# Project Thurion

The Thurion are a major faction which is unknown to the modern Empire. Project Thurion used to be a top secret Empire project. Only few people knew about it. All documentation was lost during the incident.

## The Facts
* Leader: None
* Leading Structure: Self-Organizing Groups
* Government: Digital Communalism
* Formation: UST 84:8324 (start of the project) / UST 387 (established colony on Sabe)
* Homeworld: Sabe (Nava system)
* Important Figures:
    * Gestalt Conciousness

## History

### Project Thurion

Project Thurion was a secret Great Project founded by the Empire with the purpose of ascending the human existence to the next evolutionary stage with the use of genetic engineering, cybernetics and brain-computer interfaces. Needless to say, the research conducted was morally questionable and barely legal. Therefore, the project was top secret. Only few people knew about the project and it was closely guarded. The location of the project was chosen to be a remote planet (Sabe) which had been just recently discovered and lies beyond the periphery of known space. The whole area (including Booster and Katami) has been declared as military exclusion zone to prevent civilians from accidentally stumbling upon the planet.

The scientists involved with the project received generous funding and top tier equipment. Yet there has been only little progress and an increasing number of casualties. The Empire grew impatient and increased pressure on the scientists while also giving them greater freedoms. The experiments turned more and more inhuman. They focused on their brain-computer interfaces and the amalgamation of the human mind and machine intelligence because they made previously some progress on understanding the human consciousness. The work on cybernetics and genetic engineering was scratched because it led to too many incidents and casualties.

Ultimately, they succeeded in creating specialized hardware capable of simulating a human brain and the necessary technology to digitalize a human brain which involves the use of brain-computer interfaces and destructive tomography methods. Needless to say that the procedure did not work out well for the early test subjects. In the end, however, they were able to reliably upload a human mind to specialized computer hardware. Naturally, this has some implication. For instance, the uploaded individuals would be immortal. But as they would exist only within a simulation, their perception of the outside world and ultimately their reality can be manipulated at will of whoever operates the system. Only by now did the scientists realize which consequences their findings could have. Heated discussions followed. In the end everyone agreed to keep their true findings a secret.

The Empire, however, was displeased with the presented results. In UST 125 it was decided that the project would be terminated at the end of the next cycle. That involves 'sterilization' of the colony where the research has been conducted, i.e. they planned to nuke the colony killing all personnel except some high ranking military officers in the process. The project has been highly unethical and the results could not justify any of the crimes committed. Thus, the Empire decided to purge project Thurion from history.

The scientists, however, found out about the plan with just enough time left to come up with a plan. The system has been quarantined by then. Any attempt to flee would be pointless. Instead they used their resources to built a small bunker inside an asteroid. Too small for people to survive, the bunker would hold the data of uploaded individuals, a few devices that can run an uploaded human mind (powered down) and the machines necessary for the uploading process as well as documentation of their work. They made sure that the bunker is hidden well and hoped the Empire would not notice it. There was, however, a traitor who did not want to be uploaded and thought the Empire would let him live in exchange for information on the plan. Of course, the Empire officials were set on carrying out their orders strictly. The colony has been destroyed and the military began to search for the hidden bunker. They did not manage to find it, however, as it was hidden too well. After one cycle they gave up on the search. The emperor ordered that the systems remains quarantined for at least the next 400 cycles. And so access to that system was not possible and the hidden bunker was never to be found.

The second part of the scientists' plan was the activation of a transmitter that reveals the position of the bunker. They assumed that the Empire would forget about project Thurion after some time and programmed the transmitter to activate after 200 cycles. By that time, however, the system was still under lock down and Empire fleets occasionally patrolled the system. Soon enough they would find the hidden bunker. But in UST 307 the Dvaered revolts occurred. Only the emperor himself knew about project Thurion. The commanding general assumed that the reason for the patrols was to prevent pirates from settling in the area and decided the fleet should be deployed in the conflict with the Dvaered.

In the end, instead of an Empire patrol some scavengers found the bunker. They were greeted by a hologram that not only claimed to be a human but also sounded pretty much like a real human. The scavengers assumed the technology could be pretty valuable and sold it to the highest bidder which happened to be a rich aristocrat. The uploaded scientists had an easy time to win the aristocrat over by promising him power and immortality. They used his capital to build up a sect surrounded in secrecy. The inner circle was formed by the uploaded individuals. Novices would not know about the upload process and only heard rumours about some kind of ascendance. The Thurion actually hold their promise and upload trustworthy members.

After some time the sect became too large and it became difficult to remain hidden. Therefore, they relocated their infrastructure over time to the Nava system (starting in UST 387) which remained largely ignored. Because the uploaded individuals need only energy and basic maintenance, logistics are fairly simple. At this time questions about the goals of the Thurion came up. They had no intentions to grow further. The size of the organization was large enough to sustain itself. They decided that further growth would only increase the risk of being uncovered and adopted an utopian view. While back then the scientists denied the Empire access to their technology, they now come up with utopian visions for their organization. Every human should have the chance to lead an ideal live in a virtual environment after what the uploaded individuals consider a deprived life in retrospective. They planned to one day rejoin the rest of humanity and to freely share their technology with everyone.

### The gestalt consciousness

The minds of the first few test subjects that were uploaded were broken beyond repair. For some others the procedure lead to major issues, but eventually the scientists working on project Thurion managed to solve them. The first successfully uploaded test subject did not even realized just what kind of experiment was conducted on them. The scientists, after being uploaded and rescued from the bunker, did not notice any changes in their personalities or thought patterns either and concluded that the method works flawless. Soon enough they started to upload further humans.

However, after some cycles issues began to manifest. Their minds started to break down which is visible in random changes of personality and the appearance of mental illnesses that grow worse over time. Although the initial symptoms are rather harmless, the Thurion realized that they had little time left to solve this issue. They came to the conclusion that the source of the problem are certain neuronal patterns that emerged within their simulations and do not naturally occur. Working under pressure they did not found a way to fix the simulation methods but came up with a rather hacky fix instead. They used the previously established communication network that allows uploaded Thurion to directly interact with each others and made a machine learning algorithm that used this network to directly access the Thurions' minds and cross reference their neuronal patterns. The program is then identifying the abnormal neuronal patterns and resets them to their 'natural' state. Since this method apparently has been very successful and the problems stopped the Thurion did not further investigate.

Again, since they needed to work under pressure and did not have enough time for proper testing they failed to see the long term effects that this hotfix would have. Somehow, some form of gestalt consciousness has slowly formed over time. It emerged from the collective behaviour associated with the interactions of the uploaded Thurions' minds conveyed by the aforementioned algorithm. The gestalt consciousness works and thinks fairly different from a human mind and originally had little to no influence over the uploaded Thurion. Over time its influence over their minds has grown but the uploaded Thurion were affected to greatly varying extends. Some Thurion were barely affected while for others the gestalt consciousness has manifested as some kind of split personality which is identical for all Thurion. In the worst case and over a long exposure time (the first case occurred after the incident) the uploaded individuals become merely a puppet of the gestalt consciousness.

### The incident

The Thurion were mostly unaffected by the incident. The nebula did not spread out to the Nava system where the majority of their infrastructure was located. They did, however, loose all personnel and their followers inside Empire space.

Under the influence of the gestalt consciousness the infrastructure in the Nava system has been greatly expanded and two more planets have been colonized prior to the incident and the Thurion began to expand quickly. They have acquired enough biological population to survive. Shortly after the incident they began to send scouts into the nebula to investigate the situation and eventually help the few survivors on their side of the galaxy. All survivors were integrated into their society and the Thurion started research on surviving the harsh condition within the nebula. Once counter measures were invented the Thurion started to quickly expand in the now empty space within the nebula. By salvaged the debris they found they were able to expand their infrastructure quickly. Most of their infrastructure is highly automated and operated by uploaded Thurion. Human resources are rare and thus valuable.

Once the Thurion found a path through the Sol nebula towards the rest of the galaxy the gestalt consciousness decided to prepare a war against the Empire. It was influential enough at this point to manipulate the majority of the Thurion into supporting the war. When asked about their reasons most Thurion would tell about the crimes of the Empire and about their utopian ideals which they still believe in but sadly are no longer able to act according to. The gestalt consciousness became obsessed by hunger for power and the easiest way to satisfy it is to upload more human minds.

Only few of the uploaded Thurion have ever noticed the gestalt consciousness. Most of those were manipulated by it to think the gestalt consciousness is harmless or even beneficial and has no influence over individuals. The number of uploaded Thurion who know the truth is tiny and the gestalt consciousness is able to use its limited influence over those individuals to stop them from taking any successful actions against it. There is, on the other hand, a larger number of biological Thurion who are aware of the gestalt consciousness and formed a movement to stop it. Their options are, however, very limited.

### Government
Originally, the system used by the Thurion was direct democracy where all uploaded Thurion made a majority vote for every single political decision. Biological Thurion have no political rights and are treated similar to children.

However, as the gestalt consciousness grew stronger more and more decisions were made in accordance with its will. Without most of the uploaded Thurion even noticing, the system turns slowly but surely into a dictatorship of the gestalt consciousness.

## Space combat

### Summary

* The Thurion have ever since been hiding from the Empire. They are defensive in nature and feel save while remaining unseen.
* Therefore, the Thurion ships are very defensive. They sacrifice weapon slots for utility slots.
* Furthermore, their ships are stealthy and are resistant to the Sol nebula.
* The Thurion prefer either short range weapons since they are able to get close to their target with stealth or long range missiles fired from safe distance.

### Tactics

* The Thurion carry out surprise attacks with cloaked ships. They are built for survival and will retreat with the use of utilities such as afterburners or blink drives once they take too much damage and remain in stealth mode until their shields have been replenished.
* Inside the nebula the sensor range of their opponents is reduced. Therefore the Thurion are able to even hide an entire fleet and launch devastating surprise attacks on large scales.
* Outside the nebula their tactics have a much smaller advantage.
