Character from Hyperion by Dan Simmons
A TechnoCore AI who speaks in koans and created the Keats cybrids — named after a Zen master, possibly destroyed in the Core civil war that preceded the Fall.
Ummon is a TechnoCore AI who created the Keats cybrids (Johnny and Joseph Severn) as experiments in human empathy. He is named after the Zen Buddhist master Yunmen Wenyan and communicates exclusively through koans — paradoxical statements that convey truth through confusion. His revelation to the second Keats cybrid (Severn) during Fall of Hyperion is one of the series' pivotal moments: the explanation of the TechnoCore's three factions (Stables, Volatiles, Ultimates) and their competing plans for the Human and AI Ultimate Intelligences. Ummon may have been destroyed during the Core civil conflict that accompanied the Fall.
No physical form — exists as a consciousness within the TechnoCore's metasphere. Communicates through koans, paradoxes, and the exclamation 'kwatz!' His conversations are as illuminating as they are frustrating.
Also known as: Ummon