(covers information from several alternate timelines)
| Programmable matter | |
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| The most basic iteration of Programmable matter ship interface (c3180s) | |
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Aliases: |
Nano-Metal, Nano Gel, Illusory matter, Claytronic matter |
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Gender: |
either gender depending on physical appearance of particle Synthetic avatar |
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Affiliation: |
Multiple Federation Iterations and alien species |
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Posting: |
majority of IFUW, 32nd century Federation and several alien fleets |
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Function: |
nanomachinery based Ablative armor, synthetic avatar and ship control interface material. |
Programmable matter also known as Nano-metal, also later termed as Nano gel by varying societies and civilizations centuries previous is an advanced form of ablative armor plating, adaptive power armor, advanced Synthetic, computer circuitry and ships interface material used in the 32nd century by the Federation and by the Imperial Federation of United Worlds in the mid 24th century.
Consisting of minute nanomolecules made of synthetic metals and later atomic and sub-atomic crystalline polymer and pure carbon elements, the matter has the abilities of redistributing and redesigning itself into pre-programmed shapes and physical structures for ship defense reinforcement.
Capable of reading biological and neutral stimuli according to the user, the programmable matter was highly adaptive to the users both interests and ergonomic needs creating an almost empathic connection to the ship and crew. It learned and adjusted to the user's physical and emotional reflexes, creating interface styles that were unique to each individual.
This ability allowed for a smooth transition and integration with the Neurogenic Protocore and related ships' interaction systems by the 27th century.
The substance has a look and feel similar to that cool smooth sculpted cobalt-infused glass due to the build and texture of its crystalline components.
Substance function and history[]
The earliest recorded mention of the wide-range use of Programmable matter was in 2168 as the crew of the Columbia (NX-02) encountered a species named the Caelians.
Their technology from massive city ships to the Caelians themselves were essentially pure Claytronic matter (see section below), as their bodies seemed to be self-sufficient brains encased in biomechanical like Catom constructed shells of humanoid armor.
In the early 2300s IFUW scientists realized that most current era energy weapons while destructive had an overwhelming impact created by energy output and little physical output or simple "push" to react in the same manner as kinetic ballistic munitions.
With this in mind, the newly designed Defiant-class was constructed with a primary outer armored layer of "Nano-Metal" consisting of energy absorbing and redirecting synthetic metal that regardless of energy yield of any external weapons force can easily absorb the vast majority of strike and redirect it either to weapons or emergency energy systems rendering the ship depending on weapons type virtually indestructible.
By the late 24th century the IFUW had standardized Nano-Metal as a hull plating for the entirety of the Imperial fleet as well as the fleets of their most trusted alien ally fleets.
Within the prime universe however, ships were not received with this substance upgrade until the late 25th century and was only an upgrade from standard Ablative armor until the 27th century when Federation researchers found that the substance could be applied to many other uses in civilian use.
The major contribution to this was a both major and highly needed upgrade to the 3DLCARS ship and computer interface that was woefully underdeveloped for near centuries. By the 31st century programmable matter was used and consisting of nearly everything in external objects and structure from furniture, and motorized walkways, to customizable flags.
Also by the mid-25th century Programmable matter was utilized by the Imperial Marine Corps as a form of adaptive armor for short-term rescue and defensive away operations.
Exomorphic matter[]
By the 26th century the matter was upgraded by a process termed as Sub-Particle synthesis, a matter replication structuralization that involves denser particles smaller than orbiting quantum elements around atomic nuclei. These particles are surrounded by a stronger cluster of quantum strong force charged gulons.
This quantum energy reinforcement termed as "Quantum magnetism" increases synthetic structure cohesion and prevents what is known as Inelastic scattering. If which the possibility of sub-atomic scattering were to occur it would render the physical structure of the synthetic extremely vulnerable to even low-level atomic and possibly general physical impact. Leaving the construct "atomically brittle".
Exomorphic particle or Exomorphic matrix-based matter as it was termed led to a revolution in artificially intelligent humanoid generation for the IFUW, Starfleet, and Romulans for several centuries.
Structural safety regulation[]
Meanwhile by the early 27th century in universe Delta while a commercialization of standard Nano-Metal was being developed it was only mostly placed on civilian constructed ships such as the Vekxel-class and a small few other nonmilitary ship classes.
The main reason for this is due to the fact that if a ship that may be fully constructed of programmable matter and it may be far too damaged or have a catastrophic energy failure instead of the ship's crew or passengers trapped inside of a sealed ship they would be instantly thrown into empty space due to matter decohesion, so the IFUW mandated that all military imperial registered ships should be constructed from a large portion of non-programmable and electrical system dependant materials.
Illusory matter[]
In 2364 the Imperial Federation made first contact with 2 species the Ranans and the Douwd. The Douwd gave the Ranans the ability to artificially generate massive Warships seemingly out of thin air and protect themselves against extreme invaders.
The IFUW believed that the substance these "ships" consisted of were illusions of some sort that through psychic control were given substance.
However by the early 25th century during the Multiversal crisis created by Q engineer Jett Reno discovered that by comparing his physiology to IFUW methods of matter creation that the matter wasn't illusory but actual forms of exotic atomic elements mentally summoned and recombined into physical objects and constructs.
These quantum-based or simplistic "Q" principles led to the realization that the "illusory" constructs from multiple species were real although they could be easily disassembled and their atomic elements returned to the vacuum and couldn't be easily read via ship scan.
Claytronic matter[]
Catoms, or claytronic atoms, by the late 26th century become the technical elemental standard for Sub particle synthesis. Originally conceived by the Caelians and later Developed and re-engineered by the engineering Corps of a dozen realities, Catoms are a completely artificial atom. They are described as being similar in nature to a nanomachine, but with greater power and complexity.
While microscopic individually, they bond and work together on a larger scale. Catoms were constructed to be intentionally "Hyper Quantum magnetic" capable of changing their density, energy levels, state of being or "quantum presence", and other sub-nucleonic characteristics via ordered Neurogenic Protocore neuron interactions alone.
By 2594 Catoms had completely replaced originally experimental varying sub-atomic matter for Exomorphic constructs for decades.
Around the same era, Isolinear materials were completely phased out of Starfleet naval operations and all computer cores consisted of pure claytronic-based circuits.
During the multiversal crisis of the early 2400s a Federation variant was discovered by the name of the Interplanetary Concordance. The Concordance had levels of Claytronic-based technology both equalling and surpassing Caelian advancement by near centuries.
Programmable Antimatter[]
By the mid-27th century the governments of multiple realities began to increase the offensive capabilities of their military sub nucleonic based drones by trying to utilize various forms of both solidified and semi-solid quantum field controlled Antimatter.
Termed by some as "Smart Anti Torpedoes" these sentient and capable synthetics could either be utilized to fire powerful immense energy blasts or exotic antiparticle torpedoes or in worse cases self detonate in emergency situations.
And although the antimatter synthetics can "eject" their AI cores by transporting them back to their ship of origin before detonation, Starfleet began to severely frown upon the specific usage of the synthetics in this way due to the extremity of the explosive yield of some of the synthetics contained energy.
Especially after several antimatter synthetics were found being sold across several Ferengi controlled black markets across the Beta Quadrant. And as such the synthetics were intentionally being sold for both suicide bombing, assassination and mass weapons uses by several hostile species across the quadrant for buyers.
By the 32nd century Programmable antimatter was found it could be utilized as a powerful ramming shield to penetrate the Galactic Barrier to reach the outer galactic region of Species 10-C.
Guardian matter[]
By the late 28th century leaps in time based manipulation and travel technology which led to the events of the Temporal War evolved Programmable matter forms to include Temporal elements such as Time Crystals, chronotons, Red matter, and Chronomite.
This led to the development of the Temporal interface a next Gen ship interface that became standard for all Welles class and Temporal cruiser craft across multiple universes/timelines by the 31st century.
Further experiments involving the mesh of interface material with the Sub-Particle synthetic process led to the development of almost celestially powered artificial beings generated with materials now termed as "Guardian matter".
This was due to the fact that the Temporal and external matter manipulation gave the synthetics a power level near to that of the Guardian of Forever. The actual Guardian however became aware of the existence of the matter along with its alternate reality selves.
Realizing that the abilities of the matter in the hands of far too existentially young species was far too dangerous for the existence of the fourth dimension, and as such along with the assistance of it's other selves manipulated events to make the matter seem unreliable and faulty to dissuade multiple species from continuing the advancement of the matter to destructive or further destructive levels.
After the manipulation, only a few models or specific synthetics were left active either due to their importance in future events or their evidence of a strong sense of morality or empathy in the constructs.
External links[]
- Programmable matter article at Memory Alpha, the canon Star Trek wiki.
- Catom article at Memory Beta, the non-canon Star Trek wiki.
- Programmable matter Wikipedia article