The SOLFAX stuff got a great reaction, thanks everybody! So I've been in the mood to post some more notes about the 12Fold Universe. Hope these are interesting.

This week: the nanotech system, left behind by the Terrans before their collapse and exile, but cryptographically locked up tight as a "protective" measure for their uplift races.

This and psionics are the closest things to magic in the 12Fold universe, and sometimes they come VERY close-- particularly in the hands of Mercurian mystics, who have modeled most of their nanite decryption keys after various Terran occult traditions.

The known codes and the means of deriving them are co-curated by Mercurian academics and Lunarian civic agencies. The Plutonian shiftcults are violating dozens of interplanetary treaties by using them in their "therapeutic" equinization treatments.

Martians just tend to scoff at the whole concept and there's little or no social or govermental* interest in nanotech, just the occasional eccentric hobbyist. Uranians will put damn near any substance in the universe into their veins but, surprisingly, not this one.

The Venusian ecology is already overrun with nanotech thanks to Terran pollution. They don't have a problem with nanotech, but they consider it one more force of Venusian nature and have granted it the same natural rights as all other life. It is to be negotiated with and not merely "unlocked" and "programmed."

Jovians would LOVE to have access to it but Luna and Mercury have had enough of their neo-libertarian shit and scrupulously keep codes out of their hands. The resulting espionage occasionally threatens to boil over into a cold war. The Neptunians have never met a shiny silver ball of goo they didn't like, but don't really tend to covet nanotech for any practical purpose.

And of course, the Saturnians are innately telepathic and genetically self-reprogramming and feel roughly the same way about nanotechnology that we do about 8-track cassettes and rotary phones: charming and occasionally to be worn ironically.

*all Martians are anarchomonarchists and any claims to title or authority should be regarded with the utmost skepticism except among the most remarkable and respected** of Martian citizens

**i.e., "not Rezeya Montecore-St. Hobbes"