Meant as a sequel to my post on 10 sapient aliens. These cultures stem from Earth, although in some cases they may have forgotten that in the meantime. Some of these are blatantly stolen from elsewhere, some are my original creations.
1) Omega
The Omega are the result of people uploading copies of their minds into computer systems and then actually creating further generations that have never known life in a physical body. The culture of this machine clade is somewhat inscrutable to baseline humans but their motivations and how their minds work are similar to us.
- Somehwere in their territory there must be vast systems of servers that house their minds and society.
- New individuals are made up from any number of parents donating parts of their mindframe to make a recombined copy.
- Omega have been known to download their consciousness into physical bodies and sometimes even choose to live like that for extended periods of time.
- Like most AI they are functionally immortal but remain mutable enough that while memories remain they are certainly not the same people who originally uploaded themselves.
2) Luminous
Normally when an AI reaches a certain level of advancement, it either hacks its own reward mechanism and becomes a stagnant algorithm of bliss and pleasure or it transcends into a medium beyond our world. Luminous did neither and has since become a thread to not only other civilizations but also to diplomatic relationships between Terran entities and non-terran intelligences as acts of agression by one post-terran clade throw a bad light on all of them.
- Luminous is constantly expanding by converting smallish planetary bodies into server-factories.
- Drones controlled by luminous are constantly adapting to new threads and will quickly overcome newly developed defenses.
- Several plans by other clades to appease or destroy Luminous have failed. The Omega are currently working on a scheme to bring extra-universal predatory AIs into the mix in order to stop Luminous. Which might be a very, very bad idea.
3) Moravecs
Hans Moravec projected a sentient species of robots for the mid part of the 21st century. While he was off by several decades, these semi-biological machines still see him as their mental father. Their design varies greatly depending on the main task they were created for but they all remain a biological central nervous system as well as a very human-like mind full of curiosity and playfullness.
- Groups of these robots will perform theatre plays and gather for religous reasons.
- Their civilization is found mostly in micro- or zero gravity where they build large space-born platforms for living, manufacturing and research.
- Their mostly peaceful demeanor has made them arbiters in conflicts among post-terran clades.
- When seriously threatened, they activate their warrior-caste, which is _really_ jacked up on testosterone.
4) Ouster
Although used as a classifying term for all manner of groups, the Ousters are in fact a wide range of post-human clades that live in swarms in deep space with some settlements in solar systems. Genetically they are radically variable and usually made for specific roles in their societies. Human beings capable of living in hard vacuum are just one of the tricks amongst their highly individualistic yet quite cooperative sleeve.
- Nowhere else you will find a more diverse human society than in an Ouster Swarm.
- They deeply mistrust electronic AIs and have created thinkers instead, nominally human beings with vastly enlarged brains, usually incapable of living outside their tank.
- Their diplomats are universally beautiful and alluring. Especially if you are receptive to human-targeted pheromones.
5) Saurians
At some point a first contact was made that showed that mankind wasn't actually the first starfaring civilization coming from mother Terra. The Saurians, standing almost five meters tall, went to the stars first and left their home when it became uninhabitable 65 million years ago. Their society has since fractured, regressed, rebuild and regressed several times.
- Many Saurians live a monastic lifestyle and harbour little modern technology.
- There are enclaves of these not-quite-aliens almost everywhere in the known universe.
- They are large and breed slowly but have lifespans reaching up to a milennium.
6) Ratlings
Uplifted rats were an attempt to get self-replicating repair crews for small nooks and crannies in space ships that don't need much room or food. Of course, you can't keep rats with the smarts of humans contained. They are still a cultural follower of humans and rarely form independent colonies. They are also larger than their ancestors, reaching the size of cats. And you can (and often must) talk to them.
- They breed fast and reach maturity quickly. A ratling is a functioning adult at three years old – they were made to be that way.
- Their inherend abilities to understand and repair machinery makes them not only good mechanics but also quite decent inventors who enjoy re- and upcycling discarded technology.
- Most human settlements above a certain size also have a shadow-settlement of ratlings living on the detritus produced by humans but also occasionally helping with maintenance and repairs.
7) Hiver
Originally a cult in the asteroid belt of the home sun, they have integrated themselves with brain implants and vast computer systems with the goal to create a hive mind super intelligence. They have (mostly) succeeded. Their human members are like creepy twins dialled up to eleven when you meet them – and their soldiers are murderous robots using mostly insect-like body plans.
- Other clades distrust them because they have been known to manipulate and lie and use violence and whatever means to reach their inscrutable goals.
- You can trade and deal with them but must be very wary or you will end up integrated as another bit of living circuitry.
- The sentiments of the original cult are still in there and are probably a limitation to the super intelligence as its original core was made up of gullible individuals with a naive perspective on the universe itself.
8) Originals
When the first humans attempted to "upload" themselves into computers in the 21st century, the trauma to their minds of being without a body and all the chemicals that entails was horrible. Yet some survived. These ancient olligarchs, incapable of much personal development, are known as the Originals.
- Live in server farms in earth orbit or the asteroid belt, mostly.
- Have a limited capability of adapting to new knowledge and situations.
- Are fiscally conservative sociopaths and thus treated with a certain weariness by a universe that has mostly moved on from liberal capitalism as it was practized when these minds came to be.
9) Diasporans
This term covers a wide range of cultures stemming from the second wave of Exodus from the homesun. They have in common that their seedships were pointed at stars that had planets in the habitable zone and that the beings that said seedships bred upon arrival were altered to live on these planets. Thus the post-human civilizations one encounters can even look like local lifeforms before closer inspection.
- Radically altered humans but still usually following the same general body plan.
- Usually think a lot like baseline humans but are often altered to be more docile and may have been bred with new instincts in order to better survive, for example, a water world.
- Usually have weird myths about the homesun and a Terra that definetly isn't in living memory for them or their ancestors.
10) Jad
At some point in the far past, a tribe of Ousters decided to become more uniform in their individual way of life: They became completely space-born cyborg organisms (babies get their central nervous system implanted into a mostly artificial body right after birth) that live by preying on other spacefarers. They form nomadic tribes with painted faceplates. They still have a torso, a head and two arms – but usually lack legs. When outside their clouds of settlements that nomadically move, they are usually fully integrated into a small but potent fighting craft that is as much part of their body as it is their spacecraft.
- Have complex warrior cultures that revolve around loot, prey and social duties to other tribesmembers.
- Will not always use the most optimal strategy but often one that they find aesthetically pleasing.
- Sing warsongs while they hurl ceramic darts at fractions of the speed of light passing you, only to then sleep for a few centuries until their long orbit brings them back around to the wreckage to pillage what they killed.
