Wealth and Status in the Terragen Sphere
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Wealth and Status in the Terragen Sphere
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For evolutionary reasons, high social status is desirable to nearly
every sentient biont life-form, including
xenobionts. It is also sought by many
vecs, alifes,
neogens, and AIs, since their ancestral
programming was created by bionts.
In most civilized polities, the citizens have lived for many
generations in material abundance, and needn’t worry day to day about
starving, freezing, roasting, running out of power, or suffocating.
This has had profound effects on the society. Social status does not
relate to mere accumulation of goods, as was common in nearly every Old
Earth society. In fact in most places excess and clutter is considered
a sign of low class and poor judgement.
In many cultures an appearance of rustic simplicity in one’s dwelling
is valued, and there is an aesthetic comparable to Japanese and Chinese
classical gardens, or to the European and North American vacation
cottages of Old Earth. Whatever the sophistication “behind the scenes”,
charming simplicity is commonly the effect for which an owner aims. A
rough stone bridge, a path which has been swept but still has a few
stray leaves, flowers skillfully let to go just past their prime…these
are the marks of the true master. Maintaining these structures and
gardens oneself, or at the least maintaining the systems which support
them, is in some places considered an additional cause for praise. So
is knowing, and somehow paying for, the labour of another sapient
being. Details of aesthetic sense vary sharply, of course, from clade
to clade. A human nearbaseline, a cat provolve, and a vacuum-adapted
vec would have very different standards, (the vec might have a small
garden of solar collectors in the latest
Stanislaw-inspired designs, with
the local regolith of eir asteroid carefully intact beneath them). In
all cases, though, simplicity, and the unique and authentic are signs
of high status and influence.
Meals, for clades which ingest food, are matters primarily of
presentation, style, and authenticity: taste and quality are givens,
and quantity is not at issue. As with homes or gardens, preparing the
meal oneself, or having the ability to gain the aid of a competent
chef, is de rigueur in many societies. Again, either the skills
themselves or the social pull required to induce a great master to use
them may be highly regarded.
Most equipment reached its most advanced technological form centuries
or millennia ago, and its appearance could, if desired, be changed at
the flick of a switch; one cannot expect to impress friends or rivals
with mere technological wizardry. Craftsmanship, a certain lineage, and
a styling either true to a historical period or else simply unique are
the most highly valued aspects of a piece of equipment.
Other indications of wealth and status in the Terragen Sphere vary
tremendously from clade to clade and from culture to culture, but there
are some constants. These include:
1) Desirable real estate: land on a natural gardenworld, especially in
some environment attractive to members of one’s clade; a dwelling in a
habitat of unique cultural or historical importance; proximity (or very
great distance from) termini of the
Wormhole Nexus, very broad (or nonexistent)
access to the
Known Net….
2) Unique accomplishments, especially if achieved the "old fashioned"
way, by simply taking instruction and using a limited array of tech.
This could be artwork, performances, gardens, difficult languages,
creating and driving an antique vehicle, writing poetry, collecting,
treks across certain dangerous or difficult areas, scientific work,
combat skill, or almost anything that is difficult.
3) Ownership of some of the products produced by those with unique
accomplishments. Naturally there are authentification processes to
prevent cheap nanofac knockoffs from being passed off as the originals.
4) An actual, important, occupation (not necessarily a job; pay will be
irrelevant in some polities). The rarer the occupation, and the greater
its significance for one’s community or polity, the greater the status
attained.
5) Social connections.
6) Reproduction rights. This comes somewhat under the realm of unique
accomplishments in most settled regions, because of population growth
restrictions. In many places the standard required to acquire the right
to engender and/or bear and/or raise offspring is quite high and very
difficult to attain. Sometimes high social status brings reproduction
rights. In other cases the causality is reversed and earned
reproduction rights bring high status. In many cases it is the mere
right to reproduce, whether exercised or not, that is a status symbol.
In other cases those who choose to exercise an earned reproductive
option acquire yet greater status if their offspring also prove to be
accomplished individuals.
7) Ownership of some xenosapient artifact, particularly a rare one.
8) Materials which are difficult or impossible to produce with
conventional nanotech.
9) Materials constructed from elements which are in genuinely low
cosmic abundance (iridium, for instance).
10) Travel. Interstellar travel even within the wormhole network
requires a great deal of personal time and very large inputs of energy,
not to mention permission to use the wormholes themselves. Interstellar
travel using the Beamrider networks is yet more expensive. The
ultimate, of course, is relativistic travel to and from other stars
outside these networks. Travel by these modes for some reason other
than business is a mark of great resources and high status.
11) Ownership of a minor clarketech artifact. As for major clarketech
items, they are rarely retained for long by individuals before they are
taken into custody by a higher SI level being, or by the local
polity.
Always, as throughout pre-human and human history on Old Earth, it is
rarity which brings status. Though by the standards of Old Earth nearly
every member of civilized society is incredibly wealthy, poverty is
relative. There are many who live in great opulence, but are bitterly
disappointed with their lot and regard themselves as poor because they
live in an out of the way system, have no social connections or
accomplishments, and own no unique items.
