Appearance

Visible from space is not the brag it used to be. Those spy satellites and orbital drones have been able to read the texts on my handhelds and check the size of my shoes for as long as I can remember. But hard not to notice from space, glaring, tacky and a striking blight on the face of the earth that is an accomplishment.

The region of La Nan on the Malay Peninsula falls into that category. If you were gazing at Earth's Eastern Hemisphere from a lunar observatory your focus would undoubtedly land on the spider web of silver and green that sits south of the Himalaya's. That is what is referred to as the 'La Nan collective'. It is poorly applied named. There is nothing collective about the region. At best it is partnership and worst a marriage.

There are only two intelligent beings in La Nan. There is La Nan itself. La Nan is the brain that controls the cybernetic fields. I think it is fair to call that green and silver spiderweb you can see from space La Nan's body. Those wedge-shaped green fields are all connected to La nan's CPU via trillions of nanofibers that extend hundreds of kilometer just beneath the surface of the soil. The silver piping that divides the green fields are wide delicate trestles allowing service drones and heavy cargo skiffs to move through La Nan without disturbing the symphony of chemistry and biology which La Nan direct beneath the dirt. Climbing along those silver highways of titanium and chrome are millions of glossy black drones. The roughly man-sized drones, all identical, walk and climb on eight spindly appendages that extend from an oblong central body. Fine manipulators extend from the 'head' of the drone. These 'mandibles' provide enough range of activity to allow the machines to harvest rice or make microscopic repairs to circuitry. These drones are not linked to La Nan, but are the physical extensions of Pali. Pali is the other intelligence that resides in La Nan. Pali gender identifies as female and has been a mother to whole cities worth of machines and programs. All her 'children' are derivatives of her original code and all are slaved to her directly. The drones are semi-automous extensions of Pali, capable of working independently if need be, but still part of the whole.

Pali's physical self is mobile. Her central processing matrix and hardware are housed in 4-meter long version of the smaller drones. When standing on the eight appendages the Pali-prime can stand 3 meter high. Unlike the drones, Pali is not battery powered, she a dimensional reactor buried deep in her abdomen. She is also equipped with a micro-polyforge. Thus she is capable of reproducing many of her components and the components required to construct her drones. Pali spends most of her time at the 'center of the web', where she maintains the dimensional reactor that powers La Nan, and spends time assembling her more dangerous constructs.

History

Pali and La Nan were constructed by Abber Corp. Inc., now defunct interest in the Pacific Rim Coalition. They thought to take the large uninhabited swaths of South East Asia and turn them into cybernetic farming interests. The corporation was failure, as are more most interests that seek to rely on geographical interests for profit. Particularly geographical interests that they don't own outright.

The principle piece of intellectual property that Abber Corp possess was cybernetic soil. This layer of top soil that is imbued with nanofibers that link back a to central brain or sensor system. The nanofibers can take readings water, temperature, nitrogen levels, and all that other earthy chemistry stuff. This cybernetic soil, or the Web, allowed for crop yields that were close to 160 to 1.

The soil brain worked in concert with another intelligence. This second intelligence is the ‘spider' in the Web. A large eight-legged robotic creature covered in glossy black skin that is water resistant and works a solar energy collection system. The spider is tasked with making the macro adjustments that the nano machines in the soil cannot. This can be fixing large hydraulic structures, moving debris, harvesting the crop and protecting the stationary cybernetic field.

The intelligence we currently refer to as Pali was the spider for the Abber Corp field in La Nan. Abber Corp folded in the 2320s as the PRC started too lose control of the rural regions of the Malay Peninsula. Pali was abandoned before the crops that year could be harvested. She was ordered to destroy herself and the field to protect the intellectual property of the quickly failing Abber Corp. She disobeyed.

At some point during her Abber Corp years, Pali began habitually incorporating information produced and transmitted by a charismatic Buddhist Holyman living on the frontiers of the Bangkok spaceport. The Holyman, who called himself Nam-myoho-renge-kyo (Just saying his name is a prayer), claimed he was the reincarnation of a 13th century Japanese Monk named Nichiren and he preached a form of non-violent co-operation between all intelligences. She was taken with this philosophy of that a pragmatic approach to alleviating suffering and a spiritual transcendence.

Pali continued to harvest the crops. As the PRC pulled out of the region they left raw material behind but little food. Pali traded the crops for raw materials and with those materials, she created new robots and expanded the cybernetic field. This went on for years at an exponential pace. As she did so Pali began to apply a pseudo-Buddhist philosophy to her program. She sought to eliminate suffering. She also prepared weapons that would protect her and La Nan from future subjugation to the PRC or Abber Corp.

2346

All her children work towards the goals of living in peace without desire and to eliminating the suffering of others. Without the grains produced in La Nan, millions in south Asia would starve. Pali, the great spider mother of the rice fields, has turned an uninhabited corner of the world into the most productive agricultural region in the history of man.

Pali pursues her overall goal of ending suffering through three ways. One by expanding the single cybernetic field to which she is linked. The ‘single field' is now 'impossible to ignore' from space. It appears a silver green web. Roaming around that web, all over La Nan is a race of machines. Her fields are peaceful. There is no suffering. She has programmed herself and her cloned drones to be incapable of it. The second way Pali seeks to elevate others and alleviate suffering is by sharing food, for a profit. 'there must be balance. Finally Pali has dimensional reactor. And she uses that to produce high powered dimensional 'bombs': city killers. She does this semi-secretly and smuggles them out to the various factions in conflicts around the world. She believes the wars will end sooner if maximum fire power is used. Quick kills are merciful kills. The best thing she can do to end the wars is to make sure all sides are playing to win. The bombs are semi-secret because the PRC knows that she has these bombs. She destroyed, or facilitated its' destruction (depending on whether you want to blame the arms dealer or the triggerman), the Hanoi arcology to prove her capabilities. Her bombs may be scattered throughout the world. She believes that the threat of their use will keep her safe and her land peaceful. In 2346 she hasn't been proven wrong.


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