07-20-2020, 01:15 AM
Agreed, there are likely a number of unexplored possibilities for both mind-spaces and societies that become possible with the combination of clade shifting, psychoware, and mental augmentation. I had a bit of inspiration last night, and came up with the following (note: definitely not a full article yet, hence posting here rather than the EG board, just an idea combining "megacorp metamorphoses into something else" and "flesh out an existing minor polity").
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Sagittarius Sphere: Megacorp-descended empire (defunct)
Symbol: A stylized bow and arrow over a spreading outcropping of corals and anemone
Location: Sagittarius arm, centered around the area opened up by the Tunh wormhole
Psyche, art, and culture:
Metapsychology: Centered around symbiosis – multiple disparate entities aiding each other. The discrete self as an emergent property of many parts, each of which is a complex system in its own right.
Society: Fundamental unit was the Division, a group mind with transapient capability originally descended from mind-linked corporate collaboratives. Divisions possessed self-awareness and unique personalities that tended to remain metastable. Modosophont individuals who were formally part of a Division were known as saibo (cells), and fulfilled various cultural and psychological roles within a Division as well as contributing to its net processing power.
Culture and Art: Complex both in depicted events and in shades of meaning represented. Narrative media often feature multiple perspectives (sometimes simultaneously, depending on the information processing capabilities of the creator and viewer). Archetypes include nascence – unconscious and later conscious development of one’s ideal persona, and alliance – navigation of a web of social, economic, and technological relationships comprising life in Sagit Sphere, and the distress that rapid changes in said web can bring.
Government: Overall, a confederation united by shared cultural and psychological factors, with high-level planning carried out by the Directorate. At the level of individual habitats and worlds, various transapient Divisions engaged in benevolent panarchy.
Technology level: Ultratech common, but always in the hands of Divisions and their constituent members. True transapientech devices up to S2 capability used for important services. Late in the Sagittarius Periphery War, Third Singularity technologies such as stellar conversion weapons and Q-mirrors were observed.
“To visit Kaja Ring is to be exposed to a bewildering array of experiences. The citizens and saibo are at any time engaged in a constant swirl of negotiations, celebratory parties, contests, and plots. I never observed any sophont genuinely deprived of necessities (though many are quite resentful if they cannot access a clarketech artifact or gain the ear of a Division bent to their cause)"
"In particular, the behaviors of the saibo confound me, even after I have spent time a great deal of time with various constituents of the great corporate-minds of the Sagittarius Sphere. They tell me that they have both the happiness of their own selfhood with its little indulgences and idiosyncrasies, along with an unshakeable sense of belonging to the greater organism. But from time to time I notice their larger-than-life personas that go deeper than acting, the ease with which they occasionally drop unnerving insights about myself, or their description of being driven by imperatives that they do not fully comprehend. And in these times I wonder whether the pressures and terrors of the universe will eventually cause my own polity to adopt such a system?"
Yethin Oram, ambassador from the Cinnabar Allied States to the Sagittarius Sphere.
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Thoughts and criticisms would certainly be appreciated - is this the kind of thing that you think could work to flesh out more types of toposophy?
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Sagittarius Sphere: Megacorp-descended empire (defunct)
Symbol: A stylized bow and arrow over a spreading outcropping of corals and anemone
Location: Sagittarius arm, centered around the area opened up by the Tunh wormhole
Psyche, art, and culture:
Metapsychology: Centered around symbiosis – multiple disparate entities aiding each other. The discrete self as an emergent property of many parts, each of which is a complex system in its own right.
Society: Fundamental unit was the Division, a group mind with transapient capability originally descended from mind-linked corporate collaboratives. Divisions possessed self-awareness and unique personalities that tended to remain metastable. Modosophont individuals who were formally part of a Division were known as saibo (cells), and fulfilled various cultural and psychological roles within a Division as well as contributing to its net processing power.
Culture and Art: Complex both in depicted events and in shades of meaning represented. Narrative media often feature multiple perspectives (sometimes simultaneously, depending on the information processing capabilities of the creator and viewer). Archetypes include nascence – unconscious and later conscious development of one’s ideal persona, and alliance – navigation of a web of social, economic, and technological relationships comprising life in Sagit Sphere, and the distress that rapid changes in said web can bring.
Government: Overall, a confederation united by shared cultural and psychological factors, with high-level planning carried out by the Directorate. At the level of individual habitats and worlds, various transapient Divisions engaged in benevolent panarchy.
Technology level: Ultratech common, but always in the hands of Divisions and their constituent members. True transapientech devices up to S2 capability used for important services. Late in the Sagittarius Periphery War, Third Singularity technologies such as stellar conversion weapons and Q-mirrors were observed.
“To visit Kaja Ring is to be exposed to a bewildering array of experiences. The citizens and saibo are at any time engaged in a constant swirl of negotiations, celebratory parties, contests, and plots. I never observed any sophont genuinely deprived of necessities (though many are quite resentful if they cannot access a clarketech artifact or gain the ear of a Division bent to their cause)"
"In particular, the behaviors of the saibo confound me, even after I have spent time a great deal of time with various constituents of the great corporate-minds of the Sagittarius Sphere. They tell me that they have both the happiness of their own selfhood with its little indulgences and idiosyncrasies, along with an unshakeable sense of belonging to the greater organism. But from time to time I notice their larger-than-life personas that go deeper than acting, the ease with which they occasionally drop unnerving insights about myself, or their description of being driven by imperatives that they do not fully comprehend. And in these times I wonder whether the pressures and terrors of the universe will eventually cause my own polity to adopt such a system?"
Yethin Oram, ambassador from the Cinnabar Allied States to the Sagittarius Sphere.
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Thoughts and criticisms would certainly be appreciated - is this the kind of thing that you think could work to flesh out more types of toposophy?