Amphicephalus (All Tomorrows)

The Amphicephali were a sapient species and the second extraterrestrial civilization that made contact with humanity in the form of the Empire of the Asteromorphs, Terrestrials and Subjects.

As the new empire was spanning the whole of the milky way, the humans tried to make contact with the indigenous folk of the surrounding nebulae, while still being cautious because of their history with alien invasions, remembering the Qu and perhaps the invaders that attacked the Bug Facers.

After a time, they found another civilization in the form of a diverse empire ruled by the Amphicephali. These were creatures resembling giant serpents with a head on each end. One of the heads contained a second body with arms and another head that was used to manipulate objects and interact with their environment.

Like the posthumans, the Amphicephali had a rich and diverse history and were cautious, but both species finally proved to be mature enough to make contact peacefully. They were the first species to peacefully make contact with humanity, but not the last.

Together, the united galaxies eventually destroyed the Qu, cradled their suns with artificial shells, criss-crossed interstellar space with wormholes and made travel a thing of the past.

Source: WikiFandom

New Machines (All Tomorrows)

The New Machines were a robotic posthuman species that was created from the Gravital by the Asteromorphs.

When the Asteromorphs won the war against the Gravital, they repopulated the milky way with Subjects and Terrestrials, While they planned to destroy the Gravital at first, they they ultimately decided against it because they saw the value in the Gravital’s ability to survive in otherwise inhospitable environments.

The Asteromorphs remade the Gravital into the New Machines by removing their ability of gravital manipulation, giving them shorter lifespans, and slightly numbing their imagination to prevent another uprising like that of the original Gravital. However, they gave them nanotechnological bodies that were able to constantly remake themselves as they wished or needed for their jobs.

Even though they were widespread in the new empire, the machines were always rare and treated as second class citizens by the biological citizens, as past events gave them a deep distrust of their mechanical relatives.

By the time of the All Tomorrows afterword, all of humanity has disappeared for unknown reasons. Maybe it went extinct through a war, or the empire slowly fell apart, leaving individual colonies to face their own fates. Maybe, it was a mass migration to another plane of existence. The Author of the book doesn't know.

Source: WikiFandom

Terrestrials (All Tomorrows)

The Terrestrials, or Terrestrial Spacers, were a posthuman species that was created by the Asteromorphs from themselves to supervise the new worlds populated with descendants of the Subjects and prevent another genocide like that of the Gravital.

Compared to the Asteromorphs, the Terrestrials had stronger limbs (actually modified fingers) that can be used for walking; and smaller brains (because the Asteromorphs' giant brains wouldn't be practical in gravitation). Compared to the new Subject-civilizations, they were still demigods and superior in every sense.

Some of the civilizations rebelled against their Terrestrials, which often led to their destruction at the hands of Asteromorphs and Terrestrials.

Even the Terrestrials did not always follow the wise plans of the Asteromorphs, and some of them played god, formed religions around themselves and exploited their Subjects. While this wasn't especially ethical, it still resulted in more stability than actively upbringing the new civilizations.

As the new empire was spanning the whole of the Milky Way, the humans tried to make contact with the indigenous folk of the surrounding nebulae, while still being cautious because of their history with alien invasions, remembering the Qu as well as the invaders that had attacked the Bug Facers.

After some time, they found another civilization in the form of a diverse empire ruled by the Amphicephali. Like the posthumans, the Amphicephali had a rich and diverse history and were cautious, but both species finally proved to be mature enough to make contact peacefully. They were the first species to peacefully make contact with humanity, but not the last.

A human, probably a Terrestrial, at the time of Earth's rediscovery.

Together, the united galaxies eventually destroyed the Qu, cradled their suns with artificial shells, criss-crossed interstellar space with wormholes and made travel a thing of the past. One day, a researcher rediscovered Earth, humanity's ancestral home, which had been abandoned 560 million years before because it was too far away from the main centers of population.

By the time of the All Tomorrows afterword, all of humanity has disappeared for unknown reasons. Perhaps it went extinct through a war or the empire slowly fell apart, leaving single colonies to face their own fates. Perhaps it was a mass migration to another plane of existence. The nonhuman Author of the book doesn't know.

Source: WikiFandom

Gravitals (All Tomorrows)

The Gravital were a robotic posthuman species that evolved from the Ruin Haunters.

Biology

Originally, the Gravital were cyborgs, holding the brains of the Ruin Haunters within their chassis. However, advanced quantum computers allowed the Ruin Haunters to completely digitize their minds and scrap any organic remnants, thus making the Gravital a completely robotic species. Gravital have been seen in a number of different forms. What appears to be their most common form is that of a smooth mechanical sphere, with a single red optic at its center, bearing three smaller, seemingly hollow holes beneath it, which may be speakers or other sensors. Other Gravital forms include a flat, wall-like form and a form that bears some resemblance to a spacecraft, with the wall-like form bearing a similar eye and sensor configuration as the spherical form. While described as being able to reproduce, such an action is obviously merely constructing a new Gravital, although it could entail using the mind-programs of "parent" Gravital for constructing the mind of their "offspring." The Gravital are capable of manipulating gravitational fields to manipulate objects, and appear to fly through their very manipulation of gravity, but some have been seen with physical limbs, whether they be robotic tentacles or mechanical hands on spindly arms. Due to their robotic bodies, they are capable of surviving in virtually any environment.

Culture and society

The Gravital, like their organic predecessors, retain their delusion of being the sole heirs of Humanity's legacy. Their transition into mechanical beings created a species-wide belief that life was a privilege, not a right, and made them unable to understand that organic life was still life. Despite this, they retained a cohesive society like the Ruin Haunters before them, forming families, friendships, political alliances, and even religions. They saw other species as not life, but mere garbage to be disposed of or remade in their image, the way a modern Human would see an old electronic or other spent item. Planets were seen in a similar matter, with the destruction wrought on them by having their suns blocked out or their surface bombarded being seen like tearing down an old building to construct a new one. However, they also seemed intrigued by certain organics for unknown reasons, keeping the Bug Facers around as genetically modified Subjects for their own amusement, albeit seeing and treating them like toys or other objects. Initially keeping the isolationism of the Ruin Haunters, they turned to invasions after developing practical means of interstellar travel. Despite their initial apathy, some Gravital began understanding that life can be organic as well as mechanical, treating their organic Subjects better and managing to gain enough traction to operate publicly as the Tolerant, but such beliefs created a sharp divide in Gravital society, with the first practitioners of Tolerance being punished. Their starships and architecture have been known to be blocky, imposing, and monolithic, with some buildings bearing features such as towers topped with glowing lights.

Technology

The Gravital were one of the most technologically advanced species in the Milky Way, coming to match the Astermorphs. Their very bodies were a grand demonstration of their advancements, bearing a quantum computer holding their sapient consciousness, and despite usually having no visible engines or technology other than their optics, they are able to manipulate gravitational fields through a technology held within their bodies. They appear to have modified their very bodies to be able to travel throughout vast interstellar distances, and created blocky battleships that could do the same. They were capable of utilizing sail-like devices of gargantuan sizes to block out stars, and could manipulate asteroids into hitting planets, possibly through scaled-up versions of their own gravity manipulating technology.

History

Due to their knowledge about the Star People and the Qu, the Ruin Haunters were able to develop a civilization while other posthumans were still non-sapient animals. This gave them an edge that matched that of the Asteromorphs, but also led to them seeing themselves as the sole heirs of the Star People.

When the sun of their planet started to rapidly expand, there was nothing they could do to stop this. To save themselves, they built spherical, robotic bodies that floated and manipulated their environment through gravital manipulations. At first, those spheres still contained the brains of the Ruin Haunters, but later they were fully mechanical, becoming the Gravital.

But still, they retained their human dreams, human ambitions and human delusions of grandeur. Their artificial bodies made space travel easy for them, and they started colonizing other planets.

Galactic Conquest

A Gravital attacking a planet

When the other posthumans, started by the Killer Folk and the Satyriacs, joined together into the Second Galactic Empire, the Gravital refused to communicate with them and stayed for themselves.

After long preparations, including developing better bodies capable of interstellar travel, the Gravital began to wipe out their posthuman cousins and all other organic life within about 10,000 years. They managed this through blocking their suns with million mile wide sails and, if that wasn't enough, finishing the worlds off via orbital bombardment.

They did all of this without fully realising the life of the other posthumans, having spent so much time without biological bodies that they were no longer capable of recognising biological life as what it is. So what was genocide to the other races was more akin to tearing down an abandoned building to the Gravitals.

The only biological species that survived the invasion were the Bug Facers, for reasons still not completely understood. They were one of the first to be attacked by the Gravitals, but they were left alive and redeveloped through genetic engineering into the Subjects.

Civil War

A Gravital and its subject hugging each other

There were some fractions in the Gravital empire which developed, through science, philosophy and religion, an understanding of universality of life and the common origin of organic and mechanical humanities. Initially, they lived in seclusion and created subjects that were allowed to do as the please, and eventually the movement gained enough momentum that it could be practiced openly without being punished. Some Gravitals even fell in love with their subjects.

The seething intolerance between the two factions finally broke when some Tolerant Machines wanted to set several worlds aside for the unrestricted development of biological life. All hell broke loose and the Machine Empire; the apparently seamless monolith of the galaxy, experienced its first short, bitter civil war.

Downfall

The Astermorophs triumph over the Gravital

Over a long time, the Gravital and the Asteromorphs nervously eyed each other. Both factions mostly kept for themselves, as the Asteromorphs inhabited the void while the Gravitals occupied the planets, but in almost every inhabitable system, the two Empires lived side by side and there was a strange tension between them, due to both sides knowing that they could destroy each other and whole planets and solar systems.

But in order to resolve the internal tensions created by the civil war, the Gravital Empire needed a common enemy to unite against, and the Asteromorphs were chosen as this enemy. The war spanned many million years and life (both biological and mechanical) was lost in numbers that let the Gravital's genocide look trivial. But in the end, despite huge losses, the Asteromorphs succeeded in nearly completely annihilating the Gravital.

After that, the Asteromorphs used the surviving Subjects to repopulate the planets and become true creator-gods for the worlds populated by their descendants. But they didn't completely destroy the Gravital, they disabled their gravity powers and some of them being remade into the New Machines and living as second class citizens in the new empire.

Source: WikiFandom

Ruin Haunters (All Tomorrows)

The Ruin Haunters were a posthuman species created by the Qu from a colony of the Star People, and were among those to regain sapience.

Biology

The Ruin Haunters were one of the most Human-like of any Qu-created posthuman species. They bore humanoid bodies that appeared nearly identical to Humans, but differed in the structure of their heads and necks. Ruin Haunters bore thick necks and somewhat elongated faces, with large, drooping, rounded noses, with no hair atop their heads and small triangular ears. Though they were reduced to the intelligence of chimpanzees or gorillas, the Qu didn't do much to avoid sapience to re-evolve.

History

Since the Ruin Haunters lived on a world where the Qu didn't destroy the ruins of the Star People's civilization, they learned from the ancient wisdom of their ancestors and used it to build an advanced civilization that quickly rivaled that of the Star People.

Oftentimes, they only replicated Star People technology without fully understanding it. The political stress put on them by the quick development of their technology led to five world wars, two of them being thermonuclear exchanges.

The wars united the survivors and they were able to surpass the technological advances of the Star People. Soon they came to the conclusion that they were the sole heirs of the Star People, which later led to problems with other posthumans.

When their sun began to rapidly expand, a threat their technology was unable to overcome, they remade themselves into the Gravitals to escape their extinction.

Source: WikiFandom