I’ve added a new Archives page with a complete list of very page by chapter and a brief synopsis of each chapter. Also added to the About The Vanguard page, listing the other fictional settings and characters that have influenced the creation of this series.
Check out the additions and let me know what you think.
About The Commplant
The commplant is the most common type of personal communications device in the universe of The Vanguard. They are the universe’s version of smartphones, and fulfill all the same functions and then some, only instead of being carried outside the body, they are implanted inside the body, integrated into a biont’s (biological sapient’s) brain and central nervous system.
Basic Functions
They connect a sophont directly to the local network via radio signals. They have considerable processor capacity capable of computation and storage at levels far exceeding 21st-century PCs – users can play games and enjoy visual and audio entertainment as well as send and receive messages containing visual and audio data. For accessing visual data, the implant sends images directly to the brain’s visual cortex. Audio data is sent directly to the brain’s auditory cortex. For “speaking” the commplant taps directly into the brain’s speech and language centers as well as the nerves controlling speech to interpret and broadcast what a user wishes to say. With this capability a user is capable of having a private conversation with someone only they can see or hear, though others can be linked in to the conversation if desired. A user with a commplant can use themselves as a biological camera and microphone, taking in sound and images (still or motion) through their own eyes and ears and storing the resulting data on their commplant’s processor/memory substrate.
Pain management is one of the basic medical functions of commplants. A commplant can automatically block debilitating pain impulses arriving to the brain, and can be consciously used to block minor pain impulses (like those coming from a headache, for example).
Optional Functions
One of the most common optional functions of a commplant is a interpreter function that translates any spoken or written language (and even many non-spoken languages, like signing and color patterns) into one the user is familiar with, making it a kind of Universal Translator. Another common option is to facilitate “speed learning” where knowledge of a subject is “downloaded” directly into the user’s brain. A commplant is not required for this, but it does make the process of integrating the knowledge into the brain faster and smoother, bringing total comprehension of a subject in hours or days versus weeks or months via traditional methods of learning. If the sophont with a commplant also has a medical nanosystem implanted, the commplant will have medical expert systems downloaded to it to oversee and control the activites of the nanosystem as it stops infectious agents and repairs injuries to the sophont’s body. This is far from a comprehensive list, there are many other things commplant users can do with suitable modifications, usually software-based.
Installation
The method of installing commplants varies between cultures, races and polities. Methods include injection, infusion, oral pill or inhaler devices. Whatever the method, it introduces specially designed and programmed nanobots that migrate to the central nervous system and build the commplant from proteins and other materials within the sophont’s body. Valourans are one of the sophonts born with commplants, however the genetic modifications for this can be adapted to other sophont races.
Acceptance and Alternatives
The commplant renders other personal comm devices obsolete, and is widely used by the overwhelming majority of sophonts (and is endemic in cyborgs and mioids – sophont robots), but it is not universally accepted. Some bionts are not comfortable having a comm device implanted in their heads for various reasons, and some have central nervous systems that are unable to integrate with an artificially implanted device. These beings instead use other personal comm devices such as earbuds or other wearable devices made in the form of jewelry or integrated into items of clothing, controlled by voice command. Other more traditionally-minded sophonts (or from civilizations of lower tech levels) may use hand-held comm devices of various forms and shapes.
I’m working to have the next page of The Vanguard up by next Friday, August 9th. See you then!
Apologies once again for the missed schedule, but it looks like I won’t be able to post any more comic pages until August, my other responsibilities (job, family) are making it so. This chapter is far from finished, look for page 26 in early August.
The Galactic Union is one of the largest, most powerful and advanced civilizations in what we call the Milky Way galaxy, but they are not the only one at that level. Here are two of the other major ones, the main rivals to the GU.
Galacticorp
Originally a number of interstellar megacorporations founded by the expansionist and strongly capitalistic race known as the Orisini over thousands of years of their starfaring history, the various corporations merged or took over their rivals until there was one interstellar hypercorp left, which took the name Galacticorp. Run mainly by a hypermilect known only as the Chief Executive, it controls a vast area of space Galactic West and North of the Union, and its top shareholders tends to hold vast sections of this space and have virtually absolute control within their domains. The Orisini and the other races overrun by the hypercorp’s ongoing colonization and system exploitation/development operations tend to be treated as resources to be used and discarded as they affect the bottom line. The hypercorp is generally predatory and aggressive in its dealings both within and outside its sphere of influence, and looks covetously towards the systems and resources inhabited and claimed by the Galactic Union, planning to acquire them by any means necessary.
The borders of its domain, especially between it and the Union, tend to be havens for many types of criminal activity, including piracy, slavery, narcotic drug production/smuggling and other types of organized crime. Mainly this is because the economic “losers” of Galacticorp space, those who were unable to make their fortune any other way or lost said fortune in the ruthlessly competitive environment of ‘Corp space, tend to drift toward the edges since they can’t afford to live anywhere else (though many such sapients will migrate to the GU if they can). It has been speculated that various elements within ‘Corp space allow and encourage these activities to take advantage of the products and services these criminal organizations can provide, including using them in attacks against rivals and GU settlements and outposts.
The Machilect Network
A milect-only empire, who are hostile toward bionts (biological sapients), inhabiting space also to the Galactic West of the GU, but further South than Galacticorp space. They have no respect for the sapient rights of any beings other than themselves, basically sophtware intellects and virtual beings inhabiting processor substrates of various types, though they also inhabit and control vehicles and vessels, like starships and probes, and use robotic devices as remotes. They are mostly isolationist and guard their territory fiercely – systems known to be inhabited by them are considered no-go zones by bionts. Unfortunately, often the first sign that a system has been taken over by them is when a biont-inhabited vessel entering that system is attacked and possibly even destroyed. Sometimes the Network responds to overly curious biont explorers poking around their systems by both destroying the explorers’ probe and/or ship and wiping out the colonies or even entire civilizations the explorers came from.
Some members of the Network are suspected of ongoing cyberwarfare attacks on neighboring civilizations, especially newer/smaller colonies that may not have strong enough defenses. Settlements sufficiently weakened by these attacks may then be physically attacked and converted to processor substrate and associated support systems, if their sponsoring civilizations do not respond quickly enough to the initial cyberattacks.
The Machilect Network and Galacticorp are prone to clash with each other over resource-rich systems and high-energy stars even more than with the GU, since both the Network and the ‘Corp are aggressively expansionist and share a border. They are also known to share and develop systems together to mutual benefit, rare though these agreements are. They also have the occasional agreement with the GU to share a system, though the GU administrative milects in those systems have to be extra-vigilant to make sure their neighbors keep to their end of the agreements, which also must be carefully worded.