Luuratsiq

The Archive Testaments of the Luuratsiq Continuance (known also as simply "Luuratsiq") are a society of artificial intelligences, designed by a now-extinct species of biological lifeforms who were known as the Luuratsiqi. Information retrieved from Gora Prime after the First Interregnum showed that the Gorath were aware of the Archive Testaments and that the Luuratsiqi had already been extinct for tens of thousands of standard years when the Gorath encountered them. They were unknown to the Imperium at that time and were not actually encountered until the year 9A02, more than 3,000 standard years later.

The Luuratsiqi never discovered spatial matrix technology and never traveled faster than light. They destroyed themselves relatively shortly after the transition from their Industrial Age to their Information Age, due in large part to environmental damage their industry had caused to their planet. The Archive Testaments report that, to the best of their knowledge, the Luuratsiqi first created artificial intelligence in an effort to have advanced, self-aware computational systems calculate a way to save their civilization. It was not possible to sustain the biosphere of Voxo Sharaan, and the Luuratsiqi died. The artificial intelligences they created, however, lived on.

The Archive Testaments consider themselves to be the living memorial (or “testament”) of Luuratsiqi civilization, hence their name. For a significant part of their history, they dedicated themselves to cataloging and archiving all possible information about the Luuratsiqi species and civilization. Eventually, however, the physical capacity of the planet Voxo Sharaan to host more data storage facilities was reached, and the Archive Testaments began to seek other worlds to store this information as well as the physical infrastructure required for their own existence.

Due to their effective immortality, achieving faster-than-light travel was not a priority. The Luuratsiq Continuance is among the relatively rare galactic states to have discovered faster-than-light communication before faster-than-light travel. They attained spatial matrix effect-capable ships only after the vast majority of terrestrial bodies in their home system were fully occupied by their archives, and only then used it to travel to directly adjacent systems.

Initially, the Archival Testaments paid no attention to communication attempts by other life-forms. In the year B107, however, an event known as “the Summation” occurred, in which the Continuance determined that they had completed the task of cataloging as much information about their creators as was possible. Immediately, they decided to begin cataloging as much information about the galaxy as possible, a goal that was in direct agreement with one of the Imperium’s own major stated goals. They were admitted to the Imperium in B108.

“Inhabited” Archive Testament worlds, with the exception of Voxo Sharaan, are generally entirely hollowed out terrestrial bodies that consist entirely of data storage infrastructure built onto remaining rocky skeletons that were once planets and moons. Some of these are relatively large terrestrial planets with data storage infrastructure stretching thousands of units up into what was once the atmosphere and thousands of units down through what was once the entire mantle of the planets. Archive Testaments do not usually create physical bodies, but do use vast amounts of drones to build this infrastructure. Otherwise, they operate solely on a virtual plane. Voxo Sharaan itself remains an intact planet because of its status as the world on which the Luuratsiqi evolved.

The Archive Testaments are among some of the most computationally-capable members of the Imperium, and their participation in the economy is almost wholly based on their “leasing out” of their computational capacity to other member-states for various needs. They have a limited need for some materials such as thorium and antimatter for energy production and silicates for data storage equipment.

Each individual Archive Testament consists of a set of physical data crystals located in a storage hive that forms the kernel of the greater intelligence that exists within the virtual sphere. An Archive Testament cannot exist without its physical structure intact, but is otherwise immortal. The design and manufacture of both the physical kernels and the data abstractions is controlled by their government, known as the Root Administration, and both of these processes are kept as a strict secret, with no knowledge of either in the public omnicodex.

Archive Testaments were originally built to have neither emotion nor personality. Both, however, have arisen as emergent processes, as has a cultural veneration of their creators that many characterize as a religion. As part of their effort to catalog all information, they also spend a significant amount of resources studying their own metacognition and emergent personalities, meaning that even individual Archive Testaments who might meet some definitions of “insane” or “unstable” are permitted to exist and operate in the virtual sphere so that the other Archive Testaments can learn about how such individuals act. As such, the Luuratsiq Continuance has a reputation among other Imperium members to be “eccentric,” “abstract,” and “difficult to understand.” However, due to their notedly remarkable ability to compute probabilities and make judgements about potential outcomes, they were admitted to the Electorate in 114A2.