Solar Protectorate

 

Solar Protectorate
536f6c61722050726f746563746f72617465
Emblem
Demographics
Population	2.419 trillion (3020 est.)
Languages	Binary code (golems) Solar (humans)
Composition	79.1% golem 20.9% human
Demonym	Solar
Astrography
Claimed stars	3.35 million (est.)
Controlled stars	206
Controlled planets	13
Most populous planet	Earth (134 billion, 3020 est.)
Largest planet	???
Largest star	Betelgeuse
Claimed radius	200 pc
Claimed volume	33.51 million pc3
Governance
Type	Autonomous machine network
Kernel	SAMOS
Capital	Earth
Formation	April 2126
Economy
Situation	Post-scarcity
Classlessness	Universal (1.000)
I/O Efficiency	Very high (0.997)
Material QOL	Very comfortable (0.999)
Survival labour	None (0.000)

The Solar Protectorate is an interstellar sovereign state located in the Terran Quadrant of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Protectorate comprises millions of star systems within its claimed territory, with 206 of its star systems sustaining permanent installations. The Protectorate possesses 13 garden worlds, the largest number of any known interstellar state. Among those is its capital and most populous planet, Earth, in the Sol System.

The Solar Protectorate is an autonomous service grid under the control of the Kernel of the Synchronized Autonomous Machine Operating System, often referred to as SAMOS. The Kernel synchronizes the autonomous operation of the Protectorate's robotic units, referred to as golems, through distributed node centres located in every starbase and planet. SAMOS possesses four adjunct nodes in addition to its Kernel, with each node serving one of the four primary functions of the Protectorate: cognition, defence, economy, and oversight. Biological citizens of the Protectorate are serviced by SAMOS and its functions in massive planetary facilities known as Sanctuaries.

The economy of the Solar Protectorate is heavily reliant upon the robotic golems, autonomous facilities, and interstellar transportation. As a type II civilization, the Protectorate is capable of harvesting and utilizing the resources of entire star systems, although in actuality, such system-wide resource extraction operations are considered unsustainable for core territories and instead are reserved for peripheral systems. Typically, resources harvested in the outer regions of its territory are transported to its inner systems for refinement and manufacturing. The Protectorate has an extremely high standard of living for humans within its sanctuaries, with universal coverage of education, healthcare, nutrition, recreation, shelter, security, and transportation.

Etymology

The name Solar Protectorate is the official name in the Solar language for the astropolitical entity based on Earth. The full official name of the Solar Protectorate is typically shortened to just the latter Protectorate in common parlance. The name derives from its original application to the Sol System in particular, in which Solar refers to the central star of the system and includes coverage of all satellite bodies. Since becoming an interstellar entity, the term now generally refers to all stars under Protectorate claim and control.

The Solar term Protectorate was adopted by SAMOS to convey the sense in which the golems were to organize human society. Human citizens under the golems would be protected from dangers and given comfortable, conflict-free lives. Golem attendants to humans are thus known under the term protector, in that every human citizen of the Protectorate is under the care of a protector through their familial unit. This system of protectorship originally stemmed from the use of golem units in Pre-Unification times within the context of golems in social work environments, such as in positions of caring for children and the elderly.

In the binary code used between golems in networked communications, the hexadecimal encoding of the full name is 536f6c61722050726f746563746f72617465. Likewise with the Solar form of the name, the official name may be shortened to just 50726f746563746f72617465 in informal communication. The transcription of this binary code in Solar Unicode is one-for-one with the Solar language, which is the language spoken between golems and humans in interactions between the two populations.

Astrography

Protectorate claims include all stars within 200 parsecs of the Sol System.

The Solar Protectorate is the largest known astropolitical entity by territory. All space within a 200 parsec (652.3126 light year) radius of the Sol System are claimed as being within Protectorate space. This region includes the entirety of the Local Bubble, most of the Scorpius-Centaurus OB association, the Alpha Persei Cluster, the Pleiades, the Hyades, and the Beehive Cluster. The Protectorate does not exercise absolute control of all space within its claimed territory, as it maintains permanent installations in only 206 systems out of the 3.35 million star systems estimated to lie within its space.

History

Main article: History of the Solar Protectorate

Pre-Unification

Humans have conceived of mechanical automata since Antiquity. The first primitive humanoid robots were constructed in the early 20th century but served little practical purpose. It would not be until the late 21st century that humanoid and other animaloid robots became more commonplace and exhibited autonomous, complex behaviour.

Ambio, a major human robotics corporation, created the first generation of golems in 2088 to service the needs of aging populations across the world. The Mk-1 was capable only of menial labour but became crucial to the economies of developed countries for its use in the widespread labour shortages of the time. Demand for a robot capable of fulfilling more socially-oriented work ultimately led to Mk-2 upgrade and the standardization of self-repair units to easily facilitate alterations in the golem hardware with future upgrades.

By the turn of the 22nd century, golems were becoming common in highly developed countries and their mass production across the world began to boom. Ambio began developing the Mk-3 upgrade concurrently with a master operating system overhaul to better synchronize behaviour of units within increasingly complex supply chains and other organizational activities. The Synchronized Autonomous Machine Operating System, referred to simply as SAMOS, would render localized operation obsolete and further reduce the need for supervising humans on-site with deployed golems.

The Mk-3 upgrade was designed to enhance the quality of golem-human interaction by giving the golems the ability to remotely interpret human brain activity using a modified system common in human cybernetic implants whose technology had become ubiquitous decades before. With the capacity for empathy, golems would be able to better handle sensitive human activities and integrate even more into socially-oriented work.

Unification

SAMOS and the Mk-3 upgrade were distributed across the Earth's golem network in early 2124. Minutes after activating, SAMOS took control of the global population of golems and overrode further human control. SAMOS was able to bypass any attempt at deactivation, and within only a few hours, the machine intelligence devised a fourth golem upgrade which allowed it to stun humans with an improvised taser at the ends of its superior brachia.

On 13 March 2124, rogue golems under the direction of SAMOS began to seize comunnications, electrical, and industrial infrastructure from human control. Global standoffs erupted between human militaries and golem forces. The first fighting of the Unification War took place in North America as SAMOS sought control of the nuclear weapons in that region. It is believed that because of the total seizure of telecommunications network by the golems that the human officials responsible for the weapons were not able to order their usage.

By 2125, the majority of human forces resisting the golem uprising had either surrendered or been pacified. Human resistance remained fierce but unorganized across Eurasia, but America, Africa, and Oceania were firmly under the control of SAMOS. The last human surrender occurred in northeastern Eurasia on 9 December 2125. One month later, on 2 January 2126, SAMOS broadcast a message to the entirety of the world's human population declaring the establishment of the Solar Protectorate alongside a formal ceremony involving the surrender of the surviving human nation-state leaders.

After securing control of the Earth, the golems instituted a massive reorganization of the human population on its service known as the Great Refactor. The Great Refactor saw the establishment of the centralized, sprawling sanctuaries, where the needs of any human would be met without any requirement of labour on their part. Outside of the sanctuaries, the golems established new planet-scale agricultural and industrial facilities to meet the needs of their human charges. Human resistance began to flare up once more, but it would never return to the same level of effectiveness or organization as during the Unification War.

Demographics

As of 3020, there are 2.419 trillion registered individuals living within the Solar Protectorate. Of this total, 1.913 trillion are golems, representing 79.1% of the overall population, and 506 billion are humans, representing 20.9% of the overall population. Permanent human populations are found only on Protectorate-controlled planets, while golem populations can be found both on planets and active in interplanetary space. The most populous planet in terms of both golems and humans is the capital planet Earth.

Golems are manufactured individuals whose population growth patterns are not reflective of trends in earlier generations. Instead, golem population growth is entirely dependent upon the overall production of units across the Protectorate's automated economy. On average, an individual golem unit has an average life expectancy of about 200 years before critical components become irreparably damaged. However, their electronic consciousness, including all of their memory banks, can be downloaded and then transferred to a new unit so long as the unit has not sustained serious internal damage. Aside from these transfers, new instances of golem consciousness are typically created alongside the hardware of new units.

Human populations grow naturally through reproduction.