[Johnny1A.2]

MULTISAPIENTS continued...

In the case of this greatest (at that time) of Multisapient collectives, having its world to itself was rather satisfactory. It entered a state of mind which no Homosapient could ever fully comprehend, a peculiar sort of contentment that left it able to remain active, but which also meant that it was rather self-satisfied. In an intellectual way, the collective considered new possibilities, but without any sense of urgency attached to the considerations.

Without the stimulations of competition, cooperation, or satisfaction of any particular needs, it, for want of a better word, relaxed. It is possible to find approximate parallels in Homosapient behavior, but none of them should be pressed very far in application to such an alien intellect.

Technological advance slowed tremendously, because the technological base used by the collective was essentially sufficient for its needs and desires. From time to time some temporary problem or need would stimulate more activity in that respect, but never in any lasting, consistent way.

For example, when natural climate changes became inconvenient, it spent several centuries engaged in significant geoengineering projects, in the course of which it developed several new technologies. But when the problem was addressed, this progress slowed and stopped, because the collective lost interest. Another example came when its supply of convenient fissionable fuels grew short, at that point it poured resources into developing a reliable world-wide system of solar power, which worked. It then lost interest in further development, because what it had was sufficient. [1]

Along with occasional pressing necessities such as those, from time to time the super-collective would take an interest in something that would produce a burst of development, but these were fundamentally sporadic and not very systematic. When the collective became curious about stellar physics, it developed the capacity to launch probes into close-approach pathways around its star, but once it gathered the information it desired, it allowed its space industry to languish mostly unused (other than useful orbital satellites) for centuries.

This last decision was entirely natural, of course. It was fundamentally difficult for this supercollective to expand beyond its own world, even if a suitable world had existed in its star system, which was not the case. It could hardly 'colonize' another world that was beyond the psychic 'unification' range that made the collective possible in the first place. A 'member' of this immense super-collective could range some millions of kilometers away before the connection evaporated, but that distance hardly rates even for purposes of interplanetary travel. It could, and it did, send 'members' into orbital space for various projects, but it was nearly impossible for it to reach farther.

It did have some astronomical interests, and inherited some knowledge from earlier, smaller collectives that had had more such interest. Over the ages, it build elaborate observatories on the ground and in orbit, and sooner or later it launched automated probes to examine most of the worlds of its star system.

Even its orbital facilities were different than those of a typical comparably advanced Homosapient world.

The super-collective had little need of 'communications systems' for its own use, for example. It was everywhere its members were, and it heard what they heard, saw what they saw, tasted what they tasted, knew what they knew. Its only use for technological communications systems was for its machines to communicate with other machines. It did orbit some relay satellites for that purpose, but it needed none for its own use.

Planetary observation satellites were useful, to observe climate and weather and geophysical processes, orbital science platforms had their uses as well. In later millennia, it orbited solar power collection satellites as well, when its power needs became inconveniently large for ground-based solar systems.

Still, it simply had no use for some of the facilities Homosapients often built. It had no enemies, so it needed no military facilities, for example.

Indeed, in the millennia after the super-collective emerged, there was little on the planet that might even be classified as a weapon. There were a few small arms and the like for dealing with animals, and many devices that could have been used as weapons if need had arisen, but little in the way of specialized devices made to be used for violence.

As a result of this peculiar 'contentment', the overall level of technology remained mostly unchanged for a very long time, except in details. At the time that the super-collective emerged, the technology of the Multisapients on that world was roughly at a level comparable to that of modern-day Earth. Ten thousand Terran years later, it was still at about that level, with a few small areas of advancement.

To be continued…


[1] By some astrogeological quirk, the planet was short-changed on fissionables, and it had been terraformed by the Eldren recently enough that the supply of hydrocarbon fuels was very sharply limited. It used what supplies of uranium and thorium it had to power its 'civilization' for millennia, but they eventually ran short.