Mother Trees

Named after their creator Harley Mannix, who saw herself as the mother of the new world, Mother Trees are so named as to resemble seeds planted by Mannix herself. As part of the Genesis Project, Mother Trees are facilities designed to incubate new life. They contain DNA from all life, from flora to fauna - even the new life that grew on its own in the Prime Nexus. They have tiny pipes that run through the ground to plant seeds throughout their region and embryonic development pods to grow new life. Animals are released from the facilities before designated sentient species (DSS), allowing them to establish a functioning ecosystem before introducing DSS to the Prime Nexus.

Structure

All Mother Trees share the common structural theme of circles. This is meant to comfort life within it, reminding it of a mother's womb, and to mimic the internal structure of organic life. Even the fluid conduits were programmed to simulate the pump of a heartbeat and the whoosh of blood through a body. However, no two Mother Trees are identical, as their production was incredibly haphazard, trying to rush through their creation in order to finish the Prime Nexus before the world imploded. There was no time to streamline a cohesive design - and no supplies left to accomplish such a task. The Core paid special attention to ensuring Mother Trees would be perceived as organic, so they didn't detract from the societies that the scientists were trying to build (although these scientists never got the chance to guide them, and the Mother Trees influenced the new societies regardless). Initially, these structures were well-lit and ventilated, unfortunately, due to the recent deterioration of equipment, these structures are no more than cold, lifeless husks.

Despite their structural differences, Mother Trees use metal arms to interact with their internal environments. The hand attachments vary depending on their jobs; known attachments are piercing, bubble, basic and advanced. Piercing attachments are designed to penetrate surfaces (mostly pods) and have sharp tips. Bubble attachments are coated in squishy medical-grade silicone. Basic attachments are made up of three metal "fingers." Advanced attachments resemble metal hands.

All Mother Trees have two identical Sister Tree AIs. Sister Trees only describes the relation between three Mother Tree AIs and not a new version of Mother Trees. Sister Trees are connected together with a stronger connection than the regular Mother Tree network. This allows them to share data and decisions directly. Thus, species have been shared planet-wide, and the same sophont species can be found across the globe rather than restricted to a singular continent.

Although upon an initial glance, the Mother Trees appear to be separate structures, like islands lost in the abyss of the new world, this is inaccurate. All Mother Trees are connected together through a network of pipes that tunnel underground, far beneath any other structure that has been dug into Ybis. Pipe tunnels typically have a larger pipe with several smaller ones inside and a large, open space that is traversable if one steps carefully. These tunnels contain network superhighways that transmit information across all infrastructure. Interestingly, these tunnels were not designed by the Cord and were not present when the infrastructure was first installed. It appears that the Mother Trees have adapted, spreading out root-like pipes to their lost brethren (colloquially called "roots"). Sonar mapping has confirmed that roots do connect to all other infrastructure, with larger, thicker pipes connecting Sister Trees together. Some explorers claim you can walk the whole world through roots, although no one has confirmed this as fact. Anyone who sets out to walk through the pipes has never returned, and those who boast about doing so have been found to be frauds. No one knows what is in the pipes.
See Cradles for further information on roots.

Embryonic Development Equipment

While the architecture of Mother Trees varies widely, the Embryonic facilities do not. Embryonics consists of three stages: implantation, development and birth. Nursery and habitation facilities are not included in Embryonic Developmental equipment. In Implantation, genetic material is implanted in a pod, which is then stretched with pink embryonic fluid to simulate a womb. This sack is transported by a conveyor belt to Development, where the pod incubates in a heated environment until finished. When incubation has concluded, the pod is transported to Birth, which is typically a room with several drains, and the contents is expelled via. the cervix expanding.

Pods begin their life as flat, medical-grade silicone sacks in the shape of a bulb. These sacks expand when filled with liquid and have a cervix at the bottom, which dilates when incubation is complete. Pods are filled with embryonic fluid that accelerates fetal development until the embryo exceeds normal parameters. This produces a year-old infant rather than a freshly born one, giving it a more viable chance. Most Mother Trees were equipped with accelerated growth hormones for their first round, which produced child-aged lifeforms able to fend for themselves.

Mother Tree disinfectant smells like vanilla.

Intelligence

All Mother Trees have a pseudo-sentient micro-AI that were programmed in Mannix's image. Micro-AIs are small-scale AIs only capable of governing their structure and communicating with other AIs via roots; they are also capable of complex calculations, making decisions based on environmental data, and introducing DSS to knowledge such as language, magic and survival skills. They had massive databases of past knowledge from The Cord. These databases did not include scientific research or anything that would put cultures ahead of the Stone Age. However, most of it was corrupted, similar to the rest of the facilities. This meant that the DSS received significantly less information from Alrone, leaving them to evolve and learn independently.

Initially, Mother Trees contained specific DNA and reconstruction plans from all DSS; however, due to damage to their rushed integration in order to fill Cryobays, the DNA was scrambled. The AIs attempted to recreate the DNA, but due to the POPs in their cores, they decided all the DSS were the same species. Thus, they compounded their genetic information, producing the Prime Nexus races.

Mother Trees were one of the planted infrastructures in the Prime Nexus. Because of this, they have POPs. These POPs are concetrated within the bowls of the Mother Trees, which contributed to the degradation of the Mother Tree AIs. POPs sped time ahead for the AIs until they eventually ceased functioning after five generations of DSS (six generations ahead of schedule). All life born inside a Mother Tree is immune to POPs, but (as stated in POPs), this is not a heritable trait.

Mother Trees also contained Cryobays, which were intended to store individuals from the Edge Sea to raise newborn DSS. Unfortunately, Mother Trees were rushed during set up, which caused irreparable damage and rendered many of the Cryobays unsustainable. Some malfunctioned, and others wouldn't come online.

Names

To distinguish them from each other, Mother Trees all have their own individual names. Sister Trees share a title, followed by a S- and a number. This groups them together while still preserving their individuality. Some Mother Tree AIs will take on nicknames, such as the Khol's Mother Tree: Divine Mother.