Built life: an overview

After to the great O-2/H-2 Wars all Organic Life was thrown into a struggle for survival against self-reproducing artificial intelligence. Though initially quite successful, Built civilization was eventually very nearly driven to extinction by the combined forces of Organic life. The terms of the peace for Built sapience were harsh, and limited Built life --not only to stellar systems hostile to Organic life --but to "sterile" stellar systems in certain specified regions regarded as largely unproductive and non-strategic. By this time both Organic civilizations had also drawn up elaborate codes restricting commerce between Organic and Built species. O-2 (and H-2) civilization remains very phobic about Built life to this very day, and most of the traditions restricting contact with Built species are still respected and enforced.

Most species of Built sapients are "sapient_machines." Except for those explicitly licensed by the galactic institutes --none of which can reproduce themselves --all Machine species (or design clusters) live in the above mentioned reserve areas. Though it has been many aeons since the last Organic-Machine war, most Machine (and Virtual) clans still avoid contact with the Organic civilizations. A few clans and species --such as the Seven Spins Clan --do have guarded relations with Organic civilization. However, trust seldom runs very deep.

Somewhat distinct from true "Machine" sapience is "Virtual" sapience. Virtual sapience is not specifically hardware dependent --it is, in fact, a computer program. Of course, the program requires a suitable hardware substrate, and manifestations of a given Virtual form may vary somewhat depending on the supporting hardware platform. However, speaking strictly, the hardware contains no inherent potential for sapience. After manufacture the machine will not learn on its own. Only after certain software program(s) are loaded will any sapient qualities become manifest. Indeed, if the sapient program is completely deleted and scrubbed, the hardware should support another member of the Virtual species equally well. As a rule, Virtual species can survive de-powering of hardware substrates if properly stored, and they can clone (copy) themselves or migrate from one platform to another. Also, provided a sufficiently sophisticated substrate is available, more than one (distinct) virtual sapience can "live" in one hardware substrate.
If anything, Virtual sapience is even more strictly controlled than Machine sapience. All Virtuals in O-2 space must be highly dependant on specialized hardware substrates and incapable of self-replication. Records for historical Virtual races and those few Virtuals still participating in Galactic civilization show a distinct tendency for succeeding client races in Virtual lines to become increasingly Machine-like.⁽¹⁾

In contrast to Virtual races, true Machine species function much more like Organic sapients. Having been born or built, the young Organic or Machine sapient automatically begins to learn. As a rule, Machine sapients --like Organic sapients --cannot be neatly divided into an "intelligent self" that is separable from a substrate. Damaging the intellect, personality, or memory of a sapient Machine often requires physically damaging the Machine. Also, damage to the cognitive resources of a Machine intelligence often results in a cascade failure of the entire entity --including non-processing parts of its machine body. Storing a Machine personality is only somewhat less difficult than artificially storing Organic personalities. In addition, a Machine's personality is always very sensitive to initial hardware conditions. Even when sophisticated techniques are used to "copy" a personality into an "identical body," results are never exact --though usually more so than in analogous procedures performed on Organics.

Traditionally, Galactic taxonomy has included one other form of intelligence among the sub-groups of Built sapients. These are Macro-Nanitic Life-forms. Of all the Machine life-forms, Macro-Nanitic life most closely approximates Organic life with individual nanite components functioning as rather close analogues of cells. Self-replicating nanites have been used for billions of hab-years throughout know space --mostly in mining and refining, terraforming, and in self-repairing machinery. (There are innumerable applications for nanite technology, but few applications require the micro-machines replicate themselves.) Von Neuman Nanites (as they are called in Anglic) are usually more efficient when they use some solvent to etch replicas. However, because the machines can be built to make their own solvent in molecular quantities, or to "trade" with a "symbiont" programmed to make solvent, the need for solvent is hardly a limiting factor. Other nanites were (and are) often designed to refine and "excrete" silicon --again using molecular level mechanics. Other nanites would then "eat" the refined element. Over time, transcription errors would produce increased variation in the nanite populations. (Evidently, nanite-ovores were often among the first mutant lines to flourish.) Eventually, self-replicating multi-nanite entities would evolve, and given enough time, some might become very complex indeed. Over time, nanites produce their own unique ecologies, and take on the qualities of a quasi-Organic life-form.⁽²⁾

Uplift of promising macro-nanite species is STRICTLY forbidden by Galactic tradition and the Galactic Uplift Institute. Because no entity would uplift Macro-Nanites, and because spontaneous uplift is known to be impossible, and because no Macro-Nanites have been known to Galactic Civilization for roughly 2 GY (2³⁰+2²⁹+2²⁸+2²⁷hab-years), Macro-Nanites must still be extinct. The Institutes also require numerous safe-guards when there is no economical option but to use Von Neuman nanites. In particular, all self-replicating nanites must meet stringent tests for transcription accuracy and they must incorporate at least two ways to self-destruct and two ways to receive self-destruct commands. In addition, each kind of self-replicating nanite used on a given project must be licensed by the relevant Institute and the Galactic Foresight Organization, and fees are raised to the power of the index of the nanite species.⁽³⁾ As a result, the nanite systems used today (at least those parts that use Von Neuman nanites) tend to be fairly simple. Prior to the War of Macro-Nanite Extinction, complex nanite ecosystems often remained after a terraforming project. Today it is virtually impossible that even eight species of nanites would be found after the extermination that would follow a one mega-year terraforming project. Even four surviving species would be unlikely.⁽⁴⁾

1. Note that Virtual intelligences need not be sessile. If a Virtual lives in a "robot," then for most practical purposes the Virtual is the robot.

2. We encylopediasts are puzzled about why Galactic civilization decided to classify Macro-Nanites as Built life rather than as a kind of Organic life or instead of putting Macro-Nanites into their own category. It is unlikely that the ancient Galactics committed the origin-significance fallacy and classified Macro-Nanites as Built life simply because their original ancestors were machines. Ancient records indicate that they were put in the Built category because early efforts at uplift were made by Machine species. However, judging by subtext in those same documents, it is fairly obvious that the main reason Macro-Nanites were put in the Built category was that other Organic species --especially Terrestrial species --were very antagonistic toward Macro-Nanitic species. Classifying them as Built allowed for an elegantly simple Organic-Built dichotomy and an equally simple bigotry. Indeed, so strong was Organic hostility toward Macro-Nanitic sapience that they have been listed as extinct for over two billion Earth years. Methane-Ammonia sapients were exterminated only about 200 MY (that is, 2²⁷+2²⁶ hab-years) before the Macro-Nanite genocide, and these are two of only three extinctions recorded at this taxonomic level (or higher) in all of Galactic history.

At this age the Galactic record is sketchy and hard to access. However, there are tantalizing hints --all plausibly deniable --that O-2 civilization agreed to the extermination of Methane-Ammonia species as quid pro quo for H-2 assistance in eliminating the more tenacious and threatening Macro-Nanites.

(See also Methane-Ammonia Extermination, Macro-Nanite Extermination, Cyborg Extermination, Wars of Extermination.)

3. For example, the second model of self-replicating nanite to be used in a terraforming or bio-sphere remediation project would cost:

4. However, Terragen environmental biologists consider Galactic biological survey methods very cursory and overly dependant on technology. Terragen experts believe that standard G.I.M. estimates of species diversity can be eight to sixteen times too low. (See bibliography.)

Standard procedures for "initial promise surveys" endorsed by the G.U.I. are even more slip-shod, according to Terragen experts. Very little time is devoted to animal ethnology or to interaction with animals --unless the team believes they have a promising candidate; whereupon, all survey work stops in favor of evaluating the new candidate in depth. The Terragen Institute for the Promotion of Sapience suspects that at any given time there may be more than 128 times as many "upliftable" species in O-2 space than officially estimated by the G.U.I. (See bibliography.)

Built Life