Easter Z-23, not a member but happy to be here!\\

The Elevated Vessel is a loose association of individuals who share an affinity for the natural sciences and automation. The core belief of the group is the understanding that natural laws exist, but they are stupid and should be upended. The most common example given is that predators need to eat prey animals, and that The Elevated Vessel can simply provide those predators with artificial meat so that cute bunnies don't have to die to feed foxes.

This desire to protect creatures while not fundamentally infringing upon their own natural desires has led to increasingly elaborate strategies to provide enrichment and mutual benefit to animals. It is common for The Elevated Vessel to pair free range animals with robotic assistants to care for them, lead them to artificially grown food, and otherwise interact with the human world.

One of the more common implementations of this technology is pairing felines with wearable mechanical augmentation. The animals are trained to not kill small animals, and instead receive rewards for bringing them back for study. The mechanical equipment they carry also surveys the environment the animal moves through and can provide that information tot he network at large for studying the environment or looking for mechanical faults in areas humans can't really travel.

There is no formal recruitment process, however many of the recruits to the Elevated Vessel are drawn in by pictures of animals posted to social media.

Though many have tried to tie the history of The Elevated Vessel to the botanists and naturalists of Yelton Veda's great civil war, there is little to show a connection to the origins of The Magnetic Assembly.

The creation of the Daqin and Chongwu have increasingly given attention to the idea of Uplifting: augmenting animals to make them as intelligent as humans. The actions of both the Daqin and Chongwu have increasingly soured the pure-uplift line of thought. The resulting Elevated Vessel beliefs include respecting the genetic code of existent animals, and call for increasing the capability of these animals through machines that can aid them in navigating the human world.

The group itself would find members mostly among those studying the natural sciences in New Cambridge, and some of the more spiritual members of The Magnetic Assembly. Over time their members have become prominent in botany and other systems essential for life support in space. This has made the group one of the few that largely feels like an outside organization that has joined the Assembly, rather than one that arose naturally out of internal members.

The Elevated Vessel gets its name from a Manchu-born Qing dynasty author who stated that "if water rises, a ship is elevated." or "A rising tide lifts all ships." In this context, their argument is that by helping our animal-friends we help ourselves. Members often incorporate Buddhist beliefs like watching for bugs when sweeping, but also have a tendency to be against rules and authority in general.