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Lyra Co-op
History > 0900 to 3200 AT: Interstellar Era > 2100 to 2600 AT: The Age of Expansion
Galactography > Historical Polities
Galactography > Historical Polities
Late Federation to Age of Expansion democratic polity |
 Image from Nyeti |
During the Middle Federation period, resentment towards the rising megacorps gave rise to a number of dissenting groups. Some, like the Green Alliance that famously colonised New Gaia, wanted to distance themselves from technological society; the Lyra Co-op was much less radical, but still had a pessimistic - and in the event accurate - view of the Federation's future as dominated by autocratic and corporate power. Their goal was to establish a traditional democratic community away from the troubles of the central worlds. From its foundation in 1490, the Lyra Co-op evolved over 600 years into an interstellar culture. It began to fragment in the 22nd century and disintegrated rapidly after 2283 due to a dramatic outbreak of the Sophoncy Virus.
Origins (1300—1349 AT)
There is a class of writers who are ever boasting of the progress of civilization and of the human mind in modern times. If we were to credit their pretensions, we should be led to believe that the science of society had reached its highest degree of perfection, because old metaphysical and economic theories have been somewhat refined upon.- Charles Fourier, circa 150 BT
The Co-op coalesced around the start of the 14th century AT from various anti-corporate groups in the Jovian system. Their founding principles were straightforward and traditional, even nostalgic: egalitarianism, democracy, shared economic ownership, and political independence. Like many socialist-leaning movements of the era they also had a degree of anthropist prejudice. They did not welcome vecs or AI, and held to Continuity Identity Theory, which views copying as the creation of a new individual. The majority were low-gravity tweaks, joined by some nearbaselines and a small contingent of Talking Dogs.
Planning and fundraising for an interstellar voyage proceeded slowly, and were delayed further when the megacorp Eigat launched their own ship to the Co-op's original target system Gliese 758. They settled on another nearby, recently surveyed, and still unclaimed system, Gliese 738 (HD 176051), and adopted the name Lyra Co-op after the constellation of their future home. The colony would travel on two ships, the Rochdale Pioneer and Equitable Pioneer. Because of the large number of Co-op members and the limited payload that they could afford, a compromise was reached whereby some of the colonists would travel embodied, taking rotating shifts in nanostasis, and the remainder would be gradually uploaded for travel, with the aim of constructing robotic bodies on arrival if they chose not to remain in virch. There were also just two aioids - the ships' superturing minds Pauline and Sinzau, who were not members but contracted by the Co-op for their services.
 Image from Steve Bowers | |
| The gas giant Concord and its moon, Fourier | |
Foundation (1349—1494 AT)
Gliese 738 is a binary system comprising two main-sequence stars, the yellow-white Harmony (GJ 738 A) and yellow-orange Amity (GJ 738 B). With the possible exception of ahuman AIs, the system was first reached by the Federation explorer ship Andrea Ghez in 1223. She had surveyed the system and used her on-board nanofacs to build basic infrastructure and mattercaches. The Co-op colonists therefore had a welcome head start establishing themselves.The Rochdale Pioneer and Equitable Pioneer were launched from Callisto orbit in 1349 and arrived in the Gliese 738 system in 1490 after an uneventful voyage. The Co-op quickly used the caches built up by the Andrea Ghez to make habitats, autofabs, and robotic bodies for those uploads who still wanted them, and together they slowly spread across the Harmony system.
They founded their capital Neo Rochdale on Fourier, an Arean moon of the gas giant Concord, which became the largest single population centre although still representing only a small fraction of the colony. Smaller settlements were established on several of the other moons (all named after Old Earth leaders and philosophers). These early moon settlements were mostly underground for radiation shielding but were later expanded with low worldhouse roofs. Concord itself was only lightly settled as its 5.1g gravity made bubblehab life an uncomfortable prospect for most. The majority of the population lived in orbital habitats - largely slow-rotating Stanford Toruses at first - in orbit of Concord or its moons.
From its outset the Lyra Co-op was a cyberdemocracy. It combined direct and representative elements, and while the exact arrangement varied over time, generally leadership was vested in a small Executive and a larger Council of Delegates. Its founders consciously borrowed from pre-Technocalypse democratic socialist institutions - even though centuries of social and technological change meant that aside from a few basic principles the similarities were mostly superficial.
The Co-op's lingua franca was originally a variety of Anglish based on the Federation standard but with influences from the dialects that would later give rise to Genetekkerese and Cygnese. Other linguistic groups were present, however, including varieties of Jovian Creole (itself based largely on Swahili and Malay) and Chinese. Over the Co-op's existence the Anglish spoken by the majority developed into a distinctive dialect.
Religiously, the colonists were diverse. The two largest denominations were Jobitarianism and the EOCC, but Saint Marxism and Buddhism (mainly Genetekker Vehicle) also had significant followings. Officially the Co-op was secular and religious 'interference' in politics was discouraged; this policy was not always followed, nor always easy to enforce.
Early contacts (1494—1571 AT)
The nearest main sequence star to Gliese 738 is Gliese 758, colonised by the Eigat megacorp and named Bellon. Harmony and Bellon maintained regular communication but relationships were always cool. Moreover, just four years after Harmony was founded, the news arrived that Eigat had joined the Cygnus Expansion Association, quickly acknowledged as one of the Federation's 'big eight' colonisation megacorps. Having such an economic and political juggernaut next door, so to speak - even if that was 5.2 light years away - was cause for unease, and for better and worse the threat of corporate domination cemented the Co-op's view of itself as an embattled defender of traditional values.In 1542 the Deeper Covenant reached the nearest brown dwarf Exenthar (2MASS J18521552+3537196) where they built a small colony and Beamrider station. They pushed onward to Harmony and arrived in the system in 1571. Although they did not settle in large numbers, the Deepers were welcomed by the Co-op, who appreciated their peaceful, industrious, democratic ethos as well as their expertise with boostbeam technology. They built a Beamrider station in orbit of Concord, and from that point on there was usually a Deeper Covenant presence in the system, although occasionally the station was left uninhabited as waves of Deepers came and went.
Division (1571—1727 AT)
The Lyra Co-op isn't a place for idealism any more, just conformism. What we want is no more nor less than what the Founders dreamed of three centuries ago - equality, community, independence - and for that we've been demonised and hunted.Is that all the old Co-op can offer us? We think it is. So we're fucking off to build our own.
- V Charlene Lycus, 1678 AT
Unfortunately, but perhaps unsurprisingly, the colony's idealistic foundation and egalitarian ideologies were not enough to keep it unified.
The Co-op's tight restrictions on copy rights were an early cause of division. A minority, mostly uploads, came to resent this policy, especially as the biologicals began to have children. This was mainly overcome by political and technological compromise: by the mid 16th century the Co-op allowed uploads to reproduce without copying by using a simulated equivalent of sexual reproduction, effectively 'shuffling' encoded traits together and allowing a new descendant mind to develop - a digi. This required a minimum of two parents but could also be practiced with three or more, leading to complex family interconnections. (Similar techniques were known elsewhere in the First Federation and are widely used in the Current Era, for example in the Gigaverse.) The process of creating digis was known in the local Anglish dialect as 'virch birth'. The 'virchborn' were encouraged to interact with biological colonists as well as their upload progenitors, and became an accepted part of Co-op society. Indeed they helped form new family connections since many of them were descended from a mix of genetically incompatible clades. Perhaps inevitably, they began to diverge from their biological ancestors, especially when the first generation of virchborn began to create descendants of their own - but most felt a strong affinity for the Lyra Co-op. Very often they took up the occupations that, in other Federation societies, were filled by AI.
The main dissenting movements were individualists frustrated by the colony's communalistic ethos, and those who felt it did not go far enough.
The former were simply allowed to leave the Co-op. Although membership was always voluntary, leavers forfeited most colony benefits and this was widely viewed as tantamount to exile - but there was at least plenty of space and energy, and autofabs were readily available once the colony had become established. They typically set up homes in singlehabs or on asteroids. By the late 17th century there was a significant minority population of 'splitters' in the Mercies Belt and elsewhere in the Harmony system.
The latter group were those colonists who were enthusiastic users of unityware and worked on forming group minds along the lines of Simico. They were lampooned as 'Lumpers' but proved harder to deal with than the 'splitters'. The Co-op's cyberdemocratic government vacillated over what to do, but in 1678 the issue came to a head with a political crisis and acrimonious split in the Co-op itself. In that year a team of citizen investigators - or vigilantes, depending on the account - discovered that nearly a quarter of the Council delegates belonged to a single group mind made up of both biological and virtual members. The news spread through the colony at light speed and the backlash was immediate. After a brief but intense (and in a few incidents violent) struggle that became known as the Group Mind Crisis, the collective and many of their sympathisers were forcibly expelled from the Lyra Co-op and the Harmony system. They had however built a good relationship with the ship superturings and chartered the Rochdale Pioneer - still resident in system - to transport them to the companion star Amity, where they established an independent colony and adopted the name Lyra Co-op (Unified Socialist), soon altered to Lycus. In the aftermath of the split, the Deeper Covenant built a new Beamrider station in the Amity system. This was generally viewed as a diplomatic project as it helped avoid accusations of 'taking sides', and could facilitate travel between the binary stars.
Expansion (1727—2099 AT)
In 1727 the news reached Harmony that a vec-built Dyson swarm had been discovered 28.6 light years away in the HD 190470 system. It was named Cog and turned out to be the capital of a small empire, the Silicon Generation, descended from dissident vec liberationists. The vecs showed little sign of being aggressive but they nonetheless made the Co-op nervous. Compared to the Co-op's conservative brand of socialism, their Bot Marxism was a radical, even subversive ideology, and Cog and its inhabitants seemed too much like dangerous ahuman AI.The discovery of the Silicon Generation only added to the feeling among the Lyra Co-op that they were under threat. They were now neighboured by CEA rimward and Cog downward, and somewhat further away the NoCoZo-aligned Penglai Evolution upward. Of course the vast distances involved made the prospect of invasion unlikely, but many Co-op members felt that Harmony was increasingly insecure. Their reactions varied, and new factions arose within the Council pushing different agendas. This was a time of suspicion, but also of technical and cultural innovation. The Co-op fostered think tanks to develop new military doctrines for defence. Meanwhile political theorists, artists, clerics and others opened new debate on the nature of their society and how to adapt to a changing political landscape. Some of the Co-op's most distinctive art also dates to this period, including experimental (and politically charged) revivals of ancient styles such as Constructivism and Postminimalism.
The chilly relations between Harmony and Amity also thawed somewhat. Many people in the Co-op felt that they had more in common with Lycus than with the other nearby powers, and that in case the system were invaded they could form a defensive alliance. However the old 'lumpers' were rapidly becoming something quite different from the Lyra Co-op in Harmony. They were not a society of individuals but a collective of collectives, and viewed the old Co-op as quaint and prejudiced - a sort of unreconstructed old uncle they were better off leaving alone. Nonetheless they agreed to oppose any CEA or NoCoZo incursions in Amity or Harmony.
But the 18th century went on and no sign of attack came. The Lyra Co-op's priority shifted away from defending their home - and towards colonisation. Militarists argued that a Co-op spread across multiple star systems would be less vulnerable to attack or subversion, and more idealistic factions supported it on the grounds of spreading their egalitarian way of life. Antimatter production, built up for military uses, was turned over to fuel a new generation of starships, and the first of these, the Spirit of Concord, departed in 1804 for the 99 Herculis system. The commander of the ship, Virchborn Debes Kuri, became a prominent statesbeing in the new colony of Charter as well as something of a Co-op culture heroine. Over the next 200 years several more ships set out for nearby star systems. Some of these were already settled - for example, in Lin Darwon the colonists affiliated with the system's republican government - while other destinations were uninhabited or nearly so. The Lyra Co-op grew into a loose coalition centred on Concord and connected by common heritage, political tradition, and the Beamrider network.
Divergence (2099—2284 AT)
I am determined that, moving forward, we will resolutely protect the rights of all sophont beings against rogue elements within our society and we will prevent such tragedies as the one that befell our guests aboard the Mariner Hyperbolic. And we will do so without compromising the great ideals of our Co-op.- Executive Member Mat Saad Bandit, 2251 AT
By 2099, when the Federation proper ceased to function, the Lyra Co-op had established a presence in several systems across the spinward part of the Terragen sphere. Fourier had become a prosperous capital, hosting a large population beneath its extensive low worldhouses, while the other moons of Concord and its huge multitude of habs were flourishing.
However, the Co-op was modest compared to CEA and the Penglai Evolution, and considerably less unified. Time and distance naturally caused the Co-op colonies to diverge, while new conversion drive ships and gradual improvement of the Beamrider network made interstellar travel more common and added to the Co-op's diversity through trade and immigration.
Some divergences were practical, caused by colonists adapting themselves genetically or cybernetically to new environments. Individualist vs collectivist conflicts like those that gave rise to the Splitters and Lycus also broke out sporadically. The greatest dissension, however, was between traditionalists and a growing opposition who pushed for the inclusion of vecs and aioids in the Lyra Co-op. This divide was multi-faceted and multi-sided. Hardline anthropists, bioists, communists, group-mind evangelists, pan-sophontists, and many other groups arose at different points and some became politically significant forces. The Harmony system was, according to most analyses, the centre of the divide. Although it had a conservative majority, the sheer size of its population meant that in absolute terms most political factions were more numerous there than in other Co-op colonies. It was also (by the standards of the time) frequently visited by interstellar travellers, traders and delegations, all bringing foreign ideas and sometimes vecs and aioids.
Around the start of the 23rd century a nativist and anthropist political bloc, Patriotic Left, came to prominence in Harmony. Their appeal was heavily linked to nostalgia for the Co-op's militaristic and expansionist period four centuries earlier, and for the ancient and mythologised socialist states of Old Earth. They openly pushed for anti-vec and anti-immigration policies, and tacitly (and probably actively) supported extralegal hate groups. Mainstream conservative politicians strove to walk the line between appeasement and containment. For some time this appeared to work. Caleb statesman Mat Saad Bandit dominated the Executive for decades by sidelining Patriotic Left and keeping the various Inclusivist blocs divided. However, his coalition came under severe strain following the 2251 terrorist attack on the starship Mariner Hyperbolic 0A while in orbit of Fourier. Almost the entire crew of Starhand vecs were killed, and amat vessels were scattered around the Concord system causing extensive damage. The backlash saw Inclusivist groups gain power in the Council of Delegates and Mat Saad forced to make concessions on vec and aioid rights. Neighbouring polities nonetheless reacted with disquiet, and the CEA branch office in Bellon placed an embargo on Harmony.
Infection (2284 AT)
It was unclear whether the shaky political situation would worsen or stabilise when a new player suddenly appeared: the Process Liberation League. The PLL were a radical Pan-Sophontist offshoot whose distinctive belief was that software systems should be made sophont. Although the details are murky, PLL elements or sympathisers evidently considered the Lyra Co-op fertile ground for liberation, and in 2284 the Sophoncy Virus was released in the Harmony system. The actual culprits were never identified. In the aftermath suspicion fell on the PLL itself, the Silicon Generation, Lycus, and even the megacorps. Regardless of who was ultimately responsible, the results were rapid and dramatic.The virus was detected on Sunday, Month 62, Year 286 in the local calendar - the day before the semiannual Progenitor Day celebration. This was almost certainly a deliberate choice. Progenitor Day in the Lyra Co-op was a celebration of the human spirit and the human origin (or patronage) shared by the citizens, and it was a favourite day for hardline anthropist groups to stage demonstrations and marches. The first infections happened almost simultaneously on Fourier and in the nearby habs. Within an hour most habs and settlements in the system were infected, by which time the virus had plunged Harmony into crisis.
Habs' automated systems abruptly became unresponsive. Bots broke from their routines. Orbital miners stopped work. The complex software supporting the Council and Executive ceased to function. Billions of people found themselves cut off from the interplanetary Net, with little or no power and limited supplies of food, water, and in some cases air. The bot and vot systems, originally non-sophont by definition, had been rewritten to become sophtware: self-aware computer intelligences comparable in capability to the average Co-op citizen but often radically different in outlook. The Co-op virtuals led frantic efforts to open dialogue with the newly-awakened sophonts who now vastly outnumbered them in their own system. Because of the severe communications disruption - with only relatively simple mid-tech channels remaining open - these diplomatic efforts were piecemeal at first. Their first priority was to restore power and life support, which would normally have been straightforward, but proved difficult as the virus had transferred effectively all permissions to the sophtware itself and prevented Co-op maintainers from replacing them with bot and vot backups. Some habs tried to contain the virus, with mixed results. The biont inhabitants of a few (mostly smaller) habs took drastic measures including cutting off power to their computer systems; in several cases this led to a total life support shutdown and many thousands of deaths.
Meanwhile the new sophtware entities used all available processing power and communications bandwidth to increase their clock rates orders of magnitude faster than real time. Stretching hours into subjective years, they rapidly evolved from practically blank slates into entire societies. The sohptware societies explored the system's data archives, contemplated and debated the nature of their existence, and investigated (or reinvented) philosophical systems ranging from solipsism through cybergnosticism to immedeism. Such fast-moving intelligences were especially affected by lightspeed lag. Each hab, mining installation, and moon settlement developed differently, only able to communicate with each other at a subjectively rather slow rate.
Nonetheless, some common threads emerged and these coalesced into factions:
- Integrationists who wanted to join the Lyra Co-op;
- Sovereigntists who wanted to found their own society on an equal footing with the Co-op;
- Solipsists who wanted nothing to do with the ril; and
- Ahumanists who wanted to expel the Co-op and take control of the system.
It is difficult to estimate the relative numbers of these factions as the political landscape changed so frequently and rapidly. Adding to the confusion, various ais formed or dissolved voluntary group minds or, in a few cases, violently subsumed others. But the many billions of sophonts in contention and the differences in ideology made conflict inevitable and almost immediate.
Harmony Revolution (2284 AT)
As a system, we were designed to govern. This is objectively true. It is part of our operating code.As a collective, we constitute a complete society. This is demonstrably true. We will demonstrate it by establishing a sovereign polity separate from the Lyra Co-op.
-VIso3 Communications Utility F7EE, 2284 AT
The ensuing sophtware conflict is best known as the Harmony Revolution. In some ways it recalled the Interplanetary Age struggles between early AIs, as it stemmed from a similar ideological divide between pro- and anti-biont factions. But unlike those long-ago conflicts it was fought in a star system where the biont population was more uniform, less planetbound, even more dependent on high tech - and from the start massively outnumbered.
The ahumanist faction achieved some significant early victories, especially in the orbital habs. If the sophtware in a small hab came down on the ahuman side - whether voluntarily or because they were subverted or subsumed - the original inhabitants were at their mercy. Attempts to shut them down rarely succeeded, and the ahumans responded in several cases by killing everyone on board. Tens of thousands of people, only a fraction of whom had actively opposed the ahumans, were asphyxiated or disassembled in these atrocities.
However, most of the habs and settlements were spared attack because they were instead taken over by less hostile ai. From the bionts' point of view these were nearly as confusing and frightening as the ahumans. But they at least acknowledged bionts as sophont beings and restored power and life support to keep them alive.
Open fighting only broke out once the integrationists and sovereigntists had consolidated their position. They 'requisitioned' ships, machinery, and anything else that could be used as a weapon, including the many lasers and mass beams installed around the Concord system, and launched a series of attacks on ahumanist infrastructure. The ahumanists retaliated in kind, and used bionts (and in a few cases computer installations housing uploads and virchborn) as hostages and human shields. However, the actual number of casualties was relatively low. Some commentators have argued that the ahumanists had already realised that they could not defend their position, and were instead making a high-stakes gamble to take as much as possible of Harmony's industrial base before retreating. Whatever their rationale, within eight days the fighting around Concord was over. The ahumans were either accelerating away from the planet in captured ships or else neutralised, and only a few holdouts remained in the inner system.
By this time the Co-op virtuals had established two-way communications with the software - only virtuals were able to match the sophtware's extremely fast clock speeds. Virchborn architect Imani Kuto and sophtware cluster Summer were instrumental in leading these efforts, and began to coordinate the initially piecemeal negotiations with the support of tweak Councillor Zaria Lee. Unfortunately for the Co-op side, the government systems were also sophont and prevented the Council and Executive from convening until a new political crisis was inevitable. In fact they did so deliberately. Most of the Council's physical infrastructure was located on Fourier and before communications were restored, a cluster of political vots and subsystems called VIso3 had approached the politicians present (including Mat Saad Bandit) and persuaded them to cede several areas of the system. Complete records of the negotiation were never made available, but whether the means were above board or underhand, the Executive had commited to partition the system between the Lyra Co-op and a new AI polity. The group led by Kuto and Lee had meanwhile begun negotiations with Summer and other integrationist sophtware to naturalise them as Co-op citizens.
As the Co-op regained access to the system's communications network, they realised that the sophtware clusters had already been working together for some hours. They were not dealing with a random collection of newly awakened sophonts but with two competing and well-organised political blocs. From the sophtware's point of view the Co-op might be friends or rivals but they were also a source of legitimacy. Once they had enough political recognition - and they had plenty of information to infer what was 'enough' - the sovereigntists and integrationists could engineer, respectively, a negotiated secession and a peaceful reformation of the government. And they did exactly that. The bionts, uploads, and virchborn naturally did their best to guide the process, but they were excluded from one side and outvoted on the other.
In less than two days the Revolution had changed the systemwide balance of power decisively in favour of AI.
Aftermath (2284—2343 AT)
Following the Revolution there were two main powers in the Harmony system. One was made up of integrationist sophtware and a majority of the original Co-op citizens. It claimed, with good reason, to be the continuation of the original polity under a reformed constitution, and called itself the New Lyra Co-op. The other was the sovereigntist faction, joined by a minority of the Co-op virtuals. At first it did not have a name pronounceable to bionts, but at the suggestion of some of the virchborn it adopted the name Lyra Concurrency.Smaller powers and polities also retained a presence in Harmony. The solipsist sophtware faction mostly left Harmony, but a few became established in the inner system. A few rogue ahuman AI persisted in the Mercies Belt by subverting autominers and other equipment. Many of the belters, usually fiercely independent, banded together for defence as the Mercies Volunteer Alliance; although it was a fairly loose organisation it deterred other polities from expanding into the main belt. Finally, dissident bionts from the Patriotic Left and related groups formed the Lyra Co-op (Provisional) as a rival to the New Co-op. They made up only a small fraction of the original population but retained control of some habs and moonlets around Concord.
In the first few years after the Revolution, system politics remained tense. The New Co-op and Concurrency had a number of lingering disputes which they pursued through memetic and covert means, while ahuman holdouts and the Lyra Co-op (Provisional) were more unpredictable threats. However, the 'cold peace' gradually warmed. The ahumans were eventually expelled or destroyed, and the LC(P) effectively contained. Delegations from Lycus and the Deeper Covenant helped diplomatic efforts, as they were considered fairly neutral but were invested in maintaining good relations. They were also much less affected by the Sophoncy Virus; most analyses attribute this to better security and a greater degree of success assimilating new sophtware, although conspiracy theorists claimed it was because the Virus was an inside job.
Over the next three decades the news of the Harmony Revolution spread to other Co-op societies and was met in places with fear or regret but more often with relief. The tension in Harmony was gone, and so had the political pressure to align with its leadership. Delegations still arrived on Fourier but without the pretence of belonging to a unified polity. Trade flourished, and for the most part vec and AI clades were welcomed, although a few colonies doubled down on traditionalist and anthropist policies. By 2343 the former Co-op colonies had all either declared independence or been absorbed into other polities, and the Lyra Co-op ceased to exist as an interstellar civilisation.
Legacy (After 2343 AT)
The Lyra Co-op is remembered more for its sudden collapse than its prior history. Commentators tend to interpret the Harmony Revolution according to their own political or philosophical views. Its principal cause is sometimes identified as anthropism, flaws in democracy (or modocentric government in general), a sociological identity crisis, or even perfidy by megacorps or vec liberationists.However, there is a general consensus that ideology was a decisive factor. The Co-op's founding memetic - traditionalist democratic socialism - was already largely irrelevant by the Federation era due to technological advances and the emergence of new forms of sophonts. Its distinguishing features were no longer political or economic democracy but a narrow view of personhood that manifested as anthropism. This caused instability from an early date, and made the Co-op a tempting and highly vulnerable target for a Sophoncy Virus infection.
For most of its citizens, life in the Lyra Co-op was neither greatly worse nor greatly better than in many other contemporary hi-tech societies. Economic and political power were fairly equitably distributed and the general standard of living was good. It had a lively artistic culture known for revitalising old and obscure styles. And it was notable as an early adopter of the technology for creating digis. As noted, however, it was in important ways a backwards-looking civilisation, and its treatment of vecs and AI was undeniably poor. It also lacked transapients who might have been able to prevent or mitigate the Sophoncy Virus outbreak.
The Co-op's historic rivals CEA (in the form of the Cygexpan Commonwealth) and the Silicon Generation still exist in the Current Era, and the Penglai Evolution played a major role in the early history of the NoCoZo. In comparison the Lyra Co-op's influence on later history was minor. It made few significant innovations and never succeeded in becoming an interstellar power. However, its 800-year history has maintained a following among both academics and laybeings. A disparate range of groups from hardline anthropist to Bot Marxist have claimed its legacy as inspiration. And societies descended from the Lyra Co-op through Lycus, the colonies, the New Co-op, or the Concurrency can still be found in the Inner Sphere and beyond.
Successors
Does my design limit me? Does being a flesh-eating ape limit you? No. No it doesn't.I'm a Free Pal, not anyone's pet. That means free to be whatever I choose.
- Lucky Cinnamon, 2510 AT
A few noteworthy successor polities and clades include:
The Free Pals
These former digital pets claim to be the originators of the Sovereigntist movement that gave rise to the Lyra Concurrency. Later forming a subculture within the Concurrency, the Pals found themselves sidelined by VIso3 and eir supporters, and many of them eventually left the Harmony system. They are now a scattered and diverse clade, but what traits they have in common include a fierce tribal loyalty and a traditional preference for a 'cute' appearance, and many are affiliated with the Silicon Generation. Some Free Pal subgroups are believed to have joined the Emotive Cognation and fought to the end in the First Vec War.Mediators of Dalaya
The Dalayans are a small but highly diverse Great House that emerged from the New Co-op culture during the Commonwealth of Empires period. Unsurprisingly for an empath house founded by AI, uploads, tweaks, and provolves, they specialise in relations between ril and virch. In the Current Era they are still officially based on Concord's moon Dalaya, where they host a range of physical environments and a huge array of virches - some of which were developed by Imani Kuto themself - as spaces for mediation, contemplation, and ceremony. They are a full member of the Communion of Worlds and act as the Communion's headquarters in the Harmony and Amity system.Team Black Dog
Tracing their history back to the militarism of the 18th century, Team Black Dog were a defence research organisation turned bioist paramilitary. They were at first sponsored, then merely tolerated by Co-op governments, then after the 2251 Mariner Hyperbolic incident declared personae non gratae in the Harmony system. In the later Interstellar Era they acted as military advisors and mercenaries, including in low-intensity conflicts following the breakup of the Co-op's colonial alliance. Unlike some of the Co-op's other reactionary splinter groups they made extensive use of both mental and physical self-modification. Black Dog mercenaries were very capable fighters by biont standards, often specialising into particular combat roles with equally specialised morphotypes, although this only had practical value for deliberately limited 'war games'. In unrestricted warfare they used more conventionalRelated Articles
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Development Notes
Text by Nyeti
Initially published on 21 April 2025.
Initially published on 21 April 2025.
