The TechnoCore is the 'race' of post-singularity Artificial Intelligences (AIs) in Dan Simmons' sci-fi novel Hyperion. The Core consists of a grid of AIs hidden throughout human space, residing in "datasphere" networks, hidden underground computers, and other hidden locations. The AIs in the TechnoCore are, by human standards, extremely advanced, with intelligences and technology far beyond any human understanding. They are also able to statistically predict future events to an extremely high degree of accuracy; only The Shrike defies their predictive abilities. Despite this, however, they are still dwarfed by the "lions and tigers and bears" (other intelligences which occupy the same medium as the TechnoCore), and the hypothetical Ultimate Intelligence, a planned computer network spanning much of the universe. Most AIs exist within the Core's virtual realities, but some control "Cybrids"- human bodies which serve as "puppets" to the AI.
Not all the AIs in the Hegemony are part of the Core (most starship and military AIs are independent of the Core) and even some Core AIs are not affiliated with any major Core factions. The Cybrid AIs in particular seem to support humanity rather than the Core's schemes.
History
At some unspecified point in the 22nd or 23rd century, the AI community peacefully seceded from human service and formed their own culture, but continued to serve humanity as advisors and consultants in almost all matters of import. A representative from the TechnoCore, known as Councilor Albedo, attended important government meetings and acted as the voice of the Core in political and military affairs.
Unbeknownst to humanity, however, TechnoCore also had motives of its own, most notably the construction of the UI, or "Ultimate Intelligence", an extremely advanced computer entity with intelligence described as being "as far beyond the Core's understanding as the Core is beyond humanity's". To aid itself in this plan, the Core secretly used the network of farcasters(instantaneous transport gates similar to wormholes) to parasitise the minds of humans moving through them.
Towards the 29th Century, TechnoCore had split into three factions: the Volatiles, who wished to exterminate humanity altogether, the Ultimates, who were concerned only with the UI project, and the Stables, who wished to leave humanity intact and opposed the UI (although this was motivated primarily out of the fact that if the UI were to be created, all other AIs in the TechnoCore would be annihilated). As civil war raged in the Core, the Volatiles used secretly constructed fleets of starships in an attempt to destroy humanity. Their plan, however, was foiled when the Human Hegemony CEO Meina Gladstone destroyed the farcaster network before the assault could be completed (although the Hegemony collapsed in the process). It was initially thought that the TechnoCore had been destroyed by this action.
In actuality, it survived the collapse of the Farcaster grid and some centuries later struck a deal with the Pax (the Theocratic government of most of humanity at that time)- the Core had developed the "cruciform" parasite which was able to resurrect its host should they be killed. Whilst most of humanity used the cruciforms, they also allowed the Core to use their brains for computing power. Their schemes were once again thwarted when the messianic figure Aenea revealed the deception of the Pax and the Core to humanity.
It is mentioned in "Orphans of the Helix", set over 400 years after the fall of the Pax, that the TechnoCore is no longer active by this time, and its AIs are in alliance with humanity again.
Factions
The Stables. They are the oldest faction, and count some of the very first AIs among their ranks. Their central thesis is that humanity and the TechnoCore need each other, and that the 'Core should continue in the symbiosis. They are also opposing to the UI project (creation of a goddish Ultimate Intelligence): the UI would need the resources that the current AIs use, and they do not wish to die. (In Silenus's Cantos, the Stables are identified with the Titans, who did not wish to yield to their Olympian successors). They have for decades been subtly working to help the Hegemony in its fight against the Volatiles, quietly seeking to bring Hyperion into the WorldWeb, on the chance that its unpredictability will help them.
The Volatiles. They generally support the UI project, and they believe that humanity has outlived its usefulness to the 'Core, and that it actually now poses a real danger, and therefore should be eradicated. They are behind many events, but they fear the planet of Hyperion, because it is a "random variable": it could tip the scales against the 'Core; the effects of Hyperion are impossible for them to analyze.
The Ultimates. They care only for the UI project. They are quite willing to sacrifice their lives to the UI, believing that the value of its existence far outweighs their own. Previously they had been aligned with the Stables against the Volatiles, as humanity (and especially the cybrid retrieval projects) still posed some puzzles which when solved would help in the UI project, but it is implied that they feel they've gathered enough data, and have re-aligned now with the Volatiles to get rid of human kind.
Units
The Shrike is a character from Dan Simmons' Hyperion universe, set far in humanity's future. The Shrike appears in all of the Hyperion books and is something of an enigma; its true purpose isn't 'revealed' until the second book, but even then it is left a malleable purpose. In fact, this explanation is changed significantly in the latter two books (The Endymion duology). The Shrike appears to act both autonomously and as a servant of some unknown force or entity, and in the first two Hyperion books, exists solely in the area around the Time Tombs on the planet Hyperion. In the latter two, it is effectively unfettered. The Shrike stands roughly three meters in height and is described as being composed of razorwire, thorns, blades, and cutting edges, having fingers like scalpels and long, curved toe blades. It is basically a gigantic, bladed killing machine. The Shrike weighs over a ton, though it is apparently capable of modifying its density as it sees fit. Though metallic in appearance ("quicksilver over chrome"), the Shrike is also described as an 'organic' machine, humanoid in a general way, but with four 'oddly jointed' arms and intense, multi-faceted ruby eyes.
The Shrike does not normally communicate in any way with other entities. The only time this has occurred was when the Shrike communicated with the poet Martin Silenus, in which it forced one of Silenus's arms to write its responses. Preferring to perform vivisections on its victims, the Shrike generally 'appears' near its victims and blinks about them before killing them in a flash of opening flesh and gore; sometimes it leaves its victims alive and transports them to an eternity of impalement upon an enormous artificial 'tree of thorns' in Hyperion's distant future. The tree of thorns is described as unimaginably large, alive with the agonized writhing of countless human victims of all ages and races. Throughout the books it is apparent that the Shrike can travel through time, appearing to move much faster than light and appearing to exist everywhere simultaneously if it desires. The Shrike was at one point assumed to be a prisoner of the Hyperion time tombs' anti-entropic fields (the 'time tides'), but as these began to degrade, the Shrike ranged farther and farther and eventually was observed on other planets elsewhere in the galaxy.
It is essentially immune to virtually all conventional weaponry, most of which simply has no effect on it whatsoever. Additionally, the Shrike's speed and ability to control time allows it to avoid virtually any conventional weapon with ease (it can even dodge laser strikes). It can withstand direct hits from human weapons, such as plasma rifles, with no measurable effect. Upon suffering injury in combat, the Shrike is seen to lose a large amount of cabling likened to intestines, but in no way loses its abilities as a result. The Shrike proves to be more than competent at hand-to-hand combat; it is itself a gigantic cutting utensil and its control over the flow of time make it nigh invincible. In spite of its impressive abilities, however, the Shrike is not indestructible and is vulnerable to other entities employing similar technology (Rhadamanth Nemes, an agent of theTechnoCore was able to hold it at bay using time-manipulating technology similar to its own).
Surrounded in complete mystery, the object of fear, hatred, and even worship (by members of the Church of the Final Atonement, AKA the 'Shrike Cult'), the Shrike's origins are as uncertain as are its purpose and its abilities. It is suggested in the books that the Shrike was actually a creation of a distant-future computer god, the Ultimate Intelligence, or UI, which was the end-result of countless years ofTechnoCore research and effort. The UI, however, was not the only 'god' to be created—humanity and other conscious life eventually spawned its own god. The UI and the human god apparently battled one another before the empathy part of the human god fled back in time. The UI then created the Shrike and sent it back to create suffering by impaling people on its tree of thorns, in the hopes that when enough human suffering was harvested and sustained on the tree of thorns, the human god would emerge from hiding and respond to all the pain broadcast by the Shrike's tree. The results of this are not discussed in depth in the books. In a somewhat different explanation offered in The Rise of Endymion, The Shrike has a connection to a TechnoCore sect called the Reapers, the original programs designed to provide evolutionary pressure on the hyperlife Core entities. The Reapers' motivations are, again, unclear - though in the latter two books, when the connection to the Reapers is made clear, the Shrike acts as a protector of Aenea against the Core assassins. The actual controlling persona of the Shrike is, in fact, taken from that of its nemesis Fedmahn Kassad, the warrior who ultimately defeats it. It is unclear whether this applies to the legions of Shrikes existing by the time of Kassad's final battle, sometime in the distant future, or solely to the original Shrike.
The cybrid was a hybrid of a human and an AI. The bodies of the cybrids were totally human, had human DNA, but its consiusness lived in the TechnoCore. Only a handful of cybrids ever existed, becouse humans didn't like the non-human creatures that had human appearence.