Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Invictus »

I think I did portray the captive Isopterids as too passive, yes. Active resistance and agitation for rights would have happened before and after the reconciliation, along the whole spectrum of how radical it was. You could have the Isopterids agreeing to help clamp down on their own Guyver-terrorists, as well as intellectual movements from the human side arguing that purging the Isopterids outright would make the Cascadians no better than the colonials, especially as the war wore on. It could even be sold to the moderate majority that the Isopterids were "earning" their rights with their terraforming work!

The Freeworlds' quandary would also include the fact that *need* to build more efficient infrastructure pronto as resources from the rebelling Laurentian colonies dry up, so buddying up to the potential enemies within instead of the declared enemies way over there would defuse a potential war on two fronts. There's certainly pragmatism in that the Freeworlds didn't want to handle an expeditionary war and a full-fledged insurgency at the same time.

By the way, you description of Isopterid COMMUNES makes it sound like they actually built slums and settlements in places on the Cascadian worlds where the environment literally too bad for humans to live in. Hell, it could be those original underground alien ruins, now made even worse with acid falls and sewage runoffs and stuff.

--

A related question is how involved were the various politically autonomous proto-Freeworlds in the grand colonization endeavor and as a result were dragged into the ensuring boondoggle. Would we have Cascadian polities who are only nominally aligned with the Freeworlds (and they definitely aren't the Terranates), contributed and benefited minimally from Laurentian colonization, and are certainly minimally involved in the ongoing war and are basically sort of quaint and irrelevant today, having caught on late to the cosmopolitanization train?

One purpose that the colonial corporations served was to distribute out the economics of the colonization effort, letting smaller pre-Freeworlds who didn't have the ability to launch expeditions of their own bear part of the costs and reap some of the rewards. Ironically, it could have been the more stable polities during the pre-colonial age that were like "eh, let's invest prudently" and ended up missing out on the economic boom. The boom of the colonial age could have engendered the inter-Freeworlds trade to encourage some degree of unity.

But ultimately, what makes the Freeworlds today be describable as "fighting a war" instead of the situation being "a bunch of Freeworlds each fighting their own wars, and some which aren't"? Can a Freeworld choose not to fight? Or was there some degree of "we form a united front against the uppity colonies, or else" behind-the-scenes legbreaking going on as the war progressed?
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Steve »

Hrm. It sounds like you've got fertile ground for ongoing political tension. The Freeworlds could be in a situation where there's a low-level, simmering political feud between, oh, Centralists and Federalists, the former favoring required united action, the latter believing each world should decide for itself whether to help against the Laurentians and other issues.

And since I know how much Shroom loves Western SF tropes repeating American political and military history... I'm actually drawing this from my knowledge of 19th Century Mexico, specifically Mexico's first few decades of existence when much of its political turmoil came from the division of Centralists and Federalists (and Santa Ana's tendency to play the feuding groups in his repeated bids to reclaim power).

So the Freeworlds' campaign could have this constant restraint and influence, that if the central authority pushes too far the entire federation may pull apart, but at the same time they can't just let this stuff slide due to the issue of resources, etc.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Central/unitary types butting heads with federalist/autonomist/decentralization types is a recurring universal thing anywhere and at any time and the Freeworlds and Terranates ARE meant to be Space Mericas.

I'll respond to the other ideas later. Brain's kinda eh.

And I'm actually fine with a lot of things in American and Western history, except they're not usually the things the standard fare sci-fi dare to tackle.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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OK, sorry for the delay lol. Vic and I talked about this a lot on FB...

Anyway, perhaps during the initial conflicts between the Freeworlds and the secessionists, the Freeworlds' decentralization meant that a lot of their forces out there quelling the Fringe World Yokels were just PMCs since the large trans-system organizations with most stakes in the fringe world extraction colonies would be... the megacorps, not the Freeworlds' limited decentralized governments. So the populace wouldn't care, socioculturally, they might even be sympathetic... maybe. Maybe not.

Until the proto-Terranate secessionists strike at the Freeworlds' core, probably a desperate gambit to cripple a megacorp's PMC-capability. But, I guess through a perfect storm involving the use of really high-yield munitions like copious amounts of anti-matter or by targetting a really sensitive area, not only are the megacorp's facilities themselves wrecked... but a load of civilians as well. A Space Oklahoma Bombing, if you will.

This galvanizes the Freeworlds' citizenry and through expert mass media manipulation on behest of the corporations, the Terranate secessionists are portrayed as nigh-barbaric yokels out to terrorize decent core worlder types. Yes, their radical humanism has turned them into humanofascists or whatever. :lol:

This upgrades the Freeworlds' war effort and the decentralized government becomes a bit less decentralized as the population becomes more enthusiastic in stepping on the yokels, it's no longer just the megacorps and their PMCs setting out to beat provincials with sticks.

I guess later on, some lessons were learned when people admit to themselves that the Terranates weren't all wrong, so the decentralized government again becomes less-decentralized to make sure that the megacorps don't end up exploiting more vulnerable worlds, or richer worlds don't end up strongarming poorer ones. So yeah, ironically the actual reforms the initial Terranate protesters wanted ended up getting implemented... decades or even a century after the dispute escalated to a full-blown conflict. But it's too late, there are no take-backsies and the Terranates ain't coming back. On the Freeworlds' end, at least this measure prevents more worlds from going the way of the Terranates, and its accompanied by their more xeno-friendly policies - autonomous Isopterid territories currently have more recognized rights and such than yesteryear/yestercentury's Laurentian colonies that became the Terranates.

I think the Solarians pushed for the pro-psion reforms. Or the cosmopolitanization of the Freeworlds just allowed various groups to push their goals.

Oh and the perpetual threat of Pyrrhon Slaughts also means that the Freeworlds, even during its most decentralized days, nonetheless had a NATO-esque defense network composed of the contributions of member-systems, coordinated and drilled to wage a decently-sized conventional conflict against an overwhelmingly numerous force.

COINCIDENTALLY the Terranates are actually closer to the Pyrrhons... so there's another gripe they can have against the comfy cityworld-slicking Freeworlders. :twisted:
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Question that might have been answered somewhere, but I don't recall the answer to: can sentient computers / AI's / compints also be psions?
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Siege wrote: Wed Jan 31, 2018 5:28 pm Question that might have been answered somewhere, but I don't recall the answer to: can sentient computers / AI's / compints also be psions?
Hmmm... I guess if the computational gee-whiz is so reality altering, nonetheless because it's not from squishy things, it'd approach the "gnarly mystical cool shit" zenith from the other, inorganic, side of the... spectrum/triangle/whatever. So Telestrons, whatever...

Then again, we HAVE inanimate items that can channel "life force" type psionics... from Apexai PYLONS to, in their own way, contrapsyk tech.

I presume Olympic taking charge of some esoteric field rig could result in him harnessing psionics, but how different would this be from hyperfield manipulation or advanced CI prognostication?

The only difference would be that meatbag psions' manifestations are derived from their irrational natures, the essence of the meatbag consciousness and thought process.

Hmmm... hand one could argue that what psions are doing is actually just catching up to effects that AIs and CompInts already naturally wield, predictive computation, remote brain-scanning, hyperfield manipulation of physical forces, etc.

Okay, there's nothing formally stopping sufficiently advanced technology from doing anything an ordinary psion can do. Maybe we could contrive that there are some effects where CIs can't, through a possible hairsbreadth boundary would be some arbitrary "oh reality is incomputable, the irrational processes of organic minds is the only thing that can somehow touch upon that, POWER OF FEELINGS AND FRIENDSHIP!" pseudo-spiritual stuff that we can then tie into meta-settingbreaking stuff.

But even then, that intangible thing that only irrational meatbags could harness would only mostly be applicable to phenomena that's mostly generated or influenced by meatbags collectively - i.e. Fracture-like 40k warp effects. CIs would have trouble dealing with that.

Other "informational cognetic fabric of the universe" subjects would be susceptible to both alpha-level psions ascending ala Akira and whatever god-machines Telestrons, Apexai, Solarian mad scientists, etc. could conjure up.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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That CIs operate on what is ultimate derived from Apexai technology might make them special, too.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Invictus wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2018 6:35 pm That CIs operate on what is ultimate derived from Apexai technology might make them special, too.
Yeah, the CIs might be doing to Solarians' less-psionic-noospheres with the MEMES and DATASPHERE what the Apexais and their tech were doing to Apexai OVERSOUL via PYLONS.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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I mean in the sense that CIs may manifest psionic abilities without using specialized mechanisms because they're housed in dimensionally transcendent sub-meson cores, whose working principles were thought up by Apexai engineers who also designed things like Pylons.

On the other hand, didn't we think that AIs in general were more resistant to the effects of the Fracture because they're less flexible, more redundant and more able to error-check their own minds? The same factors might make them less able to just randomly manifest psionic powers like people with brains do, assuming developing psionic talent comes from something random happening in the unplanned plasticity of a brain designed by evolution.

In short, artificial minds don't just acquire psionic powers because they're too well-built for that. But this also implies that you can purpose-build psionic minds...
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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It's obvious that the Ministry of Fate has factions. The factions wouldn't be nearly as overt or well-defined as the factions within other SOTS organizations (e.g. the Magi, where some brainstorming happened earlier in the thread), because I don't imagine the All-Father tolerates much factionalism among His minions, and because the whole point of the Ministry is domination and supremacy and so on, but an organization as vast and sprawling as the Ministry ought to have people pulling it in different directions. Here are some faction ideas whose names are all still toss-ups:

The SINZITES are staunch theocratic absolutists, even by the standards of esper illuminati masterminds who obey a living godhead. They have put forth a White Children-like paradigm in which The Human Will trumps paltry plastic reality, and that there's nothing wrong with the Ministry's outlets pushing propaganda and doubt until NEUROM lives in a postmodern Orwellian fugue, regardless of the practical disadvantages. However, by "The Human Will" only the will of actual espers count, and in particular only the All-Father's will counts. Now, pretty much all the factions of the Ministry justify their existence before the Crystal Throne by arguing that *they're* the best way to carry out the All-Father's will, but these guys go the extra mile to eliminate autonomy and ensure that nothing within the Ministry's organization can impede His directives from being carried out. Sinzites might come from the sincere belief that the All-Father sustains all of reality and that all espers are but conduits of his mind so the very notion of disobedience is some kind of metaphysical heresy, or just be bureaucratic centralizers who think the Ministry's structure is too messy as it is, or are just creating cover to stamp down on people they dislike. The main problem with their driving vision is that it's at odds with the Ministry as it is, hidden in a Fracture that's not very esper-tolerant.

Maybe the MYSTERANS (or CHAMBERLAINS, or the BLACK LODGE) make more sense. They absolutely want to preserve the secrecy of the Ministry, and may be tightly affiliated with whatever its equivalent of CEID Zero is in wiping memories, eliminating leakers and protecting opsec. They might believe that the Ministry ought to function as a mystery religion so as to preserve its mystique, or that the All-Father only grows more powerful and authoritative as a figure the less accessible He is to His grovelling minions. Maybe they literally have some gnostic belief in the conservation of knowledge and that being widely known only devalues the truth. Given some of the weird psionic magic and weapons NEUROM and the Ministry has, this might even be literally true. Of course, positioning yourself to control access to the All-Father also has obvious political benefits, though it's a risky play.

The FORBEARERS (or also maybe the CHAMBERLAINS) are a bit unorthodox because they're kind of populist-neoliberals. They focus their energy on enabling the pseudo-parliamentary processes within CORTEX, NEUROM's central transnational organ, leveling barriers to debate and indeed, encouraging NEUROM members to go head to head with each other. They tend to draw more from the more "Darwinian competition" aspects of the All-Father's teachings, how the best of humanity can only be revealed in the crucible of conflict and so on, and see the Ministry as a neutral arbitrator to FREE MARKET CLASHES OF WILL to determine who is the strongest and gets to set policy. Or maybe they think keeping the polity members of NEUROM at each others' throats allows the Ministry to maintain leverage over them all. Maybe they actually are backers of a particular NEUROM member and push the Forbearance agenda to grant it more power. Some just see nothing wrong with exporting the scheming backstabbing culture of the Ministry into NEUROM at large.

The TRUST (hell, maybe these guys can be the CHAMBERLAINS) works to insinuate the Ministry into every corner of NEUROM, but not in any obvious way. The think NEUROM should be streamlined to function more efficiently and more resourcefully, and if such efforts involve building up a low-key managerial bureaucracy that bypasses the whims of decision-makers and politicians with non-Ministry agendas, then even better. As far as I think they're the least overtly ideological of the factions so far - I think they're just personally offended by the state NEUROM is in, although I suppose infiltrating every part of the transnational apparatus with the Ministry is a plenty legitimate goal in and of itself. Maybe some of them do believe in some kind of high cosmic Taylorism where the All-Father's hand but sets the machinery of human civilization in motion or something.

None of the above factions are necessarily diametrically opposed to each other. Sinzites and Mysterans can work together to enhance the All-Father's authority and purge rogue Ministers. Mysterans and the Trust can collaborate on putting more security panopticon in place. Even Forbearers and Sinzites can work together to destabilize particularly assertive polities. As speculated above, the factions probably are loose groupings of Ministers with similar agendas at the moment anyway, dominated by power-grubbing individuals whose personal motivations are more important than any doctrinal rightness.

Maybe in the next post I'll do a similar brainstorm on the vectors by which the Ministry controls the fleshed-out NEUROM members so far. (Especially the Anethgans, because I don't think we've had anything on the political structure of the modern Eirenic Inheritance?)
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Making shit up on the fly here... (I think it should be called Mysterians not Mysterans...)

For the Ministry of Fate... HERMETICS could be sorcerors in wizard towers who abdicate involvement in the politicking of NEUROM or the manipulations and machinations, instead pursuing esper ALCHEMY, becoming the research and development branch for the esoterics that others consult... the HERMETICS' clout is not in their own machinations, but in the exchanges, the payments others would make in return for scraps of these alchemists' teachings. In a way their path echoes that of the All-Father's transubstantiation, which would be the peak of hubris for any one to say, but nonetheless the parallelism is clear.

PASSIONISTS can be Ministers and Ministress whose version of will is... their true test of will would perhaps be in thoughtless, yet powerful, perseverance. At its basest these are the Sith type PEACE IS A LIE THERE IS ONLY PASSION Darth Maul, Khornate Berserker types... but the deep theology of those who've managed to avoid being assassinated by fellow Ministers, or sent by schemers to suicide missions, or being beamsabered by Magi, is that the Passionists not only let thoughtless will guide them, they abdicate reason and instead "let the All-Father take the wheel." These are my in-canon rationalizations for Steve's BDSM-Sith-Ebon-Blade-Ladies btw. Their fables include the All-Father's Sorrowful Passion, messianic-martyr tales of their worship's suffering that they seek to emulate to bring themselves closer to him, and I guess they're also the ones who most loathe Magi because in their theology the Sofia and her disciples were the ones who scarred the All-Father and made him resort to the Crystal Throne.

The other Ministers probably think that Passionists are some heterodox thing, conjured by an ancient Mysterian to create a cadre of useful idiot berserkers amongs espers who they think couldn't cut it or don't deserve the deeper mysteries.

The worst Passionists could be practically cenobites whose mistaken theologies have led them to consider the Fracture's horrors to be part of the All-Father's will, and in pursuing these these baddest Passionists have debased themselves and turned into human-equivalent of Psychovores and other Fracture-terrors. Too Chaos? If it's too chaos, then maybe they might not be mutated or infested, but their deranged Fractured philosophy has nonetheless turned them into nightmarish hazards. Jokers and psychic spree-shooters and such.

The best Passionists could be debauched, hedonists who have turned into Oscar Wildes or Lord Byrons and are pretty chill. Seeking Raptured Lords' audiences. Or otherwise knowing well enough not to play the Ministry's game, avoid NEUROM politics and just pleasure themselves by lapping off the emanations of a panpsychic choir-orgy.


For the Anethgans I propose there are the HARVESTERS who are the PLANETARY ECOLOGISTS of the Inheritances. Understated, nonetheless their long-term view was instrumental in the planning of the NEUROM and presumably they could've been usurped by the Ministry of Fate or perhaps have members who are the only non-espers in the Ministry! The highest Harvesters are practically Liet-Kynes of Dune, or Hari Seldons of Foundation, whose knowledge of balances and causation-chains and such make them formidable planners.

The STRUCTURISTS who are the maintainers whose clout is in their capacity to upkeep archeotech, so while the Inheritances didn't have the most potent of Earthreign techno-weapons and defenses, nonetheless the STRUCTURISTS kept them in running order whereas others saw theirs degrade (save perhaps for the Aurigans and Avancore... and, of course, Meridians). The logical backbone of the Harvesters and Structurists was what made the difference between their clashes with the barbarian overlords of the Mandragorans... and Sternheim probably low-profile hires Structurists for whatever warmoon-relic tech they had left. The Structurists probably have ties to Meridian, who were keen to examine whatever well-kept venerated tech the Anethgans had, and I guess this is why the Anethgans have an understated R&D capacity. The Sternheim's current potent R&D capacity probably owes a lot to earlier assistance from Structurists.

URBAS can be short for Urbanites, the cityworld-specialist service Anethgans, seemingly the less-valued types since in the Earthreign they're engineered to be subservient to the human populace and incapable of being threats - they're practically clerks, cashiers and maids. Unlike the other logistical Anethgans who were at least hardy for the tasks of colonization. Post-Reignfall I guess they found various niches, they probably intermixed most with the non-Anethgan populaces, they're the most "civilianized" and adaptable and have diversified into all sorts of niches because they lack the Structurists' and Harvesters'... devout ways. At least, generally. City-planning Urbas can match colonist-Structurists in coordination. Urba sushi chefs could be all super-disciplined and such. Urba civil service types wouldn't be as diminutive. The Anethgan merchant class can be from the Urbas. Anethgan pop culture could be directed by Urbas who inherited their old masters' cultural artifacts... after killing them.

I don't know if there are spacer Anethgans... there should be. I think Harvester, Structurist and Urba clades are terrestrial and space-capable.

The military could be Anethgan-led, not a true clade but with officers composed of Harvesters and Structurists and Urbas alike, the ancient Lady Eboshi Lady Anethga figure is hallowed by the Anethgan defense force, and by civilians alike. Maybe the first Lady helped Anethgans (re)claim their worlds, perhaps she was a Malcolm X figure and brought them together, rallied the newborn in the Kamino-like gene-vaults where they're made, and like in the chaos of all things made sure they survived when the baseline humans didn't...

ANYWAY I think post-Reignfall a lot of the military could be composed of "subject" populations who in gratitude or out of agreements or whatnot have their members serve as janissaries for the Anethgans. Desecrated? Quon? Even outright aliens? LEPER PEOPLE, like in Mononoke... like wretches the Earthreign genetically CURSED for their disobedience, who the Anethgans aided and became diehard loyalists...

THE SCORCHED... Desecrated by the Earthreign to suffer lesions and such, sulfuric wounds, yet never die... yet later Anethgans (and even Meridians) were able to engineer a way to cease the pain but they decided to keep their appearances because it's become their identities (depending on the severity of the desecration, who knows if reversal is possible...). And the painful burning phase is something they can consciously trigger, cause it enables them superhuman abilities in combat. They're like GHOULS in Fallout! Because of the Anethgan Succor they are pretty loyal and those who volunteer for the military form DEATH CULTS.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Invictus »

I like the HERMETICS (the ALL-CHEMISTS, ha) holding down the obvious missing niche as the R&D faction. I can see them being close to the TRUST and the other, more dispassionate types whose vision of NEUROM (and human civilization in general) is that of a well-oiled machine, but supports NEUROM's expansion so they can have more souls to spend and experiment on. They can also be the Tarkinist, "single totemic superweapons of terror can keep the systems in line" proponents who argue that the DOOM PRISMS, FURY PROJECTORS and other products of the genius are far more effective than investing in the conventional arms race.

Though these psionic superweapons might be a bit...obvious? Even if the HERMETICS have taken over the part of the official Trilateral Ministry of Fate-Preservation that safekeeps the neuromantic relics and recruits from the Structuralists? It seems to me that the ban on Earthreign-era psionic WMDs would obvious include provisions against making new WMDs along similar principles, or is it less of a total ban and more of a "you'll know when we'll sanction their proper use" sort of ban?

Though more practically, the HERMETICS can ironically be the ones who develop the cognometric technology, the protocols and communications methods, the postmodern prognostication and organizational models that help hold the Ministry together, so that its tendrils sunken into many diverse organizations can coordinate and work seamlessly Hydra-like despite how amorphous each of them must be.* It may turn out that having the social equivalent of clean rooms and Stanford Prisons is vital for this kind of research.

The PASSIONISTS sound more like a subset of the Sinzites to me, considering that their rationale is that they subsume their own will to the All-Father's universal alignment, and that their unrestrained schtick risks compromising the Ministry's secrecy. Just following their own passions sounds dangerously Magi-like. Of course, I can see them formulating even more twisted rationales where all emotions are just the All-Father's emotions since his soul underpins all of reality, or the ecstasism they practice is just a means to some higher spiritual communion, or they enjoy themselves so it will soothe the All-Father's living suffering when He eats all their souls at the end of time, etc.. I do deffo see one early famous personal disciple of the All-Father who absolutely was some Aesma-like berserker sybarite, lending legitimacy to their lifestyles.

In the parts of NEUROM where esperphobia is still a thing, I can see PASSIONISTS performing false flag terrorist stuff to reinforce espers' bad reputations for whatever purpose the Ministry wants it to be maintained.

*It strikes me the the grunt-to-mid level of the Ministry would basically be Hydra!SHIELD, or any of the unaccountable black ops agencies across fiction who have hard men convinced by their mission-givers that they're doing hard things for the greater good. Very few of the rank and file would actually be in on the truth of the All-Father, and the only person who can be described as an actual Minister is when Nick Fury ignites his red lightsaber.

The Anethgan HARVESTER caste could also be the spacers, working for the Strategic Divination Office of the official Tri-Lateral Ministry that so happens to be responsible for long-term resource allocation. I see top-down resource redistribution as part of NEUROM's lifeblood - it seems thematic for the whole edifice to rely on barely disguised largesse and power-patronage and the occasional engineered famine. Of course, the URBAS are also naturals for managing NEUROM's space shipping since they're the merchant caste. I may not have mentioned times where foreign currency-starved Mandragorans might just conquer a world and auction off everything on it, including all the resources and the population? Swarms of Anethgan freighters might follow the Mandragoran troopships. (And Sternheim might be contracted to provide the naval combat component.**)

**I want to revise the previous consensus about Sternheim and the Unyielding Mandragoran Principalities dividing the spheres of internal defense/external offense between them, because it means Sternheim never gets to feature in greater Fracture politics or have fighter ace duels with Aurigans and Shepherds and so on, which seems a waste. Maybe their PMC CONFLICT COURT framework can allow their forces to be deployed outside NEUROM borders for the right price?

What unites Sternheimers is less biological clade and more the spinal pilot-implants (originally for to interface with their lost KRIEGMOND) that they receive, and I like the image of the original Sternheim child soldiers letting contingents of spunky Anethgan mechanics live on their battlemoon.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

An average Hermetic would do bureau-style R&D but the real stars might be so utterly detached that the Tarkins and Krennic would have to like go to some forsaken planetoid and abase themselves under the shadow of a wizard-tower and bargain with the HIGH HERMETIC, trading subjects for snippets of esoteric theory that the Tarkins and Krennics would then use for their massive projects.

I think the platonic would be Forebears and Sinzites and Trust types have their own projects and collaborating low-Hermetics but like the real genius stuff would require journeys to the High Hermetics and parlays and bargains and even quests.

The Passionists' disguises and secrecy could be some sadomasochistic repression thing, where even repressing their slaughter-urges is part of the greater passion, making the ultimate release even more fruitful...
Invictus wrote: Sun May 06, 2018 2:48 pm *It strikes me the the grunt-to-mid level of the Ministry would basically be Hydra!SHIELD, or any of the unaccountable black ops agencies across fiction who have hard men convinced by their mission-givers that they're doing hard things for the greater good. Very few of the rank and file would actually be in on the truth of the All-Father, and the only person who can be described as an actual Minister is when Nick Fury ignites his red lightsaber.
Pretty much. I presume that the average secret agent for the Ministry won't even be espers, or would be trained espers who aren't aware of the true nature of the conspiracy, and the only ones who are aware of the great scheme (or a diluted version of it) would be the section chiefs and Nick Furies. 90% or more of the standard Ministry of Fate personnel would be utterly oblivious and would be carrying out the stated, publicly-known, mission of the Trilateral Ministry. :D
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Invictus »

Shroom Man 777 wrote: Sun May 06, 2018 3:10 pm An average Hermetic would do bureau-style R&D but the real stars might be so utterly detached that the Tarkins and Krennic would have to like go to some forsaken planetoid and abase themselves under the shadow of a wizard-tower and bargain with the HIGH HERMETIC, trading subjects for snippets of esoteric theory that the Tarkins and Krennics would then use for their massive projects.

I think the platonic would be Forebears and Sinzites and Trust types have their own projects and collaborating low-Hermetics but like the real genius stuff would require journeys to the High Hermetics and parlays and bargains and even quests.
I think so. The Hermetics (The GOLDEN WISDOM?), as with other Ministry factions, are more of a technical category of Ministers sharing similar inclinations than any organized faction. A Ministry technical honcho doesn't even have to be in on the truth of the All-Father to believe that NEUROM society can function better through innovative technology, like the better big data panopticon that he's helping to design. On the other hand, I kind of *do* want some semi-overt movement that actually calls itself THE GOLDEN WISDOM and is all about pushing the bounds of cosmic knowledge and believes that the All-Father is the ideal patron and also possibly the OMNISSIAH to whom all inspiration is owed.
The Passionists' disguises and secrecy could be some sadomasochistic repression thing, where even repressing their slaughter-urges is part of the greater passion, making the ultimate release even more fruitful...
We also have the apocalyptic BELLBREAKERS that can be tied in here, complete with pre-millennialism versus post-millennialism doctrinal disputes about whether unleashing sufficient passion and suffering will finally cause the All-Father to descend from His Godhead to rule the universe as a paradise before casting judgment upon all souls, or whether unleashing the suffering is for buying time off the thousand years of castigation that the All-Father will put all humanity through before ruling the universe as a paradise forevermore.

Still, I'm not so sure about the thriving of factions whose modus operandi involves breaking the masquerade.

Also, in chats we've discussed the conditions for Mandragoran fertility (i.e. they only get off from signs of their fellows dying in distress, as they were originally designed to only replace their losses on the field); would Anethgans also have special limitations on their reproduction?
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Invictus wrote: Mon May 07, 2018 2:51 pmWe also have the apocalyptic BELLBREAKERS that can be tied in here, complete with pre-millennialism versus post-millennialism doctrinal disputes about whether unleashing sufficient passion and suffering will finally cause the All-Father to descend from His Godhead to rule the universe as a paradise before casting judgment upon all souls, or whether unleashing the suffering is for buying time off the thousand years of castigation that the All-Father will put all humanity through before ruling the universe as a paradise forevermore.

Still, I'm not so sure about the thriving of factions whose modus operandi involves breaking the masquerade.
Ah the suffering must first be caused by the non-espers who are foolish and bloodthirsty, so even the apocalyptic Bellbreakers must first cause the dullards to fall into disarray AND unify their brethren in preparation for the massacration!
Also, in chats we've discussed the conditions for Mandragoran fertility (i.e. they only get off from signs of their fellows dying in distress, as they were originally designed to only replace their losses on the field); would Anethgans also have special limitations on their reproduction?
Generally no? Since they're not front line and not sustaining losses, they can have slow and steady reproductive rates but perhaps if there is a real deficit of them it could make them more fecund?

IDK, maybe Anethgans are baseline human-like in fertility levels, so the controls are purely social ones "gotta have a career!" whereas the Mandras' weird cycles are precisely because of the oppressive nature of combat.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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The ruling council of the Eirenic Inheritances of Anethgaea is called the GEOARBITRAGE and its members, who are the planetary governors, are called INHERATRIXES. It's consensus based but like each INHERATRIX presides over the complex planetary ecology of their systems and such. Continental MONOCULTURES, interplanetary supply chains, and spacer interstellar trade lines.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Shroom Man 777 wrote: Sun Jun 10, 2018 5:42 pm The ruling council of the Eirenic Inheritances of Anethgaea is called the GEOARBITRAGE and its members, who are the planetary governors, are called INHERATRIXES. It's consensus based but like each INHERATRIX presides over the complex planetary ecology of their systems and such. Continental MONOCULTURES, interplanetary supply chains, and spacer interstellar trade lines.
The GEOARBITRAGE earned its influence during the proto-NEUROM anarchy, when polities and parties from all over would seek neutral arbitration from (and at) the Anethgan states, because they seemed the most reasonable out of the clades who had their shit together by then. The body of rulings and precedent would be combined into the GREENLAW, which by the modern day has developed into a comprehensive legal system dealing with land, trade and resource rights of all sorts.

Anethgan influence in NEUROM can be measured by how polities that are nowhere even close to being Anethgans adopt GREENLAW-based legal systems, whose prevalence is probably only rivaled by the Sternheim-formulated MOONCODE (MONDENKODEX?), which is a far more technical, principle rather than tradition-based legal system. The two probably compliment each other to an extent and provide NEUROM's baseline for everyday jurisprudence, at least where it isn't stopped cold by extraterritorial exemptions to the UNIFORM CODE OF MANDRAGORAN JUSTICE or the overriding obligations of the actual Tri-Lateral Treaty etc.

The oldest NEUROM cities can trace their founding back to the original Anethgan forge-fortresses, rich and powerful by dint of being the original signatories to the Accords that formed NEUROM and I suppose, sheer inertia. These populous city-states are probably the environment from which the Urba breed developed out of the original Anethgan pioneer-pastoralists. Also, this couldn't have been fun for said pastoralist Anethgans, who I can easily imagine developed in more Princess Mononoke-like directions with their herds, being increasingly displaced by urbanization and enclosures and solidifying property rights.

These days the Eirenic cities are definitely eclipsed in number (and raw economic strength) by later planned colonies with Ministry control and unholy sith geometries already in place, but they remain the heart of the Inheritances, too fiercely idiosyncratic with their own ancient traditions to be entirely under Ministry control.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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On the other hand, I see certain hedonist ALHAROUN or even radical CANTERNOSTER development factions of the Ministry backing the displaced, now pseudo-barbarian Anethgan clades as a force of creative destruction - WOLVES OF THE FOLD who can counter-balance the Urba polities and be strengthened enough to purge them, if needed. I'm just not sure what form this will take inside NEUROM yet.

---

Another way the Mandragorans interact with the civilized universe is via the IPO (INITIAL PLUNDER OFFERINGS). They go around and rattle a can in front of various NEUROM members to collect war materiel, basing rights and various other forms of military support, in exchange for a share of the loot when they conquer a specific target outside NEUROM. High reward-tier investors get extra campaign paraphernalia ("I backed the War of '62!" pins) and war captive parades down the boulevards of their choice.

This is why Mandragorans have planetary auctions, enslaving whole populations and loot everything of value from a planet even though there would be more returns in actually developing the occupied planet over time, and it's not because of generic barbarian warrior race motives - they need to satisfy their investors! And because even individual shares of a planetary conquest campaign must be very, very expensive, there would also be plenty of small NEUROM players who scraped together their entire treasuries to buy into the IPO, and they would like to see returns very soon.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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EGOSYSTEM - a term describing the technological support system around an individual in a properly advanced and materially abundant space opera society. A Solarian and his personal hardlight effector drones, iBrain cloud, peripheral nanoswarms, drug glands, etc. An Aurigan noble and his all-purpose PDA/comfort animal/hormone balancer/bodyguard familiar, his servants, the right shades of wallpaper soothing to his extra senses that may involve mobile redecorating units wherever he goes...all the things that keep a modern model posthuman functioning at peak capacity.

To be fair, for many people and cultures in SOTS it's something they're proud of keeping to a minimum, but in a universe of escalating individual (but still idiosyncratically human) capabilities and receding material limitations, there's a *lot* of room for people to be as finicky as they want to be.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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That's just about the most perfect term ever.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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OK I posited this to Vic in chat and as of now he hasn't responded and I realized I should bounce it here in the interest of fairness, rather than Vic or I posting conclusions after discussions.

So...

Ygrd-Zel-Ruun ancestors could have originated in the Satyk and eventually assigned to CRYPTO-FOSSILIZATION. The Satyk could have FOSSIL CRYPTS of hybered (cryo-preserved or digitally archived) species.

There could be a species assigned to protect them, robots who were crafted by some previous stewards of the Satyk, who are tasked with protecting the FOSSIL CRYPTS. They are ranked outside of the satykarma and are neutral - akin to Hindu-Buddhist demons who cannot comprehend enlightenment, yet are tasked by the Buddha to use their violent natures to protect mortals in the cycle of enlightenment.

These machines could be built... or they could be abandoned Xerberos who some ancient Satykarmic Sage converted with wise wisdoms!

I presume these machines are intricate clockworks, of most puissant archeotechnology, like 3D mechanical mandalas... maybe even liquid metals. They can configure themselves to resemble the archived species, or even active species... like a cross of those multi-limbed Hindu deities and nightmarish Old Testament angels...

The sleepers themselves could either just be totally dormant or their latent processes could power the Sajitsatyk networks... or these sleepers could be a secret known only to the higher classes. Or it could be both, some sleepers are dormant, others are dreaming and "networked," some of the dormant and dreaming could be secret, others could be known to the public (so there can be VAULT-SHRINES where people pay tribute and learn!), and even in their datasphere there could be accessible layers and restricted layers where mysterious processes and dreamers and users run... TLDR their cyberspace could be like the mystical realms and afterlifes of religions!
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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The sleepers, known and secret ones, are still partly-dreaming and these accumulated thoughts form the Operating System of the satykarmic measurement system...

Vic and I discuss that all Satykarmic species that have been recognized are given a handful PARAGONS or EXEMPLARS who are hyper-uplifted, augmented members of their populations, meant to exemplify their ideal traits as determined by the Satykarma. These are practically superheroes, like Beymin hyper-bureaucrats, Vorri war gods who can punch mountains, Nueki forge-smiths... augmented with archeo-hypertech, hyperfield manipulators, gene-augments, sophisticated nanomachines, and ultimately psionic will- and reality-warping that make each one equivalent to high-end Magi, FORCE Marines, CEID psions, etc. The gear probably looks like esoteric religious iconography and bling.

The greatest of Sajit are equivalent to these Paragons with their own Astras. Paragon-level beings can be walking WMDs, or walking WMD-nullifiers who can replicate ruined cityscapes... upload consciousnesses and then download them into replicated bodies, etc.

The psionic aspect of these Paragons might involve processes that are shrouded in secrecy, even myth, these might be half-forgotten or... working on some poetic mechanisms that no being can consciously know, that has to be ritualistically conjured.

Anyway, this means that this puissance is limited, so Paragons can't endlessly just jump around space punching Goroks, Myrran and Samtics into submission. Satykarma factors this in since overusing the puissance might cause psionic aberrations, shit might go Akira.

The oldest and potentially most powerful Paragons are members of now-sleeping species, they are partly-active, mostly meditating and half-sleeping as guardians of key Shrine Worlds... awoken in the most dire of circumstances or when the Sajit need consultation regarding matters and decisions of satykarmic import since they're freaking ancient and do embody the ideals of the past societies and satykarmic incarnations. They hold satykarmic veto powers and have full authority to rebuke even high ranking Sajit. Think of these as venerable Dreadnaughts of 40k.

The newer Paragons are still gaining their puissance and are probably more active.

Even sins and satykarmic demerits could have Paragonic incarnations. Kalaquelle tricksters, Vorri berserkers. This process might even create villains!
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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I think that in the quasi-Hindu inspired Satykarma system, the Paragons fill a missing piece - the actual gods who stand above all mortal castes and serve as living objects of veneration and emulation. Of course, in actual implementation they're a bottom-up, constructed pantheon defendant on the demographics of their subjects, which matches the way the Sajit'satyk is a caste-based theocracy except organized with big data and theorywanking.

I like the idea that Paragons may be the sole, idealized representative of an entire species who's just walking around helping out, earning the right to stay active while the rest of its species retire to the LIVING TOMBS by embodying their satykarmic ideal. In fact, their very existence help the Sajit calibrate their society by showing them what their predecessor wheel-turners considered to be morally ideal. If a bygone species with physical characteristics x were converted into the ultimate immortal gardener, then all creatures with physical characteristics x should belong to the gardening caste. Heeding the Paragons are a part of what gives the Sajit'satyk legitimacy and continuity as the latest iteration of the timeless satykarma system.

...However this also opens up their socio-economic system to the unsolicited input of a bunch of monomaniacal eminence grises, which has its downsides.

And part of the problem now is that these Paragons (and the dormant relict species-populations that power them) dwell in the Sajit Ranges, the pieces of ancient infrastructure that are now caught under Gorok attack. The FOSSIL CRYPTS are being exhausted and emptied for the Paragons to hold the line, to be attrited away under suboptimal conditions, to be called upon to burn out their life-force to shout the ANTI-LIFE EQUATION at invading fleets or whatever. The Sajit'satyk is losing its own irreplaceable history quite literally.

At the same time that they're living ideals of the species they represent, I also see the Paragons as representing an...evolutionary dead end, the most that its species can be, a kind of capstone on their progression towards satykarmic perfection. The Sajit themselves recognize the Paragons as ultimately static beings and keep them out of the caste system for a reason.

These themes are why I want them to be the tomb guardians for (their own) voluntarily extinct species, but I also really like the idea of the ancient tomb-guarding robots too! I suppose, as is our way of kitchen-sink worldbuilding, that both have the job. Not all species leave surviving Paragons behind, but someone must take care of them nevertheless. The robots are probably their own thing, tinkered with and added to by various 'satyks over the ages to form their distinctive genealogy separate from the living castes, occupying a role more like the rakshasa of the underworld, and their powers do not extend to the mortal universe. Again, that the devout satykeen built their own demons is very thematic.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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The Paragons number like a handful to a dozen at most per species (extant or dormant) so there's enough room for the robots to be the ones doing the menial work and being the defensive infantry crawling around in the actual crypts while the Paragons themselves are at the prayer-spires or something overseeing the machines.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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A sudden new idea I had that plays into the conflicts in the Cascade, because in the present worldbuilding it seems to be sliding into perpetual and polarized civil war fueled by most of known space buying into either side and I don't want that, is a trans-Cascade law enforcement agency: something I jokingly named the ICJ (INTERSTELLAR CONSORTIUM OF JUSTICE) to Ford. (It needs a proper name, of course.)

There are a surprising number of Cascade polities (including both Freeworlds, Terranates, Isopterid Guilds, Kalaquelle Superbias, and even the Heteroplex) agreeing to grant jurisdiction to the body, such that theoretically its agents can enter their territory for criminal investigations and related fact-finding missions, that whatever the polity's equivalent of a judiciary would honor charges and warrants issued by foreign courts and that local law enforcement will cooperate, and that there are procedures for mutual extradition for fugitives. For the Cascadian and Laurentian human polities who agreed to this, there could have been a lot of diplomatic wrangling within their respective blocs as well as actual appeals to whatever shared culture or identity they have left. Friendlier aliens like the Yggrd could join out of idealism. Even the more difficult polities like the isolationist Vaosich and the Heteroplex would have some rules for handling when they're told their newest convert is actually a fugitive war criminal, because the alternative may well be some special forces extraction raid.

The central purpose of this body was probably to act as a clearing house for reciprocal charges, arrests and extraditions for both sides of the Laurentian Civil War, because there are plenty of wrong people on both sides. A place where Laurentians and Cascadians can make deals over "we hate each other, but I'll let you bag my guy if you let me bag your guy. I don't even like my guy anymore." With the effect that more and more grudges would actually be settled in the wrong run, leaving less overall historical bad blood behind and paving the way for reconciling the Civil War. But over time it may grow into a more general Interpol-like institution for inter-polity law enforcement, and maybe even acquire its own neutral arbitration courts because I'm tickled by the idea of visiting Bragulan judges offering their opinions.

Of course, more often than not often you'd have polities citing war powers or national security or just making things difficult on the ground. For the Freeworlds, you would actually see some progress putting mercenary war criminal types to trial, even if a fair few of the surviving colonial syndicates and their people are still untouchable. For the Terranates, technically loads of their immortal founding fathers are still wanted for their crimes, but going after them is like heading out to Namibia to arrest Senator Armstrong.

Sometimes, the polity may accept that the fugitive committed a crime by the prosecuting polity's standards and also by their own, but simply refuse to extradite them due to other priorities. And it may be weird priorities like "He applied for space god religious sanctuary / he legally no longer exists after initiation into our guilds via alien symbiote / he joined our equivalent of the Foreign Legion and by our own sacred laws of hospitality his sins are wiped clean", And the ICJ agents can only leave with the satisfaction of having proven the principle of it. It's a hard-boiled space opera noir out there in the Cascade.

But the point is, the very fact of the ICJ's widespread ratification means that theoretically not even the most legendary of space mecha warlord george washingtons are beyond justice, and that it is possible to establish a common understanding of morality and such topics across all these diverse species and government systems.
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