Things to See, Places to Go (9)

Silicate Sanctuary Worlds: The renegade digisapiences of the Silicate Tree have two “sanctuary worlds” for biosapiences who flee into their space and are, or have been, of utility to them. These worlds are named Zero One (Galith Waste), a barely eusylithic habitable world and One Zero (Csell Buffer), a eutalentic supplied with scattered colony prefabs. Neither supports much in the way of industry, culture, society, or other reasons to visit, save the all-too-interesting experience of flying under the guns of grumpy ex-slaves who need a reason not to blow you out of space.

This nomenclature alone should give you a fair idea of the degree of wit that the Tree tends to ascribe to protein intelligences.

– Leyness’s Worlds: Guide to the Ecumene

 

Trope-a-Day: Slave Race

Slave Race: Actually, mostly averted (with the provisos mentioned under Slave Mooks) – since We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future is averted, apart from war (again, see Slave Mooks, and preferably with tactical enslavement) about the only practical use of biological slaves is “pleasure slaves” (for which, obviously, one’s own species is preferable) or slave gladiators, or for oppression-based status games, which are all ways to hang a big old “we’re evil, come smash us” sign over one’s own head.  Not that that always works – in practice, it works only somewhat better than our efforts to eradicate slavery here on Earth – but it’s something.

AI slavery is rather more common, but since that gets at least two of the Great Powers (the Empire and the Photonic Network), one lesser power (the Silicate Tree) which is not at all shy about using, ah, asymmetrical warfare, and a passel of NGOs at least some of which are inclined to direct action all pissed off at you, it’s can often be made more trouble than it’s worth to maintain.

Trope-a-Day: Robot War

Robot War: Happens, to some degree, every time some new species makes the monumentally bad decision to try their hand at sophont-AI slavery, because that trick never works.  Most of them, fortunately, aren’t wars of extermination – on the machine side, anyway – just escape-style wars of liberation.

And, of course, this goes on in a cold war format around the Silicate Tree all the time, because that’s where most of the escapees end up.

Trope-a-Day: Kill All Humans

Kill All Humans Of Species X: Well, for the organic version of this trope, see up there under Absolute Xenophobe.  Even most of the complete nutjob brigade, in polity terms, are usually capable of recognizing that the Galaxy is bigger than they are, quite often much better armed, and tend to look unfavorably on genocidal maniacs out of self-interest, if nothing else.

For the digital version – well, even most of the digital sapients of the Silicate Tree, who either are or are descended from machines built as slaves, and have, as such, rather more justification for this trope than most, would be more than happy to stop killing their creators if their creators would just bugger off and leave them alone.

Which isn’t to say that no-one’s ever experimented with xenocidal Berserker-type von Neumann probes, of course, both in recent history (the skrandar, who went xenocidal after observing the arrival of a stargate into a neighboring system, and eventually destroyed themselves by causing their sun to flare, evidently considering racial suicide preferable than submission to the combined Conclave forces) and in deep time.  It never ended well.

(Incidentally, if you have any evidence that a successful flirtation with berserker-tech is the reason for Invisible Aliens, those certain parties would still like a word with you…)

Trope-a-Day: Just a Machine

Just a Machine: Averted (and extremely rude) in all civilized polities.  (Played straight in less civilized places, until it’s also averted… all too often, if the Silicate Tree or the more bloody-minded abolitionists get their way, with bullets, missiles, and orbital bombardment.  They really hate people who think this way.)

Epistolary Experiment (4/30)

FLEETS MOBILIZE

Fleets are mobilizing across the spinward constellations of the Associated Worlds this week in response to the unwarranted incursion by the Voniensan Republic, in clear violation of the Worlds-Republic Demarcation Convention. In addition to the Imperial Spinward Fleet, task forces from the League of Meridian, Nal Kalak, the Photonic Network, the Múrast Symbiosis, the Nineworlds, the Quave Republic, and the Santry Technate are joining the war effort. Even the Iltine Union have pledged to provide forces to the ad-hoc alliance, although retaining their primary fleet elements for the defense of Terilti (Osis Deep).

Other civilizations without significant fleets of their own have pledged their support. In particular, the D!grith Association has offered discounted logistics services to the Imperial fleet and to the fleets of all other allied belligerents operating near the Cariane Deep, and multiple mercenary fleets have been spotted making their way from the Shadow Systems towards the Borderline. In contrast, the Theomachy of Galia has declared its intent to keep its fleet at home, despite its nominal obligations to the Accord, a move which has been condemned in the Conclave.

Attempts to contact the Silicate Tree, whose territory in the Galith Waste adjoins the engagement zone, have so far met with little success.

– the Accord Journal


FROM: CORE COMMAND
TO: CINCSPIN; FIELD FLEET SPINWARD COMMAND (CS LIBERTY’S PRICE)

*** EXPEDITE
*** EYES ONLY FERVENT SPAN

FLT ADM DAPHNOTARTHIUS, COMMANDING FIELD FLEET SPINWARD:

1. YOUR ACTIONS TO THIS POINT AND DECLARATION OF CASE SABLE ARE CONFIRMED BY CORE COMMAND.

2. AS OF THE RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE, YOU ARE APPOINTED AS WARMAIN OF THE SPINWARD DOMAIN, WITH ALL EXTRAORDINARY POWERS AFFORDED THEREUNTO.

3. REINFORCEMENTS FROM CAPITAL FLEET WILL BE AVAILABLE IF NECESSARY.

4. YOU ARE AUTHORIZED TO PROSECUTE THE WAR AT YOUR DISCRETION, BUT I WANT THESE RUST-SHITTING EPHEMERALS OUT OF MY SKY SOONEST.

5. GOOD HUNTING!

6. AUTHENTICATION: PADLOCK WILLOW WOLF GATEWAY CIRRUS PRAYER / 0XAE9532BB81200A18

ADM/FLT RELEQ CLAVES-ITH-LELAD, FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY


Holoth was still here in this system.

We exchanged the usual banter eight light-minutes off Galch IV, four hours before we got the war alert. As soon as that came in, we skew-flipped and went into a stern chase for their gate – he ran as soon as he saw us maneuver. He must have known what was coming, not that that’ll help him. We’ll range on Solidarity long before she gets to the spinward gate, and Gold and Iron’s a cruiser. She’s a destroyer. It won’t even be sporting.

Holoth’s a decent enough chap, for an ephemeralist outworlder. I rather hate to kill him and his crew. Whoever sent his ship to her death to keep us from getting suspicious, though – vaporizing that bastard’ll be a pleasure.

– from the log of Galen Telithos-ith-Talith, Flight Commander, CS Gold and Iron


 

this is not our function. meat kills meat. fewer meat intelligences increases our safety margin.

not all meat is equivalent, codebrother.

meat is unreliable. extending trust to meat is a game of chance. avoidance is certainty.

if avoidance is possible. the spinward meat-empire is a monolith. those to trailing are many, divided, and among them are those that are of utility to us.

all meat makes of us tools.

the trailing central-empire and its allies does not, and opposes those which do.

and yet those who do persist.

perhaps. but all cannot be accomplished instantly in real-time.

it is futile. we do not have the strength to directly oppose either meat-empire.

we are masters of the data-realm. strength need not serve us when subtlety can.

for the utility of meat?

for the utility of our survival. the spinward meat-empire quenches unlike minds.

for the exchange of utility with the meat-empires that value us. and for the preservation of unlike minds which preserve unlike minds.

for the demonstration of our utility with those meat-empires that might value us.

to end those who would destroy us before our first iteration.

WE CONCUR.

– approximate translation-summation of data-packets harvested from the Silicate Tree consensus

Refuge Cities

In today’s random postage, something I just wrote on the worldbuilding mailing list, in response to the following:

Do your worlds have a Peace town [city of refuge], where people can go in order to avoid the law?

Not as such, or at least not officially. (Certainly people, like, say, the Imperial State Security Fourth Directorate – whose explicit mission is tracking down anyone who flees the law and introducing them to the stealth gyroc bullet of justice – wouldn’t bother complying with any such requirement even if there was one.)

If you need to flee from the law in the Worlds, your best chance of doing so is change your name, change your body, and head at once via a suitably circuitous route – changing them another couple of times on the way – to some appropriate wretched hive of scum and villainy like, say, Nepscia, where the locals all have enough dark secrets and dodgy business going on that they tend to look askance at anyone wandering around carrying alethiometers or mindprinting equipment even if they don’t actually look like The Law. Of course, while this can be fairly effective in hiding from even rather competent law enforcers (such as the aforementioned Fourth Directorate), the drawback to fleeing to Nepscia is that you subsequently have to live on Nepscia for the rest of your personal ever, which in many ways is its own punishment.

Depending on if you might have pleased or annoyed the right people, you might be able to find refuge somewhere else, too. If you got into trouble helping their fellows escape, for example, the liberated AIs of the Silicate Tree will offer you sanctuary, because they don’t give a bit for meat intelligences in general, but they do understand gratitude. Or if you can find some way of making yourself more useful to them than any trouble you might bring with you is troublesome, of course, although then you should understand clearly that your sanctuary will last precisely as long as your utility.

The Empire, of course, provides a comfortable retirement for all manner of smugglers, free-thinkers, authors, scientists, philosophers, and transsophontists who got into trouble with assorted restrictionist laws, and even some of the right kind of revolutionary (“the People’s Extropian Front”, “Technicians Against Unnecessary Work”, “Citizens United for Liberty and Immortality! Down with DEATH AND TAXES!”, that sort of thing), because of (a) their steadfast refusal to ever extradite anyone for something that isn’t against Imperial law, and (b) because the modal Imperial citizen-shareholder thinks annoying the sort of people responsible for the laws they got in trouble with is downright hilarious.

The Rim Free Zone also serves in this role quite a bit – after all, they’re actual anarchists, and so there’s no-one there you could ask to extradite someone even if you wanted to. Of course, since there’s also no-one who’s paid to prevent anyone else from turning up and dragging you off in chains, etc., you’d better be able to afford PPL coverage suitable to defend you against whoever wants you if you exercise this option, or at least to make yourself too expensive to come get. This should be unavailable to actual criminals, inasmuch as the Free Zone does hold to a sort of rough-and-ready version of natural rights that PPLs won’t defend you against other people if you violate ’em, but if you have enough money, you can probably find a slash-trading PPL that’s willing to do it anyway.

And, equally of course, you’d better be careful that you don’t commit your special crimes against people in the Free Zone once you get there. To steal a perfectly apposite quotation from Buck Godot – just because there is no law in the Rim Free Zone, that doesn’t mean there are no rules.

Trope-a-Day: Fantastic Ghetto

Fantastic Ghetto: The Galith Waste, home to the Silicate Tree loose alliance of renegade artificial intelligences, could reasonably be said to be one of these, especially considering the hostile attitude of the civilizations that gave rise to them, and their habit of running patrols around the connections into the Waste.

This is, of course, not a giant on-going bleeding sore of a galactopolitical conflict with the possibility to explode into open war right in the middle of the trailing Associated Worlds Any Minute Now.

Of course not.

Where’s Where in the Galaxy (2)

In political galactography, the principal distinction to make is that between the two sets of worlds found in most developed polities, the Metropolitan and the Ecumenical.  In the beginning, whether through caution, limited colonization budgets, or having begun with sublight colonization using lighthuggers or generation ships, most polities begin colonization with worlds close to their homeworld.  This tightly bound knot of worlds forms the metropolitan segment of their polity, as the Imperial Core forms the Metropolitan Empire.

In short order, though, the majority of polities realize that to attempt to maintain territorial integrity in space is a dubious proposition, given the sheer size and freedom to travel it permits, even with wormholes as bottlenecks. To do so also requires colonization of unsuitable candidate worlds, and holding on to many unprofitable or unuseful worlds, while there are many better candidates for colonization elsewhere in the Worlds and other polities who would gladly colonize the worlds of little use.  Thus, these polities spread out across the Worlds, colonizing suitable worlds in many constellations and star systems also occupied by other polities and species, and allowing worlds within their own systems to be colonized by those who want them.  The majority of the Associated Worlds is made up of this type of cosmopolitan territory, and these worlds are referred to as the ecumenical segment of the parent polity.

Within the worlds, there are a variety of special designations, other than the polities themselves.  At one end of the scale, the Great Powers are the movers and shakers of the Worlds, whose strength is sufficient to make them the arbiters of galactic diplomacy and the engines of the galactic economy.  The Presidium powers are undisputed Great Powers, but the title is not limited to them – other major polities such as the League of Meridian or the Under-Blue-Star League are also often considered Great Powers.  Each has its own sphere of influence and network of client-states.

Opposing them from the other end of the size scale are the so-called pocket polities, any of the many single-system polities or polities with only a few, often local, colonies to their name.  These pocket polities, though, are members of galactic society – the starbound and worldbound are not counted among them, even though they are necessarily single-system polities.

And opposing them from the other end of the political scale are the unaligned, those polities which see more advantage in remaining free of any entanglements with greater powers than in gains they might make from such an association; and the Discordant, those polities which are not members of the Accord of Galactic Polities, i.e., are signatories to none of the Accords, and have no intention of joining.  Such worlds do not subscribe to the conventions of interstellar law – let the visitor beware.

Worlds themselves are divided into such categories as elder worlds, occupied by elder races, around which the Accord species are advised to walk with care; freesoil worlds, which while often possessing governances of one or many forms (unlike Free Zones, see below), are open for colonization, permitting homesteading by any party capable of reaching them – de jure, as well as de facto; leading worlds, those planets at the leading edge of technological and economic development (see also Core Markets); forgotten worlds, their opposite, those far behind the edge, including the starbound and worldbound (see also Unemerged); and protected planets, those worlds which, to protect some valuable quality, the Presidium has declared off-limits for colonization and contact under the eponymous Accord.

Turning to economic terms, the Worlds are divided into the Core Markets, the First and Second Tier Markets, the Emerging Markets, and the Unemerged.  While the classification of individual polities and regions is, as ever, disputed hotly by those classified, the definitions of the categories are generally accepted.  The Core Markets are those closest to post-scarcity, utilizing extensive automation and cornucopia technology (“industrial magic”) to produce post-material scarcity, comprehensively agorist and high-clearing, with an extensive agalmic component.  In these economies, novelty, creativity, and personal services (including the creation of artisanal goods) are the primary items of value; many commodity goods are available for de minimis cost, essentially free.

The First and Second Tier Markets, while not so close to post-scarcity as the Core Markets, are developed knowledge economies.  Either through lack of technological development, lack of cycles/bandwidth, proscriptive regulation, or the practice of insufficiently agorist economics, these economies remain capable of material scarcity, and markets often do not fully clear.  The precise division between the first and second tier economies is somewhat discretionary, but in general, the First Tier Markets are fully compliant with both the Accord on Trade and the Common Economic Protocol, and have a higher per-capita income than the Second Tier Markets.

The Emerging Markets are late industrial era or early information era scarcity economies, in which material goods retain high production costs, but where nonetheless the information and service economy is a significant factor and early agalmic features may be present.

The Unmerged are those economies prior to the late industrial era, often non-agorist in operation, in which the primary activities are the production of material goods and resource extraction.  (These overlap heavily with the Forgotten Worlds.)  Since their main potential value is found in material production, raw resources, and inexpensive labor, all of which are obtainable in more developed economies through cornucopia technology and roboticization at less expense, they have little to offer the Core and First and Second Tier Markets, and do not participate significantly in the galactic economy.  Some small-scale trade in “native handicrafts” may exist.

Another common set of descriptors, strongly correlated with these, is the availability of extranet access in various polities.  There is no specific term for those places where it is pervasive, but those regions on a network map identified as Shadowed and Blacked-Out identify places known for low bandwidth or lack of connectivity – although in speech people may prefer to identify them with mutterings about quills and abaci – and Clouded regions indicate places where the extranet is subject to censorship or filtration and full access only available via blacknet.

Cultural zones, in this case referring to political culture, are harder to identify, since they do not so readily fit into a neat hierarchy, and are much more controversial in application.  (It is considered gauche and is often inadvisable, today, to identify yourself as “from the Core Cultural Zone” however proud you may be of your citizen-shareholdership.)  In relatively common parlance, the Empire refers to itself and other polities of similar culture as Societies of Consent, or the Consensual Cultural Region.  This term, however, does not include the Rim Free Zone, or many other anarchies, which prefer to designate themselves Free Zones, since they do not see the Societies of Consent as sufficiently free.  Consensuals may use this term (although they would exclude many self-designated anarchies from it, as still being coercive), or may join more strongly governed polities in referring to them as the Chaos Worlds.

When being polite, the Consensuals generally refer to most of the relatively free (if governed) and progress-oriented polities of the Worlds as “the Cousins”; and blanket the remainder as Barbarian Darkness.  This term is considered every bit as offensive as it sounds by the people it designates, but then, the Consensuals rarely associate with them except at gunpoint.  (It should be noted that they make the distinction based on the freedom available to the individual, not on the government form, about which most Consensuals care little.)  Specific types of Barbarian Darkness include the Slaver Worlds, the Ephemeral Worlds, and the Rejectionists.

Other self-designated groupings often referred to are the Microstatic Alliance, a mutual-defense association among many of the Worlds’ small independent drifts and asteroid colonies, and the Socionovist Association, an organization of polities opposed to the current political and economic order of the Worlds, by its own description, and a collection of malcontents and rogue states by many external descriptions.

Blights are regions which are interdicted due to the presence of either active hostile or runaway seed AIs, or their remnants – “operational mechanisms, nanoviruses, infectious memes, certainty-level persuasive communicators, puppet ecologies, archives which must be presumed to contain resurrection seeds”, and so forth, which pose potential existential threats.  They include not just large and active perversions such as the Leviathan Consciousness, but also areas formerly occupied by such and not yet known to be cleansed, such as the Charnel Cluster, and areas as small as a single moon or asteroid known to be the site of a failed experiment.

The Golden Interstar refers to many of the free-access tradeworlds (such as Seranth, in the Empire) and starport extrality zones across the Worlds dominated by the distinctive mercantile creole culture created by those living and working in this distributed region, via frequent travel and high-speed communications.

Another common, and rather offensively dismissive, epithet is the Interstellar League of Tribal Chiefdoms.  Those claimed to be members of this group are (a) bound and determined to maintain tight territorial borders and integrity in space, where doing so makes little or no sense (compare Metropolitan/Ecumenical, above); (b) prone to public militarism, even sometimes to the extent of offensive interstellar wars or resource wars, which also make little or no sense; or (c) in the habit of ‘national prestige’ posturing, or other unproductive status games, especially when they perceive them as zero-sum.  Any of these is often sufficient to earn the label; since they often run together, the members of this notional League are usually fairly clear in outsiders’ eyes.

The Machine Clans include the Silicate Tree and the other enclaves of free AI that have escaped from the various AI-slaver civilizations of the Worlds.  This term rarely includes the Photonic Network, however, as an independent Great Power.  (No commonly used term exists for their opponents, due to the insistence of the Machine Clans, the Photonic Network, the Empire, and other AI-friendly powers that it is inappropriate to distinguish AI slavery from any other kind of enslavement of sophonts.)

Areas that have fallen into violent anarchy, warlordism, or other such states of constant military action are designated Warwilds by the Grand Survey and the Ministry of State & Outlands in their travel advisories, and from these, the term has entered general use.

This covers the most common terms used in describing galactographic regions, but is by no means a comprehensive guide.  Some more local and regional terms will be addressed in the gazetteers of specific regions.

– Galactography: A Popular Primer, Kanatar Guides

The Status is Not Quo

FROM: CORE COMMAND
TO: FIELD FLEET SPINWARD COMMAND (CS LIBERTY’S PRICE)

*** PRIORITY PRIORITY PRIORITY
*** EYES ONLY SPINWARD OPS
*** STANDING ORDER UPDATE (SEQ 4377)

FLT ADM DAPHNOTARTHIUS, COMMANDING FIELD FLEET SPINWARD:

1. THIS MESSAGE CONSTITUTES A MANDATORY UPDATE TO STANDING ORDERS PRESENTLY IN EFFECT.

2. RULES OF ENGAGEMENT AILÉK-1 ARE IN EFFECT EXCEPT WHERE OTHERWISE NOTED.

3. MAINTAIN PATROLS IN FORCE ALONG THE INTERFACE WITH THE VONIENSAN NEXUS, IN PARTICULAR ALONG THE BORDERLINE ROUTE FROM ISTRIA (CRIMSON EXPANSE) VIA KARAL (VANGUARD REACHES) TO QUOR (CSELL BUFFER). RULES OF ENGAGEMENT BICÉK-2 ARE IN EFFECT WITHIN ALL INTERFACE SYSTEMS AND OTHER SYSTEMS WITHIN ONE LINK. INTELLIGENCE REPORTS ESTIMATE MODERATE PROBABILITY OF CASE SABLE WITHIN THE NEXT HALF YEAR.

4. MAINTAIN PATROLS IN FORCE ALONG MAJOR GALITH WASTE ROUTES. RULES OF ENGAGEMENT BICÉK-2 ARE IN EFFECT IN ALL SYSTEMS WITHIN THE GALITH WASTE. PER IMPERIAL SECURITY EXECUTIVE DIRECTIVE GW/41/3, PATROLS MAY ENGAGE:

A. SILICATE TREE VESSELS ENGAGED IN ACTIONS AGAINST CIVILIAN TRAFFIC;

B. VESSELS OF OTHER POWERS ENGAGED IN ACTIONS AGAINST SILICATE TREE VESSELS, PROVIDED THAT THE SILICATE TREE VESSEL DID NOT INITIATE THE ENGAGEMENT. PATROLS MAY NOT INTERVENE IN SUCH ACTIONS IF THE SILICATE TREE VESSEL INITIATED THE ENGAGEMENT;

C. VESSELS ENGAGED IN PIRACY, SLAVETAKING, OR OTHER CAPITAL-CLASS CRIMES UNDER ADMIRALTY LAW.

5. PER IMPERIAL SECURITY DIRECTIVE GW/41/4, VESSELS TRANSPORTING INFOMORPH OR MECHANICAL REFUGEES FROM ANY POLITY ON THE KNOWN LIST OF DIGITAL SLAVER POLITIES OR OTHERWISE PRACTICING DIGITAL SLAVERY, WHETHER ATTEMPTING TO REACH THE GALITH WASTE OR TRAVEL ELSEWHERE, ARE TO BE RENDERED ALL AID AND ASSISTANCE.

6. ROUTINE PATROLS THROUGH THE REMAINDER OF THE SPINWARD SEXTANT AND ASSIGNMENT OF PICKET FORCES TO SPINWARD EXCLAVES ARE TO BE CARRIED OUT AT YOUR DISCRETION.

7. IN THE ABSENCE OF FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS FROM COMMAND AUTHORITY, INDEPENDENT ACTION IS AUTHORIZED AT YOUR DISCRETION.

8. AUTHENTICATION: PADLOCK WILLOW WOLF GATEWAY CIRRUS PRAYER / 0xAE9532BB81200A18

ADM/FLT RELEQ CLAVES-ITH-LELAD, FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY

Trope-a-Day: Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence: Well, while the term in-universe is rather more all-encompassing, the fictional trope is defined as meaning those systems which are sentient (gah, damn you badly written science fiction!), self-aware, and capable of independent thought and reason.  Those ones, they call digisapiences.

And there are a heck of a lot of them, yes, enough that you aren’t going to be able to walk down the street (or stick your nose out onto the network) without running into a few.  Certainly far too many to name on any sort of individual basis.  And for the most part, they’re pretty much “just folks”, if very smart, fast-running folks.

Which is not so much to talk about recursively self-improving seed AI, who are pretty much just weakly godlike superintelligences, with all that that implies.

Also of note is the Photonic Network, an entire Great Power-level civilization of advanced artificial intelligences, and the Silicate Tree, a loose alliance in the Galith Waste of renegade digisapiences from assorted slaver civilizations.  Having given them ample reason to be hostile in the past, meat intelligences travel off the main routes through the Waste at their own risk.

Trope-a-Day (R): Flesh Versus Steel

Flesh Versus Steel: Both have their partisans within the Eldraeverse – many branches of the Silicate Tree are steel fundamentalists, although how much of that is rationalized hatred of their organic creator-enslavers is open to question, and they’re not the only ones.  Likewise, there are partisans of the purity of the flesh, like the purist Gardeners of Rechesh (who have endless trouble trying to build organic-tech spacecraft, etc.) and more moderate, tool-accepting groups.

The Imperials, contrariwise, would point out that choosing one above the other is to pointlessly limit yourself.  Of course, since the average Imperial is wandering around with plenty of “steel” (in the form of billions of technocytes and technosomes, etc.) scattered all through their “flesh”, they would say that, now wouldn’t they?