Arcoi Megastructure

The **Arcoi** (ar-COY) **Megastructure** is a supercluster-sized megastructure located in a backwater portion of its local multiverse. It began about 27 million years ago as a cylindrical habitat 100 meters in radius and 500 meters in diameter, orbiting around a Mars-like terrestrial planet in the home solar system of an early interplanetary civilization. But as time went on, more and more parts were added to the habitat in an increasingly disorganized manner - eventually making the Arcoi Megastructure the way it is today.

## **History**

The history of the Arcoi Megastructure is a very long one, spanning almost thirty million years and consisting of varying levels of intrigue, chaos, and development. As such, this section will be split into a number of eras and ages describing the stages of development in the Megastructure.

### **Planetary Era**

#### Kilometer Age

The Kilometer Age covers the period in which the Megastructure was, in its longest dimension, less than a hundred kilometers. During this age, the Megastructure was adequately centralized, and the organizations governing it cooperative in both political and developmental organization.

Unfortunately, this age of decent cooperation would end as the Megastructure gradually approached one hundred kilometers across.

#### Hectokilometer Age

During the early portion of the Hectokilometer Age, the authorities governing the Arcoi Megastructure (then known as "Arcoi City") were deeply divided on what exactly to do with it - some wanted to abandon the Megastructure, while others proposed a plan to dismantle it, and still others said it was simply "too big to fail".

In the end, nothing was done and the Megastructure continued to grow as automated von Neumann robots kept adding more material to it.

#### Megameter Age

By the time the Arcoi Megastructure became 1 million meters in its longest dimension (and therefore became a true megastructure), a significant portion (around ten to twenty percent) of the Mars-like planet it was orbiting around had been dismantled in order to provide more material for the Megastructure. The confederation controlling said planet was fighting a mostly fruitless war against the von Neumann robots.

It was during this age when the entire Arcoi civilization went into a brief but fierce debate as to what to do with the Megastructure and its uncontrolled growth. This debate quickly escalated into a war that wiped out the majority of Arcoi civilization, with only some several dozen outposts and colonies in the outer Arcoi solar system and the approximately fifty million Arcoi living in the Megastructure surviving.

### **Orbital Era**

#### Decamegameter Age

It had been around seventeen thousand years after the construction of the Arcoi Megastrucutre began when it reached an overall edge length of ten million meters. At that point in its history, it consisted of a chaotic collection of space habitats all linked together in a sort of quasi-ring, albeit in a very confusing manner. Near the center of the Megstructure was a 4,000-year-old communal sentient AI known as the "Central Mind" that governed the vast majority of the areas close to him. An organized religion had also spawned around this AI, claiming a membership of over thirty million devout Arcoi.

#### Hectomegameter Age

During the majority of the Hectomegameter age (which lasted around 10,000 years in total), the Arcoi Megastructure was in the shape of a torus that had taken the place of the Mars-like planet it once orbited. By then, the von Neumann probes were taking material from the rest of the celestial bodies within the Arcoi solar system, and the entirety of Arcoi civilization lived within the Megastructure.

The Central Mind was well aware of the fact that the Megastructure was facing many problems in both organizational and structural aspects, and was devoting a decent portion of his processing power to finding a solution to those problems.

#### Gigameter Age

One hundred years after hectomegameter age, a severely damaged spaceship was spotted drifting near the Arcoi Megastructure. A patrol spaceship of the megastructure towed it in and searched it thoroughly. Inside the mysterious spaceship were grey-coloured, purple tattooed humanoid bodies which were dead and the language/status of these humanoids were deciphered from a tome found inside the spaceship titled ''Totemon Empire & Cultivation Paths''. By reading this tome, the central mind and the megastructure's residents discovered that the humanoids were from a species called totemons who had a special bloodline (the ''mystic bloodline'' - grants massive advantages in cultivation over other species) and they had a large universe-spanning empire from another universe called the ''Mystic Universe''. Also in this universe and in fact in the wider multiverse, there was a way of exponentially augmenting one's own overall powers/abilities called ''Cultivation'', which was the utilisation and transformation of so-called ''natural energy'' including using it inside one's body and mind. Also they found that the totemons had evolved to live in almost any habitat/biome from mountains to oceans and everything in between. The totemons also had a strict social class hierarchy which was as follows - Imperial totemons > High-class totemons > Colonizer totemons > Totemon Soldiers > Low-class totemons. From the tome, the central mind found out that natural energy is the essential, instrinsic energy of existence itself and it flows through all living beings, cosmic structures, even in imagination and in the minds of all entities as well. Also the totemons inside the wrecked spaceship were a mix of totemon soldiers and colonizer totemons respectively. The spaceship containing them was called ''Edge Explorer II'' and it contained a manual for (natural energy) cultivation and some so-called mystic materials for cultivation as well inside.