TwoCupsofSugar

I'm on bluesky now: twocupsofsugar

The Faces of Mercurion

Found my old mercurion notes on my tablet. Cybernetics and gene modding is so common throughout the Mercurion empire because its so cheap and easy to acquire. Humans and post-humans can't modify themselves to the same degree as true mercurions as they've spent generations messing with their own genes to make the process easier for themselves. (It also helps that most of them are clones)

Here are couple different looks among true mercurions as cybernetics are a combination of utility, fashion, and social status symbols. The two in the middle are "full chrome" just two different styles. High caste mercurions generally prefer cybernetics which are largely indistinguishable from normal human tissue since it more expensive. The "tall head" is currently very popular among the wealthy. So looking overtly machiney is generally a sign that your of the lower caste.

Blender experiments

I haven't used this software in ages since the major UI over haul after 2.8 which I never quite got used to. But I decided I wanted to experiment with 2d animation, and I currently can't afford Spine at the moment (expensive) so blender it is. Its technically not a 2d model, just a collection of layers planes akin to cut out animation but in orthographic view its convincing enough.

Some vreem sketches, drawing my little bug guys. Vreem communicate sorta like crickets, By rubbing specialized plates together to produce a chip and buzzing sounds. The two vreem sexes have slightly different chest plates, males have an extra set which allows them to produce higher frequency sounds than the females. A common form body modification are artificial chest plates, typically worn over clothing to augment their "voices" and for fashion.

The God of Masks

"The Archon Lucien wished to grant his followers immortality and so he attempted to make mortals more like himself. However his attempts were met with failure, and rather than create angels he made demons instead"

Demons have unstable souls, one which burns uncontrollably, hollowing out its bearing leaving nothing but a husk behind. Charred ones are mindless demons whom like a ghost wander the lunar plane Tarek lost in their own memories.

All demons fear becoming a charred one, it is demeaning fate, and so to continue on as themselves they must feed on the souls of others to stabilize their own.

A collection of sketches of CSG related stuff, adding and revamping some of their lore.

First sketch is a chimeran attendant conversing with a SAI hologram avatar.

There are two types of constructs within the CSG, SAI (Systems AI) and PAI (portable AI, i.e the common sapient robot) SAI were created first, and are essentially the rulers of the CSG. They're the big AI which inhabits a giant building type. Outside of their relative size, SAI hardware takes up rooms, while a PAI are small enough to operate in human size space, they are very different on a functional level. SAI sapience is natively cumulative and emergent. They're a complex computer system made of specialized hardware and software which when put together has the possibility to develop sapience. Keyword here is possibility, not all attempts at creating a SAI is successful (it actually has a high failure rate).

PAI on the other had are basically sapient code. To make a PAI just copy their code onto a suitable hardware and that's it, you've got a PAI. There existence is a fluke, some SAI was messing around with programs capable of editing their own programming, and by shear accident it resulted in what would become the base code for all PAI.

So unlike SAI which are all made individually one system at a time, PAI are all copies of an original program.

A Little Bit on the CSG

CSG operates a bit more like feudal society than a democratic state we'd be familiar with today. The CSG is loosely split into various domains each governed by a SAI administrator which governs the region as both lord and custodian. The CSG doesn't have definitive borders between domains, what is and isn't in a domain is determined by by a SAI's ability to actually oversee it which functionally is the size of their own communication networks. So think more like fuzzy grey zones than definitive lines. I was exploring ideas for banners and crests, which admins may wish to identify themselves with, but it feels a bit too medieval and on-the-nose for my liking.