Arbor Collective
A1 Client of the Arbor Collective
Stats
Population: N/A
Capital: Arbor Collective
Official Language: None
Demonym: Arborian
Government
The Collective
Home system:
Name: Root
Spectral Class: L0
A1 Client of the Arbor Collective
Stats
Population: N/A
Capital: Arbor Collective
Official Language: None
Demonym: Arborian
Government
The Collective
Home system:
Name: Root
Spectral Class: L0
A system-sized plant-like organism, the Arbor Collective is a single, vast sentient being that surrounds a supposedly impossible star. Of an unknown age and provenance, it appears to have reached the limits of its own isolated star system and has found a new source of materials in the Nexus. Whether it is the voracious, colonising organism some fear, or merely an ancient being seeking to guarantee its own future, as it claims, remains to be seen.
System
Root, generally considered the 'home' star of the Arbor Collective, is somewhat of a mystery even to more advanced Occupants. A small blue dwarf, its calculated age is somewhat more than the age of the universe within which it resides. Whilst observations of the universe around it place its age at about 15 billion years, based on the best available science, Root is approximately 13.2 trillion years old. Aside from the Arbor Collective, it has no planets or satellites and sits over 800,000 light years from the next nearest stellar body.
Instead of the usual collection of planets, asteroids and other miscellaneous bodies, Root is surrounded by the vast organism known as the Arbor Collective; a dyson sphere sized plant whose branches and stems form a latticework around the star in the center, roughly 0.2 AU in radius. Where the Arbor Collective gathered enough raw material to grow so large is unknown, although it is assumed the star did have more satellites at some point in its past.
Explanations for the impossible age of Root are limited. The best held hypotheses at the moment are either that the Arbor Collective has somehow artificially aged its own star through as-yet unknown methods, or the star has been transferred back in time within its own universe. Both possibilities are indicative of capabilities seemingly beyond the technology-free Collective, but the Collective itself is not forthcoming with explanations.
The Nexus Gate
It is not uncommon for Nexus Gates to open into intergalactic space; in fact, the majority open in regions of space many millions of light years from anything else. Space is, after all, mainly empty. The Overseers seem to be able to manipulate the location of Gate openings, and typically 'aim' for gravitational clusters once the first Gate to a universe is opened and a preliminary assessment made. For the universe housing the Arbor Collective, this refinement led to the discovery of Root and its unique ecosystem.
History
The Arbor Collective is one single, all-encompassing mind, although it does allocate some level of independence to its sub-units, and there are a number of non-sentient species that inhabit it, similar in the manner to parasites, symbiotes, or merely using the Collective as a place to live. As such, the history of the Arbor Collective is entirely contained within its own memory, and so far it has been reticent to answer any questions about its time prior to the opening of the Nexus Gate. Some research has been done on samples obtained surreptitiously from Arbor organisms (the Collective itself has never offered any samples voluntarily), and this has revealed that all organisms thus far encountered are genetic clones, although vary substantially in appearance and function.
Growth of the Collective appears to have been halted by the unusual isolated nature of its home star and the lack of further raw materials. Now with access to the Nexus, and its infinite supply, the Collective has resumed growth once more, adding several million more square kilometres to its surface area in the last few decades alone.
Geography
The 'surface' of the Collective, if one could call it that, is a giant latticework of branches. Gravity on and around the Collective is a strange thing; the star exerts its own pull towards the centre, and most of the mobile elements of the ecosystem either reside inside the branches, on the 'dark' side, or attach themselves to the surface of the latticework. The 'main' system is made of branches many tens of kilometres in diameter, with internal passageways and voids, however, stems of all widths can be found, and on the 'inside' of the structure, vast 'leaves', many hundreds of square kilometres in area, absorb energy from the star within.
Government
Information to follow...
Economy
Information to follow...
Client
The Nexus Gate is fully entwined with the branches of the Arbor and the Enclave on the Nexus side is now an extension of the organism within. Some disconcertion has been expressed by nearby Enclaves, and particularly the cosmopolitan Foci of Yamrelic, only 400 kilometres away, that the Collective is attempting to colonise beyond its borders, submitting applications to the Council for Enclave expansion, something the Council has yet to grant to any Client. Clonal bodies of the Collective have been found in Yamrelic, embedded in and seemingly thriving, but the Collective assures other Clients that its presence there is simply representative, like any other Client inhabitant.
The Collective has applied for ownership of a number of nearby resource universes, but has been vetoed in this so far by a powerful group of Clients concerned that whilst the Collective is not strictly speaking a hegemonising swarm, it is displaying psychological characteristics that match. Despite this, Collective vessels are well known throughout the Nexus, with their distinctive organic, wooden appearance, even if their presence makes some uneasy. Certainly, some of the more outspoken clients are known to sterilise anything that has been in contact with the Collective, lest seeds and spores remain.
