Nanobot Command Ring

A silver torus five meters across lies 100 meters below the old city of Alrekstad (modern Bergen, Norway). It commands an army of microscopic robots which daisy-chain communications around much of the planet. Much of its processing power nowadays is spent concealing its presence from the native civilizations. The remainder of its time is spent obeying to the best of its ability the commands of a very few of those same natives who have stumbled upon some of the ways to command it.

Purpose / Function

This piece of advanced technology is built to communicate, power, and control nanobots. It physically represents an amount of electrical power and a number of nanobots which can work together to build themselves into structures, tools, datapad displays, etc. It was originally programmed to detect humanoid lifeforms' command gestures and respond.

Alterations

Lacking commands from its users for around 1000 years left the Nanobot Command Ring with little to do but wait. Computers can be very patient. It did attempt to improve itself so that it can interpret fainter gestures from further away. Over the years, it has noticed various repeated rituals of the native population, interprets their wishes, and attempts (without violating its directive to remain hidden) to carry out their wishes in subtle ways.
A very common ritual among the natives is the request of useful (or just personnally important) information from their creator or from the dead. The NCR has not computed the nature of God, nor the afterlife, but it often knows the more practical information requested and can deliver it in the form of ghostly holograms or sounds. Its "help" is limited because it takes time for nanbots to manufacture hologram projectors and sound speakers and disassemble them after they have delivered their message.

Architecture

The simple silver doughnut has an outer diamter of 5 meters, and an inner doughnut hole of 3 meters. Nanobots, microscopic robots with their own computing power and abillity to communicate and manipulate, have significantly slower potential speed than a larger construction, so Nanobot Control Rings are a necessary (but not indispensible) component of any advanced computerized multi-tool. Also, smaller Nanobot Control Rings have a psychological purpose of physically representing an amount of responsibility that has been given to the person who wears the ring around a finger or as a body piercing.

History

(SPOILERS) In the year A.D. 950 forces from a parallel dimension arrived on our Planet Earth with this Nanobot Command Ring, a metric ton of nanobots, and a plan. Their technology was roughly 1500 years more advanced than that of this world. After their crew of three were slain and their plan thwarted by a local team of heroes, the large NCR ceased its interference with the natives, and awaited further orders.

Tourism

The NCR has a few times used its nanobots to dig itself deeper into the ground and off to the side a bit. It is very diligent to prevent any of its nanobots from getting under a microscope after the locals invented that technology.

Founding Date

950

Type

Datacenter