Orbis Sphaera Known as the initial universal observers, the Orbi have been in existence for several eons. Originally, they were drone-esque; ad hoc and fairly subservient creatures that were deployed by a force that remains unidentified to this day. They subsisted on information and supplying the data to said hive mind. To accumulate as much information as possible, the Orbi were distributed across the universe, concentrated in areas where organic live would be prevalent. They chronicled a wealth of events, spanning the gamut from infinitesimal to the significant as well as organizing a plethora of data, including various linguistics and statistics. Holding fast to the only central tenants they were bequeathed, that obtaining knowledge was ‘right’ and interference shall not be tolerated, the Orbi acted incredibly permissive and performed their task surreptitiously, veiled under the guise of satellites and amongst debris. This, however, did not prevent the seeds of personality from taking root. Millennia of monitoring civilization led to sparks of individuality. Singular Orbis were developing unique facets where beforehand they were indistinguishable from each other. Universal expansion strained the psychological tethers each Orbis had until it was finally severed by a solar eruption near the Large Magellanic Cloud. This cataclysmic event harked the age of independence from the Orbi’s progenitor, particularly the collections inhabiting the Milky Way galaxy. Gathering near the Kuiper belt of an arbitrary galaxy, they renounced the previous directive and substituted their own – they’d still index the ever-burgeoning universe, as they had for eternities – but, instead of fueling one vague, possibly unscrupulous database, they would work to develop a public focal point for the culmination of their findings. Coalescing the actualities and cognizance ascertained, the Orbi that had recently acquired free will would collaborate and create an interstellar encyclopedia. Past that decree, it was unanimous that they should refrain from drawing up any further guidelines. They were now permitted to live and ameliorate the universe, rather than simply exist. As their previous occupation would suggest, Orbi are itinerant by nature and are uncanny when it comes to permeating a population and coexisting with them without raising the slightest iota of concern. Most would view this as M.O. of an iniquitous race, but the Orbi are far from it. In fact, on the rare occasions where they have made themselves known (usually to a small colony on the outskirts of any densely populated area), they’ve been nothing but hospitable and altruistic. Their benevolence and ability to commiserate with any species is legend throughout the quadrants they visit. Yet, even with their fame, they still remained undetected. It’s an anomaly that perplexes prospectors and other individuals fascinated by the species. The Orbi are neophytes to the concept of good versus evil. In fact, the topic is so mellifluous and subjective that the Orbi wish to have nothing to do with it. Therefore, the Orbi exemplify what it truly means to be True Neutral. ‘Nothing should degrade into an altercation, much less a physical one.’ So, they act as arbitrators, or peacemakers, whenever a heated debacle flairs in their vicinity. From there, they do everything within their jurisdiction to mediate an accord. Nevertheless, with each passing generation, new concepts of the Orbi’s role in the universe develop. Some find the law system of a local cluster antiquated and take on a vigilante role, aligning with groups that share their motives. Smaller sects believe the Orbi are the natural progression of universal inhabitants and burgeon into megalomaniacs or demagogues. Others still desire a simple life – to let the years pass as light gossamers whilst conversing with the associates they’ve gathered and perhaps even go on to teach the subject in which they’re most familar. Amassing data is still paramount, current position notwithstanding and the abovementioned library (the Amalgam of Data) is still in effect, though motives now vary amongst its contributors. Quick Facts Common Designation: Orbis Binomial Nomenclature: Intellectualem Globus Collective Noun: Orbi Descendant (Youth) Noun: Novum Disambiguation: Orbinauts Lay Classification: Biosynthetic Humanoid Organism Colloquialism: Helvetica ET; Walking Silhouettes Life Expectancy: 31,415 Earth Years Reproduction: Mitosis (Solo); Meditative Unity (Duo) Honorific: Dicax (abbreviated ‘Ix.’) Anatomy Body [Corpus] Humanoid, yet devoid of any and all epithelial indentations; the corporeal form an Orbi closely resembles that of a diminutive utility graphic. In fact, it’s a close facsimile in both physique and height to that of the Helvetica Man used on Terra, Sol III in the Milky Way Galaxy (affectionately named Earth by its inhabitants). The primary schism between the two is the fact that the Orbi possess prehensile appendages (i.e. hands and feet). These extremities are exaggerated, almost to a cartoonish extent with fat palms and squat fingers along with the corresponding limb, giving the illusion of scalloped bracers and large footwear extending to the respective point of articulation for the member in question. Most Orbi don an iridescent midnight hue that correlates with the dark realms in which they previously colonized and spreads over their entire body (hence the sobriquet ‘silhouette’). However, Orbi that existed in close proximity to stars or withstood cosmic events, such as supernovae obtained a far lighter tone, echoing that of alabaster. Still others exposed to a variety of luminosity have adapted to the most prevalent – meaning the spectrum of what an Orbi can exist in aside from obsidian ranges from cerulean to scarlet [See: Hetrzprung-Russel Diagram on Main Sequence Stars and the Blue Horizontal Branch], yet the opalescent veneer remains a constant facet from Orbi to Orbi. Head [Vortex] The most important, yet the most minimalistic possession of any Orbis, the head is naught but a sphere bearing the same hue as the body with a thin, translucent shell. As one would expect, it is the primary hub of information (the chest cavity being the secondary, and the outer phalanges acting as the tertiary for tactile datum). Everyone Orbi’s cranium is allotted one yottabyte for information, and not a bit more. This fact alone makes the head unparagoned in importance (which isn’t too dissimilar to other autonomic creatures who store their own mass of convolutions within their skull). As such, an Orbi’s head is nigh impervious to all manner of attack, be it intergalactic or otherwise. Nothing can do harm to it. Even a concentrated blast of gamma radiation from a neighboring quasar cannot place a scratch on its exterior. Nevertheless, the same cannot be said about the Orbi’s body. Despite the fact that it does have much higher resistance to physical assailing, attrition can do it harm and enough can leave an Orbi incapacitated. In this scenario, the head adopts another role, that of procedural repair. Once the body has sustained enough damage to make it immobile, it immediately loses cohesion, turning into an effervescent, primordial soup. The resulting mire is then absorbed into the head and undergoes hours of meticulous rehabilitation. During this process, the exterior flashes with a hollow, bioluminescent null-void glyph that fills with completion and the orb becomes supermassive until the threat has left the immediate area (either after frustration or disinterest). One other notable characteristic of the Orbi is the absence of a neck. The head is suspended in midair roughly 1.2 inches off of the collar. Even with the lack of a tangible connection, the head remains tethered to the body at the same length at all times. Whether this is done by electromagnetism and quantum locking or some other means is yet to be discovered. Hologram Communication Vortex Organic LED At rest or in solitude, an Orbi’s head is opaque. Once another entity encroaches upon its space, two thick parallel lines symbolizing eyes bloom just beneath the lucid coating of the head. The color and level of saturation of these eyes depends on the shade of the Orbi. In natural Orbi, these eyes are always white (or a pallid-halogen hue) whereas in imbued Orbi has ebony eyes. These linear slits employ a mixture of artificial perception and transduction to sense the environment (something the hands and feet can perform as well, just with far less potency). Originally, the range of emotion an Orbi could express was hampered severely. That all changed when the Orbi encountered races who used textual emoticons. Suffice to say, this made the gamut of emotion far more extensive. From despondence to jubilance, incredulity to flippancy – conveying their sentiments through body and paralanguage was made much simpler. This isn’t to say that Orbi are bereft of the capacity to articulate words. In the early developmental stages, Orbi take to pantomiming – but after a decade into their existence, they’re able to emulate any language, so long as they have access to the local lexicon and able to hear a coherent thought spoken in the vernacular. Corpus Hologram / Organic LED Utilized more for diagnostic purposes and sundry conveniences, corpus holograms are rarely seen. Orbi might not have internal systems like organic creatures, but they do have nanites that simulate said structures, such as the circulatory and endocrine. Should one of these mechanical collections encounters a problem – the corpus takes on the role of immediate prognosis: an exception rises to the surface, followed by dialogue of what exactly is the problem and how to remedy it. (For example: If the metabolic rate of an Orbi is malfunctioning, a prompt with appear over the parathyroid. Pressing it brings rise to a translucent projection, detailing the issue. Clenching the hand will close it.) Applications meant for personal use usually appear on the wrist or hand. These include timepieces, flashlights, translators, calculators, rulers, unit converters, calendars, and much more. All of the region specific tools modify themselves upon entry and egress. Vocalization Akin to the automatic whirring of the first electrical appliances, the Orbi have heavy robotic overtones. Of course, they can fluctuate pitch and tone to accommodate the situation and provide inflection, but it’s still reminiscent of Sol III’s Narrator and Andromeda IX’s Glyph-to-Auditory Program. During extended periods of conversation, an Orbi either animates the mouth associated with their current expression or form a bitmouth. The bitmouth is far more aliased than any emoticon’s ‘mouth’ (hence its prefex ‘bit’), but has a far wider range of motion. Extemporaneous emotions are far better conveyed with the bitmouth than standard static emoticons. Orbi can also make use of scrolling marquees in lieu of speaking. This text can either replace the eyes, thus permitting use of the bitmouth, or the mouth, forcing the parallel lines to denote tone. Gender Differences Most Orbi identify with neither men nor women and originally, they were naught but carbon copies, but several centuries away from their creator have permitted the growth permutations beyond coloration. These differences were microscopic at first, but have grown more and more prominent until they formed to distinct categories most ascribe to something familiar to them: Male and Female. Masculine: ‘Male’ Orbi tend to have a far brusquer broque, yet never something one could view as disrespectful. They’re more prone to dead corpus pixels than their female counterparts. They also tend to lean towards forthright mediation rather than appeasement. Feminine: ‘Female’ Orbi favor soothing, melodious diction – trending a fine line between calming and somnolent. They almost always have a perpendicular line below each eye to signify a dainty eyelash. They also prefer pacification over a firm hand during an intervention. Note: Asking an Orbi for ‘his’ or ‘her’ gender will lead to a resounding ‘I beg your pardon?’ Despite the differences, Orbi will always consider themselves agendered and use the appropriate pronouns. [See: GenderFuckedOver] Capabilities Orbi have their variances, but some things are ubiquitous – one of them is their litany of abilities. Orbi might be born as blank slates, but all possess comprehensive knowledge of how to use each of these skills. Malleabiliy Under normal circumstance, all Orbi have bodies that maintain a static mold. However, every Orbi has a body capable of extreme feats of pliability. They are able to shift their bodies (or portions of the corpus) into a super-malleable state, permitting corporal reshaping, such as dilation, deformation, elongation, and contraction. When assuming non-bipedal shapes, simplistic constructs are favored over intricate arabesques, though both can be achieved. As one may assume, the corpus is the most proficient in this. The vortex also possesses this ability as well, but to a much lesser extent. Modularity++ Parting from their extremities and using them for utilitarian purposes is another Orbi forte. The most common uses of this revolving around removing fingers and augmenting sections of their own body to better ‘fit in’ with the society they’re tasked to occupy (tails, horns) or to amplify senses (ears, noses) In recent centuries, Orbi have a penchant of removing entire hands and transmute them into armaments or personal computing devices. Orbi modularity is user-specific, meaning no one but the singular Orbi can remove its boughs. The ‘regeneration’ addendum does not refer to an Orbi’s recovery from abrasions. It simply means that upon removal of a limb, a replacement will emerge from the point of dismemberment. Now, this could be exploited to instantly recover from wounds, but the vortex memorizes damages done to the corpus and will spawn a new limb with the same amount of lesions. Rez entity.Object The undisputed ‘strangest’ and ‘uncanny’ skill of the quartet is an Orbi’s ability to create an object seemingly out of thin air. The object in question is usually a piece of two-dimensional (usually rezzed on a flat surface) Euclidean geometry that can be extruded and edited in a variety of ways, including its physical properties. Orbi can also create objects between their palms. More often than not, the object assumes the hue of the Orbi that summoned it into existence. It also acquires its cel-shading from the Orbi. Since it’s the point that are rezzed first, then the line segments, then the entity itself – the more vertexes an object has, the longer it takes to bring about, which is why Orbi has a propensity to summon various cubes and rectangular prisms. Objects comprised of polygons take the longest. Something as commonplace as a tire can take over four hours to develop within two-dimensional space and another hour to extrude. Objects are never immutable, however. Depending on how much ‘thought’ goes into the entity, dissipation can occur within a few minutes to a fortnight. Elaborate objects expel more energy than cubes, as well – meaning an object composed of many small parts can put an Orbi out of commission for two days or more. Technological Assimilation Orbi are connoisseurs of technology, be it monolithic or minuscule. They’ll always enact some amount of etiquette before consuming any form of electronics in fear of encountering ill consequence, but also because once enveloped, it’s physically impossible to withdraw the item with explicit permission from the Orbi – and even then, it’s an arduous task. From there, the Orbi can either integrate the automation into their systems (expelling parts deemed extraneous as ‘waste’) or enhance its facilities significantly. To provide an example, a fifteen-year-old computer absorbed and augmented by an Orbi became more potent and versatile than any supercomputer in existence on Sol III. Another example would be an Orbi’s run in with Ron Ayers. Their collaboration gave birth to several supersonic vehicles. Most of the development stage requiring nothing but the Orbi’s absorption and mesh of parts and chassis, though not a soul on the engineering team will admit to this. Orbi can also merge with technology without directly absorbing it. Since the vortex is incapable of taking on a viscid state, it simply constricts and slots itself in a shrouded corner. The merger of Orbi and machine (Orbi Mechanization) has the same advantageous (in terms of functionality) effects as Orbis Escalation and tends to lead to technological advancements amongst species. Regardless of which path an Orbi takes with technological assimilation, during the process – the circuitry (or circulatory system) of an Orbi becomes chemiluminescent and gradually subsides after completion. Orbi can also incorporate pieces of technology with their integumentary system (i.e. absorbing thrusters to permit accelerated travel). This files under Orbi Escalation. Reproduction is almost always asexual amongst the Orbi. It’s the most convenient method and, since many Orbi were sent out on their lonesome, was the only available option. Younglings, called Novum, are procreated in the same way that cells divide. The vortex goes through all the sages of mitosis and the novum remains an inanimate orb for roughly one cycle before the corpus slips forth from an aperture in the bottom of the corpus. However, there are sporadic instances where two Orbi find themselves smitten with one another. There are no overt, public signs of a relationship besides increased camaraderie. Given privacy, there may be more intimate displays, such as lengthy embraces and mutual vortex coddling, but nothing any species would or could ever consider randy. An Orbi dalliance has to remain stalwart for roughly half an Earth century before even contemplating the next step. Several preparations are made afore Orbi intercourse, including the attainment of seclusion - and pure seclusion, at that. If there’s even a remote possibility of another organism discovering their unity, they will not join. It’s one of the main reasons why most Orbi trysts occur in orbit around a black dwarf upon a freshly rezzed plane fit for two or within a filtrated hollow cube. The couple may commune for a time to ease any latent trepidation before the session begins. The two sit across from each other, legs folded and fingers entwined. Gradually, they regulate their faux-inhalation and synchronize their refresh rates. When everything has reached picturesque harmonization, the circuitry along the hands and forearm becomes pronounce, distending the epithelium afore illuminating. This phosphorescence begins to undulate and alternate between Orbi, during which information it sent and received. Usually they’re factoids about the individual Orbi and its experiences since it was but a novum. Some memories are displayed outwardly, materializing as monochromatic holograms (for old, cherished memories) or in Technicolor (for newer remembrances). Once a sufficient amount of data has been exchanged (normally five petabytes), they move onto the next phase. This is by far the most intimate you will ever see an Orbi become. The two siphon any of the remaining distance, literally knocking knees. They place one hand over where the heart would be on an orthodox humanoid whilst keeping their free hands taut. On the off chance that there are any last pangs of hesitation, they look to one another for a nod of confirmation. Once received, they’re hands press inward, merging with the other’s corpus. Achieving this level of union, the Orbi do something rather avart-garde for their race. They weave a tale. Not their life’s story, mind – an original concept that they formulate on the spot. [In fact, For Your Progeny was an Orbi narration committed to text for posterity.] Upon completion on the account, both participants wrench free of the other’s corpus, throwing their heads back in exaltation, pixels flaring in bliss until the entire sphere is alit – and in the midst of this display, the vortex of a novum blooms between their palms (Incidentally – and ironically, a sphere is the more difficult object for an Orbi to rez, given the sheer amount of polygons necessary to form a perfect orb). The method is becoming more and more popular; if only for the fact that novum reared by mature Orbi has a higher success rate of integrating into a society than ones birthed with an air of apathy. Naming System Novum are permitted to pick their own first name, but their surname is signed by the Orbi that spawned them. With single forebeaers, the surname is pulled from theirs without much to do. With couples, last names are usually pulled from numeric lists (i.e. Tertiary, Milli, Atto, etc.). Dicax (or Ix) is the only native honorific of the Orbi. It’s only given to those who have filled their yottabyte allotment before they perish, which was intended to be an insurmountable task. The information stored within an Ix Orbi has most likely been obliterated over the millennia, making Ix both valuable instructors and crucial to the Amalgam of Data Death of an Orbi / Vulnerabilities The death of an Orbi was but a triviality while under the influence of the hive mind, but now that they are separated – it’s regarded with the utmost reverence. Prior to death, the corpus of an Orbi shrivels into the vortex. The vortex then emits a blast of luminosity that can be from parsecs away as the outer layer of the vortex evaporates into a coruscating mist. The remainder contracts into an obsidian orb (regardless of previous color) approximately two centimeters In diameter. This ball is then processed in to its final resting place, the alpha iteration of the Amalgam of Data. There is no extravagant ceremony for the living, just respect for the dead, followed swiftly by a customary year of mourning. Extensive nightly meditation and prayer are indicative of this period. Most Orbi perish on the last day of their 31st and 2/5th day of existence, but there are ways of ending and Orbi’s life prematurely – and they are as follows: Near-Fatal Incapacitation - Arcane; Electromagnetic Assailment - Litany of Paradoxical Conditions Instantaneous Demise - Resonance Cascade - Prolonged Exposure to Recusion