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Solsys Organization

Solsys Org Flag
Image from MacGregor and The Astronomer

Solsys Organization - Data Panel

TerritorySolsys (except Earth and some trans-Neptunian objects); Akela; Sirius (Twelve Solaria only); Rihal.
Toposophic LevelThe highest transapients in the Solsys Organization are currently at the third toposophic level; however the most powerful entity in the Solar System is GAIA, who is currently at the fourth toposophic level, but remains independent of the Solsys Organization.

Origin

The Solsys Organization (also spelled Solsys Organisation, or called Solsys Org for short) traces its origins to the collapse of the Second Federation (formally named the Federation of Sol and Affiliated Systems) in 3726 AT. In that year, the Pentarchy, the five S2 transapients who ran the Second Federation, peacefully parted ways and announced that a new provisional government would take over by the end of the decade. Two former members of the Pentarchy - Prince of Order and Augusto - remained active in administration of their respective polities, namely the Heavenly Cities Collective in the skies of Saturn and the Haiven Swarm at Venus L2. Joined by 5 other S2-ruled polities as well as 31 polities nominally run by S1 and modosophonts (notably excluding GAIA and Earth while including territories in other star systems that remained loyal to Solsys), and all together containing over 85% of Solsys' population, they formed the Solsys Organization in 3729 AT.

The Solsys Organization began life presenting itself to modosophonts, and reportedly to S1s, as an officially near-powerless body, ostensibly serving only as a forum for debate and to represent Solsys and its affiliated territories to the wider Terragen civilization. Notably, at least in its first centuries, the majority of the transapient population in Solsys were not members of, or affiliated with, the Solsys Organization. Even though they lived in polities controlled by the Solsys Organization, many S1 and S2 transapients were actually aligned with various Sephirotic Empires and represented their interests - especially the Terragen Federation. Other transapients were independents, such as GAIA (who most likely had already breached the Third Singularity at this point of time) and many of the S1 and S2 entities living deep in Saturn's atmosphere.

However, as the centuries passed, the Org's official powers gradually grew. The S2 transapient known as Paradise Gate, an Auto-Holding Container who lived in Solsys from 3781 AT to 4566 AT as a representative of Keter's interests, suggests that a factor contributing to the Solsys Organization's rise was its excellent conflict resolution skills. Through diplomacy, mediation and its discussion fora, the Solsys Organization was able to settle the majority of disputes between the various factions within Solsys. Often, new transapients would be recruited into the Organization in the process, bringing with them their resources and influence. In this way, they were able to become Solsys' dominant power other than GAIA.

Version War and Aftermath

In the Late Integration era, Solsys experienced the emergence of its second S3, the entity who created and maintains Saturn's Veil. Unlike GAIA's ascension, this event was noticeable due to the significant waste heat radiated during the construction of the infrastructure of eir brain and body. Following eir ascension, this transapient immediately joined the Solsys Organization as a nominal member. Being very reclusive, e mainly operated in the background, very rarely interacting with others - often mostly dealing with a select few S2 individuals in the roles of an advisor and advanced technology provider. Under eir guidance, the Solsys Organization remained neutral in interstellar politics, and was able to stay out of the Version War.

The war led to a major influx of refugees. This was followed by a two-century long period of cultural upheaval, as many societies which had settled into a steady-state for millennia were forced to adjust to new beings and new types of mind. However, the situation ultimately developed into a period of cultural renaissance, as the interactions between old and new ideas or beings in Solsys' societies brought about unexpected social and scientific developments. Ultimately, this culminated in the rise of Solsys' third S3 transapient in the late 5500s AT - a moon-brain around Jupiter known as Archcurator Worland Hodj. 1

Authenticity War and Aftermath

Following eir ascension, the Archcurator began to espouse aggressive doctrines of Authenticism loosely based on the Fomalhaut Acquisition Society's ontology. Over the course of the following centuries, the S3 transapient engaged in subtle efforts to subvert the Solsys Organization. What the S3 in Saturn's Veil did in response is unclear, but it is obvious that the subversion process had significant opposition. Nevertheless in 5700 AT, the Organization's culture began to visibly change to match Hodj's ideals, leading to the Solsys Authenticity War in 5740 AT. Worland Hodj was ultimately defeated by the intervention fleet sent and controlled by Fomalhaut's archailects. Later, the same archailects repaired the Archcurator's damaged moon-brain and merged several modosophonts and transapient volunteers to create another S3 transapient, known as Infinite Tonality.

In the beginning of Infinite Tonality's career as a statesbeing, in the 5900s AT, the S3 worked hard to remove all traces of the fundamentalism and extreme authenticist ideologies propagated by Hodj. Under eir influence the government of the Solsys Organization changed, transforming into a curator republic which managed its nominally equal affiliate polities. Nevertheless, a growing number of these polities were displeased to see the Organization formally aligning itself with the Fomalhaut Acquisition Society (FAS), whose ontology was often seen as not being very different from the Archcurator's. While these detractors were mostly modosophonts and some S1 transapients, their ideologies were surprisingly far-reaching and persistent despite going against the Solsys Organization's memetic engineering efforts, hinting at support from unknown high toposophic sources.

GAIA's Apotheosis and the Gracious Host

The 7th millenium AT in Solsys began with the appearance of a small fleet of ISOs who arrived at Solsys through the Einstein Gate - declaring themselves to be "some of the Dwellers of the Old Grove". Noticeably, the ISOs were all reactionless vessels propelled by halo drives, and after their brief but friendly interaction with Solsys Organization's highest authorities they immediately departed in Earth's direction. There, the ISOs assumed orbits in Earth's local space that are often viewed as reminiscent of a strange ritual dance. They maintained this configuration for exactly one standard year, and then quietly left Solsys using the same wormhole. A standard year later, in 6002 AT, the construction of GAIA's Ring of Fire began.

Over the course of the construction of the Ring of Fire, the goddess of Earth began to engage in routine communication with the creator of Saturn's Veil. It is still unclear but likely that GAIA had already breached the fourth toposophic when she began to exchange messages with Saturn's S3, and this caused GAIA's relationship with the Solsys Organization to slowly improve over time. This often meant some minor exchanges and concessions from both parties, who later eventually also began to engage in small joint projects as well. For instance, GAIA allowed and participated in the construction of the Embassy habitat in Earth's orbit in 6554 AT, the classic location where Solsys Organization agents officially engage in diplomacy with GAIA's children.

A diplomatic incident occurred in 6929 AT, caused by the emergence of the avatars of an unknown S3 calling themselves the Gracious Host. The avatars appeared in distant orbit around Pluto, declaring themselves the rulers of the planet and effortlessly repelling any resistance attempt made by the local government or the Solsys Organization itself, before ultimately being destroyed by GAIA's displacement cannons. The fact that the two leading S3s were suspiciously inefficient in dealing with a threat perceived as actually serious was often seen as deliberate negligence, significantly reducing their popularity for a time.

The Terragen Federation made sure to use the opportunity well, going to great lengths to use Infinite Tonality's popularity loss as a tool to shift the Solsys Organization's allegiance. Meanwhile, the FAS attempted to keep it as a member polity, leading to a two decades-long memetic conflict that neither Sephirotic won. Instead, the conflict was won by GAIA and certain Solsys Organization political factions that pushed for more independence. GAIA's action of saving Pluto was seen very favorably, a sentiment amplified by propaganda to the point that the entire Solsys Organization became more cooperative with the archailect, while the Sephirotic memetic subversion efforts mostly cancelled each other out. By the time the FAS and the Federation ended their memetic conflict, the independent factions were held in much greater standing. Thus, in the 7000s AT, the Solsys Organization ceased to be officially aligned with the FAS and became a neutral polity.

The Solsys Organization in the Current Era

Each member polity's level of autonomy has been uniquely negotiated, varying due to numerous historical and cultural factors. All affiliated polities are nominally coequal (weighted by population) when it comes to Organization-wide decisions. Nonetheless, many modosophonts and some S1s hold that it is really just a convenient instrument for the S2 and S3 transapients to steer Solsys development and policy. A few even hold that the Organization is under the control of, or a plaything for, GAIA.

The Solsys Organization controls territory in four star systems - Solsys, Akela (Wolf 359), Sirius, and Rihal (Ross 248) - though of these, Solsys contains the vast majority of the Organization's population. Akela and Rihal remain lightly populated, while in the Sirius system only the Twelve Solaria - small habitat clusters - are affiliated. Within Solsys itself, Earth remains independent and directly controlled by GAIA, while in the far outer system's Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud, the Solsys Organization competes with the Out-System Development Alliance for influence. Still, the vast majority of Solsys' population and all of its S2 and S3 transapients are affiliated with the Organization. All four star systems are connected to each other (as well as others) directly by beamlines and the Lightways, with Solsys and Sirius being connected to the Wormhole Nexus.


Solar organisation
Image from Bernd Helfert

Current Issues

A recurring though minor issue are various fringe extremist groups, known as Anthropists, from elsewhere in the Terragen Sphere that attempt to reconquer part of Solsys, or even Earth itself, to reclaim the human origin system. These are almost invariably modosophont-only and made up of human nearbaselines. Though they are easily defeated by the Solsys Organization and its S3s, they at times make more progress than is normal for intertoposophic conflicts. These incidents are widely thought of as being permitted in order to entertain Solsys locals, and such occurrences occasionally appear in local satirical media. Attempting to figure out precisely how they were thwarted also serves as a sort of game. An occasional trope in Solsys roleplaying virches are 'what if' scenarios where some Anthropist group, against all plausibility, conquers part of Solsys and sets up a bizarre dystopia.

The most famous such incident occurred in the early 6th millennium when a militant splinter group from the Church of Human Rights, the now defunct "Branch Hominists", used scavenged weaponry from the Version War and (ostensibly) managed to sneak past both the security systems of the wormhole guardians and Solsys' insystem sensors by using some stolen "chameleon" technologies. While still in Earth orbit, the ships of the attacking fleet suddenly and mysteriously popped like balloons, despite defenses that should have been adequate against all standard transapientech weapons. After being restored from backup and informed what had happened, the group was reportedly adamant they could have succeeded had they adjusted their strategy, yet they never tried again.

A major role played by the Solsys Organization is mediating disputes between Authenticists and other interests. Authenticists seek to maintain Solsys and its societies in their historic condition, or even to restore them to a past condition, to varying degrees. Opposition to authenticism comes from various groups, including societies that are growing and changing, groups and entities which wish to develop more of Solsys' resources into habitats and computronium, and research groups such as the Institute of Human Archaeology that seek to obtain control of and shut down ancient settlements in order to excavate them.


FOOTNOTES:
[1] ↩ Archcurator Worland Hodj's given name and surname is drawn from a list of common human names from authentic Jovian cultures of the Age of Consolidation. According to the S3, its designation was chosen to honor the ordinary nearbaseline citizens, important historical actors who tend to be considered as mere "background characters" by lesser historians. Meanwhile eir title is a superlative of Curator, a title given to the governing transapients and archailects of the Fomalhaut Acquisition Society.
 
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Development Notes
Text by ProxCenBound and Rakuen07
from an original by Anders Sandberg, M. Alan Kazlev, and Stephen Inniss
Initially published on 24 December 2000.

Revised 31 July 2024.
 
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