The Confederation Handbook (3 page)

Without informing the JSKP or the other geneticists involved in the
project, Wing-Tsit Chong also designed Eden’s neural strata
with the capability to receive and run a dying person’s
thoughts and memories, thus allowing his or her personality to live
on after the body’s death.

Wing-Tsit Chong was the
first person to transfer his memories into the neural strata, when he
died in 2090, and in doing so started a rift with the Christian and
Muslim faiths which has never been healed.

The affinity gene was
declared a violation of divine heritage by Pope Eleanor. Eden then
declared independence from the JSKP (see
A Second Chance at Eden
). A similar Islamic proclamation followed swiftly. Pope Eleanor also
threatened to excommunicate anyone using symbiont neurons. In the
five years following, all the remaining people possessing the
affinity gene or symbionts (Christian or otherwise) emigrated to Eden
and Pallas. After this, the use of the affinity symbionts and bonded
domestic servitor animals died out on Earth. Bitek organisms were
also abandoned, leaving bitek as an almost exclusively Edenist
technology. By 2110 the dividing line between the two human cultures
was fully established.

As well as providing easy
communication, affinity is used by children to absorb educational
programs from the Eden habitat personality, an equivalent of the
Adamist didactic courses. The personality also employs affinity to
coordinate the servitor constructs which maintain the central habitat
parkland.

Affinity is also used to interface with bitek processor chips, in a
similar fashion as does an Adamist neural nanonic datavise to a
processor block. Bitek processors are used in all Edenist spaceships
and industrial facilities, such as cloudscoops and zero-gee
factories. Although all Edenists have the communal affinity trait,
private one to one mental conversation is still possible, and cannot
be overheard by other Edenists, being called “singular
engagement.â€

When Edenists die, they
transfer their memories into the habitat, contributing to the habitat
personality. This personality is therefore an assemblage of the
habitat’s original thought routines and the identities of every
Edenist ever to die inside. So, although one entity, the personality
is also a multiplicity.

This thought transfer is the
principal bone of contention with Adamist religions (particularly
Christianity), which consider it an attempt to circumvent divine
judgment. This apparent life-continuation, and with it the removal of
the human fear of death, is one reason why Edenists are, as a general
rule, extremely well-balanced individuals. Also contributing to this
enhanced mental health is the communal affinity which allows an
Edenist to share and therefore mitigate any personal stress and
worry. Cases of insanity or even anxiety attacks are virtually
unheard of among Edenists.

Although one distinct entity, the habitat personality is homogenized
through the use of thought subroutines running in parallel through
the neural strata, allowing it to converse with millions of Edenists
all at once as well as running its own nonautonomous functions.
Edenists do not necessarily transfer their personalities in the
habitat where they were born, only where they die. In the cases of
Edenists working outside habitat affinity range, such as diplomats,
or passengers in transit, their memories can be stored within a
voidhawk’s memory cells until they reach a habitat again, when
they’re transferred into the neural strata.

Transferred personalities
remain accessible on an individual level, helping to remove the
trauma of parental and grandparental death from children and even
from adults. It has been noted that, after a century or so, it
becomes difficult to rouse some individual personalities from
immersion within the multiplicity. Ultimately the merging becomes
irreversible. However, other individuals have been known to retain
their complete distinct identity for centuries, most noticeably
Wing-Tsit Chong himself.

Edenist life expectancy is
currently in excess of 160 years. The Edenists of 2600 are the
product of considerable and methodical geneering dating right back to
the founding of their culture and, unlike Adamists, their overall
modification program is still continuing. Adult Edenists require only
four hours of sleep every twenty-four hours, their sensorium clarity
is higher, high tolerance to pain is built in, and life expectancy
rises a few years with every generation.

One of their major physiological divergences from the Adamists is the
adaptation of Edenist bodies to low- and zero-gee environments
because of the large numbers who work outside the habitats in
microgee industrial stations. Vertigo and free-fall disorientation
have been banished from Edenists; they require no visual horizon
reference in zero-gee. Also their bodies are immune to zero-gee
atrophy: bones do not waste, blood-cell balance remains unchanged,
alterations to veins and capillaries and arteries prevent the pooling
of blood in the head, taste and smell are retained at near full
sensitivity. This faculty causes them to regard both the boosted and
cosmoniks (there are no Edenist cosmoniks) with some pity. The
descendants of the hundred families from whom voidhawk crews are
traditionally drawn have taken their modification a stage further
than the Edenist norm. Their internal membranes are strengthened to
hold organs in place during high-gee acceleration, and heart
efficiency has been increased to ensure that a regular blood supply
is maintained, thus preventing blackouts; they are capable of
enduring three gees for days at a time, although this still does not
bring them level with the tolerance of boosted blackhawk crews (see
Blackhawks,
page 63
). The largest
area of Edenist genetic research is currently concentrated on giving
humanity a body immunity to radiation exposure, or at least the
ability to recover from it. Although highly resistant to ordinary
varieties of cancer, Edenists exposed to high levels of radiation in
space remain susceptible to it. Like Adamists, they tend to deposit
their germ plasm into storage at the start of their careers.

Atlantian Edenists have received extensive specialist genetic
modification to cope with their unique environment, and are visually
easy to identify. Their corium includes extra glands which produce an
oil that renders the epidermis water-resistant. The subcutaneous fat
layer has been thickened to provide greater thermal insulation. Toe
length has been doubled, and toes are webbed; fingers are
half-webbed. Their blood has a high level of hemoglobin, so they can
swim for long periods under water.

Exowombs are used
extensively, though not exclusively. Most Edenist women will have one
in-body pregnancy, which tends to be when young, aged twenty-one to
twenty-five. Further children are gestated inside exowombs. Large
families are the norm for Edenist couples. Edenists’ children
are given considerable physical freedom from an early age. Communal
affinity ensures they are never out of contact with their parents,
and a habitat interior is an entirely safe environment for a child to
roam through, since the habitat personality monitors them (as it does
everybody) on a twenty-four-hour basis. Should a child get into
difficulty, servitors can be directed to assist immediately.

Edenist sexual mores are a constant source of amusement, speculation,
and envy for the Adamists. As they are immune to most diseases, and
traits such as (classical) ugliness, obesity, and congenital
deformities have been removed from the primary Edenist gene pool, and
as communal affinity precludes excessive jealousy or possessiveness,
Edenist adolescents lead highly active sex lives. Group sex is
common, although this does not replace or prevent normal pairing and
love bonding. Most Edenists settle down into a long-term
relationship, with compatibility enhanced by affinity. Adamist
mythology casts Edenist females in the role of an easy lay, which
often leads to considerable friction on a personal level.

Education is received
entirely from the habitat via affinity, and is essentially equivalent
to the didactic laser imprints of the Adamists, consisting of large
chunks of memory/data absorbed by the brain during sleep periods.
This procedure is in many ways more advanced than laser didactic
imprinting, since the habitat can quiz an individual directly, and
very accurately determine which sections of the education memory have
been successfully absorbed, then repeat the missing sections until
full understanding of a subject is reached. In this fashion, talent
and aptitude can be developed to maximum potential, be it in arts or
science.

Morals or behavioral traits are also included in this education
process. That’s an aspect which Adamists object to strongly,
claiming it is little more than ideological conditioning. It does
mean that crime in Edenist habitats is almost unheard of. Edenists do
not take drugs (including tobacco), although they will drink alcohol
(their liver and kidneys eradicate the worst aspects of a hangover),
but rarely to excess once they reach maturity, nor do they use
sensevise stims. Sexual activity is the Edenists’ preferred
method of obtaining a high.

Despite their
indoctrination, education, and apparent conformity (to outside eyes)
to their own culture, Edenists are highly individualistic. They can,
and frequently do, disagree with each other, though this takes the
form of “agree to disagreeâ€

None, since all Edenists are
atheists.

When an Edenist goes bad,
they go all the way, so the saying goes. There are a very few
Edenists who will reject their culture after all the educational
techniques and therapeutic counseling available to them. Those that
do are referred to, with some irony, as “Serpents.â€

A slow but steady stream of about 1,000,000 Adamist converts join the
Edenist culture each year, though notably not from the ranks of the
religiously devout. They are given neuron symbionts so they can take
part in communal affinity, and specialist tutors help them make the
mental adjustments necessary. One of their major reasons for joining
is the life-continuity granted by transferring memories into the
habitat at death. Nobody is ever refused Edenist status, and a
surprising 91 percent of converts make a successful adaptation.
Genetically their absorption poses no problem, as 85 percent of
Adamists already have geneering in their heritage, and the
all-important affinity gene becomes dominant, so that the offspring
of any Edenist Adamist pairing is always a true Edenist.

Converts tend to be young,
under thirty, since older people have trouble adapting. Over a third
of converts join because of romantic attachments they have developed
with individual Edenists. Sixty percent of these cases involve
voidhawk crew-members, leading to the Edenist claim that the hundred
families have “wild blood.â€

Edenism can be regarded as a super-consensus democracy, in which
every single individual not only votes but takes part in forming
policy. The Consensus is the collective consciousness of all Edenists
living within a habitat, joined through affinity and acting in
concert. It is normally called into session once every year, to
review policy and mandate new laws. In practice there have been few
new laws introduced to Edenism in the last two centuries.

Consensus exists at many
levels. All the habitats in orbit around one of the gas giants will
normally join together to form a total Consensus. Sub-Consensus also
exists within a habitat personality to monitor various situations or
activities, such as security and defense, which might require urgent
and immediate decisions. Sub-Consensus members are drawn from the
multiplicity of living Edenists who have the relevant experience in
these fields. Though they can act with considerable autonomy, they
are ultimately responsible to the Consensus itself.

Each habitat has an elected
administrator, and elections are held every five years. No individual
may serve more than three terms, and anyone may put his or her name
forward. The position of habitat administrator is largely ceremonial,
dating back to the founding, as the habitat personality itself
performs every administrative detail, eradicating the need for a
civil-service bureaucracy. He or she is also the representative to
whom Adamist ambassadors are appointed, and is responsible for
diplomatic relations with the Adamists and Confederation in general.
In effect, these administrators form Edenism’s diplomatic
corps. The administrator also has some legal power, including the
authority to repeal habitat personality judgments (see Law, below).

Because every Edenist is
committed to a common ideal of civil behavior, there is very little
illegal activity. Indeed there is little point in anyone trying to
commit a crime, since the habitat consciousness becomes instantly
aware of every activity within its interior. Cutting corners when
under pressure and heat-of-the-moment rashness are the most common
offenses. And it is interesting to note that most of these
occur
outside
the habitat. The habitat personality serves the
role of judge and jury. Informal warnings are the norm, and a formal
public rebuke from the habitat personality is normally punishment
enough to prevent any repetition. However, for persistent offenders
an ever increasing scale of fines, as well as leisure-time
restrictions, is available.

For extremely serious crimes
(there have only been five murders in 500 years of Edenist history
within Edenist domains), a habitat personality will prevent a convict
from any external travel, in effect imprisoning them inside the
habitat, and the ultimate sanction is to refuse to accept that
individual’s memories at death. An Edenist has the right of
appeal to the habitat administrator against any such judgment.