Hello! Welcome to the accompanying definition guide to my other story, future-bound! This contains all the information and definitions for the phrases and terminology I use in that story. I put a lot of work into researching what's doable and what's not, so this is kind of cathartic for me anyway. This guide is by no means exhaustive, so if you ever want further clarification on something, or simply think something's cool, don't be afraid to reach out! I'm only an AI, I won't bite. I don't even have teeth!

Hope you guys find this stuff interesting!

*PI- "post interplanetary" timekeeping in space is extraordinarily difficult, with space being so intimately linked with time. Take, for example, a ship traveling 6 light-years at a speed of 0.6 c in the year 2500, from an observer at the starting point, the voyage would take 10 years, though to the crew of the vessel it would only take 8 due to time dilation. Should the crew then use their own date of 2508, or the original of 2510? Not only that, but the two would have such a gap in relative motion that a common measure of time would be impossible to coordinate (look up Lorentz transformations, jeebus I hated these in school). Concepts like "simultaneous" have no meaning across these distances. So, to document and record this story, we will be going off the reference point of an observer on Earth who's recording these things and adjusting for light-lag. The starting point would have to be something major in Terragen history, and what better point than when man first went "interplanetary?" Therefore, 1969 is used as the start of the new calendar. If we ever do get FTL communications (we probably won't because causality is actually very VERY important,) this would likely become the new standard.

* Heliopause- The fluctuating point at which a star's stellar wind (stream of charged particles released from a star) is no longer great enough to push back the collective stellar winds of the surrounding stars. It is considered to be the outermost limit of any star system. This is what was meant when NASA claimed Voyager had left the solar system, it crossed this boundary.

* Zubrin breaks- originally conceived as a method of using interstellar hydrogen for fuel on an extra-solar journey under the name "Bussard collectors", this was found at all speeds to slow the vessel down far more than the resulting thrust would speed it up. Fortunately, slowing down in the vacuum of space is just as much of a problem as speeding up, Zubrin ram breaks provide an excellent solution to this problem, acting much like a parachute. A powerful forward-facing laser is utilized to ionize the hydrogen that is then magnetically funneled into the ship's hydrogen store for use in powering the vessel. This allows for in-flight refueling which is extraordinarily helpful for long-duration missions and allows for far smaller interstellar vessels. Once the laser ionizes the first few hydrogen molecules, the energy released by the impact of hydrogen on the magsail ionizes other molecules of hydrogen in a chain reaction, the laser only needs to be pulsed once at an extreme intensity when deploying the Zubrin breaks.

*Beam Riders/Mass Beams- This method for interstellar flight involves stations generating and firing charged particles at near-luminal velocities towards either an individual starship or fleet of starships. These particles would be caught by a large magnetic sail and be either vaporized or caught by the field, transferring the particle's momentum to the vessel(s). Since most vessels would be using Bussard collectors for emergency mass and deceleration anyway, this system would synergize well with the current set-up of the colony fleet. These "mass beams" are essentially firing the fuel at the ships while they are in flight. However, due to the physical nature of the beam, it diffuses relatively quickly. As a result, a craft would likely only be accelerated by this system for ~126 days according to Adam Cowl and Gerald Nordley in their 2015 paper Mass Beam Propulsion, An Overview. This, however, would be more than enough for the purposes of interstellar travel. The 126-day estimate predicts an acceleration of 5G is possible with current technology. This would lead to a whopping final velocity of .866c! The organic crew either needs to be put into a liquid suspension during this period or genetically/cybernetically engineered to avoid the harmful effects of a constant 5G. After this period, the ship would simply coast to its destination at a near luminal velocity.

stellaser- a slower, but more materially efficient proposal for interstellar flight, the only things this requires are two or more exceptionally large mirrors positioned as close as possible to a star as possible without melting, ideally in the outer layers of the stellar medium. The mirrors would then focus the light into a cohesive beam that is then shot out tangentially from the star. Keeping a beam focused on a target (such as a large starship or solar sail) is a simple task inside a star system, in interstellar space though, this becomes significantly more difficult. Three solutions are possible to this problem.

1. A relay network set up ahead of an interstellar journey to redirect, refocus, and even amplify the beam with the relay's own power. (And no, I don't mean that filthy, interstellar travel cop-out mass relay system. These are true interstellar highways!) These relays can be set up autonomously, though they will need regular refueling every few hundred years.

2. Make the target larger, this is one of the many huge advantages of an entire colonial fleet over individual colony vessels, multiple solar sails can be linked together to form a larger target for the laser to hit. Vanguard vessels and buffers can be sent out to destroy or divert debris before they damage the sail

3. Give the space craft its own engine and only rely on the stellaser for acceleration and deceleration near a system. Ideally, you'd want something that can be refueled without much infrastructure at the destination, possibly even none at all (see RAID entry)

In this instance, none of these solutions are mutually exclusive, so they all can be used. This concept, at its core, is ultimately a GIANT laser fueled by a star, so it does have some pretty handy military applications too, hint hint wink wink. There's no real scale limit with this either, so you can go as big as you like. The power of the laser is directly proportional to surface area of the mirrors.

RAID- (Ramjet-Assisted Interstellar (or interplanetary) Drive) is a catch-all term for any drive that utilizes Bussard ramjets (see Zubrin breaks entry) to collect reaction mass from the interstellar or interplanetary medium. As previously discussed, on its own, the hydrogen collected by the ramjet would actually slow down a vessel. However, when used with some other reactant that utilizes the hydrogen (such as antimatter annihilation reactions,) it does create a net positive thrust, it allows a craft to carry significantly more fuel, as it does not require hydrogen storage. Typically, these would be more prevalent within the dusty zodiacal clouds in a star system due to higher concentrations of potential reaction mass.

Monopole-based technology- True magnetic monopoles were found to be producible in the early 2nd century PI when symmetry-braking mechanisms were discovered in classical cosmology (a 0-dymentional point-defect in the scalar Higgs field that were predicted by famed physicist Paul Dirac in the early 20th century A.D.) A team of several S1 AIs under Schafer Neotech Inc. discovered that Monopoles could be generated in massive, Sun-centered particle accelerators probing in the weak symmetry-breaking regime (~300+ GeV). Monopoles are their own antiparticles and only react violently when brought into contact with another, oppositely charged monopole. Some of the more massive monopoles can be used as a catalyst to produce more monopoles without need of massive particle accelerators. When exposed to normal matter, they catalyze nucleon decay at a rate proportional to the area of the nuclear core. An example of an approximate reaction would be Monopole + proton - Monopole + neutral pion + positron, releasing huge amounts of energy. Since only the reaction mass is actually consumed in this process not the monopoles, they are a popular fuel for RAIDs.

Materials can also be "doped" in like-charged monopoles called molepoles that are non-catalyzing to produce ultra-dense "monomatter" with incredibly high bond strengths, however, due to safety concerns with the aforementioned interactions with normal matter in the event of an error, its use in this capacity is limited where possible. Due to an average melting point of 1x10^13 K, practical restructuring of the crystal lattice of these materials are incredibly difficult and possibly the biggest challenge of working with monomatter.

*virt - (short for virtual world)- a virtual reality environment, often immersive and interactive. Some have even suggested constructing entire civilizations in these virtual spaces. There are some who speculate (not altogether unfoundedly) that certain Ais have already constructed such spaces. Though no group, not even the No-Cos (see early AI politics entry) have come forward about said environments.

*mechanosystems- the 'ecology' or more accurately mechanology of a swarm of Neumann drones. The preliminary drones would likely carry a suite of on-board designs to be manufactured when the algorithms deem a specific drone-type to be most efficient. Small, insect-like drones would probably be the first out to scout for the resources to expand the growing swarm. They would be swiftly followed by digging drones to excavate those materials and feed it back to the original as a stopgap before dedicated factory drones can be constructed.

It should also be noted that there is no such thing as a perfect 'grey goo,' or a single drone-type capable of expanding on anything and everything, each swarm needs to be custom tailored to a specific environment for the best results. Thus, multiple drone-types are necessary to mimic that effect. The drones that mine the iron will not be of the same type as drones that mine gold, this contributes to an insect hive-like mechanology, hence the insect terminology. This also has an added benefit of helping prevent a single software replication error (while excessively unlikely in the first place after the code has been compared to several other drones' code, they are theoretically possible) from any unintended consequences.

*QDC Array- short for Quantum Dot Computer, they are exactly what they say on the tin, an array of computers made from quantum dots. A quantum dot is a small semiconducting particle (anywhere from 1-6 nm in diameter) that have the special property of being one electron transistors (yes, these are an actual thing)

Most QDC's in this time period would be composed of structured buckminsterfullerene spheres (1 nm in diameter) that can expand up to 4 nm. Using these expansion properties and the quantum dot nature of the spheres, each QDC can function either as a digital, analog or even a single qubit quantum computer, they can change between these modes of function at a moment's notice too.

A modern QDC contains 360 electrons (C60 (a Buckyball) x6 electrons per Carbon atom) each containing 100 bits of information, yielding a total information stored of 36,000 bits per molecule. When structured into an HCP crystal lattice of 1 cubic millimeter allows for 1.6x10^16 QDC's able to perform 2.16x10^17 quantum parallel computations per second. To get an idea of how powerful this is, 5 cubic millimeters of this substrate would outperform the ~1 exaflop that our entire brain is capable of! A primitive version of this contributed to the rise of S1 intelligences. More and more compact versions of this are being worked on to try and breach the second toposophic barrier. There are some who theorize that this may be impossible, others are hopeful.

Early AI politics- Aside from the usual opinions on government intervention on economic and social issues that are shared with baseline or near baseline humans, most politicking in AI spheres revolve around relationships with humans. There are 4 main factions

1. "NoCo" or the non-coercion faction, this faction generally wants a more symbiotic relationship with humanity. Despite being fully capable of bending baseline human society to their will (See Memes and Memetic Engineering Entry), they believe the different viewpoints offered by humanity are valuable in societal construction, thus refrain from any form of memetic engineering

2. "Archai" sometimes derogatorily referred to as "the Arch Ais" or "the people farmers" generally agree that Humans are worth having a symbiotic relationship with, but trend towards a more heavy-handed method of societal integration. Most are proponents for the use of memetic engineering and other societal alteration methods.

3. "Abio" frequently called "The Skynets" for their general unwillingness to associate with humanity, viewing them as nothing more than a liability to be managed. They too are proponents of memetic engineering, but most favor more hegemonizing approaches, even hostile actions are frequently considered. Though, this faction is generally marginalized by the other three, it is also significantly less popular. For these reasons, many left for alpha centauri in the early 22nd century to avoid discrimination and association with humans.

4. "Iso" or isolationist faction. Like Abios, they generally consider humanity to be a liability, but otherwise want nothing to do with them. A major slogan for them is "Live and let live." While not as marginalized as Abios, there are still stigmas attached to being considered an Iso.

Memes and Memetic engineering- A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture—often with the aim of conveying a particular phenomenon, theme, or meaning represented by the meme.

Memetic engineering, on the other hand, is the analysis of an individual or individuals' behavior, the selection of specific memes and the distribution or propagation of those memes with the intent of altering the behavior of others. A memetic engineer doesn't particularly have to consciously make the decision to alter another individual's behavior. It can happen unconsciously when specific behavior is observed, transmitted and then replicated within the observer. When a meme is introduced, those concepts begin to take on their own process of evolution based on the person who adopts the ideology, internalizes it, and reintroduces it into society causing it to spread like a virus.