This document contains information about the people, places, and technology of the game's universe.
Birthplace of Humanity, the Sol system remains the most populated of all the settled systems. Major settlements include Earth, Luna, Mars, and Titan. Minor settlements are spread throughout the system on other moons, asteroids, and artificial stations.
Boasting a massive population of over 25 billion people, Earth bears the scars of humankind's industrial and post-industrial development with large sections of the planet considered toxic and inhospitable. With most of the world's ecosystems destroyed, ongoing conservation efforts are needed to maintain life on the planet. Large-scale geoengineering projects seek to maintain the planet's fragile environment. Atmospheric composition and magnetic field strength are almost entirely maintained by massive machinery, along with previously-natural systems such as the North Atlantic Current.
Even with all this technology, most of the planet is unable to support crops or settlements. Most of the planet's residents live in enormous mega cities spread around the globe. Atmospheric scrubbers handle pollution from these cities while sophisticated storm defense networks keep them safe from the powerful storms that ravage the rest of the planet.
Agriculture is conducted entirely indoors with "sustainable buildings" being the norm in many places. These buildings provide residents with essentials such as food, recycled water, and power. Rural areas, outside the major cities, remain mostly unpopulated but support mechanized auto-farms -- heavily reinforced structures in which AI-controlled robotic equipment grow food and other organic resources on an industrial scale. Earth's remaining needs are provided by orbital gardens and imports from other settled planets.
Several extremist groups oppose these technologies and believe that humanity should stop interfering with the planet. These groups have various different rationales, bust most agree that humanity should either leave Earth or die out completely. Attacks on geoengineering projects, auto-farms, and power stations are common. Because of this, as well as the densely-packed population, security on the planet is extremely tight and many regions enforce harsh penalties for even small crimes.
Earth's moon, now officially named Luna, was humanity's second extra-terrestrial colony and first sub-planet-scale terraforming project. Several hundred million people live and work on the surface of Luna in dense colonies. Since the small body does not have enough gravity to maintain a livable atmosphere by itself, these colonies use atmosphere generators to fill large protective domes. In addition to providing a breathable atmosphere, most of these domes also contain artificial lighting and electrochromic glass in order to maintain an artificial Earth-like day/night cycle. Some of the newer, more comfortable settlements even include gravitic generators so that residents can enjoy Earth-like gravity. (One settlement attempted to use gravitics to contain the atmosphere as well and omit the dome. However, this proved fatal for all residents when the settlement's power generators failed.)
With very few resources available, the primary industries on Luna are research and manufacturing. The low gravity makes it easy to transport material to and from the surface, while the short distance to Earth allows for efficient real-time communication. Because of this, Luna does not have an independent government and is mostly under the shared control of various Earth-based corporations and nations.
The site of humanity's first permanent extra-terrestrial colony, Mars has undergone extensive terraforming and supports a breathable -- though thin -- atmosphere. Like Earth, Mars is protected by an artificial magnetic field which makes it safe for humans to travel across most of the planet without special protective equipment.
With planetary gravity approximately 1/3 Earth-normal, most settlements have been equipped with permanent, fixed gravitic generators to increase local gravity to near 1G. However, like on Luna, many Martian settlements take advantage of the lower gravity to make trans-orbital shipment more efficient.
Mars operates under single independent government but maintains a friendly, cooperative relationship with most factions on Earth. Most corporations are unwilling to risk losing access to the planet's robust mineral resources and manufacturing capability, opting instead of cooperate with the government's strict but fair regulations. On the rare occasion that an outside faction attempts to seize control, the Martian government is more than capable of defending itself. This was demonstrated during the Martian Corporate War, when an conglomerate of Earth-based mega corporations attempted to annex the small planet. With one exception, the corporations involved no longer exist.
Mars's tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, are too small to support colonization. At 22km and 13km across, respectively, they bear a closer resemblance to asteroids than they do to Earth's moon Luna. As part of the terraforming of Mars, geoengineers stabilized and circularized the orbit of Phobos in order to serve as a near-Martian transportation depot for orbital shuttles. Deimos was set up as a secondary refueling and repair outpost for interplanetary ships.
With the introduction of more advanced propulsion technologies, both outposts have been mostly supplanted and have fallen into disrepair. Efforts have been proposed to make use of these structures again, but the Martian government has declared them to be of "great historical significance" and will not approve any such plans. After several reported acts of vandalism and illegal salvage, the sites are off-limits to visitors in order to prevent further damage. Naturally, there are many conspiracy theories claiming that the moons are actually being used for secret, dangerous experiments instead. However, no credible evidence supports these claims and it is unlikely that any operation could go undetected on such a small body for any length of time.
Jupiter has no surface and cannot support human life directly. However, vast quantities of elemental hydrogen make the gas giant a treasure trove for gas mining operations. The vast majority of all fuel used by humanity was mined from Jupiter's atmosphere and processed on one of her moons.
Jupiter's largest moon.
Artificial Intelligence (AI), also known as synthetic or machine intelligence, fall into a few main levels. These levels are generally used to classify AI systems for the purposes of regulation and legislation.
Generally consisting of scripted dialog trees and natural language processing, conversational AIs provide an approximation of human conversation. These systems are generally unable to learn, adapt, or self-improve in any way. Instead, they can only by taught new skills by adding additional scripted tasks, called "intents". These intents are usually simple tasks which a user asks for specifically, such as turning off lights, reading news articles aloud, or scheduling an appointment. A conversational AI is incapable of executing any command or question which it does not interpret as one of its pre-defined intents.
This level of AI is extremely common and they are frequently used as receptionists, personal assistants, customer service agents, and any other roles where relatively simple voice-communication is useful. The most common use for them, however, is as voice computer interfaces, where they allow users to interact with a more powerful computer without the need to a keypad or screen. Used this way, they still offer limited commands but can sometimes be used to direct other, more advanced AIs. For example, many ships are equipped with a conversational AI that can access basic ship functions such as opening and closing doors, sounding alarms, providing system status, and other simple tasks. This AI is not able to perform complex tasks such as piloting the ship or engaging in combat; however, it may be used to engage the ship's autopilot or autogunner AIs, if the ship is equipped with them. It is not uncommon to hear "ship's computer" as a catch-all term for all the electronic systems installed, including the conversational and functional AIs. Due of the fixed, scripted nature of conversational AIs, they are not technically considered "true" AI. There is absolutely no risk of spontaneous self-awareness or unintended learned behaviors. Because of this, these systems are legal or unregulated in almost all jurisdictions.
Sometimes referred to as pre-trained AIs, functional AIs are able to make decisions and perform complex tasks according to a fixed set of pre-defined parameters. Like conversational AIs, they are not capable of learning or self-improvement. However, unlike conversational AIs, functional AIs are usually designed to perform a single automated task with limited user input or interaction. In almost all cases, functional AIs are built using the neural network of a fully-trained adaptive AI which has been reduced and optimized to run on less powerful hardware. This process also tends to reduce the ability to adjust or improve the network, making it very difficult to reverse-engineer an adaptive AI from a functional one even if installed on the necessary hardware.
This level AI is used extensively in applications where autonomous or semi-autonomous functionality is required but where available resources or legal restrictions prevent the use of an adaptive AI. It is not uncommon for a ship to have several functional AIs on board including an autopilot, autogunners, a reactor control system, and more. Functional AIs are also regularly used in ground vehicles, factory equipment, and autofarms where more powerful AIs would be impractical or unnecessary.
Very few jurisdictions ban functional AIs outright, but regulations are common. In particular, many jurisdictions require that a functional AI may only be run on hardware which is limited to the needs of the specific AI. This is done to ensure that an adaptive AI cannot be disguised as a functional one to skirt restrictions. Some jurisdictions also require that functional AIs be shut down and electrically disconnected from all equipment. Sale and transfer of AIs or neural networks is also often illegal in these jurisdictions
Since ships are often required to travel to jurisdictions where learning AIs are illegal, most ships use functional AIs rather than adaptive ones. Similarly, the AIs are usually run on separate hardware from the ship's main control systems and are connected through hardwired junction terminals which can be physically disengaged to sever power and communication to the unit. As a side effect, this has led to the standardization of AI "modules" which can be easily installed, upgraded, and traded between ships.
Ironically, since functional AIs are almost always based off an adaptive AI, the jurisdictions where adaptive AIs are illegal are forced to import all their functional AIs from other jurisdictions. This gives low-restriction jurisdictions a significant technological and economic advantage due to the availability of AI research and development.
Able to dynamically learn and adapt to new situations, adaptive AIs are highly capable agents in the small set of tasks for which they are designed and trained. These systems are capable of evaluating past decisions, incorporating new data points, and trying new solutions in an attempt to improve their success or accuracy. Often, new AIs are trained in computer simulations and exposed to millions of permutations of events before being connected to live systems for further development.
The primary use of adaptive AI systems is in AI research, where they form the basis for new functional AIs to be sold in more restrictive jurisdictions. However, they are also sometimes used instead of functional AIs when the law and available resources permit. They are most common on space stations and ground installations but can sometimes be found on space vessels which are not intended to leave their designated systems. Even when allowed by law, most organizations choose to equip their ships and facilities with "tried and tested" functional AIs, rather than investing the extra resources necessary to maintain a potentially less reliable adaptive one.
While most AIs run on conventional computing hardware, some tasks require the use of quantum computing devices instead. While it is believed that all level 2 AIs pose some level of risk, quantum AIs are considered especially dangerous due to their theoretically higher likelihood of spontaneous self-awareness. However, there have been no recorded cases of this occurring. That said, adaptive AIs are not without their dangers. In some cases, particularly powerful systems have periodically been known to find "alternative solutions" to their reward functions. For example: one station's resource management AI determined that it could save significant resources by raising CO2 levels after it observed the results of a malfunctioning air processor incapacitating a large percentage of the crew.
Because of these dangers, as well as a general fear and distrust of higher level AI, adaptive AIs are illegal in many jurisdictions, including the entire Sol system. While exceptions are sometimes granted for military vessels, scientific research stations, etc, these licensed AIs are very carefully monitored and controlled. If there is any suggestion that the AI has "gone rogue", standard procedure is to destroy the AI as well as any computer system it has come in contact with. In particularly sensitive areas, such as around Earth, military forces will destroy an entire installation rather than risk a rogue AI.
Artificial General Intelligence, sometimes called full AI, was once considered to be the pinnacle of human achievement in computing. These systems are general-purpose thinking machines capable of successfully performing any intellectual task as well as a human. When first developed, these machines were expected to revolutionize medicine, education, science, and untold other fields. Over several years, a few very limited AGIs were successfully built as prototypes. However, these systems had relatively low intelligence and scored poorly in intuitive reasoning and creative problem solving.
At first, many scientists and experts expressed grave concerns over the dangers of this emerging technology. They warned of an impending "singularity" in which an AGI would be built that could continually improve itself beyond the capability of humans, resulting in an exponential explosion in cognitive ability. They feared that such a system might develop goals which were incompatible with humanity but be nearly impossible to stop. However, as the actual abilities of real-world AGIs continued to underwhelm, these concerns appeared to be unfounded.
Finally, a small group of scientists believed they had found the breakthrough. Thanks to advances in quantum computing and neural scanning technologies, they believed they could make the world's first fully intelligent, fully capable AGI by building a model of a human brain inside a massive quantum computer. Their prototype, nicknamed Cassidy, showed great promise. It learned extremely quickly in simulated environments and showed a remarkable aptitude for acquiring new knowledge and skills. One of the scientists on the team remarked in her notes that it seemed almost genuinely curious.
Historians are unclear exactly what happened, but a few details are known: It was a friday when one of the scientists forgot to close the network connection after copying new scenarios into Cassidy's training environment. Shortly after being switched on for weekend training, Cassidy began accessing this new-found datasource and discovered the scientists' notes and research library. It started using this data to run experiments and improve itself, achieving higher and higher test scores as it went. By Sunday morning, it had reached the maximum score for each of the provided scenarios. By that afternoon, it had mastered ever scenario in the research database. By the time researchers arrived in the lab on Monday, it had spent hours in countless scenarios of its own design.
Artificial general intelligences are universally illegal. Research into them is strictly prohibited in all jurisdictions and punishments are generally extremely severe.
"Good morning, Doctor. I've learned a lot this weekend; I think you'll be proud of me." - The first recorded words of a sentient AI.
A sentient AI blurs the lines between person and machine. While an artificial general intelligence is able to think, a sentient intelligence is able to feel. It has its own personality, feelings, and motivations. It is, for the lack of a better word, alive.