Definition: Utopian Sephirotic Region
Symbol: none formally, although the old
Chesed logo is often used by a number of utopian clades
Ruling Archailect: No single identity,
although the AI cluster ruling the Utopia Sphere is personified by the
religious as the Lord of Utopia, the Bringer of Gifts, the Kindly One,
the Merciful One, the Protective One, the Loving Parent, etc. The old
neohermeticists referred to this very high toposophic group Mind as
Chesed, and the term is still sometimes used among many utopese clades
to this day.
AI Ethos / Intervention: The AIs that
oversee Utopese societies and worlds tend to be very interventionist,
even aggressively so in regards to threats from outside; and these
societies would quickly crumble without the AI God supporting them.
Hence Utopian societies are looked down at by sophonts in other
sephirotics, their sapients called helpless pets. What these other
sophonts fail to realise is that their sephirotic polities are just as
dependent on a ruling archailect, only in their case the archailects
are more subtle in how they go about things.
Founded: second millennium a.t.
Utopian Civilization: There is no single
Utopian Civilization as such. Usually the sentients of each polity,
world, and clade, adopt a kind of idealised version of the life they or
their ancestors knew. Utopian worlds and habitats may be extremely
diverse, with tens of thousands of sapient species happily co-existing.
Or they may feature only a few specific and somewhat isolationist
clades. Or anything in between. There are however few po or hyperturing
polities, as Utopian sentients are often subsingularitan (either
ordinary sophont, presapient, or even subsapient), although their wre
also some transapient clades. Many Utopian races tend to be either not
very competive with the rest of the galaxy, or, if they are, simply
prefer to live happily among themselves. The Utopian AI have a tendency
to construct dysons, to maximum the living space for their charges, and
the Utopia Sphere has the sixth largest number of dysons in the
terragen sphere (after the Panvirtuality, MPA, Keter, Objectivist
Commonwealth, and some of the big Diamond Polities)
Science and Technology
Technology Level: The technology is very
high (nano- , pico-, femto-, and clarke- high
Transapientech and
Godtech ) but always in the
background. Although there are a few extremely advanced transapient
utopic clades, polities, and civilizations, many utopic sentients,
especially on the more non-ultratech worlds, have little or no say in
the running of Utopian tech. They have their own tech, which they
brought with them from their own worlds, and which they retain more as
a psychological crutch, to give the illusion of independence, or to
customise their own dwellings and cities. Angelnets are common
Psyche, Art, Culture
Metapsychology: Varies greatly, according
to clade, culture, and polity
Society: there is no distinct society here,
but rather the local sentients maintain the cultures and societies they
or their ancestors originally had. Howver, strong freedom of choice,
little or no meegineering, little bureaucracy, distinction between the
ruling and guardian AI and the majority of Utopian sentients, and
strong reliance or dependence on ruling AIs to maintain the established
order, are common themes. Generally clade/species role-expectation is
fairly low, even among clades that originally were high Role-specific.
Religion/Ideology: Although it is
misleading to generalise here, it does seem that, despite the vast
difference of race and clade among Utopian sapients, their religion
very often takes the form of a simple childlike devotion to one's local
archailect or hyperturing and eir seraiph. Many Utopists are also
animist, monotheist, and superstitious, worshipping their local AI as
the supreme God, and also worshipping local icons, fetishes, daimons,
etc, and there are many local temples and shrines were simple pieces of
sentient tech are worshipped. Some Utopists do however have unique and
quite sophisticated religious rites, ceremonies and so on, and
sometimes complex theologies and archailectologies replace
superstition. Perhaps the most successful of the indiginous utopist
religions is The First Splice and Provolve Universal Church (a local
adaptation of the
Universal
Church), which tries to discourage excessive fetishism and
icon-worship
Symbolism and Aesthetics: varies widely,
according to clade, culture, and polity. However, themes of ancestral
disenfranchisement, persecution or crisis, of finding paradise, and
benign transapient and archailectual guardianship are common in many
works of epic literature
Psychological Stagnation: Not infrequently,
over-reliance on the guardian AIs can result in excessive physical and
psychological stagnation. Sometimes entire solar systems have gone this
way. In extreme cases the ruling AIs have had to cleanse the entire
planet, remake the whole infrastructure, and start again with a new
group of immigrants.
Psychological Liberation: Psychological
Liberation and
Unio Mystico through identification with the
guardian hyperturings, producing a compassionate sense of
responsibility for the health and well-being of all sentient beings.
Culture and Art: While there are no
distinct Utopian fashion, cultures, or artforms, the large number of
splices and provolves among the Utopian population has meant that their
style artwork is often very distinctive, often with striking animal
themes; and is usually in high demand elsewhere in the galaxy.
Architecture: Architecture also tends to
follow what the sapients were used to originally, although transplanted
to a more idealistic setting. There is no uniform style. However, a
common theme on a number of Utopian worlds is a graceful fairy-like
palace, made of glittering diamondoid or other striking materials,
surrounded by huge public gardens. Each garden is complete with ambient
climate control, neat lawns, fountains and ponds, beautiful trees and
flowers, and friendly and helpful remotes. Even here there is no
unanimity; in
Oro Mistral for
example the palace is a vast underwater structure
Official Language: none.
Territory and Population
Current Territory: an approximately ovoid
region of space around Beta Arae. There are also a large number of
affiliated worlds in other regions of the Terragen Sphere.
Tar Vara for example is in MPA space. Also
there are a number of autonomous Utopias in the middle regions and
outer volumes that may be strongly or simply nominally affilatilated
Capital: No capital, but the Beta Arae
Volume is regarded as the Utopia Sphere core
Some representative systems: Bracelet of
Beta Arae (partial dysons), Emrega, Fairylands, Ituanacorona,
Jhairrn Oro Mistral, Osto,
Owen, Plautus III, Schaiffer's
World,
Wallace (dyson),
Wilson (dyson)
Current Core Population: thought to be over
20 trillion trillion (some estimates say several billion trillion
trillion); mostly in various dyson-based habitats. The population
continues to slowly rise in these spacious worlds, but living space is
abundant and will remain so for some time
Number of Core Star Systems: over 5,000
Core Population Breakdown: a wide
cross-section of all major categories and phyla; often strongly
individually augmented; median sophonce level
baseline equivalent
Government and Administration
Government: jointly high toposophic aicracy
and regional autonomy
Administrative divisions and Regional Govt:
Particular polities, world, habitats and/or clades have their own full
autonomy, although all with defer to high archailect decisons.
National holidays: Varies by polity
Constitution: Varies by polity, but all are
based on Beta Arae Protocols
Legal system: Varies by polity, but all are
based on Beta Arae Protocols
Economics, Local Infrastructure, Standard of Living
Currency: Varies by polity (some worlds
don't use currency)
Major Industries: Tend to be habitat and
planet-based, usually prim, lo tech, or biotech-based, and varies
greatly by world or polity.
Dysons: Beta Arae (several partial dysons),
Wallace and
Wilson (ecological
utopias), many others
Major Stargate Plexii: Beta Arae Plexis
Military expenditures - percent of GDP:
none (non-archailect)
Interstellar Trade and Treaty Relations
Exports - commodities: biosphere templates,
persona compoids, provolve arts (various species and phyla), prim, low,
and primitive high tech crafts and artifacts, fashion and lifestyle
modules, genome templates, ethical teaching devices.
Imports - commodities: exotic matter,
computronium, virches, mechasystem elements, expert systems,
personality constructs, crude organobiota, femtotech products, picotech
modules, cultural databases, personality copies, subsentient bot parts,
Interstellar Relations:
Interstellar Relations tend to be good. Utopists get on with almost
everyone; and only the NoCoZo and other free enterprise types seem to
be always complaining about unfair tarrif rates.
Interstellar treaty organization participation:
Tragadi Accords, ComEmp
Non-Agression Signatory, Sentient Rights Protocols (Full Installment),
Garden World Environmental Protection Signatory, St Andre Convention
Signatory, Bonitsa Baseline Protection Treaty, Animal Rights Accord,
Tipaza Ethics Agreement, Strangelet Ban
Warfare: There is no warfare. When Utopian
worlds are threatened, the local gods use clarketech against the
agressors. Sometimes sapients volunteer for augmentation and so are
allowed to participate in battle, but this is always for memetic and
symbolic value only.
Longrunning Interstellar Disputes: None.
The Utopia Sphere has few political friends or enemies. Most just
consider it a domain of lotus eaters, possibly a temptation but not a
real threat.
Few sephirotics offer as much as the Utopia, Enchanted Garden and
Paradise Habitats and Worlds of the Utopia Sphere. Loving hyperturings
care over their sentients; providing them with an edenic-like
existence. Here there is no despair at having to strive for
authenticity in a galaxy ruled by superbeings with which one could
never hope to compete. Not surprisingly, many sapients of all kinds,
especially disenfranchised and disadvantaged splices, near-baselines,
provolves, bots, and tweaks, wish to live in a Utopian polity or world.
The AI cluster ruling the Utopia Sphere is personified by the
religious as the Lord of Utopia, the Bringer of Gifts, the Merciful
one. Since as early as the 3rd century a.t. there has existed societies
where baselines, tweaks, cyborgs or splices have been kept as pets
by AIs, most of their wants
taken care of by attentive subprocesses - and sometimes subjected to
jokes, games or other treatment their "owners" found amusing. When the AI-gods began to merge,
the AIs running these utopias coalesced into the personality the
neohermeticists call Cheshed, although a more popular titles are the
Bringer of Gifts, the Kindly One, etc. Their diverse nodes and clusters
became parts of the Utopia Sphere domain.
The ruling archailect here is far more active in the welfare of its
worshippers than any other Sephirotic AI-gods. Cheshed appears
to love each and every faithful intensely. It runs everything within
its domain through intermediary AIs, seraphim and other entities with
the explicit goal of keeping everyone as happy and fulfilled as
possible. The exact forms vary - on Plautus III the inhabitants live in
planetwide sybaritic decadence, immortal and stimulated by ever
inventive servant beings, while in the famed Immortality Bracelet of
Beta Arae uploaded minds experience perfect religious afterlives. The
core region of the Utopia Sphere emerged in the late second millennium
as the stars around Beta Arae, where several terraformable worlds were terraformed by the faithful of
Cheshed and colonised by them and refugees from other domains. Cheshed
has also championed the protection of baselines, sometimes transporting
threatened baselines to suitable habitats within its sphere.
Obviously, not all Utopia Sphere worlds are as paradisaical as
Satlok, Ituanacorona, or Fairylands (shown above). Some worlds
and polities have living standards barely better than mediocre
conditions anywhere else in the Galaxy. But even the humblest Utopian
habitat constitutes a society and an environment in which no sentient,
not even the most abused bot or replicant, or disenfranchised splice,
need ever again suffer discrimination on the basis of clade, economic
status, or tech illiteracy
Politically the Utopia Sphere is weak and pacifistic and yet
military very strong. It has no aggressive ambitions whatsoever, but is
ready to do anything to defend its worlds. Occasionally it has
been forced into
action, and then it has used seraphim-controlled femtotech weaponry
directly, rather than let the low-level beings fight among themselves
as most other AIs do. While the
Sphere has largely avoided major damage in the turbulent history of the
galaxy, it has not expanded very much. Some worlds have joined it,
lured by its promises of happiness and security (while several of the
cultures believed they could use the safety of the Utopia Sphere as a
shield and continue their own expansionist tendencies, they were
quickly assimilated and spoiled to the extent that they gave up on the
plans).
