Pretty awesome concept. Couple quibbles:
1. What happens to the human race when the Earth is destroyed? How do we survive? (You say the features of the Earth are copied, but nothing re the people. Hm - are we all copies and the originals got killed? That's rather disturbing...)
2. "HOWEVER, the Earth species aren't like the other more pacified upper class planets who bought their designer planets and so we are able to fight back." Color me skeptical: we do a better job of defending ourselves than races who are aeons ahead of us technologically? And if planet-eating AI were anything but supremely unlikely, there would be some sort of space-government service to deal with such things. I would go with the alien corporation secretly (and 100% deniably) infecting the plate with a "virus" in hopes of our dying off and no longer being a big legal hassle...
Bruce
Ah, Thanks for the critique ^.^
#1) When the aliens destroyed earth, their technology automatically has a temporary transfer feature for life. Call it a 'temporary file' in space. Fortunately for us, when we were all transferred there, someone realized the mistake and didn't allow it to be deleted. They aren't ALL bad aliens, though the someone in charge made a huge error. The 'plate' is randomly generated to 'temporarily' sustain the life transferred to it. Therefore, the extra land around the edges is nearly identical to the 'wild' life on earth (it's built within the system to only copy un-developed land, not for situations where an entire planet is being destroyed, but for situations where smaller sections of planets are being destroyed. It keeps the ecosystems destroyed safe until they are deleted automatically, just in case)
2) There are about a hundred years between transfer to the plate and connecting with foreign alien groups before we have to face this AI. Therefore, while pacified, the alien groups on the designer plates near us are happy to share technology and other such things.
Also, my portrayal of the AI might have been a been a bit simple. It's not THAT great of an AI, such that none of the aliens in the galaxy could take it on, however this region of space is unprepared for it. They don't have any weapons and most of their plates are unified. The AI literally disassembles the plates themselves and incorporating them before it goes to the next, and it hides the events using a sort of 'space-time-control' (similar to what bends the earth onto the plate) so that anyone who approaches the plates which the AI has already destroyed will 'at first' only see the exact same things the AI saw when it approached. It replicates the space from the outside to look the same, but not on the inside. All the pacified plates are defeated too quickly to send out much notice (some is sent out, however the AI mimicking the plates denies them and puts them up as accidental messages or something)
The earth planets, still vying for power (and in getting the new land on our plate, we have a few minor conflicts as well as developing our technology as fast as possible) expand their military efforts. Other details involve the fact that while the plate's gravitational field cannot support satellites, when you get to the edge, you simply step off the plate and you are no longer gravitationally held. Large scale space-mining and exploration (both alien species and technology) occur.
IDK, but I think that justifies why the Earth species are the first to 'defeat the aliens' (maybe we'll get some help too) even though we are behind the other aliens. It's not that we are the only one's technologically capable, but we're the only ones who are prepared for war, and continue integrating the new technology we get into weaponry.