00 Recursive Lessons
> Dyson Sphere: the enclosement of a star through artificial structure with intent of applying entirety of stellar radiational output.
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> “Too often ye become preoccupied with the fascination of doing something. Whether this something can or, in many cases, should be endeavored towards is not the question I want ye answering. Instead, look around this broken world and realize the grandest of intellectual questions is what comes after?”
> - Hemet Namel, professor of Augmentational Alchemy at Hreidfl Station.
Finite Inevitable. A mantra, a prayer, a warning: that the ending of all things not only happens, but that it will happen without fail. No other ideal better captures Nomm fatalism her inhabitants. Not properly a planet - once a thriving star - in times before memory ancients devised a functioning marvel of engineering without peer, enclosing this star in wonders. Reigning as the empirical pinnacle of scientific triumph, these Crafterions harvested solar systems for their creations throughout galaxies. The central capital of an empire treating time and space as sculpted clay in their hands.
Then, Finite Inevitable. Unknown energies fractured knowledge, shattering understanding and unleashed aether upon Nomm. Ruination engulfed all. No longer quite a star, not completely a gaseous planet, Nomm’s sphere of prodigy became dissolutioned. Some pieces obliterated, some drifted to void. Some descended into waning gravity and entered aetheric nebula to obtain orbital stability. Thousands of inert constituent satellites crashing and smashing until settling into polite synchronism.
Truth and accuracy at forefront, the following remains supposition, though no more than the aforementioned. Whether life could be entertained in another fashion has not much bearing on what actually progressed. Regardless of unprovable theories, aether alone failed to sustain biology, leading to all traditional life expiring. Eons passed. Energies actuating from the beginning of this dilapidated age tended towards fractal possibilities, the core principle of aetherics. In short, finding no life in flesh, life found metal and evolved.
“And that, gentlebots, is the answer to life, the universe and everything...everything…every…”
“Please, humble persons, I beg indulgence for my grandmother,” said a strapping youth, his youthful bright brass perspiring oil onto a dapper striped brown and gray shirt paired with suspenders and crisp dark linen trousers. Not much of his gearing was exposed - as keeping with proper decorum - but his speech bespoke one of the Urosma colonies rather than Asylon proper. He put that speech to continued apology while resting a hand on the rusted shoulder of his elder. “Grandmother years past professored historical sciences, though degradation has progressed her to nearly Recursion and she often forgets which company is kept most days.”
“Recursion. The death of the mind…the mind…mind...” Grandmother and professor, she exemplified an example of her own explained condition. Though the ancient woman sat and mumbled in her chair - rusted and weathered, leaking and creaking, too many gears visible past iron and copper and a green dress far outside modern fashion - a body could be repaired. Life, such as it was on Nomm, remained entirely upon the sentience one retained hold of. Time and information ultimately degraded that sentience until only looped memories tarried, lacking free will and thought. Death truly only arriving to those without thought, a body only a shell of cogs and alloys.
“Cannae she keep ‘er draftin’ cogger shut?” said a boorish oaf, mostly iron with a shovel jaw and lantern eyes, steam leaking around his thick neck a clear indication of his temperament. And despite clothing possessing both taste and fashion - an unbuttoned white silk shirt, maroon cravat nearly untied, rumpled black coat and lighter beige trousers - it only made for an uncouth gentlebot hardly fit for polite company. His size, however, looming large over the bright lad and his elder relation even while seated, made confrontation undesirable to say the minimum. “Should scrap da biddy an’ sell da tin fer larger gears, ye toddlin’ sprocket, hyehyehye!”
Cramped space might have ostensibly accommodated a sitting room [1], yet with thirteen other robotics of various sizes each trying to mind their own nuts and bolts, the room had more in common with a compression tank. In other words, there was only so much strain such confinement might retain before inevitable pressurized detonation.
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“That is completely unwarranted, sir!” the youth piped, his own steam leaking as he stomped forward, pointing a gloved finger quivering in high emotion. “How can you even suggest such actions while lacking basic compassion? If you are unable to retract your accusations, I…I will need to seek satisfaction forthwith!”
The finely dressed scoundrel ending his chuckling, the glow of his lantern eyes increasing illumination as he slowly scanned the others occupying their own private affairs. Glare at, really, as if challenging anyone to side with the youth. To the detriment of robotical society at large and with a collective shame, most ducked their heads and remained silent. A satisfied smile spread across his face when his lanterns shone again on the brass youth, hot steam boiled up through his shoveled jaw. Beneath his silk shirt a turbine whirred into muffled life and gears audibly ground together with a faster clip, bulges under his coat expanding until a button popped and spun through the air.
“Did you know that clothing has only been a universal custom since the advent of Accidentally Repurposed Souls? Four hundred years ago, covering one’s gears was seen as frivolous, or even less so, as the very notion was ludicrous to mechanized life. Roboticals did not understand the concept of modesty until introduced by transient Earther souls inhabiting robotical bodies. Now we take great efforts to affect clothing employing concepts from immigrated morality. In fact, life on Nomm deviated with the acclimation of Earthers. Mandelbrium is the fuel for all life within the various moons of our world, energy distilled from the fractal aether, yet cooking and preparing various flavors to inject said fuel into ourselves is a new concept, historically speaking. Even the concept of metaheurism [2] - or what is basically known as procreation - has reached new and interesting fascinations, Earthers transforming a simple idea of optimal programming integration to generate new life into something pleasurable…”
“Grandmother, please!”
A few chuckles accompanied the explicit words of the elderly woman and her frantically embarrassed grandson, most simply playing off the entire affair as a good show with a touch reminding them of the looming threat Recursion hanging over all anxious youth. Closer observation would note, however, how the steam from the larger scoop-jawed blaggard cooled while he sat down without much other fuss. Even closer detection would perceive the lamps of the elderly woman’s eyes were not as dim and that her speech retained nary a stutter in her final elocution. Mayhaps bright enough and eloquent enough to understand not all fights require victory through fisticuffs.
Further ruminations were interrupted as the door to the office - wherein those seated waited turn to enter - opened, quite erasing any thoughts on talkative grandmothers and bullying men of questionable parentage. All seated perked up as a mousy clunker - in serviceable coat and tails - held up a sheet, peering at the list of names towards the next gentlebot waiting service. “Miss Safie Myrlass?”
“Accounting present,” Miss Myrlass said, standing from her seat and adjusting her petticoat, making long strides to weave past other disappointed patrons. Patrons who, realizing waiting would continue in their foreseen futures, collectively kept their gears to themselves. All, that was, excepting for a dredge-mouthed lout who proved to have less patience than manners.
“Oi, lass, I hope ye dun mind me goin’ fer ya.” The audacious kerfuffler moved without awaiting response, already making for the doorway and the diminutive attendant, his shoveled gobulation smirking in entitlement.
However, he was not expecting a hand upon his shoulder to stop his assumptions. More worrisome to his ego, he was not expecting that hand gripping hard enough to dent iron.
“I think, good sir, that you will find I do, in fact, mind,” Miss Myrlass said in the crispest of tones, creaking his shoulder back further as she quick-stepped past and into the room. “Perchance you would benefit from further lessons on historical etiquette? I am led to conjecture waiting in a queue is an Earther affection.”
Miss Safie made use of the better part of valor, penetrating herself into the room while leaving a seething churl behind. Midst a cloud of generous laughter, the brusque woman promptly thrust heel against door to shut the aperture, closing off any chance of bantered retaliation. This left her with the small servant inside a narrow hallway lit with a single gaslamp.
“Yes, um…” the tiny servant said, tucking his notes away and moving down the hall in concise motion, “if you would follow me, Miss Myrlass, a clerk representing the Hanhagi Dungeon Company will meet with you now.” Gaining more of his propriety, the servant turned smartly and bowed towards a tray waiting at a desk, fragrant steam wafting from serviceable crockery. “Would the lady care for tea?”
Finally, civilization! Miss Myrlass thought, though she kept polite decorum and nodded demurely. “Of course. One should never conduct business without proper comestibles.”
The little man nodded and brought the tray, leading towards a bend in the hallway and a stately room with the waiting clerk.
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[1] Although the occupants were seated, and this was a space occupied for the express purpose of waiting, making this, indeed, a room for sitting.
[2] All life on Nomm is a desire to seek optimization, and the most prevalent example of this idea is metaheurism, or the combining of programs to create new robotical life. A subroutine imperative, all roboticals eventually feel the need to create life from themselves in an effort to make something better, though whether those imperatives yield the desired outcome is dependent entirely upon the quality of programs involved.