miletus12
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To get yourself lost, just follow the signs.
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Post by miletus12 on Dec 11, 2021 3:34:14 GMT
 It includes the flag of the Machine People (Ponsara) which is kind of weird.  as it the flag of a civilization that rose from the ashes of a nuclear holocaust. The Machine People are exactly what they call themselves; machines who are people. Their neighbors are "biologicals" who are the evolved and differentiated six limbed reptilian descendants of that nuclear war which exterminated the "human" biologicals (interstellar colonists) who created the Machine People to serve them when they landed on Altwelt. Naturally the local inhabitants (Especially the Lizoids of Kofol.), want to exterminate the Machine People as the last vestiges of the "human Infestation". The technology of the natives is about at the level of early 20th century Europe. The Machine People are congruent to0 about late 20th Century Japan, but there are human built ruins in Ponsara territory that they archeologically study in hopes of retrieving lost human knowledge. Numerically there are about 2 billion lizoids and only about 2 million Machine People. So there is your map, your basic background information and an open invitation to join me in writing the full story of Altwelt. Anyone who wishes to participate in the shared story can grab off a "nation" (Except the Machine People state of Ponsara, those who are my part of this story.), and write the history and that segment of the story which that lizoid nation is of a part. Come one and all and join me to flesh out this timeline? |
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miletus12
Squadron vice admiral
To get yourself lost, just follow the signs.
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Post by miletus12 on Dec 11, 2021 18:20:27 GMT
 The background story on Ponsara is this. 1109 BP, two human slow-boats from Sol reach Lalande 2185 and survey the B planet for possible colonization. The conditions are barely acceptable, but the two slow-boats commit to a landing into the southern hemisphere of Planet B, hence named Altwelt. Upon landing the humans find a vast lichen infested wilderness and a planet with a rather dim red colored star with only 70% of the photon radiation wash upon it as Earth. The UV is a little high, so the Earthers have to build shields or they will die. They discover that they can chemically alter the base cellulodals and animal tissue of the local fauna and flora to meet their dietary needs so this colony "should" make it unlike the expedition to Barnard's Star. Anyway, they set up their von Neuman machines and 3-D manufactories and go about populating the new world with robots and more human beings. Except that the slow-boat artilects forgot to tell them about the WWII level lizoids just over the horizon or the world war they dropped into. The few hundred humans were exterminated. All that were left were the two slow-boat artilects, some damaged factory complexes and a bunch of rather dumb robots. The artilects fixed the stupid robot problem by improving the robots' ability to cognate. The lizoids found out what happens to you, when dumb robots become smart robots and develop a religion about "their creators" being snuffed by the lizoids. Revenge occurs. The humans in their superior wisdom had learnt from their own bitter history that dumb robots are a good idea. Supervised artilects are an even better idea.Always keep a human in the decision loop to prevent runaway machine insanity. Removing humans from that sanity equation is a BAD idea, especially if one is a lizoid. Machines can get religion, develop blind spots and make ,major mistakes, like failing to inform the human colonists that there are murderous centaurs with bombs and guns just over the next mountain range. Oops. Add a guilt trip to the religion mania and suddenly lizoids are blamed for what the machines and humans missed. Welcome to Altwelt and WWIII. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Dec 11, 2021 18:51:25 GMT
Welcome to Altwelt and WWIII. Would a World War III that is being fought not on Earth still be called World War III. |
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miletus12
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To get yourself lost, just follow the signs.
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Post by miletus12 on Dec 11, 2021 19:39:29 GMT
Welcome to Altwelt and WWIII. Would a World War III that is being fought not on Earth still be called World War III. That is what the machine people call it. The humans were too smart to fight one of their own. |
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miletus12
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To get yourself lost, just follow the signs.
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Post by miletus12 on Dec 12, 2021 10:08:09 GMT
 The machine people of Ponsara are not just exclusively the humaniform robots. There are varieties of machine people represented by form and function. There are even lizoids and animals counted among the Ponsaran population although I wonder how a carnivorous perambulating shrub would be counted? A plantimal? An aniplant? Jokes aside, the essential feature of the machine people, aside from the sessile manufactories in the "cities" and the automated roadways, is that one will find a machine person is constantly photoelectric powered and the person is mobile. This tends to make them mostly daylight active and night time dormant unless they have artificial illumination to keep their photovoltaic collectors working. There are some prominent castes. 1. Machine person; the mainstay of the machine people population is the general purpose humaniform robot. There are about 1.500,000 of them. 2. Archon; work directors who coordinate the machine people. Might call them middle management. They are the middle between the Artilects and the run of the mill machine people. The example illustrated is a road or rail supervisor. 3. Defender; is exactly as defined. The version illustrated is a ground unit which uses electromagnetic weaponry called diverters to scatter or deflect projectile fire. Other versions of defenders are flyers or sea going robots which function in a similar fashion in that environment. Some of the large ones (ships) can knock down ICBMs. In offense the defender can throw lightning. 4. Horse; six legged lizard is an example of Altwelt animal life. The "horse" serves a function for the lizoids as mules, horses, camels, elephants, did for humans on earth 5. Lizoid; some of the local intelligent life on Altwelt are not out to exterminate the machine people. They are Ponsarans, too. 6. Perambulating Shrub; can one believe the machine people domesticated these things as pets? They eat horses and lizoids and would eat machine people if silicon and stainless steel did not poison them. |
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miletus12
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To get yourself lost, just follow the signs.
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Post by miletus12 on Dec 13, 2021 2:08:59 GMT
Why do robots need a space program?  |
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miletus12
Squadron vice admiral
To get yourself lost, just follow the signs.
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Post by miletus12 on Dec 16, 2021 21:51:17 GMT
 And then there is the updated Ponsara Map.  At some point I would like to know where to park this alternate timeline because I feel like I posted it in the wrong section for alternate timelines, maps and threads. |
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miletus12
Squadron vice admiral
To get yourself lost, just follow the signs.
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Post by miletus12 on Dec 26, 2021 5:23:10 GMT
 The Grau "nation" is actually a four-lobe confederation of ":colonies" organized along ant-like principles. More than any other lizoid "nation"; one would think the machine people would understand this collective?  There is another slight problem. How does one understand "dinosaurs" who worship a stone pillar that apparently transmits radio signals towards parts unknown which only the Grau royalty understands? Maybe the Machine People better investigate that stone pillar so their makers receive their own warnings? |
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miletus12
Squadron vice admiral
To get yourself lost, just follow the signs.
Posts: 7,470
Likes: 4,287
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Post by miletus12 on Feb 14, 2022 19:40:38 GMT
 I have not forgotten Altwelt. |
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