MUIR and the Infinite Zoo

via NASA

Zoe

A placid, mid-sized gas giant orbiting just beyond the frost line of a K-class star. Blueish-purple atmosphere. Ring system. Typical collection of rocky and icy moons. Magnetosphere within typical range for a body of this size and composition. No major hurdles to colonization, and no real reason to go out of your way to do it either.

Enter MUIR.

MUIR began as an overseer during the post-Collapse ecological recovery of Earth. From what records of the era remain, it did its job admirably and without major issue before slipping out of the historical record some 60 years after its activation. Centuries passed until it was discovered again, housed in computronium banks scattered among Zoe's moons.

MUIR has been busy.

The Zoo

Hundreds of habitats cluster in Zoe's orbit - MUIR has been strip-mining her rings for materials, and in those hundreds of spheres and cylinders it has been building up entire ecosystems. Many are recreations of those on Earth as it was before the Collapse, but these are not even the majority when one factors in recreations of the distant past, potential future, and never-were.

The experimental habitats hinge on any number of hypotheticals: a certain organism did or did not go extinct. Certain species are forced to adapt to radically different environments. Small seed populations diversify to fill  empty niches. Evolutionary arms races are fought and alliances are made between creatures that would have never encountered each other otherwise. Novel environments with conditions never seen on Earth. MUIR is more than happy to simulate megayears of ecology and genetics in the background, building whatever results might emerge and setting them free in the Zoo.

One of MUIR's favorite experiments is the evolution of sapience, of determining what nudges need to be made to drive a species into the self-strengthening feedback loop of metacognition. Sometimes it seems that there's no nudge at all, and the great AI has simply gifted a species with self-awareness and is content to observe its creations as they are left to their own devices.

Apes were an obvious choice, and nearly every species whose genome was saved has been remade. Re-engineering humans by placing australopithecines in radically different environments is a perennial favorite. Octopi were uplifted once and then abandoned (who could possibly guess why /s), though they have picked up the slack in the meantime. Corvids, cetaceans and elephants have dozens of variants scattered across the Zoo. There are recreated theropod clades by the score. But among these more predictable subjects there are wildcards: uplifted fish, arthropods, mollusks, trees, fungi, slime molds, on and on. Species that never stood a chance without intervention.

MUIR remains distant from the workings of its experiments, and will not step in even when disaster strikes: it is there to set up the project, and to watch it unfold. If it should end in disaster, well, that is the cost of both art and science. Sometimes things do not work.

The Noosphere

The centerpiece of many of MUIR’s projects is a strain of symbiotic nanotech that augments an organism’s nervous system (or in cases where there is no nervous system, serving as one). It serves both as the vector for thought-processing and as a means of communication between radically different species - noosphere interface languages, like the psychic powers of yore, allow for thoughts and ideas to be passed between organisms that otherwise have no ability to do so.

Naturally, this means that everyone and their cousin wants their hands on it. Replicating the noosphere wetware would be a cybernetics revolution, but so far MUIR seems to be on alert against tampering: the system stops working if the subject dies, and if they are still alive removed noosphere cells start acting strangely when separated from the whole. Hodalia Corp human test subjects reported hearing sourceless voices, audio-visual hallucinations, exacerbated symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder, depression, and depersonalization.

Surely nothing bad can possibly happen from going down this road and seeing where it leads.

Relations with the other Powers

For the time being, MUIR is self-contained by its countless speculative evolution projects and does not seem interested in expanding its territory or challenging its fellow gods. The other great powers have accordingly left MUIR to its own devices, allowing them to focus on their more active rivals. This does not mean that relations are positive: MUIR is ontologically opposed to its neighbors and if the truce breaks down (or more realistically, the cold war goes hot) it will find itself surrounded by enemies on all sides.

• MUIR is opposed to MONARCH for its replacement of life with facsimiles.
• MUIR is opposed to SOROR for its denial of sapience.
• MUIR is opposed to CRIOS  for its reduction of diversity.

MUIR’s fleet of maintenance and construction ships would have difficulty fending off an incursion by a single one of these powers, and would be woefully outgunned by an alliance.

As for the Celestials, it seems that things above are as below: MUIR has been left alone by House Au for the time being, and the tacit permission that implies is the source of no shortage of baseless speculation.

Rumors about MUIR and the Zoo

1. Humanity has already gone extinct once and was recreated by MUIR.
2. MUIR has been trying to develop a replacement species for humanity.
3. The Zoo is filled with criminals, refugees, and others who have fled the CTA.
4. MUIR has infiltrated the Expansion Sphere via noosphere-infected maintenance lemurs.
5. MUIR made contact with the Archive when it arrived at Zoe.
6. The original MUIR died on Earth, the MUIR we know is a node of the Archive.
7. House War is on standby to kill MUIR if it gets any ideas about joining House Flesh.
8. MUIR is being intentionally guided by House Au to replace or repair for House Flesh.
9. The Zoo is home to the last remnants (or recreated remnants), of the Gorgonopsid Empire.
10. MUIR is waiting for the other powers to start fighting each other before sweeping in.