Exo III
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Third planet of eleven in the desolute Exo System, Exo III is a Class P world with an atmosphere not unlike Earth's, albiet a frigid one. Ice covers nearly 88 percent of the planet's surface and in some places has been measured to be over a mile thick. Surveys have indicated the planet to be some 8.5 billion years old. Deep in the heart of planets where sentient beings once stood, technology lies waiting to be discovered. Exo III contained one of those discoveries, functional android technology, but also held the secrets of Exo III's demise. Exo III orbits a dying star which has been dimming inexorably for over a half million years. The Exo system is deep in the wilds of the Alpha Quadrant, technically in Federation space though not near any known inhabited worlds.
Prior to 2261, noted medical archaeologist Dr. Roger Korby led an expedition to Exo III looking for possible cures. After a few years, the Federation stopped receiving messages from him. In 2266, the U.S.S. Enterprise was sent to discover the fate of Korby and his team. Surprisingly, he and some of his associates here found to be alive. He reported that the planet was once very similar to Earth, until the system's sun began to diminish some 500,000 years ago. As the planet grew colder, the natives moved underground and became increasingly reliant on mechanical devices, including androids. He planned to use an android duplicator to gradually replace living beings, believing that androids would never experience the negative emotions of the living.
It was later found out the Korby and the other survivors were also androids. Ultimately, they destroyed one another over Korby's idea just before the Enterprise left the planet.
Climate
Exo III's climate on the surface is cold and harsh, its atmosphere bleeding away with the centuries, and almost no water remaining on the surface, though underground deposits of ice remain. As Exo III's sun fails, the planet's climate worsens and worsens, to the point that even a half a million years before, the natives of Exo III had fled underground to survive in pressurized cities and caverns.
Geography
As Exo III's civilization moved underground, they used their technical expertise to carve huge pressurized domes and cities to live in, out of the very rock. Their surface became entirely unlivable, and the planetary biosphere was completely destroyed with time. At this time, there is nothing living on the surface of Exo III, and even fossilized remains are difficult to come by. Explorers and archaeologists seeking to explore the surface need to use actual pressure gear; a failure to do so would lead to severe hypothermia and eventual death.
History
The culture that had moved underground, known as the Old Ones, had devoted itself to mechanical solutions to their problems. With the loss of all natural agriculture and open living space came the need for machines that could carve out the Old Ones' environment, produce adequate food and make their existence comfortable. This culminated in the sophisticated android technology they developed. Androids made for tireless servants and helpmeets, performing dangerous labor and making their owners comfortable. When the androids developed a sense of self-preservation, the Old Ones grew to fear them. The resulting conflict destroyed both the Old Ones and their android servants, leaving their plans and designs to wait for hundreds of thousands of years.
Little is known of the Old Ones who Exosian society. It is known that they adapted to a highly mechanistic society as their climate became unlivable, and further known that they developed highly sophisticated androids who, after gaining a sense of self-preservation, turned on them and destroyed their culture. Eventually, the remaining androids also broke down, leaving a dead world.
However, dead worlds were the specialty of Dr. Roger Korby, an exobiologist described as the Pasteur of archaeological medicine. Korby went to long abandoned worlds and analyzed their biological and medical technologies, exploiting long-lost techniques to improve the Federation's lot. In that spirit, he went to Exo III, only to crash on the frozen world.
Dying from exposure and frostbite, Korby and his assistant, Dr. Brown, managed to find the entrance to one of the remaining caverns. There, crippled and in horrible pain, he made the greatest discovery of his career; ancient designs and patterns for constructing Exosian androids. He managed to rebuild of the ancient servants, a hulking android called Ruk, who then acted as his hands.
Ruk built an android named Andrea as a second servant and companion, and as a test for constructing androids in human appearance. Dr. Korby had discovered plans for transfer equipment that would allow he and Dr. Brown to be implanted into android bodies. Sadly, Dr. Brown died before the procedure could be perfected. Korby had Ruk and Andrea construct an android duplicate of Dr. Brown anyhow, though they couldn't implant his memories into the unit.
Finally, on death's door, Dr. Korby had the androids use the process on himself, imprinting his memories and personality into an android body. Dr. Roger Korby then died, and his android duplicate began to make plans.
The U.S.S. Enterprise led one of several rescue attempts of the Korby party, carrying Dr. Korby's fiancee, Christine Chapel, as part of the party. The Korby android realized the Enterprise could carry android duplicates from Exo III throughout the Federation, planting them in positions of power until they could become a ubiquitous part of society. Enterprise Captain James T. Kirk was duplicated as a part of this process, but was able to plant false memories and attitudes into his android duplicate. This let his first officer, Spock, discover Korby's plan. After reawakening Ruk's instinct for self-preservation, Kirk, Spock, and Chapel discovered that Korby was himself an android. Kirk and Chapel were able to prove that the android Roger Korby was not actually the doctor reborn, but a simulation of life, incapable of true feeling or humanity. Andrea, forced to confront her own artificial existence, precipitated the destruction of herself and Korby.
Places of Interest
The equipment to create android duplicates of living people still exists on Exo III. The machine creates an android that, to all reasonable examination short of tricorder readings, appears to be completely human, with most of the original person's memories and a general simulation of the original's personality. However, Exo III technology is not able to create a truly sentient android like Commander Data. Instead, it creates an expert system; a simulation that follows independent directives and programs new ones without having true sentience. The instinct for self-preservation that the Exo III androids developed was the first step to true self-awareness, but sadly the androids neither survived it nor evolved beyond it.
Although Starfleet initially classified Exo III as a "toxic and useless dump," the planet was slated for charting as part of the usual run of scientific exploration in the late 22nd century. After the death of Korby and the discovery of Exo III's android technology, Exo III was quarantined by Starfleet. Archaeological teams were then dispatched to continue the excavation and analysis of Korby's find. The techniques of transferring memory and personality to the Exosian android bodies informed similar procedures later used by Dr. Richard Daystrom in the creation of the M-5 computer. The Exo III android technology comprised much of the necessary precursor work to Dr. Noonian Soong's creation of a truly sentient android, as well as the efforts of Dr. Ira Graves in transferring thoughts to cybernetic constructs. During the Dominion War, elements of Starfleet Intelligence proposed the use of Exosian android doubles to infiltrate enemy command structures, but the plan proved too difficult to implement.
Reference(s)
- Burns, Eric, Kenneth A. Hite & Doug Sun. Star Trek Roleplaying Game Book 7: Worlds, Decipher, 2005. ISBN: 1582369097.