Glorious Territories of the Nungiir Ancestry
Mother-System Doth Major
Eye of the God; Ringworld One
Coast of Greater Sea Nundat
Micro-Factory Complex #5
The intensity of sunlight on the local area was constant for roughly ten hours of the standard twelve-hour Ringworld day with the first and last hour of brightness forming periods of dawn and dusk. The obstruction of the sun creating an artificial day-night cycle was an integral part of biosphere's across the inner surface, the enormous shadow-squares forming a much smaller loop and spinning at a faster rate that was precisely timed to the whims of the Nungiir who mastered the mega-structures present in the system. Night was now approaching this small section of the Ring however, the translucent edges of the latest shadow square occluding the sun and beginning the transformation of the landscape to one of tranquil darkness.
Five identical industrial complexes arrayed in a roughly straight line continued to operate fully forming a glowing line between the immensity of the local water-source Nundat and the open grasslands covering hundreds of square miles in territory. Clusters of structures were dotted around and in between the five primary pillars of this settlement; domed temples, boxy houses and cylindrical towers without much forethought were scattered across an area so large that despite the local population being approximately eight thousand Nungiir you'd take hours to walk from one side of the "city" to the others and rarely encounter a single person in that time. Activity was occurring everywhere however; enormous wheeled vehicles having harvested specific grass-strains from the local area were returning on an automated schedule with the night-shift vehicles rolling out in response, trundling down wide paths before dispersing for the rest of the night.
Two conjoined structures of considerable utility and style served as the resident domain of the local Oracle-type Nungiir who both oversaw and profited from the permanently-operational micro-factories. The first of the structures was a fat cylinder thirty-meters across with a domed roof formed from fused panes of artificial sapphire and ruby, two recessed pits formed separate but open chambers; one with a gel-bath and an excrement tube leading to an organic-recycling vat below the house while the other pit contained assorted furniture such as tables, chairs, a water spout, a rack containing holo-discs and printed-diamond slates, and more than a couple luxurious carpets. Automatic sensors responding to the change in luminosity and began the night-shift period.
Light-globes flickered to fully brightness and rose steadily out of their sockets to illuminate the already gathering shadows in the main chamber. The tower attached to the drum-like building also flashed brightness with the growing dusk becoming the most visible structure in the city which went all but unnoticed by the inhabitants who followed the pink-stone paths winding down to their own modest domains.
"One new message for you, sir," Jahkri heard his terminal bleep respectfully, it's electronic brain imitating a subservient and lowly tone that one would expect from such a machine.
"Hmm? Oh, well put it through then," he muttered in response, his attention focused mainly on the odd assortment of lenses and tiny blocks of machinery in front of him. He sat stiff-shouldered and straight-backed in a surprisingly uncomfortable chair at his desk at the top of his tower. The circular walls were all constructed from crystal with holographic overlays allowing him to survey his miniature kingdom and zoom upon any building within the range of his tower. The cubic pieces that he was inspecting were actually the finished product of his micro-factories, a random selection having been made for a periodic manual checkup.
The terminal - a pen-shaped drone ten centimeters in length - dipped down slightly and then projected an authoritative voice that did not rightly belong to it:
Nungiir-Oracle Jahkri Jahb: You are to immediately halt production in Micro-Factories One through Four and switch them to automatic war-status capabilities for nanonic packages and implants. Awaken all Nungiirtok at your disposal and switch to full-readiness until further noticed.
Jahkri recoiled from the terminal as the booming voice seemed to echo away to silence and he frowned angrily at it. War production? What nonsense is this? The Oracle sighed heavily and flicked a hand at his pen terminal again; "do as... wait, what was his name again?"
"Morris, sir."
"Morris it is then, do as he commanded. Send the messages immediately and divert any incoming spaceplanes to our secondary flight zone. Recall any autonomous submarines and land-crawlers but leave the aerial drones in place, ready the combat-aerobot and wake up the Nungiirtok. Carefully!"
As the terminal hovered away obediently, Jahkri realized that many of the tiny machines at his desk had been scattered to the floor in a rush, furiously the slouching Oracle raised himself from his seat and datavised a cleanup message to a pair of hemi-spherical drones. The house had became a swirl of electronic activity as cleaner-drones jostled with terminals which rose and scattered themselves to locations too distant for data-vising, a sluggish combat-drone loading ancient programs into its mechanical brain as it readied for immediate ground defense.
"Terminal! Get back over here; what's coming our way? What are our observatories seeing?"