Jove

This is an incomplete history of the mysterious Jove species. For more species within the Great Ring go to Species page.

Game Play

These rules do not recommend playing as a Jove. Currently, there are no rules or stats for playing either an ancient biological Jove or their artificially robotic counterparts. The Jove are meant to be a stabilizing political force within Future Path Galaxy and are neutral and lean heavily on legal frameworks for interacting with other species. They also serve as custodians of certain massive infrastructure in the Great Ring.

What/Who are the Jove

The Jove are dead, they died long ago outside of any current species' memory. They are survived through their advanced artificially intelligent robots and machines that travel the galaxy and attempt to provide order and law. It appears that the Jove had some knowledge of their impending doom. With this foresight, they set up a plan. They built and sent forth generational ships backed up with all their knowledge, culture, and biological and genetic data. These great ships or 'arks' had custodians in the form of A.I machines. The ships were designed to cross the great expanse from one galaxy to another. Making the Jove the only confirmed alien to cross the abyss between galaxies. The Jove robots or JBots as later species would nickname them would tell you that the Jove sent them out to be stewards of the galaxy. Help nurture it as new species get warp capabilities and start to expand. To help ensure peace and stability. However, according to the Jove, these ships were meant to realize a new restart for the Jove people, one last gamble. The gamble failed. The long expanse took millions of years to cross and many of the ark ships were lost to the darkness. While some data, even genetic data about species the Jove wished to preserve apparently still exist the Jove themselves are lost. The Jove robots claim they have some knowledge about the Jovean people, their appearances, common pets, language, foods, and so on. But that is all and they refuse to share this information always with a response that sounds almost reverent to there ancient builders.

When mentioning the Jove, one can assume that it is in reference to the Jovean Robots or A.I. computer systems and not the ancient dead biological species. These A.I.s are what the peoples of the Great Ring interact with. Usually, in the form of a Robot, the Jove take no effort to hide their robotic appearance. They also take no effort to hide their presence. They ask for permission to set up embassies and support infrastructure. Part of the deal the Jove have with the rest of the Galaxy is used to ensure their survival while other A.I.s are normally not tolerated and are hunted down and destroyed.

A Character may run into a facility that has a Jovean AI running it and/or have JBots who are either independent AI robots or controlled through other means. Jove respect all forms of life, especially if it is sentient. They attempt to as effectively follow the local laws as they apply to them and often avoid contact unless they feel it is necessary.

History

Most people will start the story of the Jove with the 'Great Reboot' Year -256 AJ (After Jove) So exactly 256 years before the Jove made themselves known. But The story starts way before that. In this galaxy's closest galactic neighbor, nearly 3 million years ago a massive host of generational ships left Andromeda and headed for the Milky Way. Along the way, many of these ships were lost. And all that survived did so with damage to their systems. When the ships first started to arrive in the Milky Way, the AI at the time decided to hibernate. The Jove are secretive about this time, but the main theory is that they were waiting as long as reasonable for as many ships to appear. However, this theory is problematic as it appears the Jove may have waited for 100s of thousands of years longer than what seems reasonable. One idea is that the AI on the ships just thought there was no hope and to shut off. The Jove do say that the Great Reboot happened because the master controllers gained a consensus for a new actualized mission that stayed without initial parameters.

In either case, they set out to map the galaxy and, after 256 years, made themselves known to an unknown species at the time. They are unknown because the encounter did not go well and the Jove defended themselves and ended all traces of this species. Histories and Archeology struggle to this day to find where and who these unfortunate people were. This cause the Jove to adjust their programming and instead focus on a more stealthy exploration of the galaxy. This is known as the 'The Spiral Voyage'.

Once the first great collation of this Epoch, the Epoch of Jove, was formed by different space fairing species, the Jove once again showed themselves. This time they provided information about their voyages and a proposition. Build a massive super gate highway that encircles the galaxy. Provide this service free to the people of the Great Ring. In exchange for being allowed to persist. They also provided that they had been functioning for many thousands of years without harming and even, in some rare cases helping other species.

Not all species agreed but as time moved on, the advantages of such an interstellar network became impossible to ignore. The second only attempt at a Galatic counsel in all of the Milk Way's history was formed, and its first order of business was dealing with the Jove. Over the coming years, the Jovean Accords were signed, which set forth how the peoples of the Great Ring of Life would interact with the Jove.

The Jove stayed out of times of unrest and conflict except to help act as fair and impartial mediators. And so their reputations were mostly reclusive explorers, custodians, and mediators became known. They traveled the galaxy quietly, categorizing systems and watching out for new signs of life. Advocating for peaceful introductions of new species instead of allowing certain species to take advantage of their earlier start to space exploration.

Sometimes Jove's mechanical process and strict code of logic can come off as cold and arrogant. Not all species in the galaxy like how much the Jove are involved in galactic affairs, but none can deny their impact too galactic peace, stability, and commerce. The galaxy has never been as open and safe. Most people attribute the true end of the Dark Forest Epoch of our galaxy to the Jove.

A final note in their recent history is that the Jove first introduced themselves to Humans just a few years after Humans launched the first interstellar fusion-powered probe into deep space. Jove had cataloged the Humans thousands of years prior and had since observed them every 500 years until it seemed necessary to observe them in quicker intervals. The Jove introduced Humans to the wider population of the galaxy and were Human's first officially recorded alien encounter.