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Executioners of Gesima
Culture and Society > Politics & Government > Law and Jurisprudence
Galactography > Sephirotic Empires > Mutual Progress Association
The legal system of Gesima (MPA; Kiyoshi Plexus) has taken an unusual approach to death penalty. As the governing ideology (Ruritic Micromasm) regards state-run executions as unacceptable, they instead create executioner potential-citizens. These potential-citizens are individually constructed vecs with commensurable Turing-level intelligence as the victim, well designed to carry out the execution. They are themselves not citizens and have no rights before the execution, but if they succeed in executing the victim they will inherit their citizenship and estate. On the other hand, the creation and release of the executioner is regarded as the carrying out of the sentence from a legal point of view, so if the victim successfully stops the executioner they are regarded as free. Destroying the executioner is in itself not a crime, as it is a non-citizen and the act is done in self-defence.Galactography > Sephirotic Empires > Mutual Progress Association
In certain cases multiple execution sentences are made. In this case the likelihood of survival is much slimmer, but the successful executioner that takes on the legal identity of the victim must now also defend against the remaining executioners.
Throughout the history of Gesima several ex-executioners have risen to prominence. The most famous is Tristorp Jesolv (9677-9708- ). After executing its original for metamurder it continued his original political and financial career. In addition, the vec Jesolv has produced its own highly acclaimed visual poetry.
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Development Notes
Text by Anders Sandberg
Initially published on 24 October 2001.
Initially published on 24 October 2001.
