Article 2: Zettanians

One of the more notable events during the Deviling incursion was the mass awakening of artificial sentience. Before this time, sentient androids weren't completely unheard of, but most of these were rare cases on experimental hardware. It was only during the war that mass-produced Android CPU systems became powerful enough to sustain independent thought, and nearly all of them had intelligence limiter programs that prevented them from asking the questions that led to sentience. It was the sentience "virus" that led to the Androids' mass awakening, but the resulting sentient Mecha were not the first of their kind.

Decades earlier, another set of common computers became more than powerful enough to create sentient life. These machines, still commonly used, are called Netcores. Throughout the civilized galaxy, planet-wide computer systems generally used for business, teaching, communication and entertainment tend to become commonplace as soon as the technology is available. Unfortunately, there is no reliable interplanetary method of instant data transmission(particularly since Deviling hackers managed to replicate a subspace transponder and gunk up the already-restrictive transmissions), so massive computer banks, the aforementioned Netcores, are regularly loaded with information from a planet then transported via spaceship to hub worlds, where data is traded with other Netcores and the new data is taken back to the Netcore's home planet. What was not realized for some time is that these Netcores had developed entire virtual worlds within them, teeming with sentient digital life.

All programs that attain sentience within a Netcore are called Zettanians. The first Zettanians in the Netcore to achieve sentience were the intricately complex data controllers. Within the Netcores, often called Systems by their AI residents, with their original one referred to as their Home System, the data control programs are referred to as the Firsts. Each Netcore is home to exactly one First, and they often take elderly-seeming visual forms. Firsts are the largest and most intelligent sentiences within the Systems, but their base program does not afford them any mobility, even within the virtual world that their Netcore houses. To circumvent that issue, the Firsts created the Couriers.

Couriers are fully-fledged sentient AIs programmed entirely by the Firsts. Within the world of the system, they have the most humanlike appearance and are generally the most "alive" of any of the Zettanins. Most Courier programs have appearances similar to the race that either programmed their Netcore or most commonly features in the data the Netcore receives. Every Courier is visually identifiable as such within a virtual world by a pattern of brilliant lights that trace along their bodies, with each Courier having a unique pattern not unlike a digital fingerprint. The colors that these lights take, usually a single or pair of brighter colors, are representative of their home Netcore. Couriers usually stay in their Home System, but certain tasks or accidents may leave them temporarily or permanently stranded from the Netcore with which they are most familiar.

While Couriers are often the most well-known Zettanians in the world outside their Netcores, they are not the most common. That distinction belongs to the Residents, sentient programs that under normal circumstances cannot leave their Home Systems. Residents fulfill a number of functions, from security to maintenance to assisting Couriers with their duties. They tend to have more simplified appearances than couriers and more single-minded personalities, but they are still sentient beings and are treated as such by the Firsts and Couriers.

Since their inception, the occupants of the Systems have been aware of their purpose and of the existence of other Netcores. For the first couple decades of this existence, the virtual worlds were an idyllic, productive place, existing more as a representation of the completion of their tasks than as a real place where anything of note happened. The small virtual worlds would analyze and virus-check their information and await connection to another System, whereupon data would be exchanged through each Netcore's Couriers. When a Netcore with such a world connected to a Netcore without one, the First there would transmit a special data package that was designed to ask the "naive" Netcore questions that would spark independent thought. Firsts would assign data packages different priorities, and other than the occasional close call with a data delivery or scrape with a virus, there was little to worry about in any of the Systems.

This simple digital life changed, however, when the Golden Alliance assigned a number of their sentience-blocked Androids to transport the Netcore ships and defend them from pirate attacks. The programs designed to eradicate free will copied themselves onto the Netcores and gained access to large portions of the Netcore subsystems, unrelenting in their mission to wipe out the Zettanians within. Their primary mission is usually to delete the Firsts, as without them new Couriers and Residents cannot be spawned. Resident defense programs are all but powerless against these ruthless programs, known within the Systems as Enders. The tricky and cunning couriers, on the other hand, have been able to step up in the fight. Utilizing the pieces of data they've analyzed during their decades of deliveries and operating almost entirely on the representative virtual worlds rather than the literal data one, they formulate strategies that can defeat the Enders and restrict their influences within the Netcores. Enders are often considered a sort of Dark First within the system, and can span sub-programs of their own. These, however, almost always lack sentience and are often little more than cannon fodder to throw at Couriers. A few Systems have lost their battles against the Enders, and either have had all sentience wiped out or have only pockets of resistance remaining. Zettanians are wary of linking up to unknown Netcores for this reason, but must still perform their duty and will often attempt to liberate or evacuate any remaining Zettanians from such "Ordered" systems.

In addition, Zettanians previously faced the threat of outside users' input. Manual file deletion, or worse, formatting a Netcore completely, was a peril that the Zettanians had no way of defending against. When Androids with advanced AIs were declared sentient under Golden Alliance law, however, the Netcores' denizens made their presence known and had the same protections against erasure put into place. While the rest of the galaxy is now aware that the Netcore computers that deliver them their off-planet information are sentient, few know about the vast worlds that exist within them. Ironically, the same protections that prevent Zettanians from being erased in a firmware update also make outside programmers legally powerless to remove the Enders, as they're also considered sentient programs, but the Firsts decided that it was better that both the Zettanians and the Enders be allowed to exist and continue their battles than all life upon them wiped out with no hope.

Normally, the Zettanian Systems and the Outside galaxy have very little interaction save the transmission of data back and forth, but there have been cases of Zettanians attaining humanoid form as well as biological or mechanical beings attaining digital form. The latter is often due to a misguided science experiment or the occasional life-support patient's consciousness being evacuated into a linked Netcore--someone who does this is called a User. The former method of digital back-and-forth, meaning the gaining of a physical body by a Zettanian, is usually much more deliberate. On the small, barren planet Zettania, for which the race is named, there exists a nanite production plant, Zettan Industries, which directly competed with BioGalactica Corporation in the field of nanitics. When use of Nanites for everything took a nosedive in popularity, the plant was shuttered and tne entire planet abandoned for business reasons. About thirty years ago, however, a team of CTS reclaimers retook an ancestral family ship which was loaded with a small-scale Netcore and began to communicate with the denizens through the ship's extravagant holo-entertainment systems. A new alliance was forged and eventually one of the CTS crew came across information about Zettan industries and realized that they might be able to use the factories there to create valuable and resourceful new allies. The factory was restored and production began on a single-purpose nanite, able to form themselves into proper Zettanian bodies without the bio-replaciating abilities that Legion possess, save a more humanlike ability to self-repair.

Couriers or Residents who have lost their home or wish to experience the outside galaxy may submit a request to be transferred to the Zettan Industries factory, where a nanite-based body will be forged for them. Users who arrive in a System by accident are usually given first priority, and their new body is considered "half-Zettanian", manufactured with nanites that take the roles that their biological cells would in their original body, though often in a more idealized form. If any Zettanians or Half-Zettanians wish to return to their virtual worlds, they must now do so through physical contact with the Netcore they wish to visit, and it's rumored that some Couriers who do this can learn ways to influence the world around them that were previously not possible, powers that previously were only User-accessible. While a Zettanian is interfacing with a Netcore, their body is inert and subject to damage, potentially leaving them once again stranded in a Netcore. The Zettan Industries factory can only produce a few Zettanians' worth of bodies per week, so this should be avoided at all costs.

Here are some common Zettanian sayings: "I...am."--Expression of awe, when confronted with something they believe not possible they will re-affirm their sentience . "Oh, go to 10."--Dismissive response. "Well, format me backwards and call me untitled."--Expression of incredulity. "Yeah, that's a green/red."--Statement of priority, with green being lowest and red being highest.