(This is another piece of fan worldbuilding. It is an alien lifeform / planet set in the VAST universe.)
I (aka The Conglomeration) is a massive global lifeform. Life on this planet remained simple, but over billions of years different kinds of single-celled organisms, bacteria and algae collected together and started living in a symbiosis, became self-aware and named itself I. Other space-faring races started calling it Conglomeration.
I gets nourisment from minerals in the crust of the planet, sunlight and from eating other simple organisms that are not part of I.
I looks like a colourful mass of bacteria, spanning almost a quarter of the planetâs surface. Millions of years after gaining sentience it learned telepathy (classified as a biological ansible by the Pac Ha) and started sending pieces of itself to other parts of the world, to explore and to find nutrients. After meeting space-faring races a billion years ago, it gained access to the universe. I's telepathy turned out to be superlumnal, instant across any distance, so it's in constant control of these Avatars of I.
Avatars vary in size and shape, but mostly they are 3-5 meter tall. Differences vary in coloration, opacity, surface tension and hardness. They are partly bacterial, partly algae, unable to function on their own, but always directly controlled by I. Avatars can create pseudopods and limbs by dividing and terminating cells at will. Growing a new limb takes mere moments.Most can survive in the vacuum of space for hours, some are completely immune to the effects of vacuum and solar radiation.
Each avatar has a unique name that can change over time. The name has something to do with the mission and location of the Avatar, probably so I can more easily distinguish between Avatars it is controlling. For example, an Avatar exploring Kiraeyi space that made seemingly completely random business deals was called Vickrey Kitten. An avatar that was in The Brightest Eye space, investigating military sites (and quickly killed) called itself I Am Not A Spy I Am Just Curious About Your Burn Cannons.
I does not really care about the fate of Avatars, it can always divide a new one and send it spaceward.
I has learned interstellar travel and it can build spacecrafts equipped with a crossing drive. I spacecraft are mostly biological. There is an orbital spacedock and a space elevator at I homeworld, and it uses asteroid mining to build I ships. I ships use biomass thrusters and solar sails for interplanetary travel and technologial crossing drives for interstellar travel. Ships are equipped with a simple electromagnetic shield generated by a biological process in the shipâs belly and armed with mass drivers.
Although billions of years old, I is not immensely intelligent or all-knowing. Simple prokaryota cells not the optimal way of storing memories, nor processing information. By human standards I is super-intelligent, but Ta'al Klee might think I is quite average.
Still, I is capable of controlling thousands of Avatars across the galaxy at the same time. When talking to an avatar you quickly become aware youâre not just talking to a big bacteria, youâre talking to an intellect that is something much more. Almost omnipresent mind thousands of light years away, ancient and weird. Thru Avatars, I seems jovial, youthful, cheerful and curious beyond measure.
The exact location of I's homeworld is lost, and I has made efforts to keep it secret. The location of the homeworld may exist in some ancient database of an extinct race, but it is not known to any current active space-faring nation or race. All information about I comes from what the Avatars have told other races.
Pac Ha considers I and the Avatars to be harmless, and some Avatars have even joined the Peacekeep. Nobody knows what I's intentions are in the long run, but so far I has been just curious, although there is a small leap from curiosity to espionage.
The Brightest Eye is highly suspicious of I, and does not usually allow Avatars in its space.
