Whole Fenspace Catalog

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The Whole Fenspace Catalog is a repository of a vast amount of knowledge on everything from film-making to materials sciences and engineering to hair-care products and beyond. It first appeared in the possession of Noah Scott[1] after the Interdimensional Incursion Incident. Rumors about the contents of the catalog quickly spread throughout Fenspace, reaching legendary proportions faster than anything except perhaps The Professor's experiments. An announcement on the SMOF Mailing List that the catalog would be made available at Serenity-con led to the disastrous attack on that Convention during the Boskone War.

A number of different versions of the catalog have appeared since it was first released by Stellvia Corporation in 2013. Different editors have added new information as it becomes available, and others appear to have removed bits and pieces. The oldest editions of the catalog consist almost entirely of alternate culture[2] and hard tech[3] articles, with 'wave tech information added later. There is also evidence that Noah Scott and the Stellvians have never released a completely unredacted version of the catalog; this was originally only a rumor, but analysis of the Catalog in September 2014 by the Vesta Institute of Biochemistry turned up references in the Catalog to articles on "metagenetic therapies" that were missing from all public copies of the Catalog. Some claim that this is the reason the Catalog contains no information on hardtech gravity-based technology.

While the cultural information in the Catalog is interesting to students of the arts, substantially more attention is paid to the scientific and technological data.

The entire extent and ramifications of the information in the catalog have not yet been fully explored by the Fen or the 'Danes, though there are some AIs and researchers who have devoted their lives to the task.

A supposedly-complete copy of the catalog can be found in the Warden's secure vault in Azkaban Prison as insurance against it being lost in a system-wide catastrophe. Copies of every known version of the Whole Fenspace Catalog are kept in the Alexandria Archive.

The Original Whole Fenspace Catalog

The database that formed the nucleus of the Whole Fenspace Catalog was compiled by the Visitors from the cultural and technological information available to them in the worlds they visited during their travel to a reality they named "Warriors' World". Thus, it has a large number of articles that match (or almost match) scientific and cultural works already existing in Fenspace.

There is no wavetech in this version of the database - it only describes cultural works and hardtech.

Entries marked with # are theory/mathematics only, no working hardware designs. Entries marked with † are not reproducible with Fenspace technology as of 2015. Unmarked entries are things that could be built straight from the box or within 1-5 years of research & testing using available tools and materials.

Biotechnology

  • Tissue culturing
  • In-vitro organ culturing
  • Full-body cloning
  • † Neogenesis cloning of humans/other sapients
  • Genetically-Modified environmental reclamation organisms
  • # Annotated Human Genome Map
  • # Genome maps of ultra-high-yield food plants
  • #† Computer-reconstructed genomes of extinct species (~50,000 BCE - current)
  • # Advanced surgical techniques
  • Advanced surgical instruments
  • Gene therapy techniques

Cybernetics/Computing Technology

  • Cybernetic prosthetics
  • Cybernetic organs
  • Neural implants
  • † Brain-computer interface
  • # Cybernetic intelligence design
  • High-level expert system design (automated production)
  • # High-level expert system design (personality simulation)[4]
  • # High-level expert system design (software-only AI)[5]
  • † Full-body prosthetics
  • 128+-bit computer processors
  • X-ray lithography
  • # Holographic computing theory
  • # Quantum computing theory

Space Engineering

  • 100% closed-cycle life support
  • Improved thrusters
  • Low reaction mass thrusters[6]
  • Ultra-low reaction mass thrusters[7]
  • † Reactionless thrusters
  • Space elevator/skyhook design
  • Space habitat (O'Neill class and up) design
  • † Planetary-scale or larger space habitat (e.g. Death Star, Ringworld, Dyson Sphere)
  • Improved sensors (multiscanner)
  • Improved astrogation
  • # Faster-than-light physics: Warp drive
  • # Faster-than-light physics: Spacefold
  • # Faster-than-light physics: Hyperspace
  • # Faster-than-light physics: Wormholes

General Engineering

  • Powerplants: Improved fission
  • Powerplants: Fusion
  • † Powerplants: Antimatter
  • † Powerplants: Total conversion
  • † Powerplants: Zero-point energy
  • Improved composite materials
  • † Non-local materials
  • Gamma welding
  • Power Armor: Exoskeletons
  • Power Armor: Knight Saber / Starship Troopers novel / Imperial Flower Division style battlesuits

General Knowledge

Cultural items that most Fen don't think of looking for in the Catalog.

  • # Almanacs or equivalent from Visitor homeworlds (near-complete data) and visited worlds (incomplete data) as of dates of departure
  • # General & advanced science textbooks, all disciplines
  • # Scans and recordings of fine and popular artworks, including "great" books, music, and movies, from Visitor homeworlds (near-complete data) and visited worlds (incomplete data) as of dates of departure

Entries Removed from Public Archive

These used to be in the Visitors' database, but for various reasons (see the footnotes for specifics) were removed before it was published as the Whole Fenspace Catalog.

  • # Warriors' World "SQUID42" encryption process[8]
  • Nanotechnology[9]
    • Nanoelectronics
    • † Nano-surgical instruments (including "dry" Guardian Nano)
    • † Multi-material rapid-prototype devices ("3D printers"), including food-grade RPDs (insert cloned muscle, fat, bone, and marrow cells; get raw steaks and chops out)
    • † Soft Nanotech ("wet" Guardian Nano, Pan-immunity, etc.)
    • Nanoassemblers (factory)
    • † Nanoassemblers (desktop)
    • #† No-containment-needed nanoassemblers
  • Anson Gravmaster (& Norn upgrade) blueprints and derivative works[10]
  • Weaponry[10]
    • Energy weaponry (bomb-pumped lasers, etc.)
    • Power Armor: Battlesuits with energy weaponry
    • † Power Armor: Macross/Gundam-style giant mecha
  • Grimoires and working theory/theories of magic, including Gate spells[11]
  • # Research theology processes[11]
  • #† Pocket-dimension technology (Mol units, Legion's ship's tech, etc.)[11]
  • Hardtech biomodification[11]
    • #† Paragenetic & metagenetic theory
    • † Metagenetic therapies
    • † Paragenetic therapies

Things Not In The Archive At All

Don't bother looking for these; they were never in the Visitors' database to begin with.

  • Biological weaponry
  • Nanotechnological weaponry
  • Antimatter weaponry
  • Your favorite flavor of death ray
  • Your favorite flavor of super bomb
  • Working FTL drives
  • Working matter transporters/replicators
  • Technology-based interuniversal travel methods
  • Magetech
  • # Psi theory
  • Psi technology


Notes

  1. Much to the irritation of some.
  2. Including two different versions of baseball player Fidel Castro's autobiography, Francis Ford Coppola's The Empire Strikes Back, a version of Blazing Saddles starring Richard Pryor and John Wayne, and a complete set of the young adult novel series Lois Lane, Girl Reporter from Luna Lovegood's world where it became the runaway sensation that Harry Potter did in pre-Handwavium Fenspace.
  3. Although it is extremely advanced hard tech; in some cases, it's so advanced, it can't yet be replicated even with handwavium.
  4. Theory only because including one would be too close to slavery for some people's comfort.
  5. Theory only because too many of the Visitors thought including one would be slavery.
  6. efficiency comparable to real-world un-waved ion drives
  7. efficiency comparable to waved ion drives like the ones on the Epsilon Blade
  8. Available only to Space Patrol, Soviet Air Force, and StellviaCorp personnel with minimum OF-7 clearance, and only on a need-to-know basis.
  9. Available only to StellviaCorp personnel working on using it as a business advantage over other companies.
  10. 10.0 10.1 Available only to Noah Scott, Sora Hasegawa, and Kohran Li, to attempt to prevent the technology falling into Boskonian hands and being used against the Fenspace Convention.
  11. 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Available only to Noah Scott, because of his paranoia.