Wake
The Wake Civilization is a vast convoy of spacecraft that constantly travel around the galaxy in search of resources, races, and technology. This convoy drops hypergates as it travels, allowing instantaneous access to previously visited star systems. It is unclear whether Wake has any faster than light capability beyond the hypergates. The Wake civilization is very old. There are hints that it has circled the galaxy many times, and revisited many stellar systems over time periods sufficient to watch civilizations rise and fall. There is also evidence that Wake has terraformed planets and seeded life on them over a very long period of time.
As a synthesis of vast numbers of races with a long history, Wake is extremely advanced technologically. No two ships of Wake are designed the same, and some are clearly biological. Several ships and species are encountered in the convoy that are so different that communication is difficult or impossible, yet they are clearly a part of the civilization. Artificial intelligences are used everywhere, but are considered second class citizens and kept under control by the biological citizens. Advanced biological information storage and processing technologies are seen several times throughout the series.
The communication technology of Wake relies heavily on psionics, produced and manipulated by both biological and technological means. The citizens of Wake are classified by their ability to control the behavior of other beings through psionic powers and their susceptibility to control by the same means. This division of people into powerful and helpless categories is a consistent theme throughout the series. The exclusive use of psionics for communication is hinted at as one of the possible reasons why Wake and humanity have never discovered each other, as Nävis (and presumably all humans) are totally immune to psionic coercion and equally unable to manipulate or communicate with other beings through these means. This ability makes Nävis valuable as an intelligence agent of Wake’s military and use of this talent allows her to make a living.
Read more about this topic: Wake (comics)
Famous quotes containing the word wake:
“Some say that gleams of a remoter world
Visit the soul in sleep,—that death is slumber,
And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber
Of those who wake and live.—”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“For a novel addressed by a man to men and women of full age; which attempts to deal unaffectedly with the fret and fever, derision and disaster, that may press in the wake of the strongest passion known to humanity; to tell, without a mincing of words, of a deadly war waged between flesh and spirit; and to point the tragedy of unfulfilled aims, I am not aware that there is anything in the handling to which exception can be taken.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)