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Welcome the Chorus
May. 10th, 2023 10:52 pmThis is some world-building for my planned National Novel Writing Month project and something I hope to publish eventually.
In the very near future, Earth will be conquered by aliens. They are very friendly and polite about it, and after about a day of futility trying to attack the orbiting ships, most of the world gives up. The fleet explains they represent the Chorus (that is how it is translated into most languages), a mixing bowl of thousands of civilizations and races that spread across much of this arm of the galaxy.
The Chorus is run by entities known mainly as the Directors. It is scarce to see one, as they tend to stay in their massive deep space cities and send directives out through messages and couriers. Those who have seen a Director describe them as "space jellyfish" or "electric starfish." No two Directors are the same.
Almost all technology in the Chorus is biotech. This is a hard rule from the Directors. A small amount of "good tech" is allowed, things that can't be done with biotech, like the Stutterwarp drive and most power plants for the drives, but everything else is based on living pieces of technology. Even the ships of the Chorus are living things, most with the intelligence of a housecat.
When humans asked why the Chorus existed and why so many species have put up with it for tens of thousands of years, the simple answer was "peace." The Chorus enforces peace and encourages trade and cultural exchanges between its subject worlds. To that end, the Chorus created the Trade Languages. There are 2,538 of them currently in use. Humans can speak, whistle, dance, or sign about forty.
For nearly every citizen of the Chorus, life under the Directors has become a near paradise. The biotech gifted by the Protectors lifts every member species to near post-scarcity levels, worlds are free to rule themselves as they wish, travel is almost free as most of the Chorus operates on a gift/barter economy, and advances in medicine means even a human can live a healthy 200 to 300 years if they want.
But there is a catch. The Directors are always eager to find aggressive races, species that excel at war, and seem to keep fighting them even as the stakes rise. We fit that bill, and the price for our being allowed the full benefits of the Chorus was simple. We provide a billion or so troops for an endless war the Chorus has been fighting against a foe described only as the "Machine Intelligence."
This is where the novel starts. My characters are soldiers in the war, biotech versus nanotech. The longest-serving, my protagonist, has been fighting for over twenty years. They've been told the war in this sector is over, and they are released from service. Find your own way home. Oh, and this orbital habitat will be destroyed in ten days. Good luck!
In the very near future, Earth will be conquered by aliens. They are very friendly and polite about it, and after about a day of futility trying to attack the orbiting ships, most of the world gives up. The fleet explains they represent the Chorus (that is how it is translated into most languages), a mixing bowl of thousands of civilizations and races that spread across much of this arm of the galaxy.
The Chorus is run by entities known mainly as the Directors. It is scarce to see one, as they tend to stay in their massive deep space cities and send directives out through messages and couriers. Those who have seen a Director describe them as "space jellyfish" or "electric starfish." No two Directors are the same.
Almost all technology in the Chorus is biotech. This is a hard rule from the Directors. A small amount of "good tech" is allowed, things that can't be done with biotech, like the Stutterwarp drive and most power plants for the drives, but everything else is based on living pieces of technology. Even the ships of the Chorus are living things, most with the intelligence of a housecat.
When humans asked why the Chorus existed and why so many species have put up with it for tens of thousands of years, the simple answer was "peace." The Chorus enforces peace and encourages trade and cultural exchanges between its subject worlds. To that end, the Chorus created the Trade Languages. There are 2,538 of them currently in use. Humans can speak, whistle, dance, or sign about forty.
For nearly every citizen of the Chorus, life under the Directors has become a near paradise. The biotech gifted by the Protectors lifts every member species to near post-scarcity levels, worlds are free to rule themselves as they wish, travel is almost free as most of the Chorus operates on a gift/barter economy, and advances in medicine means even a human can live a healthy 200 to 300 years if they want.
But there is a catch. The Directors are always eager to find aggressive races, species that excel at war, and seem to keep fighting them even as the stakes rise. We fit that bill, and the price for our being allowed the full benefits of the Chorus was simple. We provide a billion or so troops for an endless war the Chorus has been fighting against a foe described only as the "Machine Intelligence."
This is where the novel starts. My characters are soldiers in the war, biotech versus nanotech. The longest-serving, my protagonist, has been fighting for over twenty years. They've been told the war in this sector is over, and they are released from service. Find your own way home. Oh, and this orbital habitat will be destroyed in ten days. Good luck!
