Art by Mandelsage
"Anomalogue" is a taxonomic collection of cosmic irregularities encountered by The First during their billions of years of existence. As one can imagine, very few things surprise The First anymore, so encountering an anomaly every few millennia is what we would call a "special treat" for them. Each specimen expands the already immensely vast knowledge of a species whose only purpose is to bear witness to and archive all the strangeness and beauty of the universe.
«Anomalogue» es una colección taxonómica de irregularidades cósmicas encontradas por The First durante sus miles de millones de años de existencia. Como es de suponer, ya casi nada sorprende a The First, por lo que encontrar una anomalía cada pocos milenios es lo que llamaríamos un «regalo especial» para ellos. Cada espécimen amplía el ya vasto conocimiento de una especie cuyo único propósito es atestiguar y documentar toda la rareza y belleza del universo.
Anomaly Q/X-Γ1-37-P.M.Mn.α1: The Ember Seed
Anomaly Q/X-Γ1-37-P.M.Mn.α1 - The Ember Seed
Composition: Molten plasma infused with self-replicating carbon-silicate chains. Surface shifts between liquid and solid states.
Reproduction: Splits into thousands of smaller orbs when exposed to black hole gravity; fragments that are able to escape the tremendous gravity well grow to full size in approx. ten thousand years.**
Size/Motion: Diameter of 0.01 light-seconds(~3000km) (varies ±13% during plasma-state shifts). Drifts at ~0.00001% lightspeed via photon pressure from its own emissions (radiation sailing). When exposed to black hole gravity after splitting, accelerates to 0.07c for 32.2 seconds to escape—suggesting latent manipulation of local spacetime curvature. Motion implies neither intent nor sentience. The anomaly moves like pollen—manipulated by forces it does not understand.
Intelligence/Communication: Displays no capacity for original thought, but exhibits perfect pattern storage and replication across all observable spectra. "Communicates" exclusively through thermal oscillations, emitting prime-number-sequenced infrared pulses. These pulses appear to be constant emissions rather than intentional messaging. The First theorize it may be the universe's most sophisticated "echo chamber"— a natural library of consciousness, recording and playing back but never interpreting.
Energy Signatures: Absorbs 98.25% incident radiation, emits focused pulses of infrared beams at 95% efficiency. The 5% ‘waste’ manifests as brief, glowing fractures on its surface that heal instantly. Creates temporary micro-black holes (duration: 0.3 sec). Micro-black holes form only when the Seed’s surface fractures align in Fibonacci spirals (occurring ~2x/year).
Origin Hypotheses: Either (a) stellar engineering waste from a Type III civilization, or (b) a natural crystallization of pre-Big Bang quantum fluctuations.
Threat Assessment: Class Γ (Gamma) - Non-hostile but dangerous. Induces obsessive fixation in carbon-based observers through fractal hypnosis. Not being carbon-based, The First are immune but report ‘data echoes’ lasting centuries.
Age: First one found was at least 1 billion years old at the time, known only because of its perfect replay of The First's own molecular structure from 1 billion years before that, and is reportedly still "alive" now, 3 billions years later. Lifespan unknown. See notes.
Notes:
Initial scans suggested a simple plasma entity—until it perfectly replayed The First’s own molecular architecture from a billion years before, preserved with atomic-level precision.
Further study revealed the Seed’s surface contains ‘memory folds’—hyper-compressed spacetime pockets that record any energy pattern passing through it.
Most perplexing: The Seed showed no prior exposure to The First. They consider either: It accessed ancestral data through quantum entanglement with The First’s own forgotten fragments, or it exists partially outside linear time, accumulating information retroactively.
Its significance designation was upgraded after it began replaying (perfectly memorized) neural patterns from species unknown to The First—the benefits of which were immediately recognised.
All attempts to extract its full memory catalog have failed—it only reveals what it chooses, when it chooses. (Though "choose" is not the most accurate term. It has not displayed any signs of conscious action whatsoever thus far.)"
After discovering dozens more of them over a period of one hundred thousand years, The First used them to radically optimize Their own exploration efforts. By listening to the Seeds with specialised Archiver units, Their ability to find and archive life in the galaxy became a much more efficient process.
** The First measure time in Entropic Cycles (EC), calibrated to the decay of neutron stars—1 EC = Time for a neutron star’s entropy to increase by 10³⁶ J/K, or ~250 Earth years. Like counting heartbeats of the cosmos, each EC marks a ripple in the universe’s slow but inevitable slide toward disorder. As The First's messenger in this universe, I have conveniently converted all measurements to standard Earth years.
Anomaly E.S-Θ1.Λ2-338-P.F.M.α2: The Photospheric Gyroid
Anomaly E.S-Θ1.Λ2-338-P.F.M.α2 - The Photospheric Gyroid
Composition: A dense, spherical fractal structure with eight gyrating nodes made of light-capturing filaments, plasmic superconductors and programmable matter-weavers (self-adjusting particle assemblers). Its core is a quantum-photosynthetic mesh, converting light to matter and back with near-perfect efficiency. Composed of an unknown plasma-metallic alloy—possibly does not exist in our universe.
Reproduction: In its native universe (see Notes), the Gyroid replicates through density-triggered fractal division—a process akin to cellular mitosis, but driven by plasma physics rather than carbon-based biology. When exposed to critical energy density, usually within "plasma-nodules" (star-like energy concentrations), the Gyroid absorbs excess plasma until its core reaches instability (~10¹⁸ keV/cm³) and then splits symmetrically along quantum fault lines, producing two identical units.
Size/Motion: Between 5-23cm diameter. Nodes gyrate rhythmically at great speed (103 Hz) along axes radiating from the center. The nodes and the core warp and shift in pseudo-random (but eventually repeating) patterns. Motion correlates with energy absorption—slower under high plasma density.
Intelligence/Communication: Non-sentient but adaptive. Optimizes its structure to maximize energy conversion efficiency. Emits entangled photon clusters—decoded by The First as energy-state reports, not intentional communication.
Energy Signatures: Absorbs all incident energy (light, plasma, cosmic rays) with 99.8% efficiency, regardless of wavelength. Emits no thermal radiation—but its surface fluctuates between perfect blackbody absorption and near-total reflectivity in unpredictable cycles.
Origin Hypotheses: Evolved within native universe as a fundamental component of its plasma-nodule ecosystems. Its near-perfect matter-energy conversion efficiency suggests deep integration with the universe's unique physics where light experiences inertia.
Threat Assessment: While non-hostile, the Gyroid poses controlled risks if mismanaged. If deprived of energy, it passively disassembles nearby matter at a rate of 1 gram/minute—enough to compromise unshielded structures within hours. The First contain it in quantum-stabilized plasma chambers (mimicking its native environment), which both power it and suppress its matter-decay function. This protocol ensures its utility—neutron star harvesting (see Notes)—without unintended entropy erosion.
Age: When it first evolved is impossible to date. Native universe operates on non-linear entropy decay, making conventional chronology meaningless. First encountered 652 years** after InfiniGate development, during Phase-1 multiverse probing. Lifespan: In native universe, presumed immortal (sustained by plasma-nodule symbiosis). In our universe, units show gradual quantum decoherence after ~9,000 years.
Notes:
The Photospheric Gyroid originates from an alternate universe (discovered shortly after The First mastered InfiniGates). The universe is a self-contained continuum, 12 light years in diameter, where "space" functions as a "light-soup" medium—a superfluid plasma threaded with conductive pathways analogous to organic synapses. The plasma-nodules (dense energy structures analogous to stars in our universe) act as clustered processing nodes, exchanging energy and data through pulsating filaments. The Photospheric Gyroids seem to serve as regulatory organelles, converting matter to energy and back to maintain equilibrium across the plasmic neural network. Crudely put, the entire universe resembles a cosmic brain, though whether it possesses consciousness—or what such a vast mind might contemplate—eludes even The First.
The Gyroids’ role is metabolic: they stabilize plasma-nodules by absorbing excess energy and converting it into programmable matter, or vice versa, with near-perfect efficiency. Without them, the universe’s delicate balance would collapse into uncontrolled fusion or dispersion. The First hypothesize that the Gyroids might also facilitate information transfer between nodules, but their entanglement patterns resist decoding. Attempts to communicate with the greater "brain" have yielded only fractal noise—beautiful, but indecipherable.
The First realized the potential of these organelles immediately and harvested a single specimen from the periphery of the universe. After confirming their utility, They began harvesting more—somewhat reluctantly, since They were unable to determine if Their harvesting of the organelles was causing any kind of harm to the suspected sentience.
Experiments revealed that Gyroids could deconstruct neutron stars into quark matter, then reassemble it into usable alloys at unprecedented speeds—revolutionizing the First’s construction and expansion capabilities. However, isolated Gyroids gradually degrade; their quantum-photosynthetic strands fray over millennia. To slow this, the First store them in plasma chambers mimicking their native universe’s environment.
Ethical concerns persist. The First are essentially one mind so there are no "factions" that can disagree with one another, but rare occasions of uncertainty can cause great internal conflict: is harvesting Gyroids akin to plundering the neurons of a living being, or are they insignificant to a universe-scale consciousness?
** The First measure time in Entropic Cycles (EC), calibrated to the decay of neutron stars—1 EC = Time for a neutron star’s entropy to increase by 10³⁶ J/K, or ~250 Earth years. Like counting heartbeats of the cosmos, each EC marks a ripple in the universe’s slow but inevitable slide toward disorder. As The First's messenger in this universe, I have conveniently converted all measurements to standard Earth years.