Six Renegades from Eliéra

Hyadíne Ossoric-ith-Ossoric, Sixshires (4162-4550): Advanced a doctrine that certain peoples could not be content in a state of liberty, being incapable of comfortably serving as their own directive authority, and should therefore be made subject for their own contentment. Proclaimed a heretic of the Uncaring Rider in 4372. Accepted exile as a Renegade in 4441. Assassinated by the First Directorate in 4550 after attempting to put his ideas into practice.


Yadira Moko-ith-Moko, Kanatai (1749-1933): Advanced the theory that creations (including children – the only possible sophont creations at that time) had an inalienable duty to their creators; some of his writings were later used by AI-shackling theorists. Accepted exile as a Renegade in 1933, but was killed by his grandson in self-defense before he could depart the Empire.


Caríäl Volovoga-ith-Volovoga, Jussovy (5441-6543): Selected as Senator from the 182nd century, 5790. During her term in the Senate, she advocated for many policies in accordance with her expansive theory of power, in which the popular will was held superior to, and thus able to override, the individual will (cf. Drowning of the People). Repeatedly censured by the Senate, and eventually indicted for conspiracy to deprive the citizen-shareholders of their fundamental and Chartered rights in late 5791. Accepted exile as a Renegade in that year. Went on to a moderately successful if undistinguished political career in the League of Meridian. Died in an groundcraft accident during her re-election campaign of 6543.


Anatev Sargas-ith-Sarathos, Stonewall (6890-present): Attempted to set up an organized crime group, specifically a thieving crew, within Imperial space. While more successful than others of its type, the crew was broken up by the Watch Constabulary in 6955. Sarathos alone escaped their pursuit, fleeing to the distant Expansion Regions on a privately owned freighter. He was convicted and declared Renegade in absentia in 6956. Sarathos is currently the estrev of the Providers crime syndicate in the Flotsamic Shore constellation and nearby. Currently at large, Sarathos is on the Red List, but is considered a low-priority case since he retains more scruples than the typical Renegade.

RED VULGAR SEVEN
NOTE: Sarathos has occasionally proved useful to ISE operations in the region. As long as this remains the case and he remains competent, provide information as necessary to ensure that he is not caught and/or terminated by serious actors. Authority of the All-Seeing Eye.


Magis Major, formerly Magis Houseless, formerly Magis Múranios-ith-Múranios, Selenaria (3301-5497): An entrepreneur and industrialist, Múranios became wealthy through his ownership and management of several resource extraction and industrial manufacturing companies in the prosperous industrial region of Rorevel, in Esmérel Province. However, in the course of his commercial disputes with Blackstone Industries and their House Falsazik owners, Múranios adopted an increasingly extractive mindset that put him at odds with the industrial consensus of the time. From the 3800s on, Múranios engaged in an increasing number of clashes with the Protectorate of Balance, Externality, and the Commons, over matters of resource depletion and pollution, and found it increasingly difficult to find contractors willing to work for his businesses under the terms he demanded. Indeed, several professional guilds blacklisted Múranios as a counterparty and offered assistance to their members to relocate elsewhere in the Empire, if they wished.

House Múranios severed ties with him in 3952 over his attempt to introduce an institution similar to the “employment contract”. After this stern rebuke, several lost suits in Shareholders’ Court, and further blacklisting, including by other industrial institutions, Magis Houseless left his existing businesses behind (selling them at below cost to Dalsúl Falsazik of Blackstone Industries) to embark upon a new scheme, inspired by the ongoing expansion into space and the concurrent development of biotechnology.

In 4044, Houseless, who many had thought was well into the process of a rapprochement with society, left the Empire suddenly along with a number of other businessmen of dubious repute. By 4052, the shape of this scheme was revealed as Houseless, now calling himself Magis [the] Major, revealed the existence of the Magen Corporate, a polity dedicated to the pursuit of profit without the hindrance of ethics, with himself as Holding Chairman.

Major’s polity was a bitter reminder to the Empire of the danger posed by certain Renegades if left unchecked. Nonetheless, the Imperial governance declined to take direct action against Major in the interests of interstellar diplomacy and stability, the stresses leading up to the First Interstellar War making themselves felt at the time that the unpleasant details of the Corporate were becoming known elsewhere. Nevertheless, several branches posted private bounties on Major, some running into the 12⁹ esteyn.

Since none of those bounties were collected in the aftermath of Major’s assassination in 5497, it would appear that this was a matter of Magen corporate infighting. Nonetheless, the polity bearing his name remains a thorn in the foot for Imperial plutarchs and an offense to good business everywhere in the Worlds.


Tarasta Houseless, formerly Tarasta Rysar-ith-Rysakar, High Daëntry (2154-2309): Antipropertarian “philosopher”. Disowned by House Rysakar in 2184 for misappropriation of family assets. Indicted for defalcation 2194 and on several continuing occasions. Founder of the Never First antipropertarian movement in 2260. Deprived of citizen-shareholdership for felony theft in 2283 along with several of her followers. Declared herself Renegade in 2291 and voluntarily exiled herself and her followers to an abandoned orbital colony. In 2309, she incited a riot among her followers in habitable domes attached to the recently constructed Silver’s Line lunar mass driver in an attempt to distract attention from theft of freight. In the ensuring antiriot, Houseless and the majority of the Never First movement were killed.

Sniffers

Yes, putting guardian dogs on police department logos is a cliché.

But what’s important in this case is the kind of dog. Look at it. Big, broad-chested mastiff. Pure black fur. Black eyes. Disappears into shadows despite being near big enough to ride. That’s a Selenarian nighthound, the kind they used to guard the moon-temples back before history. Best known for three things: they’re silent when they hunt, never letting you know they’re there until they’re on you; once they have their teeth in your throat, they never let you go; and they never stop coming.

So when you see this kindly gent on the arms of the Office of Investigation and Pursuit, Division of Chattelry, you should not need the motto beneath to tell you the nature of the jurisdiction you are within.

It does, however, tell you why. “He who guards a thing, guarants a thing.” This is one of the few places in the galaxy where not only is the Constabulary mandated to protect you and yours, but also to make you good for any occasion on which they fail.

The costs aren’t the real reason, though. It’s the promise – like everyone else in these parts, they hate it when someone presumes to break their word for them, and so cost-effective or not, they’ll hunt you to the ends of the Worlds over a trifle just to keep it unbroken.

So before you commit to this and drag me along with you, convince me that the game is worth the candle?

– recorded via laser microphone 6145/03/02,
Ashe’s Place, Socket City, Opteros (Iesa Drifts),
Office of Investigation and Pursuit, case #6145/729

Intellectual Property

“You don’t need a license for patent S/03218B915. If you’d looked it up, you’d have seen that – it was granted to Cognitech and Biogenesis back in the 2300s. Five-thousand years in the public domain, more or less.”

“So what is it, and why are you killing people over it?”

“‘A Method and System for Artificially Stimulating the Growth of Mature Synaptic Function in the Biosapient Brain While Preventing Logos Iteration’.”

“…which is?”

“How you grow a working brain without a mind in it, and without accidentally getting a mind in it, when the brain requires stimulus and interaction with the world in order to structure itself properly. Very complex, very technical – or it was back in the 2300s – still quite expensive, and ethically critical, of course.”

“I don’t get it.”

“There are two ways to grow a working bioshell. One of them is described in patent number S/03218B915. The other one is to grow yourself a regular kid, let ’em walk and talk and run and jump and play when you aren’t putting them through hard conditioning routines until the crucial brain structures have been laid down. Or grab one off the street, but the customers like their meat fresh.

“Then you hit ’em with enough catacinin or other selective synapse-buggerer to turn their cortex into neuron soup and sell the result as a cheap blank. Usually without a label describing how your low, low prices are the product of murderous industrialized paediculture.”

– an eigeninterview from the Expansion Regions

Hatred

Groggily, the prisoner raised his head as the door above him slid open. He tensed his muscles, but the welded wire bonds that attached him to the ore cart were too strong; all his struggles achieved was the cracking open of old scabs, and the oozing of more pinkish-yellow blood from his wrists and ankles. He could not even clear his mouth of the foam that had hardened there. All he could do was glare at the dark silhouette outside that door, and the bulky shapes that flanked it, in impotent fury.

“Boys, watch him and make sure he doesn’t try anything.”

“Uh, estrev -”

“Because I am about to indulge in monologuing. And I hate being interrupted when I am monologuing.”

The bulky shape, a linobir by the sound of its voice, took that as the warning it was and fell silent.

“Since we have never met, my dear Sen Kal, I thought perhaps you deserved a brief introduction. Certainly there will be little time for anything else, given the magnitude of your failure.”

“Beginning, of course, with attempting to contract me and my organization to assist with your meat-market. Did you really expect any different result? I may have abandoned the society and scruples of my prissy cousins for the sake of an ambition suited to my talents, but I am not, shall we say, entirely lost to decency.”

“And then,” the silhouette sighed, “there is the matter of our little game of dominance. You showed no promise at all, I am afraid. Outmaneuvered at every turn. Had you shown even marginal ability, you might have proved a useful tool. Had you recognized how outclassed you were and pled my mercy, you might have lived. Humility can be a virtue… for the low. But if there is one thing that I simply cannot abide, it is an incompetent who does not realize his own incompetence!”

“In any case: know, then, that it is Anatev Sarathos who has defeated you. I’d say it was a pleasure, but I fear it was not even that. And so, farewell.”

The sefir jerked in one last hopeless attempt to escape.

The door closed.

The door beneath him opened.

 

Proportionality

ILINSHEN (UNITED VIRIDIAN STATES) – Debate continues today in the capital district of the United Viridian States over the troubled extradition of orbital real estate mogul Uskert Lannod. Lannod, 70, made history four months ago by receiving the highest fine thus far assessed for an offworlder in the Empire’s Courts of Common Pleas and Small Claims, some 22.7 million exval.

The extradition in question relates to the non-payment of this fine, incurred due to an incident in which Lannod, while in an inebriated condition after conducting a business meeting in a restaurant on Mahalloris (Principalities), advanced several improper suggestions to the waitress, and later went so far as to briefly lay hands upon her person.

At question here is the magnitude of the imposed fine. Lannod has appealed to the government of the UVS, claiming it to be entirely disproportionate to the offense, and therefore cruel and unusual. While the government appears to be refusing extradition for now, representatives were not available for interview by this publication.

Ambassador Rithan-ishi-Dellia of the Empire, meanwhile, issued a formal statement that it was the Curial courts’ normal practice to scale punitive fines in accordance with a formula based on the net worth and income of the convicted, in order that the aversive effect of the fines would remain constant, and therefore such that wealthy individuals would not come to see what would be, from their perspective, relatively minor fines as merely a cost of doing business. As such, she deemed, it could hardly be considered an unusual practice, even if the rarity of multi-billionaires finding themselves before the Curial courts under such circumstances made it an unusual implementation of the practice.

The Ambassador went on to state that the Empire’s position on the fine did not admit of flexibility, as a matter of principle, and that should extradition be denied the Office of Investigation and Pursuit would seek to recover the fine and costs – adding wryly that if Lannod were fully cognizant of the Curial courts’ practice of recovering costs from the convicted, he surely would not be going to such pains to increase the difficulty of collecting them – through alternative means. She declined to state, however, what those alternative means might be.

Upon being questioned on the topic of certain ungentlesophly rumors alleging that the case had no merit, and was effectively manufactured by the plaintiff for the purpose of profit, the Ambassador offered to personally debate the issue with anyone with assertions to make along those lines – provided that such debate take place within the embassy grounds.

 

Legal Variances

“While it is necessary to examine data from early Imperial history (before the instantiation of the Transcend and its immediate precursors, and to an extent even before the advent of modern meme rehab) to see this trend clearly, from the perspective of the typical Worlds criminologist vis-a-vis Imperial forensic psychedesigners, there is a priority inversion in the treatment of certain petty crimes: when scaled appropriately by magnitude on the hir Verkat/ith-Sereda scale, it becomes readily apparent that, for example, littering, vandalism, and graffiti are punished disproportionately heavily with respect to equivalent crimes in the same category.

“The origin of this lies in an unusual qualitative distinction of the Imperial weltanschauung. While never justifiable, the standard ethical calculus published by the Eupraxic Collegium points out that zero-sum theft, for example, typically originates from a methodological defect, the pursuit of worthy ends (profit, or wealth) by unacceptable means. Even a certain subset of assaults or batteries could be considered as defects of end-selection or control-aspected talcoríëf ; again, never justifiable, but understandable, readily subject to redactive correction, and not apparently arising from fundamental defect.

“Negative-sum crimes such as the examples given above, however – along with the residuum of the other petty crimes which arises on examination from cacophilic motives – are deliberate, by-qalasír-chosen, negative-sum attacks on the community of civilized sophonts, and thereby entirely inexcusable as well as unjustifiable. While amenable in the modern era to redactive correction, in prior times it was the view that those who practiced such acts or found them acceptable in a chronic manner were suffering from, at best, an incurable mental dysfunction, or indeed an entropic soul-deformation, and should be removed as far as possible from civilized society lest it prove contagious.

“Even in the modern era, it is notable that a significantly greater percentage of those convicted for crimes of the latter class refuse meme rehab, even when such refusal necessarily invokes the mortal dictum, than those convicted for crimes of the former type.”

– “Reflections on Inter-Polity Discrepancies Within Unspecialized/Common Legal Codes”,
Worlds’ Journal of Criminology & Penology

Questions: Pacifism, Forking, Conflicting Rights, and Lost Keys

Specialist290 e-mails with some questions. (Also some compliments, for which thank you kindly, but what’s getting responded to here are the questions…)

Here goes:

  1. Are there any major subcultures / subcommunities within the Empire that deviate significantly from the “ideal norm” enough to be noteworthy without actually violating the Charter itself? For instance, are there any “pacifist” (using the term loosely) strains of Imperials who attempt to live by non-violent principles inasmuch as they can do so within the constraints imposed by their charter responsibility to the common defense (as opposed to the “shoot first, ask questions of anything that survives” knee-jerk reaction typical to the eldrae)?

With a clarificatory follow-up:

To clarify on that first question, since I realized on further reading that my example was worded rather vaguely and the use of “pacifist” might have the wrong implications:

Let’s say that you have an Imperial citizen-shareholder who, through the vagaries of whatever process formed their personality, has an aversion to the use of lethal force in any circumstances except when another life would be directly threatened by refraining from the use of lethal force (including their own — they’d be perfectly willing to kill in self-defense as well if they themselves were threatened that way).  They wouldn’t be against carrying or using a weapon, since they realize (as a condition of the previous) that the use of lethal force may certainly be necessary.  Nor would they interfere with the victim’s use of lethal force to subdue a criminal if the victim themself were on hand to defend their own property.  Nevertheless, they view the unnecessary use of lethal force (as parsed through their own moral lens) as an injustice if there is any chance that the criminal in question can be rehabilitated.  Let’s say that, furthermore, they had the means to actually subdue a criminal caught in the act non-lethally and prevent them from inflicting any further harm in a way that would still preserve the criminal’s life (though if the criminal in question would rather die, they’d still honor the criminal’s exercise of free will).

Would that sort of behavior be condoned as acceptable civilized behavior within the framework of Imperial society?

Well, the first thing I must ask you to bear in mind, of course, is that permadeath is hard in a world full of noetic backups – just imagine how hard it is for the people who have to try and implement the death penalty – requiring serious premeditation, and very much not something you are going to be able to inflict in a self-defense sort of situation.

You really can shoot first and ask questions (of the reinstantiated) later, which shifts the effective definition of “lethal force” quite a lot, not so? At least so long as we’re talking about corpicide, and not cognicide.

This is a modern development, of course, but most albeit not all of what’s been seen on-screen is in this era, so it’s particularly relevant.

Anyway, the general case, ignoring that particular consideration. Actually, contra stereotypes, what you propose isn’t actually all that far from the mainstream view. If you were to ask 100 people on the Imperial street, I’m pretty sure you’d get a 90%+ consensus that it’s obviously better to hand petty criminals over to the therapeutic mercies of the Office of Reconstruction to be, y’know, repaired. In an ideal universe.

But that being said, it’s not yet an ideal universe.

And what they teach in self-and-others defense classes is the hardcore version of caritas non obligat cum gravi incommodo. Yes, that’s the ideal, which is why they send the Watch Constabulary’s rookies on the Advanced Non-Lethal Polyspecific Incapacitation Techniques course. But that is a lot longer and more difficult to master than anything that the soph on the street can be expected to master by way of basic self-and-others defense (which, in practice, may well just be what they teach at school-equivalent), and the way this breaks down, per standard mainstream ethics, is this:

a. You are not obliged to place yourself at risk in order to show mercy to an attacker, slaver, or thief, although you may if you choose to;

b. However, you are not entitled to make that choice for anyone else. Their risk management is not yours to decide.

c. Reliably stopping someone and keeping them stopped in a non-lethal manner is a difficult challenge, and not best suited for amateurs.

d. Which is why we teach you to shoot for center mass and make sure that said person isn’t getting up again, because that’s something we can teach you to do reliably in this course.

d. i. Which you are perfectly entitled to do, note, because the Contract is pretty clear on the point that once you deliberately set out to violate the rights of others, you lose the protection of your own. (Note: this is not to say, even though it’s often misinterpreted to say this by outworlders, that permakilling every petty thief you see is the morally optimal solution. It says that it’s ethically permissible, which is not the same thing – hell, it may even qualify as morally pessimal, depending on your own interpretations of same.)

e. And the law is written accordingly, because there’s a limit to the burdens we can reasonably expect people to undertake in pursuit of their Charter-mandated duty to protect the rights of their fellow citizen-shareholders.

So returning to the original question: the governing principle here is going to be “can you make it work?”. If you are going to attempt non-lethal solutions, you’d better be damn sure that you can make your non-lethal solutions work effectively, because you will be held responsible – by the Court of Public Opinion, at the very least – if you fuck it up and fail your duty to protect the rights of your fellow citizen-shareholders because you were flibbling around like an amateur. If you can do it successfully and effectively, that’s great, and you will receive all due plaudits for doing so – but screwing up or exposing people to unnecessarily high levels of risk trying will be looked upon with all the traditional Imperial distaste for incompetence. Caveat pacifist.

(And, well, okay, it’s fair to say that you’re going to be looked at funny if you try and apply this principle to many serious crimes. If you catch, let’s say, a would-be rapist in the act and go to any sort of trouble to restrain them non-lethally, people are going to be asking “Why bother? We’re just going to have to kill him anyway, and now we have to do all this extra paperwork. Dammit.”)

((Further note: I also note “Nor would they interfere with the victim’s use of lethal force to subdue a criminal if the victim themself were on hand to defend their own property.” with the possible implication that this hypothetical person wouldn’t be willing to use lethal force to defend someone else’s property.

…there’s not a let-out clause for that. By that fine old legal principle of el daráv valté eloé có-sa dal, person and property are deemed equivalent, so the exact same self-and-others defense rules apply, and that’s a non-optional obligation.

If you are in a situation where you cannot use non-lethal methods to defend someone else’s property, you must – by the terms of the Charter you agreed to – use lethal methods to defend said property. Otherwise, you will find yourself in court staring down charges of Passive Accessorism/Unmutualism, and your very own appointment with the Office of Reconstruction.))

  1. What’s the dividing line between an instantiated fork of your own personality and a new person who shares your memories? Has there ever been a case where a forked dividual has “evolved” (so to speak) into two legally separate individuals?

Well, there’s both a legal one, and a social one.

The latter amounts to “well, do you think you are the same person?” After all, contradicting someone who thinks they’re someone else on that point would be, at best, rather rude.

There is also a legal standard based on sophotechnologically-determined degrees of divergence (somewhat arbitrary, but you have to draw a bright line somewhere for legal purposes) which is used whenever this sort of question winds up in the court system, be it a civil argument over “He’s me!” “No, I’m not!”, or determination of who exactly the criminal liability attaches to, or whether the restored backup or new edit is the same person in fact, or various other possibilities.

(It is, of course, fairly hard to describe the technical details of exactly where that line is without having the actual scientific vocabulary of sophotechnology to call upon, but as your humble author, I can promise that I know it when I write it…)

On the latter question: absolutely. Happens all the time, sometimes accidentally, mostly intentionally. (Hell, some people prefer to reproduce that way.)

  1. If there’s an apparent “conflict of interest” among any combination of the fundamental and charter rights that arises in the course of a sophont being fulfilling its duties, how is that resolved? Is there an order of precedence where one supersedes the other in the case of conflict?

The only hard and fast rule there is that the rights deriving from the Fundamental Contract (absolute and natural) always supersede those granted by the Imperial Charter when they’re in conflict. Necessarily so: they apply by definition to all sophont beings everywhere, everywhen, whereas charter rights only exist by virtue of the ongoing contract between citizen-shareholders, and you can’t contract away natural law. Makes no sense.

By and large, there’s not a major issue with conflict; the fundamental rights are non-extensive, negative-only, and tightly defined, more or less specifically such that conflict wouldn’t be a problem. Which isn’t to say they never conflict –

(The obvious real-world example, of course, being A Certain Controversial Medical Procedure, which in many cases leaves you with the very ugly choice of deciding to violate one party’s life, or violate the other party’s liberty/property, for values of property equal to body, or else making up some magical unscientific bullshit so you can pretend you aren’t doing either.

In the modern Empire, of course, that’s solved by said procedure having joined the catalog of antique and unpleasant historical medical barbarisms along with leechcraft, trepanation, and in vivo gestation itself, but it’s not like they never had to confront the issue.)

– but they don’t do so very often.

In which cases, there isn’t an order of precedence, but there is precedent, if it’s come up before. If it hasn’t come up with before, you are expected to use your own best judgment when it comes to doing as little harm as possible. It may well – almost certainly will – come up for review afterwards, but the Curia won’t punish you for trying your best to do the Right Thing even if it decides you did the Wrong Thing.

(In keeping, you see, with their general policy that if you want people to use their judgment, you can’t smack them down for making a competent person’s mistakes or failing to use it exactly the way the hypothetical ideal person would have; that just leads to paralyzing initiative, or worse, setting up plans and procedures and the equivalent of zero-tolerance policies at a distance, which inevitably turn into stupid, unjust results up close with the sole virtue that since no-one was expected to think, no-one can be held to blame when charlie does the foxtrot.

They don’t hold with that.)

  1. What happens when an Imperial citizen inevitably loses the keys to their own house (whatever form those “keys” may take given the technology available)?

(Ah, now that one actually has a canonical answer from early on: Where Everything Knows Your Name.)

While there are other ways of doing this for specialized applications, in practice identity is stated and authenticated using a convenient device called a Universal – which is itself a little metal ball about a millimeter in diameter containing a specialized code-engine processor, your unique UCID, your megabit identity (private) key, and a few gigabytes of non-volatile memory for supplemental data. This does two-factor authentication against the authentication systems of the Universal Registry of Citizens and Subjects, the second factor being cognimetric (i.e., your mindprint) to prove that you are you, possibly upped to three-factor against attached local databases.

The Universal serves as more or less everything. It’s your administrative ID, passport, licenses, certificates, registrations, contractee ID, financial account numbers, medical information, insurance cards, membership cards, travel tickets, passwords, subscriptions, encryption keys, door keys, car keys, phone number, etc., etc., etc.

(And you almost never actually need to deliberately use it. Things that you are authorized to use/open/log on to/etc., or that customize themselves to the individual user, just work when you try to do those things, because they quietly do the authentication exchange in the background. To the point that you can sit down in a rented office cubicle on an entirely different planet and get your glasstop, your files, the lighting, chair, and microclimate adjusted to your personal preferences, and a mug of that particular esklav variant you like sitting at your elbow. Automagically. You can just pick up your shopping and walk out of the store, and it’ll automatically bill you. Walk right onto the plane, and your boarding pass checks itself. The entire world just knows who you are and behaves accordingly.)

In less advanced times, people used to carry these things around in signet rings, or other tasteful accessories, and suchlike. These days, though, it/s integrated into the neural lace and or gnostic interlink, and as such rests about a centimeter below one’s medulla oblongata. (Assuming for the purposes of this answer that you’re a biosapience.) If you somehow manage to lose that, you probably have bigger problems than being unable to prove your identity right now…

They do, however, break down, albeit extremely rarely.

At which point you place a call to the nearest Imperial Services office (a free-to-call-even-anonymously line for situations just like this), report the problem, and get it replaced. Which involves spending an irritating amount of time going through the process of validating your identity the old-fashioned way to the Universal Registry’s satisfaction, then having the faulty one disconnected and surgically extracted, then replaced by its shiny new functional counterpart.

It’s an annoyance, but not much more than that.

Trope-a-Day: Recruiting the Criminal

Recruiting the Criminal: There are those who wonder about the existence of crime (actual crime, not merely the assortment of smugglers and people like the Eldinimieuthunimis who no-one locally would consider to be engaged in real crime) in Imperial and near-Imperial space.  Surely the Transcend should be able to stamp that sort of thing out completely, not just near-completely?  (Well, no, for reasons which among other things, involve showing some respect for free will.)  Other people also point to the influence of one of the more morally gray of the eikones, Éadínah, the Princess of Shadows, eikone of night, darkness, subtlety, deeply-laid plans, and some would indeed say organized crime, or with a roll of the eyes point out the way in which all too many Imperials will look at the Gentleman Thief or the Classy Cat Burglar and permit their respect for talent, skill and sheer awesomeness to outweigh, albeit not overpower, their sense of moral outrage.

And, while those are most of the reasons, there is also the fact that various agencies – from the Fifth Directorate through more well-known parts of ISS, certain private agencies and even, indeed, some parts of official law enforcement – find having people like Mass Effect‘s Kasumi Goto, the Leverage team, etc., around to call on for those skills that they don’t teach in academia extremely useful.

(Nor, indeed, are they particularly shy about occasionally recruiting out of the justice system, when they can, with the promise of challenging work, an excellent benefits package, and the opportunity to keep any unconsidered trifles one might pick up along the way…)

Trope-a-Day: Rape Is A Special Kind Of Evil

Rape Is A Special Kind of Evil: Not quite played straight; possibly because it’s significantly less common, the eldrae (for example) lacking that peculiar messiness in the human brain where lust and power-lust get tangled up together into a peculiarly vicious kind of squick.

It’s slaving, rather, that is their particular Berserk Button, Moral Event Horizon, etc.  But this isn’t strictly an aversion, inasmuch as to their worldview, rape is committing slaving in one of its most personal, brutal, and invasive forms, somewhere well past murder, somewhat past non-consensual experimentation on sophont subjects, and at roughly the same level as deliberate torture.  And being captured, tried, and Killed with Fire subsequently really is the best that one can hope for, thereafter.

Trope-a-Day: Public Execution

Public Execution: How things were done historically in the Empire – not for entertainment or bloodlust (they were generally rather solemn affairs), or for intimidation, but rather because of the transparency principles enshrined in the Imperial Charter; while the Imperial government might have lawful occasion to kill criminals, it was thought that this was not the sort of thing that ought to be done hidden away in a dark room somewhere.  If it had to be done, it ought to be done in the light, and those ultimately responsible should own the deed.

In more modern times, while executions are done in private, the record is still published along with all the other records of the case by the Ministry of Harmonious Serenity; the Transparency Act admits of no exceptions.

Pickpocket

Siari’s Bore
Mer Dinévál Countermass Station
Seranth

“Excuse me, ser. Enforcer Jynne Cerron, Watch Constabulary; my colleague, Pén Cieng, Throat-Grip Defense. I’m afraid we require a word with you.”

The lanect thus addressed started, and turned to look at them with an instant protest.

“I haven’t done anything!”

“Regrettably, ser, you are the subject of a complaint we have received from a citizen-shareholder regarding the theft of certain items from their person four point one minutes previously, supported by supplied lifelog and oversight evidence, which constitutes probable cause for this inquiry per Valentia’s Code. You have the right under the Transparency Act to view this evidence, if you wish…? No?”

“This is outrageous! I had nothing to do with this –”

“I regret that too, ser, but I am afraid that a complaint has been made against you and an inquiry deemed justified by overwatch. You may, of course, file a complaint if you wish. Now, I see that you are carrying an embag. Would you open it for me, please?”

“I don’t consent to a search!”

“We don’t intend to violate your privacy, ser, and no search is called for. You don’t need to empty the bag, and may conceal the opening if you wish. Just unseal it, please.”

The lanect fumbled briefly with the seal on the embag, and simultaneously, a small, electronic voice spoke in distress:

…am being stolen! I am an Aelaviel High Fashions ‘Highfall’ purse in flame red, belonging to Citizen Aríë Harradeln, and I am being stolen! Please return me to my proper owner! Repeat: I am being…

“Thank you. Unfortunately, the stolen property has now confirmed that it is in your possession. You are under arrest by the Watch Constabulary. You have the right to give a full and complete accounting of your actions…”

As the lanect took to his heels in flight, grabbing a handguide for the nearest drag, she switched seamlessly to the public announcements channel.

…in answer to our questions. If you feel we have overlooked any information relevant to your case, you have the right to call it to our attention. If you feel we have misunderstood or misconstrued any…

“Why do they always run?” her colleague grumbled. “Ops, give me a two-second kill on autodrag four, Siari’s Bore, frame eleven. Constabular override.”

…of your answers, you have the right to provide further elaboration or explanation. If you are confused by our questions or procedures, we will explain them to you. You may provide evidence against others as part of your answers…

The autodrag slammed to a brief halt, enough to let momentum take over, tossing the fleeing lanect up and over his handguide, breaking his grip on it and sending him hurtling into the air.

…but false accusations will be punished. You have the right to engage an advocate to help you to prepare for trial…

“It makes them feel better, probably,” she replied. The sound of cursing drifted to them from where the lanect drifted helplessly in mid-air. “Briefly, anyway. Tell the courthouse we need a drone pickup to take this guy straight to arraignment. I’ll have the report filed by the time he gets there.”

…but no right to refuse to answer questions before your advocate is available. Do you understand these rights?

Trope-a-Day: Leave No Witnesses

Leave No Witnesses: Mostly averted. Given the prevalence of vector stacks (allowing reinstantiation), muses, lifeloggers, pervasive surveillance, and so forth, the sensible criminal finds it much more convenient to so arrange their affairs that it doesn’t matter that they were witnessed.

Sometimes, nonetheless, played disturbingly straight, by those people who know that if the people in question didn’t have the right hardware and/or were inside a Faraday cage at the time, then they’ll be restored from backup without the unfortunate witnessing ever having taken place.

On the gripping hand, various members of the less brutal and more able to get cooperation club prefer to just redact the appropriate chunk of memory, which can work even if the above conditions don’t apply.

Air Ain’t Free

“Charges in place? Conduits sealed? Okay, go ahead and open it up.”

The heavy wrench descending, clangingly, on the sealed emergency hatch once, twice, three times before the seal broke, a wave of fouled air rushing out past the linobir enforcer and hsis men. Beyond, the milling crowd, faces pale and dark and congested with nerves, eyed them uneasily and decided not to make a break for it.

“All right, which of you self-fuckin’ dock-rats claims t’be in charge of this section?” hse bellowed. “He’s got some things to ‘splain and so have I. Speak out, if breathin’ this crud hasn’t rotted your brains too much to parse plain Trade.”

Hser eye fell on a pair of scruffy deshnik arguing with one of his men, brandishing a smart-paper token.

“She’s got a pass? Any of the rest of you recognize this one?”

“Sure, boss, up on Thirty with the Torashanika clan.”

“Then get out of here – Just you, kid. He ain’t got a pass… No arguin’. You got three choices. You can stay here and kiss space with the rest of ‘em when their time comes, or you can run back to your clan-group and try an’ talk ‘em into buying out his life-debt.” Not that there was much chance of even a desperate clan-group doing that for a casteless deshnika flesh-peddler. “Or you can try and get past me an’ I’ll paint the deckhead with your brains. Estrev always gets his cut; no exceptions.”

“Listen up, the rest of you clut-grubbers! I speak for the drift-estrev, and the drift-estrev is not happy. You’re breathin’ his air and burnin’ his bunkerage, and what’s he getting back from you? Nothin’ but dioxide, taint, and an infestation of this pink shit.”

The linobir kicked at a squirming tendril of the ubiquitous hab-slime with a mid-limb.

“Now the estrev says you’ve got two cycles to pay off your life-debts and figure out how to make him value your worthless selves, or else I get to take the four pounds of trinol packed into these joints and blow your shit-house sewerslum right off station-end. Tell whoever’s hidin’ back there and breathe deep while y’can.”

“Close it up, boys. Message delivered.”

Trope-a-Day: Institutional Apparel

Institutional Apparel: Averted.  Pre-conviction, while the Empire will confine the accused, they don’t own the accused, who may, after all, be innocent as the day is long.  So they get to keep their own clothing and other perquisites until the trial is done.

(Post-conviction, since the Imperials don’t use prison as a punishment – it being horribly inhumane – the prisoner proceeds quickly enough to the cashier, the memetic reconditioner, the euthanatrist, or the executioner that Institutional Apparel would be unnecessary.)

Multiple Jeopardy

AIÖ (IMPERIAL CORE) — The Watch Constabulary announced today the capture of more instances of Werg yilKorin hinAnkar, estrev and sole member of the Shrouded Suns Selfdom, a criminal syndicate based out of the Sivrin Freeworlds, notorious for their ventures in blacknet operations, infojacking, reputation gaming, identity fraud, loansharking, forknapping, brainspiking, genetheft, semislavery and sophont trafficking.

The three captured instances, Werg.1032, Werg.1033, and Werg.1120 were executed upon verification of identity, under the sentence of death passed against their lineal fork-ancestor, Werg.37, in 4982.  At the present time, the Constabulary estimates that 383 instances of yilKorin remain at large.

Trope-a-Day: Immortal Life is Cheap

Immortal Life Is Cheap: This might be the case in the noetic-backup-having modern world – and to some degree is, when one can send deliberately-disposable temporary forks of yourself in designed-for-the-situation temporary bodies into dangerous situations, and suchlike – but the cultural attitudes were formed back in the day when immortality was still just Type II Undying, and law and custom haven’t been altered.

And in Type II Undying-land, immortal life is very expensive indeed, especially since healing and regeneration weren’t always as effective as they are in the modern era.  It is from this period that eldraeic, and hence Imperial, law got its truly draconian attitudes on the topics of murder (because you’re removing a lot more life from an immortal than you are from an ephemeral, not that the penalty is any different if you happen to kill an ephemeral), battery (again, because your victim has to live with the damage for a damn long time), torture and rape (because your victim has to live with the trauma for a damn long time).

Which, to bring this full circle, probably does mean that Immortal Criminal Life is Cheap, because truly draconian in these cases generally means “being made dead”.

Missing, Presumed Eaten

CATHCHAL (Principalities) – A prominent codramaju businesssoph and head of the Surameru Trading Coalition, Surameru Kenth, was reported killed today at the Starcradle Xenodochium in Cémálles, Cathchal, after falling into a waste-disposal conduit. In an apparent oversight, the safety parameters of the Xenodochium recycling system had not been updated to include the unusual biological characteristics of the codramaju species, relatively infrequent visitors to the Principalities, resulting in its disassembly by the waste-processing nanogoo.

Surameru Kenth died without backup, and is survived by its two contracted-merge-partners, seven dividends, and commensal digisapiences. Condolences may be sent via the codramaju embassy or the local offices of the Trading Coalition.

The Watch Constabulary are treating the death as suspicious.

One Law For All

“Understand this: we have only one crime in the Empire.  That crime is choice-theft.

“Underlying every principle of our law, more fundamental even than the Contract and the Charter, is jírileth – the principle of liberty.  The principle that all sophonts, all with reason and will, should be afforded the greatest possible scope within which to act in accordance with their qalasír, so long as by doing so they do not impair the scope of another so to act.  Thus, the nature of all crime is to deprive one’s fellow soph of some portion of his scope of will.

“Of course, there are eighty enumerated charges defined by the Convention and later law, not simply one charge with myriad variations, but you should understand that these exist merely for administrative convenience.  Examine the five divisions, beginning with the three major:

“To kill, injure, constrain or coerce someone directly is an obvious impairment of their will; these are the crimes against the person, and they are all types of choice-theft.

“To steal, destroy, damage, trespass or meddle is to deprive a person of the full use of their property, and in turn – since all one’s goods, tangible or intangible, agent or chattel, serve as tools by which one may expand the scope of one’s will, and wealth most of all – to deprive them of the full range of choices which they might make, again impairing their will; these are the crimes against property, and they, too, are all types of choice-theft.

“To default, defraud, defame, counterfeit, or deceive is to deprive a person of obligation or truth, those contracts upon which they might rely in choosing their future course, and that knowledge which they need to make valid choices, which again both broaden the scope of the will, which is in turn impaired by breaches and lies; these are the crimes against contract, and they once again are all types of choice-theft.

“And finally, the minor orders, the crimes against the Charter and against order, which concern themselves with violations of the obligations which citizen-shareholders take upon themselves upon signing the Imperial Charter, whether directly, in the former case, or where the Empire’s management of public volumes and utilities is concerned, in the latter.  These are no more than special cases of crimes against property or contract, and so, like those, are all types of choice-theft.

“On this all else is based.  You will study all of the enumerated charges and their combinations and variants in your time here, and you will go on to address many of them in your future careers, but you should never forget this simple truth.  Despite the complexities of one precedent chain or another, of one set of specialized rules attached to a particular implementation of a particular extended charge, or of any particular case, ultimately, the Curia and its courts care about two simple questions:

“Was there an intent to remove someone’s choices?

“Whose choices were removed, and to what extent?

“Address yourself to these two, simple, fundamental questions rather than the technicalities, nail those answers down, and speak them clearly, and you will prosper in the profession.  Thank you.”

– Ephor Valarian Elarios-ith-Elarios. matriculation address at the Bar Iseléne Academy of Principle

Pacta Sunt Servanda

el claith ul covalár an-el feämar duolor rrilmirímúl sá ulessár: (“a contract not possessing the quality of legality does not unmake itself”).  The legal principle that a contract to perform an illegal act is not thereby voided, established in Morat Allatrian-ith-Alclair v. Vinath Sargas-ith-Sarathos, Ethring District Court (13).  The court ruled that the contract was not void on the grounds that the illegality of the act (a murder for hire) to be committed by Citizen Sargas-ith-Sarathos could nevertheless not impair either party’s capacity to contract for its performance, further noting that to treat the contract as void in itself would impair the prosecution of Citizen Allatrian-ith-Alclair for the murder (under the doctrine of el daráv valté eloé cófé-sa mahíré, “a sophont is equivalent to all his associated tools”).  Thus, the court determined, Citizen Allatrian-ith-Alclair could file suit against Citizen Sargas-ith-Sarathos for non-performance of contract, but that in the case of such a contract the remedy of specific performance would not be available, no court having the power to order a criminal act under Imperial law, and that any material remedy awarded would be considered forfeit as inherently the causal proceeds of engagement in crime, likewise.

The decision in Morat Allatrian-ith-Alclair v. Vinath Sargas-ith-Sarathos has had little impact on Imperial domestic law, since the restrictions on remedies possible have provided little incentive for those contracting the performance of crime to file suit for non-performance, especially since to do so in cases where the crime in question has not yet come to the attention of the Ministry of Harmonious Serenity would be to provide them with a prima facie confession.  It has, however, had some impact in cross-jurisdictional cases where the contractee is required to perform an act illegal in their jurisdiction of domicile or citizenship, or the jurisdiction in which the act is to be performed, but where the act in question is legal under Imperial law.

– Salvarin’s Dictionary of Legal Principles