A System of Safety Nets

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If I am to speak fully of human resilience in the face of… perhaps everything, it would be best to explain that human society operates on a system of “safety nets”. These “safety nets,” according to them, serve as a long list of failsafes in case that any of their systems go wrong. This can apply to almost anything in human society, from design philosophy to even structure of government. As an example, the engineering in human ships uses this system of safety nets as the reasoning that they spread their vital systems throughout their ships instead of being gathered into one place. Doing so gives human ships their “immortal” status amongst the Coalition and Empire forces, since destroying one of their vessels requires an amount of precision that is difficult to emulate in the heat of battle. Theoretically, this would reduce coordination amongst the crew of the ship, but, much like human society itself, the people assigned to these systems are capable of operating the systems on their own without the direction of the captain. This allows human ships to operate without the need of constant supervision. Rather, humans have the uncanny ability to operate off one another without much communication at all, operating off one another from small cues they pick up in the environment or, in the case of their ships, from the data that is relayed to them across the ship. They are a highly adaptable species, and their reaction times in times of confusion are something to be admired. Whether this is the result of cultural conditioning or something biological is still a mystery to many scholars, but one cannot say that it does not produce results. This can be seen in the economic structure as a whole, specifically their approach to automation.

The use of sentient AI has been banned galaxy wide since the Automaton Uprising in 2252, nearly two centuries ago, but that is merely the result of an decree passed down from the then Empress, Virha Syozu, at the time. The Coalition has no obligation to follow such an order, but many of us still remember the turmoil that was caused by the unvetted use of sentient AI. It produced a foe almost strong enough to topple the Rezenaga themselves, a result, while momentarily liberating for those under their rule, would have placed us a rule that was likely to be just as, if not more oppressive rule. In the end, the Empire managed to isolate and crush the sentient AIs that had taken control of much of the galaxy. All except for human space. The humans, following their system of safety nets, never fully developed a sentient AI due to much speculation from their own people, but instead developed highly specialized PIs, or Programmed Intelligences. These PIs would possess a level of self sufficiency that allows them to automate and operate facilities, but not enough to be wholly sentient. Rather, they were hard locked into each facility, or vessel, and only performed the tasks in the facility at hand. PIs were not given the capabilities to transmit themselves wirelessly, and instead operated from a mainframe that was built into each facility. This prevents any possible scenarios where the PI would upload itself into a broader reaching infrastructure, such as the Galnet. However, the nature of PIs would make this a useless endeavor, since should one of the PIs of a manufacturing facility ever make it into a spaceship, it wouldn’t have the programming to operate the vessel.

This design choice by humans left their space relatively unmarred during the Automaton Uprising, due to the fact that the sentient AIs developed by the Empire could not enter human infrastructure, nor could they manipulate the PIs into rising up against the humans. So, while the Empire had to re-establish a system that negated the use of AI, the humans continued to develop and expand at their normal rate. Our archeologists were the most interested by the human’s methods of automation, since a similar structure was discovered to have been used by the Faar’Shar when examining a facility discovered on Deletros. Their mainframe was more sophisticated, yes, but at the same time, much like the humans, their AI were hard locked into the facility itself, preventing any possible “escape”. It was a discovery that shocked much of the Council. Had the humans somehow gotten access to Faar’Shar technology before the rest of the galaxy and reverse engineered their tech? Or was their technology purely a result of their own cautious behavior? Either way, the results caused much speculation on our own methods. We had deemed the humans as a species that would never be able to reach the heights of the Faar’Shar, yet they were the ones that, so far, had come the closest to developing similar technologies. It is the reason that I have even begun to conduct an analysis of this species, to see if there was anything that the Coalition was missing that could be learned from human society that, by similarity, would give us an insight into Faar’Shar society as well. However, I have come to realize that the humans are are not like them at all.

From the little we have managed to dig up on the Timeless Ones, we have determined that they were a society that relied heavily on automation much like the Empire did in the past. Though we have developed alternate forms of automation beyond AI, the Faar’Shar never made the mistake of granting their AI too much power to result in a large uprisings like we experienced. While humanity does rely on automation heavily, there is a large part of their population that also practices manual labor as well. A human acquaintance of mine called this the “Organic Safety Net”, in which there was ever a situation where their machines failed them, there would always be someone on hand to perform the task needed. In fact, much of the human population practices forms of manual labor as hobbies, as the inclusion of a private garden or workshop in a human household is a common sight. The strange thing about this behavior, however, is that none of these hobbies are performed out of pure obligation, but instead used as times of bonding between family members. The association of these tasks with times of togetherness has allowed such manual tasks to remain a part of human society, though not to the extent as before. One such manual task, Cooking, is a particularly popular hobby from human space that has spread throughout the rest of the galaxy. Though it is possible to receive a perfectly appetizing meal from many vending machines in any system, the atmosphere and satisfaction brought from a hand-cooked meal is something that has resonated through much of the galactic powers. In the Coalition and Empire space, efficient automation eventually made many see that that the practice was unnecessary and therefore neglected, but humans kept up the practice out of pure preference for the atmosphere that it generates. It is common to see restaurants even in Coaliton space, and I frequent the diner near the Council many times. The practice of these hobbies go further than just leisure, however, for whether through pure chance or manipulation of their governments, every planet in human space possess enough of these hobbyists that in the case of total mechanical shut down, they would be able to still function as a society. Not as advanced, of course, but with enough structure that total chaos would be avoidable. The Organic Safety Net, in this case, is one that is considered to be their final safety net, since it is indicated as a reset point for their society.

This focus on authenticity is seen even in human literature. Every book or written word that is deemed to be historically important usually has at least one copy in print that is stored back at Earth’s archives. The explanation I received for this was that it was to safeguard their history in case the absolute worst happens to their species, but really I am of the mind that humans just prefer to read their books in print. I cannot say that is a wholly human thing, however, as printed books are treated as a sort of luxury around the galaxy, since the Coalition is large unfamiliar with such methods. The Empire accelerated the development of many species, making us skip many technologies that the humans have developed over the years. The result of this is that these antiquated technologies have acquired a sort of special commodity status, fetching high prices in human space and even in the Poros systems. I received a device called a record player as a gift some years ago, and while the sound quality is not the best, it elicits a near hypnotizing sense of focus from me in times of deep thought. By every definition of the word these ancient devices are primitive, but their is a certain rustic charm about them that makes them not necessarily a mainstay in human culture, but a common sight to see in nonetheless. Perhaps this is some sort of cultural safety net that I am not aware of, but it is just as possible that this is just some flight of fancy that humans are just as likely to drop at some moments notice.

The system of safety nets even applies to the structure of their own planets. Every planet, though serving some specialized purpose, is also capable of being perfectly survivable incase any of the planets are cut off from one another. A farming colony, like Genos Prime for example, may focus on food, but they always have enough engineers and programmers on hand to repair and fix any problems with their machinery, and a wholly trade based planet like Dochas would be able to feed its citizens with at least the bare minimum amount of food due it its use of the planet’s many islands as farming spots as well. This applies with military assets as well, as every planet houses some sort of private planetary militia with the sole purpose of defending the planet in case the nation’s military is unavailable. The effectiveness of this system can be seen from the Battle of Genos Prime. Though the colony suffered heavy losses and a destruction of their structures, they still had enough to mount a solid defense against the Empire’s Legion for the human fleet to arrive in time.

It is a system that the Coalition would like to have adopted had it the opportunity to, but alas, it is too late for us to do so. Though we call ourselves the Coalition and wish to distance ourselves from the Empire, our planets are very much the result of the Empire’s down design philosophy, which focused on highly specialized, interconnected planets that are reliant on one another. This design creates a natural sense of collectivism amongst our people, since, in the Empire’s case, it makes individual planets unable to rise up on their own. The Coalition has instead utilized this system to enhance the naturally altruistic urges of our people to perform for the greater good of the Coalition. It was the only solution we could think of because changing our own infrastructure to match the human’s is economically impossible, and our own people do not have the cultural drive to copy the humans’ cautious methods. I would say our own methods have been fairly effective, as we have transformed the previously oppressive structure of the Empire into something that benefits my people as a whole. The structure itself may not be as resilient as the humans own system of safety nets, but it is one that has maintained its own sense of stability. Many of my human companions do not agree with us and call us complacent, but at the same time they make no moves to impose their own structures upon us.

Perhaps this is why Human expansion is so slow in comparison with the rest of the galaxy. They ensure that every planet they colonize is capable of supporting itself to its entirety before moving onto others. Every planet to them is equal to the ones they have before, and is capable of sustaining human life for many years to come in case of catastrophe. In this aspect to attack any human world is very much like attacking their homeworld of Earth, which is the mistake the Empire made in striking at Genos Prime. The result is a very slow moving, but nigh unbreakable momentum of human expansion into the Galaxy, one that, were it not for the human’s respect for borders, would overtake the Galaxy as a whole.

The safety net philosophy does not entirely apply to failsafes either, as many of these “safety nets” that the humans have developed are in fact just alternate methods or forms of technology. They seem to use the system that is the most proven and practical, but much of their research focuses on alternate means of, say, programming, economics and even medicine. Where one group of scientists will be researching cybernetic replacements for organs and limbs, another group is just as likely to be researching how to regrow these part organically. What results from this is a number of scientific experiments that outnumber even the Thulu’s own experiments in the Poros systems. It is a different method of experimentation than say, the Coalition’s practices, where we divert resources to one project at a time. Humans do not seem to care if their experiments are redundant with other groups either, and instead see this as a challenge to see who can come up with the better results. Sometimes, they attempt to use methods that, to the rest of the galaxy, seem extremely careless and nonsensical at best. I do not see what the purposes of firing multiple probes into a star are, but the humans do it anyway.

To say these experiments do not produce… interesting results would be fallacious, however. The Aesir, which the Coalition sees as the next step in human evolution, came about as the result of the development of an organic computer that binds with the central nervous system. Introducing this computer to a newly conceived zygote allows the computer to grow with the host, resulting in a human with enhanced mental processing, reflexes, and the unique ability to access and “read” numerous pieces of technology. This allows them to mentally access and manipulate technology that extends far beyond just human machinery. Not to mention that a fully developed Aesir possesses processing abilities much like an AI, and through their ability to manipulate and examine machinery this allows them to operate almost anything in the galaxy. However, this does not mean that an Aesir is capable of taking control of an entire facility or starship, as special equipment must be integrated with the ship's mainframe in order to allow the Aesir to have full access to its systems. We were alarmed by their existence first, but realized that by developing as a human, the Aesir have managed to to temper the purely logic driven functions of their organic computers with human morality and emotions. They are still very much human, regardless of their new mechanical make ups.

What is confusing, however, is that humans are in no rush to convert their entire species to become these Aesir. From what we know of the process, it is relatively harmless to the fetus, and the benefits the process provide far outweigh any possible side effects, of which there are very little. But still… there is no sign of the Aesir overtaking the normal humans in their society. The Council has made numerous inquiries into the technology used to produce these Aesir, but the humans have remained relatively tight lipped about discussing such research. Perhaps this is linked to the records indicating a social divide forming between the Aesir and humanity upon their conception, which caused the Aesir to isolate themselves to one planet in human space, much like the Faar’Shar have in this galaxy. There are many speculation as to the cause of this divide, such as jealousy or envy on part of the humans, or arrogance on part of the Aesir, but whatever the problem seems to have been has been resolved with the Second Galactic Civil War. It appears that upon seeing the Empire strike at human space, the Aesir felt a need to assist their human brethren and end their isolation. Since then, many Aesir have begun to trickle away from their planet of Heimsgard and integrate with the rest of human society. How the Aesir maintained their population during their isolation is still somewhat of a mystery, but many have come to the conclusion that the female Aesirs’ eggs have also been integrated with the organic computer, resulting in any child born from them becoming Aesir. What this means for human society remains to be seen, but the humans no longer seem to have a problem with this new enhanced part of their species. That is not to say the Aesir are not capable of becoming wholly independent either, as they have managed to develop a system of technology that is exclusive themselves. Their own “safety net” if you will, that allows them to reliant on their own unique infrastructure should the need arise. This seems redundant, however, for if there was ever a group that did not need a safety net it would be the Aesir.

What I can conclude from all of this information is that humans have build themselves up as a society that appears to be uncollapsible. Rather than a system of safety nets, I would call them a civilization that stands upon hundreds of legs. Knocking out one of these legs will produce very little results, and the prospect of disabling any large chunk of human society is one that only the Empire would be willing to take, and even then they remain cautious of doing so. I cannot say that this is to our detriment, due to our alliance, but it is a rather intimidating system to look at from the outside. It makes me wonder, could this be the result of a species that is wholly dependent upon itself? Would my own species, the many species of the Coalition for that matter, have developed a similar system had their development not been accelerated by the Empire? Or would have the humans occupied most of the Galaxy by the time we had found our footing, putting us under the rule of a far more cautious, yet accepting species? Would they be the humans as we know them today, or would they instead be the Aesir instead? Perhaps it is for the best that we are as we are now, for the Coalition is very much its own culture, and the humans seem to have no objections to leaving us as we are and letting us speak our mind. I can only hope that this relationship continues, for I do not know what would happen should humanity decide to not be so peaceful.

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