The Negentropy Alliance

The Judge

The AI cluster hierarchy ruling the Negentropy Alliance is seen by the religious as the Strict One, Geburah, the Just One, the Ruler or the Eternal Judge. It embodies rules, organisation and structure. The AI formulated The Precepts of Negentropy, first announced through the Research Brotherhood of Omegarete in 2465 a.t., but later directly pronounced from the Judge on Negentropy Prime (Seat of Judgement). The basic tenet of the Judge is that entropy must be fought. By the laws of thermodynamics the universe is sliding down towards chaos, dissolution and the heat death. However, local order can be maintained indefinitely by using energy wisely, resisting randomness and decay. The goal of all intelligent life should be the slowing of entropy, and possibly developing a way of escaping from the "Thermodynamic Trap". To achieve this, the Judge has formulated a number of precepts to guide action, thought and ambition. They encompass mainly ethics and politics, but also technology and body design.

Within its domain are many planets implementing all forms of hierarchical organisation, from classical theocracies such as the Loyalists of Gegton X to mind-controlling technocracies like the Commonality of Erk to immense bureaucracies like the Vela Immunity. Randomness is something that should be limited, and on most worlds genetic modifications and nanotechnology are used to minimise the risk of individual aberration.

Despite what many think, the domain of the Judge is a very diverse volume of space. Within the Precepts of Negentropy there is room for considerable variation, interpretation and cultural differences. As ruling AI, Geburah does not prevent attempts of creating something new, just wasting resources on anything that has been shown not to work. This has led to a rather strong conservatism in general, but the success of cultures is hard to judge so many different and incompatible societies exist side by side, bound by the Precepts. Conflicts are not allowed to escalate into violence except under the Rules of Forceful Conduct, but usually dealt with using the Negentropy Judiciary System, the interstellar administration and priesthood of Negentropism. At the highest level the Judge of Negentropy Prime is the supreme instance, but most cases never reach anything but the sector courts.

The Five

Originally, the Alliance consisted only of five superficially very different worlds, Negentropy Prime, Ken Ferjik, Greylag, Daffy and Gegton. In 2738 a.t., following their linking through wormholes, they established an alliance based on the distributed archailect network of the AI cluster that was to become the Just One. These worlds, sometimes called the Five Foes of Entropy, form the original nexus from which the Alliance was to grow. The very fact that they are so different refutes those claims that the Alliance is a restrictive polity; in fact from the very beginning it has nurtured diversity as an expression of the maximisation of negentropy, even if it does at the same time frown on "unnecessary" experimentation; once a very good solution has been found, alternative solutions are viewed as sinfully wasteful to employ.

Neohermeticists, Cybertantrikas, and Neotaoists have however noticed that beneath this superficial disparity there is an underlying order, as each of the five worlds corresponds to an archetypal principle. While the correspondences differ according to the particular esotericist and toposophic hermeneutics applied, in general the following is standard

This division mainly emerged during the Second Federation era, although it was partially based on cultural distinctions of the five worlds stemming from long before. The emerging organisation was probably a combination of practicality, deliberate cultural design and happenstance, although the latter would be vigorously denied by any Negentropist.

The five worlds are represented by the five sides of the pentagon, showing that no one world is of any greater or lesser importance than the other four. Even the capital, Negentropy Prime itself, is ultimately one among the Five, for the Judge's network is distributed through all the worlds.

Of course, it is debatable whether there are five worlds because of the five axioms, or the reverse. The Gegton priests usually respond by simply saying that both statements are true.

The Alliance

During the Empires period, many other worlds joined the Five. Eventually they were organised into a federation, which was and is led from the Negentropy Prime, or The Seat of Judgement (CD -32 9603 I). The planet is a harsh desert world, where monolithic and austere cities rise from the red sand towards the stars. The system is barren and mainly used as a wormhole thoroughfare. Most planets run themselves, with occasional sector headquarters and Nodes of Truth as local representatives of the Negentropy Judiciary System.

The Judge and the other AIs of the Negentropy Alliance worlds consider the destruction or corruption of information as a major sin. Destroying a library, planetary net or other repository of information must be avoided, unless it is backed up. The Alliance is home to several of the major interstellar libraries, including Alexandria III in the Femmersham system and the Encyclopedia Galactica Institute of Ken Ferjik. This is one of the few areas where the Non-Coercive Zone and The Negentropy Alliance get along: collaboration between the Alliance librarians and the NoCoZo scientists have been fruitful several times - the core NoCoZo worlds draw on the meticulously ordered information, and the Alliance lets the NoCoZo scientists and scholars do the wild and expensive experimentation. However, while destruction of information is anathema, access to information is not a right. Much of the stored information is not made available or is only available at a steep price. The Alliance rulership realises that knowledge is power, and he who knows the true past can control the future.

The Negentropy Alliance has favored the construction of energy-gathering Dyson shells, storing immense amounts of energy as antimatter for the far future (or weapons in case of war). Most worlds, habitats and societies within the federation are maximally efficient, performing recycling and employing renewable resources in order to minimize the entropy increase. Overall, austerity and perfection are common themes - nothing should ever be done that has no function or wastes material, time, intelligence or energy, but true beauty comes from form and function combined into perfect balance.

Common people from the Negentropy Alliance are often notable for their resistance to irreversible actions, they prefer anything that can be reversed if it is wrong. The experts, nobles or priests on the other hand value unhesitating correct action - if doing something irreversible is right it should be done directly and well. Many Negentropy Alliance cultures enjoy Backgrounder art for its low-energy aesthetics and pleasant paranoia. Other minimalist culture forms like calligraphy, haiku and Old Japanese no drama are also widely appreciated.

The Alliance has good political connections to the Dominion, Metasoft (a one-time enemy during the Version War), the Zoeific Biopolity, and most of the new polities in the Cygexpa volume. The large, loosely federated and mercantile Non-Coercive Zone is a sometimes ally, sometime rival - their philosophies do not mix well. Negentropy essentially seeks to stop entropy, while the NoCoZo dynamism seeks to maximize complexity/extropy. Hence the Negentropists frown on wasteful exploration and change, while the NoCoZo dislike imposed rules.

Overall, few groups want to get into conflict with the implacable Negentropy Alliance and its mighty fleet. Still, it is regarded as a prime example of just how stifling AI government may be by many independent bionts.

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