What did the pre-war primary meals of the Great Powers normally look like?
Oh, this is a fun one.
Basic Principles for the Illuminatan Food Supply
- Every human on Illuminata is a partly organic and synthetic being.
- The organic parts of a human on Illuminata are most concentrated in the brain, the marrow, and several other important organs. They are always sealed within many layers of protective synthetic tissue. These are the areas nanocancer machines are drawn to, and will chew through the rest of the synthetic body to get to. Flaking is the first sign of aging because the place nanocancers target most intensely is the skull, to eat the brain.
- Humans require both organic and inorganic sustenance. A biomimetic stomach processes minerals into required repairs on the body's synthetic portions. This is why you eat coal and titanium.
- The only organic substance on Illuminata is derived from the chandlers, who convert inorganic materials into organic amniotic wax.
- The only organic lifeform on Illuminata (though then just barely) are humans.
- Water is available, though always full of nanites, and so not a major concern outside water-poor areas like the Chrome Wastes.
So, with that in mind, how is food actually made?
Human Livestock
A process banned by gnosis which was common in the earliest days of Illuminata - print and keep humans as a natural, or genetically modified, source of organic nutrients. Its dehumanizing elements, as well as its generally disgusting nature just one step away from 'true cannibalism' (where you eat and kill a human for their organic flesh) means it is utterly and completely taboo everywhere including among non-gnostic 'barbarians'. Ritual cannibalism is sometimes practiced in the Still Coast, but never the production of human live-stock.
Anthroculture
A more common form of producing organic nutrients is anthroculture. When humans begin to truly suffer from nanocancers, they are given a special stimulant which calcifices their brain and skin and turns them solid. They are then planted, and fertilized with further growth-stimulants. These stimulants exploit a unique factor of Illuminatan organs - they are not just nutrient-dense but actually encase additional replacements as seeds hidden within the organ, which is how organs can grow back if allowed time. By tricking the body into believing the organ is 'damaged', these stimulants encourage a process of branching and budding which causes hyper-production of some specific organ. This process has been taken to the extreme in the Progeny and Titanagalbat, the creators of the human-tree and sugarspine respectively.
Organs tend to be preferred because of their nutritional properties compared to muscle, and this process can extend the 'life' of an anthrocultured body by another 50-100 years. The main limitation is time, stable soil, and population - you need all three for it to be a sensible method.
Note that the brain is usually not included among these, as the high density of nanites makes it dangerous to eat, and the brain does not have the same mechanisms of reproduction as other parts of the body. Eating brains is usually seen as a form of cannibalism, and highly taboo. The skin is also not usually eaten, and is instead used to make other products such as carapace armor, prosthetics, or fancy shoes.
Examples of common types of anthrocultured products include:
- Haemic Ice (produced from sweetened blood-clots called Bloodberry that grow in vines and bushes)
- Gallberry (produced from the gallbladder, refined to produce bile in Gallberry bushes)
- Pancress (produced from the pancreas, refined to produce useful nutrients and hormones in hydroponic pancress patches)
- Nectar (produced from cerebrospinal fluid, refined to produce sweet teas and drinks from vertebral columns of sugarspine)
- Ambrosia (an advanced and refined version of nectar used by Titanagalbat to feed to Titans as a ceremonial food)
- Kidney Beans (produced from kidneys, eaten early in the process and used to help managing toxicity and waste)
- Kardia (Progeny delicacy, produced from Heart-Trees and pollinated in blood festivals held by copses to increase circulation)
- Splendor (Medicinal drink produced from the spleen, used by Stillmasons to assist with circulation and coolant production)
All of these human-plants have a synthetic outer layer which protects them from the elements, and an organic inner layer which is what is edible. Over the centuries, the shell has become thinner and harder, and the insides sweeter, larger, and more juicy, as methods of anthroengineering have advanced.
Kora's Progeny are the truest experts of anthroculture, and have taken it to the very peaks and heights of the technology. Unique to the Progeny (other Koras do not have this ability) is the Procrustean Locks' ability to draw on solar power - a technique which they retain when they become trees and bushes. A combination of photovoltaic cells and synthetic chlorophyll allows astonishing turn-around times for fruit-bearing trees - well-groomed copses are able to produce dozens of crops a year, keeping Koras far more well-fed than most, and allowing them to passively feed off sunlight. These trees last far longer than sugarspine columns do, and are far more resistant to the elements. The drawback is they have a long initial growth time, and are difficult to build at scale, because they require the unique biotechnology of Koras themselves.
Soul Food
The Progeny and Koinon have also both refined an entirely different kind of consumption - soul-digestion. Using a kind of distinct material called wraith-root, souls can be bonded to the soil and cling inside trees in the Progeny and geist grass in Koinon. This purple grass, fields of which criss-cross Koinon's center around the Lapsarian Lung, is made by bonding raining soul-seeds to wraith-root. The bony stalks of this material which grow once soul-bonded can not only be used to craft armor, buildings, and equipment, but also harvested, and the geist-wheat baked into bread.
It is believed and confirmed by psychic studies that the soul fragment is not consumed, but in fact cycled, through the body, assisting the purification process and returning the soul to the Lapsarian Lung's cycle when a person dies. However, both processes also have the added effect of passively increasing psychic power, and especially Geist Grass is so rich in soul-energy that the diet of Scrytegons is said to be extremely austere save for an enormous consumption of ghost-loaf. This, some gossipers say, is to explain Hyperion's increasing gut in recent years. Hyperion has responded that 'bread cannot increase your mass, this is an anti-gnostic lie' and that he is 'storing soul-power'.
Homonculus Mills
Other factions have discovered over the centuries that the mineral inputs that Chandlers eat to produce humans can be altered. By removing inputs related to silicon, humans develop differently. The brain and face never develop, leaving a blank mannequin in an amniotic slate that simply keeps growing if more wax is fed into the slate. Some factions have taken a less extreme version of this discovery to shape and build biomecha war-machines, such as the Sophian homonculi of deoxyic clay used by the Progeny. But Koinon and Cybaris have used this invention in order to have an alternative method of food production that does not, in the words of Mr. Morow, 'require you to eat Papa'.
Early attempts to produce homonculi met unexpected resistance from chandlers that communicated their displeasure by refusing to print anything at all until their full inputs were returned to them. Breakthroughs were achieved through negotiations with the chandlers to ensure they understood the intent was not to create slave-humans but an alternate food source. This was performed computationally by Mr. Morow and psychically by Koinon.
Since then, homonculi have become a favored food, especially in the Cubes of Illuminata. They are considered a more civilized if less sacral form of cannibalism than anthroculture, and do not require you to even think about where exactly your food came from. Over time the homonculi themselves have been reshaped into more pleasing forms that better designate the intent - and draw less connection to mutilated humans with organs cut out, which was a cause of major upset at the first 'Take your Gal/Guy to Work Day' event at Major Morow's Real Human Chicken.
Once extracted, the organic parts can be altered to anything you like. In Koinon this is attempts and copies of ancient recipes of 'real human food' such as 'milk-steak'. The main drawback of homoncular parts is they spoil relatively quickly, especially outside Cubes, and they have high energy costs to create (hence why Cubes, with their easy access to energy and long mineral supply lines, are favored). They are also less nutritious on a pound-per-pound basis than anthrocultured food.
Unique Forms of Organic Food Production
In Tetras, the dead are wrapped in liquefying love cocoons of silk which slowly purify and leech out nanocancer from the stew and leave a nutritious and wholesome ancestor-meal. So long as energy is added to the cocoon the stew replenishes its volume over days, allowing a single stew to be preserved for decades. In the Skywatch, the gnostic Icon Dakar was the first to discover the recycling systems on-board the Celestial Arks could also be used to recycle and preserve organic human flesh with modifications. The first subject to be tested by this system was the greater hydra Loginos, who was fed into the 'ancestor vat' and emerged as a series of crimson cubes feasted on by Dakar's disciples. It was said to be the most delicious meal any of them ever had as it was the 'meal of triumph'. Since then, the Skywatch has refined the system into "Mread" (from MRE-EAT, a label found on ancient food canisters discovered by the first Arkmen), a form of compact cubic ration and today is the proud creators of the B.O.R.G.R. (credit
@AMTurtle from
Helios Weeps), one of the single most efficient nutrient-delivery systems in existence on Illuminata. The meaning of the acronym is lost to time. In the Emmonite Partition, hardlight cooking is a unique technique which is said to have created some exceedingly fascinating geometric roasts.
Nutrient Chandlers
The holy grail of organic food technology are specific types of Chandlers programmed to make food recipes directly from wax. This is what nutrient chandlers were
supposed to be doing when the Reawakening happened and humans re-emerged on the planet. However, every single hive of Nutrient Chandlers in every single Cube was discovered with the chandlers stacked, nonfunctioning, in piles, never activated. It appears they were the target of a malicious, comprehensive, and complete attack within the Black Noise on their shared operating software, which caused them to auto-terminate. Something - or someone - did not want Illuminatans to have access to a stable, easy to produce, non-cannibalistic and energy-efficient food supply. This is part of a pattern of behavior, attributed to the Demiurge, whereby many of the most important systems meant to turn on with the Reawakening disabled, sabotaged, or dormant.
The technologies involved in chandler abiogenesis are poorly understood and so there is really no way to reproduce these little guys - amniotic chandlers self-replicate like most machines on the planet. The only population of remaining nutrient chandlers are on Origen Station - and these are not replicating organisms but immortal, hardened culinary machines with powerful self-defense systems that have been known to identify hydra-hosts instantly by unknown means and kill them with a micromissile without warning, then go back to refining their recipes. They are not communicative in the Black Noise and have been known to burn the eyebrows off of intrepid young monks with heatrays who want to be the ones to 'discover their secrets' and hack them.
The result was that the first hundred years of Illuminata before the development of the first anthroculture was plagued by food insecurity, attempts at human livestock, mutual cannibalism, population control and mass slavery as prints attempted to stabilize their own stocks at the expense of their rivals in other parts of the Cube. This era was ended by the first anthrocultural plantations invented by Monad, and the rise of the cube-tyrants, the first despotic cube-state rulers, who were able to control and guarantee this stable food supply.
Moveable Feasts
The Mozel Marchforts are themselves a food delivery system. Once thought to be mad feral machines, the Moveable Feasts are in fact each an enormous kilometers-wide chandler on military-grade treads that consume synthetic food and produce organic food-products. Once tamed, and machine-grass alternatives were found to the traditional practice of riding across the entirety of Illuminata and eating everything in front of them, the Marchforts have become the culinary leaders of Illuminata, replicating nutrient chandlers. The drawback is the inefficient energy requirements of these machine-monsters (believed to be nutrient chandler prototypes or even terraformers) means that rationing of these organic feasts is required and the cities on their backs must carefully apportion resources and rely on more traditional supplements, lest they outpace their energy requirements and need to consume rival machine-grass fields or, worst of all, encroach on non-Mozel territory.
The Marchforts have an amiable relationship with the Titanhost, which allows their Marchforts arranged paths of machine-grass to feed upon in exchange for trading their culinary wonders with the Host's southernmost nobility.
Wild Chandlers
In the Omnigen Nursery and elsewhere there are also wild chandlers which don't seem to conform to either the programming of Amniotic or Food Chandlers. Instead, they produce a wax which doesn't form into anything. Some theorize they may in fact be attempting to form organic lifeforms, but their wax responds negatively to the presence of nanocancers and never produces their intended print. Amber hive-complexes kilometers high and hundreds of kilometers long are the compost-bed for the Omnigen Nursery's dense machine-forests.
Only the Chrome Kings sometimes have been able to tame wild Chandlers using their command spurs, and eat their wax as a refined honey-biscuit. This precious mineral is often traded as a sweet delicacy across the continent, and is a major part of why the otherwise remote Chrome Wastes retain such an importance to Illuminata's wider economy. Attempts to reproduce their taming efforts, especially by Mr. Morow, have fallen afoul of indescribably violent raids by border apiary-clans that will kill to maintain their monopoly.
Inorganic Foods and Energy
As mentioned, inorganic food is also a required part of Illuminatan diets. What is usually done is that some mineral or metal is refined into bits (e.g. steel oats, coal dust) and then reformed into cakes, pastries, and other treats, usually mixed with other required inorganic foods. Promethium is a particularly popular drink, replacing the old human alcohol with a slick and refined petroleum product. Coal is the preferred and most delicious stimulant, though also the spawn of many conspiracy theories about life on Illuminata prior to the Mother and Father's arrival on the planet. Petroleum Coke is a product extremely popular in Cybaris, especially among the youth, as a hipper alternative.
Also utilized are machine-products, produced by domesticated machines such as synthetic millipedes. These products are exceedingly potent and can easily exceed normal calorie requirements, but they are also reliant on maintaining and protecting tame machines and ensuring they fill out their full life-cycles. Many domesticated machines have been domesticated by choice as they consider it a good deal and react poorly to attempts to increase their outputs or worsen their conditions, including by eating or dismembering their handlers.
It is believed much of the remainder of Illuminatan energy requirements is not provided by food at all, but by the wireless system of the Black Noise, which is connected to the mysterious series of Spiral Reactors under the planet's surface as well as the Plateshield. The plateshield, it has been reported, is about a kilometer thick and has huge amounts of energy running through its length - more than enough to cover the energy needs of the entire planet, if it could be utilized. Attempts to do so beyond the assumedly passive augmentation it provides to solar energy have, however, been met with entire noisediver teams flatlining after ignoring stern warnings by a feminine voice within the noise not to abuse the shield.
Meals and Food Culture
Illuminatans tend to only eat one meal a day, though this is mostly the ruling class taking advantage of the fact that the lower castes do not experience hunger due to their symbiont suppressing stomach pangs. In reality, Illuminatans are chronically malnourished and would perform optimally with three meals a day - something that is only seen among the upper classes, on Origen Station, in ritual feasts, or in the more affluent Cubes, like Saffron, Epythemea, and Indigo. Two meals has become more common with rising populations and improved strains of Anthroculture and Homonculi. This long-term rise in food security has been reversed by the war, and rationing has been applied everywhere, with some particularly denigrated groups skipping meal-days. In Koinon, many of the elderly in the cubes are skipping meal-days so the young have enough to eat, especially as millions of refugees have run behind the walls for safety from the advancing armies of the Cordial.
Illuminatans tend to eat in the evening, and then use the night's sleep to recuperate and repair while they have the fullest amount of energy and nutrients in their system. Meals can seem quite spartan by our standards, but flourishes and flair are seen among the most luxuriant of the elite of Koinon, Titanagalbat, and the Progeny. It is known that the Immaculate Conclave have feasts of quite un-Kora like spreads of homoncular steak and the freshest, best pan-cress.
Also sometimes used in meals by Illuminatans are spices. Popular spices made from inorganic minerals include cinnabar, galena, asbestos, Stibnite, Arsenopyrite, Orpiment, uranium, and Torbernite. They all have quite a kick to them and are often also components of incense sticks.
