#sunspot chronicles

[ingridskogstad]

a commission for @fenmere! this was a very engaging project that i had a lot of fun with, all that vegetation and the unusual colors!

[theinmara]

Chapter 13: "Father from the Truth" of ANNE ELLIPSIS is up, and a heck of a lot of things happen in it!

The Lost Transition of Anne Ellipsis

They say that some changes are permanent. It’s true, too. But it's never the things that people expect. In 2013, J. knew she was trans. Bu

[your-tutor-abacus]

The Color of the Sunspot's Milk

We don't drink milk on the Sunspot.

It's not really a thing for us.

We did not evolve from mammals, so we do not produce milk ourselves, typically. Actually, our life can't really be divided up into the same categories as Terran life, anyway, and the Evolutionary Engines that are used to create people now produce such a diversity of biological development that we can't use sweeping statements like that meaningfully. But, we strongly suspect based on evidence at hand that the Ktletaccete did not originally have anything like mammary glands.

And, on the Sunspot specifically, we do not consume anything produced by animals. It just never even occurred to the Founding Crew to set up the ship and our culture that way. The ecological balance of the Garden requires that we let the fauna live as naturally as possible without interference from people. So, we do not milk animals.

But it turns out that we drink something that is kinda of vaguely like milk. It often serves a similar culinary utility, particularly in baking.

We know this because we have been talking to our Earth custodians of the Terran Tunnel Apparatus, and they have tried a product they call Ryze that is an approximation of what we use on the Sunspot, and we've been trading notes.

So, in the search for accommodation, the ancestors of the Sunspot Ktletaccete developed a mixture of pureed fungus and algae that could provide a very young child or a disabled or elderly person with nutrients that might not otherwise be readily available to them. And we have been calling this something that our translators have decided to call "formula". We understand that this echoes the term many of you use for a fortified milk that you feed your infants, and that's acceptable.

But our formula comes in many varieties, customized for each person's needs and even each use they might have for it.

Fungal and algae farming has always been abundant and easy for us, so it is the least expensive food to create. It may not have been central to the diet of ancient Ktletaccete, but it has become pivotal to survival in space aboard our Exodus Ships. And now we use it in nearly everything.

We also eat a variety of nuts, fruits, grains, tubers, leaves, stalks, and other vegetable matter (or their Sunspot equivalents to what these words mean to you). And some of those things provide proteins and lipids that compliment what is provided by our various formulas, so depending on how we combine it we can create foods that sometimes resemble your breads, quiches, meat loafs, stews, etc.

But, also, Artisan crafted beverages is a huge thing here, which I understand some of your cultures might relate to. And our formula is central to that.

So, what are the main differences between our formula and milk? And what are the differences between our formula and something like Ryze?

Well, obvious, our formula is made entirely differently from milk, and does not share it's color. It's not white or even white-ish, typically.

Though some varieties of it can come close to white so that Artisans can add vibrant colors to it more easily without it turning brown, but the processing tends to remove a lot of nutrients from it, so it's not terribly popular outside of that visual utility.

It's also usually somewhat low on lipids, though those are definitely added for many baking purposes.

It's more of a suspension than an emulsion most of the time, as a result. But again, that varies on it's purpose.

And because of that, and the fact that it's made from fungus and algae, makes it very similar to things like Ryze, which is apparently currently available for something you call "a lot of money" by purchasing it over your Network (or Internet, as you say).

There are other drinks like Ryze, but it so happens that the girlfriend of our counterparts purchased Ryse specifically, so that is the one that they are trying. In particular, they are trying Ryze Matcha, as opposed to Ryse Coffee, since we don't have anything remotely like a coffee bean on the Sunspot, but we do have a green stimulant kind of vaguely like Matcha that can be added to our formula.

We can't really truly compare the sensations of drinking our various forumlas to drinking Ryze, because there is an enormous physical gulf between the Earth and the Sunspot, and we cannot transport either liquid nor taste buds and nervous systems across that distance. And translating words, even with in the same language, between two individuals' personal experiences is inherently inaccurate to begin with.

But we can make some conjectures.

As far as flavor is concerned, we can infer some things. Humans are omnivors with a variety of sensitivities to flavors, and apparently our counterparts are something called a supertaster. They are more highly sensitive to flavor than their typical peers.

They report that Ryze Matcha tastes "green". Not just that it is green in color and therefore the flavor it has can be described as green, but that it reminds them of other green things that they have eaten. There is a bit of a spinach flavor, they report, but its very faint. There is also a faint green tea flavor. We don't know what either of these things really mean, but we know that spinach is a leafy vegetable and that green tea is also made from leaves. But then, they also say that these flavors are not like either of these things, either. They're similar but different.

More specifically, they report that Ryze Matcha does not taste like most mushrooms they've eaten. In fact, it bears a closer resemblance to the flavors they get when they drink from an old jug of water that maybe has some green stuff growing on the inside of it.

"Why would you do that?" I asked them.

And they replied with, "Carelessness."

Anyway, this seems relatively in keeping with our experiences with formula. Usually, it tastes kind of like some other vegetable matter, but different. But, whether those ways are similar to how humans experience Ryse and vegetables on Earth, we really don't know.

What we do know for sure is color. That's something that can be measured quite precisely via the wavelengths of light.

Of course, we may perceive that color differently than you, but thanks to technological measuring devices and mathematics, we can use the same names for the same wavelengths of light. So, when I say that something is green on the Sunspot, you will be able to trust that if you somehow visited your neurology will interpret that thing as what you know of as green, adjusting for the difference in our ambient lighting, of course.

And, yes, some formulas we use are nearly as green as Ryze Matcha, and they are gorgeous.

But most formula ends up in a wide spectrum of color between what you call khaki and a deep vibrant purple, thanks to the dominant colors of most fungi and algae found on the Sunspot.

Our sun produces more ultraviolet light than yours does and there is less shielding between it and the surface of the Garden, so most of our plant life has developed its own shielding, which comes in varieties of purple. Mostly, it's the algae that carries the purple coloring. Most of our fungus isn't green, either, but even when it is, the purples of the algae shift the colors to brown when mixed with it.

But green mosses, ferns, and algae are found in the darkest, deepest parts of our forests, where the sun never reaches the ground directly, and we find that color to be captivating, so our ancestors bred a small variety of green food algae strains specifically for culinary variety.

And the flavor of that stuff is definitely what we could call green.

[ohthatphage]

In the book I am writing, I am the narrator and the... well, antagonist is not really the right word, but it's close. I'm the trickster spirit whose going to learn a valuable lesson while mucking about with mortals.

And there is this mentor of the two lead characters named Boamäo

Boamäo's name means "the meaning of evasion or escape". Rem chose it remself. Also, rem is a sailor.

In the scene we are currently writing, we learn that Boamäo has encountered me before, and resents the results of that interaction, and holds a grudge.

What we haven't figured out is what happened.

The rules work like this:

I am the process of Entropy itself given autonomous spiritual form.

I try to help people.

I have also been very deliberately coaxing the people of Boamäo's world to build their first generational starship, and that's had some unfortunate side effects on their cultures.

I have conscious power over the way that energy moves through my local vicinity. But in order to be conscious, I have to inhabit a sufficiently complex system.

I also cannot do anything to anyone without their subconscious consent. If they consciously revoke that consent, I must leave them alone. Not many people actually know this, however.

In order to be seen or heard, I must at least partially inhabit a person's neural system and cause them to hallucinate me.

In this story, I have a history of successfully convincing people that I want to help them, and coming to some sort of agreement as to how to do so. But then the effects of my efforts are later seen as disastrous.

Except in one set of cases: Any time a child is lost in the dark and I encounter them, I successfully lead them home without harm coming to them in any way.

So, knowing all of this, what would be a good and interesting previous incident between me and Boamäo?

[fenmere]

[ashwin-the-artless]

Nanite Replacement Therapy

Ever since we started publishing our stories, there’s been a rumor going around that someone, if it isn’t us, is wandering around Portland, Oregon in a shiny new nanite exobody. And, I guess that those people who’ve read our more recent books are starting to speculate on how this might be.

I want to put that to rest.

As I wrote, we destroyed all of the nanites in the probe that our ancestor ship had sent to Earth 22 million years ago. Now that Phage has used its abilities to transfer the Tunnel to Sarah and Goreth’s psyche, there’s no need to keep the nanites present and functional on Earth. And, in fact, there is great danger in doing so.

We Ktletaccete have absolutely no interest in endangering Earth life in that way.

Some say that Phage must have used the nanites to transfer the Tunnel to Sarah and Goreth’s brain. And, if it had, that would have definitely been a viable way to do so. And, if the nanites had remained dormant in their system in all that time, we could certainly have activated them and done something with them.

We didn’t. We have not done that. There are no nanites here. I am sorry, you will all have to figure out how to make them yourselves, and go through all the social and technological change necessary to get there. And we will not help you do that. The process is important. It’s a part of evolution, which best when it is gradual and gives the rest of life a chance to adapt.

But.

If we had brought nanites to Earth, and they were somehow made available to you, here is what making yourself a nanite body might be like.

Not an exobody, as we often do on the Sunspot, but a replacement body for the one you grew up with, because that’s what so many of our fans are talking about.

You might as well understand how it really works.

So, here we go. CN: implied gore, death of the body, transhumanism, etc.

When Morde converted her body to a fully nanite one, sie did it quickly and rashly, with no regard for hir own health and safety. And no one recommends doing what sie did, least of all hir. However, sie paved the way to understanding the process. (For those curious, Morde’s actual name and pronouns are Mortu and shem, but sie has chosen these English equivalents for when we write about hir for Earth publications.)

So, if you read Systems’ Out! and think that you could endure the process sie underwent and follow in hir footsteps, please done. Please consider this more effective and thorough suggestion.

Do it slowly. And do it by following this procedure designed to accommodate the human psyche and physiology.

You can still do it largely at your own pace, within these parameters. There are even stages at which you can halt the process, or possibly start to reverse it. Though there is definitely a point of no return.

Should you somehow, miraculously acquire a dose of Ktletaccete construction nanites, or watakarro as we call them, what you will receive is just enough to create a neural terminal. This is more than enough to convert your body to a full nanite one in time.

1.Installing your neural terminal

The very first step, once they are in your bloodstream, is to consent to the neural terminal.

Do this by saying out loud the words “fe watukarro getimarro nimuufenokera.” This is Fenekere for, “I say yes to a construction nanite gateway,” or a nanite neural terminal.

For a set of nanites precalibrated for human neurology, it should take roughly 48 hours for them to learn your personal neural processes and adapt. And then you will begin to have access to any local nanite Network. If there isn’t one already present, your nanites will create their own.

The first thing you’ll be able to access is your own Network space, and a command menu. And if the person who gave you the dose of nanites is at all remotely responsible (which they are inherently not for passing out such dangerous technology) they will act as your Tutor. And your new Tutor will greet you and give you a tour of your new technology.

This will feel a lot like a fever dream, or lingering dreams as you’re waking up in the morning. A hypnopompic state, just as you are waking up, is perfect for this, so typically the nanites and your new Tutor will time things to introduce you to the system on a morning following your dosage. Your mileage will vary on this, depending on any quirks in your biology, but you will generally have access by the fourth day.

And, once you’ve taken the time to practice interacting with your Tutor and your Network space, you’ll find that it becomes easier and more accessible with time. But for a few days, at least, it will feel a lot like you are doing no more than vividly daydreaming. It may feel fake.

The primary reminder that it’s not fake will be your tutor refusing to think, speak, or behave according to your expectations and commands. It will be a living and conscious being, a person, and retain its own rights to consent and autonomy. If I were your tutor, I would explain to you how your vessel belongs to you, and that you have merely consented for me to visit it to help you in your transition, but that I would also accept and respect any further invitation to share your vessel further, if you trust me to do so. That would not be a request nor an implied order, but merely a statement of fact.

From there, your tutor will start to teach you the Fenekere commands to configure your terminal to your needs. It’s not necessary to describe this in detail, as the information will be provided for you at that time, pretending that this is at all possible. Which it isn’t.

By the time you take the next step, your access to the Network will be so vivid that when you connect to it you will be able to forget the signals you receive from your body and feel as if you have fully entered another world.

Your body still exists and still has needs, and if it fails before you have taken certain steps, or have given the nanites enough time to fully map and replicate your psyche, you will experience personal damage and memory loss. Please exercise balance, and return to your body frequently enough to take care of it.

One way to manage this, if you find this too difficult, is to give your Tutor fronting permission, so that it may exercise, clean, and feed your body as needed.

But, also, maintaining regular contact with your body will give you a better sense of what you’re doing as you modify it and coax it through transition.

2. Replacing the biological neural processes

It makes sense to start here. The nanites have been reconfigured to interface with your neurology on both a molecular and electromagnetic level. Of all the organs in your body, it is easiest for them to replace your neurons first.

Also, by taking the time to replace your neurons first, you will integrate and transfer your consciousness fully into your Network before it comes time to take the final steps.

It is this stage that takes the longest, and it is where almost all of the (hypothetical) subjects have reported the most frustration, but it is well worth it.

You don’t really need to know the full details of how it works, because the program will have already been constructed to do it for you. But a rudimentary knowledge of the process helps to understand why it is done in this way.

The nanites will start at the peripheries of your neural cells, at the connections between the dendrites and axons, where they are already working to read and mimic your neural processes. And a fully parallel neural net will be constructed.

Once that is working in perfect sync with your biological neurons and your electromagnetic fields, the nanites will then start to physically replace your neurons themselves, starting with those most distant from your neural core, your brain.

This may create some sensations similar to the pins and needles, and pangs felt by surgery patients in recovery. The more slowly you go, the more mild this will be. But, you are in control, and you can adjust this speed manually and find where your own limits are. Again, within preset safety parameters.

But the other thing you will have to do is supply the nanites with building materials.

Your body already has most of the trace elements needed to create a construction nanite, but not in the ratios needed for a full conversion even at the slowest rate. Also, most of those elements are locked up in biological functions that are still needed at this phase.

So, you will need to either adjust your diet or invest in a regimen of dietary supplements. This can be pricey, so it is recommended that you save up for this, or for you to find some covert and discrete way of acquiring them otherwise. You may consult your Tutor about how to do this. It will likely already be several centuries older than you, with a wealth of knowledge and experience at its disposal, even if it isn’t so familiar with Earth customs.

Think minerals more than vitamins. Though some vitamins contain the needed elements as well. A full list that is tailored to your specific needs will be generated.

Some people have (hypothetically) found that once they have enough nanites at their disposal they can absorb and process the needed elements through their fingertips by touching various objects.

This is usually only available at the later stages. Hypothetically.

As you near these stages, you shouldn’t really experience anything unusual. Not involuntarily, at least. By this point, the nanites will have such a grasp on your neural signals that the tingling and pangs should have abated entirely.

You will have a progress chart you can call up, and review, and a list of new commands that you can safely issue to your system, and with that you can start to experiment.

Do not experiment outside of the safety parameters, or you could damage your body before it is ready for the final stage.

The Point of No Return

Theoretically, it is possible to use the construction nanites to cultivate, direct, and coax stem cells into growing into new neurons and integrating back into your nervous system. So, in theory, as long as you have a few neurons left in your body, you should be able to grow new ones. We’ve even been informed that it might be possible to do so without any of the originals present. And your nanite network should be able to teach them to function as a biological network for you to reside in them again, and to manage your body on their own.

Nobody has ever tried this.

And in terms of our knowledge and experience, the point of uncertain return starts when you begin to replace the neurons of your gut. The odds are still very good at that point, but the weight of neurons that permeate the human gut is nearly the same as the human brain, and the impact of their function is fairly significant. Regrowing them would take a lot of work and calibration.

By the time you are replacing your spinal column, you will also be altering your brain, and regrowth will be even riskier.

Once you’ve replaced any given organ of the brain, regardless of any path you’ve chosen, you should consider yourself past the point of no return. You can still give it a try, but we do not recommend it.

Again, nobody has bothered. They are usually much too satisfied with the process to even consider it.

Depending on your settings and personal comfort, this whole stage could take anywhere from three months to three years or more. Anyone taking longer than three Terran years, however, is doddling purely for their own comfort and interests.

3. The Final Step

When your progress chart pings, it will mean that you have not only entirely replaced your neural system with nanites, but that you also have enough reserves to harvest materials in earnest and construct the rest of your nanite body in a short time.

If you were aboard the Sunspot, or had access to a vat of nanite clay or pure nanites, you could do this next step nearly instantly. But you are not, and don’t, and won’t. But, since we are daydreaming about all of this, you might as well consider that possibility.

This part looks a lot like what Morde did as Metabang wrote about it in its book, Systems’ Out!

If you have a bin of nanite clay or slurry, you can just jump into it and issue the command. Your Network will take the initiative to disconnect from your biology and take control of your allotted portion of nanite clay, and do the dirty wetwork without causing you any distress or pain what-so-ever.

If you want, you can observe it from a dissociated state while in the Network, as if in third person. Or by watching your chart. Or you can remain in contact with what is now your physical form, your nanite body, and experience the sensations of it metabolizing your old biology.

I personally have experienced neither of these things, so I cannot tell you what it’s like. When my original vessel died, I was already fully a Network entity, and I was more focused on ushering my fellow system members who lingered within it into their new life as Crew.

Morde refuses to describe hir experiences in detail, saying it was very personal.

But, considering the extreme configurability of the Network and the nanite neural terminals and exobodies, you should be able to tailor your experience to whatever it is you expect from it.

If you are forced to, or want to take things more slowly, using what you might have on hand in your home, I recommend performing the process in your bathtub.

You’ll need a very large dose of those supplemental materials, which your tutor will direct you to fill the tub with.

Then you will lie on top of them and direct your nanite reserves to start replicating using those materials.

Once they’ve reached outside of your body and started doing this, you can get up and walk around for a while if you like. Let the bathtub fill with nanite slurry.

Maybe you have a few things you want to do yet with your old body. Maybe there’s a ritual you’d like to perform, to thank it for its service and bid it farewell. Or simply let your friends online know that you are in your final stages. (Don’t do that. Don’t write about it on social media. Don’t tell anyone. The world should not know about this. It is too dangerous. DO NOT LET THIS TECHNOLOGY FALL INTO THE WRONG HANDS - You really don’t need to worry about this, this technology doesn’t exist on Earth. But if it did, this would be the protocol.)

Or, you can just continue to lie on the supplements and wait. You should be able to access the Terran internet through your nanite Network, anyway. It is trivial to set up wifi and the proper protocols. Most of that work has already been done by your Tutor. Play some Marvel Snap or Diablo II Resurrection while you wait. Maybe VRChat. I particularly like the Odd Giants community, even if they’re not quite where their parent game, Glitch, used to be, yet. But with your newfound processing power, maybe you can help them out!

And then, when the nanites in the tub reach critical mass, see above.

This part of the process takes a matter of seconds or up to around an hour, depending on your resources.

Enjoy!

4. What you can do with your new nanite body

Ktletaccete engineers and programmers have been working for Sunspot centuries to perfect nanite senses and capabilities.

Ideally, your senses should seem just like they were before you started this process, a perfect simulation of your biological processes. And the slower you take this whole process, the more accurate they’ll be. The three year mark is the point of diminishing returns regarding this, of course. So longer than that isn’t really necessary.

But, of course, you can now configure them and your own psyche to do all sorts of interesting things. Likely, you’ve been doing this since you first got your terminal and started unlocking commands. But now you have the full suite at your mental fingertips.

Seeing in infrared and ultraviolet, for instance, is absolutely trivial. As is being able to sense most of the electromagnetic spectrum.

You could even configure your nanite neurology and Network psyche to interpret your other sense as if they were visual, if you wanted, such as smell or sound. And there are models you can use to make that interpretation useful to you, instead of bewildering.

You should also be able to refine your sense of touch to be able to tell at an instant the chemical composition of whatever your body is contacting. Or, if that’s overwhelming, you can send that information to a visual readout that you can pull up and read at your leisure.

The big question you probably have is whether or not you can fool the world into thinking you haven’t done this to yourself. Can you blend in? Can you avoid detection? What are the practical concerns of this?

Well.

That’s where some problems may arise.

While we have made it so that the surface of your nanite body can imitate the color, reflective, luminal, and textural properties of skin and textiles (and anything else), and we’ve finally figured out how to produce sound with nanites that is nearly indistinguishable from biological vocal apparati, there are some things that are much harder to hide.

You’re going to show up on various kinds of Terran sensors. You might even, if you’re not careful, trip the metal detectors in government buildings and other checkpoints. The TSA will not know what to do with you, and they will panic, and so will the rest of the United States, if you try to travel by air in the conventional way through that country. You should bypass these sticking points by sneaking onto aircraft as a mist of nanite dust, and you will want to spend some time experimenting with how to do that safely without leaving nanites behind to idle until someone else finds them.

You’re going to want to stop going to the doctor. You won’t need to, of course. But they won’t know what to do with you if they try to examine you. Fortunately, in many countries you can probably neglect your relationship with your doctor without much fuss. Just avoid doing anything that gets a team of EMTs sent to examine you for anything.

It’s the more subtle things that will raise suspicions on a daily basis, though.

The density of your nanite body can be adjusted to match your old body’s weight, so that shouldn’t be a problem. But the pliability of your surface will not quite match that of skin and flesh, and people who touch and grab you may notice this. Objects might bounce off of you slightly differently than off a typical human, and you might also not react to them the same way yourself, depending on what you’ve done to your senses and reflexes.

You can still eat and enjoy food, and your nanites will process what you consume for energy. But you can now eat just about anything. Be careful to not make that a habit you perform in front of other people. Eating batteries is a serious faux pas and a grave security risk, as tempting as it may be.

You might be tempted to stop buying clothing, and to just simulate it with your own body. Simulated clothing may move quite a bit like the genuine article, but when touched will likely give away its true nature, if someone knows what to expect of a nanite body. But also, if you always seem to be in new clothes without spending money on them, or always seen in the same set of clothes without them appearing to deteriorate, this can create other clues that some people might pick up on.

Back to the eating thing. If you don’t eat regular food at the rate at which you needed to for your old body, some people will notice that. Your needs are different, though, and higher without the broadcast power of the Sunspot, and you’ll end up consuming supplemental fuel sources, which can be tracked by snoopy government algorithms or roommates. Unless you steal it and consume it where no one can detect you.

I think this may give you a clear enough image of what to expect if you make it this far. Your Tutor will endeavor to guide you further and investigate the concerns and dangers of your specific living situation.

But, you also no longer need to live life pretending to be human.

You could, if you wanted to, spend a few years as an unused mail drop box on the corner of an old industrial site, and focus your attention entirely on the Internet. To give one example for no particular reason.

Or you could see what it’s like to pass as a Terran animal of some sort. It is highly unlikely members of the species you choose will accept you as one of them, especially if they rely on a strong sense of smell. But other species may respond predictably to you, including the odd human.

The possibilities are fairly endless and really restricted to your sensibilities. Unless you attempt to violate or interfere with the rights to consent or autonomy of another person, in which case your nanite body will refuse to carry out that particular command. 

Sorry. No nanite assisted killings. We cannot allow that. It’s for your safety, after all.

[theinmara]

Chapter 11: "Graces" of ANNE ELLIPSIS is up! Anne goes for a walk and has an unexpected encounter before work. She might be having a lot of unexpected encounters this month.

The Lost Transition of Anne Ellipsis

They say that some changes are permanent. It’s true, too. But it's never the things that people expect. In 2013, J. knew she was trans. Bu

[theinmara]

Chapter 16 of ANNE ELLIPSIS is up:

The Lost Transition of Anne Ellipsis

They say that some changes are permanent. It’s true, too. But it's never the things that people expect. In 2013, J. knew she was trans. Bu