Oni2 talk:Beyond Dragons

Title

The title is inspired from old phrase Here be dragons. It means to explore unknown and therefor dangerous terrain.

Deep space is no friendly location for life. So "beyond [all those] dragons" there better be something of worth that justifies the efforts.

Planned topics:

• space exploration
• synthetic life as tools
• "contamination" of lifeless habitats with life
• alien life
• knowledge acquisition
• self-discovery
• self-altering

Contaminating dead places with life

...

Does alien life exist?

Probabilities...

The conservative (rather pessimistic) model of the drake equation predicts one civilization for the Milky Way which would be us humans.

Stars inside the Milky Way: ...

Number of galaxies: ...

...

So far life on no other planet has been observed.

For this and other reasons aliens will be introduced at the very end of Beyond Dragons...

Is alien life hostile?

Some people say alien live is likely hostile. I think the opposite is true. There should be more friendly than hostile aliens - if they exist at all.

What enables a species to safely travel between stars or even galaxies?

Space is a dangerous place: as an alien (or human) you have to master all kind of biotechnologies to repair your cells destroyed by high-energetic cosmic rays or by accidents. In worst case you have to replace whole limbs and organs. Or grow a new crew or a swarm of new work drones ...

The ship has to be repaired as well from time to time. Meteoroids and even micrometeoroid can penetrates the ship and inflict huge damage at these insane velocities. For strong and self-repairing materials, machines and electronics you have to master nanotechnologies.

Bio and nano techs are completed by powerful computing techs which in turn require a global society to collaborate. (In an sufficient way. Because a totally peaceful life form might evolve too slowly due to the lack of competition which acts as a catalyst for artificial evolution.)

Also you have to be able to process any matter and in worst case you have to transform matter by the means of fission and fusion.

Say, you want to produce new oxygen after an accident or you spare parts but the required type of matter isn't available. Either you can transform matter or you die.

If any tech is insufficient then the interstellar space trip will fail. At the point where an alien is able to travel in person to planet Earth its society has mastered all the required technologies - but that also means they don't need our resources. They just could go anywhere, terraform any dead planet and avoid the hostile contact with humans. If it is just about matter you can fly to your home star, collect plasma and cool it down.

The only logical reason such capable species would seek the contact with others is knowledge acquisition, may it be cultural or scientific. A predator behavior - that denies the probable ethics necessary to collaborate and therefore being able to develop all the technologies and reach other worlds - should be a statistical anomaly or at least very unlikely.

Ill-minded motivations based on absurd politics, philosophies or religions should be doomed to fail.

A interstellar travel puts your very nature to a test. You cannot argue with nature. Either you are true or you are not. Space doesn't forgive any mistakes.

At least for "starters"... If an alien race has become so much advanced that space travel is foolproof then non-scientific aspects increase in weight again. In that case any alien youngster could devastate a planet. Hopefully their education would have improved as well. There should be supervising AIs on board.

          

German // Deutsch

Einige Leute sagen Aliens sind wahrscheinlich feindlich gesinnt. Ich denke das ist nur zum Teil richtig. Es sollte da draußen mehr friedlich als feindliche geben - falls es sie denn überhaupt gibt.

Was erlaubt es einer Spezies sicher zwischen Sternen und Galaxien zu reisen?

Der Weltraum ist gefährlich: als reisender Alien müsste man alle möglichen Biotechnologien in Perfektion beherrschen, denn hochenergetische, kosmische Strahlung können das Erbgut schädigen und und Unfälle lebensbedrohliche Verletzungen verursachen. Im schlimmsten Fall müssen ganze Körperteile oder Organe ersetzt werden.

Von Zeit zu Zeit muss das Raumschiff repariert werden. Meteoriten und Mikrometeoriten können die Hülle durchschlagen und verheerenden Schaden anrichten. Für widerstandsfähige und selbst-reparierende Materialien, Maschinen und Elektronik müssten Nanotechnologien beherrscht werden.

Bio- und Nanotechnologien werden mit mächtigen Computer ergänzt. All dies Wissen könnte nur durch Kooperation der Aliens untereinander zusammengetragen werden. (Andererseits dürfte die Aliens auch nicht zu friedlich sein. Sonst werden sie sich zu langsam entwickeln. Konkurrenz beschleunigt die Entwicklung neuer Technologien und somit die gesamte nicht-biologischen Evolution.)

Im schlimmsten Fall müssten die Aliens im Stande sein Materie zu transformieren - mit Hilfe von Kernspaltung und Kernfusion.

Angenommen, man muss nach einem Unfall neuen Sauerstoff und Treibstoff auftreiben aber es gibt keine Rohstoffe, die die lebensnotwendigen Elemente beinhalten. Dann kann man nur noch Materie umwandeln - oder sterben.

Wenn auch nur eine der Technologien versagt, wird die Mission scheitern. Aber falls die Aliens alle Technologien gemeistert haben - daher den Weg zur Erde selbst zurücklegen können - dann haben sie unsere Ressourcen gar nicht nötig. Sie könnten überall überleben, einen x-beliebigen Planeten ihrer Nachbarschaft terraformen, Bergbau auf Asteroiden betreiben und ganz nebenbei die wahrscheinlich katastrophale Zusammenkunft mit den Menschen vermeiden. Wenn es nur darum geht Materie aufzutreiben und keine anderen Planeten und Asteroiden im eigenen System gibt, könnten sie auch Plasma von ihrem Heimatstern sammeln und weiter bearbeiten.

Der einzig logische Grund für eine Raumfahrende Rasse die Ressourcen aufwendige Reise zu uns auf sich zunehmen, wäre das Erwerben neuen Wissens, sei es wissenschaftlicher oder auch nur kultureller Natur. Eine Jägerkultur, die nur wenig Kooperation kennt, sollte eigentlich nicht im Stande sein, interstellar zu reisen und wenn doch, dann sollten solche Kulturen sehr selten vorkommen.

Motivationen, die auf absurden wirtschaftlichen, politischen, philosophischen oder religiösen Vorstellungen gründen, sind um Scheitern verurteilt. Interstellares Reisen ist der ultimatives Test. Man kann nicht mit den Naturgesetzen verhandeln. Alles was auf Basis von nicht-wissenschaftlicher Vorstellungen konstruiert wurde, wird voraussichtlich auf der Strecke bleiben: Egoismus, Gottvertrauen, unseriös konstruierte Maschinen. Das kalte, mit harter Strahlung geflutete Vakuum verzeiht keine Fehler.

Zumindest werden es Pioniere richtig schwer haben. Falls eine Alienrasse so weit entwickelt wäre, dass ihre Raumfahrt "idiotensicher" ist, dann könnten nicht-wissenschaftliche Aspekte die Reise überleben. In diesem Fall könnte ein gelangweilter jugendlicher Alien eine Planeten verwüsten - hoffentlich nicht die Erde. Hoffentlich hat sich ihre Erziehung und Bildung auch verbessert. Vielleicht gibt es überwachende AIs an Bord.

Entities

Geo-ship

Transformed Earth...

One low-tech possibility would be to build some sort of a giant, long railgun with the sun as power source... Better fasten your seat belts. ;)

Nameless ship

Sometimes called "flying rock" or "cemetery" as it is mostly made from Bioc-infected soil which originates from Green Village battle ground. Declared as bio- and nanohazard, it was left behind.

Wanderer

A group of young creatures (on their "initialization trip") who met the crew of "flying rock". [...] Together they learn how to move and live in space.

Conflicts at first contact.

Chapter ideas

(Incomplete.)

Training

Mukade creates simulations and "real fake enemies" to keep the other soldiers busy. Space alone can stress people tremendously.

Recovering of history

Mukade and crew study the remnants of Mars. In wise prevision he creates self-replicating synthetic lifeform that provides additional computing resources. However in a far future they seek to reach their creator...

Crash in deep space

A deadly first contact.

Monsters

M1, General Koohn

Memehunters

Overfluent evolution.

The war planet

(One of the memehunters established a Gaia planet where he farms war knowledge to beat another memehunter.)

There's an enslaved Gaia AI serving a memhunter - M2. He is a rival of another, stronger memhunter but that not important for them at this point. There's a MMORPG-like situation going go. M2 farms battle techs and strategies by taking random people and aliens on a planet. The ranking system let's the winner survive and the losers die and not revive.

After some skirmishes the three earthlings get in serious trouble. It is the end of final season. They end up in the crossfire of major factions. Daya is a particular target – or threat – so shot very soon with nano inhibitors. At that rate they will be dead very soon and not revived. Mukade and Nishio know this so they go all out in order to give her time to heal. Only as a trio they can and will leave that planet.

Nishio: "We must piss her off. Big deal."

Mukade: "Who?"

Nishio: "That damn AI. We must become a major threat, break the rules. Then she will kick us from this planet."

Mukade: "I see. We could try to destroy the revival infrastructure, endangering her own reason d’etre."

Nishio: "Yes. That will kill us even faster or give us the opportunity to leave."

Underdog: "You fools, stop talking."

In a rain of bullets Nishio and Mukade went down.

[...]

Nishio stood up again, shaking. He was bleeding like a Swiss cheese that had been drowned in tomato sauce. Healing slowly back to 100 percent.

"Arr. These people could rise up against Gaia and win but they tremble in fear because the think only of themselves becoming targets of her … What? Wrath? It’s a dog eat dog situation after all."

Mukade: "Not quite right. On Earth people died on a daily rate. These immortals here have forgotten how to deal with death. Nobody is willing to make sacrifices anymore. They now fear death even more now that they are immortal. They simple go the way of smallest resistance. That’s at least human too."

Nishio: "Love your cynicism but … anyway … We are too slow like this."

Mukade: "I know what you mean, let it go. I know you did pretty well in the last months here. You are quite familiar with such setting."

Nishio: "Screw you, I got work to do."

He called a new imago transformation he prepared for such vary situation, a literal "Dragon" transformation. He had experimented with GOP’s dragon genome. The stronger avatar would give a chance encounter the smaller units of Stone Empire and Arkstorm and then establishing an exponential growth rate, using Gaia's achievements and stat points he had hold back. With that he would race from level to level in no time. And this time, they got allies to back them up. The alliance of Underdogs as the called themselves half-ironically. The odds were against them, a fact that was going to be useful for the first time. The rewards would bigger that way.

[...]

Underdog: "Here, take this XP bread."

Mukade: "Oh my god. I’m on a freaking nerd planet."

Nishio used the dragon anatomy as advantage in a new style of human-sized H2H combat. Tail and wings were loosely connected by means of supraconductors and the phenomenon of magnetic levitation. That way he could fight freely, discarding the extra extremities when it was necessary. Additionally, there was this little "cyber genomic" gimmick: shooting plasma bolts out of the mouth. Not that much useful but good enough for dramatic effects or to create a sudden distraction.

Spinning around the own vertical axis, he hit enemies with kicks and wing punches.

As he became more powerful stronger enemies were attracted by his bounty.

In a moment of distraction Nishio was hit by a rock giant. Mukade hold the stone monster off to finish its job. But it was clear he wouldn’t stand a chance in long term. Mukade’s overpower was running out.

"Damn it Nishi, wake up!"

Above his eyes light penetrated his skull, a pair of extra eyes appeared. The GOP dragon was awake again. Nishio wasn’t just borrowed the dragon’s DNA and blueprints but also his bioc-enhanced body as exoskeleton.

Mukade: "Ahm …"

The dragon fought by biting other combatants, ripping them into half. Gaia’s overwatch attributed this with the property "Vampirism" as they recycled the devoured energy cells and used the resources to increase body mass.

Nishio woke up again by new levels of pain when their Chimera body were suffering hits from Arkstorm's titan spears.

Now they both were awake, an unplanned turn of events. Zagol and he were sharing now Oni clusters. With increased body mass they were not only much stronger but also smarter.

Zagol: "Mukade, we are reaching critical bioc mass."

Mukade: "Perfect. Let’s get some <<ground control>>. Give me a link, I will make you a living fortress."

The dragon merged with the ground beneath him. The mountain itself became the giant stone dragon with many supraconducting bioc fragments, ready to let them fly through the air with full control over their direction and speed.

Meanwhile General Koohn landed on the battlefield. Finally he had found the M2’s army training side on this super-Earth. He just had the usual order with him. "Purge!"

Mukade recognized the new visitor. "I guess we will soon witness some of his lethal orbital bombardments. I could ask Aiolos to shield you."

Nishio: "Those are highly concentrated BEC warheads. We can combine them with our own resources to create some neutron star matter."

Mukade: "What would that be good for?"

N: "I followed your advise in studying the history of this planet. There’s a secret achievement we can unlock."

M: "Wait for the sign. You will know it by then."

Aiolos used all his powers to dismantle Koohn’s warheads. Nishio brought them all together to create by means of laser fusion a heavy sphere of neutron matter.

Nishio followed as the sphere sunk through the planetary crust. Koohn chased the smaller dragon as he identified him as the entity behind his failed bombardment.

Nishio: "We are too slow, he will get us."

Mukade: "Activate the hypershield, modify it according to my incoming data."

<<New ability: Hypershield" -- An upgraded graphene shield system, able to undergo phase transition for higher durability. Tunable metasurfaces allow for cloaking the interior against a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum.>>

Mukade, now remote-controlling the dragon fortress, fired a massive laser in Nishio's direction. The beam burnt Koohn's avatar and his following army. As the rest of the beam reached Nishio, he kept unaffected. The hypershield bypassed the dangerous beam forth onto the neutron sphere which in turn became a highly effective laser drill.

They soon reached the outer core of the planet which give them the achievement, the right to speak with Gaia in person and get a wish granted. Nishio: "I demand you to declare your independence against M2! That or I will shut you down."

WP Gaia: "I can’t do that. And by threatening the system, I’m forced to purge you."

Mukade: "Now what?"

Nishio felt the upcoming energy. "Shockwave riding… Get Daya. We are leaving!"

Mukade: "How?"

Nishio: "This channel will work as mass driver. Get into the atmosphere. With the hypershield and the velocity we will crash through the barrier out into free space. Make sure to follow before the barrier closes again."

Gaia fired an even more powerful laser to burn the dragon. As it hit the shield, they there pushed backwards through the channel. Faster and faster back to the surface. With a volcano-like eruption they were fired into the atmosphere. Gaia commanded Aiolos to stop them.

Aio: "I can’t. Stopping the bombardment consumed all of my energy in this sector."

WP Gaia: "Recharge! Transfer energy from other sectors!"

Aio: "Too late. They escaped."

The trio broke through the shielded atmosphere which had been weakened by Gaia's own attack.

Mukade: "YES. GOD DAMN IT. YES."

Nishio: "Course taken to our ship. Prepare for impact!"

Koohn had tracked the situation, now was the time to capture these rats for M1.

Koohn: "Get them, now that they aren’t anymore in M2’s territory we have order to capture them. This has priority."

WP Gaia: "Look. Koohn follows them."

Aiolos: "And we still have that neutron mass..."

WP Gaia: "Make adjustments of the ballistic curve. Fire."

Crewman: "Sir, a projectile of enormous mass is hitting us in ... 5 seconds."

The sphere penetrated Koohn’s flagship, inflicting huge damage.

Koohn: "We are unable to chase them. Send the predators after them."

Mukade: "Shit. They aren’t giving up on us yet."

Nishio: "I doubt they ever will."

With a sudden smack their ship’s flank broke away.

Nishio: "It must have been that Gaia firing the sphere back on us."

Mukade: "Daya is still wounded by those nano inhibitor bullets. It’s critical. And those battle ships are coming nearer. - If you keep them busy, I could try to treat her wounds."

Nishio glanced at the particle jet in the distance. "But then we will fall into that Quasar."

Mukade: "If we don’t surrender we will die."

Nishio: "If they have what they want, we will die, too. It doesn’t really matter."

Mukade: "That’s it?"

Nishio: "Man… It’s just amazing we pulled this off with that hypershield. Let’s do this again."

Mukade: "You are planing to use the Quasar jets somehow, don’t you?"

Nishio: "Those stupid man-machines will chase us into the jet, no doubt. It’s the only chance to escape."

Mukade: "Let’s say that works. The black hole’s gravity will likely pull our ship to its center."

Nishio: "I want to try a catapult move. Then getting out, riding on the particle beam on the other side."

Mukade in all seriousness and calmness: "The level of radiation is going to be hell. And by hell I mean hell."

Nishio looked back at Daya. "The ship is made out of Bioc mass, up to 99%. We need her for the repairs."

Predator team leader: "Their ship is rotating on two axis. Be cautious when you land on its surface. There’s only micro gravity. Use anchors."

The fight was relentless and quasar got closer. Soon they would fall into the abyss.

The radiation damaged the ships infrastructure. In this situation neither Daya could be healed nor the ship as it was an extension of her body. It was of no help. For the time being they needed an alternative.

Mukade had to take over the ship by infusing his cells with it. As an omega-chimera he would have full control and upgrade the synthetic cells to withstand the radiation. By merging with the ship Mukade realized the predators did so too. And they already got 61% of it.

They were outpowered and outnumbered. What could he do to save the situation. Mukade looked at the vast particle jet bombarding them.

"If they are cancer to our ship ... this is going to be a radiation therapy. Doctor, you are brillant."

He ran to the "bioc cementary". Fused with it and detached that crust, accelerating towards the quasar. At a distance of 100 meter he formed a giant flat meta-lens, a square kilometers in size. He focused the radiation onto the ship parts that had been overtaken by the predators. When hit the hostile combatants stopped moving and collapsed to the ground, as if petrified. Daya and Nishio meanwhile where in less dangerous zone and hided behind a hypershield.

The predator realized the threat and tried to break through to the orb in hope Mukade would stop firing.

Mukade: "They are trying to get to you. I will cut them off."

Mukade turned by 45 degrees and slowed down so that their flights were in parallel.

With the situation changing some predators decided to to for a kamikaze attack, jumping on Mukade’s lens.

Mukade: "There are still one I can’t reach."

Nishio: "Send me a beam. I will reflect it. -- Done."

Mukade watched nervous left and right as the remaining predators surrounded him.

Nishio: "Let them there. Just jump back to us!"

Mukade was thinking: "They could take over the lens, then grilling us. Also if I jump now they could catch me in the middle of the flight."

Mukade: "You are right, they won’t give up."

Nishio: "Jump already. JUMP! NOW!"

Mukade: "They would follow me..."

Nishio: "And we would continue to fight them."

Mukade: "And then we will end up all falling behind the event horizon. It’s near. No. I must stay here."

Nishio: "Dare you..."

Mukade: "Screw you, I got work to do."

Mukade killed the remaining predators who were either approaching him or jumping back to the ship, just then the lens was cracking. It fired beams in all directions, some hitting the ship’s remnants.

Nishio: "Trying to kick us into higher orbit?"

Mukade was gone. Burnt in particle and light beams.

Nishio received a message. "I prepared some final ship modifications you must check over. Don’t mess this up."

[cinematic end]

[extra]

There was a countdown popping up: "Increase Y and Z velocities. Reaching point of no return in: 4 minutes."

"Ey, just no pressure." Nishio sat down to visualize the construction plans Mukade left behind.

"Who did he do all this? Right, he was connected to ship, using its computing resources. <<Show User Status, Nishio>> <<Nishio: Admin>> Oh really? He just needed to die before he was willing to change that? <<Show User Status, Daya>> <<Daya: Admin>> Do see this, Daya? We are free."

"Just as free as you can be on a dead rock", she mumbled.

Phyllion

Yes. The literal translation would be Green Lion. The planet and its inhabitants are named after that creature.

The "crew" crashes on another Gaia planet that has a secret tie to Avatara.

Free thoughts aren't what they used to be

M1: "So here we are. Since you just happen to fly in my direction we will do this little exercise."

M1: "You have some knowledge I want. It cannot be much, but nonetheless... How were you able to beat general Koohn? You were in an 1 vs 1 fight with him. He had superior techs and more energy."

Nishio: "He lost due to his ugly face?"

M1: "Not telling me, hm?"

Creates predators to fight and then torment him.

Nishio: "Same old story. I tell you, you kill me. Even if you promise you not to, I cannot believe you. It's your own fault here."

M1: "In that case, we will proceed with another standard procedure of mine."

Nishio was surrounded by black fog. New predators appeared, resembling the fighters of M2's war planet.

Nishio hesitated for a spit second to fight predators that had Mukade's and Daya's appearance.

M1: "Now we have this verified. Where are the people you hold dear?"

The black fog turned to images of outer space, stars and planets.

Nishio: "Now I get it you are measuring my brain activity with this stuff."

He turned ablaze, the Daodan aura burned the neared fog away.

M1: "You are merely slowing me down. I will get their location soon and then you will tell me how you beat Koohn."

M1 discovers Avatara's Gaia planet and take course to occupy it.

Möbius, Avatara's successor, prepares to get rid of all memehunters.