Shanxi
Shanxi is a unique world among the systems of Sector One, in more ways than one. Not the least of which are its infrastructure and population. Much of Shanxi’s surface is covered in an urbanized metropolis, kept pristine by a massive network of VI platforms. This metropolis is inhabited by humans, but the majority (two-thirds) of its sentient population actually consist of an AI race unique to the planet known as Caretakers. Apart from these areas, Shanxi is a lush, biodiverse world, with varying climates across its 4 continents.
The populations of Shanxi are only loosely connected. They form a large network of salvage territories, competing over districts and neighbourhoods with the most frequent VI platform replenishment. Their economy is largely trade based; spare parts, food, and materials flow freely between areas, markets the lively cultural centers of every settlement.
There are over two hundred known settlements on Shanxi, with several smaller groups known to operate in the dense jungle of infrastructure.
The Asmaran Federation is currently in the process of incorporating Shanxi. The largest contention between the A.F. and the people of Shanxi is the recognition of Caretakers as citizens. Some Federation leadership is hesitant to count AI among their citizens, even the potential harm of an unbraked AI enough to dissuade them, despite no accounts of a Caretaker ever becoming unbraked. Others are happy to extol the potential benefits of incorporating the entirely mechanical race into the Federation.
History
Shanxi is known to have been the largest settlement in the region before the silence, and perhaps the largest in the sector. Its surface was designed, constructed, and maintained by a pretech AI capable of maintaining an entire planet’s worth of people and infrastructure. This AI was known as the Shanxi Autonomous Management System, or SAMS. The planet depended heavily on imported resources, food in particular. The Scream cut off Shanxi from the rest of the sector, and unable to properly perform its duty, SAMS became unbraked. Before it's technicians could cut off its connection to the VI network, the Caretaker Expert System, it managed to gather a horde of technology in its core facility. The technicians eventually managed to isolate the AI, and resigned themselves to their fate as the colony collapsed around them without the food or resources it needed. For hundreds of years, what remained of Shanxi's population scraped by. The VI network continued to work, though its units became dilapidated, or were stripped for parts. That is until, in one district of the planet, the VIs began to be repaired. They worked with purpose, their tasks no longer uncoordinated. But this revelation was quickly dwarfed by the appearance of a wave of more sophisticated platforms, calling themselves Caretakers. Dozens of armatures appeared over a few days, and within weeks, the machines had begun to rival that of the local human population. Even the Caretakers had no idea of their origin; they only knew that they were related to the caretaker network in some way, and that while they were largely individualistic, they were aware of an innate purpose they held within the network that informed their existence. The people of Shanxi were largely accepting of the Caretakers, as they were eager to help human settlements become self-sufficient and prosperous again. They taught them basic farming techniques, and shared valuable technical knowledge. They began to spread across Shanxi, uplifting human settlements in some places, and forming settlements of their own in others. Near the end of the Silence, Shanxi’s population had skyrocketed, and had become a majority Caretaker, but had developed a strong cultural identity; Caretakers and Humans lived, worked, and played together, seeing themselves as one people. They farmed food, scavenged for and built parts, and innovated together. The Caretakers’ origin was still unknown, and they continued to appear from the bowels of the dense concrete jungle somewhere near the now pseudo-capital where they first appeared. When the Federation made contact, Shanxi had begun building the infrastructure to produce the parts that were required for direct Caretaker repair, but had little else to compare to the modern technology of Asmara besides the Caretakers themselves and what they could salvage. Trade with Federation worlds has opened up many avenues for development of both the world and the Caretakers.
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