;
; Sid Meier's ALPHA CENTAURI
;
; Background Story & Character Quotations
;
; Copyright (c) 1997, 1998 by Firaxis Games, Inc.
;

##Opening Quotation
#OPENING
Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden.
He drove out the man- and he placed at the east of the garden
of Eden Cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to
keep the way of the tree of life.
^
^        -- The Conclave Bible,
^           Datalinks


##Social Controls
#TECH0
Things do change. The only question is that since things are 
deteriorating so quickly, will society and man's habits change 
quickly enough?
^
^        -- Isaac Asimov
^           

##Information Networks
#TECH1
I do not fear computers. I fear lack of them. 
^
^        -- Isaac Asimov
^         

##Arboreal Beginnings
#TECH2
"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." 
^
^
"How many mouths Nature has to fill, how many neighbors we have, 
how little we know about them and how seldom we get in each 
other's way!" 
^
^        -- John Muir
^           

##Industrial Structures
#TECH3
The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing 
that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot 
possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible 
to get at or repair.
^
^        -- Douglas Adams, 
^           "Mostly Harmless"

##The Wheel
#TECH4
Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than
dolphins because he had achieved so much... the wheel, New York,
wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck
about in the water having a good time. But conversely the
dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for
precisely the same reasons.
^
^        -- Douglas Adams,
^           "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy"
^

##Psionics
#TECH5
There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of 
improving, and that's your own self. So you have to begin there, 
not outside, not on other people. That comes afterwards, when 
you have worked on your own corner.
^
^        -- Aldous Huxley
^           

##Applied Physics
#TECH6
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
^
^        -- Arthur C. Clarke
^          

##Aldebaran Environments
#TECH7
Maybe this world is another planet's Hell.
^
^        -- Aldous Huxley
^           

##Tacit Controls
#TECH8
I think that technologies are morally neutral until we apply them. 
It's only when we use them for good or for evil that they become 
good or evil. 

^        
^        -- William Gibson        
^           

##Field Sciences
#TECH9
We see only what we know. 
^
^        -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
^          

##Sentient Algorithms
#TECH10
I propose to consider the question, "Can machines think?" 
^
^        -- Alan Turing
^          

##Gastric Frontiers
#TECH11
The whole principle is wrong- it's like demanding that grown men 
live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.
^
^        -- Robert A. Heinlein
^
     
##Commercial Applications
#TECH12
The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.
^
^        -- Albert Einstein
^           

##The Chironator
#TECH13
An inventor is a person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, 
levers and springs, and believes it civilization. 
^
^        -- Ambrose Pierce
^           

##Human Ecology
#TECH14
Let us face ourselves bravely as we are. For only a philosophy that 
recognizes reality can lead us into true happiness, and only that 
kind of philosophy is sound and healthy. 
^
^        -- Lin Yutang
^           

##Field Manipulations
#TECH15
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, even the 
most improbable, must be the truth.
^
^        -- Sherlock Holmes,
^           a fictional character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

##Robotics
#TECH16
Robot = Derived from the Czhech word "robota", referring to 
"forced labour".
^
        
##Practical Genetics
#TECH17
Democracy can be interpreted to assert not only equality before the
law but also essentialistic identity in all respects. This is
expressed in the claim, 'All men are created equal', which is 
something very different from the statement, 'All men have equal 
rights and are equal before the law.' Anyone who believes in the 
genetic uniqueness of every individual thereby believes in the
conclusion, 'No two individuals are created equal.'
^
^        -- Ernst Mayr
^

##Subplanet Structures
#TECH18
People ask me, "what is the best way to escape the atmosphere of this 
planet?" I say, let us go under the ground. Geothermic energy, veins of precious minerals and edible algae wait us there, ripe for harvesting.
^
^        -- Pacifist Sarita Nehred,
^           "The 18th Conference"

##Cascading Networks
#TECH19
A computer terminal is not some clunky old television with a typewriter 
in front of it. It is an interface where the mind and body can connect 
with the universe and move bits of it about.
^
^        -- Douglas Adams,
^           "Mostly Harmless"

##Mental Harmonics
#TECH20
Brainpower is the scarcest commodity and the only one of real value. 
^
^        -- Robert A. Heinlein
^           

##Projectiles In Practice
#TECH21
Crash programs fail because they are based on theory that, with nine 
women pregnant, you can get a baby in a month. 
^
^        -- Werner von Braun
^       

##The Seeker Disturbance
#TECH22
If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
^
^        -- Sir Isaac Newton
^           

##Illicit Controls
#TECH23
To complain of lack of leadership is, in the field of political affairs, 
the characteristic attitude of all harbingers of dictatorship. 
^
^        -- Ludwig won Mises
^           

##Chirons Legacy
#TECH24
The monuments of nature survive the monuments of power. 
^
^        -- Sir Francis Bacon
^          

##Weak Fields
#TECH25
Nearly every great advance in science arises from a crises in the 
old theory, through an endeavor to find a way out of the 
difficulties created. We must examine old ideas, old theories, 
although they belong to the past, for this is the only way to 
understand the importance of the new ones and the extent 
of their validity. 
^
^        -- Albert Einstein
^

##Transcendent Practices
#TECH26
Now comes the point, the kind of world view the will to control can
generate. An episemology that aims relentlessly at control rules out 
theposibility of transcendence in principle. By transcendence I mean 
something superior to us by every measure of value we know and some 
that elude us. To expect a transcendental object to appear on a 
viewing screen wired by an epistemology that is set for control would 
be tantamount to expecting color to appear on a television screen that 
was built for black and white. We can "put nature to the rack" as Bacon advised, because it is our inferior- possessing (in the parts we can 
get at, at least) neither mind nor freedom, these parts can be pushed 
around. But if things superior to us exist-extraterrestrial 
intelligences superior to our own? angels? God?- these are not
going to fit into our controlled experiments. It is they who dance 
circles around us, not we them.
^
^        -- Huston Smith,
^           Beyond the Post-modern era
^

##The Planet Pill
#TECH27
Nature acts without masters. 
^
^        -- Hippocrates
^           

##Planetfriend
#TECH28
With our technologies--ones of incalcuable power: earth-restoring, 
planet preserving--we can rediscover an intimacy, a mutuality with
the natural world, that is not primitive (though based in part on 
fear), but knowing. It might even be possible to relearn a life of 
awe. And inhabit the landscape without violation. With the least 
violation." 
^
^        -- Janet Kauffman
^           

##The People Pill
#TECH29
Population growth is the primary source of environmental damage.
^
^        -- Jaqcues Costeau
^           

##Robotic Autonomy
#TECH30
^First Law: 
^A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a 
human being to come to harm. 
^
^Second Law: 
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such 
orders would conflict with the First Law. 
^
^Third Law: 
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does 
not conflict with the First or Second Law.
^
^        -- The Laws of Robotics,
^           from "Runaround" by Isaac Asimov
^

##The Hunter Disturbance
#TECH31
Numbers written on restaurant bills within the confines of restaurants 
do not follow the same mathematical laws as numbers written on any other 
pieces of paper in any other parts of the Universe. 
^
^        -- Douglas Adams,
^           "Restaurant at the End of the Universe"

##Command Structures
#TECH32
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensible.
^
^       -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
^          

##Planetweapons
#TECH33
You can't say civilization isn't advancing: in every war, they kill you 
in a new way.
^
^         -- Will Rogers
^            

##Silksteels
#TECH34
Liberty is the great parent of science and of virtue- and a nation 
will be great in both in proportion as it is free. 
^
^        -- Thomas Jefferson
^           

##Pseudopsionics
#TECH35
The most important weapon is our mind. If our mind submits, 
the body is worthless.
^
^        -- Col. Awen Llawella
^           "We Will Not Comply"

##Matter Transmission
#TECH36
^"I teleported home one night
^With Ron and Sid and Meg.
^Ron stole Meggie's heart away
^And I got Sidney's leg."
^
^        -- Douglas Adams,
^           "Restaurant at the End of the Universe"
^

##The Bernouli Principle
#TECH37
All it takes to fly is to hurl yourself at the ground... and miss.
^
^        -- Douglas Adams
^           

##Tactile Robotics
#TECH38
Robots are ideal- they do not fear, they do not disobey, and they 
do not eat. On Aldebaran, I find the latter one most important.
^
^        -- Cornelius Shaw,
^           Commander of the Galactic Alliance Protection Forces, 
            Aldebaran Unit Two
^

##Arboreal Mastery
#TECH39
Come to the woods, for here is rest. There is no repose like that of 
the green deep woods. Here grow the wallflower and the violet. The 
squirrel will come and sit upon your knee, the lockcock will wake 
you in the morning. Sleep in forgetfulness of all ill. Of all the 
upness accessible to mortals, there is no upness comparable to the 
mountains
^
^        -- John Muir
^

##The Planetpark
#TECH40
Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until 
progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether 
a still higher 'standard of living' is worth its cost in things 
natural, wild, and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to 
see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech.
^
^        -- Aldo Leopold
^           

##Collective Projections
#TECH41
The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made 
conscious, it happens outside as fate. That is to say, when the 
individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his 
inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be 
torn into opposing halves.
^
^        -- Doctor C.G. Jung
^           

##Nautical Traditions
#TECH42
A ship at sea is its own world. To be the captain of a ship is
to be the unquestioned ruler of that world and requires all of
the leadership skills of a prince or minister.
^
^        -- Col. Corazon Santiago,
^           "Leadership and the Sea"
^

##Extractive Economics
#TECH43
There are two methods, or means, and only two, whereby man's needs 
and desires can be satisfied. One is the production and exchange of 
wealth- this is the "economic means". The other is the uncompensated 
appropriation of wealth produced by others- this is the 
"political means". 
^
^        -- Albert Jay Nock
^           

##The Fungus Amongus
#TECH44
Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of 
its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, 
eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and 
commerce. 
^
^        -- John Fitzgerald Kennedy,
^           Inaugural address, January 20th 1961

##The Will to Destroy
#TECH45
Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
^
^        -- Thomas Jefferson
^           

##Thermodynaci Laboratory
#TECH46
Things get worse under pressure.
^
^        -- "Murphy's Law of Thermodynamics"
^           

##Subsurface Diets
#TECH47
Algae isn't as bad as one could think. SynthBeef tastes 
like chicken, actually.
^
^        -- Anonymous Consumer #3,
^           Syndicate Nutrient Commercial

##Structural Frontiers
#TECH48
Science and technology and many innovations induced by the 
mechanization of society require new explanations related to 
the new resources brought into the horizon of utilization.
^
^        -- James C. Malin,
^           "History and Ecology: Studies of the Grassland"

##The Collective Mind
#TECH49
Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic 
of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the shadow and 
the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining 
figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.
^
^        -- Doctor C.G. Jung
^           

##Macroeconomics
#TECH50
This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most 
of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. 
Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these 
were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of 
paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green 
pieces of paper that were unhappy.
^
^        -- Douglas Adams,
^           "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy"

##Purpleation
#TECH51
^"Eddies", said Ford, "in the space-time continuum."
^"Ah", nodded Arthur, "is he? Is he?"
^
^        -- Douglas Adams,
^           "So long, and thanks for all the fish"

##Tachyon Fields
#TECH52
One of the problems has to do with the speed of light and the 
difficulties involved in trying to exceed it. You can't. Nothing 
travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception 
of bad news, which obeys its own special laws. The Hingefreel 
people of Arkintoofle Minor did try to build spaceships that 
were powered by bad news but they didn't work particularly well 
and were so extremely unwelcome whenever they arrived anywhere 
that there wasn't really any point in being there.
^
^        -- Douglas Adams,
^           "Mostly Harmless"

##Matter Replication 
#TECH53
The monstrous evils of the twentieth century have shown us that 
the greediest money grubbers are gentle doves compared with 
money-hating wolves like Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, who in less 
than three decades killed or maimed nearly a hundred million men, 
women, and children and brought untold suffering to a large 
portion of mankind. 
^
^        -- Eric Hoffman
^           

##Core Mining Platform
#TECH54
In the twentieth century, the essence of man is not that he is 
a rational, or a political, or a sinful, or a thinking animal, 
but that he is an industrial animal. It is not his moral or 
intellectual or social or aesthetic etc., etc., attributes which 
make man what he is his essence resides in his capacity to 
contribute to, and to profit from, industrial society. The 
emergence of industiral society is the prime concern of sociology.
^
^        -- Ernest Geller
^           

##Fusion Power
#TECH55
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. 
It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
^
^        -- Albert Einstein
^           


##Organic Microstructures
#TECH56
With nanotechnology we'll be able to build surgical tools that 
are molecular, both in their size and in their precision. For 
the first time we'll be able to intervene at the scale where 
the damage actually occurs and to reverse that injury.
^
^        -- Dr. Ralph Merkle
^           

##The Planetbolt
#TECH57
You have to hit it harder than that. Electrons are timid little 
things but notional- you have to let them know who's boss.
^
^        -- Robert A. Heinlein,
^           "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls"


##Self Assembling Structures
#TECH58
Our scientists now use fractal theory to "teach" the molecules to
assume, or resume, a particular form. Substances of amazing
strength become simple once the formulae are properly computed.
^
^        -- Col. Corazon Santiago,
^           "The Council of War", Datalinks

##Autonomous Defenses
#TECH59
^         We sit together,
^        the mountain and I,
^  until only the mountain remains
^
^        -- Li Po,
^           From the Yang Collection


##Planetary Metaphysics
#TECH60
If we love our children, we must love our earth with tender care 
and pass it on, diverse and beautiful, so that on a warm spring 
day 10,000 years hence they can feel peace in a sea of grass, 
can hear a sandpiper call in the sky, and can find joy in 
being alive." 
^
^        -- Hugh H. Iltis
^           

##Self Aware Systems 
#TECH61
No, I'm not interested in developing a powerful brain. 
All I'm after is just a mediocre brain, something like the President 
of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.
^
^        -- Alan Turing
^           

##Linear Regressions 
#TECH62
The line that is straightest offers most resistance. 
^
^        -- Leonardo da Vinci
^           

##Quantum Mechanics
#TECH63
If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't 
understood it yet.
^
^        -- Niels Bohr
^

##Ascetic Practices
#TECH64
I maintain nonetheless that yin-yang dualism can be overcome.
With sufficient enlightenment we can give substance to any
distinction: mind without body, north without south, pleasure
without pain. Remember, enlightenment is a function of willpower,
not of physical strength.
^
^        -- Chairman Sheng-ji Yang,
^           "Essays on Mind and Matter"

##Mass Transit
#TECH65
Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from 
point A to point B very fast while other people dash from 
point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, 
being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder 
what's so great about point A that so many people from 
point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about 
point B that so many people from point A are so keen to get 
*there*. They often wish that people would just once and for 
all work out where the hell they wanted to be.
^
^        -- Douglas Adams,
^           "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy"


##The Planet Shard
#TECH66
The fastest way to end a war is to lose it.
^
^        -- George Orwell
^           

##Telekinetic Defenses
#TECH67
Neurosis is the suffering of a soul which has not discovered 
its meaning.
^
^        -- Doctor C.G. Jung
^           

##Quantum Lasers
#TECH68
If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't 
understood it yet.
^
^        -- Niels Bohr
^           

##Antimatter Applications
#TECH69
The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go 
beyond them into the impossible.
^
^        -- Arthur C. Clarke
^           

##Industrial Frontiers
#TECH70
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I 
seem to have been only a boy playing on the seashore, and 
diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or 
a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth 
lay all undiscovered before me. 
^
^        -- Sir Isaac Newton
^           

##Nanorobotics
#TECH71
Their toys are smaller than our toys. 
^
^        -- NASA Ames co-chair,
^           on the nanotechnology team
^

##The Singularity Machine
#TECH72
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers 
exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will 
instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more 
bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states 
that this has already happened. 
^
^        -- Douglas Adams,
^           "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy"

##Cloning
#TECH73
Every politician, clergyman, educator, or physician, in short, 
anyone dealing with human individuals, is bound to make grave 
mistakes if he ignores these two great truths of population 
zoology: (1) no two individuals are alike, and (2) both 
environment and genetic endowment make a contribution to 
nearly every trait. 
^
^        -- Ernst Mayr
^         
  
##Gravitons Are
#TECH74
The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.
^
^        -- Douglas Adams
^           

##The Velociryx Wall
#TECH75
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
^
^        -- Werner von Braun
^         

##Singularities for Use
#TECH76
There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near 
the end of the search for the ultimate laws of nature.
^
^        -- Stephen Hawking,
^           "A Brief History of Time"

##Planetmind
#TECH77
A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, 
stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong 
when it tends otherwise.  
^
^        -- Aldo Leopold
^          

##Transcendent Thought
#TECH88
Oh no, not again.
^        
^        -- A bowl of Petunias on their way to certain death,
^           from "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" 
^            by Douglas Adams


##The Human Genome Project
#PROJECT0
To map the very stuff of life- to look into the
genetic mirror and watch a million generations
march past. That, friends, is both our curse and
our proudest achievement. For it is in reaching to our
beginnings that we begin to learn who we truly are.
^
^        -- Academician Prokhor Zakharov,
^           "Address to the Faculty"

##The Command Nexus
#PROJECT1
Information, the first principle of warfare, must form the
foundation of all your efforts. Know, of course, thine enemy.
But in knowing him do not forget above all to know thyself.
The commander who embraces this totality of battle shall win
even with the inferior force.
^
^        -- Spartan Battle Manual

##The Weather Paradigm
#PROJECT2
I shall not confront Planet as an enemy, but shall accept
its mysteries as gifts to be cherished. Nor shall I crudely
seek to peel the layers away like the skin from an onion.
Instead I shall gather them together as the tree gathers the
breeze. The wind shall blow and I shall bend. The sky shall
open and I shall drink my fill.
^
^        -- Gaian Acolyte's Prayer

##The Merchant Exchange
#PROJECT3
Human behavior is economic behavior. The particulars may vary,
but competition for limited resources remains a constant. Need
as well as greed have followed us to the stars, and the rewards
of wealth still await those wise enough to recognize this deep
thrumming of our common pulse.
^
^        -- CEO Nwabudike Morgan,
^           "The Centauri Monopoly"

##The Empath Guild
#PROJECT4
Symbols are the key to telepathy. The mind wraps its
secrets in symbols- when we discover the symbols that shape
our enemy's thought, we can penetrate the vault of his mind.
^
^        -- Lady Deirdre Skye,
^           "Our Secret War"

##The Citizens' Defense Force
#PROJECT5
As the writhing, teeming mass of Mind Worms swarmed over the outer
perimeter, we saw the defenders recoil in horror. "Stay calm! Use
your flame guns!" shouted the commander, but to no avail. It is well
known that the Mind Worm Boil uses psychic terror to paralyze its
prey, and then carefully implants ravenous larvae in the brains of
its still-conscious victims. Even with the best weapons, only the
most disciplined troops can resist this horrific attack.
^
^        -- Lady Deirdre Skye,
^           "Our Secret War"

##The Virtual World
#PROJECT6
What do I care for your suffering? Pain, even agony, is no
more than information before the senses, data fed to the
computer of the mind. The lesson is simple: you have received
the information, now act on it. Take control of the input and
you shall become master of the output.
^
^        -- Chairman Sheng-ji Yang,
^           "Essays on Mind and Matter"

##The Planetary Transit System
#PROJECT7
As distances vanish and the people can flow freely from place
to place, society will cross a psychological specific heat
boundary and enter a new state. No longer a solid or liquid,
we have become as a vapor and will expand to fill all available
space. And like a gas, we shall not be easily contained.
^
^        -- Sister Miriam Godwinson,
^           "But for the Grace of God"

##The Xenoempathy Dome
#PROJECT8
I believe Planet will talk to us if we are willing
to listen. These fungal stalks behave as multistate relays:
taken together, the neural net connectivity must be staggering.
Can a planet be said to have achieved sentience?
^
^        -- Lady Deirdre Skye,
^           Arguments in Council

##The Neural Amplifier
#PROJECT9
Against such abominations, we organize our defenses on the
principle that one strong and able mind can shield the many.
^
^        -- Spartan Battle Manual

##Maritime Control Center
#PROJECT10
It is altogether fitting that we who have sailed the deeps of
space now return again to the sea. This is in many ways a water
planet, and it can be ruled from the waves. With sea power, rugged
terrain can be bypassed and enemy strongholds isolated. Once
naval superiority is achieved, Planet is ours for the taking.
^
^        -- Col. Corazon Santiago,
^           "Planet: A Survivalist's Guide"

##The Planetary Datalinks
#PROJECT11
As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century,
free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny.
The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on
information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but
the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse
has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would
deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself
your master.
^
^        -- Commissioner Pravin Lal,
^           "U.N. Declaration of Rights"

##The Supercollider
#PROJECT12
^  God does not play dice.
^
^        -- Albert Einstein, Datalinks

##The Ascetic Virtues
#PROJECT13
Learn to overcome the crass demands of flesh and bone, for they
warp the matrix through which we perceive the world. Extend your
awareness outward, beyond the self of body, to embrace the self
of group and the self of humanity. The goals of the group and the
greater race are transcendent, and to embrace them is to achieve
enlightenment.
^
^        -- Chairman Sheng-ji Yang,
^           "Essays on Mind and Matter"

##The Longevity Vaccine
#PROJECT14
I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd
settle for a couple thousand years. Even five hundred would be
pretty nice.
^
^        -- CEO Nwabudike Morgan,
^           MorganLink 3DVision Interview

##The Hunter-Seeker Algorithm
#PROJECT15
If I determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have
no perceptible form, I can concentrate my forces while the enemy
is fragmented. The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the
formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot
discern it nor the wise make plans against it.
^
^        -- Sun Tzu,
^           "The Art of War", Datalinks

##The Pholus Mutagen
#PROJECT16
^ We welcome you, earthdeirdre and earthwheat and earthtree as
^   honored guests, for you add great power to our ancient song--
^     planetfungus and planetworm and planetmind sing and play
^       here, and you are welcome among us.
^
^        -- Lady Deirdre Skye,
^           "Conversations with Planet"

##The Cyborg Factory
#PROJECT17
^  A handsome young Cyborg named Ace,
^  Wooed women at every base,
^    But once ladies glanced at
^    His special enhancement
^  They vanished with nary a trace.
^
^        -- Barracks Graffiti,
^           Sparta Command

##The Theory of Everything
#PROJECT18
The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the
cradle forever.
^
^        -- Konstantin Tsiolkovsky,
^           The Father of Rocketry, Datalinks

##The Dream Twister
#PROJECT19
^  Mary had a little lamb,
^  Little lamb little lamb,
^  Mary had a little lamb,
^  whose fleece was white as snow.
^
^        -- Assassins' Redoubt,
^           Final Transmission

##The Universal Translator
#PROJECT20
And the Lord said, "Behold, the people is one, and
they have all one language- and this they begin to do:
and now nothing will be restrained from them, which
they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and
there confound their language, that they may not
understand one another's speech."
^
^        -- The Conclave Bible,
^           Datalinks

##The Network Backbone
#PROJECT21
Of course we'll bundle our MorganNet software with the new
network nodes- our customers expect no less of us. We have never
sought to become a monopoly. Our products are simply so good that
no one feels the need to compete with us.
^
^        -- CEO Nwabudike Morgan,
^           Morgan Data Systems press release

##The Nano Factory
#PROJECT22
Industrial Grade Nano-Paste, Planet's most valuable commodity, can also
be one of its most dangerous. Simply pour out several canisters, slide
in a programming transponder, and step well away while the stuff cooks.
In under an hour the nano will use available materials to assemble a
small factory, a hovertank, or enough impact rifles to equip a regiment.
^
^        -- Col. Corazon Santiago,
^           "Planet: A Survivalist's Guide"

##The Living Refinery
#PROJECT23
We estimate that during the next mission century most of
Planet's industries will be moved off-planet to Nessus Prime and
other orbital facilities. Many of our industries will benefit
greatly from the low gravity environments available in space,
particularly those involving genetically engineered microbes.
^
^        -- CEO Nwabudike Morgan,
^           "The Centauri Monopoly"

##The Cloning Vats
#PROJECT24
We shall take only the greatest minds, the finest soldiers,
the most faithful servants. We shall multiply them a thousandfold
and release them to usher in a new era of glory.
^
^        -- Col. Corazon Santiago,
^           "The Council of War"

##The Self-Aware Colony
#PROJECT25
Will we next create false gods to rule over us? How proud
we have become, and how blind.
^
^        -- Sister Miriam Godwinson,
^           "We Must Dissent"

##Clinical Immortality
#PROJECT26
And the Lord God said, "Behold, the man is become as
one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth
his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and
live forever, we must send him forth." Therefore the
Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till
the ground from whence he was taken.
^
^        -- The Conclave Bible,
^           Datalinks

##The Space Elevator
#PROJECT27
In one moment, Earth- in the next, Heaven.
^
^        -- Academician Prokhor Zakharov,
^           "For I Have Tasted The Fruit"

##The Singularity Inductor
#PROJECT28
What actually transpires beneath the veil of an event horizon?
Decent people shouldn't think too much about that.
^
^        -- Academician Prokhor Zakharov,
^           "For I Have Tasted The Fruit"

##The Bulk Matter Transmitter
#PROJECT29
And what of the immortal soul in such transactions? Can this
machine transmit and reattach it as well? Or is it lost forever,
leaving a soulless body to wander the world in despair?
^
^        -- Sister Miriam Godwinson,
^           "We Must Dissent"

##The Telepathic Matrix
#PROJECT30
^  From the delicate strands,
^    between minds we weave our mesh:
^      a blanket to warm the soul.
^
^        -- Lady Deirdre Skye,
^           "The Collected Poems"

##The Voice of Planet
#PROJECT31
Imagine the entire contents of the planetary datalinks, the sum total
of human knowledge, blasted into the Planetmind's fragile neural
network with the full power of every reactor on the planet. Thousands
of years of civilization compressed into a single searing burst of
revelation. That is our last-ditch attempt to win humanity a reprieve
from extinction at the hands of an awakening alien god.
^
^        -- Academician Prokhor Zakharov,
^           "Planet Speaks"

##Ascent to Transcendence
#PROJECT32
No longer mere earthbeings and planetbeings are we, but bright
children of the stars! And together we shall dance in and out
of ten billion years, celebrating the gift of consciousness until
the stars themselves grow cold and weary, and our thoughts turn
again to the beginning.
^
^        -- Lady Deirdre Skye,
^           "Conversations with Planet"


##Headquarters
#FAC1
As we approached we were confronted by the ruined splendor of
Sparta Command. The true immensity of the place became instantly
apparent as our Quantum Tank crunched over the rubble and parked next
to a shattered bunker, but the extent of the destruction
took weeks to assess. The shielded datacore had sustained several
massive breaches and smoke still billowed from the numerous cannon
ports. There were few signs of human life.
^
^        -- Lady Deirdre Skye,
^           "Our Secret War"

##Children's Creche
#FAC2
Proper care and education for our children remains a cornerstone of
our entire colonization effort. Children not only shape our future-
they determine in many ways our present. Men and women work harder
knowing their children are safe and close at hand. And never forget that,
with children present, parents will defend their home to the death.
^
^        -- Col. Corazon Santiago,
^           "Planet: A Survivalist's Guide"

##Recycling Tanks
#FAC3
It is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks and
become one with all the people.
^
^        -- Chairman Sheng-ji Yang,
^           "Ethics for Tomorrow"


##Perimeter Defense
#FAC4
Having now established a secure perimeter, we have made ourselves
relatively safe from enemy incursions. But against the seemingly
random attacks by Planet's native life only our array of warning
sensors can help us, for the Mind Worms infiltrate through every crevice
and chew through anything softer than plasmasteel.
^
^        -- Lady Deirdre Skye,
^           "The Early Years"

##Tachyon Field
#FAC5
The klaxon began to wail, but we felt the reassuring tingle of
the Tachyon Field crackling to life around us, encasing the
entire base in its impenetrable glow.
^
^        -- Spartan Kel,
^           "The Fall of Sparta"


##Recreation Commons
#FAC6
The entire character of a base and its inhabitants can be
absorbed in a quick trip to the Rec Commons. The sweaty
arenas of Fort Legion, the glittering gambling halls of
Morgan Bank, the sunny lovers' trysts in Gaia's High Garden,
or the somber reading rooms of U.N. Headquarters. Even the
feeding bay at the Hive gives stark insight into the sleeping
demons of Yang's communal utopia.
^
^        -- Commissioner Pravin Lal,
^           "A Social History of Planet"

##Energy Bank
#FAC7
Life is merely an orderly decay of energy states, and survival
requires the continual discovery of new energy to pump into the
system. He who controls the sources of energy controls the means
of survival.
^
^        -- CEO Nwabudike Morgan,
^           "The Centauri Monopoly"

##Network Node
#FAC8
^I don't know but I've been told,
^  Deirdre's got a Network Node.
^Likes to press the on-off switch,
^  Dig that crazy Gaian witch!
^
^        -- Spartan Barracks March

##Biology Lab
#FAC9
Although Planet's native life is based, like Earth's, on right-handed
DNA, and codes for all the same amino acids, the inevitable chemical
and structural differences from a billion years of evolution in an
alien environment render the native plant life highly poisonous
to humans. Juicy, ripe grenade fruits may look appealing, but a
mouthful of organonitrates will certainly change your mind in a hurry.
^
^        -- Lady Deirdre Skye,
^           "A Comparative Biology of Planet"

##Skunkworks
#FAC10
The popular stereotype of the researcher is that of a skeptic and a
pessimist. Nothing could be further from the truth! Scientists
must be optimists at heart, in order to block out the incessant
chorus of those who say "It cannot be done."
^
^        -- Academician Prokhor Zakharov,
^           University Commencement

##Hologram Theatre
#FAC11
^  Richard Baxton piloted his Recon Rover into a fungal vortex and
held off four waves of mind worms, saving an entire colony.
^  We immediately purchased his identity manifests and repackaged him
into the Recon Rover Rick character with a multi-tiered media campaign:
televids, touchbooks, holos, psi-tours--the works.
^  People need heroes. They don't need to know how he died clawing his
eyes out, screaming for mercy. The real story would just hurt sales,
and dampen the spirits of our customers.
^
^        -- "Mythology for Profit"
^           Morgan Stellartots Keynote Speech

##Paradise Garden
#FAC12
^That sunny dome! Those caves of ice!
^And all who heard should see them there,
^And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
^His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
^Weave a circle round him thrice,
^And close your eyes with holy dread,
^For he on honey-dew hath fed,
^And drunk the milk of Paradise.
^
^        -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
^           Datalinks

##Tree Farm
#FAC13
In the great commons at Gaia's Landing we have a tall and particularly
beautiful stand of white pine, planted at the time of the first
colonies. It represents our promise to the people, and to Planet
itself, never to repeat the tragedy of Earth.
^
^        -- Lady Deirdre Skye,
^           "Planet Dreams"

##Hybrid Forest
#FAC14
You see in this dome the intermingling of native and earth plants.
Outside, they are competitors, struggling over the trace
elements required for life. Often, one destroys the other. Here,
they are tended with care and kept well nourished. They thrive
together, and the native fungus does not unleash its terrible
defenses. As you can see, competition is unnecessary when resources
are plentiful and population growth is controlled.
^
^        -- Lady Deirdre Skye,
^           "Planet Dreams"

##Fusion Lab
#FAC15
It will happen, and it will happen in our lifetimes. Fusion
Power isn't just the future. Fusion Power is now.
^
^        -- T. M. Morgan-Reilly,
^           Morgan Metagenics

##Quantum Lab
#FAC16
Have you ever wondered why clouds behave in such familiar ways when
each specimen is so unique? Or why the energy exchange market is so
unpredictable? In the coming age we must develop and apply
nonlinear mathematical models to real world phenomena. We shall
seek, and find, the hidden fractal keys which can unravel the chaos
around us.
^
^        -- Academician Prokhor Zakharov,
^           University Commencement

##Research Hospital
#FAC17
Some civilian workers got in among the research patients today and
became so hysterical I felt compelled to have them nerve stapled.
The consequence, of course, will be another public relations nightmare,
but I was severely shaken by the extent of their revulsion towards a
project so vital to our survival.
^
^        -- CEO Nwabudike Morgan,
^           The Personal Diaries


##Nanohospital
#FAC18
It is a medical commonplace that the tissues of the human body
replace themselves regularly, essentially creating an entirely
new body every seven years. From whence then come cancer and the
slow degeneration of age? They exist as faults in the patterns of
intelligence within the genes themselves- by reprogramming these
smallest parts, the whole becomes well.
^
^        -- Academician Prokhor Zakharov,
^           "Nonlinear Genetics"


##Robotic Assembly Plant
#FAC19
^Captain said to big old John Henry,
^  That old drill keeps a-coming around.
^  Take that steam drill out and start it on that job
^    Let it whop, let it whop that steel on down
^    Let it whop, let it whop that steel on down.
^
^        -- Traditional, Datalinks

##Nanoreplicator
#FAC20
Look at any photograph or work of art. If you could duplicate
exactly the first tiny dot of color, and then the next and the
next, you would end with a perfect copy of the whole,
indistinguishable from the original in every way, including
the so-called "moral value" of the art itself. Nothing can
transcend its smallest elements.
^
^        -- CEO Nwabudike Morgan,
^           "The Ethics of Greed"


##Quantum Converter
#FAC21
And when at last it is time for the transition from megacorporation to
planetary government, from entrepreneur to emperor, it is then that the
true genius of our strategy shall become apparent, for energy is the
lifeblood of this society and when the chips are down he who controls
the energy supply controls Planet. In former times the energy monopoly
was called "The Power Company"- we intend to give this name an entirely
new meaning.
^
^        -- CEO Nwabudike Morgan,
^           "The Centauri Monopoly"


##Genejack Factory
#FAC22
My gift to industry is the genetically engineered worker, or
Genejack. Specially designed for labor, the Genejack's muscles and
nerves are ideal for his task, and the cerebral cortex has been
atrophied so that he can desire nothing except to perform his
duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot
feel pain?
^
^        -- Chairman Sheng-ji Yang,
^           "Essays on Mind and Matter"

##Punishment Sphere
#FAC23
It is not uncommon to see patients undergo permanent psychological
trauma in the presence of the Sphere, before the nerve stapler has
even been strapped into position. Its effect on the general
consciousness of the culture is profound: husbands have seen
wives go inside, and mothers their children. Dr. Xynan left the
surface of the sphere semitranslucent for a reason. You can hear
them in there- you can see them. It is a thing of terrible beauty.
^
^        -- Baron Klim,
^           "The Music of the Spheres"

##Hab Complex
#FAC24
The chief aim of their constitution and government is that,
whenever public needs permit, all citizens should be free, so far
as possible, to withdraw their time and energy from the service of
the body, and devote themselves to the freedom and culture of the
mind. For that, they think, is the real happiness of life.
^
^        -- Sir Thomas More,
^           "Utopia", Datalinks

##Habitation Dome
#FAC25
^ I sit in my cubicle, here on the motherworld.
^ When I die, they will put my body in a box and
^   dispose of it in the cold ground.
^ And in all the million ages to come, I will never
^   breathe or laugh or twitch again.
^ So won't you run and play with me here among the
^   teeming mass of humanity?
^ The universe has spared us this moment.
^
^        -- Anonymous, Datalinks

##Pressure Dome
#FAC26
When beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's
skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it- and would
not willingly remember that this velvet paw but conceals a
remorseless fang.
^
^        -- Herman Melville,
^           "Moby Dick", Datalinks

##Command Center
#FAC27
Superior training and superior weaponry have, when taken together,
a geometric effect on overall military strength. Well-trained,
well-equipped troops can stand up to many more times their lesser
brethren than linear arithmetic would seem to indicate.
^
^        -- Spartan Battle Manual

##Naval Yard
#FAC28
The sea is everything. It covers seven-tenths of the globe. Its breath
is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert where a man is never
alone, for he can feel life quivering all about him. The sea is only
a receptacle for all the prodigious, supernatural things that exist
inside it- it is only movement and love- it is the living infinite.
^
^        -- Jules Verne,
^           "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea", Datalinks

##Aerospace Complex
#FAC29
You are orphans, earthdeirdre, your homeworld already buried
so young among the aeons. Yet now you fill the skies where
we watched a million sunsets with flame and contrails, paying
no heed to the hard lessons the universe has tried to teach you.
Are you a breath of life to invigorate a complacent world,
you earthhumans, or an insidious cancer which must be excised?
^
^        -- Lady Deirdre Skye,
^           "Conversations With Planet"


##Bioenhancement Center
#FAC30
We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled.
But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any
particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in
a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events
of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose
meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?
^
^        -- Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7
^           Activity Recorded M.Y. 2302.22467
^           TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED

##Centauri Preserve
#FAC31
In the years since our arrival, we have foolishly disrupted so
many of Planet's ecosystems that entire species may vanish
without our ever having understood, or even known them. We must halt
this plunder, and halt it immediately, for our own survival as a
species depends on our ability to strike a balance on this world.
^
^       -- Commissioner Pravin Lal,
^          "Mind Worm, Mind Worm"

##Temple of Planet
#FAC32
Let the Gaians preach their silly religion, but one way or the other
I shall see this compound burned, seared, and sterilized until every
hiding place is found and until every last Mind Worm egg, every last
slimy one, has been cooked to a smoking husk. That species shall be
exterminated, I tell you! Exterminated!
^
^       -- Academician Prokhor Zakharov,
^          Lab Three aftermath

##Psi Gate
#FAC33
Go through, my children! The time of miracles is upon us. Let
us cast off sin and walk together to the Garden of the Lord.
With God's mercy we shall meet again on the other side.
^
^        -- Sister Miriam Godwinson,
^           "Last Testament"

##Sky Hydroponics Lab
#FAC34
Sky farms are fantastically beautiful, with their kilometer long
networks of glass framed in grids of metal, and the sunlight
shining through jungles of vegetation inside. When one of them
catches the light, you can see the refracted beauty for miles-
they are life-giving stars on a desolate planet...gardens on
the wing.
^
^        -- Lady Deidre Skye,
^           "Planet Dreams"

##Nessus Mining Station
#FAC35
Red-hot iron, white-hot iron, cold-black iron- an iron taste,
and iron smell, and a Babel of iron sounds.
^
^        -- Charles Dickens,
^           Bleak House, Datalinks

##Orbital Power Transmitter
#FAC36
Planet's Primary, Alpha Centauri A, blasts unimaginable quantities
of energy into space each instant, and virtually every joule of it
is wasted entirely. Incomprehensible riches can be ours if we can but
stretch our arms wide enough to dip from this eternal river of wealth.
^
^       -- CEO Nwabudike Morgan,
^          "The Centauri Monopoly"

##Orbital Defense Pod
#FAC37
God, from the mount of Sinai, whose gray top
Shall tremble, he descending, will himself,
In thunder, lightning, and loud trumpets' sound,
Ordain them laws.
^
^        -- John Milton,
^           Paradise Lost, Datalinks

##Mass to Energy
#FAC38
I hold a scrap of paper in the darkness and
light it. I watch it burn bright and curl, disappearing
into nothingness, and the heat burns my fingers.
Where has it gone? What has it become? I cannot shake
the feeling that I have witnessed a form of transcendence.
^
^        -- Commissioner Pravin Lal,
^           "The Convergence"



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