Questions Regarding the Xeelee

[Big Orange]

I have a few questions regarding the infamous Xeelee, a powerful and god like race that could move the fabric of the Universe itself:

1) Who are the Xeelee exactly? And what is their evolutionary history and what is their physiology?

2) What is the nature of their space fleets and territorial holdings? Do they have a cultural system we can partially relate to?

3) What can Xeelee technology do? What is the extent of their power?

4) How do the humans relate to the Xeelee? Are the humans advanced themselves?

5) Which novels or stories do the Xeelee primarily feature in? Who is the author that created them?

[Shinova]

I have a few questions regarding the infamous Xeelee, a powerful and god like race that could move the fabric of the Universe itself:

1) Who are the Xeelee exactly? And what is their evolutionary history and what is their physiology?

They're a race that used time travel to travel back in time to their race's past and enhance themselves over and over. Their race is a causality loop.

Physiology, no clue.

2) What is the nature of their space fleets and territorial holdings? Do they have a cultural system we can partially relate to?

Culture is probably completely alien.

Their territory is the entire universe. They probably have spaceships of some kind, like their nightfighter, but they probably don't really need them since they can play around with the fabrics of space and time at whim.

They're also constructing a giant ring made up of cosmic matter that is many thousands or millions of lightyears in diameter as a device to escape their universe.

3) What can Xeelee technology do? What is the extent of their power?

They use galaxies and other such cosmic matter as building material, and can manipulate physical constants and laws. Their handgun can blow up a star. They can launch giant superstrings, or toss galaxies around.

4) How do the humans relate to the Xeelee? Are the humans advanced themselves?

Humans in the Xeeleeverse make the Imperium of Man look nice. They are very advanced, but still massively weak compared to the Xeelee. Out of sheer penis envy they tried to take on the Xeelee and waged war for some thousands of years before the Xeelee finally noticed them and imprisoned the whole human race in a space-time hypercube prison.

5) Which novels or stories do the Xeelee primarily feature in? Who is the author that created them?

They're from a series of novels by Stephen Baxter.


More to come as others add.

[Shinova]

Additionally, the Xeelee are about as old as the universe, or older, given how many times (unknown, to be frank) they've gone back in time to enhance themselves.

They've mastered every conceivable technology in their universe.

[Xon]

1) Who are the Xeelee exactly? And what is their evolutionary history and what is their physiology?

The Xeelee are symbiosis of 3 sentient species from different stages of the universe’s life. The space/time defects and the Quarkium soup form the 'proto-Xeelee' which then has a Carbon/conventional matter based lifeform after the expansion phase which allows conventional matter to exist.

The Xeelee themselves are the result of a temporal timeloop which has them sending ther highest level of technology back to virtually after the Big Gang.

2) What is the nature of their space fleets and territorial holdings?

Thier known holdings include all the non-dark matter parts of the universe. Not the visible universe, the entire damn thing.

Do they have a cultural system we can partially relate to?

Not really.

3) What can Xeelee technology do? What is the extent of their power?

They can beat 20 billion lightyears in under 2 weeks, thier FTL drive can make a 10000 lighyear jump in under the detectable timespan of a 22nd Centure human-derived AI assuming continued Moores law untill then. The only known weapon thier ships carry is a double human fist sized device called a "starbreaker" which projects a beam of coherent gravitions with enough power todo some truely awesome things. Conservitive estimates put it at effectively ~20mt/s, with evidence pointing to variable yields.

Thier technology allows for a material called "Xeelee construction material" which is 100% opaque to any form of EM radiation and can only be effected by gravity. It can also do a "close enough is good enough" 100% efficient conversion of energy into mass.

4) How do the humans relate to the Xeelee? Are the humans advanced themselves?

Humanity achieves the highest level of Technology any other race achieves in the face of the Xeelee, and they get sent to thier room when they really anoy the Xeelee. The entire human race(or what was left of it) was imprisoned in a hyper-sphere(think a pocket universe) and a few toys like animals which gave an endless supply of foodstuffs (aka milk) left there.

5) Which novels or stories do the Xeelee primarily feature in? Who is the author that created them?

The Xeelee sequence(which includes the Destiny's children series), by Stephan Baxter.

[The Nomad]

Conservitive estimates put it at effectively ~20mt/s, with evidence pointing to technobabblish effects on stars and shields.

Fixed for ya pal

You can also mention that Xeelee nightfighters and human greenships can fly massively close to a magnetar (00ber neutron star) during a flare ( power output of up to 10^41 W ) and while the human ship would die hitting the bulk of the burst, only the magnetic field of over 100 billion tesla disabled the nightfighter due to the sheer gravitational effects of such a powerful magnetic field.

The acceleration of a Xeelee nighfighter (reactionless drives, "spacetime defects wings" spanning hundreds of kilometers when unfolded) is conservatively over 150 million gravities (reaching 0.5c before a human pilot can realize it).

Xeelee pull energy out of nowhere, and the Humans have a greater than E=mc² conversion power source.

Xeelee starbreakers have no recoil, being "like anchored to spacetime itself" IIRC.

Xeelee unobtainium material is seemingly highly resistant to EM phenomena, while technobabble weapons like starbreakers and magnetic monopole shells pierce or vanish it outright.

And their FTL drive is also a time machine, they fight wars with intelligence from possible futures, sometimes centuries ahead.

They use the central black hole of galaxies as computers. That would put their computing power in a single Galaxy at over 10^80 operations per second.

[Ford Prefect]

You can also mention that Xeelee nightfighters and human greenships can fly massively close to a magnetar (00ber neutron star) during a flare ( power output of up to 10^41 W ) and while the human ship would die hitting the bulk of the burst, only the magnetic field of over 100 billion tesla disabled the nightfighter due to the sheer gravitational effects of such a powerful magnetic field.

I thought that it wasn't anything to do with gravity, 'merely' that the field intensity was so high that reality was starting to crystallise.

[Xon]

Conservitive estimates put it at effectively ~20mt/s, with evidence pointing to technobabblish effects on stars and shields.

Fixed for ya pal

I'm quite serious, the damn thing has variable yields.

There is one Xeelee short story I've read (physical copy somewhere, lost track of it) has a Human and some alien stuck on a Xeelee communication's relay. The human wants out, but the other alien doesnt want the human to move. After deliberately breaking something, the Xeelee dispatch a repairman. When the repairman comes to fix it, the human keeps out of the Xeelee's way and lets the repairman use a starbreaker to implode the random alien because it gets in the way.

While the human and the alien are in the same room.

[Ford Prefect]

I'm quite serious, the damn thing has variable yields.

There is one Xeelee short story I've read (physical copy somewhere, lost track of it) has a Human and some alien stuck on a Xeelee communication's relay. The human wants out, but the other alien doesnt want the human to move. After deliberately breaking something, the Xeelee dispatch a repairman. When the repairman comes to fix it, the human keeps out of the Xeelee's way and lets the repairman use a starbreaker to implode the random alien because it gets in the way.

While the human and the alien are in the same room.

That makes sense, considering that Starbreaker's carried by infantry in Exultant did not have remotely the firepower of those used by the flies in theo pening. However, there is a significant difference in dialling it down from 20mts to less a than triple digit megajoules to dialling it up to millions and millions of gigatons. I honestly doubt that the effects on stars are DET.

[Dahak]

You can also mention that Xeelee nightfighters and human greenships can fly massively close to a magnetar (00ber neutron star) during a flare ( power output of up to 10^41 W ) and while the human ship would die hitting the bulk of the burst, only the magnetic field of over 100 billion tesla disabled the nightfighter due to the sheer gravitational effects of such a powerful magnetic field.

I thought that it wasn't anything to do with gravity, 'merely' that the field intensity was so high that reality was starting to crystallise.

Yes, due to the intensity of the magnetic field of the flare, space-time turned birefringent and the Xeelee drive ceased to function in that sort of condition. Apart from that, the mere energy of the flare didn't cause any harm to the Nightfighter.

[Big Orange]

Humans in the Xeeleeverse make the Imperium of Man look nice. They are very advanced, but still massively weak compared to the Xeelee. Out of sheer penis envy they tried to take on the Xeelee and waged war for some thousands of years before the Xeelee finally noticed them and imprisoned the whole human race in a space-time hypercube prison.

Questions regarding the humans in the Xeelee verse:

1) How is this human empire or alliance evil; what atrocities did they commit?

2) What is the history of humanity as a intergalactic superpower?

3) What was the technological capability of humanity? What was their space fleet like; how much territory did they annex?

4) How far were they behind the Xeelee? Why did they challenge the Xeelee in a war; how long did it last and how was it fought?

[Ford Prefect]

1) How is this human empire or alliance evil; what atrocities did they commit?

They murdered every single piece of sapient life they came across that was human. There was a lot of genocide in the Third Expansion. And hypocrisy. And stupidity. Nillis (character in Exultant) makes up for it though.

2) What is the history of humanity as a intergalactic superpower?

Very, very odd, as I recall it, and I haven't read of it all. However, the Interim Coalition of Free Humanity who fought the Xeelee emerged from the Occupation, where an alien race known as the Qax (Kh-axe is how you pronouce it, I think) took over the earth and ruled man. I can't remember how the Qax got kicked out; though a man named Hama Druz wrote 'sermons' on how humanity should avoid being occupied like that again. Druz was the one who believed that a mindless, nameless child soldier was the ultimate paragon of humanity. "Remember: a brief life burns brightly'.

3) What was the technological capability of humanity? How far were they behind the Xeelee? What was their space fleet like; how much territory did they annex?

How much technological advancement? Lots, though it's got practically nothing on the Xeelee. Older humanity was better too. However, later technologies include: the CTC processor, a computer using faster-than-light drones to break down a problem, work it out and take it back in time - they can essentially get the answer before asking the question, Also, the Gravastar shield, an anomaly which made the Xeelee's FTL foreknowledge basically useless as those within were basically in another universe. Finally, black hole weaponry, with which they intended to destroy Chandra (the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy).

Their largest warships were the Spline, organic spheroids raised in Earth's oceans. They're technically cyborgs, mounting many, many weapons. The Spline rarely seemed to perform much in terms of 'frontline' combat, that being left to the three-man greenships.

4) Why did they challenge the Xeelee in a war; how long did it last and how was it fought?

They went to war purely because its what they did; Druz suggested that man stand unopposed in the galaxy. It lasted three thousand years, and for the most part, we only know how humanity assaulted the core with fleets of Greenships and the Rocks, asteroids sailing in towards the Xeelee mounting gigantic monopole cannons. We do know that the Xeelee made attacks from above and below the galactic disk, and it is suggested that there are other targets that humanity has attacked. None as important as Chandra and the core, though.

[Dahak]

They went to war purely because its what they did; Druz suggested that man stand unopposed in the galaxy. It lasted three thousand years, and for the most part, we only know how humanity assaulted the core with fleets of Greenships and the Rocks, asteroids sailing in towards the Xeelee mounting gigantic monopole cannons. We do know that the Xeelee made attacks from above and below the galactic disk, and it is suggested that there are other targets that humanity has attacked. None as important as Chandra and the core, though.

Actually, going by the official timeline in Vacuum Diagrams, the war against the Xeelee took the better part of a million years.

[mr friendly guy]

So how did the Xeelee trap humans in that pocket dimension thingie. Was it like just a touch of a button, or did they have to gather up all humans and shove it in the hypercube.

[Xon]

1) How is this human empire or alliance evil; what atrocities did they commit?

You name the atrocity, and they have comitted it many times over.

2) What is the history of humanity as a intergalactic superpower?

It is the history of a young race which gets anally raped by some wierd lizard people and then by a thinking ball of mud(there be really bad blood between humanity and the Qax). After this the young race grows up to be a psychotic anti-social race which finds the concept of any other races being superior to them in any way as utterly repugnant. Queue a million year long struggle to get the Authority figure (the Xeelee) to notice them followed by a brief spanking and being sent to thier room.

3) What was the technological capability of humanity? What was their space fleet like; how much territory did they annex?

Technologically speaks, humanity is capable of achieving levels of technological development which the Culture couldnt match. It doesnt always stick for various reason(mostly cultural).

The Transcendant is a group-mind network of post-singularity humans which was on the verge of transcending the finite universe but didnt because they where unwilling to give up thier humanity.

4) How far were they behind the Xeelee?

Worse than the Culture compared to some of those tool using monkeys that actually exist on Earth(they strip sticks of leaves & stuff and use them to fish food out of mounds).

[Xon]

So how did the Xeelee trap humans in that pocket dimension thingie. Was it like just a touch of a button, or did they have to gather up all humans and shove it in the hypercube.

There is very little about humanities imprisonment and it is a hypersphere, not a hypercube damnit!

The timeline in Vacuum Diagrams lists the fall and imprisonment under the single timestamp. Other referances put as humanity not being able to slow the Xeelee down at all before it happened.

[Xon]

There is very little about humanities imprisonment and it is a hypersphere, not a hypercube damnit!

The exterior is described as a cube with a Xeelee nightfighter docked to it, but the interior is described as a sphere. Go figure

And also Earth used to be where the hypersphere was, not that moving planets out of the way is hard with Xeelee-verse technology

[theski]

Conservitive estimates put it at effectively ~20mt/s, with evidence pointing to technobabblish effects on stars and shields.

Fixed for ya pal

I'm quite serious, the damn thing has variable yields.

There is one Xeelee short story I've read (physical copy somewhere, lost track of it) has a Human and some alien stuck on a Xeelee communication's relay. The human wants out, but the other alien doesnt want the human to move. After deliberately breaking something, the Xeelee dispatch a repairman. When the repairman comes to fix it, the human keeps out of the Xeelee's way and lets the repairman use a starbreaker to implode the random alien because it gets in the way.

While the human and the alien are in the same room.

Actually they were both on the surface of the planet at the time..

[Dahak]

There is very little about humanities imprisonment and it is a hypersphere, not a hypercube damnit!

The exterior is described as a cube with a Xeelee nightfighter docked to it, but the interior is described as a sphere. Go figure

And also Earth used to be where the hypersphere was, not that moving planets out of the way is hard with Xeelee-verse technology

The Eigth Room was just one cubic 3D facet of it. And if I'm not terribly mistaken, it was indeed a hypercube.

[Big Orange]

Why did humanity become so brutal later on in it's history? What races were exterminated by the so-called "Interim Coalition of Free Humanity"?

With humanity's war with the Xeelee degenerating into possibly the biggest stalemate in history, were they resorting to cloning trillions of human soldiers, packing them into ships or asteroids and then pouring them towards Xeelee positions in endless stream for millennia on end?

[Nyrath]

Their largest warships were the Spline, organic spheroids raised in Earth's oceans. They're technically cyborgs, mounting many, many weapons. The Spline rarely seemed to perform much in terms of 'frontline' combat, that being left to the three-man greenships.

Minor nitpick: the Spline were not raised on Earth. They are an alien species who genetically engineered themselves to be organic starships, and support themselves by being hired by various alien empires (including Earth) to become instant starfleets. The hiring empire can mount whatever weapons or equipment they want in each Spline, as long as it doesn't adversely affect the Spline's health.

[Nyrath]

Nobody has yet mentioned the most jaw-dropping Xeelee artifact of all, the Ring. I'm not going to spoil it, you should read the Stephen Baxter novel of the same name.

And as godlike as the Xeelee are, they lost the war to the non-baryonic Photino birds. If a StarDestroyer Net wanker reads the novel Ring, the room will be flooded when they find out the weapon the Photino birds use to destroy the Xeelee ring.

[Dahak]

Why did humanity become so brutal later on in it's history? What races were exterminated by the so-called "Interim Coalition of Free Humanity"?

With humanity's war with the Xeelee degenerating into possibly the biggest stalemate in history, were they resorting to cloning trillions of human soldiers, packing them into ships or asteroids and then pouring them towards Xeelee positions in endless stream for millennia on end?

Humanity began to think of itself as the prime species in the universe and that the Xeelee were their one, true enemy. Thus they did anything in their way to get powerful enough to defeat them - thus the Assimilation. They assilmilated/exterminated any species they thought had useful technology.

And there only was a "stalemate" at the beginning of this war in our Galaxy. And it only was this because the Xeelee barely noticed this conflict. To them, it may have been like ants attacking Mount Everest...
At the beginning of this war (a mere 20k years or so), humanity was doing just that. Throwing billions upon billions of humans into the blender.

It took them millenia before the Xeelee even noticed them really. And when they did, it was over. They never had a chance.

[Big Orange]

Humanity began to think of itself as the prime species in the universe and that the Xeelee were their one, true enemy. Thus they did anything in their way to get powerful enough to defeat them - thus the Assimilation. They assilmilated/exterminated any species they thought had useful technology.

What unfortunate species did the humans curbstomp? Are there proper descriptions of these events or is it kept typically vague?

At the beginning of this war (a mere 20k years or so), humanity was doing just that. Throwing billions upon billions of humans into the blender.

It took them millenia before the Xeelee even noticed them really. And when they did, it was over. They never had a chance.

What exactly were the humans throwing everything at exactly? Was it automated Xeelee defences or actual Xeelee creatures? Why did it take so long for the Xeelee to take heed of humanity snapping at it heels? And how did the Xeelee punish humanity?

[theski]

Big O.. at some point you are going to be told to JUST GO READ THE BOOKS.. so you might want to start now..

[Surlethe]

How do you pronounce "Xeelee"?