The Jovian Republic [statement of my goals in this concept] The Jovian Republic could be an easy faction to demonise. They can still be the systems bully without needing to be a caricature. They would be most effective as a villain, or anti-hero, or even hero, so long as they have a reasonable set of beliefs and policies, that just so happen to be incompatible with the rest of the system. The setting has a sufficient measure of monsters in the form of the Exsurgents and other TITAN remnants, as well as other aliens. So my interpretation of the Jovian Republic would place them as 'cis'-humanists amidst a milieu of 'trans'-humanism. They do want to keep humanity pure, but also to perfect it, so long as they do not go even one step beyond human in the process. They do not necessarily eschew advanced technology, they just embrace a different set of technologies. They focus more on refinement of older, proven technology, producing more streamlined versions with more applications. They explore new technologies only very carefully and slowly, ensuring that any use will be compatible with thier social engineering projects. It is important to remember that this Jovian Republic would not be a North Korea, or the Amish, in space. They are better considered as a traditional nation-state in space, surrounded by factions that have moved out of the nation-state paradigm. Keeping this traditional way of organising society viable in the face of confounding technologies and memes is difficult, and requires serious effort on their part. Before the Fall, it was obvious to some analysts that the era of the nation-state and the megacorps was reaching it's natural end. When the Fall happened, it shook every other faction out of that paradigm, and scrambling to find the new, best way to organise society. Those who escaped to the Jovian system learned the opposite lesson, to go back a step and try to build again, without repeating the same mistakes. Life in the Jovian Republic should not be hellish. It may be highly regimented and oppressive relative to the rest of the system, but the truth is the citizens and subjects of the Republic are better off in most measurable ways than the average person at the turn of the millennium. Where there are problems with the society of the Republic, and there are many, they should be the kind of excesses that a modern nation-state may fall prey to, if they too had such technology, and were faced with similar problems. The intention is make a place that would be more familiar, and even somewhat ideal, to a modern person. It is only when you compare it to the standards in the rest of the system that it seems lacking. If it is to be a credible threat, it must be a functioning society, one that can hurt the rest of the system, and one that is not going anywhere any time soon. I am also not discounting the possibility of a few even more bio-conservative societies. They enjoy the protection of the Jovian Republic, but the Republic itself does not go this far. Like the Peoples Republic of China with North Korea, to some degree. I'm thinking a few stations in the asteroid belt, peopled with pure flats. They think that even the Jovians are dangerously transhuman, but are happy to accept aid and protection from them. [differences between the Jovians and the rest of the system] The primary issues that the Jovian's have with the rest of the system are; morphological anarchy and the mind-body schism. The secondary problems, which are shared to some degree by the Consortium, are; the destabilising influence of the unregulated and unrestricted means of production, genetic alterations and communications. The Jovian Republic does in fact allow for significant genetic manipulation and some limited forms of uploading and resleeving, but within very tight limits. The standard for the limit on genetic alteration within the Jovian Republic is unaided interfertility with the flat. Most of the citizens of the Republic are closer to splicers than flats, and can purchase genetic service packs that have been approved of. The Republic enforces an artificial scarcity on genetic engineering, assigining arbitrary costs to various genetic service or upgrade or cosmetic packs in order to incentivize their citizens in certain directions. Often a previously approved pack will be later deemed unsafe, and those early adopters will be under examination until they remedy it. If they cannot afford it, they will become second class citizens. The only form of uploading that the Jovian Republic allows is the destructive scanning of the brain. Because the must be dead for this to work, or will certainly be killed in the process, it does not in fact produce a copy with as much fidelity as the cortical stack or ego-bridge. Scanned brains cannot be run as an infomorph, they can only be used to format a new brain. The copy of the brain being placed into the clone of the original body is the only form of resleeving that the Jovian Republic approves of. They are considered to be the rightful heir of the original, though not literally the same person. Those in the rest of the system consider this to be utterly ineffective, generating a new Ego that is similar to the original. Those in transitional economies, such as the Consortium, maintain control over the Cornucopia's by appealing to peoples fears about the dangerous materials which can be produced by them. This has the neat side effect of limiting the things people can make for themselves, resulting in a regulated traditional economy in those products that require licenses to manufacture. The Republic treats every use of the Cornucopia in this way. Every use comes with a nominal charge, even such basics as clothes, rations and computers. In practice, the Jovian megacorps and the Jovian Defence Forces have control of most of the Cornucopia's. Thanks to this control, the Republic forces people to engage with an old fashioned economy. The prices are set to help enact the various social engineering policies of the Republic. [detail on Jovian technology] The Jovian exploitation of AI is considered just as dangerous by the rest of the system as the various transhuman indulgences are by the Jovian Republic. While AI is used in limited ways everywhere, most of the complicated work is done by infomorphs, or other Ego's. In the Jovian Republic, this work is done by AI. Even the most skeptical analyst holds to the position that the Jovian Republic at the highest levels is run on the advice of slaved AI's, while the most cynical would say that it is the AI's who are really calling the shots. The rest of the system does use AI, albeit in a more limited fashion. The most common are muses, followed by specialised systems, such as those that handle navigation, life support, traffic control, and so on. In the Jovian Republic, AI is placed differently. Personal muses are rare, the preserve of the wealthy and important, but most people use family or community muses. Also, many of the smaller devices, such as home appliances or public services, which would have only the most basic computer controls in the rest of the system, with more contextual and higher functions guided by a muse or Ego directly, would, in the Republic, have a more complete AI. Thanks to fast and cheap resleeving into synthetic Morphs, the rest of the system has slowed research into tele-operation of drones. This is simply because the level of control available through a remote link pales in comparison to that of an Ego sleeved directly into a Morph. For the Jovian's, this was not an option, and so they have developed the best mind-machine interfaces in the system. A combination of direct cybernetic interfacing and continuous detailed brain scans allows the pilot to control a local or remote robotic body, while AI is used to smooth over the rough edges of response and transmission times. The great difficulty in keeping a flat alive in the hostile environment of the Jovian system means that the Jovian Republic is ahead in terms of life support systems. Shielding from external hazards and recycling consumables are the main concerns. Though this is not glamorous, it does demonstrate how innovative the Jovians can be. While other factions would simply sidestep the problem by using synths to colonise such an unforgiving frontier, the Jovian's had to respond differently. [detail on Jovian society] First class citizens are those who are human. They may undergo significant genetic alteration, but if it makes them appear too inhuman, or makes them infertile with a flat, they are placed under examination. If it is found that they have diverged too far, and they cannot afford to remedy this, they will be downgraded to second class citizens. The wealthiest have perfect bodies, attractive, healthy, durable, and they can pass some of these traits on to their children. The poorest are simply flats, with all the flaws and defects that humans throughout history have had to live with. Those in between may purchase various alterations, cosmetic or functional, though purchasing certain combinations of the standard selection of alterations may place a person under examination. The price of these enhancements are set by the Republic, as part of a deliberate effort to maintain a population of pure flats, while still allowing more useful people to progress up through the ranks. Most of the citizens of the Republic are first class, though a large proportion of the middle class find themselves under regular examination. A migrant in a standard biomorph, one that is either interfertile, or can be made to be interfertile, with the flat, will be accepted as a subject of the Jovian Republic. They are equal to a full citizen in many ways, but they are not allowed to vote on matters that extend beyond their habitat or sector, and they must usually pay additional taxes. This is also dependent on proving they had never been resleeved, though in practice a valuable migrant never has this examined too closely. They become full citizens after their claim is approved, a process with no set timeline or limit. All of their offspring will be citizens. Uplifts, and those in humanoid biomorphs that can never be made fertile with a flat, are second class citizens. They are lower even than subjects, unable to vote at any level, except to a powerless Uplift Assembly. However, the Republic is remarkably tolerant of Uplifts, compared to most factions. So long as the Uplift is capable of unaided reproduction, they will be readily accepted by the Republic. There are hard limits on the number of offspring an Uplift can have, and unlike humans, they must pay additional taxes for each additional child, obstensibly because of the 'unique life support requirements' costing more to implement. They will never be President, or a CEO, or a General, but they can advance quite far with their unique skills. It remains to be seen if this magnanimity will continue if Uplifts ever become more than a very small, virtually token, minority in the Republic. (This differs greatly from the Corebook description. Why? Because while I grant that they would never be first-class citizens, so long as there aren't that many of them, drawing on their unique skills would be of use to the Republic.) The lowest class in Jovian society are the un-people. These are any citizens or subjects of, or migrants to, the Jovian Republic who have been uploaded and resleeved. They are not considered to be human, and they have no more rights in the Republic than any piece of software. A Jovian citizen or institution may own an un-person and do with them as they will. Charities, megacorps, individuals and the government itself may buy an un-person, because they find the story of how they came to be an un-person sympathetic, or they are useful to them in some way, or they knew the un-person in their life, or as a bargaining chip in dealing with other factions, respectively. Some citizens end up as un-people through no fault of their own. If they were on business elsewhere in the system and sufferred an accident, they may have been resleeved to save their life. Many of these do end up returning to the Republic, hoping to be bought by a charity or friend. More children are born in the Jovian Republic than in the rest of the system put together. This is despite having less than 10% of the total population. The average Jovian couple has had three children since the Fall, compared to only a fifth of all transhumans in the rest of the system having even a single child. There are many reasons for this. For the transhumans, as near immortals, raising a child is a chore that can be postponed indefinitely, any gaps in the job market can be filled faster by sleeving some infugee, and the cost of time in an artificial womb, or resleeving in a Morph capable of carrying a child may be prohibitive. In the Republic, however, parents gain significant benefits, tax-breaks and quality housing, increasing if they are currently expecting, or with more children. Providing this excess is straightforward, with the use of Cornucopia's, but this is rationed to encourage the social engineering policies of the Republic. Schools are common in the Jovian Republic. Unlike in the rest of the system, where the young are usually muse-schooled, or they are either sent to, or correspond with, private academies, the Republic itself handles the education of all children. Classes are held for ages 4-17, and places at universities are available for any who pass the entrance exams, regardless of their age. The system is in place, but there are few teenagers attending school, and few younger than their twenties attending university. Homosexuality and transexuality are old, and boring, news in 10AF. Even in the Jovian Republic, the government, or society at large, couldn't care less who you want to sleep with, or what genetic alterations you want to purchase. Two-father and two-mother fertilisation means that any couple could potentially reproduce. Genetic manipulation that results in a change of gender is considered to be old and acceptable technology, and if one can afford it, one can use it. Being homosexual or transexual is considered only slightly odd, but admitting that you never, ever wanted to get married and have children would result in some strong reactions. Traditional gender roles are observed. Though this simply means that Jovian's have a set of expectations about the behavior of men and women, and that these expectations differ based on whether you are dealing with a man or a woman. It does not mean that men and women are considered unequal, at least in the eyes of the law. The current vogue considers women to be more sexually driven, and men to be more aloof to these matters, that women are better pilots, doctors and scientists, but men are better engineers, artists and soldiers, and that it is the mother who is expected to stay at home with children, and the man who is expected to stay at work. These prejudices come from the prevailing ideas on Earth just before the Fall, and are not likely to change as quickly in the Republic as they once did on Earth. In the rest of the system people may have certain prejudices based on what Morph an Ego inhabits, but the make and model is vastly more relevant than the apparent gender. Mortality in not mandatory in the Jovian Republic. As much as those in the rest of the system would claim otherwise, it is possible to live indefinitely in the Republic, if you have the cash. The genetic enhancements that extend a humans life, and correct any issues that pop up, are expensive but affordable. There is no limit to how many of these can be purchased. Upon death, certain people can expect to have their brain scanned, and restored into a clone. Those in the rest of the system do not consider this a true resleeving, but it's the only one the Jovian's consider legitimate. Mortality is not mandatory, but the Republic's social engineering goals will ensure that only so many will be able to afford it. [detail on the Jovian political system] The Jovian Republic is, strictly speaking, a representative democracy. Citizens vote for a Senator, who represents them in a legislative house, and a President, who represents them all in a executive office. Citizens and subjects can vote for a Mayor or Governor, who deals with the affairs of a single habitat or sector. The long terms means that once elected, politicians in the Republic can act almost as they please. The actual machinery of government would be familiar to anyone from the turn of the millennium. Representatives vote and lobby on behalf of their constituents, laws must pass a constitutional test, one branch deals with making policy and the other with implementing it. In practice, it is very much led from the top. Like any Republic in a crisis situation, the people want, and they get, strong leadership. The President assembles a cabinet of experts to advise him, and appoints czars to enact particular policies. The Senate is often reduced to a mere polling system, to inform the rest of the organs of state on the general mood of the public. There is much talk throughout the rest of the system about secret governments in the Jovian Republic. In truth, none is really needed. They are quite open about their policies, both internally and externally. Most of these conspiracies are about the level of AI involved in running the government, and whether this constitutes a Seed AI. Some even suspect it may be a TITAN, somehow hobbled into serving humanity. It is true that many of the cabinet members, and the President, use AI to assist in their decision making process. How many policy decisions are made mostly, or even entirely, by AI, is unknown. And whether these AI really do have our best interests at heart, or whether they are secretly manipulating the Republic for whatever reason, is also unknown. Crime is common in the Jovian Republic, if only because many things are illegal. While the average citizen can enjoy a joint or a beer without issue, designer drugs, nano-drugs, and especially petals, are banned. Possession is enough for a prison sentence, and trafficking or distribution could be enough to permanently place a person under examination. Unregulated communications with the rest of the system, or dissemenating material from such communications, is banned. Possession of a Cornucopia without a license could mean a life sentence. Unapproved genetic alteration, for both the recipient and the practitioner, is also highly illegal. Placing the former permanently under examination, and the latter in prison for life. These are in addition to the standard set of crimes, perjury, theft, assault and murder. Being placed under examination is quite common. While many laws protect the privacy of citizens, at least in theory, if you are placed under examination, all of your rights in this area are waived. This means that your every movement, your every interaction, is being recorded and can be used against you legally, and that going out of surveillance is a crime. One can be under examination for many reasons, either because they are new migrants, or they have potentially subversive genetic alterations, or they have commited some crime. Most citizens are aware that, within the habitats of the Republic, almost everything they do is being recorded, if not always monitored, at all times, regardless of their status. But they also know the times and places where this isn't so, where they can speak frankly, enjoy a designer drug or illegal XP, or exchange correspondence with a friend on Mars. And for the most part, the Republic ignores minor infractions of this nature, so long as an officer of the law does not actually witness it. The Jovian courts do not accept evidence from this ubiquitous surveillance of an individual in private spaces, though the investigative branch does monitor it all, and will ensure that people who are breaking the law will be 'randomly' searched. [detail on the Jovian economy] There are two aspects to the economy of the Jovian Republic, and the Jovian system. The first is how they conduct themselves with regards to their internal economy, and the second is how they conduct themselves with regards to the rest of the system. Despite thier rhetotic, the Republic does engage with the economy of the Consortium, trading resources and technology. Within the Jovian Republic, the people operate under a traditional, capitalist economy. The currency is the dollar. People work to earn dollars, earning an amount based on how useful their job is deemed to be, they have a certain amount taxed by the government based on their status in society, and they can spend them on goods and services whose price is set by the megacorps. Most of what the megacorps sell costs them next to nothing to provide. The government ultimately sets the wages, sets the taxes, and sets the prices, forcing the citizens and subjects to engage with an old economy in order to promote their ideological goals. So it is not so much an economy as it is a vast social engineering project. The people of the Republic are vaguely aware of this, and mostly accepting of it, but it could be that the next generation will become frustrated that so much could be available but is not. Only in the Jovian Republic have the megacorps survived, and even here, they are a protected species. In every other part of the system, these unwieldy, unpopular monstrosities were forced to break up following the Fall, even those whose assets survived were transformed into the more fluid hypercorps. In the Republic, they were recreated as tools of the state. Unlike the relationship between the nation-state and the megacorps before the Fall, where the corporate practices often drove government policy, rather than the other way around, in the Republic, they exist at the mercy of the state. Only these large, monolithic entities have the capital necessary to purchase licenses to operate the Cornucopia's. And so long as the chief executives in these megacorps are given certain priveleges, they are happy to go along with government instructions. The overlay of a capitalist and megacorps face onto what is essentially a command economy is just part of the Jovian desire to return to how it was years, or even decades, before the Fall. The kind of work people do is quite physical compared to the rest of the system. Carving new habitats from the rocky moons and moonlets of the Jovian system is the main real job. Only in environments totally unsuitable for humans will the use of tele-operated worker robots be permitted. Others are employed as janitors, technicians, tradesmen, and so on. The military is the largest employer, after construction. And of course many Jovian citizens are employed doing much the same things transhumanity does, as bit-pushers, professionals, scientists or artists of some sort. The average working week is around forty hours, which provides just enough for the average citizen to live comfortably and save a little. Compare this to the typical eight to sixteen hours in the inner system, for those who are not indentured, or the scant few hours an autonomist must put in to keep a stable reputation. [detail on the Jovian Defence Forces] The Jovian Defence Forces are the single most powerful military in the system. Their first priority is maintaining the integrity and security of the Jovian system against any outside power. They do this with a network of orbital satellites, surface batteries and patrolling warships, which identify, engage, and, if necessary, destroy anything that threatens the habitats they control, whether it is a rogue asteroid or an unscheduled ship. Their second priority is defending Jovian interests at large, throughout the system. They do this by maintaining a military, of warships and expeditionary forces, that can best any potential opponent, and operating a spy network that ensures no such threats materialise in the first place. The mercenary and security hypercorps of the Consortium, the defence microcorps of the Titanians, the militia and irregulars of the Autonomists, and the warriors of the Ultimates, all perform thier missions admirably. They can organise and execute scalpel operations with astonishing fluidity and urgency. Everything from putting down rebellions or breaking up strikers, to tracing and nuetralising the assets of terrorist cells or organised crime, to infiltrating uncooperative stations to perform a sabotage, extraction or assassination. And in the event of an outside force attempting to exert control over a station, they can rally an effective resistance to invasion, or occupation. But they are not a military, and the Jovian Defence Forces seem to hold an advantage when it comes to a long-term, full-spectrum conflict. While the standard military doctrine is to sleeve veteran Ego's in state of the art combat Morphs, the Jovians do not have this option. Instead they make extensive use of combat AI at every level, which serves to assist commanders and soldiers who use mind-machine interfaces to coordinate, command and control whole units of drones. Where individual soldiers do make their way onto a battlefield, it is usually in a heavily armed vehicle or exoskeleton, or as lighter special forces. Every loss in combat is likely a permanent loss for the Jovians, while their likely opponents can just keep coming, between alpha forking, egocasting and stack recovery. The Jovian Defence Forces operate the largest flight of warships in the system, more than all other factions put together. The vessels are limited by their need to hold humans, and so they cannot perform high-G thrusts, and they must devote a lot of space to life support. The JDF is well aware of how much of a disadvantage this is, relative to other warships, so they do their best to compensate. Numerical superiority is one way, and the Jovians think having at least one more ship than everyone else should suffice. Forcing an opponent to manouevre to cover themselves against two hostile ships on different vectors is a huge advantage in space combat. The warmaking potential of the rest of the system, or even the Consortium alone, is far greater than that of the Jovian Republic. But in the rest of the system, it is divided between countless different groups, each concerned with their own survival, their own profits, their own reputation, and who may be aligned against one another in the service of various hypercorps or other interests. So the JDF maintains a kind of local superiority. Jovian spies do a good job of keeping their enemies pointed at one another, and not at the Republic. [dirty secrets] More than half of all citizens are, and know they are, un-people. They don't know how many others are, though, so many suspect they are alone. During the Fall they didn't quite make it out, but managed to farcast into a biomorph on Luna or Mars. From there, they made their way to the Jovian Republic. The government is also aware of this, though they don't push it too hard. In practice it means that most people are only one serious examination away from being totally ruined. So there is a sense of paranoia, and most of these citizens want to just keep their heads down. So, thoughts? I know it contradicts some canon.