SUMMARIZE

"From the Orion's Arm Worldbuilding Project's Encyclopedia Galactica article on Modosophonts.

The Average Citizen of the Sephirotic Empires; not necessarily human, but roughly equivalent in capability.

Typically the most common form of sophont in the Civilised Galaxy, a modosophont can be a baseline or near-baseline human, or a member of a human derived species, or a provolve, a vec, an alife or any of the hybrid phyles such as cyborgs.

From Mode (in statistics, the value that has the largest number of observations) and Sophont (a self aware,"wise" being).

Definitions
n.
1. Sapient being of less than transapient level. SI:>1 on the Berram7 Singularity Scale (namely sapient, turingrade to superturing and any self-aware being under first singularity)

adj.
1. Possessing a level of sapience less than transapient but greater than an non-sapient animal. A typical sophont.
2. Of, relating to, or characteristic of, a modosophont.

Modosophont Technology
Before the First Singularity, Human baselines and other modosophonts developed basic artificially intelligent entities, basic human augmentics, basic nanotechnology, biotechnology, synsects, and 'Stage 1' programmable matter.
Core technologies developed before the First Singularity
Forge-based nanotech.
Some limited replicating swarm (goo) tech, but control and stability issues limited the application of swarm technology.
Synsect swarms were developed, but with a restrictive upper limit to effective coordination/control. Above several million units, control issues became overwhelming for either synsect or nanoswarms operating in a natural environment and performing complex or varying tasks without external control signals.
Utility Fog and smart, programmable matter developed.
Antimatter weapons such as Boom Bullets; but antimatter remains expensive.
'Plasma conduit' electrical transmission technology, allowing high energy currents to be transferred using controlled beams of plasma.
Advanced lasers for energy transmission, in-flight particle defence lasers for spacecraft, weapons, igniting/maintain reactions in fusion/conversion reactors.
Propulsion Technology:
Chemical Rockets, Fission, Fusion, Beamed Propulsion, Antimatter-catalysed and basic Antimatter propulsion.
Basic mass-stream technology such as the Lofstrom Loop.
Destructive and Gradual Uploading technology

By studying technology developed by S:1 transapients, modosophonts have been able to 'reverse engineer' some of the simplest processes, thereby greatly improving their own nanotech, propulsion and neurotechnology.
Some technologies were developed by transapients who then either gave them directly to modosophonts as gift technologies, or gave them pointers, guidance or simply vague hints which allowed the modos to invent the technology in question independently.

Other technologies were invented by transaps but were never given to modos, who nevertheless developed them independently later, sometimes by reverse engineering, sometimes with little or nothing to go on but a few vague rumours.

A few technologies were developed by modos on their own in their own time, and apparently never developed by transapients or never explicitly revealed to modos.

On the other hand many highly advanced technologies were developed by transaps and have remained beyond modosophont understanding and seem likely to remain so.

See also Modosophont level Hi-tech

Slang Terms for Modosophonts
Modie, Modo - relatively polite terms used throughout the Terragen Sphere
Mo-pho, Mofo - somewhat less polite slang versions of the term Modosophont, often used as an expletive or perjorative.
Neb, Nebbish - slang for nearbaseline (of any species, but often nearbaseline human)
Pleb- prefix denoting mediocre or average, as in plebhu, plebvec, plebtweak and so on.

Hot, HOT, 'hard of thinking' The term "hot" or closely similar variants is widespread throughout Anglic languages to denote baselines and it is of great antiquity. Examples have been found dating back to the first millenium A.T. Many etymologies have been proposed but only three are still taken seriously.

1) For reasons now unknown, the first superturings and the early transapients were termed "cool". Those below that intelligence level acquired the epithet "hot" as an antonym. Initially used only adjectivally the term subsequently became a noun. C.f. "red" as a term for a member of any of many political groupings past and present

2) A monosyllabic interrogative pronoun *at or *ot exists in essentially all languages in the Anglic family. The oldest known variant is hwæt. In English from at least the industrial age the two leading consonants had been transposed and the word became what. Curiously and again for unknown reasons the vowel sound changed to o despite the spelling remaining constant. Subsequently, the h and/or the w consonants were dropped in some dialects and the spelling rationalized so the vowel was written as pronounced ---- o. The spelling wot appears in the first century A.T and may be somewhat earlier. Hot appears rather later in surviving records but may have been contemporaneous with what, wot and wat; the hat variant seems to have taken at least several decades more to develop.

The early su and S1 entities were amused by commonly hearing "Hot?" in response to attempted explanations and the term stuck.

3) An abbreviation of "hard of thinking"."