| The
Black Magic Project The Story of Human Exploration and Discovery Beyond the Orion Arm The materials contained herein unless otherwise noted are the copyright of J. Austin Wilde, 1991 to 2009, all rights reserved. |
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Navigation Home Sagittarius Colonial Atlas Ahriman (HM+31 0938 B) Amethyst (HB+32 3331 B) Angelique (HM-50 2602 B) Apollonia/Phyrigia (HD+35 2475 A) Aquilla (SAG+56 0107) Arkhangelsk (HM+41 2746) Atlantis (HM+52 0225) Aurora (HM+47 2620 A) Avignon (HM+31 3323) Baker's End (SAG-36 0528) Bellarmine (HM+36 1662 A) Bellissimo (HM+40 2827) Beowulf (HM+39 5516 A) Bounty (HB+38 0524 A) Buran (HD+32 1678) Cauldron (SAG+47 1522) Charybdis (HB+56 0404 B) Concordia (HM+00 2422 A) Cora's World (HM-40 2634) Daedelus (SAG+45 4907 A) Demeter (HM+31 3563) Destiny (HD+47 0309) Dustbowl/New Deseret (SAG-42 4503 B) Frontiera (HD+40 1336) Frostpile (SAG+43 2208) Fury (HM+53 0102 A) Gateway (HM+00 0000) Goldrush (SAG+33 2643) Gulag (HD+40 4019) Hecate's Hate (HM+32 3972) Hyperborea (SAG+44 1855 B) Ice Station Mike (HD+42 3267) Ice Station Oscar (HD+42 5807) Inshallah (HM+53 0608) Jena (HB-33 4139 A) Jewel/Sulfur Flats (HM+41 0955 A & B) Jin Xian (HM-45 4415) Jove/Fuzhou (SAG+49 2911 A & B) Libertad (HD-46 2312) Marino (HD-31 4687) Midgard/Muspellheim (HD+54 1018) Mirabilis (HM-45 1718) Neu Bavaria (HM+31 7329) New Anchorage (HD+35 3455 A) New Ares (HM+57 0405 A) New Havana (HM+55 1217) New Tanstaafl (HM+43 3626 A) New Taranto (HB+31 2685 A) New Zion (HD+47 0954) Paydirt (HM+36 2309) Porto Fria (HM-52 2716 A) Pu'uhonua (HM+35 2017) Research Station Victor (HB+55 1522) Sakura (HM-31 0629) Sandovar (HM+34 0139 A) Santa Clara (SAG+31 0179 B) Scherzo (SAG+55 2007 B) Sheba's World/Neu Bayer (HD-51 1306 A) Tanner's World (HB-32 1052) Tartarus (HM+31 5806) The Alamo (HM+34 0552 B) Tortuga (HD-37 4529) Toulon (SAG+55 0823 A) Valhalla (HD+31 1168) Viracocha (HM+31 1175 A) Waypoint November (HM+31 1969 A) Waypoint Omega (HM-06 1121 A) Waypoint Tango (HD+41 4528 A) Waypoint X-Ray (HD-66 1619) Waypoint Yankee (HD+10 1721) Waystation Alfa (HM+34 1207) Xiamen (HM+48 2891 B) Zhengzhou (HM-27 9791 B) Encyclopedia Spacecraft Technology Classification Designs AMC Registry of Vessels |
ENCYCLOPEDIA
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The Encyclopedia contains information
regarding the Sagittarius Arm and its inhabitants as well as relevent
historical knowledge of people, places, and events that led to its
colonization. Entries are cross-referenced as much as practical
to allow free-form browsing of the databanks so that visitors may
explore the spiral arm at their own pace. Users may begin their
search by clicking on the letters below corresponding to their items of
interest.
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| Nanotopia
Movement The Nanotopia Movement was founded by the Lunarian philosopher Samuel Urquhart, at the University of Tycho, Luna, Sol System, in the mid 23rd Century. The roots of the Nanotopian movement go all the way back to the transhumanist philosophies formed during the Information Age of the late 20th to mid 21st centuries, and is postulated on a 'post-scarcity' world of advanced Drexlerian assembler systems where any material object can be created on demand for an insignificant cost. Naturally, critics pointed out many flaws in this thesis, several of these being that energy will always have a cost to produce and deliver, that certain raw elements will always remain scarce due to a natural lack of abundance in the universe and therefore certain material goods will always have a scarcity cost associated with them, that assembler templates themselves require intellectual capital to create and these add costs, and finally, that computational capacity for the assemblers is a finite resource that brings with it more scarcity costs. These were merely the philosophical problems with the thesis - the ability to create something approximating an Ideal Drexlerian Assembler has remained a daunting task even into the 24th century. Tailored bionano systems have been able to synthesize and assemble complex structures better than drynano systems, but even these are specialized systems with little of the general abilities desired for something that could make anything desired given the correct template, energy, and raw materials. Urquhart was undaunted, and over the years of 2250 to 2258 worked tirelessly to promote his Nanotopia movement. The reasons for scarcity, he argued, were not due to any inherent limitations of humankind's ability to gather and distribute resources, nor on its failure to produce an Ideal Drexlerian Assembler, but by a conscious effort by a powerful capitalist elite to restrict the free flow of information through copyrights, trademarks, and patent laws; by resource and energy cartels that maintained prices artificially high through rationing of the supply; and by the corrupt governments that permitted all of this to take place in order to maintain their decaying hold on the reigns of political power over the masses. None of this was particularly new or innovative thinking, but a severe market downturn in 2252 caused by overheated financial markets, and amplified by several critical losses of electrical power from solar power satellites damaged by heavy solar activity, led to a great deal of discontent in the developed world. Urquhart seized upon this discontent, making it clear that the Solar Power cartels' desire for profits had led them to maintain little reserve capacity against damage caused by solar events, bankers' greed had caused the collapse of the markets and denied the people from being able to enjoy a high standard of living, corruption in the various governments had caused them to turn a blind eye to the disaster, and International Intellectual Property laws had prevented the people from enjoying the fruits of humankind's technological progress in order to enrich the elite few whose efforts created it. Urquhart's Nanotopia Movement demanded the release of nanotech assembler technology into the public domain, the abolition of intellectual property rights, the 'liberation' of interstellar colonies from their sponsoring governments, and 'reparations' to be paid by the banks, investment houses, media conglomerates, energy companies, and space mining companies for the harm their greed had caused to humankind. These reparations, paid to a foundation started by Urquhart, would then be used to construct solar power satellites to collect the nearly limitless energy of the stars, to create and distribute general assembler systems to all sentient beings, and (most importantly) to finance the election of Nanotopians to public office and corporate boards in order to 'tear down the whole rotten ediface' from within. Urquhart and his followers were convinced that once these demands had been met, and the strangleholds the governments and the megacorporations had over the human race broken, a technological renaissance would blossom that would usher in the age of post-scarcity the Transhumanists of old had dreamed of. Needless to say, Urquhart's vision was long on promise, and short on its ability to deliver. By 2254 the markets were stabilized and the electricity flowing from space at previous levels. His memetic strategy for convincing the public of his vision was crushed by the mass media's counterattack against abolishing intellectual property laws, which vindicated the worthiness of his proposals in many supporters' eyes, but made him appear more and more shrill and paranoid to everyone else. His foundation fared a little better, with several generous endowments from a handful of wealthy entertainment figures with progressive politics, and it has long been rumored, by Gavin Aurimas himself. This largesse failed to materialize more than token political power in the various governments and corporate boards. By 2257, the Nanotopian Movement was running out of steam, and several of Urquharts disciples were urging him to pursue a more violent strategy. One of these, Jasyn Gallando, issued his own manifesto in June of 2258 over all of the public nets calling the Nanotopians and any who would be free to rise up and smash the oppressing governments and megacorporations. Gallando's call to action resulted in several general strikes on Luna, Mars, and on Earth during the month of July. One of these strikes turned into a full scale riot in Copernicus City, Luna, killing 53 and injuring over three hundred. Urquhart, a vocal pacifist, was horrified at Gallando's manifesto, and denounced him at length. On July 30th 2258, Urquhart's body was found on the lunar regolith several kilometers from Tycho City, Luna. He was not wearing a pressure suit and his hands were flex-cuffed behind his back. The Nanotopian movement ripped itself apart in the aftermath of his death, with various factions blaming Gallando and his supporters for the murder, and Gallando's faction denouncing the others for their cowardice. The Nanotopia movement collapsed, but from the ashes rose something far worse: The End of History. |
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| Nebula Catalogue The Sagittarius Nebula catalogue was compiled by automated telescopes prior to manned expeditions into Sagittarius. It is a survey of all gas and dust clouds within forty parsecs of Gateway. Stellar objects with catalogue numbers beginning with 'NEB' are part of the Sagittarius Nebula Catalogue. A listing of Star System Catalogues can be found here. |
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