The landscapes of Top belie it’s reality. They are so beautiful and picaresque that it is no wonder very few members of the Ascendant have ever left the planet. To an outside observer, the planet is a hard, black ball of floating metal that is intimidating. But from the ground on its many continents, twenty-one spread out evenly in its pristine oceans, it looks as though one is in a natural environment under a sky filled with stars and other celestial bodies and signs of atmosphere; like clouds and the random display of aurorae that are not confined to the poles or high altitudes. The twenty-one continents of Top vary in terrain and function, but each incorporates impressive stretches of natural landscapes; mountains and beaches, prairie lands, rainforests; and the Ascendant are eager explorers of the flora and fauna that were carefully selected or engineered by the original designers of Top.
Par-Cell enjoyed a prairie view outside of her home that was made for one person and capable of accommodating multiple guests. She lived on the continent of the Eternity Archive, the ancient collection of knowledge and all events that had shaped the universe. The prairie lands of the Archive continent are immense and populated by grasses that welcome members of the Ascendant who are dedicated to fields of work associated with intense intellect and contemplation, to walk through or relax staring up at the artificial skyline projected on the inside of the Outshell that surrounded the planet.
Par-Cell had been raised on Archive and she was never motivated to leave her home. She enjoyed the vast libraries that doubled as city centers, and she was proud to say that she had visited all twenty-one libraries of the capital cities. Ascendant cities would be recognizable to a human of Earth in the relative present. They are organized similar to cities on Earth, only instead of family homes, most houses and apartments are designed for one occupant. The Ascendant are not a solitary race and they view their homes as a room inside of the giant home of Top that houses them all as one family. Par-Cell grew up in the city of Aeternus and she seemed to progress faster than her peers intellectually. She was not necessarily smarter than anyone else, she just enjoyed the work of learning and she did it even when she wasn’t being asked. Her favorite pastime was exploring philosophical questions that arose from highly advanced science, a very topical subject for the Ascendant who, as the last sentient beings of the known universe, will be known as the most technologically advanced collective of beings to have ever existed. Par-Cell will advance easily in her education, motivated by the chance to debate deep philosophical ideas of privacy and ownership, the ethics of experimentation, and her favorite topic of godhood versus Godhood, which boiled down to a discussion of intervening on a large scale versus intervening on a small scale. The seeming goal of the Ascendant race is to know, for the sake of competent stewardship of the universe itself, and that requires a type of godhood if one hopes to be effective; how else to identify and solve the problems of the physical universe? But Godhood, the respect for the knowing being in possession of said awareness to capitalize the word God, that God becomes xenocentric, focused on it’s potential to intervene on behalf of a specific population in various ways. The steward god is only concerned with the preservation of the vicarious conditions that give life to sentience, it is not interested in the specific sentience. The theoretical God cares deeply about the details, about each and every one of its creations.
Par-Cell became a mathematician and engineer because of an ancient thought experiment that theorized a device capable of gathering detailed information about the entire universe and collecting said information in a similar fashion to the Eternity Archive. The thought experiment was designed to demonstrate that a device capable of accessing, storing and analyzing present omniscience, knowledge of everything occurring in the relative present, could be designed to create models of the past to become a complete archive of all eternity. But where the Eternity Archive was manual, the result of many beings adding knowledge over time and laborious to access, this device would be virtually automatic and a mastery of it’s controls would allow a user to access information about the universe in real time. Par-Cell wanted to create this theoretical device and though she believed it impossible, it did not stop her from pursuing it as a side project.
Her advanced intellect and dedication to finding answers to the seemingly impossible, inspired her peers and though she was surprised by her nomination to become master mathematician and engineer, everyone else around her was happy to elect her as their representative.
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