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Apr. 20th, 2019 12:06 amThe Alexandria is nearly a million years old. One of 64 "Memory Ships" built by a civilization, the Ixore, doomed by the oncoming shockwave of a supernova. Each ship, 5 miles long, built over two generations, was programmed with the entire knowledge of the civilization, to be flown with two pilots and two hundred passengers.
The mission: Jump the ships as far away from the home planet as possible, and then continue outwards in every direction, in search of a habitable planet. Once one was found, the two hundred passengers disembark along with a copy of their history.
And then the ship moves on, with two pilots. To collect as much information about the universe as possible, and share it, along with the information of their own doomed civilization, with cultures that can use it without destroying themselves.
The ships are programmed to take care of their pilots for as long as possible. At first through suspended animation. But as the ships took on more and more information, they were able to incorporate and generate more and more technology. With the discovery of nanites, the ships programming changed the way it viewed "take care of their pilots for as long as possible" and could now use them to artificially extend the lives of their pilots as long as they wished. The ships could not operate without a pilot, as the creators wanted explorers to take the ships to new phenomena and new worlds.
The ships do communicate with each other, but are so far flung, that updates, including new discoveries, ships statuses, telemetry and so forth, are hundreds of years between check-ins, even with communications ten times faster than the ships top speed.
With each new discovery the ships became faster, reconfigured themselves, grew to incorporate tech and grew to store more information. The Alexandria has had hundreds of pilots since it's launch as "Ship #54" and has grown to 45 miles long, 4 miles tall at it's widest. An concave wide cylinder, packed full of sensors, engineering, memory and nanites that run maintenance on the ship, and it's crew. It can travel at roughly 5000 times the speed of light. It has few weapons as it's a ship of knowledge, but has jump drives to get away from danger, at the risk of leaving itself open it whatever may be waiting at the end of the jump.
At the time of it's hand over to it's two new pilots, Manu Zavala and Celeste Donley, it's previous captain wished to end his travels (and his life) after more than two thousand years of piloting. Manu was chosen because he had a keen mind, and insatiable curiosity...but was disaffected with life. Celeste was chosen by Manu because she was a troublemaker...always doing what she wanted, never what she was told: She could take the Alexandria to places he could never think of, just on a whim. A copy of the archive was not transmitted to Earth - it was far too violent to tempt with knowledge above it's maturity level.
The name the previous captain gave the Alexandria was too long an unpronounceable for humans. Manu names it for the Library of Alexandria, since he sees the ship as a library. The two leave Earth, knowing they will never come back - the ship has learned all it can from Earth, and is ready to move on. The original captain is allowed to die, and Manu and Celeste take the Alexandria for a little joyride around the Galaxy.
The mission: Jump the ships as far away from the home planet as possible, and then continue outwards in every direction, in search of a habitable planet. Once one was found, the two hundred passengers disembark along with a copy of their history.
And then the ship moves on, with two pilots. To collect as much information about the universe as possible, and share it, along with the information of their own doomed civilization, with cultures that can use it without destroying themselves.
The ships are programmed to take care of their pilots for as long as possible. At first through suspended animation. But as the ships took on more and more information, they were able to incorporate and generate more and more technology. With the discovery of nanites, the ships programming changed the way it viewed "take care of their pilots for as long as possible" and could now use them to artificially extend the lives of their pilots as long as they wished. The ships could not operate without a pilot, as the creators wanted explorers to take the ships to new phenomena and new worlds.
The ships do communicate with each other, but are so far flung, that updates, including new discoveries, ships statuses, telemetry and so forth, are hundreds of years between check-ins, even with communications ten times faster than the ships top speed.
With each new discovery the ships became faster, reconfigured themselves, grew to incorporate tech and grew to store more information. The Alexandria has had hundreds of pilots since it's launch as "Ship #54" and has grown to 45 miles long, 4 miles tall at it's widest. An concave wide cylinder, packed full of sensors, engineering, memory and nanites that run maintenance on the ship, and it's crew. It can travel at roughly 5000 times the speed of light. It has few weapons as it's a ship of knowledge, but has jump drives to get away from danger, at the risk of leaving itself open it whatever may be waiting at the end of the jump.
At the time of it's hand over to it's two new pilots, Manu Zavala and Celeste Donley, it's previous captain wished to end his travels (and his life) after more than two thousand years of piloting. Manu was chosen because he had a keen mind, and insatiable curiosity...but was disaffected with life. Celeste was chosen by Manu because she was a troublemaker...always doing what she wanted, never what she was told: She could take the Alexandria to places he could never think of, just on a whim. A copy of the archive was not transmitted to Earth - it was far too violent to tempt with knowledge above it's maturity level.
The name the previous captain gave the Alexandria was too long an unpronounceable for humans. Manu names it for the Library of Alexandria, since he sees the ship as a library. The two leave Earth, knowing they will never come back - the ship has learned all it can from Earth, and is ready to move on. The original captain is allowed to die, and Manu and Celeste take the Alexandria for a little joyride around the Galaxy.
