Planet Monument

A Planet Monument (sometimes Monument for short) is an extremely tall, roughly spike-shaped structure, one of which can be found on every planet and moon of the Cosmic Disk. These extremely complex and fully automated constructions are presumed to be the foundation of various vitally important processes, events and functions, but they are mostly known as the background infrastructure of moving between far bodies of the galaxy.

Because of this, and other hypothetical purposes they were designed for, Planet Monuments are by far the greatest, most present and most significant artifacts of the Shaper race.

Overview

Planet Monuments consist of an extremely tall tower, ending in a very sharp spike shape; two low arcs, creating a C shape from top view; the courtyard surrounded by these arcs, and a number of pressure equalization chambers - their amount varies between 1 and 17, each containing a half-round shaped socket usually filled with a spatial warp. These provide direct and instantaneous contact between the interior of the chamber and the interior of another such chamber, within another Monument, somewhere within the galaxy. No matter how far is that in the actual space, crossing such a portal causes no (significant) change or transition, the laws of physics, including the momentum do not suffer any change during transition - practically making the use of the term "transition" superfluous.

Monuments are made of alloys and materials being the subject of extreme strengthening via EEC and presumably, other unknown treatments and processing. As a result, there is no known method that can cause any damage in any part of the Monuments above the error margin of any measurement, up to and including any alien technology. This was proven several times and a nuclear explosion of 70 megatons of the Republic additionally verified that the decompression chambers block any kind of radiation of the outside, including gamma- and ethereal rays.

Spatial warps are the most important, and the sole convenient function of these towers. Depending on the type, the portal can disappear and reappear, change destination, or simply stay constant. Certain types are initially differentiated by coloring in the edge of the warp itself - this is not noticeable from the outside of the chambers, thus civilizations use various methods for indicating it. The majority uses color coding, while more advanced ones, such as the Republic or the Aurost Fatherland use custom classifications.

As a combination of the indestructible nature (that also prevents the complete reverse-engineering of these structures), the access to a Planet Monument's functionality is extremely restricted; while it is capable of holding virtually any weight built or by other means forced upon it, they can be expanded, protected, covered, decorated or painted - but the only functional access they provide is the free control of opening and closing the environment stabilizing chambers' door. They are automatically timed and set up for a very easy use, hence various theories were born that unlike any other functionality of them, the spatial warps were solely implemented to support moving between planets and solar systems for any race that is capable of doing so.

History

Origins

It is almost sure that the Planet Monuments were created by the ancient alien godlike race; their age varies between 700 thousand and one billion years. As several constructions of them, these were also resembling automatons, imitating capabilities of living organisms, bearing minimal artificial augmentations. The capability of communication with the Beacon World and each other, like the means of inducing spatial warps is hypothesized to be the result of such implants, or even "frames", while the ability to grow roots and using it for sustaining sufficient energy indefinitely are features similar to those being prominent in plants. Historical records of the major alien races also indicate that these are capable of utilizing EEC, which would imply the existence of some sort of self-awareness, or least a very complex method of image recognition.

The early days

Most likely, they were shot sporadically across the Cosmic Disk in order to be caught by gravitational fields of various cosmic bodies - almost exclusively by stars. During their travel, the core of these Monuments was encapsulated in an alloy much harder, yet slightly similar to the material currently covering them, forming huge "seeds" to protect the interior mechanical parts from exposure to the harsh conditions in space.

In this phase, impacts were sporadic as well, and affected gas giants at first - one of the biggest mysteries of the Planet Monuments is the ability to stabilize their kinetic position on such planets - which are well-known about lacking a comprehensible surface.

On rocky planets, the impact of such an object was so heavy that it caused significant changes in local weather - which, at the time, was usually devoid of life and considered hostile for supporting most currently known forms of life, anyways.

The late additions

About 70-100 million years ago, the Shapers ceased any activity, archeologists and researchers estimate. At the time, life has already appeared at the surface of numerous places and some (most notably the Cloudans) even started evolving. Consequently, several issues in the Shapers' plans arisen: some planets had no Monuments and launching new ones could have caused extinction events (as it happened by accident, later in Cloudan history), thus, the Shapers had a much more careful approach: they were taking a special route while leaving into the intergalactic void towards the Gate and carefully sent "seeds" towards unaffected planets to minimize the speed of the upcoming impact.

The Beacon World Era

Eventually, even the final Planet Monument was placed and even the remaining 1% of the Shaper race could retreat into the void and wait. It took 30 thousand additional years of hibernation for their plans to take the stage and eventually, the Beacon World activated the first time in history. The final survivors of the Shaper race have left the galaxy through the Gate, only to be followed by Cloudan soldiers barely hours after them.

The Activation event, as it was planned by them, shook the galaxy, bringing several races to extinction which, eventually, led to a so-called "alien recolonization period", establishing several aspects of the *status quo of 7901.R.D.*.

Structure

*wip*

The internal tower

The arcs

The underground web

Planet Monuments have roots which form an orb-shaped web of an unknown metallic material at the beginning of the planets' mantle and rise to the end of the lowest level of the atmosphere. Every Monument are different in their exact shape and the pattern of the web, thus they are capable of identification of planets.

Other components

Purposes

Spatial warps

Navigation

Data transmission

Ethereal Energy transmission

Beacon World Activation Events

Planet stabilization

Working mechanics

*wip*

Influence on civilizations

Etymology

Trivia

  • Planet Monuments exist ouside of the galaxy as well; however, because of the isolated nature of this location, the inhabiting races know nothing in this matter. It can be a justifiable theory that local human or alien civilization could gain awareness over the existence of similar structures.
  • On the other hand, the special nature of the Cosmic Disk, combined with the theories about the Gate implies that similar web of structures are only sparsely, rarely and heavily locally present. A Planet Monument Web must involve a distribution center for keeping up energy maintenance and spatial warp functioning - yet, theoretically, decentralized PM Webs are also feasible up to a point.

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