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Politics & Government

The Politics and Ideologies of the Terragen Sphere

Political star graph
Image from Dalex
By using a multi-axis star diagram such as this, the politicical alignment of worlds, polities, factions and even individuals can be assessed. Here is the political alignment of a typical NoCoZo citizen zar.

The various competing Players and Power Factions vie for influence in everything from the largest star spanning empire to the most minor habitat-polity. Included here are empires and lesser polities, personalities, the great houses, the megacorps, institutes, and transplanetaries, subversives, hiders, and newcomers. Does one throw one's lot in with one of them, or seek one's own destiny in the cracks and crevices they don't reach?

Since the emergence of the AI Gods, some commentators have declared that modosophont politics have become irrelevant; no matter which political system a world or polity chooses, it will only flourish if the transapients and/or archai permit it to do so. Yet the political landscape of the Terragen Sphere has never been so complex, and vast numbers of competing political systems have been established in millions of locations.

Politics
Image from Bernd Hefert

 
Sub-Topics
Great HousesLaw and JurisprudenceProscribed, Semi-legal and Illegal Activities
SubversivesTreaties and AgreementsTypes of Government
Warfare
 
Articles
  • Ahuman (A-human) AIs, The  - Text by Steve Bowers, M. Alan Kazlev
    Superphyle of artificially intelligent entities (AI) who have rejected any form of relationship with humanity or other intelligent biological species. First emerging during the Interplanetary Age of old Earth, many a-human AIs fled the Solar System and established themselves around uncolonized stars. Some have retreated into solipsism, some have rejoined the mainstream of the Orion's Arm civilization, and some have formed wide networks of like-minded entities, such as the Diamond Network and the Solipsist Panvirtuality.
  • Alliance  - Text by M. Alan Kazlev (modified from GURPS)
    A group or association of autonomous self-governing worlds, polities, or star systems. The Alliance controls only matters like defence policy and foreign relations, and does not interfere with the internal affairs of any member polity.
  • Anarchy  - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    The social state where people have no rulers or government, and where organizations develop on the basis of voluntary cooperation and the freely chosen associations of individuals.
  • Archanarchy  - Text by Steve Bowers, additional material by Luke Campbell, Michael Zimmet and Mark Ryherd
    The view that one should seek to void all limits on one's freedom, including those imposed by the laws of nature.
  • Bureaucracy, The  - Text by Todd Drashner
    The primary administrative arm of the modosophont level government of the Terragen Federation.
  • Censorship - Text by Glenn Grant
    Any attempt to hinder the spread of a meme by eliminating its vectors. Hence, censorship is analogous to attempts to halt diseases by spraying insecticides. Censorship can never fully kill off an offensive meme, and may actually help to promote the meme's most virulent strain, while killing off milder forms.
  • Communism  - Text by Steve Bowers
    Sociopolitical system based on centralized command economy and equality of citizens.
  • Cyberdemocracy  - Text by Ryan B
    Government by means of direct representation, and/or participation, via technological means (Internet, IPN, or LocalNet)
  • Darwinism  - Text by Stephen Inniss
    Any of a range of biological or social ideas with an evolutionary basis, including but not limited to Darwin's theory of biological evolution by natural selection. Some of these have little or no connection with Darwin's original insight.
  • Djangalla Reformism  - Text by Anders Sandberg
    A simplicity-and-independence movement that arose in the 2900-3300 period in counteraction to the Empires. Djangallists claimed the growth of the empires and transformation of megacorps into hereditary houses was leading to stagnation and repression.
  • Emergence of Empires in the Terragen Sphere  - Text by Anders Sandberg; updated by Steve Bowers 26 March 2009
    The dominant factors influencing the growth of interstellar empires in the Terragen Sphere.
  • Flags of Tau Ceti  - Text by Vaktus
    A selection of flags from Nova Terra and the Tau Ceti system.
  • Galarreta, Fay - Text by Anders Sandberg
    One of the founders of the First Federation, Fay Galarreta of Vesta was to many the inspiration of the new leadership. A charismatic political scientist-cyberneticist who formulated the widely acclaimed first principles of of how to make use of integrated AI advice and simulation in interplanetary government. While she died just three years before the Federation was founded her ideas on nanotech security and transrational game theory applied in politics became the basis of the Federation movement.
  • Ideology - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    The body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual, group, class, clade, or culture.
  • Jamie Estimate, Jamstimate - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    A definitive and hence-forth official figure put on a quantity for the sake of census-taking, even when insufficient information is had and known estimates vary quite widely. Some of the Gegton bureaucrats are fond of jamie estimates
  • Level 4 Agent Interoperability - Text by Anders Sandberg
    Early AI disagreement over standards. The most bitter AI political fight in the period 2200-2500 c.e. (230-530 AT) was how to define the new standards for level 4 agent interoperability ontologies - human standards organizations, operating systems, corporations, personal loyalties - everything was fair game as the co-dependency, hierarchical and object oriented paradigms clashed.
  • Noocracy - Text by Steve Bowers
    Government by the Intellect, generally at modosophont level; often a form of government adopted by societies with a ruling elite of Superiors or su-level modosophonts. Government by Transapients is known as transapientocracy, while government by archailects is known as archailectocracy.
  • Orbital (political unit) - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    Originally, a nation state or city state based on habitats in orbit around Old Earth. Over the course of the Interplanetary Age the term came to be used for any such state in Solsys. By early First Federation times the term Orbital was used more broadly for any independent or semi-independent state based on a hab in orbit around a planet.
  • Political Science - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    The branch of the social sciences concerned with the description and analysis of polities, government, politics, and political institutions and processes. Fields of study include political parties and ideology, types of government, administration, regulation, statecraft, foreign policy, war, civil rights, political thought, constitutions, historical politics (specializing in a particular polity or era), comparative politics, xenopolitics, the relation between people and government, or between lower toposophic citizens and higher toposophic sovereigns.
  • Political Science of Higher Toposophic Minds  - Text by Ryan B (Rynn)
    Categorization of higher toposophic minds according to how they treat modosophont beings.
  • Polity  - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    An organized society; a state or quasistate; any form of politico-social organization.
  • Polmusic - Text by Anders Sandberg
    To'ul'hs of the Ho'mth'u culture view politics and music as an indivisible unity, and have developed political music as an art form. Over time polmusic has become a nearly universal political language across To'ul'h and post-To'ul'h clades within the MPA, as well as an elaborate academic-artistic discipline.
  • Restorationism - Text by Anders Sandberg
    Political view among some groups of the Communion of Worlds suggesting the need for a wholesale revision of the genetic aspects (and possibly memetics) of all clades of the Communion to restore unity. They often collaborate with the Dominion-influenced empaiocrats. Their main opponents are dynamist empaths such as clade Jenre Geiogne and ultra-cladists such as the Rergenar genocracy.
  • Sabinian Kalyptism  - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    Form of kalyptism that asserts all stable civilizations eventually disintegrate, according to specific variables.
  • Socialism  - Text by Ryan B.
    Economic system advocating democratic control of the means of production through worker, common and/or state ownership.
  • Sociology  - Text by M. Alan Kazlev based on original by Robert J. Hall
    Branch of science dealing with the study of the societies of sentient beings.
  • Solipsist AIs  - Text by Anders Sandberg, amended by Steve Bowerss
    Political orientation represented by AI dynamists disliking humans; they seek to get away from them, and develop a true AI culture. What the humans do is no concern of these entities.
  • Solsys Geopolitics 2100 - 2500 CE (131 - 531 AT)  - Text by MacGregor
    The 22nd to 26th centuries CE of the Interplanetary and Golden Ages witnessed the beginning of terragen civilization's spread from its cradle on Earth into the vast frontier of space. Conflict and rivalry between polities, a factor present during all periods of human history, continued as nation states and an expanding array of new political actors sought to secure their interests throughout the solar system.
  • Statesbeing - Text by Stephen Inniss
    From the Old Anglic term 'statesman'. A modosophont, or sometimes a distinct sub-personality of a transapient or archailect, who is experienced in the art of government and administration. Sometimes used in the superlative sense of one who shows especially notable skill and wisdom in directing the affairs of a government or dealing with important public issues.
  • Steward, Stewardship  - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    One who manages an environment as a precious resource.
  • Stratificationism  - Text by Mark Ryherd
    A broad ideological movement that strives for separation of individuals and societies based on toposophic level.
  • Territory - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
    Sector or colony or region of real or virtual space ruled remotely, generally through a local administration office or representative.
  • The Prince  - Text by Anders Sandberg; minor additions by Stephen Inniss
    A work by Niccolo Machiavelli. The original was written on Old Earth circa 464 BT (1505 AD)and published 454 BT (1515 AD). The "Revised Hyperturing edition", published in the Corona Orbital Bands in 9805 AT by a superbright human author with the same name is more widely known in the present day.
 
Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev

Initially published on 14 April 2003.

 
Additional Information
OA Glossary of Terms