The Ring of Charon the-1

by Roger MacBride Allen

  A Note on Naked Purple terms, names, and usages

  Each Person in the Naked Purple community earns a name, which is in large part determined by his or her work status and personal attributes. Names shift and change over time.

  Productive work of any type is seen as a necessary evil to be discouraged, and ultimately stamped out altogether. How society will function when that is achieved has never been made clear. Language is seen as the direct tool of ideology, and thus there is a constant search for better or more socially correct ways to say things. Puns and combined meanings, particularly those that take the wind out of a self-important person or activity are highly thought of. That such constructions, and the emphasis upon them, frequently become self-important themselves merely adds to the tension of the concept. Purity of expression is valued over clarity, with the result that much Naked Purple prose and speech is almost undecipherable. Incomprehensibility itself is highly regarded. Furthermore, many names and terms are assigned ironically.

  Glossary

  Amalgam Creature. A merged group of several Landers. See Lander.

  Autocrat of Ceres. The absolute ruler of the largest asteroid, and the only effective instrumentality of law or justice in the Belt Community. The Autocrat’s reputation for draconian justice serves to prevent most from daring his wrath.

  Barycenter. The center of gravity for any orbiting system; the point around which two bodies in an orbital relationship revolve. In most systems, for example the Sun-Mars system, or the old Earth-Moon system, the larger body contains such a large fraction of the system’s mass that the barycenter is actually inside the large body. In the case of more nearly equal masses, for example Pluto-Charon, the barycenter can be a point in open space between the two masses.

  Belt Community. A loose political association of the larger and more sensible governments in the remarkably disorganized Asteroid Belt.

  Biosphere. That hollow sphere of space around a star in which a life-bearing planet can survive. Although other variables are involved, the basic constraint is simple: inside a biosphere, solar radiation is neither too strong or too weak, and Earthlike temperatures are possible.

  Caller, Caller Ring. Charonian term for the object (or possibly life-form) exemplified by the Lunar Wheel. This form is extremely similar to a Keeper Ring such as the Moonpoint Ring.

  Carrier bug. One of the lowest-level Charonian type, capable of only the simplest fetch-and-carry duties. Alternatively, any of the low-level Charonian types.

  Central City. The principal city and capital of the Lunar Republic. Formerly called Central Colony.

  Charonians. Named for the Ring of Charon, the hypothetical aliens controlling the massive machines discovered after the Earth’s vanishment.

  Conner. A citizen of the Lunar Republic. Derived from colonist and/or con artist, in the days when Conners were dismissed as both. Previously a pejorative term, now generally accepted.

  COREs, Close-Orbiting Radio Emitters. Any of a large number of identical objects in various orbits around all the worlds of the Multisystem. Their powerful radio signals—emitted over a wide spectrum of frequencies—serve as an effective jamming mechanism.

  Dyson Sphere. A huge sphere built entirely around a star, so as to provide huge surface area (hundreds of billions times the surface area of Earth) and/or to capture all of the star’s power. Named for twentieth-century scientist Freeman Dyson.

  Earthpoint. That point in space, relative to the Moon and the rest of the Solar System, where the Earth once was. The Earthpoint black hole, also known as the Earthpoint singularity or wormhole, now occupies this space. See Moonpoint.

  Event Horizon. The minimum distance from a black hole required before time and/or light can escape—or, to put it another way, the minimum distance required before events are possible. The stronger a gravity field, the slower time moves and the more light is redshifted. If the field is strong enough, time and light are slowed to a complete stop. Also defined as the point where the local escape velocity equals the speed of light.

  Event Radius. The distance, usually measured in light-minutes or light-hours, between two points. The event radius is so called because no event can have any effect at a given distance until light (or radio waves or other electromagnetic energy) has had time to cross that distance. Referred to as a “radius” because light expands out spherically. Not related to Event Horizon.

  Gee-point object. Any fairly small object emitting modulated gravity power. The term is applied generally not only to Landers, but also to the large objects of similar behavior appearing through the Earthpoint wormhole. See Lander and Worldeater.

  Graser. Gravity laser, a focused beam of gravity power.

  Heritage Memory. Charonian term for the memories of previous generations of Charonians, together with the experiences of other members of the current generation, downloaded and stored in a Charonian’s memory for reference. Each form of Charonian receives an edited subset of the mass memory appropriate to its needs.

  K-Crash, Knowledge Crash. While a massive downturn in Earth’s economy has certainly taken place, no one is certain that it has been caused by a surfeit of information, as suggested in the K-Crash theory. According to the K-Crash idea, Earth’s economy reached the point where the simplest decisions could not be made without massive reference to the various databases. Many jobs became so complex that the training for them could take an entire lifetime.

  Keeper, Keeper Ring. Charonian term for the Moonpoint Ring, and for the similar objects that orbit most of the Multisystem’s worlds.

  Lander. Huge creatures, long hidden in dormant stages inside asteroids, which move through space under broadcasted gravity power radiated by the Lunar Wheel. Once at their destination in orbit or on the surface of a target world, they merge themselves into larger amalgam creatures of incredible power. See Worldeater and Gee-Point Object.

  Lifecode. DNA, or any extraterrestrial equivalent of DNA; thus, any means of passing and storing an instruction set for a making a life-form.

  Lunar Wheel. A massive Charonian structure, a huge toroid deep inside the Moon. It circles the Moon’s core and is aligned precisely with the border between the lunar Nearside and Farside. Known to Charonians as a Caller Ring.

  Moonpoint. That point in space, relative to Earth, that occupies the space where the Moon once was. The Moonpoint Ring, a massive gravity generator, holds the space now, with the Moonpoint end of the Earth-Solar System wormhole at its center. See Earthpoint and Keeper.

  Multisystem. The huge artificial stellar system in which the Earth was placed. At its center is the Dyson Sphere. It includes at least eight G-class stars, around each of which large numbers of life-bearing planets orbit.

  Naked Purple Movement. One of a number of odd social and political movements. Also known as the Pointless Cause. Its belief structure is kept deliberately obscure and conflicted. The movement owns the NaPurHab habitat and Tycho Purple Penal on the Moon.

  NaPurHab, Naked Purple Habitat. A large and rather shabby orbiting habitat owned and populated by the Naked Purple Movement. As the book opens, it is in a figure-eight orbit between Earth and the Moon. Population: 10,000.

  Observer. Charonian term for a semidormant stage of the Caller Ring type. See Lunar Wheel.

  Port Viking. Capital and principal city of Mars.

  Rabbit Hole. The vertical shaft leading from the Lunar North Pole to the Lunar Wheel, many kilometers below the surface.

  Ring of Charon. A huge human-made gravity research tool, orbiting Charon, Pluto’s Moon. In essence, an enormous particle accelerator.

  Saint Anthony. The automated relay probe dropped through the Earthpoint-Moonpoint wormhole. Named for the patron saint of lost objects.

  Scorpion, scorp. A fairly sophisticated Charonian type, capable of dealing (though not necessarily well) with unexpected situations. The term is applied not only to the scorpion-shaped Charonians, but to all creatures of its approximate ability.

  Seedship. A robot starsh
ip that carries fertilized ova, or the equivalent, to a new planet around a new star. The seedship lands, grows the ova to adulthood, and thus colonizes a new star system without having to transport a complex life-support system.

  Settlement Worlds. Essentially, all the real estate outside the Earth-Moon system. Likewise refers to the now-moribund political alliance of those worlds in opposition to Earth’s rather arrogant policies of the previous century.

  Shepherd. The Charonian term for CORE.

  Sphere. See Dyson Sphere.

  Spin-storms. Artificial storms, created by gas-giant-breed Worldeaters, resembling hurricanes or tornadoes. They are used to pump atmosphere off the larger planets.

  SubBubble. Subsurface bubble: a standard type of Lunar construction that consists of a large excavation under the Lunar surface. A subbubble is usually formed by melting an area of subsurface rock and then placing the interior under pressure. Much of Central City is composed of interconnected subbubbles.

  Sunstar. The star in the Multisystem around which the Earth orbits.

  Teleoperator, T.O. A remote-control device, generally resembling a humanoid robot but without a robot’s capacity for independent action. A T.O. is controlled by a human operator working in a control harness at a remote location. The control harness completely surrounds the operator and provides her or him with the sensory reactions—sight, hearing, and touch— experienced by the T.O. Servos in the controller operate the T.O. so that if, for example, the operator moves her finger, the T.O. moves its finger. As is the case with most Virtual Reality devices, the sensations reported by the T.O. to the operator can seem extremely real. Virtual Reality stigmata—such as cuts and bruises on the operator corresponding to damage on the T.O.—are not unknown. See Virtual Reality.

  Terra Nova. A huge multigenerational starship mothballed in Earth orbit, a victim of the K-Crash.

  UNLAC, United Nations Lunar Administration Commission. The old colonial power on the Moon, overthrown a century ago.

  VBH, Virtual Black Hole. Currently a theoretical possibility only. In concept, a VBH is formed by an artificial massless gravity source so tightly focused that a microscopic black hole forms. If a VBH of a sufficient gravity gradient survives long enough in the presence of sufficient mass, it should be able to absorb that mass and thus become self-sustaining.

  Virtual Reality. The general term applied to any technology that makes a nonlocal environment (real or imaginary) seem utterly real to an observer-participant. In most VR systems, at least vision and hearing are supported with sufficient quality to seem real. Often tactile sensations are supported as well. Typically, the participant will be able to manipulate the simulated environment in some way, through a remote control or sensor glove. See Teleoperator.

  VISOR, Venus Initial Station for Operational Research. An orbital facility planned as the headquarters for the terraforming of Venus. The facility is expected to be mothballed shortly, thanks to the financial backlash of the K-Crash.

  Von Neumann Cyborg Cluster. A partially living von Neumann system. Such a cluster might, for example, include a life-form genetically programmed to build seedships. The life-forms raised by the seedship would be bred to build more seedships and to deposit fertilized ova aboard the ships.

  Von Neumann Machine. Any machine that can precisely duplicate itself. A Swiss army knife that included a Swiss-army-knife-making attachment would be a von Neumann machine.

  Von Neumann Tour. A star travel technique in which a von Neumann ship travels to a new star system and duplicates itself a few hundred times, sending each of its replicates out to travel to new star systems.

  Worldeater. The Charonian term for the massive life-form known to humans as Landers.

  Wormhole. A link between two points in space, formed by creating two identically tuned black holes. The wormhole in effect renders the two points contiguous across a flat plane, no matter how distant they actually are from each other.

  The Life Cycle of the Charonians

  The Charonians are a spacefaring life-form, a multi-species comprising ten or twenty widely different species, devices, and robotic constructs. The biological components of the system may at one time have been “intelligent,” as the term is usually understood by humans, but no longer are. Charonians are capable of problem solving, task ordering, directed research, synthesis, but are very weak in what humans would regard as creative or independent thought. They can think of how to do things—how to work around problems, for example. They are not as good at thinking of what to do, or why. They work in large part by rote. In the old-fashioned phrase, they are hard-wired, relying on a communal heritage memory of the experiences of previous generations.

  It is likely the present-day Charonians started out as seedships for a colonization venture, bearing the original biological Charonians to new homes in the sky, but either by ill chance or deliberate decision on the part of the robotic guardians of the germ plasm, things changed.

  The machine-intelligent components of the system redesigned the system, repeatedly modifying both themselves and the genes of the living components. The result: the Charonians have become a form of von Neumann machine, capable of endlessly replicating themselves.

  Humans have spent lifetimes studying the idea of von Neumann machines, but the concept, however appealing, has always been out of reach because the cost and engineering challenges were too great. No one ever considered a simple, elegant solution to the problem: that life is a von Neumann machine. We humans can endlessly duplicate ourselves. If our DNA were modified so that we instinctively built a certain type of spacecraft, and that spacecraft automatically carried our germ plasm to another world, then that would be a von Neumann. It is, after all, not the machine itself that must be duplicated and spread across the galaxy for the idea to work, but the plans for the machine.

  Several types of life-form and robot compose the Charonian multispecies. The living and robotic components rely on each other in the processes of reproduction and replication. Neither the biotic nor the mechanical Charonians could survive without the other.

  The Charonians have proved that faster-than-light travel is possible, but only between points linked by black hole transit pairs and the “wormhole” connecting the transit pair. Natural black holes do not work in wormhole systems—a spacefarer must build his own. Therefore, before faster-than-light travel between two stars is possible, sub-lightspeed vehicles must move between the two stars, building black holes on arrival at the star to be visited. Unfortunately, a device the size of the Ring of Charon is required to form a black hole.

  The Stages of the Charonian Life-Robotic Cycle

  Robot spacecraft called seedships are grown and manufactured by Dyson Spheres. Each seedship leaves its home Sphere, carrying the location of its home Sphere in its heritage memory.

  The seedships travel at sublightspeed out from the Dyson Spheres and move between the stars, searching for life-bearing planets. When appropriate planets are found, the seedships land. They gather needed chemicals and compounds, and clone the first living stage in the cycle, which can be thought of as larvae. With the help of the larvae, the seedship constructs simple spacecraft.

  The larvae are large creatures at birth (or, more accurately at decanting), the smallest the size of an elephant. They grow rapidly, and later develop into various specialized types. By virtue of their great size and rapid growth, they can quickly wreck the biosphere of a life-bearing world. Their behavior is in large part hardwired, in some part controlled by the seedship, but in small part volitional. The first few generations of the creatures simply breed as normal male-female pairs, bearing about six to eight offspring per mating. As they mature, most of these larvae are set to work building additional spacecraft, under the guidance of the seedships. Generally, the seedships are cannibalized for parts long before the larvae are ready to leave the planet.

  Typically, the invasion of the larvae results in major depopulations and mass extinctions, combined with serious climatic an
d ecological damage.

  Powered by gravities, the spacecraft built by the larvae lift into space—with luck, before the planet’s ecosphere is utterly ruined. With one larva aboard each vehicle, the spacecraft can be compared to hermit crab shells—temporary homes to be used as long as they fit. If the larva dies or grows too large for the craft, the vehicle will be cannibalized for parts. Nine-tenths of the larvae die upon arrival in space. Their corpses serve as sustenance for the survivors.

  Each surviving larva battles it out with its rivals to amass as many of the dead bodies and abandoned spacecraft as possible. Eventually, thirty or forty thousand massive creatures, in the pupa phase, are left. Each consists of the components of several derelict spacecraft and one individual pupa that has fed on the bodies of its littermates. Ship and creature merge with each other and become indistinguishable. Each is the size of a small asteroid, being several kilometers across with proportionate mass.

  One or two pupae land on the nearest non-life-bearing world and burrow into it. Should a pupa survive this effort, the machine parts of the creature will build and breed a Caller Ring. A Caller Ring is buried deep in the Earth’s Moon.

  However, most pupae enter a chrysalis phase, becoming dormant, their outer skins hardening into the consistency of rock. Thus, not only are they the size of asteroids, they precisely resemble them. These creatures, which become Worldeaters, go into hiding. In Earth’s Solar System, they hid in the Asteroid Belt and the Oort Cloud. At this stage, all the Charonian creatures, both living and robotic, are dormant, waiting for a signal.

  A signal to the Caller Ring stimulates a new phase of great activity. The Caller Ring can be activated in one of two ways: by signal from the home Dyson Sphere, indicating that the Sphere has a sufficient surplus of energy to assist in the construction of a daughter sphere; or, by outside interference: pulsed gravity waves generated by some other cause—for example, gravity experiments performed by an intelligent race.