Phi-Tech Scaling
TIMELINE: All
The tech-multipliers of Phi-Tech is 12x per generation, stacking multiplicatively and rounded up to the second digit; Phi-Tech effectively grows in power exponentially. The Phi-Tech multiplier can be defined as 12^x, where 'x' is the generation.
The time-to-advance between different Phi-Tech generations starts at 1 million years, and is multiplied by 10x for each generation, resulting in exponential growth for time-to-advance. A generation of Phi-Tech can be reverse-engineered into early if a civilization is at least 90% of the required age to obtain a particular Phi-Tech generation. The Phi-Tech advancement time can be defined as 1 million years * 10^x-1, where 'x' is the generation.
The tech-multipliers and time-to-advance for a few generations are below:
Generation 1
TECH MULT: 12
ADVANCEMENT TIME: 1 million years
Generation 2
TECH MULT: 150
ADVANCEMENT TIME: 10 million years
Generation 3
TECH MULT: 1,800
ADVANCEMENT TIME: 100 million years
Generation 4
TECH MULT: 21,000
ADVANCEMENT TIME: 1 billion years
Generation 5
TECH MULT: 250,000
ADVANCEMENT TIME: 10 billion years
Generation 6
TECH MULT: 3,000,000
ADVANCEMENT TIME: 100 billion years
Generation 7
TECH MULT: 36,000,000
ADVANCEMENT TIME: 1 trillion years
Generation 8
TECH MULT: 430,000,000
ADVANCEMENT TIME: 10 trillion years
Generation 9
TECH MULT: 5,200,000,000
ADVANCEMENT TIME: 100 trillion years
Generation 10
TECH MULT: 62,000,000,000
ADVANCEMENT TIME: 1 quadrillion years
Phi-Tech Sub-Generations
TIMELINE: All
A particular generation of Phi-Tech can be divided up into four distinct progression markers, exhibiting how far a nation has progressed into said generation. The ascent into a generation of Phi-Tech is not instant; it instead is a rapid rise in technological capability over the course of anywhere between years and centuries, depending on external pressures.
- Initial: Not all applications have been developed, and efficiency is under the limit. Phi-Tech is extremely limited, barely contributing to the effective techlevel.
- Finalized: All applications have been developed, but efficiency is still rising. The effective techlevel is a combination of the percentage of the previous and current era's techlevel.
- Entrenched: Efficiency is at its maximum. All of the nation is using the generation of Phi-Tech.
- Ascending: 90% or more of the time to the next generation has progressed. Reverse-engineering into the next generation becomes possible.
Phi-Star Count
TIMELINE: All
Depending on its size, a galaxy can have anywhere between a few dozen to over a thousand Phi-Stars. The larger the galaxy, the more Phi-Stars it can be expected to have.
Below are the canonical Phi-Star counts for galaxies:
- Milky Way: 926
- Andromeda: 897
- Atronis: 1004
- Xaelix: 234
- Xaelix is dense in Phi-Stars for its size; it has roughly 50% more than it should.
Phi-Stars & FTL
TIMELINE: All
Phi-Stars exist in all paradimensions, from surface reality (Ilgospace) to Metachrospace (Cigospace) to the Black Universe (Argospace). They are one of the few obstacle-type hazards in FTL travel; they cannot be phased through, so anything that flies into them will be atomized.
The risk of colliding into a Phi-Star is less than astronomically unlikely, however, due to just how few of them there are. They're still something that needs to be considered when programming an FTL drive, though.
The Dhatri Tsardom once lost an entire taskforce to a Phi-Star during the Kordo Conflict, leading to a major defeat that delayed the crisis by a few months.
Phi-Star Zones
TIMELINE: All
Phi-Stars have a few spherical areas around them that have varying effects as one gets closer to said Phi-Star. The closer to the Phi-Star, the more dangerous it gets.
Surface Zone: The apparent surface of the Phi-Star. It is composed of dense, pseudo-stable Phi-Matter pooling visibly. It is impossible to see past it without Phi-Tech sensors.
Annihlation Zone: Accumilation area of highly unstable Phi-Matter. Any matter that enters is rapidly annihlated.
Infusion Zone: Any matter that enters is gradually annihlated (loses mass), but is also infused. Materials can be sent into the zone temporarily to get Phi-infused materials.
Hazard Zone: Biological lifeforms will invariably suffer fatal Phi-Exposure, regardless of species.
Enchantment Zone: Biological lifeforms will suffer from Phi-Exposure if they remain too long, but can survive to Enchantment.
Replenishment Zone: Phi-Enchanted can safely replenish their internal stores. It otherwise is very similar to the Disruption Zone; it is safe to be inside.
Disruption Zone: Non-visual, non-Phi sensors will universally lose quality. The disruption gets worse closer to the Phi-Star. It is completely safe to be inside.
Phi-Infusion
TIMELINE: All
Phi-Matter can 'infuse' into materials, occupying the space between molecules and inside atomic nuclei to enhance material properties. Denser materials and higher-atomic-number elements have a higher limit to the amount of Phi-Matter that can infuse into them. This only works with solid materials; for reasons even the Grandhold doesn't know, Phi-Matter doesn't infuse well into liquid, gas, or plasma.
While a Phi-Tech nation can infuse things to their leisure and get whatever properties they want out of it, nations with lesser technologies have no choice but to send whatever they want infused through a Phi-Star's Infusion zone at the cost of losing much of the original material, while also hoping they get desirable properties. It is generally not cost-effective to infuse materials in this way.
Biological matter is much more infusable than solid matter. Even the Grandhold doesn't know why that is.
Phi-Exposure Treatment
TIMELINE: All
Phi-Exposure can be treated, although nations without Phi-Tech find doing so difficult expensive. The fundamental purpose behind curing Phi-Exposure is removing the Phi-Matter from a person's body.
Nations lacking in Phi-Tech have little choice but to remove it indirectly, such as through mass replacement of cells until the amount of ambient Phi-Matter in a person has fallen to safe levels. Consciousness-transferrence is also a consistent workaround, placing the affected person's consciousness in a new, un-exposed body.
Nations with Phi-Tech, such as the Grandhold, have a much more straightforwards solution. The Phi-Matter can be simply extracted from the body using the same kind of technology they use to harvest it from Phi-Stars.
Most forms of Phi-Exposure treatment cannot be used to create safe Phi-Enchantment; by the time it is certain whether or not existing Phi-Exposure is lethal, the body is dependent on Phi-Matter while also being actively killed by it. Consciousness-transferrence, however, can be used.
The Patron
TIMELINE: All
Life does not occur often around Phi-Stars. Most galaxy's Phi-Stars do not give birth to any kind of life whatsoever, yet all that do invariably breed sapient life.
The Milky Way is notable in that it has not only one Phi-born species, but two...and a third that is borderline. The first and most obvious is Gier, the birthplace of the Instrumo, whose innate precognition and rather alien minds make them rather distinct. The third and most technical is Inlawell, home of the Inlawellians and Etan Republic, who evolved close enough to a Phi-Star that they can be safely and consistently enchanted.
The second is a large, sapient, psychically-active planet apparently made of pure flesh and covered in continent-sized eyes, tougher than Starsteel and more powerful than a Phi-Breach Bomb. It calls itself 'Patron', and is simultaneously exponentially more benign and alien than the Instrumo. It has existed for billions of years, and has not left the orbit of its Phi-Star at any point in known galactic history. It is currently inside Aefanian territory, located very close to Kexotzipa.
Patron occupies the Enchantment zone of its host (Phi-)star. Anyone on Patron's surface is inexplicably four times more likely to survive to full Enchantment.
Patron rarely communicates with other sapients, but is always cordial when it does so. Most conversations include some kind of invitation to 'bask in the light of Phi' with it.
Weaponizing Phi-Stars
TIMELINE: All
Phi-Matter is an inherently unstable substance, and (without Phi-Tech) has a propensity to react explosively (like antimatter on steroids) with anything and everything.
Phi-Stars are made of pure Phi-Matter. You can probably guess where this is going.
If one throws a sufficiently large amount of energy at a Phi-Star, it will send a vast amount of Phi-Matter in the general opposite direction, moving at superluminal speeds to destroy (erase all of the mateter of) up to hundreds of systems in seconds. This does not cause any damage to the Phi-Star; its surface will regenerate within minutes.
The Dhatri Tsardom did this themselves once in the past during the Kordo Crisis, flinging a gas giant into one of their Phi-Stars. It resulted in an ejection of Phi-Matter that completely erased several Kordo-infested systems from reality...in addition to dozens more completely untouched by the crisis. It was the first and last time they toyed with a Phi-Star.