Limited
function angelnet
system used for
security, law enforcement, and general control of subject or conquered
populations. Guardwebs lack the subtlety and flexibility of standard
angelnet
or utility
fog systems, but are much easier to manufacture and rapidly
deploy
when required.
Guardwebs are primarily used as a method of maintaining order in
situations
where local populations may be inclined to engage in rebellion, civil
unrest,
or civil war and local angelnet or other law enforcement systems are
either
ineffective, nonfunctional, or nonexistent. In such situations the
guardweb
operates as a form of 'ubiquitous law enforcement' able to provide
virtually
total surveillance of all sophont activity (including mental activity
if
necessary)
and to physically restrain any individuals who attempt to break
whatever laws
or regulations are in force until sophont law enforcement or military
forces
can arrive.
Typically guardwebs are only deployed on a temporary basis in
situations where
conditions have resulted in a significant breakdown in social order. In
such
situations the web is gradually withdrawn as local memetic engineering
and
diplomatic efforts work to restore social cohesion and order. However
in some
rare cases there have been recorded instances of totalitarian regimes
using
guardweb systems to subjugate and abuse either their own or other
conquered
populations.
The Universal Declaration of Sentient Rights contains no less than two
entire
definitive
clauses and three full appendices pertaining to the proper and
acceptable use
of guardwebs and their deployment, application, and withdrawal.
Violations of
these clauses has been surprisingly rare, due perhaps to a combination
of vigorous enforcement by sephirotic
military
forces and the occasionally draconian levels of transapient
(and in
three
recorded instances, archai)
retribution that have been visited upon
violators
when modosophont level enforcement attempts have either failed or been
slow in developing. In all such in cases, no
warning, explanation, or follow-up statement was provided after the
transapient
intervention was concluded.
For their own reasons, the transapients seem to wish to prevent the use
of
guardweb technology from becoming either too widespread or readily
abused.
