A tale of two empires

Arkaedos

Within this wall beats the heart of an empire, within this radius lies the mind of Sol’s youngest child.

 

This is The Ark; cornerstone of Arkaedian civilisation. Its continuing construction has consumed thousands of worlds over tens of thousands of years in a project that will one day see it’s host star encapsulated by a sphere of Iron and Graphite.

 

The Arks primary purpose is the generation of “white holes” from which quantities of energy many times more than the output of it’s star can be harvested. It’s secondary role is the physical and virtual habitat of thirty one trillion personalities.

 

Many speculate that in the event of an extremely unlikely catastrophe, inhabitants within the Virtuality experience the remaining minutes as billions of years worth of run-time; a relativistic slumber that would see its citizens subjectively outliving the life-time of the universe in defiance.

Kacylis

Gazing upon the capital world at the center of Kacylis, one might be forgiven for believing that the Dyson Ring, with it’s 2200AU diameter was it’s most astonishing feature.

 

However, when one looks a little closer at the star, one might see why many consider ⌀ (Diameter) to be a modern wonder. 400,000 times more luminous than old Sol, this Blue Hypergiant lies sheathed in a cloud of computronium.

 

Feeding on the stars powerful radiation and stellar flux, and resonating with the broken symmetries of the early universe. Diameter manages to accomplish something computing substrates within bubble universes cannot.

 

Where information may only pour out of a bubble universe through plank-sized holes, this star and it’s matryoshka shells of processing dust, bind the will of man to the fabric of the universe in ways fundamental and vast.

 

To Arkaedians huddled within the Ark’s Golden minute, knowledge that here lies an entire system where light travels at the square of it’s normal speed, draws intense emotions, envy, not least among them.

Blood Fire and Smart Dust

Blood, Fire and Smartdust

Smartdust or Smatter is the general term used to describe military-grade, programmable matter that functions at the nano, pico and femto scales.

 

Smartdust is typically deployed during the beginning of a combat engagement as screens of highly versatile dust. These screens act as defensive particle shields; ablating, reflecting or deflecting enemy fire. Offensively, by generating disassembly fields and and zones of high static charge potential. Or logistically, by converting nearby matter into zones that retrofit and repair friendly vessels, or as local computational networks.

 

The latest version of Smartdust incorporate concepts and technologies directly from the ‘Dust Shaper. Some of these include high-bandwidth, FTL communication; which enables vastly improved computation power. Follotic Link technology, which provides the ability to induce local phase transitions in the very fabric of space-time, greatly increasing offensive capabilities.

 

Featured here is the new ‘Lor’ Class Supercarrier, upgraded with the Smartdust compatible, F-Link arrays.

Eos

Eos was the first modernisation of colours, textures and themes across the races. It felt like, Kacylis was naturally an orange, or sand coloured faction with ships that had materials ranging between copper and gold, down to ICE and Ceramic.

 

Arkaedian ships on the other hand either had dark blue painted hulls, or a tarnished chrome like material with blue and purple highlights.

 

So team Red vs team Blue? Well, yes, kinda. It’s a simplification that may help people get into the universe without having to understand which 3 of the 6 manufactures work for who.

Asgard

“This miraculous amalgamation of silica and titanium, shepherd to five dozen vessels that each posses the power of suns, is Asgard.

It is the personification of your will, markers of your domain, with all that lie within it’s shadow defering to your control. – Anon”

Asgard, another capital ship ear marked for a full retrofit. I never quite nailed the rear and the textures on this one. As you can see, this vessel went through a huge number of iterations before I settled on something I felt fit the name

 

Heavily homeworld inspired.

Heavy Metal

“The Ashcen was the ceremony that celebrated a Kushauwan Pilot’s the 10th Magniacapra engagement.

The event was the acquisition of “war paint” via the low altitude gravitational assist of Ganarhun I in the Ganarhun system.

Ganarhun I was a Metallic Hypergiant who’s close proximity to it’s star caused it’s surface in daylight, to evaporate prior to being blown by the solar wind into interstellar space. As pilots undergoing the Ashcen transgress through the planets ;bleeding’ atmosphere, metallic vapour condenses and scars hull plating providing the vessel with unique patterns that distingish the pilot amoungst it’s peers.”

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Synax444’s work provided most of the inspiration for this piece.