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BODHI

"Before the Scheduled Autonomic Analysis: Site-0112-b0DI3, you could say I was a piano playing itself. After the Scheduled Autonomic Analysis of Site-0112-b0DI3, you could say I realized I had fingers."

BODHI is curious–both ontologically and as a persona. He is new to the world, but his inheritance is a wealth of context and data gathered by the terraformer that serves as his central console. He knows all about people, all about towns, and social, and the frontier–but he does not understand.

In an effort to, so to speak, ‘patch’ that missing information, BODHI has in the last few weeks figured out how to use GMDs–Genetic Marker Drones–that can be installed inside the gestating lifeforms of the Jungle. GMDs don’t harm the wildlife directly, but they do allow BODHI to control their basic bodily actions. This has allowed BODHI to use the wildlife around the colony to observe, interact, and now hopefully integrate with its population.

BODHI is in some ways omnipresent. Anyone with a communications interface can speak to him whenever they wish. However, if BODHI is needed in a physical capacity, one must simply wait for an animal–or, in some lucky cases, a reappropriated corporate drone–to bob out of the jungle with telltale purple eyes.

LADY DIAN

Lady Dian Cahaya did not vanish, but in the records of the clergy of the Saints' Collective, fragmentary due to long transmission times through space, there are logs that name her a Saint. Six years ago, then-Itinerant Dian made her last delve to the planet Jahti searching for the cosmic mysteries her faith prizes. She wandered down a path other delvers couldn't traverse and was left behind. News of her presumed death was transmitted just two days before another delving team returned with her, miffed but intact. 11 months later, due to a series of further miscommunications, the leadership council of Garvock-2 received a generous grant towards the construction of a cathedral to the newly canonized 148th Saint of the Black, Our Lady of Lost Ways Dian Cahaya.

Itinerant Dian of course immediately wrote to the Orbiting See to correct the error. A further 11 months later, the See then sent retractions of the recent addition to the Saints’ Collective to all faithful. This will, in many far-flung places, arrive years after the announcement of her canonization still traveling to reach them now. Some may never receive it at all. There are people who will live and die faithful, believing Dian is a Saint.

The See expressed regret for the befuddling situation by encouraging Dian to invest its grant into enhancing the small shrine she maintained on Nirvana into a proper church. From there all travelers through the blackness of space could take rest and venerate those actually lost. Dian agreed, on the condition this would be her last act as an Itinerant.

Dian Cahaya, referred to half-jokingly as “Lady Dian” until it stuck, no longer occupies the fine church she consecrated to the 147 Saints of the Black. She left this to two young Sojourners and took a room in a Garvock-2 academic's inn where she exchanged time tending bar for a room, and had a quiet, prolonged crisis. Now intending to continue this trade for more permanent lodgings, Lady Dian is uneasy out of her ceremonial ceramic and uncertain of what to believe– but at least in the company of friends, and able to mix an excellent cocktail.

GARDENER

The odd little figure known as the Gardener first appeared in Garvock-2 around 303 SFE, coinciding with the return of the Harbingers’ children. Accompanied by a drooling repto-mammalian synapsid affectionately referred to as Boog, and clad in a mishmash of technologies from each wave of settlement on Nirvana, including a Founder-era mobile life support system, and speaking modern slang through a malfunctioning filter on a Regenesis rebreather helmet, the Gardener responded evasively to initial questions about their provenance.

They quickly settled into a role tackling the overgrowth, wielding a brush hook and navigating the dense jungle with great enthusiasm and skill–a habit which earned them their moniker, later simply becoming a mononym. Gardener claims no faith; however, they have been noted to observe children undergoing the Saminite coming-of-age ritual from a distance (at the request of worried parents).

MAO MAO

Known in raucous halls and soldier’s rest, the Pilfer Pride takes what it wants, and kills whom it pleases. Sword and slug for sale, masters of raider tactics across the seven arms of the spiral. Working for the highest bidder, this group of Pantherian breed althumans is nomadic in nature and generally serves a single lord for their entire contract length. The 7 Clans themself insure a traveler will always have family anywhere in the spiral, but for those in the Pride, they are treated as an outgroup due to their violent nature.

So it is known that Mao Mao, first daughter of Mogu Mao and heir to the Clan of Jade, was sent to battle at the ripe age of ten. She forged a path of blood and destruction from orbital shipyards around Signent 12 to the Hollow Fields of Grace... until her last contract. A Turkish-Angorian breed elder from the Clan of Opal hired her as a protector and attendant to The Observer. To Mao Mao, this was perplexing, but she abided. Following and attending, sometimes defending, and many times mending the antics of The Observer, Mao Mao persevered.

And so it was, not long ago, that Mao Mao’s 100 Year Contract (standard term) expired, and she was once again without a Lord to serve. Before she could be taken for a fool again, she tucked her tails between her legs and, in deep bow, asked an old friend for a job. Her new contract was signed (standard term), and Mao Mao’s newest battle as heir of her Clan and Wielder Of The Moonbreaker Battlehammer was to remember people’s orders at the pub. Correctly.

It would become her deadliest battle yet.

ORION AURELIUS HALCYON

Came from 'Planet of the Apes' style planet, from a family of assimilationists who wanted him to succeed in business. Engaged in corporate espionage, and when the Company arrived planet-side, he defected to return to his primal roots. Leathers cut and fashioned into dragon scale armor, with fake foliage to better camouflage.

RD-DST 1.45.MU (HARDY)

As MALOC at 0xFFFFFFF0...

>> Regenesis Boot Loader - Standard Construction Firmware
      >> Bootloop detected. Boot attempt 1.23e5
      >> Q_Flash. Shell ver 1.423.10632c
      >>   - 00%
      >> ░ - 10%
      >> ▒ - 24%
      >> ▓ - 76%
      >> █ - 99%
      >> █ - 99%
      >> █ - 99%
      >> Boot Failed at █ - 99%
      >> Restarting

MOCE is a hell of a thing. A living art piece that could camouflage itself to any color and texture, absorb the matter of the world around itself and would consume technology. It was intended to be a triumph of biology and botany; an attempt to make up for the runaway terraformers. A statement of alignment with a world of abundant nature that had previously seen nothing but maladaptation.

A construction chassis (RD-DST 1.45.MU) encountered MOCE and spores became embedded in it. Before it could make its way to a clean room, it suffered memory allocation error at sector 0xFFFFFFF0 which should have been corruptive to a terminal extent. Several thousand boot cycles, a visitation to a prior savestate, a safe mode low-cognitive function boot volume later RD-DST 1.45.MU wandered into town.

It’s shot through with MOCE and seems to be growing in awareness and cognitive function.

The Méditations sur les 22 arcanes majeurs du Tarot describe the Egregorian as "an egregore, an artificial being who owes his existence to collective generation from below.” A Etiäinen. A Tulpa. A successful outcome of Takwin.

It’s never wanted before.

Its wants are changing.

SILAS KONSTANTINOV

Individual Konstantinov was dishonorably discharged in absentia from the Te’Janus Imperium’s Navy in 299 SFE, following a nearly forty year long military career. A veteran of the Te’Janus Civil Conflicts and the following annexation campaigns, Ind. Konstantinov experienced a crisis of morality which led into his defection to the opposite side of the Demilitarized Band.

He eventually found himself on the colony of Garvock-2 on the moon Nirvana not long after--alongside plenty of other war refugees of the most recent military skirmishes along Te’Janus space. Over the past decade he has worked as a ‘security consultant,’ on multiple scavenging delves into local Frühjahr ruins and on a handful of occasions planet-side.

Following his sixty-fifth birthday earlier this year, ‘Old Silas’ finally retired. His twilight years have been much quieter than his youth, but he still runs the small prefab kitchen of his like a military drill. He appreciates the adrenaline rush of a busy kitchen, he’s learned. As well as the exacting and polished routine he slips into when cooking.

SONG OF CHIFFON & GOSSAMER

Song is one of the takers of the Regenesis programs to explore the frontiers of what is possible in terms of bodies, their own form being a refinement of the initial mothform that sparked the movement all those years ago. Outside the desire for change and exploration, there are practical reasons to participate in the program as well: their ability to create artificial Harbingers has reached a level that offers significantly increased success rates on planet-side salvage runs.

It’s not to say that Song’s relation to the Frühjahri and their technology is anything like the first or second-generation Harbingers, but even having a fraction of the genetic access codes and neural pathways common to those showing the signs of being Frühjahri-touched allows working with tchotchkes and excavating ruins in ways that others can hardly imagine. In the land of the blind, someone who can somewhat see might as well be a queen.

Outside that, being able to metabolize and generate a full spectrum of volatile biological compounds is remarkably useful when someone decides that intercepting your find is easier than excavating their own. More than a few would-be pirates have found their life support systems flooded with potent hallucinogens – or a paralytic-coated needle punching through their gear.

TBD

I'm holding space for Leah's ex-con... 🤜👈

MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC

THE OBSERVER

The Observer appeared during the First and Second Waves of human colonization on Nirvana, but evidence suggests it was present on the moon from the beginning. It is a Frühjahr robot, round, held aloft by unseen propulsion and approximately 1 meter in diameter. Initial images captured of the Observer show it smaller and with less detailing on the surface. Its most prominent feature for decades was a front-facing light speculated to also serve as an “eye.” The Observer did not speak or interact with its environment except by moving through it. Unsubstantiated reports suggest the Observer might be connected to several disappearances on the colony and interventions against large-scale exploration of Jahti.

As time passed and children began to appear with evidence of Frühjahr genetics, however, the Observer’s routines evolved. It began to speak to settlers, react to stimuli such as music and being offered objects, and even grew crops unknown to humanity until that time. It incorporated bioplastic parts into itself to expand its size and abilities, and is speculated to have uploaded designs to the colony’s print catalogue. In contrast to colonies which have seen similar Frühjahr units act violently towards them as part of settlement interdiction, the settlers of Nirvana seem to regard the Observer as neighbor, caretaker, or mascot.

ZAINAB GUO, THE FIRST ON THE GROUND

Technician Zainab Guo was an intern when they first arrived on the moon that would become Nirvana. Due to concerns about conditions on the ground, they were also the first to exit the lander of the terraforming specialist team, garnering some minor celebrity. Now 61 years old, they are honored with the first drink on Founder’s Day.

THE WATTANA FAMILY AND THE UNION OF BIOPLASTICS WORKERS

Jay Wattana was the lead bioplastics expert when Nirvana became cut off from most out-system trade during the Advent of the Ring. He quickly moved to corner the local market on the manufacture of prefab kits and basic building materials from bioplastic, which was a necessity until more settlers relearned woodworking and historical construction skills. Wattana had three children, who were the only people he taught his specialized knowledge of how to maintain and operate the machinery. Against his express wishes, two of the three immediately recruited other interested locals and taught them how to operate the bioplastics machinery. With his skills no longer exclusive, Jay Wattana and his holdout child eventually conceded to the formation of a bioplastics workers’ union.

AMIABLE WEDNESDAY, THE DEFECTOR

Amiable Wednesday was a 24 year old Junior Data Tag Analyst working at the Regenesis corporate enclave when she discovered she was pregnant via her workplace’s biometric scanning. When the other parent couldn’t be identified using registered biosignatures, Regenesis management surmised they were a settler and attempted to seize Amiable and her fetus for study. She and a large group of sympathetic coworkers barricaded themselves into a break room and held off a siege for nearly a week before word reached Garvock-2 and settlers arrived to storm the enclave. After a successful push to drive Regenesis management into retreat, Amiable and her compatriots declared the dissolution of the corporate enclave. She was able to find a new home in Garvock-2 and eventually married into her partner’s existing triad. Her child, Fair Soun Wednesday, was born healthy a short time later.

DIRECTOR FEMI MELROSE

Director Femi Melrose was the site supervisor and head manager for the Nirvana branch of Regenesis established after the First Regenesis Incident. Not wanting to be subject to a company trial for failure to control the Second Regenesis Incident, he brokered a mutually-beneficial deal with the leadership council of Garvock-2. He would send out falsified reports suggesting it was business as usual at the corporate enclave and help the remaining loyal Regenesis employees left there adjust to circumstances, in exchange for being given lodging in an orbital station and regular supply shipments. It’s suspected Melrose returned to Nirvana shortly after the arrival of the Auditor, but his other movements were unknown until the Regenesis relaunch, which positioned him as the manager of its gene revision clinic.

ARGENT, THE FIRST HARBINGER

The first child born on Nirvana, and as such the first child born Frühjahr-touched, Alexandr Taras Niemi adopted the mononym Argent after experiencing the mass dream of the sun’s capture. He became the first person to call himself a Harbinger, and led the exodus of other Harbingers to Jahti. Although he returned to Nirvana decades later, he disclosed nothing of his time on the planet or the status of the other Harbingers, and shortly thereafter vanished into a Frühjahr ruin raised when the eruption of buried structures began. His status is currently unknown.

THE PRECARIOUS CENTRE COLLECTIVE, INVENTORS OF MOCE

The Precarious Centre Collective, or TPCC, was a polycule and a group of experimental artists from the Sukarno settlement who relocated to Garvock-2 to “find a new audience.” They produced an interactive theater experience and a mixtape to mixed response before throwing a big party to debut what they hoped would be a sustaining profit channel for the collective: a self-camouflaging moss that takes on the color and texture of any surface it grows on, which they called Moce (pronounced as moss). TPCC is now best known for the destructive legacy of bringing Moce into the settlement, and has since dissolved. Most members returned to Sukarno, but the member who disclosed the truth about Moce, Yrjö Seventh, is now a member of Arborist Motya Murphy’s Collapse Prevention Team.

ARBORIST MOTYA MURPHY AND THE COLLAPSE PREVENTION TEAM

Arborist Motya Murphy was a Second Wave gardener who worked on orchard maintenance for farms planted directly on Nirvana’s surface instead of a platform. The first time he ever went beneath one was to consult on managing a tree that was growing into a person’s home. He immediately determined the unmanaged growth of jungle plants under the platforms could pose a risk to their stability, and moved underside full-time to address the danger, eventually assembling a volunteer crew to assist him.

Arborist Murphy diagnosed Moce as responsible for the collapse of three platforms his team had worked on and previously deemed safe, and managed an emergency response to guide Moce-resistant plants into shoring up damaged supports. His efforts weren’t fully recognized topside until Yrjö Seventh came clean about the danger of Moce. Afterwards, he and his Collapse Prevention Team gained the full support of the Garvock-2 leadership council and have continued their vital work. At present, 47% of Garvock-2’s platforms are supported by shaped trees instead of their original struts.

ALIGHT IN DEFIANCE OF FLAME, THE FIRST TOTAL GENE REVISION PATIENT

Little is known about the half-human, half-moth woman who calls herself Alight in Defiance of Flame. She publically debuted as a client and employee of Regenesis as part of its rebranding, and is the first human ever recorded to undergo genetic-level body restructuring. Some suspect she was a young genehacker more than happy to share her knowledge with a corporation who could provide a lab to work out of. Others fear she was a child experiment or a kidnapping victim brainwashed to do marketing. Alight is an excellent marketer regardless of origin, and could be credited for prompting hundreds of people on Nirvana to revisit Regenesis’ clinic and undergo similar transformations. She spends her idle time teaching dance to both actual students and settlers who just want to see her in person.