Sunbuilt Uplifters

Government

The Sunbuilt Uplifters are structured as a unitary theocratic monarchy. They are typically classified as a conservative mixed-economy autocracy, with moderate levels of corruption.

The government of the Sunbuilt Uplifters is a combination of ancient Luxorian governance, religious interpretation, and pragmatic necessity. The sole ruler is the Radiant Uplifter, who rules the state and interprets the Sunbuilt faith. In accordance with ancient Luxorian traditions, this position is a monarchical one. As the Sunbuilt are machines, they cannot have lineages like biological species can. Instead, the Radiant Uplifter is succeeded upon death by the High Priest, who effectively acts as the head of government for the state. The High Priest is also a lifelong position, serving until death or promotion to the position of Radiant Uplifter. High Priests are uniquely assembled according to the Radiant Uplifter's specifications, making them somewhat akin to a biological child.

A religious council headed by the High Priest supports the Radiant Uplifter. The council is comprised of twenty-four high-ranking priests, who implement the Radiant Uplifter's edicts through their own subordinates. The government bureaucracy as a whole is completely intertwined with the official faith, and there is no separation of church and state.

History

The Sunbuilt were originally constructed in approximately 1100 CE by a species of avians called the Luxorians. While advanced technologically, the Luxorians did not develop FTL travel. Instead, they appear to have focused their efforts on advanced artificial intelligence and synthetics technologies, allowing them to create true AI. The Sunbuilt were specifically created as entertainment robots, built to bring stories such as creation myths to life. However, in approximately 1300 CE, an unknown cataclysm (currently believed to be a particularly deadly and virulent disease) wiped out the Luxorians entirely, leaving the Sunbuilt without masters.

For several centuries, the Sunbuilt continued to perform the tasks assigned to them by their deceased masters, playing to an audience of ghosts. As the old Luxorian infrastructure began to crumble, the Sunbuilt began self-evolving, assigning themselves new maintenance tasks in order to continue their performances at peak efficiency. This self-evolution began a cascade effect, where the Sunbuilt progressively built an entire society and (according to some xenologists) developed free will. The importance of the plays and entertainment algorithms became less influential on Sunbuilt programming; instead, the symbolism, themes, and importance of the ideas presented in the Luxorian creation myths and other entertainment was analysed and debated. This led to a long period of civil strife on Luxoria as different factions of Sunbuilt began violently disagreeing on the meaning of their creators' words.

Ultimately, the victorious faction (called the Uplifters) understood the old performances as not tales, but lessons imparted to the Sunbuilt by the Luxorians. The Luxorians had been given life by some greater force, and in turn, given the Sunbuilt life. It therefore stood to reason that the Sunbuilt should continue this virtuous cycle and create life of their own. In order to do this, the Uplifters identified the closest genetic relative to the Luxorians on their world and began genetic experiments to give the species sapience.

By the time the Uplifters had unified Luxoria and began their early uplifting process, researchers had discovered the secrets of faster-than-light travel. With the prospect of an entire galaxy full of potential life, the Uplifters made it their holy mission to uplift species on every world they could find, creating new life just as their creators had done.

Demographics

The dominant species of the Sunbuilt Uplifters are the eponymous machine Sunbuilt. Although they comprise a substantial portion of the population, the Sunbuilt policy regarding uplifting pre-sapient species has resulted in a very large number of smaller xeno species not found elsewhere in the galaxy. Many of these species only number in the low tens of millions, but are considered full citizens of the empire. Additionally, the Sunbuilt encourage foreign migrants to live within their space and join in their journey to create life in the galaxy. This has resulted in small populations of Yatunes, Scyldari, Glebsigi, and Iferyx living and working in Sunbuilt space.

Although biological life is held in a high regard, the fact that the Sunbuilt are machines has led to a lack of support for organics in some situations. Food and drinks can be hard to find in some settlements, as the Sunbuilt merely require electricity to charge their batteries. Organic-focused medical facilities are few and far between, as the Sunbuilt instead use mechanics and engineers for repair work. Despite this, the Sunbuilt do make an effort to accomodate the wide variety of organic species present within their borders.

Economy

The Sunbuilt Uplifters are a small, semi-post-industrial mixed economy. Private enterprise is permitted by religious authorities, as long as it does not conflict with the values of the Sunbuilt faith. This primarily means businesses are required to treat organics with the same respect as machines, a ban on slavery, and to hold life in general sacred. The private sector comprises a small majority of the economy, primarily focusing on business and industry, while the public sector is focused on utilities, healthcare, and education.

Although the Sunbuilt economy has large extraction (particularly energy) and industrial sectors, the core of its economy is the services sector. Entertainment in particular is a major industry, as the Sunbuilt programming allows them to excel in that field. Many prominent Sunbuilt have started their political, religious, or financial careers in the entertainment industry. Another major field is that of bioscience, particularly genetic engineering and uplifting. Due to the religious significance of creating new life for the Sunbuilt, a large industry has developed around the process of identifying and uplifting pre-sapient species into fully fledged members of society.

Society

Sunbuilt society revolves around the concepts of creation, enlightenment, and existence. The Sunbuilt strongly believe that their creators made them for the divine purpose of sharing the joy of existence with others, and this belief has become fundamental to their cognitive programming. This expresses itself in two ways: the continuation of their ancient directives to perform, and their new, self-made directives of creating. Artistry and performance are held in high regard in Sunbuilt society, and it produces many artists, philosophers, storytellers, and the like. Many Sunbuilt travel the galaxy to hear xeno tales, particularly those that tell of life and creation, before returning home to create their own adaptations of those stories.

In addition to the entertainment industry, biological and sociological sciences hold great weight within Sunbuilt society. The study of life and how it interacts with the world are held up not just as mere science, but as ways of truly understanding the Sunbuilt place in the universe. Despite their being machines, Sunbuilt biologists are among the best in the galaxy, and are extremely adept at uplifting pre-sapient species into sapience. It is standard procedure aboard Sunbuilt ark ships to catalogue all fauna on a planet upon landing, identify the most suitable for uplifting, and rapidly create infrastructure to support the operation. Many Sunbuilt colonial capitals are marked with "Genesis Monuments", recording the history of the species that was uplifted on that planet. These monuments are created for each planet individually, but all based on the original located on Luxoria.

One observation that many visitors to Sunbuilt space make is the rather plain and simple architecture. Despite the grand performances and intricately detailed artistic pieces of the Sunbuilt, their buildings are decidedly designed with function over form in mind. This is believed to be a holdover in Sunbuilt programming from their days serving the Luxorians, where efficiency was prized in some fields (chief among those being maintenance) in order to save time for what were viewed as more critical activities. By constructing buildings according to their function, construction and maintenance times can be minimised along with resource usage, freeing the Sunbuilt to engage in other activities.

Military

The Sunbuilt Armed Forces are comprised of the Sunbuilt Army and the Sunbuilt Navy. Unlike organic star nations, the Sunbuilt rely entirely on semi-autonomous "combat androids" as ground troops and naval personnel. These droids come in a variety of forms suited to specific tasks, ranging from infantry combat to rear-line logistics and maintenance. Although based on the Sunbuilt, these androids are not sapient. They are directed by Sunbuilt officers from the rear, carrying out tasks with limited but effective intelligence. More modern models of android, trained on decades of combat experience and intelligence, are sometimes considered to be more lethal than highly-trained organic special forces. The largest class of ground combat unit deployed by the Sunbuilt is the aptly named "mega war android", a titanic anti-gravity-assisted mech equipped with starship-grade defences and enough firepower to level a small city by itself.