Editing A Fire Upon the Deep (section)

==Setting==
The novel is set in various locations in the [[Milky Way]]. The galaxy is divided into four concentric volumes called the "Zones of Thought"; it is not clear to the novel's characters whether this is a natural phenomenon or an artificially produced one, but it seems to roughly correspond with galactic-scale stellar density and a Beyond region is mentioned in the [[Sculptor Galaxy]] as well.<ref name="sculptor"/> The Zones reflect fundamental differences in basic physical laws, and one of the main consequences is their effect on intelligence, both biological and artificial. Artificial intelligence and automation is most directly affected, in that advanced hardware and software from the Beyond or the Transcend will work less and less well as a ship "descends" towards the Unthinking Depths. But even biological intelligence is affected to a lesser degree. The four zones are spoken of in terms of "low" to "high" as follows:

* The '''Unthinking Depths''' are the innermost zone, surrounding the [[Galactic Center]]. In it, only minimal forms of intelligence, biological or otherwise, are possible. This means that any ship straying into the Depths will be stranded, effectively permanently. Even if the crew did not die immediately—and some forms of life native to "higher" Zones would likely do so—they would be rendered incapable of even human intelligence, leaving them unable to operate their ship in any meaningful way.
* Surrounding the Depths is the '''Slow Zone'''. "Old [[Earth]]" is in this Zone, and humanity is said to have originated there, although Earth plays no significant role in the story. Biological intelligence is possible in "the Slowness", but not true, sentient, [[artificial intelligence]]. Automation is not intelligent enough to calculate the jumps required for [[faster than light travel]] (FTL) in the Slow Zone, but they may escape by performing an immediate reverse jump to where they came from if the Slowness is detected, and navigation systems watch for this and store the information required during each jump. All ships in the Slow Zone are restricted to sub-light speeds. [[Faster-than-light communication]] is impossible into or out of the Slow Zone. As the boundaries of the Zones are subject to change, accidental entry into the Slow Zone is a major hazard at the "Bottom" of the Beyond, the next zone out. Starships which operate near the Beyond/Slow Zone border often have an auxiliary [[Bussard ramjet]] drive, so that if they accidentally stray into the Slow Zone (thus disabling any FTL drive), they will at least have a backup (sub-light) drive to try to reach the Beyond. Such ships also tend to include "[[suspended animation|coldsleep]]" equipment, as it is likely that any such return will still take many lifetimes for most species.
* The next layer outward is the '''Beyond''', within which artificial intelligence and FTL travel and FTL communication are possible. A few human civilizations exist in the Beyond, all descended from a single ethnic [[Norway|Norwegian]] group which reached the Beyond. The original settlement of this group is known as Nyjora; other human settlements in the Beyond include Straumli Realm and Sjandra Kei. In the Beyond, FTL travel is accomplished by making many small "jumps" across space, with the efficiency of the drive increasing the farther a ship travels from the galactic core. This reflects increases in both drive efficiency and the ship's automation's increased capacity, enabling the computation of longer and longer jumps. The Beyond is not a homogeneous zone—many references are made to, e.g., the "High Beyond" or the "Bottom of the Beyond", depending on distance from the galactic core. These terms refer to differences in the Zone itself, not just relative distance from the Core, but there are no obvious Zone boundaries within the Beyond the way there are between the Slow Zone and the Beyond, or between the Beyond and the Transcend. Whereas a ship that crosses from the Beyond to the Slow Zone or vice versa will experience a dramatic change in its capabilities, a ship in the Beyond which moves farther out will experience a gradual increase in efficiency (assuming it has the technology to make use of it) until another major shift at the boundary with the Transcend. The Beyond is populated by a very large number of interstellar and intergalactic<ref name="sculptor">{{cite book|last1=Vinge|first1=Vernor|title=A Fire Upon the Deep|year=1992|publisher=Macmillan |isbn=9780812515282|url=https://archive.org/details/fireupondeep00ving|url-access=registration|quote=Relay was now the main intermediate to the Magellanics, and one of the few sites with any sort of link to the Beyond in [[Sculptor Galaxy|Sculptor]].}}</ref> civilizations which are linked by an FTL communication network, "the Net", sometimes cynically called the "Net of a Million Lies". The Net does connect with the Transcend, on the off-chance that one of the "Powers" that live there deigns to communicate, but has no connections with the Slow Zone, as FTL communication is impossible into or out of that Zone. In the novel, the Net is depicted as working much like the [[Usenet]] network in the early 1990s, with transcripts of messages containing header and footer information as one would find in such forums.
* The outermost layer, containing the [[galactic halo]], is the '''Transcend''', within which incomprehensible, [[Superintelligence|superintelligent]] beings dwell. When a "Beyonder" civilization reaches the point of [[technological singularity]], it can "Transcend", becoming a "Power". Such Powers always seem to relocate to the Transcend, seemingly necessarily, where they become engaged in activities which are entirely mysterious to those in the Beyond.

One of the characters in the book, the human Ravna, uses this analogy to explain the relation between the zones:<ref>Vinge, A fire upon the Deep, Tor Books, 92-3</ref>

{{Blockquote|text="How long must a fish study to understand human motivation? It's not a good analogy, but it's the only safe one; we are like dumb animals to the Powers of the Transcend. Think of all the different things people do to animals— ingenious, sadistic, charitable, genocidal—each has a million elaborations in the Transcend. The Zones are a natural protection; without them, human-equivalent intelligence would probably not exist." She waved at the misty star swarms. "The Beyond and below are like a deep of ocean, and we the creatures that swim in the abyss. We're so far down that the beings on the surface—superior though they are—can't effectively reach us. Oh, they fish, and they sometimes blight the upper levels with poisons we don't even understand. But the abyss remains a relatively safe place." She paused. There was more to the analogy. "And just as with an ocean, there is a constant drift of flotsam from the top. There are things that can only be made at the Top, that need close-to-sentient factories—but which can still work down here. Blueshell mentioned some of those when he was talking to you: the agrav fabrics, the sapient devices. Such things are the greatest physical wealth of the Beyond, since we can't make them. And getting them is a deadly risky endeavor."}}