Post-Scarcity Technology

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NoXion
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Post-Scarcity Technology

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Post-Scarcity Technology

The means of abundance


Autofabricators

A general name for a wide variety of semi-sentient macroscale bots that can produce manufactured goods, from submicrotech to starships, and build structures from powerlines to megastructures, as well as building copies of themselves. Autofabs can range in size from insect-sized bots to enormous automated factory starships. An Autofab can take in any baryonic matter into the Baryon Furnace in their interior and turn it into almost any material. The Baryon Furnace also has a secondary function as a powerful energy weapon. Autofabs also carry matter-energy conversion plants to power themselves and the manufacturing process. Autofabs include broadband transciever equipment in order to download new construction templates, upload new and improved templates, and to coordinate with other Autofabs.


Spores, Seeds and Eggs

A Spore is a microtech or submicrotech device that is very small (usually invisible to the unaided human baseline eye), but is capable of "growing" into a full-scale technological entity, such as an Autofabricator, bot, vehicle or even a small starship. Spores are usually deployed in the billions or more over a wide area. For large structures, multiple spores coordinate to "bootstrap" the construction process by building an Autofabricator slightly larger than the original spore, which is then used to build ever larger Autofabs and/or aid with the construction process. A disadvantage of Spores is that they take quite a while to build anything bigger than a large insect compared to macroscale Autofabs. The advantages include wide and easy dispersion and a huge amount of redundancy (half of a billion is still a large number!).

A Seed is typically 1-10mm in diameter, and can either grow into a larger technological device in the manner of a Spore, or is itself the carrier of Spores. Seeds are usually equipped with miniature solar sails or tiny ion engines to enable them to move in space, and have "cobweb" parachutes in order to gently descend through an atmosphere or be carried by winds. Once on the ground, a Seeds either disperses its cargo of Spores into the air and soil/regolith, or "roots" itself and commences growth.

Eggs tend to be 20mm or larger, and do not usually exceed a metre in length. Whereas a Seed brakes itself in order not to be destroyed by atmospheric friction, an Egg has a tough outer shell that can withstand intense temperatures and pressures. Eggs also have an array of small but powerful reaction thrusters (typically Compressed Matter drives but others are used) that can propel them through space and soften landing impacts. Smaller Eggs generally have a mixed cargo of Spores and Seeds, but larger Eggs can carry multiple Autofabricators of varying sizes in addition.


Factory Worlds

Factory Worlds are the end result of a process of rapid industrialisation using the previously listed technologies. Massive swarms of Autofabricators, Eggs, Seeds and Spores come to a planetary or stellar system, whereupon some of the system's mass is converted into factories. These factories can take a wide variety of forms, depending on how much of the target system's mass is converted into factories versus the amount of mass left over to form the raw materials for said factories. While a small factory cannot produce as much, a larger factory has less material in-system to work with, and the very largest ones need material to be shipped in from elsewhere. The following factory types are what are commonly built:

Factory Rock - An asteroid is used as the basis for a factory. Usually the asteroid is hollowed out and the factory placed within, but smaller operations simply stud the outer surface with fabrication units.

Factory Moon - A moon of a planet is devoted to manufacturing. This can either be the moon of a terrestrial planet or a gas giant. The moon's surface is covered in manufacturing space, with multiple space lifts encircling the equator providing low-energy transmission of goods and materials. Sometimes the mass of the moon is also used to produce goods, resulting in manufacturing areas slowly growing down towards the core.

Factory Planet - A terrestrial planet, usually one not suited for habitation or terraforming, where the majority of the crust has been converted to manufacturing. Like with the Factory Moon, in-situ resource utilisation can result in the volume of the planet gradually being transformed, until the entire planet is all factory and raw materials have to be shipped in via the space lifts.

Jovian Industrial Zone - When a gas giant is used as a factory and source of materials, the manufactories are constructed on the surface and inside of the core of rock and ice within - some of the core material is used to build the factories, while the mantle of liquid metallic hydrogen is used as a source of raw materials. Manufactured items are sent up space lifts which connect the surface of the gas giant's core with space. As the layer of metallic hydrogen is used up, the gas giant's gravity decreases and the gaseous layers thicken. Specialised transatmospheric craft constantly scoop up the envelope of gas before it can escape into space, and take it to holding tanks where it further processed, usually to be used as fuel for nuclear fusion reactors.

Orbital Factory - Multiple planetary masses are converted into one big factory which orbits the parent star. When constructed, it uses up any leftover material and commences either lifting raw material from it's primary, or it manufactures goods with raw materials that have been shipped in. This type of factory is particularly common around massive stars, which can provide centuries to millennia of raw material dependant on the rate of manufacture and the original mass of the star.

Factory Swarm - A Megaswarm that is entirely devoted to manufacturing. Unlike the Orbital Factory, the primary star is used as a source of energy rather than material. This is one of the most common of the megastructure-sized factories.

Shipyard - A Megacage where starships are constructed. Almost all non-replicating ships are built in such places. As well as construction and materials recieving struts parallel to the star's surface, vast numbers of massive docking and transfer struts radiate out into space.

Factory Disk - These are disks encircling a star, commonly used to manufacture enormous quantities of exotic matter with the multitudinous array of particle accelerators within the disk's volume.

Factory Shell - Megashells with the interior surface lined with solar collection panels, while the interior thickness of the shell is where the manufacturing space is located. The exterior surface has materials reception areas as well as more manufacturing space. Some variants have multiple shells within each other, all but the outermost of them with holes to enable transmission of goods and materials.

Sphere of Plenty - Posesses the same proportions as a Factory Shell, but is solid all the way down to just above the surface of the star. While a truly massive initial outlay of materials is needed in order to build such a megastructure, once it is completed it can produce an unbelievable amount of goods, provided of course that enough raw materials are shipped in.


Minifabs

Small, immobile Autofabricators that are commonly found in homes, onboard starships and in public areas for the convenience of passers-by. They gather power from the local energy grid and have a supply of material piped to them to be converted as required. Even smaller units the size of a cigar case or matchbox, known as Pocketfabs, are also available.
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