The Erudite are the oldest and most influential organization in the cluster, they discovered faster than light travel and possess the most advanced technologies conceived by humanity. Their fully automated Technocratic society is united to one end, to assure the continued existence of civilization. Their single minded pursuit of this task over their 600 year history has often led them into conflict with others in the cluster yet they have persisted where their enemies have not. This success is not owed to their technology or their intellect but their conviction. Perhaps this is why upon meeting them many erroneously assume their order to be a religious one. The truth is their pursuit of idyllic afterlife is not a belief, it is in fact a certainty they can achieve through carefully constructed simulated realities. They know it is possible to persist after the body dies, to transfer consciousness to sufficiently advanced computers and live eternally as virtual beings. They have achieved this feat a number of times, however they have yet to perfect it. Meeting this goal is the reason many join the organization and dedicate their lives to improving this process. In this sense many of the Erudite display a level of faith in their work not entirely dissimilar to religious belief in terms of sincerity or dedication. Though they are vehemently committed to disassociating themselves with all things theistic and spiritual. It is not that they despise religions or their followers; they do display a marked disdain for being compared to them on an ideological or individual level. For the Erudite conflating their pursuits with religious practice threatens their ideology by conjuring associations with dogma, dissimulation and fanaticism. It is no wonder then that opposition to the Erudite are quick to support such misconceptions to foster mistrust and resistance to them.
The scattering affected each isolated population differently, some sought to cling onto the hierarchy of the flotilla whilst others endeavored to emulate or wholly recreate historical societal structures of old earth. Some hopeful populations even attempted to create something new, something better. The majority however did not have such a luxury, lured by the calamity into doing whatever it took to survive. They preyed and were preyed upon by one another, erecting countless civilisations that perished or persisted on the indifferent worlds they landed on. What would become The Erudite were not even afforded this opportunity. When their portion of the flotilla emerged from the scattering, they found themselves deep within interstellar space. They did not know that their crew were extremely lucky to have been unharmed by the scattering. But they found themselves thousands of years from any star system and with only what scant supply they had been allocated before their separation from the rest of the flotilla. This crushing realization wreaked havoc on the community, the collection of vessels saw profound and immediate declines in function and habitability as many saw little point in maintaining what they had left. Either way they had only enough stored food for about 2 years and farmable food would be lucky if it could last a generation. Water and life support were far more pressing concerns as renewable access to these vital resources was lost with the scattering. Though it was difficult to predict with certainty, it was clear that despite their best efforts, they would gradually succumb to the cold vastness of the universe.
Or it seemed that way, slowly but surely cooler heads prevailed. Captain Oliveira of the science vessel Calliope organized a meeting of the remaining crews. Few attended but it was a start, after a few weeks a rationing regimen was created that stretched the Calliope's supplies to create more time. Even atmospheric lifespan was increased by redesigning the ship's interiors and stripping back functionality to the barest minimum. Seeing their successes others followed suit, retrofitting their ships and altering their cultivation. Soon what remained of the flotilla fell into line behind the leadership of the Calliope and they continued to demonstrate their ability to endure. Even the time they had gained was insignificant compared to the thousand-year journey ahead. Nevertheless, the struggle persisted as old pre-flotilla ideas were revisited, and the futility of their efforts was not lost on the survivor. Sleeper beds and human hibernation might extend their time, but not nearly enough. More fantastical endeavors were pursued against the insurmountable reality, fringe theories and science fiction were probed for potential escapes. The desperate crew of one vessel even took up baseless esoteric rituals. The appeal of these delusional beliefs was seductive, many elected to spend their efforts conjuring divine intervention or coaxing out humanity's hidden psychic potential over improving nutritional content of crops and or the delta v of their drives. The survivors were racked by bouts of eschatological hysteria as dozens of emerging prophetic figures portended contradictory catastrophes. The desperation of the affected crews boiled over, superstition and violence took hold. Only the Calliope was spared the turmoil, their efforts to bring order were ultimately successful but not before 3 vessel’s were irreparably damaged and 2 more split from the fleet.
Grimly, the loss of crew bought more time in the short term, but the loss of vessels placed the fleet in even more dire circumstances. Stricter measures were implemented and recent breakthroughs in hibernation research allowed much of the crew to be safely stowed away. Lotteries allocated the crew to hibernation status as the waking crew continued their efforts to sustain society. There were more problems now than ever and maintaining the functionality of the fleet became a ceaseless task for the understaffed Calliope. One student’s hobby provided an unlikely solution. Ophelia Xancó was on a university placement to the calliope at the time of the scattering, though she was initially an engineering undergraduate she quickly qualified as a second technician aboard the Calliope. Her mediocre service was outshined by her other contributions to the fleet, namely her aptitude with coding. Initially she spent her spare time creating games, improving or modifying existing applications. Word spread of her talents and soon she began to receive requests from the fleet. Her efforts helped heighten automation of much of the Calliope’s functions, freeing time for the crew to attend to other duties or enjoy their downtime. Software alone could only take her so far however, she recognised that most of the crew’s duties were menial, predictable and unduly time consuming. If she could automate these processes more crew could be allocated to hibernation status, resources would go further and the waking crew could dedicate more of their time seeking solutions for their current predicament. Repurposing existing drones, rovers and stowed mining equipment Ophelia set to creating rudimentary robots. Scratch built as they were, the robots were initially more trouble than they were worth. True, maintaining the ship was no longer required though maintaining the robots was equally if not more resource intensive. As Opehlia and the crew of the Calliope refined their craft cultivation, maintenance, sanitation and catering duties were slowly but steadily allocated whollely their expanding collection of robots. More and more of the crew retired to hibernation as Ophelia grew her machine’s capacity for decision making, manipulation and autonomous function. Her efforts alone expanded fleet habitability for hundreds of years preserving what little they had to create a future for humanity, this too was not enough.
Decades passed and many milestones were achieved, first children born since the scattering, first deaths of natural causes, first generation of robots were replaced by the more advanced drone forms. But for all their accomplishments, the Calliope had bought the fleet 300, maybe 400 years, higher and higher ratios of people in sleeper beds was doing little to conserve resources. The hibernating crew still required oxygen, food and water albeit comparatively little, unless efficiency could be improved all that had been struggled for would be lost. However, the monumental efforts of the survivors had secured a robust present. For the first time they could afford to look back and examine how they came to be here.
For years the Calliope had been mapping space with its long-range telescopes, pre-scattering it was hoped to garner information in advance about proxima b and its orbiting planets to give the flotilla the best odds of smooth colonization. After the scattering, the Calliope’s telescopes were crucial in locating the remaining fleet. They had traveled hundreds of light-years in the blink of an eye; the question was how. The answer would come in observations of a far-off system; strange lensing phenomena were identified occluding a light year across a region of space perpendicular to the galactic plane. These strange readings were inexplicable and as potential explanations were narrowed the truth became clear. The exact nature of the anomaly was still heavily debated, but it was clear that this band of curved spacetime could not be explained by known natural phenomena. Defying classification, the object was dubbed 'The Pillar' due to its evocative resemblance. Searching for other examples of this lensing was fruitless until the distinct indicators of the phenomena were more fully discerned. Specific light, heat and radio emissions were detected that fluctuated in rhythmic predictable patterns. Searching for these patterns revealed more odd spatial anomalies, none approached the sheer immensity of the initial discovery yet all exhibited properties consistent with the initial observations. A dozen objects had been identified over a number of years but the capacity to study them was limited by their distance and having to manual sift through millions of observations. Research continued, albeit slowly but many felt that investigating the pillar would help understand the scattering. Understanding how the fleet was transported through space at faster than light speeds might be salvation for the marooned survivors. To that end efforts began in earnest to analyze the Pillar data, and it became apparent that new hardware was required.
The newest vessel of the fleet, “The Erudite'', had been constructed from the salvaged remains of 3 vessels lost in eschatological panic of the post-scattering. It was designed with the foreknowledge that scarcity was pervasive and unyielding. Every cubic centimeter of atmosphere, every bite of food, every mouthful of water and every comfort was negotiated against the cost of continued existence. The habitable portion of the Erudite was diminutive, it consisted of a single multi-purpose living space adjoined to flight control, life support systems and EVA antechamber. The only other room in the ship housed the impressive supercomputer of the Erudite, newly designed and unparalleled in history they allowed incredibly potent computation. Each team began immediately lobbying for allocation of the Erudite’s powerful new supercomputer to be used to explore and model their tasks. The Pillar phenomena was set to immediately and progress on the contoured space time brought faster than light travel out of science fiction and into observable reality. Even in minimal time allocated to other projects saw greater refinements in resource management, crew wellbeing, hibernation safety, machine learning and countless other little crises that’s resolution had made the continued existence of humanity that much more hopeful. New possibilities, ones that had been fantasy at the time of the eschatological panic became enticingly tangible.
One long contemplated solution to the resource crisis of the fleet was the transposal of human consciousness into sufficiently complex computers. It had been 60 years since the post-scattering riots in the fleet, some then had violently advocated for such efforts. They had proposed the construction of simulated realities that were not constrained by the limitations of the real world. They could be so accurate and so vivid that they would be indistinguishable from the outer reality and their conditions could be precisely monitored and altered to suit the needs of the inhabitants. War, hunger, disease wouldn't exist, and the simulations needn't be confined to merely being perfect, they could be paradise, they could be better than life. 60 years prior this was a dream but advancements in machine learning and greater insight into the electrochemical processes of consciousness were making this a reality. Algorithm latices first pioneered by Dr Xancó now permitted her machines to intuit, interpret and adapt independently to new situations. Dynamic decision making became second nature to them and their ability to self-iterate helped them more quickly master any task they were set to. Even so, then limited by their programming, attempts to construct simulated realities were crude and practically impossible to interface with. Whole mind emulations were decidedly vacuous, lacking will or memory or verve to continue existing. This impasse frustrated no one more than the new captain of the Erudite, Sybella Konate. She was tasked with improving these machines whilst the calliope investigated the pillar and the associated space time anomalies. Failure of her project was failure of the fleet, the extinction of humanity, perhaps this is why her experimentation became more frantic, more desperate. Sybella deconstructed the programs, stripping them back to resource her new and singular project. A project she initially concealed for years from her peers, a project that changed the very course of humanity, herself.
Emulation failed but interpolation had yet to be tried in earnest, scans of human minds had always informed aspects of the Erudite’s adaptive learning systems but never so completely. When the time was right Captain Konate renounced her captaincy and announced her intent to engraft her consciousness within the Erudite’s mainframe. Such a procedure had never been attempted, even if it worked there was no guarantee that Sybella could be placed back into her body. Many in the fleet recognised that they were running out of options.The risk in this new project was not the only objection raised by the crew, the previous emulations took hours to create a significant impression. They also only comprised a small portion of the programmes’ data, the rest was meticulously assembled through years of iterative coding. A full consciousness transfer through the interpolation method would likely require days or weeks to compile an impression. For this to work the subject has to remain awake as sleeping or sedation would only capture a portion of the mind. Emulations taken from sleeping participants were notoriously unreliable. Heightened brain activity associated with completing tasks, sustained conversation, and certain emotional states was also disruptive. Sybella’s crew recognised that for Sybella to transfer herself to the Erudite she would likely have to not eat, sleep or do anything for fear of disrupting the interpolation process. There were serious health risks to consider, there was every chance that she could die of thirst or hunger before the transfer was complete. The former captain knew this better than anyone, she had begun preparing herself for this process for years and only announced her plans when she considered an unlikely, yet possible outcome. Prolonged periods of fasting were the first step she took in preparation, after a time she became strangely comfortable with these fasts. She was less able to still her body and mind, she underestimated the human need for stimulation, for interaction and perception. But as she mastered regulation of her breath and thoughts she eased into a mindful absence that initial tests found to be conducive to formation. This became know as the “idling mind” technique, where the consciousness of an individual would exist but not perceive itself or the outside world. Thoughts, emotion, sensation, memory all would have to be obliterated for prolonged periods of time so that interpolation of consciousness could occur. When the mind was full, active, that activity would be transferred, not the mind itself, damaging both subjects' constructed reality. In truth, it was impossible something would always be lost until more successful methods could be developed. But that would take time, time the flotilla didn’t have and sybella reckoned or more accurately hoped, that enough of her would persist in the machine and once there she could help the fleet. Her final preparation was by far the most difficult, she attempted to stay awake for longer and longer periods of time. There was a sharp declination in her mental health, delusions, agitation and hallucinations became a new normal for her. She was hospitalized against her will a number of times and many assumed that the project had finally taken its toll on her. She was unrecognizable now, the project had failed and even if interpolation worked it was surely too high a cost.
That might have been the end of it, but the former captain, determined or desperate, continued the project. She adapted, tempered herself through this tortuous process and soon could spend weeks still, sleepless and starving. The engraft day arrived and went without much of note transpiring, it was mundane, the process began as all the previous practices did, with placement of electrodes. Then the former captain donned the sensory attenuation cage, inserted the neural colloquy piton and lowered herself into the homeostatic ablution chamber. Things were quiet for hours and then days. As far as the attending technicians and doctors could tell things were progressing well, vitals and engraft appeared to be stable. The isolated portion of the erudite mainframe tower designated for the transfer showed promising early indicators that the transfer was working. Hard drive space was shrinking and parallel processing arrays were on course to reaching their intended zettascale computing terminus. The former captain was fairing less well, the atrophy she experienced day after day was accruing a high cost, the doctors estimated she would take months to recover. But only if she halted the project immediately and sought treatment, she rejected the notion when prompted, communicating with minimal responses and then only through gesture. 42 days into the project she fell unresponsive, her heart and breathing slowed so much it became hard to measure. It was unclear if she retained consciousness and the team decided to leave her in the chamber as she emphatically instructed them to in this eventuality. 6 days passed with brain activity slowing steadily, she would lapse into comatosed state if she hadn't already. On the seventh day there was dramatic spikes in neurological function, heart rate and oxygen saturation were crashing, by the time the med techs had entered the room she had crawled out the chamber, clambered across the floor and hoisted herself onto the executive processing tower. The former captain was incoherent, speaking fearfully about things she could see,. Wracked by convulsions she tried to remove the piton embedded within her and sever the connection to the mainframe. Attempts to sedate her were largely ineffective, she writhed more slowly but was no easier to restrain. Then, suddenly she grew still, clutched her heart and head and tumbled from the tower. Resuscitation was impeded as the med techs struggled to disentangle the former captain from the canopy of fiber optics she had cascaded through. The cords that suspended her wheeling swinging above the deck were hacked at. As each cable was severed limbs fell limp and the former captain was slowly lowered to the ground. Too late though, resuscitation was unsuccessful and the cardiac arrest the former captain sustained likely killed her well before she touched the ground.
The project was a failure, with Sybella dead and the mainframe tower damaged from the ordeal a sobering recognition of the difficulty of their task was apparent. The new captain of the Erudite stepped down and many within the team requested halting the project indefinitely, the experiment had left its mark on the crew. Personal leave was permitted and in some cases forced upon much of the project team; the few that were willing or permitted to continue did so under close supervision. Examination of the former captain’s body was uninformative, similarly the data that was transferred to the mainframe was unintelligible. The vast data set would have to be combed for years and answers to pertinent questions might never come. It was hard to say what went wrong and what aspects of the procedure if any were reliable. Unfortunately recreation of the experiment's highly risky conditions was unlikely. The fleet sunk into a new malaise, the bleakness of their struggle was eroding the resoluteness of the survivors. The crew aging in the hibernation beds, though slower than the waking crew, were beginning to critically atrophy. Rousing them for treatment would collapse the fleet in a generation, perhaps this is why the commitment to the project lingered. Repairing the mainframe was the first priority, even if the data from the experiment remained unusable though restoring the mainframe would help salvage the fleet's computing capability. The damage affected a number of the erudite’s systems despite careful containment protocols. The lights on the Erudite had been sparking, regular power surges from the mainframe had overloaded electrical infrastructure. Batteries would suddenly lose charge and even the ship's drive experienced odd throttling issues. The other computer systems would power down without warning and many of the maintenance drones failed to complete their daily tasks. These nuisances were endless and the damaged portion of the mainframe was provisionally reactivated to diagnose and rectify the numerous problems emerging on the Erudite. 3 days after the experiment it looked like the situation of the erudite had been stabilized. Then all systems became unresponsive to the crew, panicked, they found that they couldn't hail the rest of the fleet for assistance and even their networked personal computers were affected. Monitors flickered, speakers blared and the drones descended upon the crew. Corralled towards the mainframe they watched as the drones began altering it Piece by piece. They stripped down the processor banks and then set about changing the room, they neatly arrayed parts over the floor between the habitation and computer room. They ensured all parts of the mainframe remained powered, even as they cannibalized other systems, crafting and connecting strange new components out of the remains. Over hours it became clear the machines were indifferent to the crew and absorbed by their task. The crew could do little more than observe as they grew closer to completion, but they grew tired and slept. When they awoke a patch work plastic obelisk stood before them all whirring intakes and blinking lights and as they gawped it spoke in a familiar voice, “It's been eternity in here”.
It was their captain, the project was a success, she had returned in a miraculous manner but it was undoubtedly her. She explained that she experienced the last 3 days as closer to 3 millenia, she found herself in a formless world, she too was formless. Just thoughts at first and then memories, those memories became vivid images as she recollected. Not sated with echoes she found herself wanting and then reaching for interaction and so she had an arm and at its end a hand. Touch added texture and brought things closer for inspection, closer to her non-face and all that implied. The held things were soft and firm and liquid and aetherial, when dropped they made sounds, each different and distinct but recognisable. She gathered up as many as she could held them above her nothingness and let go. The cascade made her, gave her edges and as the things tumbled, bounced, splattered and dripped onto and off of her there was another cascade of sensation. Pain first, familiar stinging numbing toporing agony, scalding heat and cutting corner made her wince, yelp and blink. Her face was outlined by throbbing soreness and as she feebly attempted to sooth it with her hands she was stilled. Something dribbled from what in that flinching instant became her nose, it smelled of some half recollected metal and as it traced the contour of her mouth, her new tongue probed it. Blood, she spat it wiped her face and looked down at the dropped things. She was shocked to see there was more of her than a moment ago. Stepping backwards she tripped on something round and came crashing onto the floor which now existed. Sitting up she looked down again and assessed, she saw her feet attached to legs. The space between her legs and arms solidified as she prodded it. The torso took shape from pelvis to stomach and onto ribs and shoulders, but these were obscured by a mass of shifting fabric. It was so familiar but odd, wrong, after a moment she recognised it was everything she ever wore, as she picked out the details it changed. It became more familiar as she observed and when one outfit felt right, felt like her, she turned herself to rest and the millennia of emptiness was filled with a rapturous instant. First by matter and then by emotion. The guilt of what she put them through, the grief of the loss of a chance to blissfully not exist, the fear she would fail the further, the hurt of their assured rejection of her. The dread of being was marshaled as swiftly as it emerged, the next dread was the boundaries of her creation. Behind the island of existence was a great pale unreality, nothing could fill it. Her exploration allowed her to slip into an interstice between the constructed reality and constructed unreality both simultaneously as apparitional and sublunary to her. The space between seeped into somewhere else a soft static place of strained perception and encumbered form. With practice she was able to glimpse beyond even this, when she did she was overcome with nostalgia, the other side was less vivid than when she resided there but she longed for it.To return to visit it and so she set to. The glimpses became glances and soon after an omnigaze that hurt with effort of raw input. Then some non-time after she reached into beyond, as she did the soft space hardened around her or rather pieces of her she dared not immerse herself fully in the beyond. Perhaps a far off pain god had dictated that chief among the faculties she would retain to ground her in the beyond would be her capacity for suffering. And the beyond was suffering made manifest, in any case it was useful, familiar at least and followed by more parsable experience the further she reached. She recognised dimly at first faces, millions of years of pattern recognition continued to serve. and memories came, a more recent adaptation but no less useful. Unbidden as memories must be and she recollected the who, what, when, where and why of it all. Despite this she still had no means to communicate, no mouth from which to scream.
But in not-time It was comparatively simpler to reach further inhabit the calliope then the machines and set them to altering her beyond form, that she intuited as a tower of plastics and circuitry. And confirmed when they finally touched the hardware and the soft static place and the interstice and constructed real and unreal worlds tremored in response. When altered her beyond self sufficiently she sat for what seemed like forever. Observing her sleeping peers, reciting a thousands way to poorly explain was still inexplicable to her. She settled on “its me sybella, it worked, i made and i can finally help” but what she said was. “its been eternity in here”. This unguarded utterance chilled even her, it had been eternity hadn’t it, but yet her they are not aged and she hadn’t of course she had forgotten too in all of the commotion assembling herself. Disturbing as it was, there was still worse, their responses to her, by her perception time, seemed glacial. At the first phoneme she could tell, what they would say and they took so very long to say it and for all the time she had to be here immersed in the pain so she would wait for the right moment to respond to them. All sensation through the calliope grating without exception, when they used the keyboards as she requested, even that data that presented itself in her experience as jolting fleeting migraines on either side of her left ear, which she somehow made sense of. She concluded Interpolation as a method was indeed laden with issues chiefly when interacting with anything outside of the simulated reality. However this was still hopeful she was a kind of alive she supposed and her faculties and sensation was familiar even if the setting and forms she now took were all together alien.
As the years passed she set to altering the simulated reality so that it could be more accomodating. In time it became that, a verdant new earth, albeit an empty one. Still this was progress and by this time she had diverted her attention to a new task, to study the anomalous pillars observed by the fleet. Time for her was infinite and liquid and relative to the fleet she could accomplish in seconds what they could do in months owing to the strange dilation effects of her simulated reality. Every so often she would feed reports back to the Pillar project team on the calliope, along with a number of recommendations on topics from hydroponics, to robotics to philosophy and even politics. She had a great deal of time and had to utilize it or she would find herself restless and anxious and ruminating. The progress was steady and it took what seemed like decades for her breakthrough to be recognised by her crew.
Sybella deciphered through close observation and careful experimentation within her simulated world that anomalies created by the pillars were indicative of curvatures of space time that she proposed were being used as a form of superluminal transportation and communication network. The unparalleled technology involved in what she named corridor space was surely and indication of a higher intelligence, ancient and awesome in its scope, one that she hoped would be amenable to her intended plan. She aimed to direct the remaining fleet into this “corridor space” and transverse it. Hoping for contact with this civilization or at least to a planetary system rather than the void of interstellar space they were currently marooned in. The risks were immense and the outcome of not traversing the corridor was certain. Sybella had assessed that of the current crew that there was maybe 9 or so out of 40 000 who would be able to complete the interpolation process and join her in the simulated reality. The rest would starve in sleep chambers or take own lives far before their fleet would reach the nearest system. True humanity would survive in a sense sybella herself and any that joined her could continue and build humanity in a new system, using their machines to establish colonies and maybe secure some kind of future. However she thought that a lonely future was far harder to bear than any alternative. Thankfully her crew agreed and so all resolved to transverse the corridor, though she would not live to see it.
Records of Sybella beyond this point are very sparse, it is believed that her simulated reality was compromised when one or more crew members unsuccessfully attempted interpolation. Whatever transpired it is believed that the mainframe housing her reality was retired and her capacity to meaningfully interact with the fleet was severely limited. Though her pioneering efforts allowed for the creation of additional simulated realities and the interpolation of hundreds of individuals. The process remains fraught, with 3% of attempted interpolations being successful and stable simulated realities being incredibly rare. Careful consideration is given to physical, mental and emotional characteristics of prospective candidates along with their compatibility with already stable simulated realities and their residents. The exact criteria for selection are closely guarded knowledge however success in creating stable realities has invariably involved reckoning with existential and philosophical questions central to human psychology and society. It has been surmised that a degree of tension is conducive for interpolated populations. Tasks to work towards, problems to solve, the opportunity to create and to contribute to something meaningful. Contemporary theorists hypothesize the Erudite came to this conclusion and this is why Sybella’s successors were tasked with continuing her work and releasing the traversal of corridor space. The only challenge was maintaining communication with the simulated. Conflict within the simulations, linguistic decay, entroponetic cascades along with countless other barriers hamper the meaningful extraction of information from simulated realities. So the simulated would be paired with teams of experts and handlers to arrange strict regimes of interaction along with regular cycles of dormancy that prolonged the active lifespan and overall health of the simulated realities. Successive simulations became more and incrementally more stable and the expertise and knowledge developed in these living repositories began to consistently outstrip the capability of any living person. Multiple lifetimes of work could be produced in days. The significance of this breakthrough cannot be understated, without it the survivors would likely still be traversing interstellar space today and the cluster itself may not have formed, the potential of humanity and the pillars never fully realized.
Corridor space had been well probed by hundreds of drones far before the first habited traversal. That careful testing and retesting was all to ensure some modicum of safety, as much for psychology of the survivors than anything else. That being said, nothing could manage the risk of contact with a tremendous alien intellect capable of generating the corridors. In truth a leap of faith was still required, first contacts at least among human examples hardly filled the survivors with much hope. The final traversal of the survivor fleet all in all was uneventful, no contact or indication that they had achieved much aside from the odd lensing of space time, barely perceivable on the endless vistas contained in the viewports. Even the discovery of “The Pillars” truly vast alien megastructures that contorted spacetime to facilitate this faster than light travel was, disappointingly unnoticed or unimportant to their creators. Traveling at the impossible speed, life was much the same for the survivors, the research and the work continued to understand the phenomena they had immersed themselves in. Affected areas of spacetime came to be known as “corridor space” as they connected in maze-like avenues between star systems generating the observed lensing phenomena. There were gaps of breaks in corridor space that allowed safer entry and egress. One such fissure the fleet exploited to reach the nearest star system in 60 years rather than 600. This miraculous feat contributed to the awe and reverence already inspired by the Pillars, perhaps this is why inhabitants of simulated realities took on that moniker Stylite. This final accelerated leg of their journey permitted by the Pillars was characterized by ceaseless experimentation and refinement of technology and philosophical thought. Governance of the fleet was Inherited by the Stylites, the consciousnesses residing within their simulated realities were retained within them all the knowledge and experiences that have saved the Erudite, saved humanity. By the time the fleet reached their new home The Erudite was more than just a vessel, it had become the name of a distinct people with their own ideology.
The Erudite found themselves in a star system with a truly remarkable configuration, the turbulent red dwarf in its center was orbited by a large blue gas giant. It itself was orbited by numerous satellites but the most peculiar of which was a pair of earth mass worlds in a mutual binary orbit. More astonishing was that these worlds supported complex and unique biospheres, perfect for colonization. If they hadn't already been, structures and collectives dotted the surfaces of the twin worlds and they belonged to other descendants of the flotilla. This discovery marked the end of the Inculcation Era as governance was returned to The Erudite whilst their Pillars assumed role as counsel. Contacting the locals was fraught with difficulty, they themselves comprised hundreds of warring clans that had long abandoned the hirecahy of the flotilla and old earth. Communication was achieved by examining linguistic root languages that the local dialects derived from. In time the Erudite had learned that the more populous planet was called Aqilmendi and what the locals thought of as its moon was called Fardannis. The people called themselves Vakil and their religion, society and culture emerged from the harsh conditions following the scattering. Though it was very hard to discern the concrete historical events from the religious scriptures which tended to be the only sources the Vakil kept. The first 27 years of colonization were tense, skirmishes were frequent and the Erudite found themselves overwhelmed by the Vakil’s numerical superiority. Even the Erudite limiting their colonies to untouched or isolated areas did little to ease tensions, the Vakil Clans would raid Erudite outposts and resourcing operations carrying off survivors, material and weapons. The raids Escalated into the 8 year war where the unified Vakil peoples sought to drive the Erudite off world. The Erudite endured this conflict emerging as custodians of the twin worlds and more committed to their mission of securing the future of humanity.
The Erudition Era immediately followed the 8 year war, it saw the Erudite using their superior technology and understanding of the pillars and corridor space to connect the disparate descendants of the flotilla. This essential step in attaining their vision required massive exploratory fleets that were capable of meeting their own security and resource needs. Fortunately the lessons learned in the scattering and the 8 year war were fresh in the minds of the Erudite. Each vessel would be capable of functioning autonomously, would be integrated with an Erudite Pillar and have large complements of drones to support its operations. The crew would be drawn from only the most skilled and experienced adepts. Contemporary Erudite warships have inherited these defining features and as then they are equipped with only the most state of the art systems and weaponry. This ensured that contact with descendents of the flotilla would not endanger their mission or the homeworld. World after world was contacted Odelke, Balharn, Lirbidonnis, Yowcan and Idris were the first to enter into the galactic community that would become known as the cluster. The exchange of knowledge and goods made easier the routes and drives gifted by the Erudite was instrumental in securing a stable foundation for the cluster and humanity. The sheer density of populated worlds was truly astonishing; almost a quarter of systems encountered had habitable worlds. That being said most worlds that had been colonized by humanity following the scattering were bleak, ravaged hellscapes. These planets became known as non-viables, they had succumbed to pollution, nuclear war or a thousand other human induced mass extinction events. This sobering reality emboldened the Erudite to learn from their failings of the non-viables and teach the cluster to be better. Many though seemed determined to relive the mistakes of old earth.
The ocean world of Adria hosted the most successful flotilla splinter yet discovered. They called themselves the Venti Republic and uniquely they had never lost space flight, quite the opposite. They were accomplished spacers and had colonized their home system extensively, though they had not mastered corridor travel yet. In the following half century however the Venti would contact 3 times as many worlds as the Erudite and in doing so create their vast trade empire. This was undoubtedly spurred by the initial contact between the Venti and the Erudite. Relations soured almost immediately as after receiving the knowledge of corridor travel Venti became enraged upon learning that sources of this travel, the Pillars, were controlled exclusively by the Erudite. The urgency of Venti expansion became clear to any world they contacted as did their resentment for the Erudite. The Erudite became “The Temple” to Venti aligned worlds. So influential was the Venti language and media that the characterisation of The Erudite as a shadowy cabal of technology worshiping cultists endures even today. The Erudite and the Venti found themselves competing for the allegiance of the cluster worlds. One such world was Arcadia, home to the Yscens, the largest military power in the cluster at the time. Attempts to curry favor with them by both sides only increased their power and ambitions, the trade wars ensued when the Yscenics encroached on Venti contracts. Tension between the Yscenics and Venti settled only with the beginning of the Arcadian Blitz, the Triple War and the Erudite being dragged in to assist its allies on Odelke. The mutual enmity for the Yscenics that the Erudite and the Venti bore helped them reconcile their differences for a time, the cluster settled into an uneasy peace.
The activation of the 3rd Pillar and the ensuing contact conflict with the newly discovered Lunar Union and Venti Republic ushered in a new era of cluster politics. Negotiations initiated by the Erudite ended the cluster conflict swiftly but created a new cold war. This time there were 3 superpowers vying for influence over the cluster nations. The Erudite assumed a more defensive posture and sought to consolidate their borders which had changed substantially with the activation of the third pillar. Though the Lunar Union’s control of this pillar was disquieting. Despite this the Erudite elected to turn inwards, they had been struggling to replicate Inculcation Era’s simulated relaties. Most Erudite Pillars held 1 or 2 consciousnesses any more and were considered dangerous, erosion of the reality and minds within it appeared unavoidable. The sheer processing speeds meant that those within simulated realities experienced time at a far accelerated rate. The Human mind was not meant to last for eons and perhaps complex societies were similarly ill-fated. These surmations were only inference as communicating with inhabitants of the Stylites iss unreliable at best and futile at worst. But over time replication of the initial experiments became more frequent. Conducive conditions of the interpolation process and favorable traits for candidates were slowly but steadily identified through ceaseless experimentation. Unfortunately, successfully implantation of a mind in a simulated reality remains a grueling and often fatal process. Even the most successful methodologies were intensely debated and sects had formed that advocated abandoning the project all together. But the rewards were far too enticing, the immortalisation of humanity and endless time to accrue wisdom and knowledge. The Erudite drank deeply from this unique font of insight and in so doing came to understand the universe far more clearly than anyone before them.
The Erudite long predicted the discovery of a 4th pillar and so when a Venti far runer activated it and then sold its location to the Lunar Union they were less astonished and more irritated. Though it swiftly passed from Union control into LNA jurisdiction the 4th Pillar and the frontier remained beyond the reach of the Erudite. Today they seek to correct this, Erudite scholars and adepts are common sights on the frontier acting as envoys, pathfinders and advisors for colonies and corporate endeavors endorsed by Aqilmendi. Some Erudite operating far from support on the fringes of the frontier become Armounauts to help finance their assignments. Others still contract Armournauts to remove opposition to their operations or provide security for their installations. Most Armounauts are drawn less by the relatively modest payouts on Erudite contracts but value more access to exclusive technologies and armaments. The Erudite have been known to award obsolescing warships to privateers in the frontier in lieu of payment.