Transapients Dominating the Setting - Looking for Articles

[Drashner1]

Hey all,

From our discussions HERE, I've set myself a number of projects for next year, including modifying the EG so as to tone down the sense that transapients are everywhere and control/dominate everything.

I have a number of thoughts on that, some based on what was discussed in the thread above, some still just rattling around in my own head.

One of these involves adjusting the wording on various articles either about transapients or that include mention of transapients to make it clearer that they are rare, have their own things that they spend time on, etc. I have some articles already in mind for adjustment, but also suspect there are a number that I've either forgotten about or haven't thought of because I'm so used to the current way that OA is structured. With that in mind...

Could anyone so inclined please use this thread to post links to EG articles or site pages that you feel contribute to the impression of transapient omni-presence and omni-control or to modosophont insignificance?

If you have questions or concerns about any of the above as well, please feel free to post em here too.

Thanks!

Todd

[stevebowers]

Do we want to have more worlds and systems with no transapient presence? I ask because quite often I add the transapients as an afterthought - they are often incidental to the history of the worlds concerned, and add little of interest to the modosophont history.

On the other hand, once you have a transapient presence in a system, there is less risk of environmental, political or economic disaster.

[Drashner1]

I'm kind of thinking we should move away from making the presence or absence of transapients a defining feature of a place except in specific circumstances (imperial capitals, major transapient centers, etc).

I'm thinking we might update/add systems to indicate that they are using one of the many forms of government we list in the EG as well as explicitly describing forms of government administration beyond aiocracy. For example the Halcyon system uses a form of elected legislature operating as a mentally merged superhuman (but presumably still modosophont) group mind. Other methods might also be fun to include and explore, the weirder the better in some ways.

As to whether or not the absence of transaps can make a place less stable - some could see that as a feature from a story writing perspective. Also, I think that, based on other things in setting, we could readily argue that advances in government, intelligence augmentation, and the overarching (but more behind the scenes) influence of the sephirotic archai could all contribute to things still being much much more stable and well off than we manage to govern things in RL.

This would also fit in with how we describe things in the Outer Volumes and such, I think.

Todd