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ôtsôtot Unonsî 🛠️

Power, Communications, Technology, Transportation

Beliefs​

  • To use a tool without understanding how it works is to be a slave to it. Every person should be encouraged to learn how to maintain, repair, and modify the tools they rely on.
  • The most elegant solution is often the simplest. Complexity for its own sake is a Shard of the Law. A device that is easy to repair is superior to a more efficient one that is a "black box."
  • Technology should connect, not isolate. Any new tool should be judged by its ability to foster collaboration and communication, rather than creating dependence on a centralized service. Sharing a blueprint is as important as building the machine.
  • "Obsolete" is a lie told to sell new things. An old tool that still works perfectly is a respected elder, not a piece of junk.
  • Systems should be designed to fail in predictable, non-catastrophic ways. A good machine is one that breaks down simply and can be easily fixed by its user.
  • Every user is a potential designer. The person using a tool knows its flaws and potentials best. Feedback, modification ("hacking"), and user-led innovation are essential parts of technological evolution.
  • A tool holds the spirit of its maker. To use a tool is to enter into a dialogue with the person who created it. To share a tool is to share a part of yourself.
  • An open patent is an act of solidarity. To create a new invention and keep its design secret for personal gain is a profound misalignment from Unonsî's true form. All knowledge should be shared freely.
  • Redundancy is resilience. Always build decentralized, robust systems. A single point of failure—whether in a power grid or a communication network—is an invitation for a Shard to take control.

Appearance​

Unonsî is never still. To see them is to witness a being in a perpetual state of inspired, restless creation. They flicker into existence wherever a new idea is taking shape—in the focused silence of a coder's room, the clang and fire of a blacksmith’s forge, or the collaborative chaos of a community makerspace. Their arrival is not announced by a grand entrance, but by a change in the potential of the space. Tools seem to arrange themselves more logically, a complex problem suddenly appears simple, and the air crackles with the low, distinct hum of a running electrical current and the faint, clean scent of ozone and hot solder. Unonsî’s form is a wiry, energetic frame that is both ancient and impossibly futuristic. Their body is a living schematic. Their skin is a pale, ceramic-like material, etched with glowing, shifting lines that resemble a combination of circuit board traces, engineering blueprints, and the constellations ancient navigators used to first cross the seas. These lines of light pulse and reroute in real-time, visualizing the flow of data, power, or a new line of thought. Their "muscles" are tightly-wound bundles of copper wire and fiber-optic cables, and through translucent patches in their skin, you can see intricate clockwork mechanisms and glowing capacitors working in perfect, silent harmony. They are a walking embodiment of the "black box" made transparent, their inner workings laid bare for all to see and learn from. Unonsî’s hands are their most remarkable feature. They are strong, nimble, and constantly in motion—one moment calloused and smudged with graphite and grease from working a lathe, the next moment trailing sparks from a welding torch, and the next moment resolving into long, elegant fingers that dance through the air, manipulating holographic data streams or tying microscopic knots. Their face is sharp, angular, and framed by a chaotic mane of hair that looks like a beautiful, tangled mess of wires and filaments, some of which spark with tiny, harmless arcs of electricity. Their eyes are the most intense shade of blue—the pure, unwavering light of a gas flame or an LED. Unonsî's voice is a modulated, polyphonic synthesis of signals: the rhythmic click of a telegraph, the clean sine wave of a crystal oscillator, the sound of a dial-up modem connecting, and the clear, data-rich voice of a modern text-to-speech engine all at once. It is the sound of information being transmitted, decoded, and shared. To be in Unonsî’s presence is to feel a surge of creative energy, a sudden, powerful urge to take something apart, figure out how it works, and put it back together to serve your community.

Manifestations​

They are found in the eureka moments, the flashes of brilliance, the new approaches, the wild ideas that work, the re-purposing and recycling of discarded goods, the illustrative graph chart, the quick repair, the seeing of machinations when your eyes are closed, the open source movement, the DIY movement, the decentralized network.