Archaos

Inspired by Blame!, Bladerunner and other scifi/fantasy.



The planet

The planet called Archaos is donut shaped, the thickness matches Earth, the outer diameter is about 3 times Earth, and orbits its sun at about 70 degrees angle.
This causes a band of desert landscape and a band of continual darkness and snowfall to form on the upper and lower side of the planet.
This isn't a perpetual state as geological finds show one or even more reversals in the history of this planet, caused by the effect of the sun's gravity and gyroscopical properties of the planet's rotation, as well as the gravity effects of the other planets which orbit the sun at different plane angles compared to Archaos'.

A year on Archaos takes about 5 times as long as on Earth, the full rotation of the planet takes about 6 times as long.
The division of their time is as follows and based on 100 units;
year:    1 =
month: 100
day:     10.000
hour:    1.000.000
minute: 100.000.000
second:  10.000.000.000
Timezones do not exist, the time is universal for every area, providing a better globalization of communication.



The spaceship

The spaceship Archaos was built after scientists proved the planet would swap sides again in several thousands of years.
To lessen the effect of the move and probable loss of life it was decided to use the raw materials in the asteroid belts to build a colony in space.
Automated construction robots were sent first to start mining and refining the asteroids, then the first manned station was built to house the construction crew and scientists that would control the building of a huge station.
Advances in science meant construction speed increased as well as the size of the station, eventually leading to a construction of eight cubes linked centrally and each powered by their own fusion reactor similar to a mini sun.

Some numbers;
-one side of a cube measures 10.000 km, and the distance between the cubes is 3333 km.

Although the outer appearance is cube shaped, the inner construction of each cube is spherical.
There are 250 main levels from one tip of the cube down to the centre of the cube, providing 30km of free height on most levels to get their own climate.
Because gravity comes from the structure it's possible to live on both the floor and ceiling of a level. At the surface it's about 3/4 of Earth and decreases rapidly further away from it. This facilitates tower constructs spanning the entire height of the level, shaped as a parabola, which are used as a connection between top and bottom and other levels. Vehicles can climb up these towers and stick to them by the gravitational forces of the tower's mass.

Although it's referred to as the spaceship Archaos, it doesn't have the capability to manouver quickly. Although it's possible to reach high speeds, the time it takes to accelerate makes it a moot point. Until the asteroid belt is depleted it will only move along it so the mining platforms can stay close.

Control of the ship was originally done by AIs controlled by humanoids. Later the AIs were deemed safe enough to be used unchecked and real knowledge of the systems was lost during the generations. At that time the AIs decided that it was time to improve the lifeforms inhabiting the ship.
A plot to replace the humanoid species by a lifeform created by the AIs was foiled though by one of the humanoids still involved with lower system engineering. After that a new command was formed to lead the AIs in their resticted tasks.

Defences on the ship include artillary guns all over the cubes to destroy stray asteroids or comets on a collision course. These are not thought of as defence against alien ships as that possibilty was seen as non-existent.



Life

There are countless species of life on the planet, animal and plant. Although science has come far, not everything has been recorded though.
The dominant species is humanoid, and has branched from a single species through genetic science to several different animal-like species.
When it was possible to alter genetics to change the humanoid form the trend to alter ones body came about. First as a fashion statement, later also to enhance abilities when necessary, humans mixed their dna with those of cats, wolfs, sheep, even horses and spiders, creating new subspecies.
Despite the common parts offspring between the species was not possible.

Most of the species on Archoas were transferred to the spaceship when the first cube was finished and since that time because of the change in environment several subspecies have evolved.



Technology

Computer technology is based on 4 states instead of 2. These are besides the "yes"/"on" and "no"/"off", "both" and "none". Numerical it's 0, 1, 2, 3 for none, no, yes, both.
The early generations were quite philosophical which enabled them to seek and gain knowledge even quicker after computing power became powerful enough.
It was at the height of scientific achievements that the ship Archaos was built and started its journey through the solar system.