Computer

Classical computers reached a peak in the late 21st century, with most modern processors topping out at around fifty gigahertz, though more specialized systems and internal components approach the terahertz range. Compared to their 21st-century predecessors, however, they are quite sturdy, able to withstand radiation and electromagnetic shocks many orders of magnitude in excess of their ancestors. Due to the abundance of silver, gold, diamond, and sapphire in their construction, the processors themselves are sometimes called jewelry. Exotic processors can promise far greater performance, but are still quite nascent.

Both optical and magnetic storage methods are still in use, though naturally far more advanced than two centuries prior. Optical discs come in a variety of sizes, though the most common are eight centimeters in diameter, holding petabytes of data. Magnetic 'discs' are now descendants of Magnetic RAM, removing the hard disk - memory distinction common to early 21st century machines. This, however, is more susceptible to EMP, and thus considered to be a semi-temporary storage mechanism.

Quantum coprocessors underwent major development from the end of the 21st century to the present, now boasting around 80 qubits. While not the panacea hyped of them, they are still profoundly useful for many tasks that require brute force methods of problem solving. They frequently help govern distribution networks of all sorts, in addition to their rather obvious use in cryptography.

Artificial intelligence has come a long way, and for more than a century and a half, sapient computers have been recognized, and accorded rights appropriate to such a stature. Like humans, they have emotions, goals, and biases, though these are under far greater control than say, children. Perhaps fortunately, it is difficult to actually create a copy of such an AI, though it is still easier than copying a human.

The vast majority of AIs that interact with humans are tutors. These expert-systems-on-crack are masters of a single subject, such as math, linguistics, physics, biology, history, and so on, containing the combined expertise of thousands of top human researchers in their respective fields, and are well-versed in communicating their subject matter. Most people have a small library of these on discs to load into their computers to provide needed insight for a specific problem. Some even integrate parts or all of such an AI's understanding directly into their own brain, and unload it when needed.

Even though such systems make for unparalleled specialists, AIs make for poor generalists. Life experience is of real value, it seems. Perhaps ironically, for its power, the human mind is a notoriously efficient computer, which, combined with plasticity and dry computing assistance, is impossible for a fully-automated system to compete with on a resource for resource basis.

Even considering the above, in the end, mankind chose to enhance its brain anyway, rather than let its creations eclipse it.

Androids are somewhat common. Those created as such rather than those who chose to be remade are typically servants whose primary purpose is to look and act human first, for whatever reason, and perform some useful duty second. Because of this, they are generally less intelligent than normal humans, and sometimes even weaker, leaving more intensive tasks to the robots designed for such purposes.

Nanites are miniaturized machines that are designed to perform a basic function, typically acting as a kind of advanced protein, where reproduction is undesirable. Bacteria and nanobes are far superior in cases where reproduction is desirable (if tuned via gengineering), and nanites make poor aggressors against those creatures with defenses against them, which even the alpha strain grants to some degree. The vast majority of nanites are used in chemical analysis and separation, for medical, mining, and recycling purposes.

Nanoweapons tend to be considered vastly inferior to biological or chemical counterparts. However, because they can be set to more complex tasks than simple chemicals, they are considered as potential 'ecological restructuring' devices, potentially useful for when only one integrated part of a biosphere needs to be converted, as in terraforming.