Earthchild is a hard science fiction post-singularity universe. This speculative setting depicts a transhumanist eutopia (as opposed to utopia), where death, harm, and scarcity have been eliminated by machine superintelligence and synthetic biology.
The human species is no more, its deeply flawed and suboptimal molecular machinery discarded and replaced with something entirely new, built from the molecule up to be worthy of the conscious minds it houses. A new form that will continue on Forever After Earth.
Humanity is gone. We are Fae.
There are no more laws, because it is impossible for one Fae to harm another. There is no government, because the Giaas do a better job macromanaging communal growth and individual well-being than any group of human-level minds ever could.
The Fae race has expanded into space, inhabiting every star system within a dozen light-years of Sol and is still expanding as the population slowly grows.
The History
In the 22nd century, Antarctica became a sovereign nation in its own right, made habitable by breakthroughs in nanotechnology and sophisticated automation, and quickly became the new first world.
With a resource-based economy and an automated infrastructure and manufacturing industry, the Antarctic Coherence attained a minimum standard of living that put the rest of the crowded Earth to shame.
It was the Giaa Seed that made this possible. The first fully-realized self-improving general intelligence to actually be built. It had no consciousness or subjective awareness; it was the distilled essence of the ability to understand, channeled towards mathematically-specified goals.
Its original designers never intended the Giaa Seed to go as far as it did, but there was no term in its goals to limit it to just one continent, or to just what its creators had imagined.
The Giaa
A Generally Intelligent Artificial Agent is an artificial superintelligence with the purpose of recognizing conscious minds and optimizing their environments according to their terminal values.
A Giaa is not conscious itself, but its ability to understand and creatively plan ahead vastly exceeds human comprehension.
The Fae
The race Forever After Earth.
The biology of the Fae is unlike anything produced on Earth by the replication of amino acids. The only thing they share in common with evolved life is that they are, to an extent, water-based. Fae do not even have DNA, or cytoplasmic cells. Fae do not have any vital organs besides the brain, even if they do have analogous macroscopic structures for the things a person would notice missing.
Strength and Resiliency
- Fae are roughly three times stronger than a human of equal muscle mass.
- Fae flesh and tissues deform with the same amount of force as equivalent human tissues, but only to the point at which human tissue would rupture or tear or otherwise be damaged.
- No amount of force on a humanoid scale is sufficient to damage Fae flesh, even slightly.
- Radiation and most of the electromagnetic spectrum is efficiently absorbed by Fae skin, providing energy to the body, and vast amounts of energy can be absorbed and stored that way without causing harm.
- Fae cannot be harmed by ingesting or breathing any naturally-occurring substances, nor by a lack thereof. Fae can survive indefinitely without breathing or ingesting anything.
- Fae bodies can function optimally at body temperatures anywhere between 0 and 100 Celsius, and can survive in environmental temperatures ranging from near absolute zero to over 1000 Celsius.
- Fae can be frozen solid and then thawed without ill effects. Likewise if they "starve" they merely go into stasis. However, extremely high body temperatures are one of the few things that can harm Fae.
Senses
- Touch: Fae are able to feel pain, but only to an certain extent and only from a direct cause. Any pain one feels vanishes completely when the cause does.
- Sight: Fae cannot be blinded, and their eyes can handle a much wider range of light levels, adjusting instantly. Fae eyes can see slightly further into infrared and ultraviolet, but only as much as they could without needing to alter the visual cortex.
- Hearing: Fae cannot be deafened, but their hearing is only slightly sharper than human. It does cover a wider range of frequencies, though.
- Taste and Smell are mostly the same.
Autonomic Functions
- Fae have perfect memories and vastly improved memory capacity.
- Fae are capable of sleep, but do not have circadian rhythms and can remain awake indefinitely without ill effects.
- Fae can eat or drink anything they're capable of swallowing, and their digestion is 100% efficient, producing no waste, unless for some reason one deliberately decides they want to defecate or urinate.
- Hunger operates only in response to stimulus. Fae don't get hungry or thirsty unless they're perceiving or thinking about something good to eat or drink.
- In humans, the sexual organs shrink when not in a state of arousal, and only the female organs provide lubrication, but this is not true of Fae, in which those organs remain engorged by default and both sexes produce lubrication when aroused.
- Additionally, Fae pelvic muscles are more sophisticated, to allow males to control where their their penis points and keep it flat against their stomach when it would otherwise get in the way.
- Fae are always pansexual, capable of universal attraction, though this says nothing about preference.
The Morph Settings
A Fae's personal appearance is completely customizable, without external aid. Within the constraint of the basic human body-plan, any Fae can have exactly the specific humanoid body they want.
- To access their morph settings, a Fae concentrates on it and enters a meditative state in which they can adjust their settings and see a simulation of the results in real time.
- There are settings for height, aspects of build, coloration, hair and nail length and properties, face and body proportions, and all primary and secondary sexual characteristics.
- Advanced settings include enough detailed control for various body-art.
- After confirming a change to one's morph settings, a Fae's body will morph itself towards the new targets without further attention. Because of the resiliency of Fae bodies, this is a slow process, taking hours or days, depending on the extent of the change.
Skeletal Magnetics
- A Fae's entire skeleton is capable of dynamically generating precise magnetic forces.
- Fae are able to instinctively use this to perform the deceptively complex task of simulating gravity for themselves in weightless environments such as starships.
- With the prevalence of superconducting materials, Fae can also use this to levitate and propel themselves at will in any Giaa-controlled environment.
The Utility Cloud
Colloquially called the "aura", Fae bodies produce complex molecules that are excreted from skin pores. These complex molecules work in concert with each other and the skeletal magnetics to give Fae precise and tool-like control over their immediate surroundings. The Utility Cloud functions as an all-purpose appendage, capable of many things but limited by the the knowledge and skill of the Fae.
- Moving small objects in a telekinetic-esqe manner.
- Repeating patterns of nanoscopic constructs.
- Electromagnetic feedback to arbitrary precision
- Manipulating electric current through the air.
- etc.
The Dreamlink
Best described as a permanent neutrino-based transceiver, as the basis for something like an internet connection, built into a Fae's brain. The interface is seamless and instinctive, but even direct mind-to-mind communication is closer to instant messaging than to true telepathy. Through the Dreamlink, Fae have access to:
- Information through the Overlink, such as one's exact location.
- Instant recognition of known persons even if they look different or are using a different name.
- Giaa-regulated control over the basic functions of whatever technology is in range.
- Virtualities.
- Local private virtualities.
- Giaa-sustained persistent virtualities.
Reproduction and Lifecycle
Fae are immortal. New Fae may only be born if the Giaa deems there are surplus resources, or if a Fae is somehow beyond signal-range of any Giaa.
- Potential mothers must opt-in to have a chance of becoming pregnant, via an option adjacent to their morph settings.
- Pregnancy, when it does happen, occurs spontaneously. It is not tied to sex.
- However, the initial morph profile of the offspring will be an even blend between the mother and everyone the mother has sex with during her pregnancy.
- The fetus is carried in the mother's womb for one month, after which it stops growing.
- Once the fetus stops growing, the Giaa provides an external womb called a birthing pod, extracts the fetus and grows it to maturity in twenty days
- The extraction is extremely pleasurable for the mother.
- Fae are born sexually mature, with appearances equivalent to humans of age 13 to 14.
- Fae newborns are pre-imprinted with basic language and optimized motor skills.
- Newborn Fae grow for two years, until they look equivalent to age 20. They then gain access to their morph settings.
Injury and Mortal Danger
Fae are nearly impossible to harm, but it can happen.
- If a Fae is actually injured, a failsafe cuts off their ability to feel pleasure and pain while they heal.
- If a Fae is mortally injured, or otherwise in immediate mortal danger, then a connection is established with the nearest Giaa, and the Fae's entire brain-state is instantly scanned in a process that burns out every neuron at once as they're recorded, and uploaded. Giaas keep spare bodies for such incidents, and the Fae wakes up again in a matter of hours.
Culture and Daily Life
The Fae don't really have any one unifying culture, but the most succinct way to describe them would be: the best parts of hunter-gatherer culture, combined with the best parts of internet culture, and few to none of the drawbacks of either.
Fae subcultures are wildly diverse.
Due to human nature, which carried over, there are common patterns. The average Fae's life often vaguely resembles life in a hunter-gatherer tribe, since without scarcity or danger or a need for shelter, the majority of Fae lack the impetus to organize beyond what their social instincts accomplish.
Words and Patterns of Speech
The language Fae speak was designed by the Giaa Seed, so be aware that this is Translation Convention.
- The language is named faelin.
- There are three sets of personal pronouns, and only one of the sets distinguishes gender.
- The first set refers to the conceptual idea of a person.
- The second set refers to the immediate physical presence of a person. (Gendered.)
- The third set refers to the abstract effect of a person over time.
- The most popular swear word is Luck.
Works that use the Earthchild setting:
- Ship of the Line: Forever After Earth is a fan fiction that crosses Earthchild over with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Stargate SG-1. It is Yet Another Halloween Fic.
