On Varieties of Immortality
- Upload your consciousness into an existing structure meant to hold AI of some variety. I suspect this is going to be harder IRL than anyone expects though I've yet to be convinced it's impossible. What might be fun is to assume a few specially different kinds of alien minds may need different structures to upload - some may need to preserve some kind of field effects while others can only successfully transfer into particular synthetic structures that preserve a certain kind of quantum vibration. This also suggests AIs may only be able to exist in certain kinds of structures which could also add an element of interest for some groups.
(Un?)Fortunately in this setting the means to successfully upload a mortal mind is something jealously guarded by the few still able to perform the procedure. Most of the emerging galactic civs don't even know it can be done.
- Become an "energy being". Basically trade material existence encased in flesh/metal for an incorporeal existence. There may be Uplift Engines that can do this though it's incredibly rare as the sparse records available indicate the technology required was lost even to some of the most advanced prior civs.
- Become one with the Akashic Overmind. There is no known indication that this actually happens, the working scientific hypothesis is this is really just another way of saying "oblivion".
- Become one with a terrestrial biological network. Some races drill holes into their elders' skulls in order to begin a merging process with tendrils of a fungal/plant network. This entity functions as a kind of localized "Overmind" limited to a forest/state/continent/planet.
-Become a bio-psychic entity that moves from womb to womb. You're really a living vampire devouring any fetal consciousness that may have emerged but your people treat you (and whoever else is doing this) as a continually reincarnated living god.
(Un?)Fortunately in this setting the means to successfully upload a mortal mind is something jealously guarded by the few still able to perform the procedure. Most of the emerging galactic civs don't even know it can be done.
- Become an "energy being". Basically trade material existence encased in flesh/metal for an incorporeal existence. There may be Uplift Engines that can do this though it's incredibly rare as the sparse records available indicate the technology required was lost even to some of the most advanced prior civs.
- Become one with the Akashic Overmind. There is no known indication that this actually happens, the working scientific hypothesis is this is really just another way of saying "oblivion".
- Become one with a terrestrial biological network. Some races drill holes into their elders' skulls in order to begin a merging process with tendrils of a fungal/plant network. This entity functions as a kind of localized "Overmind" limited to a forest/state/continent/planet.
-Become a bio-psychic entity that moves from womb to womb. You're really a living vampire devouring any fetal consciousness that may have emerged but your people treat you (and whoever else is doing this) as a continually reincarnated living god.
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