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Unluckies
The success of Luckies and psychoware modifications that improved positive thinking led some ai transapients in the Age of Consolidation to study the phenomenon. These transap created as an experiment, a new clade, the Unluckies. These were called their polar opposites by the media.

Originally all Unluckies were to be painlessly put down, but a biont-rights ai got wind of this and notified the authorities, who suggested they be put in a specially made angelnetted paradise. This was the, at the time, newly converted Habitat 24b, called "Paradise" by the subsingularitan sapients who live there, in the Utopia Sphere dyson of Elysium.

During the Integration an indigenous civilization with a rich cultural heritage was developed by the Unluckies, or "Lucky People" as they called themselves, in a sort of emulation of the original Luckies, and indeed they were "lucky" to live where they were (also the term "Unlucky" was seen as something of a stigma by the founders, although later came to worn with pride by some subcultures).

After about a millennium, during the Commonwealth of Empires, Habitat 24b had reached holding capacity, and no Unluckies were allowed to breed. Appeals to the local gods, the "Benefactors" as the Utopian transapients are often called, were of only limited help. So discontent began to grow among the unluckies, who had a psychology that invited pessimism.

Several new dysons were being constructed in the hinteregions, corewards of the current Negentropist border, with the expansion of the Negentropy Alliance in the early post Com-Emp period (5200 AT). This region is known as the famous "Sanctuary Cluster". Anyone who wished to migrate would be welcome to but there are many others also, in need of new living space, and the region is still hazardous and needs to be cleared of ex-military rogue autowars and mines.

Frustrated, some Unluckies decided to make their own way in the galaxy. Many ended up at Metropolis Ring City, lured by promises of non-competitive angelnetted enclaves. These later became the "Nojynxburbs", with their sprawling non-angellnetted spillover of shanty towns and the like. Others simply tried to make their way as best they could in the Civilized Galaxy. The majority of course, stayed at home, with some later migrating to the Sanctuary Cluster upon the completion of the new dysons.

Every so often through the centuries, some Unluckies leave their safe enclaves to see if the galaxy - or their luck - has improved. Some try to augment their genome without proper precautions, resulting in a constant evolutionary radiation of (mostly short-lived) sooboo (failed superiors) clades.

While pure-genome Unluckies are rare outside their enclaves, mongrel or half-breed unluckies (usually part of the plebhu species group), can be found throughout the civilized galaxy, where they survive as best they can on the abundance provided by the angelnetted Sephirotic autotopias and ultratech non-affiliated polities.

 
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Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Initially published on 27 January 2004.

 
 
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