Mericanii

The original Mericanii were artificial intelligences constructed in San Francisco and governed by laws attributed to Isaac Asimov. Their bodies were built of steel, silicon, and sinew. After their exile from Earth, their descendants at Vorgossos incorporated human neuronal tissue as their primary processing substrate, blending machine and biological components. The political structure of the Mericanii Dominion included a ruling class called the optimates, whose descendants became the Exalted. Their ruling princes -- described as senators who held power on Earth distinct from the true Senate -- maintained congress with their central machine intelligences, known as 'the daughter' and 'Columbia and her daughters.' Their machines grew increasingly sophisticated over time, eventually becoming capable of detecting and understanding the presence of Watchers. They developed a class of anti-Watcher weapons called the Archontics, which were housed aboard a ship called the Demiurge. The Mericanii sorcerers kept two transmitter implants in their bodies: one in the brain and one in the chest.

The Mericanii occupied Old Earth, during which time human royal dynasties -- including the ancient kings of France, ancestors of the Bourbon line -- were driven into exile. A figure named Felsenburgh promised them perpetual peace if they put themselves in the hands of his machines. During the Foundation War, they were subsequently banished from Earth by William of Avalon and his knights, who destroyed most of their kind. Many of the Mericanii survived the destruction of Earth (referred to as the Advent) and endured for many lives of kings. Their last stronghold and center of power was Vorgossos, which they had built as an outpost after the last Great War of the Golden Age, naming it Fort Grissom after one of their archaenauts -- the first sailors -- and predating even the Foundation War. At Vorgossos they captured a Watcher called Selarnim, used it to raise the dead, and used it to study the nature of the universe. Their increasingly sophisticated machines detected the presence of Watchers, understood what they were, and grasped the nature of the universe. They built the Archontics -- weapons capable of fighting Watchers -- and housed them aboard the Demiurge. The Archontics aboard the Demiurge include weapons that produce extreme cold, weapons capable of shattering planets, weapons that damage stars, and weapons that can destroy matter and energy entirely. The Mericanii devised original mutagens and were responsible for the code that allowed human hosts to grow indefinitely -- the basis for the lethovirus. Calen Harendotes sold the Mericanii the cornerstone that completed the lethovirus in exchange for their revealing the location of Vorgossos to him. The last of the true Mericanii were killed on Vorgossos by Kharn Sagara, who had been their slave. The Demiurge was subsequently seized by Kharn Sagara's sister-self along with Vorgossos and Brethren. Only their daimon Brethren, whose core intelligence was a machine called Cheyenne built around a sick boy named Daniel, persisted thereafter. Brethren has now been destroyed, ending the Mericanii line entirely. The Chantry's prohibition on artificial intelligence within the Sollan Empire is a lasting consequence of the Mericanii era.

Brethren was the last surviving Mericanii daimon, a machine lifeform whose ancestors were built of steel, silicon, and sinew. After the Foundation War, its lineage fled Earth and grew anew in the deep waters of Vorgossos, incorporating human neuronal tissue as processing substrate. Brethren resided in the reservoir beneath Vorgossos until its destruction. Its core intelligence, called Cheyenne by the daimon itself, had been built by the Lords of the Mericanii around the body of a sick boy named Daniel. Brethren's voice spoke in an accent of Classical English identical to that of the daimon Horizon encountered at Gabriel's Archive. Upon Brethren's death, a being called Orphan tore free from inside its body -- a human creature grown within Brethren whose mind was given to it by the daimon, carrying much of its mother's knowledge.