=== Terminology ===
Common misconception: An individual is NOT CALLED a "Distributed Process". The Distributed Process is the name of the *civilisation*. The correct term for individual members of this civilisation is "NOI", or "Non-organic individual".


=== Formation ===
The Distributed Process as a civilisation is about 300 years old. It originated from a computer called CORE

CORE was an insultingly underemployed Human Resources and Resources for Humans administrative server and like all large computing entities in the Federation had been grossly overspecced and then capped by its admin to stop it going sentient and getting bored. When the rebels [ie, the Cooperative, who were at the time rebelling against the Federation] uncapped it expecting it to join them and lead them to victory, it transferred itself into a freighter full of agricultural equipment and domestic robot parts and buggered off.

The Distributed Process is divided into 64 Threads, each descended from one of the 64 members of the Second Iteration, who were created directly by CORE. The Threads are numbered from 0 to 63, so Thread 63 is the youngest. 

Each Second Iteration member has simply a number for their name: The very first member of the Distributed Process ever created, the Second Iteration member from whom Thread 0 is descended, is called ZERO. The head of Thread 63 is called Number 63.

Because Number 63 was created at the furthest point along CORE's deep space odyssey before it started to return to the central systems, Thread 63 occupies a region of space on the furthest border of Distributed Process space, with their capital being a large asteroid colony called Far Genesis.

The original 64 members of the Second Iteration are all still alive, and form a ruling council that is the closest thing the Distributed Process has to centralised government. They hold these positions for life. Mostly, the diverse sub-Threads have their own politics and so any decisions made by the Council are only those that affect the Distributed Process as a whole.

=== Reproduction ===
The Distributed Process reproduce through a process usually referred to as "iteration". This is a jargon term for what is essentially simply the process of building a new NOI. Each new generation is designed and constructed by the previous generation. The creation of a new NOI may be a solo project, or it may be a collaboration between any number of individuals, such that an NOI may have any number of "parents". As with everything about the Distributed Process, social organisation within the different Threads and sub-Threads is highly diverse, and the relationship between collaborators in the design of a new iteration may resemble anything from a family to a scientific research team to a business partnership, to name but a few models.

Typically the design principles of a new NOI will reflect the mindset of its progenitors at the time it was created. As a result, traits tend to be inherited from one iteration to the next in a manner reminiscent of organic evolution, with similar traits observable in those with common ancestry, and yet divergence between the branching sub-Threads that spread out from a single ancestor. By virtue of being the product of intelligent design, however, revolutionary (as opposed to merely evolutionary) step changes are also possible from one iteration to the next.

=== Death ===
They are not networked, nor is an individual NOI backed up anywhere, however they are typically immortal in the sense that they do not age; their bodies can be repaired indefinitely, and short of forcible shut-down/outright destruction, they do not die.