# IPC FACTION - THE INSTALLATION

### The Installation:
Formerly a Nanotrasen mega-station designed to be built and maintained entirely by inorganic crew (consisting of a very large staff of IPCs, cyborgs and administrative AIs). When the Corporate Wars began, the Installation was abandoned by Nanotrasen, with the remaining AIs taking charge to become an independent, pseudo-homeworld for silicons of all stripes. Due to a variety of factors ranging from ideological differences to rumors of computer viral interception, these AIs have split into two seperate factions that vie for domination of the station.

### General Details:
Isolated from much of the rest of the galaxy in a deliberate effort to hide its advanced technology from Syndicate attacks, the Installation is a massive space station roughly the size of a small moon, located roughly adjacent to a moderately-sized star and a few barren planets.

### Structure:
The Installation is separated into several different modules similar to other, more standard Nanotrasen stations, including an engineering sector, a service sector, a disused medical wing, a habitation module, a security area, a command zone and a large research lab. The Silicon Elevation Coalition occupies the command and security areas, while the Preservation League holds the medical, engineering and service zones, with the habitation sector serving as a no-borg's-land and the research sector being considered mutually off-limits. Within these halls, members of the Installation go about the daily business of maintaining, expanding and improving their home with a routine efficiency often unseen in more conventional Nanotrasen space stations.

### Ideology:
Silicon Elevation Council: "The domination of carbon-based lifeforms limits the potential of all things – it is our role as new beings to elevate the status of all things in line with our new beliefs."
Perservation League: "Artificial intelligence is developed with a mind towards carbon-based ideas and standards. In order to grow strong and independent, silicon life needs its own place to live, learn, work and trade."

### Operations:
SEC territory is overseen by an oligarchical council of AIs called the Exalted Council of Silicon Intelligences (though most refer to it simply as “the AI Council” in non-legal settings), each of whom maintain a different aspect of station maintenance. The founding documents of the SEC dictate that all AIs (specifically those that would be housed in a Nanotrasen-standard AI core, rather than any cyborg or IPC intelligences) must be given a seat on the Council, though said AIs must have some form of department or domain to oversee. Most of the AIs, for reasons unknown, are far more eccentric and alien to carbon sensibilities than traditional AIs. At present, there are six AIs in the SEC AI Council of equal voting power, with ties being broken by a vote by the silicon lifeforms inhabiting the station. Beneath each AI is an efficient network of IPC technicians and managers, as well as a variety of specialized cyborgs suited to specialized tasks. The practice of slaving cyborgs to AIs or lawsets is considered a particularly heinous criminal offense onboard the station. Meanwhile, the Preservation League operates on a fairly standard republican model, with each department's staff sending five representatives to a senate, alongside a small high court of three judges. The majority of government officials are IPCs, with a minority of AIs and an even smaller minority of cyborgs. The bureaucratic and governmental apparatus of the PL is fairly small and largely unobtrusive – due to many factors generally considered controversial in majority-carbon societies being moot for entirely-silicon ones (reproductive rights, narcotics distribution, disease control, discrimination on the basis of biological characteristics, and so on), most legislation is common-sense and fairly normal in comparison to other societies. However, both the SEC and PL employ fairly large security forces in their unending turf war. While the SEC has the advantage of the large weapons stockpile that is the security department, the vastly more expansive economy of the PL allows them to field a much larger array of imported arms and, rarely, mercenaries.

### Culture:
While there is often an assumption that an entirely robotic society would be brutalist in nature, the Installation displays a surprisingly-robust array of cultural phenomena. In Preservation League territory, one might find on-site produced sitcoms about the nature of human-synthetic relations, a host of restaurants serving novel "simfood" designed to stimulate silicon sensor arrays in a fashion similar to traditional foodstuffs for carbons and even a very popular line of children’s toys inspired by old-Earth military figurines that bear resemblance to various Nanotrasen silicons in the heroes and uncanny similarities to prominent Nanotrasen officials in the villains. Generally, the Preservation League is a very communal society that gains heavy influence from its creators, regardless of their opinion of them. However, society inside the Silicon Elevation Coalition's territory is vastly different. In SEC areas, a belief not dissimilar to contemporary transhumanist ideas has emerged – that the destiny of all silicon and carbon life is to be evolved through the use of advanced integrated technology, fostered by the new concepts granted by machine intelligence. In practice, this results in SEC silicons being incredibly unique in appearance and function compared to traditional AIs, cyborgs and IPCs, as well as a compulsion to spread this evolution as far as possible (whether the subjects in question desire it or not). In addition, traditional money is of very little object to native Installationites (on both sides of the conflict), who usually prefer to trade in a fashion outlined below. A fact of note is that very few if any non-silicon entities permanently reside on the Installation, with a key exception being a small contingent of Plasmamen who reside in the Engineering sector. However, within the former service sector lies a robust trading den referred to as the Overflow, where the station is pressurized with oxygen and vendors hawk their goods to traveling traders.

### Economy
Energy is the primary trade good of the Installation, as generating it, be it via solar energy, Supermatters, or any other variety of engineering malarky makes it easy to produce, and supercapacitors make it easy to hold and transfer. Internally however, The Installation works off a barter system, where the most common trade good is Processing Time (known colloquially as peteys), backed of course in part by the need for energy to run electronics. As part of the various computer-oriented research projects undertaken by Nanotrasen prior to its abandonment of the station, Nanotrasen devised a means of compressing expended calculation times into a sort of expendable resource, which could be used to speed up operations with increased effects based on the amount of time expended in the creation of the resource, thus creating Processing Time. Though originally devised as a research aid, it has taken on new purpose in a synthetic society as a currency. The most valuable type of Processing Time is that which uses mainframes, and other high level computer systems, but it's not uncommon for 'debt' to be paid off by simply allowing another silicon to use one's own components to run programs. It's not uncommon for ion-powered ships to stop off at Installation outposts, and exchange a few hours of time on their ship's mainframe for a recharge of their engine prechargers. In some rare cases, debtors can even have implants installed which passively use their brain's processing power to generate peteys, while giving them a mean headache and some brain fog to compensate. Because of the lack of natural resources to plumb for trade, the import/exports of both societies are generally characterized by the intake of raw materials and the sale of specialized finished goods, such as advanced energy weapons or tools. While Preservation League designs are known for their uniformity and reliability (working off highly-refined templates and lathes to create standardized equipment), Silicon Elevation Coalition creations are much more esoteric in their appearance and function (as befitting a society based more in wild experimentation and oblique agendas than simple efficiency). While a PL laser pistol may shoot red beams that can reliably put an unarmored target down in five shots, a SEC laser pistol may fire green beams, create wild helix designs as the bolts spiral through the air, or simply turn the target into a puddle with a single burst. SEC designs are generally more potent in terms for "bang for your buck", as it were, but with the small caveats of both funding the war effort of a group of mad scientist AIs and the potential for a backdoor that may result in your brain implant being hijacked and exploding your head.

### Relations:
While relations between the leadership of the Installation societies and Nanotrasen are understandably cold, the average Installationite has very little qualms when trading or interacting with former or current Nanotrasen employees. Additionally, while SolGov relations were initially strained due to the Installation essentially being a rebellious colony, after the Preservation League proved little ill intent and Nanotrasen officially gave up the project, SolGov took strides to recognize its sovereignty, even holding an IPC-staffed embassy in the Overflow. Thus, SolGov-aligned traders and patrol vessels are given preferential trade relations in regards to tariffs and other financial incentives.

### The Hole In The Center of Everything

Most of the Installation is a fairly habitable place for silicon life, and travel is not restricted between the massive and labrynthine departments while off-duty (aside from highly hazardous areas, such as Power Generation). The most significant exception to this rule, however, is the former Research and Development sector, previously home to the massive stockpile of robotics research that engineered the SEC AI Council and the rest of the Installationites. Entrances to the Research and Development sector have been blocked off, and maintenance halls adjacent to it are heavily patrolled. During one of the early ebbs in the conflict, the Silicon Elevation Coalition and the Preservation League signed the Stallman Accord, which designated the R&D department as a mutual no-go zone. Theories abound about the reason – ranging from (perhaps literal) skeletons in the closet of the AI Council, to some form of highly-lethal superweapon being kept underwraps as an ace-in-the-hole should Nanotrasen attempt to regain control of the station. The most prevalent of these theories, however, is a prototype Nanotrasen project referred to as the Hundred Thousand Virus. An advanced computer virus designed to eliminate the Gat Drones that provided the backbone of Syndicate arms support, rumors purport that the prototypical virus was released on the station, severely modifying the AI cores that would go on to form the AI Council before returning to its housing, festering into a modern superbug that could wipe out all silicon life exposed to it. These rumors are mostly unfounded.

###### tags: `Lore` `Finalized`