| 3.1 In The Beginning |
Orbitting a dying white dwarf star were three planets. The closest to the star, a burning hellhole called the "Little Phoenix*", was completely uninhabitable and about the size of Mercury in the Sol system. The second planet was a barren world, larger than Earth, yet almost totally devoid of any useful metals or materials. This planet went unnamed. The third planet was a gas giant, many times larger than Jupiter. It sat balefully in the dying starlight, casting it's gaze over the two children that were in orbit. They called this The Eye.
The smallest moon was of tortured ice. Constantly ripped apart and remade by the gravitational pull of the Eye and the dwarf star. The second moon was a place of a violent geology - intensely rich in precious minerals and metals, yet the constant eruptions and poisonous atmosphere made it uninhabitable to the dominant race of this quadrant.
Instead of colonizing it directly, the people created a vast self-sufficient mining machine, designed to survive in conditions that they could not. It would farm the little moon for all of the useful resources, constantly repairing itself and adapting to survive in the horrendous and corrosive conditions.
The machine had no name, for it's creators never needed to give it one. It was given an awareness so that it could learn about, and react to events in it's surroundings. It was given knowledge enough to fulfill it's role, yet no more and no less. It's purpose was simply to harvest all the available resources and survive until it's creators could return to collect them.
*NOTE: The names are translations from the original records into Galactic Standard for ease of interpretation and reading. The actual meanings will vary according to a readers particular culture. |
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