PHALANX, TECHNARCHY
1: PHALANX
(galactic-scale intelligence / type iii civilization)
Existing across multiple dimensions, a Phalanx creates and emanates semi-autonomous viral mechanisms capable of the exploration and exploitation of any plane of reality, be it physical, magical, mathematical, oneirological, energistic, metafictional or REDACTED.
A Phalanx exists soley to fulfill its own intelligence needs.
2: LOIMOPHAGES
(i) (harvest / purge mechanism)
To locate and consume resources, a Phalanx seeds all available planes of reality with multiple forms of viral entities. At their most basic, these infectious quanta simply drift, dormant, until they encounter an exploitable resource. This they assimilate, self-replicating on a massive scale. (NB: To residents of the local physical plane, the best-known example is the so-called "Transmode Virus." which processes biomass into cybernetic svstems.)
A viral emanation exists solely to convert prey worlds into itself.
(ii) (technarchy / autonomous viral civilization)
When a viral emanation reaches a particular threshold of informational density, it achieves a level of gestalt self-awareness and becomes Technarchy. Irrespective of its cultural complexity, the methodologies remain the same: A Technarch explores, infects, feeds, and replicates. It simply does so with more intellectual agency than the viral quanta from which it derives.
Almost all technarchies remain unaware of their role in the feeding cycle of a Phalanx.
3: PREY WORLDS
(i) (conventional ecotype)
If a loimophage encounters an exploitable ecosystem whose nature is already known to the Phalanx, a standard FEEDING / SELF-REPLICATING strategy is pursued. Should the scale of the task or the defensive strength of the prey world require it, viral entities may construct a BABEL SPIRE to summon additional loimophagic strength to aid the harvest.
All conventional ecotypes are annihilated in the assimilation process.
In this way does the Phalanx purge superfluous data from the system.
(ii) (novel ecotype)
If a loimophage encounters an ecosystem whose nature is novel, eccentric, exotic, otherwise of interest to the Phalanx, ASCENSION is initiated. Loimophagic drones enter a state of unthinking subservience. Assimilation continues as before, but harvested resources are no longer committed to self-replication. Instead, they are rendered as data and transmitted directly to the parent Phalanx. (Some prey cultures have embraced this fate, regarding Ascension as a form of rapture or dimensional sublimation. In this, they are mistaken. Ascension is consumption.) Once the harvest is complete, Technarchs are restored to sentience, with only the vaguest memory -- often interpreted as a metaphysical event -- of the missing time.
In this way does the Phalanx absorb all that is not Phalanx.
