroded ferrous mountains bend to the center of the planet, shedding flaming clinkers like molting skin as pillars of carbon incinerate themselves in the plains. Soot covers silent things, worming into airless pockets of red-hot glass to split off parasitic daughters.
FLESH - Devolved Mass Kilometers of boiling flesh sprawl over the surface of a searing equatorial basin, vast meteor scars clotted with bone, mouths crystallizing vestigial teeth from raw enamel, semiformed eyes blinking slowly in the haze. -- Mnemonist Thousands of pounds of raw grey matter seethe in the subsurface layers of Gorl, flooded with extracellular lymph and split by walls of red marrow, grinding through subjective millennia of conscious experience. Massive hyperspecialized neurons bristle with input dendritic masts and trip vast arrays of chained receptors, locked to lethally active neurotransmitters the ante-Hive creatures couldn't even synthesize. Deep strata decay into molten biomass under the pressure of the whole, sinking in ancient lakes of chemical-laced bile to be reabsorbed by webs of hazmat capillaries clinging to the stone. -- the Creep Fragmentary projections of tissue split and meld into the edge of Gorl-Otho's primary mass, scraping the landscape with waves of cilia drenched in hydrochloric acid and infesting the cracked rock with bodies of raw stemcell mass. -- Panopticon Hemispherical agglomerations of photoreceptor cover some five percent of Gorl's surface area, all coated with an oddly reflective white sheen, washing themselves with lachrymal cilia and occasionally shrinking from volcanic ash under layers of nictiating membranes. Provides a uniformly dull sense of light and darkness for several miles across Gorl-Otho. -- Sulfur Redox Nodules Sacs of hyper-efficient metabolic cells specially grown to store and process hydrogen sulfide tapped from the surface for use in the paired oxidation-reduction reactions that supply a dormant Gorl-Otho's minimal fuel requirements. Produces grains of raw crystalline sulfur as waste, which contaminates the cytoplasm of each cell and gives the cyst an inexplicable refractive lustre. At the end of their usable life, each nodule is digested and its sulfur used to synthesize protein. PSYCHOKINETICS - Primitive Genetic Manipulation Electrified core strata at the heart of Gorl wrap into themselves, interlocking like Mobius scaffolds and forming a terrifyingly vast mental space drawing on ground-in millennia of electrochemical memory, circuits firing in exact replicas of thought years past. Encoding billions of interlocking base pairs and their methyl-group epigenomes, Gorl-Otho may correct for minor to moderate deleterious mutations, induce minor positive mutations and manually wreck an organism's genome in order to force it into a random expression of species heredity. EVOLUTION - Heavy Tardigrades Microscopic hexapods with a base tetraploid genetic code of moderately complex nucleic acids, typically extremely solitary with cannibalistic aggression occurring between individuals conflicting over deposits of viable organic compounds. -- Basic Chemoheterotrophy Grinds down fields of elemental sulfur on the surface with a bank of rotating chitinous tooth-spikes, digesting the raw crystal as an electron acceptor into waste sulfates via a crude redox metabolism. Opportunistic heterotroph. -- Basic Shell Barrel-shaped heavy cuticle of overlapping plates of blended chitin and keratin, renders the tardigrade slow but borderline impossible to destroy with blunt trauma. Relies on stubby, inarticulated lobopod limbs to crawl across surfaces. -- Colonial Polyp-Hives (!!MUTATION!!) Mutated offshoot clades of HTs have begun to abandon the old cannibalistic way to follow chemical trails to marked places of colonization, where they redigest their legs with special enzymes and agglomerate into massive structures of semi-living immobile polyps, breeding constantly and burning stored sulfur metabolite. Motile HTs bore tunnels into the dead sections of these coral-like hives and assume a eusocial order where mature H-Ts leave to harvest metabolite sources, regurgitating them as a watery chemical mud for unprotected young to subsist on.
Siseon Plus, Herald of Sense and Warp [Foa]
Code:
TRANSCRIPTION. LOCK SIX. [Chernogradost]: Your eyes will not fail you.
This is a world of rotting monuments, sunk into the compacted garbage of its metal-bleeding crust for millenia, consumed by trash fires extracting molten cadmium for roving foundries. Figures swarm through the rubble, droning and hammering under a headache haze of radio chatter. Dead ocean basins echo with engine roar, satellites crash and deorbit into white-hot mach four shrapnel, disintegrating buildings in Tunguska rain.
MATTER - Geosynchronous Orbit -- Wreckage Storm Forty thousand kilotons of irradiated, molten polymers and carbon steel, torus of boiling metal wrapped around the world, rippling with kilometer-long spasms of lightning; the gutted remains of an orbital infrastructure and a fleet of dead colony ships crushed into themselves by gravity. --- Substrate Wire coiled, chemically fractured to nanoscopic conduits of copper lace, strange sigils of electric life printed on the decaying insides of a hundred thousand burned shuttlecraft by fabrication mechanisms that ceased millennia ago. Partially molten globules of ionized metal shear off the Boltzmann substrate, warping around massive radiator towers that infest the wreck and spin liquid ammonia with baseline power gradient, pulses of infrared burn torching the atmosphere and the surface world. Pressurized thoughts squeal brokenly through the circuits, directionless and decentralized as the Boltzmann they embody. --- Fractured Manipulators Five-jointed corrupted repair limbs; three hundred meters of skeletal hydraulics, Whipple shielding shattered with micrometeoroids, trailing a mist of coolant blood, cannibalized from blacked-out maintenance crews and blanked-out salvage drones with nothing but static in their eye clusters. Feeds thinking mass into the maw of the storm, sinking Siseon Plus' thermodynamic roots further into cold reality. --- Omphaloskepsis Thousands of spy satellites, low orbits decaying, superstructures cracked with waste bombardment, locked in Siseon with bristling tethers of carbon and fiberglass and turned inward to scour the world. With spherical arrays of compound eyes, radiation shutters clicking thirty times a second as their servomotors burn out from wear, infrared monitors watching strange heat at the poles, the broken intelligence apparatus gives the Boltzmann perception. Resolves static images of vast sweeps of the surface across visible and IR bands. --- Ionosphere-Penetrator Eighty kilometers of hyperconductive alloy sunk into the planetary ionosphere, carving through the world's magnetic field at fifteen miles per second and leaving a glowing shear of ionized atoms in its wake, visible from the surface as the blue-white orbit tracks of a thermodynamic god. Extracts the energy for Siseon Plus' basic existence, gradually slowing the Boltzmann. PSYCHOKINETICS - Primitive Perceptual Manipulation Disconnected from the flesh and blood, bile and bone and biomass that would compose a weakly godlike scion of the Human Hive, Siseon Plus' acellular neural substrate renders it an incomprehensible segmentary consciousness; feeling no pain, consuming on autopilot, scraping terabytes of image data for some semblance of perception, Siseon's raw unliving nootic component devours qualia and spits them out, deliberately warped to obfuscate and control. Capable of projecting a single-sensory-modality signal across a specieswide bandwidth for noncomplex organisms. Incapable of manipulating complex sophonts beyond isolated individuals. EVOLUTION - Radial Siphonophore Microscopic radially-symmetric invertebrates with a base diploid genetic code of tightly hydrogen-bonded ribonucleic acids; typically colonize industrial runoff streams in massive, earth-toned swarm layers of shifting tubules. -- Basic Chemoautotrophy Absorbs raw ferrous ions from contaminated effluent water with straining nets of soft cilia, digesting the iron as an electron acceptor via a crude redox metabolism as it bleeds rust into the technogenic sediment of the world. -- Basic Pressure Sense Extremely sensitive membranes present on the central mass of the siphonophore are covered with mechanosensitive hairs that deform under any change in water pressure or vibration. Instinctively retreats from sources of single disturbances, can be temporarily stunned with the sensory overload brought by multiple consecutive surface ripples. -- Monolith Instar (!!MUTATION!!) Divergent evolutionary clades of RS type organisms have begun to enter a massive, breeding-oriented metamorphic stage; after reaching full maturity at a week, RS-types that successfully outcompete others for aqueous iron will aggressively ramp up protein synthesis and swell into branched mud-colored invertebrates large enough to be seen with the naked eye. This postbaseline instar will then proceed to force out competing clades by overtapping metabolites in the environment, starving them out to make room for its (similarly prone to gigantism) offspring, which are produced asexually as undifferentiated clusters of oocytes.
Last edited by TheKebbit on Sat Aug 17, 2013 11:04 pm, edited 11 times in total.
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Re: AFTERLIFE: CRUEL DAWN
