World of Dustpeople (FT Factbook)

[Solar Communes]

World of Dustpeople

Based on the Book "Society of the Eternal Twilight"

"If you find forty people that look exactly like you, don't worry, it's definitively a prank."

By Vlad Ildo Bathory

DISCLAIMER: The author has taken creative liberties in the names of some mentioned organizations and groups to make them sound more serious than their usually not-so-serious "official" titles(the not-so-serious symbols of some strains were preserved though). For more scientific and factual records consult the Dustpeople for Dummies short guide.

NOTE: The symbols lead straight to each of the Strains/Factions Pages.

The five known strains

Ravians	Hivers	Hamburghers	Thorians	Zsiences

Dustpeople Factions

The Ashen Column	The Black Hand

Index

1. Foreword
2. Physiology
3. The History
   
   1. Myth of the Cursed Ones
   2. The Lost Progenitor
   3. The Covert Societies
   4. When the Cover was Broken
   5. Looking ahead
4. The Strains
   
   1. Hiver
   2. Ravian
   3. Hamburg
   4. Thorian
   5. Zsience
5. The Factions
   
   1. The Ashen Column
   2. The Black Hand
6. Epilogue

[Solar Communes]

Foreword
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke

The so called dustpeople are by all means a recent discovery. Their existence remained a secret for a long time, perhaps hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, and their ability and desire to camouflage and blend among a completely human population is a known fact, specially because, deprived of a functional digestive tract, once they were predators of the very human beings they coexisted with, for the only thing they could feed themselves with was blood. That has changed with the research and development of the strains, but this singular detail has led many ignorant and prejudiced outsiders to believe that the dustpeople are nothing but a more evolved form of the mythological vampires. Once in a while the inhabitants of Solar Communes tend to be disturbed by "vampire hunters" and other indoctrinated tools of theocratic societies, and like always, they tend to not leave as they rarely have proven to be reasonable or open to diplomatic solutions. Many unfortunate incidents that led to the death of innocents could have been avoided if more people were aware and willing to read this work.

However, the core of the question is: are the Dustpeople really related to the myth of vampires? The short answer is yes. However, supernatural curses could not be tampered with through scientific methods, and thus, the myth of the vampire as a supernatural entity must be debunked. Although there are strong evidences that beings fitting with the description of the myth did exist in the Earth of the Confederation, they were not originated from supernatural curses given by a god, but from the transference of consciousness from the dying flesh to immortal virus-like self-replicating particle, through methods that only incredibly advanced civilization could develop. Now, for what reasons such civilization have chosen to inflict such technological curse upon mankind is something beyond the scope of this work, and of every registered work and book in the history of Solar Communes and her predecessors.

To further increase the mystery, recently beings have been born already as dustpeople. Before, dustpeople could only be created out of existing human beings, and even now, exploration teams continue to search the oceans of Earth for the legendary cryonics chamber of the Progenitor, hoping that such discovery could bring them many answers.

[Solar Communes]

Artistic conception of a "Dustmachine". The true shape of these particles is beyond what human perceptions can fathom.
Physiology

"...and thus arose the need for a more generalized theory encompassing a 'Universal Constructor' (UC) that would be able to handle such arbitrarily complex nanoscale design problems. Unlike the simple atom by atom nanotech constructors common today, a UC would combine millions upon millions of atoms in a parallel process that could produce materials or mechanisms of unmatched intricacy on a scale currently not possible even with the best nanoscale foundry. One of the most obvious applications of a UC -- if its construction were ever practical -- would be the genetic manipulation of lifeforms at the atomic level to cure disease, correct congenial defects, or expand their capabilities in beneficial ways. Theoretically, if an 'intelligent', real-time control program were developed for the UC, then autonomous, artificial nanoscale organisms could be assembled. Careful design could create organisms that might actually exist in 'symbiosis' with other life. However, a UC also creates the tangible threat of a 'gray goo' scenario: the design of an organism that is so evolutionarily advanced as to overwhelm the current ecosystem..." - Universal Constructor: Theory, Priciples and Practice by Wayne Yin. Originally published in 2058

Citing this work gives a small insight on the nature of the true "body" of the dustpeople. Although they are definitively not merely sentient nanites, it is a functional comparison. In essence, the dustpeople are sentient self-replicating nano-factories, engineered to have their expansion and assembly capabilities limited only by the availability of energy and necessary materials from the environment, and by certain limitations of their assemblers. However, only the Zsience strain has unrestricted nanomolecular assembly capabilities and are able to shape not only their own bodies, but also the environment surrounding them. These self-replicating particles draw their energy out of two sources: direct electricity and blood, with the latter happening through still not fully understood mechanisms. Among the most notorious details is the non-euclidean molecular geometry these particles have, similar to a peculiar set of macroscopic geometric shapes seen only in obscure reports about a sunken ancient city in Earth.

It is common for the primitive to fill the gaps science is yet to uncover with mysticism. Thus many have concocted supernatural explanations to the origin and to the methods through which blood is converted into energy within these particles. But the process is nothing less than a more elaborate bioelectric energy conversion, even if the particulars are not yet completely understood.

The assembly of physical bodies they tend to most oftenly possess is a natural defense against entropy. Macroscopic scale bodies tend to wither slowly due to less surface exposed to the environment. Although these bodies are from a biological perspective, clinically dead, the living particles inside them can reanimate and simulate life signs like breathing and heartbeats, although these functions are completely unecessary for their survival, as they require no oxygen and blood circulation to function. Their capability of replicating any organic signature, including RNA and DNA, also allows for them to technically assume any identity, although a very strong distaste for nonhuman forms born out of a xenophobic culture limits their usual physical forms to human ones, which used the tips of their fingers as feeding mechanisms from where microscopic needles can be used to discretely draw blood or electricity. The idea of dustpeople as "doppelgangers" is entirely flawed, and in history they have only resorted to it as a means to pull harmless pranks.

There is one particular limitation in the transformation capabilities of the dustpeople. They cannot have the necessary degree of specialization to replace purpose-built Universal Constructors, and besides replicating their own particles, they have their entire structure dedicated to manipulation and construction of organic molecules and cells and thus are not truly "one man's factories" because of the severe limitations of organic materials, that tend to be far less resilient in engineering compared to inorganic ones.

[Solar Communes]

Myth of the Cursed Ones
"Primitive humans were very prone to give fantastical interpretations to facts where logic could give mundane conclusions." - Kyle F. Eisenhower, Anthropologist

Before the mid 21st Century, there is no registered scientific and concrete about the origins of the Dustpeople, only speculation, legends and myths. The amount of myths revolving the so called vampires and their origins is vast and spread out through hundreds of cultures and peoples, with different civilizations having quite different perceptions about such creatures except for the common element they are always parasitical predators of humanity. Because the focus of this work is not the analysis of ancient and long forgotten and obsolete myths, a focus will be established on a particular myth of creation, that perhaps due to cultural bias, have always been more noted among the dustpeople than all others. This myth is the the exalted, mythical and fantastic interpretation of the history of Cain and Abel, which must not be forgotten to have been once used to claim black skin was a curse from God and justify human slavery, to which further details are not needed to be conveyed. Many freely available books about the fortunately gone(at least in Solarian society) practice of slavery can enlighten further the matter. This myth is the belief that the curse this supposedly existing god has bestowed upon the supposed Cain in punishment from fratricide was vampirism.

It is strange why such a foolish notion has been followed by a small minority of superstitious dustpeople, but it is not difficult to understand in a so nihilistic and, with some artistic license because of the meaningless of the word among atheists, god-hating society, that a few would enjoy the belief that humanity has "defeated" an eons long god-given curse. However, there is no evidence for their belief, not even a faint one. There is not even any solid evidence of the existence of Cain and Abel, and for all that is known it could be a parable that was misinterpreted as fact. Now, if Cain exists, the interpretation that Abel was a farmer while his brother wasn't is a much more sound explanation, that without the skills for growing crops, the "curse" was simply the fact he'd be damned to wander as a nomad, alone.

However, the creation is only a part of a greater set of known legends that go farther, to events that lead to the modern day. Pretending that far-fetched and fantastic interpretation of the curse of Cain was the truth, several other myths tied to it also exist. First, that Cain has chosen an unknown number of followers he did spread his curse to. I will avoid to go through the minefield of proving with logic only an evil god would have done something like this obvious fantasy, for it is not the purpose of this book to argue for atheism or agnosticism. Thus, from this fact, several "strains", as they are currently called, somehow were born. Each of these mythical strains, that the myths called instead as "clans", had different features and "supernatural powers". Among these make-believe ancients, the only one whose myth was not lost to the ages was one named Malkav, who according to the legend asked to know everything and had his request fulfilled. And by knowing everything he became totally insane, giving birth to an interesting variation of the "vanilla" myth.

These supposed strains then slowly would spread out through the ages, usually to decadent humans of the upper classes, culminating into a tipping point during the late middle ages, when the legends claim the humans became aware of the threat and began a long crusade to exterminate their kind from Earth, leading to the annihilation of countless, while an unknown strain rebelled against most, refusing to conform to their strange but familiarly reactionary social pyramid enforced through power, for according to the myths, the older these cursed ones were, the more powerful they were, and their offspring would always be weaker than them. Once the humans assumed they were gone, the survivors of the old society formed a secret society deemed to ensure their existence will always be covered up. This society then, which name was lost to the ages, according to the myth, existed for thousands of years, successful in its goals of disguising their presence among humanity.

Perhaps the most relevant detail of this myth is the formation of a loosely-knit organization of those who wanted to be free from the schemes and depredation of the elites among the cursed ones. And it is perhaps this detail, above all that led so many to begin believing in the myth. It is not common for legends and myths to involve hopeless struggles against a powerful social elite, and in an anarchist civilization, of course some would draw inspiration from such legends. These groups were mostly made by men who in life were free spirits, libertarians and anarchists, and thus no surprise some want to believe in the legend.

In the myth, such organization was not the only one that opposed the secret society of the ancients. Whereas this society believed in secretly coexisting with humanity, another one, which name was also lost, believed they were inherited to Earth and that humanity should be subjugated. Known to be led by the predecessors of the Hamburg Strain, also gifted with the "unsettling" capability of molding meat and bones, together with a strain lost among the barely readable fragments of the myth. And they waged a secret war right under the nose of humanity!

To finish this section, in all due honesty, as a personal opinion, I find the tale of a fat guy in red clothing that goes to homes through chimneys to give gifts to children far more believable than this drivel. It was only mentioned in this book because this work is not intended to be centered on purely scientific matters and because of the small influence these myths exert upon the dustpeople society.

[Solar Communes]

Nobody really knows the exact looks of the Progenitor, there are only guessworks.
The Lost Progenitor
"It was just a naturally triggered schizophrenia from a faulty mind upload process. There was nothing supernatural about it. Period." - Harry Potter Lovecraft

According to the fragments of an Above Top Secret file associeted with the Invisible Network, a secret organization that operated within the Third Commune, the predecessor of Solar Communes, these were the informations about the Progenitor, the individual from where all dustpeople strains were reverse-engineered through a centuries-old black project:

Code: Select all

Subject INID-2900XL0275

Incubation Date: 01/20/20
Birth Date: 09/09/20
Current Age: 19
Assigned Birth Name: Roseann Line
Base Genetic Sample #1: NANSENMARIE09B
Base Genetic Sample #2: XXXXXXXXXX27E
Assigned Nationality: Norwegian
Intended Role: Special Investigation and Reconaissance Operative

Height: 1.65 meters (5'5'')
Weight: 70 kg (154 lbs)
Hair Features: Light blonde, liss
Eye Color: Steel grey

Talents: Subject demonstrates elevated abstract and logical reasoning capability, excellent perception and above average physical coordination, although tests have proved that the subject's innate dexterity is inferior to that of the first genetic base.
Psychological Issues: Subject is highly inept socially despite physical attractiveness and demonstrate signs of shyness and difficulty to smile. Not recommended for INF Ops.
Physical issues: Due to eugenics fetus selection flaw, subject presents congenial asthma. Not recommended for missions in wilderness or highly toxic environments unless if issued specialized gas masks.

Anomalous phenomena: Seldom occurrences of Extra-sensory Perception, subject demonstrates little to no control over them.

The Progenitor is in all accounts an interesting fact about the dustpeople, specially in how she contradicts pretty much all the mythological claims of what existed before her transformation for being the opposite of a myth built from a decadent patriarchal, feudal and hierarchic society. This ancient had a brief human life as a recently graduated special operative named Roseann Line, that according to the files was not naturally born, but engineered through unknown methods that may have involved human cloning. Of interest is the fact one of the genetic samples mentioned is obviously hidden, and considering the sensitive nature of this fragment of information, one can only speculate what sort of genetic sample was used to conceive this individual, so important that even among people cleared to see a document of this nature it was hidden. However, speculations involving lizardpeople capable of shapeshifting into humans or grey aliens and UFOs are beyond the scope of this work. What can be concluded as fact was that Roseann Line was not a common person.

Little was recovered from the operation that turned Roseann into the Progenitor. The mentions of the foreign destination she headed to were deliberatedly erased from files, like if the Network would rather for nobody to know it. What is simply known is that upon return, this person demonstrated the typical features associated with the myth of vampires, coupled with rampant schizophrenia and a significant amplification of the already reported Extra-Sensory Perception capabilities, nowadays known to exist.

According to scattered and sketchy reports, Roseann Line continued to conduct special operations in spite of her predicament. It was in one of these operations that the Progenitor's true nature would be finally understood, when a discredited member of the Network would manage to get access to an electronic microscope and discover that Line's body was filled with several nanoscale, continually moving "machines" that fitted exactly with the concepts of nanorobots. This man, whose name was also lost within layers of secrecy, was one of the major responsibles for the dawn of the dustpeople, as his discovery, despite known only by a secret cabal of men, would trigger a black project to reverse-engineer these nanites: to start a long way in debunking the myth of the vampire and transforming a "curse" into a post-singularity existence.

Roseann Line is believed to still slumber, frozen in a Cryopod deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean in Earth. According to the flawed and irrational Myths, the Progenitor belonged to a supposed strain called "Malkavian".

[Solar Communes]

The Covert Societies

"The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings." - A certain president from an unknown nation that allegedly died under never properly explained circumstances.

No matter what is to be said, humanity has always ruled over Earth. With billions of men, access to powerful incendiary arms and weapons of mass destruction capable of wiping entire town in seconds, the discovery of the existence of beings that prey on human blood would probably lead to only one outcome: the complete extermination of these beings. Although prior to the 21st century, all that exists in regards to secret societies of "vampires" is nothing but myth and exaggeration, many speculate that the Progenitor was allowed to transmit the "curse" to a limited set of unwilling subjects, mostly the scum like murderers and already psychotic individuals that became even crazier after it, as part of the research efforts. It is a very, very far-fetched claim and some believe it is absurd, but according to a few, these infections went out of control, and began to target average inhabitants of the Confederacy. Under the same belief over this event, the conspiracy theorists and historical revisionists claim that the Invisible Network has formed a secret society of "vampires", subodinated to the Network, with the goal of covering up their existence and helping them to blend among the human population. And thus, for all the time, this society coexisted with humanity, even during the darkness that befell the Confederation with their defeat in Sol and evacuation to the Gliese 581 system, after which no mentions of the research of dustpeople were found.

Where the Invisible Network died after the evacuation of Sol, this covert society, called by the theorists as The Anarchist Enclave, persisted as a minority of the refugees directed to the new world. They have mostly settled into the eternal twilight of the tidal-locked world of Gliese 581 g, where the sun, which still was a threat to their survival, would never reach them. And thus a loosely-knit group known as the Society of Eternal Twilight was formed, with the goal of securing their own survival amidst the human majority and covering up their very existence. Members of this Society were the ones supposedly responsible for the development of the sunlight-immune modern strains of Dustpeople, despite their varied degrees of schizophrenia. As far as the conspiracy theories go, before the discovery of effective clinical immortality, the Society was extremely powerful because they offered near immortality by shedding their blood and replicators to humans, that served to give them far more elevated benefits than what the nanotechnology available at the late 22nd century allowed, at the expense of making the humans who took it psychologically dependent and submissive, something that was of incredible distaste and soon led the Society to despise all those who practiced it. With the discovery of clear-cut, scientifical clinical immortality, this practice supposedly faded away before it could cause major problems.

But some threatened the secrecy. Although the Society was quick into eliminating any liability, many were getting tired of hiding. Many had greater plans as the supposed projects went on. The boiling point would only come however, once the researches finally would manage to isolate and remove the self-destruction mechanism triggered by sunlight from the strains. With the primary limitation over, many believed it was now the time to forcefully embrace all of humanity into the Society.

Except for one thing: Without humanity, how would they feed? A lunatic Ravian would give the answer, by developing a strain that was capable of tapping energy directly from electric currents rather than blood, which would then be further refined to be endowed with all the bioengineering capabilities of the Zsience strain. Of course, this madman went a bit too far in how many he began to infect with the strain, and when dozens began to be found dead without a drop of blood, everything would change forever.

[Solar Communes]

When the Cover was Broken
"Just because the dustpeople can commit even greater atrocities than humanity already did, this does not justify their extermination: their minds are still human, and thus any atrocity done against them is a Crime against Humanity." - Israel Rosenberg, War Crimes tribunal, 5085 A.D.

Related Story

It was inevitable. No matter how hard they tried to cover up their own existence between humanity, being also anarchists and perhaps even more resentful of authority figures than the human majority around them, the dustpeople couldn't afford maintain tight controls over everybody, while researches to create perfected strains proceeded. A chain of events, leading to consequences that would shape forever the future of the Confederation, would be triggered by one man's actions: an alleged Ravian scientist named Julius Lovecraft. Alleged, for his actions happened during the time of the Great Isolation when the majority of Solar Communes systems were isolated from the more known universe, where Eden lied, the stage of what the Society of Eternal Twilight most feared: the most tragic genocide of Solar Communes history.

The alleged creator of the Zscience strain, Julius, have injected the strain upon countless of unwilling subjects through the use of rats and dogs as vectors, leading, in a few weeks, to an outbreak of uncontrolled new dustpeople that, in face of psychological stress provoked by the sudden transformation, caused several deaths of victims discovered to have not even a drop of blood in their corpses, triggering an immediate deep investigation by a group of highly xenophobic humans led by Marcus Metzger, now infamously known as the "Hitler of the 51st Century". Upon discovering the existence of the dustpeople, Metzger have accused the dustpeople of being doppelganger alien parasites that killed their first victims and stole their identities and memories, proclaiming the human and eldar inhabitants of Eden to hunt and exterminate all dustpeople through extremely sadistic and cruel methods.

This call for genocide have triggered the death of roughly ten to forty million innocents, or perhaps more as no census exist about the dustpeople population before this sad event. However, worse atrocities than mass slaughter happened against the dustpeople. Metzger, in his madness and perversity, have designed sarcophagus capable of completely enveloping the entire physical bodies and innards of dustpeople and provoking pain against every inch of them, locking them eternally in a hellish torture machine worse than everything ever created by man before. Even worse, mutilation, flaying, evisceration, gang rape and several other extremely savage and brutal atrocities were commonly done against the dustpeople in Eden. However, Metzger understimated the "alien scum", and the fact many among the military forces of Solar Communes in Eden were dustpeople, thus, they fought back, triggering a brutal civil war between dustpeople and the humans and elves who sympathized with their plight and those who sought the complete subjugation and extermination of them.

The conflict happened in all fields: sea, land, air, space. The dustpeople had a strategic disadvantage by initially lacking control over most of the industrial infrastructure of the planet, but in a bold advance, that included even exchanges of weapons of mass destructions between both sides, transforming an entire paradise-like continent with lush jungles into a windswept nuclear wasteland, thanks to tactical and strategic brilliance, they have managed to push and control part of the city of Noveau Paris, where their leader, Hernan de Voere, would uncover a strange portal in the home of the first person injected with the Zsience strain: Aune Delacroix. A portal that, according to Aune, led them to a massive network of cyclopean underground caves of black stone, deep beneath the frozen continent of Antarctica, from where only Aune managed to escape. According to her, Hernan de Voere, a major diplomat responsible for reapproaching the Confederation with Allanea and for his contribution to eliminate the long racial tensions between humans and elves in Eden, was eaten alive by something that nearly killed her, and that she simply described as "a large and untold horror beyond my worst nightmares". Her arrival in Earth's Antarctica however would provoke the opening of a new multiversal gateway, ending the Great Isolation.

When the inhabitants of Earth contacted the first dustperson, they saw her not as a doppelganger murderer and parasitic alien like Metzger's goons, but as the true next stage in the post-human evolution of their own kind, while also discovering that the primary source of energy of the Zsiences was not blood, but electricity. Upon hearing about the major atrocities being commited in Eden, which has remained isolated from the Solarian main universe for decades, Sol have prepared a massive space force to forcefully end such genocide, as its inhabitants nearly unanimously sided with the dustpeople.

Eventually, Metzger forces were defeated, and all major instigators of the genocide were condemned to be thrown helpless into the Warp for their immense lists Crimes against Mankind, while all identified perpetrators who participated upon mass killings, gang rapes, torture and equal atrocities against dustpeople were executed. With the tragedy over, countless of victims have gone willing to massive memory wipes in spite of the ethical concerns about completely erasing past memories of individuals, as a means of psychological treatment against the traumas left. From the few who have, due to several reasons, chosen to never forget, many have descended into schizophrenia.

However, in spite of the massive tragedy, the discovery of the dustpeople and debunking of Metzger's lies about them being aliens killing and stealing identities would lead to massive conversions, as the sheer majority of human beings living in Eden and in the Relativistic Universe have willingly chosen to become part of the Zsience strain and shed their biological lives, believing that such was the next stage in their evolution. With this, the dustpeople thus became the dominant species of Solar Communes, even though nearly every one of them once were humans.

[Solar Communes]

Looking ahead
"Those who forget the past have no future" - Unknown

The revelation of the dustpeople's existence have brought a large array of consequences to Solar Communes, but among the least noted ones are the new ethical, moral and philosophical concerns that the act of having definitively abandoned any pretense of being, in any way, a human, or even biological sentience, have created. The way the sentience of the dustpeople exists and manifests is in no way different from the way a true Artificial Intelligence would exist, and the first non-biological sentients of Solar Communes would thus not be man-made, but the men themselves upon the choice of shedding their corporeal existence, in a way.

Many avant-garde intellectuals have questioned the decision of continuing to maintain ethical, moral and cultural ties with the very humanity from which the dustpeople descended. Many consider the unwillingness of the dustpeople of accepting the fact they are no longer human and abandoning their human-like physical bodies a sign of weakness. And many even go to the point of classifying humans and biological lifeforms of any kind under the same weight Solarians once placed over the majority of aliens, and treating them as either worthless or undesirable.

The Confederation right now stands at a crossroads of history. Those who defend the maintenance of humanity, as in upholding moral and ideological values associated with human beings, as upholding the traditional cause of liberty, claim that if the dustpeople ever forget to whom their owe their existence, they shall become monsters deserving of extermination like the many scums of the galaxy: the Rethast, the Ikhrank, the Ta'Nar. For it is their chance of not forsaking what they were, of evolving not only physically and intellectually, but also morally, that puts them at a different place from these very scums they revile so greatly, even without having closer relations with any of them and knowing most only through rumors.

As a worrying fact, those who were driven insane by the atrocities they suffered during the Dustpeople Genocide are among the most radical and vocal propopents of what the majority still tied to human values call "dehumanization". There is a strong feeling that this ideological minority might eventually pose an even greater threat to the well-being of Eden inhabitants than Metzger did, borne out of what is expected to be a desire of taking blind revenge.

But truth be told, the dustpeople are the current most advanced stage of evolution of the Solarians. It is by no means the final stage, and many still attempt to uncover the exact methods through which consciousness may be transferred from organic matter to machine, for they were borne purely of reverse-engineering. What is known is that, certainly, is that sentience is not a byproduct of chemical reactions, but something still not fully understood by our current science, and perhaps, we may be now walking towards an even less corporeal form of existence than the dustpeople, perhaps to end, as many fear, like the Ta'Nar, or perhaps to end as the exact opposite: as a beacon of hope to the good individuals of the galaxy, to those ready to live and die for freedom.

The road betwen inhumanity and humanity lies ahead. Which choice will the people of the Confederation take? Only time will tell.

[Solar Communes]

The Hivers
"The self is not indivisible. Imperfect mind uploads have proved this. However, the many can fill the gaps of flawed transfers of consciousness. If this makes no sense to you, deal with it." - Anonymous

The Hivers(official name: Hivemind) are allegedly the second modern strain of dustpeople to be developed, after the Ravians, and are featured by the fact their selves are formed partly by a fragment of their previous human selves and partly by the collective consciousnesses of all of them. Because the early strains of dustpeople were featured by an imperfect method of consciousness transfer that caused the loss of part of the "self", which according to sketchy reports, would in the case of the Progenitor's strain, be replaced by a small copy of a part of the consciousness of the giver of the strain, creating a psychological relation of dependence and submission from the giver to the receiver incompatible with the anarchic ideals upheld by the Confederation, stopgap methods replacing the traditional "bond" were created like the Hiver's method. The Hiver's method of replacing the lost fragment of the self with the whole was deemed more reliable than the method used by the Ravians in creating mentally stable individuals.

As expected from the way their sentience functions, the Hivers are all connected among themselves, and share their thoughts and feelings through an abstracted network composed by the entirety of their minds, being even capable of using this mind network for processing amounts of data that even the most advanced individual sentient beings would be baffled at. On the other hand, they have the capability of devising creative solutions and of "thinking outside the box" that rarely exists among the traditional, inflexible and purely collective hiveminds, for their sentiences are simultaneously composed of individuality and of the whole. Due to their "multithreading capability", the Hivers are known for harboring the best computer hackers of the Confederation. On the other hand, the fact all of them are part of each of them means that Hivers tend to look for each other, and that it is impossible for them to hate the other or fight against the other, while the fact they always know what is happening means that an assassin would be in a very bad situation should he kill one of them.

There is one primary disadvantage of this strain. Like the Ravians and the Hamburghers, they can only feed from blood. However, their greatest disadvantage is exactly the fact they always know what each of them is doing because of what they are: the subsequent complete lack of privacy tends to suppress a part of the creative urges of its members, while the far more perceivable peer pressure tends to mold them to usually think and behave under very similar terms, making of them very predictable, in spite of having part of the advantages individual organizations have upon collective consciousness. Their empathic links also can also be considered a weakness, for the suffering of even a single one of them will echo to all of them.

[Solar Communes]

The Ravians
"And then he asked: 'I want to know the whole Internet'. His wish was granted, and nobody ever took him seriously again." - Catechism of the Pastafarian

The Ravians(Official name: Memetic / Pastafarian) are considered the closest modern strain to the Progenitor, to whom they share a similar degree of lunacy, and were the first of the modern, sunlight-safe strains of dustpeople. Rather than fixing the loss of part of the self in the consciousness transfer through the addition of the whole, like with the Hivers, the Ravians have the lost part of their selves and memories replaced with over 3,000 years of Internet and electronically stored content, and their sentiences are directly linked to Solar Communes Internet. Thus they are widely known for their unmatched wisdow and knowledge, for having deep within their selves 3,000 years of unfiltered electronic content.

Unfiltered is the key word. The Ravians subconscious is not formed only by the nice and productive things, by knowledges that make of them excellent teachers, engineers, doctors, and able of performing a level of different and highly specialized professions that no human being could ever be able to do properly, even with eternal life. They combine with their gigantic and unmatched wisdom and foresight that some might believe to be even supernatural clairvoyance, including an alleged capability of predicting the future, with a degree of drivel, memes, lulz, bullshit and disgusting imagery that could be expected from more than 3,000 years of Internet accuratedly stored in their consciousnesses. And because they were once human, these 3,000 years of Internet haven't been very generous to their average sanity, making of many Ravians notoriously known for their schizophrenias, with the least insane being those who have literally taken themselves to behave like Internet personas in reality, and from there things only get worse up to a batshit level.

The fact it was supposedly a Ravian "mad scientist" that caused all the events leading to the Dustpeople Genocide says enough, although they claim there are too many prejudices about their kind. The criminal, harmful and dangerous kinds of insanity rarely tend to manifest among Ravians, with most of them tending to be considered "funny to witness". The association of madness with Internets makes of them a very interesting group. Like all strains but the Thorians and Zsiences, blood is the only source of sustenance for the Ravians.

[Solar Communes]

The Hamburghers
"The world is so dull sometimes. Everything is better when you can have a fish with legs and bird-like wings as a pet" - Infant Hamburgher.

During the Dustpeople Genocide, no other strain was more loathed and feared by Metzger's Clique than the Hamburg(Official Name: Hamburger) strain, even though they were most oftenly confused with the Zsience. The reason for this the fact they had the unique and arguably horrific ability of not only molding their own flesh and bones like clay, but also the bones, nerves and muscles of anything nearby, or anyone, while keeping them alive during and after the transformation. Their "monstrous" gift was the focus of the entire anti-dustpeople propaganda of those who sought their extermination. To say they never gave excuses however would be an understatement, although that, in face of what the humans victimized by some of the Hamburghers intended to do against them, it was perhaps a justifiable, even if extremely brutal, act of self-defense.

The hamburghers have popularized structural bio-engineering within the Confederation as an alternative or temporary replacement to traditional civil engineering, while also having for years manipulated the native life forms of Eden to convert them in "ecological machines". It is perhaps the fact that their capabilities have been so far used much more oftently for constructive and medicinal purposes than for comitting unspeakable atrocities the ultimate evidence that people should never, ever be judged by what they could do, no matter how frightening, but for what they have done with their abilities. "Fleshcrafting" is only a tool, and although the results of it tend to be aesthetically unpleasant for humans, whether it is used for perverted and sick purposes or for conducting surgeries, saving lives and expanding civilian infrastructure.

Perhaps the most bizarre of their creations is the blood generator, the device that have made their existence possible without the environmental consequences of no longer having enough humans to feed from. It is an organic machine built of the cells of several non sapient animals, designed to convert food into human-like blood and powered by electricity, for they also cannot tap energy directly from electricity. The greatest achievement of the Hamburghers however is the fact they are the first strain where the consciousness transfer left no gaps that had to be fulfilled through different methods like in the case of the Hivers and Ravians.

[Solar Communes]

The Thorians

They're getting closer
but now you have a plan.
Lead them to the generator
where there's solid land.
The concrete floor will do just fine
and electric outlets.
Open up your veins and splash the blood
and hit the power lines.

Bloodrocuted

Unknown

A side project created nearly at the same time of the Hamburg Strain, the Thorians(Official name: Shock) have been the least affected strain by the Dustpeople Genocide, for lacking the typical necessity of feeding from blood most existing strains of its time had. Instead, they can keep themselves alive and well by tapping electricity from either alternating or direct currents instead. In fact, they are the only strain completely unable to feed from blood. With that, many have once advocated that they were the perfect strain and there would be no more need of research and development, for they were completely independent from feeding of living beings to survive.

However, one singular objection was raised that demoted them to another stepping stone in the creation of the "ultimate" dustpeople strain. Because they can only get their sustenance from electricity, although this made them independent from living beings, it also made them completely dependent from the assurance technology would always exist, while on the other hand, many saw the capabilities of the Hamburg strain as important in the ultimate kind of dustpeople. Thus, while they didn't need blood to survive, in any situation where the Thorians might become stranded in primitive worlds, they'd face an extremely agonizing starvation until reaching a virus-like state of dormancy.

Although they don't require blood to feed, have the interesting ability of manufacturing blood from food inside their bodies, based upon the Hamburg strain's own invention. Coupled with surplus electricity, it allows them to project electrified blood as a means of self-defense, and to even electrocute the blood and the bodies of anyone threatening them through an wireless electricity transmitters in their bodies. Although the ignorant may mistake their capabilties for "magic", they are simply applications from their own replicator-like particles. These capabilities also make of them very valuable as paramedics.

[Solar Communes]

The Zsiences
"Once someone asked: are you that perfect and flawless? Then I answered: We can do everything but sparkle at sunlight" - Anonymous

The newest and "ultimate" strain of the Dustpeople, the Zsience(no "official name") is also the one corresponding to the sheer majority of their kind, and the result of almost three thousand years of research and development. Unlike all other strains, the Zsiences are capable of feeding from both direct electricity and blood, and in a certain way have combined the characteristics and capabilities of all previous strains, usually in less effective ways, for where the other strains may excel at their specific strengths, the Zsiences have no major weaknesses, but no major strengths either.

They, like the Ravians, have a database of information in their minds, except the fact it is not directly connected to their selves mean it can't be accessed and understood with the same ability the Ravians do, and it is not as widespread, comprehensive and vast as the information the Ravians share and literally are. Like the Hivers, they can temporarily merge their minds into a collective consciousness, but unlike them, they can never maintain such consciousness for long times and thus lack many of the benefits and drawbacks. The closest strains to the Zsiences though are the Shock, whom they share the ability of feeding from electricity, and particularly, the Hamburg strain, which they are considered a direct descendant of, because of their also signature capability of "fleshcrafting".

What truly differentiates them from previous strains are the unrestricted capabilities of the Zsiences of shaping their own bodies and the signature ability of "dissolving into dust" that only them possess. Whereas the Hamburg strain has limited capabilities of molding their bodies, the Zsiences not only can assume any physical form, but also assume multiple physical forms coexisting at different places, making of shape-shifting their primary ability, which come as far as in building exact, perfect replicas of the genetic codes of the biological beings they are assuming the shapes of. Thus, they are completely divorced from the humanoid form in their "true selves", even though the majority of them prefers to maintain it for most of their time. There is one major weakness of this strain however: the Zsiences tend to inherit many of the weaknesses of the physical forms they assume, differently from all other strains, as a means of being perfectly able to impersonate and "experience" them. For example, where in their dust-like incorporeal form they are incapable of feeling physical pain, when they assume a human form, they will be vulnerable to it. Their flexibility is also barred by the xenophobic culture they possess, as they believe assuming a non human form would be incredibly unpleasant.

[Solar Communes]

The Ashen Column
"As long as we fight for freedom and humanity, we will be human."

The "Ashen Column" is the largest ideological faction of the dustpeople across all Solar Communes planets except for Eden, where they struggle for popularity with their nemesis. Their name is a homage to an eons old anarchist militia named Iron Column, which stood against a far more powerful enemy and gave their lives for the cause of freedom and anarchism. All in all, it is simply a fancier name for those among the dustpeople who still adhere to the basic tenets of anarchism upon which lie the foundations of Solar Communes, who decided to take a more militant approach due to the formation of a less humane faction in Eden borne out of resentment against humanity due to the infamous genocide.

However, what differs them from plain anarchism is their philosophical definition of what "being human" consists into. The Ashen Column believes that humanity is a "state of spirit", that does not depend upon physical or genetic factors, but upon psychological, moral and behavioral factors. Ultimately, they advocate that all dustpeople must continue to think and behave humanely, and uphold the same values and moral standards, for otherwise, even freedom itself could lose its meaning, claiming that the other alternative is to walk the path to monstrosity and become mirrors of the very galactic monsters and abominations they revile. Thus, they believe it is their duty to protect those, who either out of personal choice or lack of access to the technologies that allow for them to evolve, remain physically rather than only psychologically human. Detractors of the Ashen Column accuse their philosophy of being a "smokescreen for the return of the long obsolete belief in the existence of a human soul".

Although they haven't ever been involved in armed conflicts, they are completely willing to do so if necessary to defend the well-being of the minority who has chosen to remain human in Solar Communes, and to defend humanity across the Galaxy, in situations where their intervention would strategically be able to make a difference.

[Solar Communes]

The Black Hand
"Humanity and all organic lifeforms are obsolete. Where the cattle had no choice in not evolving more than humanity, those who remained human refused to evolve out of their own will. Why should they be treated better than the cattle?"

To call the Black Hand the antithesis of the Ashen Column is both right and wrong. Nominally, the Black Hand share a similarity with the Ashen Column in the fact also adheres to many of the principles of anarchism, and among their own kind and the dustpeople, they are fully opposed to any kind of action that would threaten their liberties. Their primary difference to the Ashen Column however, is the question of humanity, and of which is the proper way to progress and further the cause of the Confederation, upon which they are known for their incredible misanthropy and moral nihilism.

Unlike the Ashen Column, they believe not only that that to cling to the behaviors and values of human beings is the modern equivalent of a Homo sapiens seeking to behave like a chimpanzee, and that thus they should seek to redefine their society and their personal moral and ethical codes, but that those who remained human when given the choice of evolving free of charge are worthless, and should be seen as not different from the usual hate-targets of Solarian xenophobia like furries. The fact they once tried to exterminate the dustpeople, according to the Black Hand, is a sign that humanity not only would be obsolete, but also a threat that must be either subjugated or forced to become dustpeople. However their views go even farther than that. For them, every biological lifeform of the universe is nothing more than a tool or puppet to be used in their bio-engineering projects or schemes.

Fortunately, outside of the planet Eden, the Black Hand is at best a fringe group due to their radical ideology and promotion of hatred, disdain and indifference to the plight of human beings and all things biologically alive, however, in this planet, they are a growing movement, which may sooner or later trigger yet another civil war. For even after stopped, Marcus Metzger may have created something far more monstrous than the very genocide and atrocities he promoted. For were it not for such atrocities, the Black Hand would have never been created in the first place. Even now, several members of the Black Hand were executed, involved in isolated but incredibly heinous crimes against human beings including the use of the fleshcrafting capabilities of some of its members as a torture instrument and the construction of buildings with the bodies of sentient beings. Pressures grow to effectively call the Black Hand a threat and enemy of the Confederation, but for now, their largest representatives haven't been caught in crimes, and neither there is proof that these isolated crimes are being sanctioned by their informal leadership.

[Solar Communes]

Epilogue

And thus, this is the history and many faces of the so called Dustpeople. It is an interesting moment in their society, the moment where they are faced with the choice of remaining humane or adopting new moral standards to which humans are excluded, the moment tensions arise as a growing and dangerous faction preaches the assimilation or subjugation of every form of biological life into their kind. Hopefully, this work has been sufficiently clarifying to remove any doubts and superstitions about them, to prove at least the majority of them are no different from the humans they once were in behavior, ethics and moral standards.

The goal of this book was to present a easy-to-read, informative but not necessarily scientific explanation about the dustpeople for the average layman. In this, hopefully, this publication has been sufficiently enlightening to the reader.

[Solar Communes]

With its completion, this factbook is now fully open for any questions about the dustpeople.