Friday, January 14, 2011

Aquaducts of Xembor

Vast and majestic, the Aquaducts of Xembor are towering edifices that span entire worlds, indeed they do not merely engird a single globe, they form a massive network of gate-connected Macrostructures that extends not only all the way around the main galaxy (what the incipient folklore refers to as the 'Milky Way') but outwards unto other galaxies beyond.

The Aquaducts are considered by many Scholars to form the very backbone of the Deep Infrastructure's ongoing process of extending the network of terraformed worlds that form the Macrocology onwards and outwards unto Worlds Without End.

The primary Aquaducts are most often less than five miles wide and rarely exceed five miles in height unless circumstances dictate. For example there are sections of the Aquaducts of Karlune that are over ten miles high, mostly because they span the deep chasms created during the very violent early days of that solar system. In most cases the Aquaducts do not extend beyond the troposphere of the worlds they are constructed upon. There are alternate varieties of Aquaducts that obey somewhat different criteria, such as those erected around the equatorial regions of ice giants or non-terraformable bodies within certain nebulas that are used as resource collection points. Most of these are designated hazardous zones and many are off-limits to unauthorized visitation.

Primary Aquaducts are built around the Equatorial regions of those worlds deemed appropriate by the Deep Infrastructure. They encircle the world and form the basis for terraforming it and countless others beyond by developing biomass-gardens on their top surfaces, feeding water into canals and other waterways, and supplying atmospheric gasses to planets that otherwise might not have had a human-breathable atmosphere.

Secondary Aquaducts (also referred to as Longitudinal Aquaducts) extend outwards from the Primaries along the lines of longitude established for the planet. Secondary Aquaducts tend to be under 2 miles in width and can vary in height according to circumstances, with most of them maintaining a set altitude at least one or two miles lower than the Primaries. These Aquaducts are often much more heavily involved in the direct terraforming of a planet and are likewise far more modified from the basic configuration to better address the specific requirements of their worlds.

Tertiary Aquaducts are smaller again in scale and extend outwards from the Secondaries along the main Latitudinal divisions such as the tropics. Each world has its own arrangements based upon its unique situation.

All the various types of Aquaducts form a fully integrated and autonomous colossal ecology-building mechanism that extends outwards into dozens if not hundreds of galaxies. The process of evaluating, registering and cataloging all the worlds, moons, habitats and other territories made available by the Aquaducts and their attendant sub-systems is a task that occupies numerous dedicated artilects, AI and other such beings, entities, communities, collogues and systems. The overall system is expanding beyond the ability of non-augmented humans to conceptualize, and Civilization is increasingly surrounded by more wilderness than anyone can hope to explore, let alone colonize or dominate in any meaningful sort of way. Virts, softborn, abstracts and Gamers will often register spurious fictitious claims on various worlds, regions or districts as part of their games. Sometimes explorers cross-over into these gamer-controlled regions and things can get bizarre.

The scale is impressive. Especially to those who live in settlements within the rim woods or the hanging gardens. Those groups who have taken to living within these Macrostructures often mistake them for the entire universe and have no idea what might lie outside the confines of the Aquaducts. There are currently 4,329 known species of organisms and considerably more genocultures that have adapted to life entirely within these enclosed environments. One example are the troglodytic chthono-genemongers who formed an unregistered isoclave deep within the accumulated debris caught within a titanic niche inside the third spoke-junction to the industrial ring encircling the gas giant Karth. Since their discovery, the self-named Bruhaxxian Clans have been listed as a protected incursion and their warrens and tunnels are now maintained as a rare ecological niche-community by the Deep Infrastructure. All subsequent attempts to contact the Bruhaxxians have been blocked until such time as they themselves develop the means to make contact outside of their ancestral enclaves.

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