Jump 255 - Multireal Part 41

TeleCo (1).

The Vault (1) Nonvoting members of the Prime Committee include the bailiwicks of: Islanders (2.

members) Data Sea networks (1) Pharisees and other unconnectibles (1) The Prepared (1) TubeCo (l) The number of representatives on the Committee from business interests has always been a concern of libertarians. They charge that no government in the history of humanity has ever been so slanted toward the concerns of its business cla.s.s; governmentalists counter that this slant in fact provides for a great degree of stability in what would otherwise be a very rocky system. In 200, High Executive Par Padron took action on the libertarian complaints by arranging the pa.s.sage of a resolution decreeing that the Congress of L-PRACGs wil always hold a one-member majority on the Prime Committee.

There is a growing movement by the libertarians for a nonvoting representative from the various groups of the diss. Many expect that this wil be pa.s.sed into law within the decade.

THE DEFENSE AND WELLNESS COUNCIL.

The world's largest military and intel igence organization, the Defense and Wel ness Council, was founded in 107 by the newly formed Prime Committee. Technical y it fal s under the jurisdiction and oversight of the Committee. Its single high executive and six lieutenant executives are appointed directly by the Committee.

In practice, however, the Defense and Wel ness Council has been the dominant voice in governmental affairs for many years. Its research budget alone far outstrips that of the entire Prime Committee by many orders of magnitude. Not helping matters is the fact that the Committee has a history of appointing strong-wil ed, independent thinkers to the post of high executive.

The Council's peacekeeping officers have a complicated relationship with the tens of thousands of private L-PRACG security forces throughout human s.p.a.ce. In years past, the Council's ubiquitous troops acted mostly as backup and support for private L-PRACG security; the Council's pledge of neutrality kept its officers distinctly above the fray of inter-L-PRACG conflict. Under Len Borda's tenure, however, the Council has moved away from its supporting role and become a force acting on behalf of the central government itself.

NOTABLE COUNCIL HIGH EXECUTIVES.

Tul Jabbor (served 107-117), a wel -respected military man, was the Prime Committee's first choice for the post of high executive. He served as head of the Council from its founding in 107 until his a.s.sa.s.sination in 117. Since the Committee did a poor job of defining boundaries in the Council's charter, Jabbor's aggressive, crusading style ended up defining the organization more than anything else. Jabbor's major accomplishments include the building of the Tul Jabbor Complex in Melbourne, the organization of the first central government army, the successful breakup of OCHRE's stranglehold on nanotechnology, and the setting up of governmental oversight for Dr. Plugenpatch.

Toradicus (138-147).

continued the expansion of central government power begun under the reign of Tul Jabbor. He was largely responsible for persuading the L-PRACGs to accept Council and Prime Committee oversight. Along with Prengal Surina, he also convinced the L-PRACGs to form an umbrel a organization (the Congress) that could deal with the Prime Committee as an equal. Toradicus's other major accomplishment was the Islander Tolerance Act of 146, which legitimized the Islanders' withdrawal from technological society and established the principle of the Dogmatic Opposition.

Par Padron (153-209) oversaw one of the world's major periods of technological change.

During Padron's term, multi technology made the leap from theory to reality; practical gravity control al owed the colonization of Luna and the building of orbital population centers; and the bio/logics industry scaled to exorbitant new heights. Padron became known as "the people's executive" because of his decisive actions to limit the powers of the business community. The bio/logics industry, seeking to head off prosecution by Padron, formed the Meme Cooperative as a self-policing ent.i.ty. Not satisfied, High Executive Padron cemented legislation decreeing that the Congress of L-PRACGs would henceforth always hold a one-member majority over the industry-appointed representatives of the Prime Committee. Unsurprisingly, Padron's actions led to great civil unrest and one of recent history's most vehement rebel ions.

Zetarysis (229-232) was notable mainly for the excesses of her reign. Appointed by a deeply divided Prime Committee, she spent her three and a half short years in office conducting a pogrom against the diss and intimidating her enemies.

It was not for nothing she was known as "Zetarysis the Mad." Her a.s.sa.s.sination by a member of the diss in 232 ended her tenure.

Len Borda (302-present) brought power back to the high executive's chair after a long series of lackl.u.s.ter officeholders. Given Borda's squabbles with Marcus Surina over teleportation early in his career, many felt that Borda would be a vehement ant.i.technologist. But after Marcus Surina's death and the subsequent Economic Plunge of the 310s, Borda became a champion of the bio/logics industry in general, and the fiefcorps in particular. His ma.s.sive programming subsidies have been credited by many for lifting the world out of the Economic Plunge. Critics point to the stifling of civil liberties and dangerous expansion of the Council's military presence under Borda's rule, as wel as the exponential increase in hostilities with the Islanders and Pharisees.

OUTSIDE THE DOMAIN OF THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT.

A number of political ent.i.ties exist that claim no fealty to the central government and do not fol ow its edicts. Among these are the Luddite government in the Pacific Islands, the numerous tribes and clans in the Pharisee Territories, the uncounted numbers of the diss, and certain orbital colonies and remote outposts beyond the reach of the Council's military forces.

Stil , the Committee and the L-PRACGs do treat with these outside governments fairly regularly (see Dogmatic Oppositions and the Diss L-PRACG movement).

APPENDIX F.

ON THE SIGH.

The Sigh is the col oquial name for a group of autonomous networks devoted to s.e.xual pleasure. Its usage rate among connectible citizens is paral eled only by the multi network.

The impact on society of such a system has been enormous. s.e.xual y transmitted disease has become a thing of the past (though OCHREs and bio/logic programming had largely eliminated those threats anyway). Unplanned pregnancy is almost unheard of, and abortion has become exceedingly rare.

While the channels on the Sigh al rely on a common set of protocols and guidelines to function, each channel is a private and independent ent.i.ty.

Quality and user experience vary widely from channel to channel, and compet.i.tion for innovative features rivals the compet.i.tion among the bio/logic fiefcorps.

MECHANICS OF THE SIGH.

In theory, the Sigh works the same way as the multi network. The user remains in a stationary location while sensations are broadcast directly into the mind via bio/logic neural manipulation.

In practice, however, the two networks work much differently. The Sigh is an entirely virtual environment that does not intersect with "real" s.p.a.ce at al .

Therefore its users are not subject to the strict rules of physics and mechanics that control the multi network. Users can project any type of body on the Sigh they desire, and rules of interaction are as varied as the imaginations (and Vault accounts) of its users.

Because the engineers behind the Sigh compete with one another and are not p.r.o.ne to sharing trade programming secrets, virtual s.e.x is not nearly as "seamless" an experience as projecting onto the multi network. It's a rare channel that can claim complete verisimilitude in the act of s.e.x.

Many, of course, see the separation between the real and virtual experiences to be the Sigh's greatest a.s.set. Bil ions of users are content to trade realism for the benefits that only a virtual environment can provide. The uncomfortable aspects of s.e.xual intercourse can be safely avoided in a world entirely governed by computational rules. The existence of a virtual environment for sensuality has also al owed certain relationships to blossom that might not otherwise have been possible, because of the constraints of nature, distance, or physiology.

So enamored are some of the Sigh's users of their virtual playground that hundreds of mil ions of couples choose to never have physical intercourse in the "real" world at al . Since s.e.x is no longer a prerequisite for procreation, many couples decide to keep their love lives strictly online.

STRETCHING OF BOUNDARIES.

Any environment used by bil ions of customers is bound to produce a wide array of legal, technological, and psychological chal enges to society. The Sigh is no exception. Some examples fol ow.

Law. Long-held definitions of terms such as rape and hara.s.sment have undergone significant revision as a result of the Sigh. Is it possible for rape to occur in a virtual environment where the victim cannot be physical y harmed and can log off the network at any point? Most L-PRACG courts say yes, but some claim no. Neither the Prime Committee nor the Congress of L-PRACGs has pa.s.sed any definitive legislation on the issue.

Companionship. Because of the highly impersonal experience that certain channels on the Sigh provide, some users consider virtual s.e.x to be closer to masturbation than intercourse. As a result, in many modern relationships it is not considered a violation of monogamy vows to have virtual s.e.x.

Gender roles. The Sigh has brought the concept of alternative s.e.xuality to new levels. In a world bounded only by the imagination, some choose to be neither male nor female, but some mixture or blend between the two. The artist Pul ix Homer recently caused a stir by creating new and fanciful Sigh genders that interact in strange and sometimes startling ways.

Pleasure. Some scholars have decided that human s.e.xuality is an unneeded intermediary step in the goal of achieving pleasure and have abandoned physical interaction altogether. Instead they have founded a new wave of bodiless "endorphin blast" channels, which many see as a future battleground between governmentalists and libertarians.

SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS.

When the Sigh first moved from the laboratory into wide public usage (around the 280s YOR), many pundits predicted that virtual s.e.x would be devastating to society. They imagined a world of users constantly plugging in to the network for a sensual fix, to the detriment of work, law, and creed.

Although the Sigh has created its share of addicts, it is apparent that the fears of the doomsayers never materialized. The economics of the Sigh prohibit users from spending too much time logged in; those for whom economics is not an issue often find moderation through strict creed and LPRACG rules that strongly penalize addiction.

However, on the other end of the spectrum were those who declared the Sigh would bring about an end to social il s such as prost.i.tution, s.e.xual slavery, and rape. Unfortunately, these utopian predictions have not proven accurate either. While the Sigh might provide some would-be s.e.xual predators with a place to vent their behaviors, it has undoubtedly inspired others in the real world to new heights of deviancy.

APPENDIX G.

ON THE.

TRANSPORTATION.

SYSTEM.

In the waning days of Earth's fossil fuels, many predicted that the lack of combustible fuel would cripple the world's transportation systems and bankrupt the world's economies. The truth of that prediction would never be tested, however, as the Autonomous Revolt occurred at roughly the same time as the last of the big oil wel s ran dry.

Human transportation was not nearly as much of a chal enge after the Revolt as the transportation of cargo. The civilizations of antiquity relied on intricate shipping, trucking, and airborne networks to keep goods and services moving.

Without fossil fuels, these networks proved impossible to reconstruct.

The Reawakening (and Prengal Surina's universal law of physics) brought with it nearly inexhaustible sources of clean, renewable energy. This in turn gave rise to a number of transportation systems that greatly expanded humanity's options of getting from place to place.

THE TUBE.

For the greater part of the Reawakening, the tube has been the dominant form of Terran transportation. Its tracks are ubiquitous throughout the civilized world, al owing travel to almost any spot on Earth at a fair price. In many cities, local tube trains cover almost as much ground as the ancient asphalt roads once did. Longer express routes run underground in dedicated tunnels that al ow for faster speeds.

The tube's success is mostly the product of two technological advances: the development of so-cal ed unbreakable steel, which al ows for un.o.btrusive tracks that are extremely cheap to instal and maintain; and the ability to control inertia, thereby enabling rapid starts and stops.

For many years, TubeCo was the darling of the financial world. Its influence was so pervasive in government that the company was given a seat on the Prime Committee itself.

Since the advent of affordable multi technology, however, TubeCo's fortunes have been on the wane. Local tube routes stil have heavy ridership, but most fail to see the necessity of traveling long distances when they can multi instead.

Expansion to Luna and Mars has not lifted the company's fortunes either, due to poor offworld planning and the exorbitant cost of shipping. (The inept.i.tude of the Martian tube system has even given rise to the popular phrase "as slow as a Martian train.") The recent stripping of TubeCo's seat on the Prime Committee has lessened the company's prospects even further and led to chronic labor disputes.

Many predict an imminent col apse.

HOVERBIRDS.

Air travel has long been a staple of modern society, and the cla.s.s of vehicles known as hoverbirds provides this service. Private hoverbird fleets run through and between al the major cities on Earth, Luna, and Mars. Special y outfitted vehicles make runs up to the orbital colonies as wel .

Personal air travel has never real y caught on among the ma.s.ses. Given the fact that the tube is cheaper, safer, and almost as quick, hoverbirds have long had a reputation as a vehicle for the business cla.s.s. Private ownership of hoverbirds is considered an extravagance that few but the wealthy would need or afford.

Hoverbirds do have an important advantage over the tube, however, in that they're not constrained to traveling where the tracks are. The typical hoverbird both takes off and lands vertical y, al owing direct transport to al but the most crowded and confined locations. So businesses have relegated many of their shipping and transport needs to the hoverbird sector.

The Defense and Wel ness Council has also made a heavy investment in hoverbirds, for obvious reasons.

UNDERGROUND TRANSFER SYSTEM.

Faced with limited resources, the civil planners in the early years of the Reawakening struck on a pragmatic solution to their transportation issues.

They would use the ancient sewers and data cable pipes to move cargo from place to place. Early underground transfer systems were rudimentary, often dependent on wind power, water power, and even manual labor.

But as technology progressed, so did the global underground transfer system. Heavy infrastructure investments during the time of Par Padron (late 100s YOR) brought the underground transfer system to the entire globe, where it has become one of the central government's strongest success stories.

In modern times, underground transfer has become a nearly seamless method of shuttling goods from place to place. The system is general y only used for local cargo traffic, given that there are much faster methods for transporting goods over large distances.

ORBICO.

Interplanetary shipping has proven consistently resistant to economization, despite the best efforts of generations of entrepreneurs. As a result, the quasi-governmental agency OrbiCo has been given a virtual monopoly on transporting goods through s.p.a.ce. (Transport of personnel remains a viablethough not wildly profitable-business, and OrbiCo competes against a number of smal er rivals in that market.) The agency is heavily subsidized by the Prime Committee and has never come close to turning a profit since its inception in 315.

Given the importance of interplanetary shipping to the offworlders in Luna, Mars, and the orbital colonies, OrbiCo has often been accused of taking bribes-or at the very least, of being very dependent on the whims of its political sponsors.

OrbiCo freight ships tend to be very utilitarian in nature. Bandwidth restrictions on interplanetary flights are such that networks like multi, the Jamm, and the Sigh are not accessible on OrbiCo ships (except when in port).

THE FUTURE OF TRANSPORTATION.

Marcus Surina famously declared that teleportation would provide an end to the "tyranny of distance." Various multi network engineers have made similar declarations. And yet, three and a half centuries into the Reawakening, people stil physical y travel from place to place in large numbers.

Current trends indicate that Surina's words may indeed prove to be prescient, however.

Declining ridership on the tube and the hoverbirds (and the stil -dismal adoption rate of teleportation) point to a society that may one day live out its entire existence in virtual settings.

Conservation advocates such as those in Creed Conscientious warn that such an att.i.tude can only lead to an eventual bandwidth crisis and universal disaster.

APPENDIX H.

ON DARTG U N S.

AND DISRUPTORS.

MODERN WARFARE.

The nature of warfare underwent a dramatic shift in the early years of the Reawakening.

Improvements in OCHRE technology and bio/logic programming made it abundantly clear to battle tacticians that oldfashioned weapons were simply not up to the chal enge of modern combat.

The new medical knowledge and the rapid-healing capabilities of OCHREs (not to mention advances in body armor) made constructing a lethal projectile weapon a much more difficult task. In such a world, even advanced biological and chemical weaponry quickly became outmoded.

Nuclear weapons programs were never restarted after the tumult and chaos of the Autonomous Revolt, in which several smal er nuclear strikes were executed. The death of the nation-state ensured that there were no large, wel -funded organizations with the wherewithal and desire to construct atomic weapons. The advent of multi and the Data Sea made bombs increasingly irrelevant when enemies were scattered around the globe and rarely present in large numbers.

So combat tacticians of the Reawakening developed the dartgun.

DARTGUNS.

The standard weapon of modern times is the dartgun. Much like their ancestors from antiquity, dartguns shoot thin, needlelike projectiles at great distances. But whereas ancient darts were often tipped with poisons and neurotoxins, modern darts are loaded with microscopic OCHREs containing self-executing black code programs.

Weapons programmers have grown remarkably proficient at creating OCHREs that can spread through the body and immobilize or kil an adversary within fractions of a second. Much of this is accomplished with control ed radio and subaether transmissions from the infecting OCHREs that interact with other machines implanted in the body. The complexity of the OCHRE system ensures there wil always be loopholes for black code writers to exploit.

While it might seem like body armor could easily neutralize the threat of OCHRE-tipped darts, weapons engineers have become so proficient at creating armor-piercing darts as to render this strategy useless. Modern tacticians tend to focus on bio/logic defenses against invading code instead.

MULTI DISRUPTORS.

Multi disruptors (often simply cal ed "disruptors") were original y designed with one purpose in mind: to forceful y cut someone's multi connection.

Before such weapons came into existence, there was nothing stopping an army from sending a multied intel igence agent into the midst of an enemy force. Such fears were also drastical y slowing public adoption of the technology.

Common belief states that the Defense and Wel ness Council initiated disruptor research as a way to safeguard the multi system. Having such weapons available, so the reasoning went, made seditious elements less likely to attack the multi system itself.

It has become public knowledge, however, that the Council has transformed the multi disruptor from a purely defensive weapon into an offensive one.

Various drudge reports claim these advanced disruptors can actual y inject programming code into an enemy's bio/logic systems, in the same fashion as an OCHRE-tipped dart. The Council has been loath to publicize or even admit the existence of these weapons, however, fearing that such actions might lead to widespread panic and abandonment of the multi system.

THE NEW WARFARE ACT OF 221.

Probably the most significant piece of legislation to make its way through the government in the early 200s was the New Warfare Act of 221. This bil legalized nonlethal warfare and set the ground rules for nearly al conflicts that have fol owed since.

The bil essential y al ows citizens to deploy nonlethal force in a wide variety of circ.u.mstances. As a consequence, private security has become a huge business, with every organization from creeds to bureaucrats to L-PRACGs hiring its own private force.

Proponents of the New Warfare Act say this legislation has drastical y reduced the casualties of conflict and pushed opposing parties to discuss their grievances in a more civilized fashion. But detractors point to the thousands of private security forces with conflicting agendas who feel no compunction about shooting first and asking questions later.