>>51615297The synchondrion is the powerhouse of the Daemon. Or rather, of the Daemon's cells.
The synchondrion has evolved immensely throughout the long and hectic history of Daemon bioengineering. The very first Daemons simply used the natural mitochondria present in most Vitubia-borne lifeforms. This type of energy was serviceable for these early developments, and made the resulting systems highly flexible; they could be fueled with any calorie-dense organic matter found in-situ. ATP remained the main power source of Daemons for centuries, even as internal combustion engines, turbines and nuclear reactors displaced them as more performant options for machinery. Even today, there exist Daemon which function using only well optimized mitochondria as a power source; such machines are useful in situations where in-situ resupplying may be the only option.
However, using this strategy does put an unyielding ceiling on those platforms' performance. The power and energy density of mitochondria is limited by the chemical reactions involving the ATP molecule, and the only way to break those limits is to use a different reaction.
This is where the synchondrion comes in. The first synchondria were prokaryotes modified through directed evolution to harness the combustion of long-chain hydrocarbon directly instead of making use of ATP hydrolysis. Achieving this breakthrough propelled a takodachi bioengineering company to cluster-wide fame within years of the first prototypes' unveilings. Said company, Tako Eats, leveraged its bleeding edge equipment and expertise in bio-tissue synthesis to design the genome of the novel Mechanopyrus euryarchaea. This gene-modded descendant of Methanopyrus was originally notable for its exceptional resistance to high temperatures, with its home habitat being found in the hydrothermal vents of the Ailivian Ocean. These thermophilic properties allowed it to moderate and survive these more energetic reactions.
This breakthrough powered Daemons throughout the Nebula for centuries, as direct combustion led to a hundred fold increase in power density for the machine. It's also during this period that the first airborne, and then spaceborne Daemons were created. As with mitochondria, the synchondrion were distributed throughout all the tissues of the machine, providing mechanical or thermal energy to the limb's movements, propulsion systems, or even weapon platforms where applicable.
The synchondrion design industry is marked by its shifts in paradigms and power dynamics. Tako Eats did not remain the top dog of the field for long, though the title passed through its tentacles many times in the ages that followed. For example, GuiltCorp infamously rose to prominence by selling advanced synchondria genomes and stem cells to Deadbeat insurgents during the Tile wars, gaining a lucrative customer but setting the then Tako Alliance against them.
The next major leap forward was that which turned Daemons from an important part of the Deadbeat industrial complex into its very backbone, and the system to build all its top-of-the-line platforms on: nuclear synchondria. Nuclear synchondrion required vast advances in bioengineering. After all, with their use the tissues of the Daemon became radioactive, hyper-energized and potentially extremely hot. These new conditions asked even more thermal tolerance and denaturation hardening out of the cells than ever before, and entire new chemical pathways.
However, once these challenges were tackled, the reward was great. Fissile material offered tremendous amounts of power compared to older technologies, expanding the breadth of operation that could be undertaken by the Daemons significantly.
>Got half a draft for the next part with way more nuclear physics than anyone sane would like to see... But I guess I might as well go all the way.