Nene

The Nene (prefaced with the and capitalised when referring to the whole hivemind) are a family of hive-like, fully artificial sophonts. They're in the centre of an extensive debate over what defines "sophonce," as none of them possesses a fully organic body, and they all exist entirely within the boundaries of their networks. Their name is shared with their creators, the extinct nene species native to planet Arai of star Melinoë, and is the julean Amari word for "question."

History

First contact

The Nene are the latest sophont contacted by the Search and Discovery Organisation, in YEAR. Originally thought to be a computer virus, as their initial attempts at communication included using computers as an interface, to mixed or poor success, the Nene were quickly identified as a new sophont and became part of the organisation by YEAR.

Overview

Networks

The Nene exist in a series of network groups called branches, united by a single node (an individual) called the stem. As of YEAR, there are somewhere around 2 quadrillion branches. These branches are able to communicate with each other over a communications protocol formally called the UNTPS (Unified Nene Telecommunicatios Protocol Suite), chiefly the Nenenet. One of these branches, called the trunk, is connected to every branch and controls large-scale operations over the entire network. Another one was gifted to the SDO as a virtually infinite mass data storage solution and contains no living nodes, a branch formally called the RSS (Reserved SDO Space), and chiefly the vacuole. Parts of the Nenenet are used by non-nene individuals as a lightyear-distance solution to older internet-like protocol suites, with the caveat of requiring servers with quantum computing capabilities.

Tagging system

Nene nodes' "language" is a system colloquially referred to as nenespeak. This system assigns a group of 64-bit tags to every concept known to the network under conditions only discernible to the Nene. For example, one tag assigned to the concept of sophonce as a whole is also shared by a couple decently sensible things, such as love and language, but also with oven, fission and lamp.