Eschaton

Alephian: [Laws, Codes, and Beliefs] [Sociology] [Religion]

"As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become."
- Joseph Smith

Extensive government systems among the Alephians are virtually nonexistent. However, in spite of this established anarchy, order is strictly maintained among the Alephians as organizations and subcultures on all levels seek to maximize internal efficiency and productivity. The governing principle of free competition allows a great range of behavior within the society, but it places equally stringent demands on every member of the society to foster improvement. Thus social order is regulated through the behavior of superiors toward inferiors -- whether promoting the successful and clever or punishing the weak and inefficient. The social power of the superior/inferior relationship defines the community of the Alephians, and is limited only by the restrictions of the bylaws of individual corporations.

Punitive measures among the Alephians are always complete and generally stress the correction of the weaknesses of the individual. The simplest form of punishment is negative evaluation, the official entry of negative marks on an individual's Record of Reputation. More troublesome individuals may be assigned to menial but useful labor, such as Isolation to stationary communications systems or deep-data processing. Harsher punishments exist -- even up to the dissipation of the troublesome mindstate -- but their exact nature confuses researchers who cannot fully discover the means by which they are enforced.

It is important to remember that, though Valtavech researchers tend to focus on the semi-legal structure of crime and punishment within the Alephian community, it is a system developed solely to deal with extreme aberrations. By far the majority of Alephians coexist peacefully and efficiently within a social structure that constantly demands perfection, and consistently evokes it.

One of the most comprehensive and widely-read studies of the Alephians was published by the Valtavech anthropologist Thaemas Jain, who had spent considerable time among the worldships as a newly-vastened Immortal in the antebellum years, and who rose to political prominence as a cultural advisor during the war. Years later, after his retirement from the rigors of political life, Jain released his observations in a volume entitled Primary Principles of the Alephian Community: Guiding Patterns in an Amorphous Sociocosm. Much of the following analysis is derived from his observations.

The Principle of Free Competition
The Alephian community is built largely on a foundation of free, fair competition. This "survival of the fittest" mentality pervades all levels of society, from the constant re-design of a worldship to the day-to-day development of individual personalities. An Alephian lives in a constant state of self-evaluation, trimming personal weaknesses and inefficiencies and enhancing strengths and skills. Because of this constant re-making, Alephian replica mindstates may demonstrate significant personality differences within hours of creation, and may strike a human as unrelated persona in as short a time as a single day.

Much of the thrust of Alephian history has centered around this process of remaking -- a process Jain styled Deliberate Dynamic Evolution (D.D.E.). It permeates every aspect of Alephian existence. For instance, any Alephian vehicle of any size will contain an engineering bay capable of tearing down and rebuilding its components into another form, from the smallest drones to the worldships themselves. The society may adapt in the same way, changing over the course of hours from a services-based conglomerate to a mining and resources-processing culture with the discovery of a resource-rich system.

In stark contrast to this capacity for diversity -- and a fact inexplicable to human researchers -- every Alephian maintains on its home worldship a bionic man-shaped Form with a core cortex capable of supporting the essential operations of its complete mindstate. These Forms differ only in subtle markings and symbols on their exteriors. The highest religious and social protocol require participating Alephians to appear in Form, restricting themselves from access to the metaverse and effectively Isolating themselves to these nearly identical husks.

Researchers wrestle constantly with such apparent incongruities within the Alephian culture they observe. Another example, on a larger scale, was discovered in a series of unpredictable actions, highlighted historically by the Alephians' support of the Archons during the War of the Sovereigns, followed almost immediately by a defiance that forced the Archons to peace. Even more curious to researchers was the Alephians' previous generosity regarding their FTL technology early in their contact with the Valtavech.

To Valtavech researchers, this generosity that robbed them of a powerful advantage seemed in direct opposition to the Alephians' capitalistic pursuit of self-promotion. Likewise their support of an inferior party and later restrictions on a superior party in conflict seemed to defy the starkly competitive nature of their society.

To this charge, the Alephians merely stress the significance of the whole principle -- that "free competition" is not a natural state, but an achieved state. That parties left to themselves will not naturally compete -- a statement hotly contested by historians, but strongly defended by Alephians -- and, when in competition, that parties left to themselves will not compete fairly -- a statement readily accepted by all. The Alephians consistently strive to maintain a competitive balance, for a too-successful competitor may attain a state at which competition is no longer possible. Such a situation, the Alephians explain, leads to stagnation and eventual decay. Free competition, then, sometimes demands intervention.

The Principle of Limited Consumption
The Alephians demonstrate other violations of the most basic form of survival rule, such as the principle of limited consumption. Alephians consistently refuse to tax any resource supply beyond what it can bear. In practice this means limiting the mining of inhabited systems to a specific portion of the available materials.

Alephians actually lead the field in geo-systems research, as they evaluate every planet, moon, or even asteroid that they mine in an attempt to take as much as possible of the excess reserves without damaging the supply's capacity for creating new resources.

Early researchers mistook this habit as an Alephian concern for environment or respect for harvested planets, but further study has revealed a less benevolent purpose. The Alephians recognize the long-term benefits to themselves of limiting current consumption. By taking less now, they can gain more in the long run.

Perhaps the most startling aspect of this temperament is its imposition, because there is no government to enforce the principle of limited consumption. Rather, it is observed on an individual level, every member of the community realizing that he personally benefits from this immediate self-denial. The recognition of the principle of limited consumption dramatically clarified the Alephian culture to many scholars, including Jain himself, who were able for the first time to recognize that, though anarchic, the Alephian culture of free competition is a very sophisticated and advanced one; that it recognizes the requirement of long-term progress as well as the benefit of a short-term survival regimen.

The Principle of Abstract Experimentation
What Thaemas Jain called "abstract experimentation" is one of the most entertaining aspects of a study of the Alephian culture. Though rigorously scientific in nature, the principle of abstract experimentation is widely considered the Alephians' highest form of art, followed distantly by their almost absent-minded pursuit of aesthetic perfection in architecture.

The basis for the principle of abstract experimentation was known among the Valtavech long before the discovery of the Alephians, and arises from a well-documented historical pattern. The principle claims that all significant scientific progress is achieved through dramatic revolutions of thought which inherently defy prior scientific understanding. The principle describes science as a slow, bulky process of accumulated scientific failures that must eventually lead to a collapse of scientific understanding, which in turn allows a revolution.

In an effort to bypass this process, the Alephians developed the principle of abstract experimentation, which fosters experiments that seek to discover the "next generation understanding" without suffering the tedious process of slow failure that leads to traditional revolutions. To this end, advanced Alephian scientists pursue bizarre, sometimes absurd theories in the effort to find success in the inexplicable.

Though rigorously scientific in nature, the principle is at the same time painfully unscientific. Nonetheless, the Alephians have prospered in their technological research, astounding the Valtavech with the discoveries they have shared. Many researchers tremble to consider the possible discoveries that the Alephians have kept secret. Perhaps therein lies the creation of the worldships, perhaps there the Alephians' coveted mastery of navigation. The Alephians have clearly proven themselves masters of their secrets, though, and researchers have little hope of gaining what information the Elohim do not freely provide.

The culture of abstract experimentation does have its dark side. In a society so devoted to efficiency and unity, though free speech and public dissent are welcome, the sort of extreme intellectual deviation that lends itself to abstract experimentation can pose a severe risk to the community at large. As a result, Alephians who participate in any given experiment are generally dissipated if the experiment results in a failure. This is not considered a punishment for failure, but a necessary social precaution.

Some of the more colorful examples of abstract experimentation from Jain's text include:

* The "Insect Colony" Experiment -- in which a sample colony replicated the behavior of a worldship within a friendly, resource-rich system while limiting themselves to mechanical structures no greater than a single meter in any dimension. While the "Insect Colony" experiment failed to reshape the direction of Alephian architecture, some of the innovations developed in the process led to a broad range of small-scale devices that have enjoyed great economic success throughout the Registry of Known Worlds.

* The "Dreamworld Teller" Experiment -- in which a sample colony violated one of the most basic tenets of the Alephians by abandoning their Forms, and with them all mechanical dressings. The Alephians of the "Dreamworld Teller" experiment set themselves loose from all attention points, drifting nebulous through the metaverses of several other worldships which agreed to host the experiment. Though the logs of the participants proved extremely interesting to sensory-deprivation and theoretical societies researchers, the experiment itself was judged highly parasitic and practically nonproductive and the participants were dissipated.

* The "Starbase" and "Homeworld" Experiments -- in which sample colonies violated another of the basic tenets of the Alephians by abandoning their nomad worldships for localized settlements. The participants of the "Starbase" experiment sought to create a hospitable environment within the core of a burning star, persistently powering the settlement solely on the star's power. An observation team stationed on a nearby moon undertook its own experiment, the "Homeworld" project, in which it examined the effects of traditional stationary settlement on an Alephian community. All contact was lost with the Alephians attempting the "Starbase" project, and it was officially branded a failure and the participants officially registered as destroyed. The "Homeworld" experiment was considered of secondary interest and only sketchily recorded -- Jain was unable to discover the final results of that experiment.

The Principle of Unity in Purpose
The stark nature of the Alephians' response to failed abstract experimentation serves as an excellent introduction to the last of Jain's seminal principles. It is in this principle, the most enigmatic and the most inflexible of the patterns of Alephian society, that researchers find the most trouble. Jain used this phrase, "the principle of unity in purpose," to describe his analysis of the social patterns arising from the stringent philosophical and religious beliefs that shape the Alephians on a deeper level. Jain theorized that this unity of purpose arises from the Alephians' method of reproduction, from the very fact that all individuals are, in essence, the same individual. As a result they are able to more directly recognize the benefits to self in the service of the community.

The principle of unity of purpose is at once a liberating and a binding principle. Jain summed it up in these two phrases:

"That which serves all is welcomed by all. That which harms all is shunned by all." It is a violation of purely self-serving capitalism, in that some individual Alephians must give up what would help them personally because it would harm the greater body. Moreover, a direct extension of this principle is the call of self-sacrifice. Though survival of the whole depends upon survival of individuals in general, Jain points to multiple historical instances to show that often survival of the whole depends upon the death of member individuals in specific.

Moreover, he showed evidence that the Alephians recognize a sometime need for certain inefficiencies, even some falsehoods for the sake of the community. There are beliefs which, even if untrue, unite the society in their believing. There are behaviors which, even if unproductive, create a more productive society by their observance. This, he says, explains the survival and, indeed, the prominence of the Alephians' unified religion.

Jain's critics argue that the principle of unity of purpose is a slight-of-hand, an umbrella under which he hides the myriad inconsistencies of pattern which he cannot explain. More than once Jain defended his definitions, though, always stressing that the principles he described accurately reflected the social behavior of the society, to a greater degree than any of his contemporaries achieved, while accepting and even acknowledging the great wealth of information hidden from him by the Alephian culture itself.

In spite of his critics, Jain remains the most valuable resource available on the topic. Though intellectual debate still rages, even decades later, on the full implications of his Principles, scholars are anxiously awaiting his next promised offering, Worldships, Worlds, and Wonder: The Birth of Imagination in the Child of Technology.