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.