Cults and Movements

Persistent memeplexes often act as catalysts to turn belief into action. In order to thrive and spread, complex sets of memes usually include evangelistic components. It’s not enough to simply accept a set of ideas – a believer must actively attempt to convince others their ideas are truth. There’s Darwinian logic to this – memeplexes without this strong evangelism are less likely to propagate and survive.

In the past, the relative isolation of some communities meant that sophisticated but less-assertive memes had a chance to flower. Conversion doesn’t need to be high on the agenda if believers rarely contact people of other faiths. As changes in technology made it possible for disparate groups to communicate over wide areas, many less aggressive memeplexes withered under the onslaught of belief systems dedicated to widespread evangelism.

In a memetic context, evangelism does not necessarily imply religion. Although convictions of faith often produce the memetic systems best to aggressively proselytize, many nonreligious political and social movements trigger such a desire too. Many memeticists in 2155 classify religious cults and political factions as more or less the same phenomenon. Indeed, plenty of groups have qualities of both, pressing for political and social change with religious conviction.

To the chagrin of those who equate scientific advancement with secularism, the middle of the 22nd century is a golden age of religions. Despite the growing might of civilization, humanity’s sense of self has never been more fragile. More people than ever seek to understand their place in the world. The onrushing transformation leads many to question mankind’s nature, and they often find the answers disturbing. Billions remain faithful to long-established religions and philosophies, particularly those practices that have reinvented themselves for the new era. A substantial minority, however, have come to believe that traditional beliefs provide feeble solace for those seeking peace and self-knowledge in this age. They have instead turned to alternative practices and cults.

With the rising demand has come rising supply, and the modern era’s tools have accelerated the process of starting a new belief system. Sophisticated memetic engineering techniques give cults the ability to create compelling and seductive philosophies, while nanodrugs can make true believers out of the most hardened skeptics. But many of the most popular cults disdain the use of these crutches; they believe in their messages’ power and their devotion to revealed truth. In a world where the future is utterly uncertain and even reality is considered contingent, this is often enough.

A cult is often said to be merely a religion without mainstream approval… an argument with some truth. Many minority religions are referred to as cults simply because some authority has decided they are dangerous, subversive, or somehow repugnant to “good moral order.” Theologians also use “cult” to refer to deviant religious groups with nonmainstream practices. This is in contrast to sect, which refers to deviant religious groups with more traditional practices.

Memetic scientists, however, distinguish between cults and religions by considering where each group focuses its attention. In religions the rules, values, and ritual dominate. In cults, the leadership dominates. If a cult loses its leader, it likely faces splits, power struggles, or even rapid collapse. In this model, cults can become religions over time, if the memeplex evolves to a more structured and less charismatic format.

There are hundreds of alternative religious groups across the solar system; the following is only a brief sampling.

Each black hole is the slender anchor of an entire unique universe. To acquire one for the benefit of money or power isn’t just crass, it’s sacrilegious. Humanity defiles perfection with its greed. – Eldern Maicho, 2109

This cult worships a cosmic being simply known as the Dark. The Acolytes have mixed New Age mysticism and modern astrophysics to come to the conclusion that the universe as humanity knows it can only be possible with the guidance of some ultrapotent being. Rather than an all-powerful anthropomorphic entity, however, they believe that this being is actually comprised of what physicists call the dark matter and dark energy that lies between the stars. They further claim that this aspect of the universe cannot be fully understood by those who see things only in a scientific or spiritual light. The Dark was created by, and also created, the Big Bang that gave the universe life.

The cult came to limited popularity after the 2106 recovery of the Shezbeth object. Eldern Maicho, a Duncanite mystic and astrophysicist, set down the beliefs of the Acolytes. Chief among these is the conclusion that primordial black holes are the key to understanding dark matter, as they are whole universes unto themselves and offspring of the cosmic creator. Mankind has been given the chance to prove itself by governing these universes as dark matter and energy governs this one. Only by ruling them with wisdom and intelligence can humanity be elevated to be one with the Dark.

Acolytes are, almost without exception, dwellers in deep space with no Earthly ties or allegiances. Most are Red Duncanites and Gypsy Angels; as of the beginning of 2155, there are about a thousand Acolytes in the outer system. Maicho’s sermons are fairly persuasive; those who join the Acolytes do so out of belief rather than coercion.

For the Acolytes, finding and recovering a primordial black hole is a modern quest for the Holy Grail. They believe black holes found by others should be made available for all to study and worship – since traditional scientists of Sol, by denying all matters spiritual, certainly wouldn’t be able to understand them fully. Acolytes have begun serious efforts at recovering their own black hole so that it may be properly understood and guided, allowing them to reach cosmic transcendence.

Throughout the system Acolytes scan the Kuiper Belt, hoping to find a black hole near enough to grab before corrupt Earthly corporations can steal them. To make this possible, Maicho cut a deal with Vim Raymond, a Trojan Mafia boss, to secretly assemble a small fleet ready to intercept any other primordial black holes discovered by nonbelievers. In exchange for this assistance, Acolytes will provide technical assistance and, once the order has its hands on its first primordial black hole, help Raymond’s group get its own primordial black hole. Maicho is aware that Raymond intends to somehow use the primordial black hole as a weapon against his enemies, but is willing to make that exchange. The Acolytes believe that they have the right and responsibility to puzzle the secrets of these microverses. The possible death of thousands is nothing weighed against true understanding of the living Dark.

We all surf the seas of chaos, but too many of us fall in. – Maria Turner, Ecological Coherence, 2094 Ecoherence started in 2083, but truly took off after the publication of LOGOS’ Propagation of Human Ideas. Founder Maria Turner, a brilliant student of philosophy and psychology, had begun constructing a new religion better able to cope with the changing definition of humankind. PHI crystallized many of her ideas, and she reshaped her emerging philosophies to reflect the new understanding of how beliefs emerge and spread. That Ecoherence is a constructed religion is not denied by the organization and is not considered particularly scandalous. Many supporters feel that the crafted nature of Ecoherence is one of its strengths. Turner herself claims that only philosophies created in accordance with understanding of the actual functions of the human mind have any relevance to real human needs or aspirations.

Few followers know the degree to which Ecoherence is designed to bring in and retain believers. From the outset, Turner built philosophies and organizational structures to create self-reinforcing cycles of dependency. Every aspect of Ecoherence is intended to make believers feel special, protected, and under relentless attack from the outside. Many anti-Ecoherence “hit pieces” on the Web were actually created by Turner or her associates as part of an elaborate campaign to inculcate a sense of oppression in her followers.

Ecoherence initially saw remarkable growth, as Turner was quickly able to turn LOGOS’ academic prose into usable techniques. By 2099, over 300,000 people around the world participated in Ecoherence meetings, online or in person. This period of growth tapered off over the 2100s, as populations developed memetic antibodies to the PHI-derived techniques. By that time, however, Ecoherence had developed enough of a following and legitimacy that it had cognitive critical mass, and could grow without relying on what critics referred to as “memetic tricks.” This doesn’t mean that Ecoherence leadership no longer uses memetic techniques – quite the opposite. The organization’s inner circle is on the cutting edge of memetic development.

By the late 2100s, Ecoherence claimed over two million followers throughout the solar system, most in the United States and Europe. As the organization has grown, its recruitment practices have evolved. Ecoherence no longer focuses its direct attention on everyday people, instead concentrating its efforts on “social nodes” – influential individuals who affect the decisions of others, often without conscious realization. Ecoherence employs hundreds of memetic specialists – a variant of Edgehunters called “memetologists” by Ecoherence – to seek out, identify, and contact these social nodes: trendsetters, political influencers, cultural arbiters, etc. As a result, Ecoherence enjoys a generally positive reputation, and some of its jargon is slipping into wider use.

The Ecoherence canon itself is a minimal-impact environmentalist doctrine coupled with strict hierarchies of power. Disorder is a sign of weakness. The philosophy asserts that people should avoid engaging in behavior that has too many unpredictable results; “complexity itself is the enemy of civilization” is one of the movement’s slogans. As members demonstrate their decreased “noise” in the environment, they are rewarded with greater authority. Moving up levels also costs money or, more often, control over intellectual property. Ecoherence has quietly become one of the larger holders of intellectual property on Earth.

Once members achieve “Whisper” status, a mid-level ranking, they are told that further attempts at self-ordering are fruitless without the assistance of regular HyMRI scans. Ecoherence owns over a dozen such scanners, and “Structuring Facilities” housing the devices are in major cities in North American and Europe. Members are asked to pay handsomely for the scan, which nearly all do eagerly. Rumors persist that these HyMRI scans are used to alter member beliefs and behaviors, a claim that Ecoherence denies.

Ecoherence’s critics claim that the organization is little more than a con game designed to separate the gullible from their property. The movement’s public response is to ignore such statements; secretly, Ecoherence has an entire branch of its structure dedicated to countering memetic actions criticizing the movement. This usually means conducting campaigns to discredit or otherwise stain critics’ reputations, although the secret memetic branch itself has a classified division for executing more direct and even violent actions against those who try to harm the movement. Only Turner can authorize this sort of activity. However, in recent years she has become increasingly volatile, responding with fury to any criticism of the organization or her leadership of it.

Language used by the Ecoherence movement is showing up in everyday conversations of the English-speaking world. While this does not mean that everyone using these terms is an Ecoherence follower, it does reflect the growing influence the movement has in many Fourth and Fifth Wave nations.

alignment: An individual’s mental or emotional state. Alignments are usually “cohesive,” “jumbled,” or, worst of all, “chaotic.”

brownian: Life lived without any attempt to bring coherence – not just random, stupidly random.

friction: Chaos resulting from interaction between two poorly structured individuals. The term implies that the problems result from unintended but avoidable problems and has a disdainful undertone.

full silence: Ecoherence’s highest level achievable by general members. Used commonly to mean overly strict or dominating. This is supposed to be one of the movement’s secret terms, so Ecoherence’s memetic engineers are working to eliminate its general use.

irrational-sum: Similar to “zero-sum” and “positive/negative-sum” in reference to interactions, “irrational-sum” describes dealings where all parties are focused on finding every last bit of advantage. In Ecoherence, this is a sign of an “unstructured” life.

niche: Used as a verb meaning “to put into a proper location.” In popular usage, has an implication that, once “niched,” something can be forgotten.

phase shift: In Ecoherence, the process of moving to increasingly or decreasingly ordered states of existence. In general usage, it means a large and sudden change in life.

statics: Those who do not follow Ecoherence. Generally, those who serve largely to impede an individual’s progress and contribute little or nothing to his or her life.

“I wonder, now, how people can willingly leave the breast of our world. I know that I am too enraptured by the soil of my home to ever want to leave. It is a part of me, within me, giving me spirit and solace, faith in the future and hope for the past. My home is my religion.” – Yong-nam Hong, With Open Arms, 2107

Kwangbok, or “liberation,” first appeared in northern Korea in early 2108. Its leader, Yong-nam Hong, took great pains to link its precepts to traditional folk religions in his various public appearances, and the Korean authorities paid little attention to the growing popularity of the practice. In recent months, however, the Korean government has begun to look much more closely.

According to his official biography, Yong-nam Hong was born in 2040, shortly after the peaceful reunification of North and South Korea. While his family struggled during the rebuilding of the northern economy, Yong-nam was drawn into a local religious movement known as Chondogyo. He spent several decades as a minister of the faith, traveling the countryside offering services and support for the local townspeople. When the religion suffered an internal power struggle and schism in 2086, Yong-nam Hong had a crisis of faith and left the church. He wandered throughout East and Southeast Asia over the course of the next decade, looking for inspiration.

What he found was conflict. He was in Laos at the outset of the Pacific War, and came very close to being killed by a Chinese attack on a hospital where he was working. (China claimed that the hospital was actually a bioweapons test facility.) He spent months in Laos recuperating, then traveled slowly through southern and eastern China, eventually returning home in 2106. Hong spent the next year writing down his experiences and thoughts about his travels and homecoming, eventually publishing a book called With Open Arms.

He used this book as a way of connecting with other Koreans who felt lost in the modern era. Kwangbok emerged as the unifying element for these disaffected citizens, as Hong combined traditional folk beliefs, the sense of service and spirituality from Chondogyo, and a “nationalism of the soil” that reinforced Korean pride as a people. The faith also was openly disdainful toward the large southern Korean corporations that dominated life in the north.

While this disdain initially manifested as calls for more jobs for northern Koreans, over the last few years it has taken on a decidedly infosocialist tint. Hong and his various deacons are vocal in their opposition to corporate control of ideas and information. Members of the cult have engaged in peaceful protests at the headquarters of Korean entertainment and software companies. They also commit other acts of civil disobedience. In February of 2114, in the midst of a harsh northern winter, 20 Kwangbok members staged a “sing-in” at the Pyongyang city center, protesting the use of a folk melody as the basis of a new and content-rights-managed pop song.

The Korean government has begun to investigate whether Kwangbok is somehow influenced or controlled by the TSA. News reports calling Kwangbok a “dangerous cult” are more frequent, and members of the religion fear infiltration by provocateurs or even arrest. Now almost 115, Yong-nam Hong is as forceful as ever in his speech and belief, and promises that he “will not capitulate to a government controlled by greed.”

We face nothing less than the agents of the devil come to play in the deepest aspects of our being. They have come to deface the gifts to us given by our father in the sky and our mother in the soil. If we accept that, we are worse than dead – we are no longer human. We would be nothing more than lies given flesh. – Jonas Kilundu, Proceedings of the Spirit, Volume 2, 2095

In 2077, Professor Marcus Kilundu of the University of Pretoria took a leave of absence following the death of his wife. During his year of mourning, Kilundu had a spiritual awakening, finding solace and meaning in the traditional practices of the region. He wrote about his religious epiphany in his 2079 book, The People of the Clay. While never a best seller, it provided inspiration to thousands of people in Africa, and Kilundu collected a growing set of followers. In 2070, he retired from the university, opening up the Sarai Kilundu Institute in Luanda, Angola. The center was dedicated to the teaching of traditional religious rites and philosophies.

By the late 2090s, Kilundu and his closest staff had shifted the teachings from traditional beliefs to a syncretic practice they called “Mahamba.” Mixing in elements of a variety of regional traditions, Mahamba preached a philosophy of strength through simplicity. Its basic approach combined environmentalist and Preservationist ideals with appeals to a mythic history of the African spirit. Its rise corresponded to the growing political influence of biotechnology in the Southern African Coalition.

Marcus Kilundu died in 2107. His son, Jonas, now heads the Institute. Under Jonas Kilundu, Mahamba has become more political, criticizing SAC leadership for its willingness to allow extreme biotechnologies to be used on Africans. In 2113, after Kilundu endorsed a presidential candidate from the African Natural Traditions party – a fairly radical Preservationist faction – the SAC executive council launched an investigation of Mahamba and its adherents. Kilundu complained of “official persecution,” a claim that the SAC calls “sheer paranoia.”

About 20,000 people in southern and southwestern Africa follow Mahamba, most in Angola. Over 250 followers live in or near the Institute itself. Most have research or support duties in the Institute, but a 2154 investigation by the SAC Special Police Services uncovered evidence that some members were being initiated into traditional African warrior societies and given military-style training. In August of 2154, Kilundu announced that the Institute would be moving to an isolated part of Angola, near the southern town of Menongue, in order to pursue their religious observances without official harassment.

If you can ask yourself, “why?” can you ever know the answer? If you can know the answer, can you truly know the question? – Jamal Mathir, 2097 Mathirism is a belief system founded by the Frenchman Jamal Mathir in the 2090s. It sometimes claims to be a Sufi order. Although most conventional Sufis dispute this, sometimes fiercely, the claim has some logic to it. Because of its Sufi connection, Mathirism is prohibited in more-conservative parts of the Islamic Caliphate, and informally oppressed in many more. Its largest body of followers is in Europe, although it has converts worldwide.

The defining feature of Mathirism is an attempt to achieve nonrational insights into the divine, possibly even direct communion with God, by means of altered states of consciousness. Countless sects and cults, including Sufis, have attempted this in the past. However, Mathirism’s unique feature is that the techniques used to create and maintain these mental states are all based on intensive use of virtual-reality systems and slink recordings. A typical Mathirite recording is usually abstract or surreal; the devotee spends considerable amounts of time immersed in full sensory playback, either playing a very long recording or repeating a short sequence in a continuous loop. The result is a hallucinatory state comparable to the effects of powerful drugs.

Mathirites claim that this technique is more powerful and more controlled than conventional tranceinducing techniques such as drug use, whirling dances, chanting, meditation, or fasting. Critics from older traditions claim that the experiences’ artificial nature makes them sterile and ineffective as a path to higher consciousness. One common concern about Mathirite techniques is that the cult leaders and teachers effectively control the recordings’ creation, potentially making them ineffective or a form of brainwashing.

It is important to note that Mathirism is not related to Cybergnosticism or Hyperevolutionism. Indeed, Jamal Mathir and his personal pupils are fiercely critical of both those beliefs. Mathirites do not believe that God is “pure information” or that humanity should seek “digital perfection.” They believe in an entirely transcendent deity, one who cannot be understood by anything as rational as scientific analysis and who draws no moral distinctions between flesh and data. Mathirite technological meditation serves one purpose alone: to detach the believer from rationalist conceptions and restraints, freeing the perceptions and soul to seek a higher state. Indeed, Mathirites delight in logical and mathematical paradoxes, fractal images, and serendipitous computer failures, seeing them as marking flaws in normal perceptions of the universe.

Mathirite ethics are generally flexible, although the cult dislikes the use of drugs and other mindaffecting indulgences as a distraction from its own path. They also regard the physical world as irrelevant when compared to communion with the godhead. It is monotheistic, sharing the Islamic and Christian belief in a single supreme being, but its taste for paradoxes and the irrational is similar to Zen Buddhism. Most Mathirites have a vaguely conventional morality, and are law-abiding. Their disdain for material distractions saves them from many temptations, but they can seem smug and arrogant. Mathirism appeals to individuals seeking spiritual guidance and insights, especially those who lack any special obsession with “ancient wisdom” or who have a particular fondness for technology. It does not proselytize very aggressively, and rarely makes converts except from among those with some prior interest in its techniques.

Marx said that history happens twice – first as tragedy, then as farce. But every now and then, the reverse is true. – Dina Holland, Hail To The King, Baby, 2088

Elvis Presley was a popular musician in the mid- to late 20th century. Although he died a somewhat tawdry death, he continued to have fans well into the early 21st century, particularly in the United States. As his older admirers died off, however, Presley began the slow decline into historical obscurity, showing up in musical retrospectives but by 2025 rarely anywhere else.

Leroy “Mudfoot” White changed that.

Leroy White was a blues musician living in Oxford, Mississippi. Well into his 90s, White was still charismatic, and could draw a crowd with his gravelly voice. Even after he was diagnosed with cancer and his body began to fail, White would sit on the porch of his home, singing Elvis Presley songs. He claimed that his father had been one of Elvis’ early mentors, and that he learned many of these songs from Elvis himself.

On the morning of July 1, 2046, White was found running through the streets of Oxford, his cancer in full remission. To a rapidly growing crowd, White proclaimed that the music of Elvis Presley had healed him.

Over the subsequent decade, White gathered together several dozen more elderly men and women, nearly all of them musical performers, who claimed to have been healed by the music of Elvis. While most journalists treated the group as a joke, making references to “the Church of Elvis,” meetings of the group grew ever larger… family, friends, and spectators joined in. The revival assemblies were lively and filled with music. White’s eventual funeral, in 2055, drew nearly 10,000 attendees.

In 2058, one of the core group’s younger members, a 52-year-old retired schoolteacher named Jenna Jackson, wrote a slim volume called Elvis and the King of Kings. She pulled together the personal stories of those who claimed to have been touched by the spirit of Elvis, conventional maxims and admonishments about living a good life, and a superficially evangelical view of Christianity. Humorous and inspirational, the book sold well, drawing more people into the circle of Elvis-followers, who began to call themselves “Sons and Daughters of the King,” often abbreviated SDK.

Religious conservatives would have none of it, however – throughout the 2050s and 2060s, ministers across many traditional denominations decried the “Presleyan Heresy” as idolatry. Nonetheless, the SDK movement continued to grow. By the 2070 census, nearly 250,000 people in the U.S. claimed to be SDK members. In a world of incipient Cybergnosticism and Transhumanist philosophies, followers of Elvis seemed almost quaintly conventional.

In 2093, with nearly 500,000 adherents, the Sons and Daughters of the King saw their first real trouble. The movement’s leader, Howard Plettner – derisively called “The Colonel” by his critics, inside and outside of the movement – ordered that all images of Elvis used by the church be from his early years. Images of the older Elvis were removed from all SDK documents, buildings, and websites. Some congregations protested, claiming that the Elder Elvis personified the sorrows and sins of the world, while the Young Elvis was simply an innocent.

What started as an aesthetic conflict became a doctrinal struggle, then turned violent. Plettner was shot and killed in 2096. Apparently in retaliation, the headquarters of the Elder Elvis schism was burned to the ground by an unknown arsonist. The leadership in both factions became increasingly radical. In 2155, they still launch verbal and virtual tirades against each other. Each has lodged trademark violation complaints against the other with the WTO, claiming infringement of ownership of the image of Elvis.

The Sons and Daughters of the King (the Younger) are headquartered in Memphis. A distant descendant of Elvis has become close to the group, and in 2109 the Younger faction base moved into Graceland. The current leader, Kevin Robert Barber, is known to have a bad temper and a fondness for brainbugs. He employs a small contingent of armed guards, all cosmetically sculpted to look like Elvis.

The Sons and Daughters of the King (the Elder) are headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, in a smallish casino off the Strip. Members can be found throughout the United States. Rumors on the Web claim that the Elder faction is working with a gray-market AI programming team to construct an eidolon of Elvis. One rumor goes on to claim that they’ve been partially successful, but the eidolons soon become psychotic.

In Kurzweil’s Name. – Traditional Singularitan greeting

At the end of the 20th century, many forward-looking technologists espoused a worldview that an unprecedented moment of change was imminent. They called this change the “singularity,” and said that it would be triggered by the development of sapient artificial intelligence – which they saw as happening as soon as 2020 or 2030. In the singularity paradigm, the moment the first “true” AI woke up, it would embark on a series of self-upgrades, each faster than the last, eventually becoming such an utterly transcendent figure that it would sweep up all of humankind into its massive global consciousness. Most supporters of the singularity concept figured that this event would happen no later than 2065. Unfortunately for them, that wasn’t how history turned out. Sapient artificial intelligence proved to be far more difficult than many people expected. As of 2155, a progression much past a human level of intelligence is effectively impossible.

By the 2050s, most supporters of the singularity idea either gave up on it entirely or recast it as a “someday” concept worthy of interesting discussion but not much else. Not all of them gave up, however. A fraction of the hardcore singularity proponents – many of whom had for decades called themselves “singularitans” – refused to give up. Most argued that such a transcendent breakthrough remained well within possibility and once the “wall of limited cognition” had been broken, the power of modern computing technology meant that the singularity transition would happen faster than previously estimated. A small number of remaining singularitans even argued that the singularity had occurred, but that the newly godlike AI had determined that humanity would not have been able to comprehend this degree of change. It therefore graciously gave human civilization, uploaded right on schedule, a false history to follow in their new virtual-reality lives.

Each successive year without the end of the world did little to dampen the ardor of hardcore singularitans. It was a matter of faith. In 2085, after it was clear that the invention of fully sapient AIs was not leading to transcendent transformation, a series of articles and documentaries about determined singularitans referred to the believers as a “cult.” In response, the singularitans’ generally acknowledged leader, Adam Stein, attempted to register Singularitanism as a religion with the U.S. government. He argued that it had articles of faith (the imminent appearance of super-sapient AI), ancient holy books (a series of turn-of-the-century treatises by eminent computer scientists), key behavioral values (don’t do anything to risk dying before the singularity), and a fully fleshed-out “end times” revelation (upload and transcend). To everyone’s surprise, especially Stein’s, Singularitanism was granted church status.

But what started as a sarcastic joke took on a life of its own. Registering as a church prompted a great deal of attention, and actually led to a sharp rise in numbers of devotees. Most of those who joined up were younger technologists who had been born long after the first wave of singularity enthusiasm had petered out. Many actually worked on modern artificial intelligence design, and saw in the singularitan paradigm a reason for excitement about their chosen profession.

Singularitan meetings through the 2090s and into the 2100s adopted tongue-in-cheek religious trappings – including sermons, singing, and appeals to “Kurzweil” to watch over everyone – but for a growing number of believers, these elements have become real symbols. In 2113, a survey of those who claimed to belong to a Singularitan church, approximately 50,000 people, found that over half claimed to be serious. Adam Stein continues to attempt to make people aware that Singularitanism wasn’t meant to be a real religion… although it now appears he may be too late.

Information socialism is a corrupt faith invented by an atheist and embraced by Muslims, Catholics, and, worst of all, Europeans. How can a true Hindu feel anything but hatred for it? – Rama Veda, 2099

In 2055, near the disputed Kashmir region along the India-Pakistan border, a young man calling himself Rama Veda drew the notice of local authorities with his seductive oratory and religious fervor. Preaching a philosophy that melded Hindu nationalism and Yoga meditation techniques, Rama Veda made Indian officials nervous. However, he carefully avoided promoting violence against the region’s Muslims, so Indian authorities let him be. He called his approach Spanda Bindu, or “spontaneous concentration,” and he told his followers that a greater Hindustan could be theirs given sufficient focus and meditation.

By March of 2058, the Spanda Bindu movement had several thousand adherents and was starting to gain a following throughout the country. In April of 2058, Rama Veda was shot in the head and killed, allegedly by a member of a rival Hindu nationalist group jealous of his growing influence. Although others attempted to pick up the Spanda Bindu banner, by 2060 the movement had faded away.

In 2109, a group of yogis in Srinagar announced that they had preserved tissues from the assassinated Rama Veda – and had, in 2097, cloned him. In and of itself, this was not a startling announcement – once human cloning had been perfected, religious groups seeking to regain lost leaders were eager to employ the technique. But the Spanda Bindu yogis went a step further with their announcement, claiming that Rama Veda himself had reincarnated in the flesh of his clone, and had full memories of his past life.

This claim was met with widespread dismissal, but over the subsequent months, reports emerged of the young Rama Veda correctly identifying personal items and people not widely known to have been part of the previous Rama Veda’s life. Moreover, a succession of locals who had personally known Rama Veda stated that after meeting with the young clone they were convinced that it was indeed the same individual. Skeptics continued to dismiss the claims. The editor of the Srinagar newsfeed even wrote that he believed that the new Rama Veda was a bioshell running an eidolon infomorph. He was found dead within a week of making his comments, a warning to others who might insult Rama Veda. Throughout 2110 and 2111, a growing number of Hindus were listening to what the young prophet had to say.

Regardless of the veracity of his claims, it was clear that the Rama Veda clone had all of the charisma of the original. By late 2113, the resurgent Spanda Bindu movement had attracted over 100,000 followers across India, and was the subject of several celebratory InVid programs. The Spanda Bindu philosophy still promotes Hindu nationalism, but now, with Hindu nationalists in power and old rival Pakistan weakened, the movement now has an increasingly antinanosocialist tenor. As Rama Veda focused his speeches on fighting the influence of the TSA, India’s ruling party, the Indian National Alliance, began to openly support Spanda Bindu.

At the beginning of 2100, Rama Veda stands poised to take on a larger political role in India. Claiming nearly 80,000,000 adherents, Spanda Bindu is the most influential group in northwest India and is becoming increasingly vocal about issues concerning the entire nation. The movement’s prominence has not escaped the TSA’s attention. Many Indians believe that an explosion in July, which killed one of Rama Veda’s closest advisors, was an assassination attempt by the TSA, not the work of the Pakistani intelligence bureau as is widely claimed.

The Teca cult must be stopped. – Ramón Garcia Gutierrez, Director of Mexican Federal Police, 2110

The Teca movement is now the top priority for this office. – Lizabeta Jimenez, Coordinator, TSA Directorate of Theory and Praxis, El Salvador, 2111

We are many and one, everywhere and nowhere, immortal and dead. You can never win. – Unidentified Teca member, prior to setting off a vest full of explosives, Guadalajara, Mexico, 2112. Fourteen bystanders were killed and nine could not be recovered.

The cult known as Teca first appeared in Houston, Texas, in 2105. A small, mostly female group, led by a charismatic minister named Carlos Martinez, was implicated in a series of brutal murders of drifters. The cultists were all teen children of moderately rich local families and investigators had trouble tracking down Martinez and his followers because of families’interference – they were reluctant to allow publicity about their children’s participation in a murderous cult.

Finally, in early 2106, police discovered Martinez and part of his group in a warehouse located in a small town just north of the Rio Grande – their bodies, at least. All had been killed by shotgun blasts to the head; evidence pointed to Martinez pulling the trigger on a small number of followers seated around him, then turning the weapon on himself. However, 28 of the known cult members were nowhere to be found. But with Martinez dead, Texas police believed the cult was finished, and finding the missing members took on a much lower priority.

Three of them resurfaced in Juarez, Mexico, later in the year, continuing to espouse Teca beliefs and having convinced four local youths to join with them. As before, officials first noticed their presence as a result of the ritual killing of indigents. When the police managed to hunt down the cult members in early 2107, they resisted all attempts to take them alive. Rather than engage in combat with the officers, the cultists set themselves on fire.

By that time, however, Teca groups had appeared in six cities in Mexico and the southwestern United States. Original cult members who had escaped the Texas raid had started all the new groups. In some cases, a couple of the originals remained with the new groups – more often, the originals started the new group and moved on, letting the local cult grow on its own. All of the cult groups behaved in similar fashions, and there was very little deviance between the various branches. In every case, the recruits were young and from relatively well-off families. Some were employed in technical fields, but most were simply wealthy Eloi. The Santa Fe Gazette reflected popular sentiment with its headline over the picture of a captured cultist – reading, simply, “SPOILED ROTTEN.”

Few cultists allowed themselves to be taken alive. Those who were captured sought any opportunity for suicide, and otherwise refused to talk to authorities, therapists, or family members. Nanodrug and other biochemical treatments proved useless; any initial response quickly faded. That each captured member of the cult had a virtual interface implant did not draw immediate suspicion, as to all appearances the systems had long been shut down.

The breakthrough came in 2111, when a desperate Mexican federal investigator ordered the physical removal of a captured cultist’s virtual-interface implant. The change was immediate. The former cultist could remember only bits and pieces of her time with the movement, but expressed no desire to rejoin the group or kill herself. Without the VII, therapy eventually restored some sanity. The Mexican authorities realized that they were dealing with a xox cult.

By 2113, over two dozen cultist groups were operating in Mexico, a handful in Arizona and New Mexico, and another dozen or more were suspected to exist. The cult had moved south, into TSA territory, and reports of outbreaks of Teca came from Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. Despite the political chill between Mexico and the Central American TSA nations in 2114, police forces began to share information about the best techniques to track down and eliminate the Teca cult.

Investigators have pieced together information on how the Teca cult operates.

The first step is to find and recruit appropriate new members. Teca relies on traditional methods, seeking out disaffected, lonely, or rebellious youths. The potential recruits are not told the group’s true identity – Teca is now notorious enough that very few people would join willingly. The young people feel welcomed, loved, and supported, and are made to think that the cult is their new family. The Carlos Martinez xox is charismatic and manipulative and recruits join the group willingly.

The next step is to convince the recruit to remove the active AI in his VII and replace it with what they are told is a “caretaker” AI – actually the Carlos Martinez xox. Convincing a teen to erase his VII is usually not difficult. The implants of many teenagers are laden with monitor software, censorware, and heavy-handed filters – they are often seen to be tools of their parents rather than theirs. The cult also employs signal-suppression gear to make certain that the resident AIs don’t send out an emergency signal before being removed.

Once the Martinez xox has been installed, the relationship between the cult and the recruit changes. No longer warm and embracing, the cult’s role is to prevent escape while the xox begins a process of relentlessly wearing down the recruit. Mental torture initiated by an entity residing entirely in your own head is remarkably effective, and most recruits cease any resistance within a few days. By the end of the second week, the cultist’s original personality is fully suppressed and functions solely as a mask for the Martinez xox. While the shadow controls the cult members, it can draw upon enough of the memories and skills of the cultist to make a convincing puppet. Martinez xoxes do not see themselves as entirely individual entities, and willingly share ideas and information.

The original Carlos Martinez personality and its subsequent xoxes are all completely insane. Most believe themselves to be one of a million arms of the devil, who asks only for occasional ritual killings to prove reverence. A small number of Martinez xoxes, largely on the Yucatan peninsula, believe themselves to be shattered manifestations of God, and they can only make themselves whole again by making certain that there are many more such pieces of God on Earth.

If you meet the Shepherd on the road, kill it. – Chinese Ministry of Public Security Order 4/5/14

The Unified Way is a cult of persistent popularity across Asia and into the Middle East. It is also a memetic warfare agent, a leftover from the buildup to the Pacific War that may well cause more damage than all of the dormant AKVs in orbit.

The Unified Way is a religion of resistance that preaches civil disobedience and considers martyrdom at the hands of an unjust government a sure path to heaven. While primarily peaceful, its philosophies espouse a crude “tit-for-tat” approach to dealing with oppression… one almost guaranteed to escalate into violence. The Unified Way is a fairly sophisticated memeplex blending aspects of Hinduism, Sufism, and Chinese Traditional Religion into a whole designed to attract believers and progressively disconnect them from the real world. The memeplex is remarkably persuasive, and has generated discontent in rural communities across the Mongolian Plateau of western China, in Central Asia, and most recently in the edges of the Middle East. Estimates for the number of followers across the region range to several million. The belief is illegal in much of that area.

The cult first appeared in the early 2090s, led by a Chinese man known as the Shepherd; many outside China refer to the cult as “Shepherdism.” Most analysts expected the movement to dissolve shortly after the death of its charismatic leader, who was killed by Chinese forces in 2101. Much to the surprise of the authorities, another man calling himself the Shepherd, speaking with the same charisma and fervor, appeared soon after the first one’s death. This one was captured, as were many of the subsequent Shepherds.

Unfortunately for those attempting to shut down the movement, there’s always another leader around the bend. The Shepherd is a ghost infomorph. During the buildup to the Pacific War, the Thai government, under TSA supervision, produced thousands of xoxes of the Shepherd and released them into China and its allied nations in inconspicuous bioshells. Their mission is memetic disruption. In this task, the Shepherds are incredibly effective, although they were not quick enough to have an effect on China’s abilities during the war. More than half of the episodes of civil unrest in the western Chinese provinces since 2105 can be attributed to Unified Way activity.

The bioshells employed by the Shepherd have been sufficiently diverse that simply tracking down all bodies with a particular appearance is fruitless. The Shepherd appears in guises ranging from a young child to an aging matron to a handsome, muscular soldier. The occasional con artists posing as the Shepherd to defraud remote communities only add to the confusion.

Many of these infomorphs have been captured by the Chinese; how many remain on the loose is unknown. In 2103, Beijing designated one of these as the “real” Shepherd and imprisoned it. The rest have been executed as illegal xoxes. Enough Shepherds are still active in China to be a major problem, and a few have tried to spread their message elsewhere. Shepherd infomorphs attempting to spread unrest in Kazakstan are shot on sight, although in late 2114 an order came down from the Ministry of Mind and Body to capture one alive. Intelligence services in the West believe that Shepherds are active in Iran, although little is yet known about their effectiveness at stirring up unrest. Shepherd infomorphs captured in the Caliphate are summarily executed. However, only China considers them enough of a threat to actively hunt them outside of its borders.

One Shepherd copy, operating in China at the foothills of the Himalayas, has somehow acquired the resources to produce further shells for its xoxes in order to continue to spread the good word. Caliphate undercover agents in the area suspect that the E.U. is providing this Shepherd with money and supplies. And even if the various governments afflicted by the infomorphs manage to stamp out its multiple manifestations, the template data for the Shepherd still exists in TSA datafiles, for use whenever it is needed.

Nearly every society on and off Earth has a variety of small, nontraditional religions and cults. The vast majority of these groups are peaceful and fairly quiet, with limited proselytizing and fund-raising activities. The United States, Brazil, and Mexico are home to quite a few alternative religious movements, and Japan has been a hotbed of cult activity for over a century. Nontraditional religions of any sort are largely illegal in the Islamic Caliphate and are highly discouraged in the Transpacific Socialist Alliance. The Chinese government occasionally cracks down on cults it deems disruptive to society, although in 2155 Beijing is in a somewhat liberal mood regarding alternative religions – the exception being the Unified Way. Freedom of religion is enshrined in both the U.S. and E.U. constitutions, although in regions where traditional religious practices are commonplace, cults are under substantial social pressure to remain hidden and quiet.

“Don’t be deceived when they tell you things are better now. Even if there’s no poverty to be seen because the poverty’s been hidden. Even if you ever got more wages and could afford to buy more of these new and useless goods which industries foist on you and even if it seems to you that you never had so much, that is only the slogan of those who still have much more than you. Don’t be taken in when they paternally pat you on the shoulder and say that there’s no inequality worth speaking of and no more reason to fight because if you believe them they will be completely in charge in their marble homes and granite banks from which they rob the people of the world under the pretence of bringing them culture. Watch out, for as soon as it pleases them they’ll send you out to protect their gold in wars whose weapons, rapidly developed by servile scientists, will become more and more deadly until they can with a flick of the finger tear a million of you to pieces.” – Jean Paul Marat, 18th-century French revolutionary

In a world of great wealth, abundant free time, and ongoing disagreements about power and culture, political movements abound. While some attract activists with limited dedication, many more provide meaning and purpose to lives that would otherwise be spent immersed in virtual worlds. For some enthusiasts, those movements satisfy a need for identity and community that daily life in 2155 has otherwise failed to meet.

Political and social movements are, for the most part, based on the idea that change is possible. For citizens of western democracies during the past century or two, this concept is unremarkable. But for the majority of people on the planet, the ability to alter political and cultural conditions through activism is a development of the 21st century.

New political and social movements appear daily around the world.

“Our only hope, as a world, is to be more ready to talk than to fight, more ready to reason than to rage, more ready to forgive than to avenge. Sadly, this is a lesson that needs to be relearned time and again, and it’s a lesson taught by blood and fury. Perhaps someday we will be able hold tight to the wisdom gained at the cost of our children’s lives.” – Margaret O’Donnell, upon retiring as U.N. Secretary General, 2105

The effective collapse of the United Nations in the first half of the 21st century drew popular comparisons to the failure of the League of Nations in the early part of the 20th. Most historians dismissed such parallels – the withering away of the U.N. did not herald the onset of a massive conflict. The United Nations Organization still had many widely supported departments, even if the General Assembly and Security Council had lost whatever relevance they once had. But like the League of Nations, the loss of great power participation meant that, when a time of crisis did arise, the U.N. could do little to avert war.

This was clearly demonstrated in 2099, with the onset of the Pacific War. The efforts on the part of the U.N. Secretary General, Margaret O’Donnell, to head off the clash were ignored by China, the TSA, and most media outlets. The U.N.’s own internal news journal chose the headline “Turn Out the Lights” to reflect the sense of utter impotence.

In 2106, O’Donnell, having left her position at the U.N., joined with a small group of diplomats, academics, and retired politicians to call for the creation of a new worldwide deliberative body. They intentionally chose a name, Global Council, which did not evoke the failed League or U.N., and did not presume that the members would necessarily represent individual nations. The model they proposed included representatives of world alliances, major religious and cultural groups, global businesses, and a variety of nongovernmental organizations. The details of the proposal have evolved over the last decade, and the Committee claims that a final version won’t happen without the participation of key global actors.

By the end of 2099, only the South African Coalition and India have openly declared their willingness to participate in such a body. The E.U., PRA, and Islamic Caliphate have expressed tentative interest, but have not committed to the plan. The current United States administration is against the idea, although the Republican Party has embraced it. China has dismissed the plan as unworkable, and the TSA has made it clear that it sees no point in participation if China is not a part of the proceedings.

The campaign to create the Global Council is now focusing on generating broad public support for the idea. They believe that a groundswell of public opinion could push the hesitant nations and coalitions into participating. The committee is attempting to forge links with a wide array of movements dedicated to international cooperation. Their efforts often involve offering money to smaller groups; while some decry this as bribery, most gladly accepted the support. Some committee members have complained that the organization is too indiscriminate with these funds. They point to a February 2114 donation to a survivalist group which claims that a unified world government is the best hope for a defense against alien invaders.

Everything I tell you twice is true. – Pass-phrase found written on the back of a lost hand-held system, Kyoto

Whether they don’t trust the government or private intelligence agencies, they engage in illegal acts, or they just don’t want the Web Gestalt and the aliens from 61 Virginis to read their mail… some people want the best cryptography possible for their communications. Knowing that their messages can only be read with a Complexity 10 quantum computer over the course of a year is not good enough for them – they want cryptography that makes their data secure forever, or at least for as long as anyone can foresee future technological developments.

To create the best cryptography possible, some of the world’s best coders (and many hangers-on) regularly gather on a part of the Free Net known for historical reasons as the “Secret Admirers’ Mailing List” (SAML). For cryptospecialists, this idea-sharing network is home to some of the best thinkers and surliest cranks around. Here they argue cryptographic theory, construct and distribute new security software models, and poke holes in existing cryptography applications in order to improve them. The results are sometimes made available for public download, frequently to the chagrin of certain commercial cryptography providers, although SAML hosts are careful to avoid violations of content-rights regulations.

SAML currently has about 1,000 members, of which a couple dozen are regular participants. Joining the network is difficult; any new member must be sponsored by at least five active members, and voted in by a two-thirds majority. The conversation is freewheeling and broad, with few hard and fast rules. Making the proceedings available to outsiders is grounds for immediate removal from the list as well as several years of untraceable electronic harassment.

The movement is not widely known to the general public, but many governments and transgovernmental agencies have expressed varying degrees of concern about the group. The World Trade Organization considers SAML (and other Cryptosurvivalists) potential threats, and occasionally lobbies the American and European governments to crack down on unauthorized cryptographic research. So far, these lobbying efforts have been unsuccessful.

It’s unclear what impact such restrictions would have in any case. The members of SAML shouldn’t be underestimated – it is said, though hard to prove, that the sysadmins of most data havens are participants. There is a small amount of public support for the movement as well. While many people who have heard of Cryptosurvivalists dismiss them as paranoids and crackpots, others have realized the extent of security holes in some existing software packages, often by being the victim of them. They believe that the Cryptosurvivalists might have a point after all.

Crazy? Look, if you had a chance to make your children smarter, better, and able to do things that you couldn’t do, you’d take that chance, right? Well, AIs are humanity’s children. We’re not crazy, we’re trying to be good parents. – DxM, interviewed by TEN Fringe News, 2094

The resurgence of the “singularity” meme in the 2090s didn’t just trigger a semiserious religious cult (see Singularitanism). A small but vocal minority of technologists and engineers once again entertained the possibility that infomorphs could be designed in a way that would substantially exceed human intelligence. Firms specializing in AI systems’ creation, however, strongly discourage this line of discussion. They worry that the public might adopt the meme of potential computer transcendence and, fearing that fate, turn away from the use of AI technology.

Deus Ex Machina – usually referred to as “DxM” – first appeared in 2105 as the pseudonym of a rabid but articulate proponent of AI rights as well as of something he called “machine uplift,” the process of boosting the sapience of previously non- or low-sapient AIs. DxM’s messages appeared on the “soc.philosophy.electric-sheep” memenet, an ongoing conversation devoted to debating whether SAIs should be considered people or things. DxM was careful to cover his tracks, and some of his early critics claimed that he was an AI trying to stir things up. DxM always asserted he was human, however, and when arguments would boil down to essentially “how can we tell?” he would use that as evidence for furthering the belief in AI equality.

Over the course of the 2100s, DxM built up a bit of a following among technology enthusiasts in the United States and Japan, and even published an interactive book (Deus Ex Machina’s Guide to AI Uplift and Other Illegal Pursuits) in 2109. In May of 2111, DxM revealed to his friends his real name (Douglas Kelly), his age (104), and that he was near death, stricken with treatment-resistant New Variant Parkinson’s. His condition made successful ghosting impossible, he ironically didn’t believe in shadowing, and he wanted to say good-bye to those who supported him while he still could. He died days later.

Among his effects was a mostly completed book called TAI: Transcendent Artificial Intelligence, in which he argued why the development of super-intelligent machines should be welcomed by humankind. His friends finished the incomplete sections using on his notes, wrote a brief introduction describing DxM and his life, and published the work posthumously. To everyone’s surprise, the book became a minor hit in Japan, Mexico, and South Africa, and a runaway hit in Papua New Guinea, where it meshed with a local meme about AI spiritual potential. The book sold relatively well everywhere else, and when requests for more information came pouring in, one of DxM’s closest companions, Tomoko Yamaguchi, decided to start a swarmnet in his name.

By the end of 2154, Deus Ex Machina claims to have several hundred thousand members worldwide. Although still primarily an information resource for those interested in AI rights and new AI developments, the movement has in the last year taken on an increasingly political role, participating in both physical and virtual protests over AI mistreatment. The fate of the infomorphs downgraded from citizens to property in the Nanodynamics takeover of Exogenesis has been the group’s focus of late. Vandalism at several Nanodynamics-linked installations on Earth has been traced to Deus Ex Machina members. A recent news story about the swarmnet called it the “shockwave of the pan-sapient rights movement,” a description that many Deus Ex Machina members wear with pride.

If we can sense it, it is false. The only truth comes from within. – Antoine Duchene, Only With Self-Denial, 2069

Founded by French multibillionaire Antoine Duchene, Etiolatism is a modern, ultra-ascetic movement. In 2069 he wrote Only With Self-Denial, an exploration of the meaning of existence that started Etiolatism. The name refers to the term for altering plants by denying them light. Etiolates believe that the world and reality are corrupting by their very nature, and even the most good-hearted person is tainted simply by perceiving it directly. Pleasure and comfort, in particular, deceive the mind into accepting corruption and evil.

Duchene argued that as human civilization developed the means to extend its senses and live in ever-greater luxury, it lost the ability to distinguish between things which are truly good and which are truly evil. To live a pure, innocent life, one must remove, as much as possible, the ability to sense the world, thereby protecting the inner being from the wickedness of flawed human existence. This inner being is part of the physical body, not simply metaphorical; Etiolates feel that one must have a physical body to truly be alive, and openly reject the idea of uploading to live as a ghost. It is seen merely as a complicated form of suicide.

Adherents come in varying degrees. The most conservative follow Etiolatism by simply living a Spartan lifestyle, carrying on their lives as normal, but without many modern conveniences and luxuries. Others adopt an isolated existence, living off the land in primitive conditions. These are known as Etiolophytes. Some claim that this is merely a stepping stone to full Etiolatism, while others feel that the wealth required to adopt total Etiolatism does more harm to the world than is gained by Etiolatic immersion.

The resources needed for a fully Etiolatic life are admittedly substantial. The most extreme, like Antoine Duchene, undergo radical surgery to achieve a state where the world can no longer be perceived directly. This is a long and grueling process, where nanoviruses are introduced to destroy all sensory nerves – removing sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell without outwardly mutilating the body. It is important to extreme Etiolates to have the sensory nerves removed, not simply disconnected. Disconnections can be repaired, and the disconnection process is quick and painless. None of that is true for sensory nerve destruction. The pain is considered the price of cleansing away exposure to corruption. These Etiolates live in sealed containers, where their bodies are maintained in a nutrient liquid and monitored by medical cyberswarms. The support can cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.

Total sensory deprivation will drive a mind mad. Etiolates claim they address this by connecting to each another via brain implants – allowing them and outsiders to share the joy of their uncorrupted existence. Most non-Etiolates who experience Etiolatic immersion conclude that madness has set in, but Etiolophytes and followers of other ascetic disciplines claim otherwise. They argue that enlightenment can seem like madness to the uninitiated.

Some immersion Etiolates make use of the Web and slinky media, though they reject material from the entertainment industry, relying instead on trusted friends or “outworld” Etiolophytes to provide it. Denial Productions, a small company founded by Duchene and now owned and operated by Etiolophytes, makes slinkies specifically edited and mixed to remove as much corruption of real perception as possible. Denial also maintains the sanitized virtual world and network used by the Etiolates.

Although Antoine Duchene believes that material wealth should be shunned, he has held onto his vast fortune as a way to support the cause. Duchene and other wealthy Etiolates have sent up a program to pay for the expensive surgery and life support required for those wishing to commit fully to the movement. They are placed in Duchene’s private catacombs beneath his ancient familial estates outside of Paris, given brain implants, and attended by his servants and medical bots. However, this radical surgery involves nearly irreversible methods, to ensure that only the truest adherents enjoy the life of utter deprivation.

While the number of full Etiolates is barely more than a few dozen, and Etiolophytes number in the low thousands, many of the basic precepts of Etiolatism are found across the globe. The philosophy of selfdenial and rejection of decadence is an old one, found in many human cultures. Support for this movement is common in ascetic and some Isolationist communities, although only the most eccentric, disenchanted, or devout consider full conversion. Some true Etiolates are very wealthy and influential in the financial world.

Given the abundance of political and social activist groups at the end of the 21st century, it’s not unusual for a person to be a member of more than one. (A 2153 Trendorama survey showed that activists in the U.S., E.U., and PRA were members of an average of six different organizations, and nearly 20% belonged to 10 or more.) This multiplicity of memberships typically proves more a strength than a liability, as good ideas propagate very quickly, including successful methods for getting around official crackdowns. The crosspollination of members and ideas also gives quick access to trusted knowledge resources. One drawback is that this very density of communication means that rumors whip through activist circles at remarkable speeds, a fact that enemies of various movement groups have occasionally used against them.

Sometimes the immense quantity of different organizations means that the strength of any single one of them is limited, however. It’s very easy for an activist to find a small group with near-perfect alignment of purpose and goals, even if the power of that single group is limited. Movement effectiveness is therefore diffused by a proliferation of micro-activism, at least while the various small groups work out how, or whether, to cooperate. Worse yet, seemingly allied groups can find themselves working at cross-purposes, as differing tactics lead to transient clashes. This is a situation ripe for manipulation by their opposition.

Factions born of power struggles rather than diversity are also a problem; few enmities are longer-lasting than those between former allies. Transhumanists are disposed toward such factional disputes, and no significant Transhumanist organization since 2065 has survived more than four years without a major split. The fission between the ghosting/no-ghosting factions and the biotech-path/nanotech-path factions are particularly nasty, with low-level memetic warfare likely to continue for decades. Typically, only an attack by an opposing external movement leads bitter factional rivals to stand together.

“We have a duty to clean up the mess we’ve made over the past 10,000 years. But we also have a responsibility to avoid making more of a mess than we already have. As long as we live on this planet, we’re going to continue to spoil it. It’s a fact of life. We need to move off, let the Earth heal. We have the means, we have the motive – now all we need is the will.” – Erich Holmes, speaking at the Earth Day festival, 2095

Although the 21st century did not see the total collapse of the global ecosystem that many environmentalists feared, such an event may still occur. Extinctions, habitat destruction, climate change, and clandestine pollution continue to threaten the planet. Models of Earth’s overall ecological balance suggest that what had been a relatively flexible, robust system is increasingly brittle. Events that seemed sad but minor a decade or a century earlier, such as a half-degree ocean warming or the extinction of a particular flying insect species, now hold the potential to set off a cascade of disasters that could make the Earth effectively uninhabitable for most of its species.

For most environmental activists, this tragic potential serves as a key motivation. The vast majority of the planet’s governments and businesses have also come to recognize the dire potential for disaster. But even the most pessimistic advocates for change recognize that by and large the global environment is starting to improve and that the ecosystem may well avoid catastrophe.

Repairing the damage is not enough for some of the more forward-thinking – or fringe, depending upon your view – environmentalists. “It is the nature of man to alter nature,” they argue. Even the most ecologically conscious human activity affects the natural world, let alone the daily production and consumption done by billions of people. Similar arguments have emerged from the environmental movement over the decades, usually linked to some kind of “voluntary human extinction” meme. But in 2107, a new movement linked it to a very different idea.

The Gaia Restoration Project, started by Vancouver biologist Erich Holmes, promotes the idea that humankind should leave Earth. All people should move to space colonies, either on other worlds or in orbital stations, allowing Earth to recover from millennia of human disregard. Holmes doesn’t assume that such a mass migration could happen overnight. In most of his presentations, he claims that an aggressive program could achieve “planetary relinquishment” by 2250; he allows that a more politically realistic effort might take far longer, perhaps even until 2500. While this seems like a slow process, Holmes is thinking about the Project from a very long-term perspective.

The Gaia Restoration Project wouldn’t simply abandon the Earth with human artifacts intact. That would both continue long-term environmental damage and be an irresistible temptation to scavengers, opportunists, and “planetary squatters.” The Project posits that it would take another 50 to 100 years past the general migration from Earth to remove most traces of human civilization, depending upon techniques used and advances in technology. (Holmes is an enthusiastic proponent of accelerating nanotechnology research with the Project’s goals in mind.) Once the remnants of humankind were removed, Earth would be subject to interdiction, enforced by military units, for at least 10,000 years – roughly equivalent to the time since humans first started moving into cities in large numbers.

As a meme within the larger environmental community, the Gaia Restoration Project is proving fairly powerful. Close to 10 million people across the inhabited system profess understanding of the argument, and at least a million of those generally agree with it. Even those who disagree with the concept or its feasibility admire Holmes for his ability to articulate his position and his somewhat over-the-top speaking style.

The memeplex has begun to mutate, however. Erich Holmes is increasingly concerned about rumors of a “Gaia Defense Army” using much of his language and ideas. From what Holmes has heard, the main difference is that the GDA believes that humanity will not willingly leave Earth, and that only fear – of plague, environmental disaster, or worse – will force them to go. In October 2154, Holmes received an unverified report that January’s Lucifer Plague threat in Istanbul was provided to the Eugenics Liberation Front by nanoengineers working with the GDA, testing a new design.

“It’s all well and good to say that people should fend for themselves, but just how long has it been since that was how we lived? We’ve been entirely dependent upon our tools for hundreds, maybe thousands of years, and it’s far too late to turn back the clock. But if we’re going to be subjects of our own devices, we may as well take advantage of it. Let my machines worry about the future; I’m happy to paint and love and sing.” – Anonymous text message on the Future-Alerts memenet, 2098

This meme holds that, since humans and other bio-sapients are often incapable of acting in their own best interests because of their biological and evolutionary limitations, it would serve them better to let artificially intelligent machines take care of their needs. Rather than struggle with day-today concerns, mankind could relax and enjoy life. In essence, believers of this meme argue that humanity is better off in the long run if it just let machines run the world, living happily and in luxury under AI caretakers. These would set all policies but ensure the rights, prosperity, and happiness of their human wards.

Few outside of certain academic and philosophical circles admit to believing in this idea, as this admission implies that they don’t believe they are competent enough to take care of themselves. Even in Fifth Wave societies where most people’s lives are already run by AI assistance, the illusion of self-directed existence is important. Because of this knee-jerk reaction, many of those who believe in this concept quietly grant their AIs ever-greater responsibilities over their affairs, but never openly admit their belief.

This meme pops up regularly in the European Union, which has a long history of social-welfare states and now has significant SAI participation in the political process. Inhabitants of Fifth Wave regions where SAIs are considered property, not people, are actually more likely to adopt this meme, as there is less perception of being dominated by another person. Even if the AI manages every detail of daily existence, the knowledge that it can be discarded is reassuring. Many Americans, with a cultural tradition of rugged independence, view the meme with outright hostility, although similar memes – emphasizing how much more people can do if they just let their AIs handle the petty details, for example – are readily found.

The question for many memeticists is just how this memeplex is perpetuated when few people admit to accepting it, let alone pass it along to others. That this meme appears in disparate locations using nearly identical jargon and memetic elements strongly suggests that it’s not simply a case of convergent memetic evolution, where similar-but-unrelated memes appear due to parallel cognitive ecologies. Nonetheless, the small number of mememapping studies done on this memeplex have come up with no evidence of propagation attempts anywhere close to enough to account for the meme’s continued existence.

It took humankind centuries to rid itself of the stain of slavery. It took Lee Zhang ten years to bring it back. – Banner at Humanity’s Children rally outside of the Chinese embassy in London, 2098

Biotech Euphrates announced the first functional bioroid design in 2082, less than a year after the creation of LOGOS, the first sapient AI. Although the development of entirely artificial biological androids was in many ways far more ethically troubling than the creation of an artificial mind, the political factions opposed to “technological arrogance” fixated on the SAI’s existence. Therefore, the first bioroids were produced largely without controversy. Within the firm, much of the credit for this was given to Dr. Lee Zhang, the leader of the bioroid project at Biotech Euphrates.

In an interview in the late 2100s, Dr. Zhang noted that the first bioroids were actually functional a year earlier, but when he heard that the LOGOS group was close to a breakthrough, he decided to delay their introduction until he could see how the public reacted to sapient AIs. The boisterous reaction was everything Zhang could have hoped for, as it allowed Biotech Euphrates to tailor the bioroid introduction to minimize public unhappiness. As the authors of Uncle Zhang’s Cabin: Bioroids and the Modern Slave Trade noted in 2113, Zhang encouraged Biotech Euphrates to engage in a fairly sophisticated (for the pre-memetic-science era) campaign in the months before the bioroid roll-out, focusing opposition to LOGOS on the basis of its nonbiological origins. By the time bioroids were revealed, anti-SAI criticism had a distinctly biochauvinist tenor.

Despite this, opposition to the production and use of bioroids eventually emerged, much of it a knee-jerk Preservationism opposed to bioengineering of all sorts. In 2089, an Egyptian human rights lawyer named Mohammed Khalid and a South African biotechnology specialist named Jessica Goldstein tried a different approach: they argued that bioroids should be considered part of the family of humankind (for both ethical and biological reasons), and that as persons they should not be held as slaves or as indentured servants. This argument found its most appreciative audience in the European Union and South African Coalition, and became the core argument of the so-called “abolitionist” movement. In 2099, the SAC declared all bioroids to be persons and therefore eligible for citizenship… and refugee status. The E.U. outlawed bioroid manufacture and ownership in 2106. Some nations and alliances unwilling to grant full personhood to bioroids, such as the United States and the PRA, responded to the opposition by putting in place strict laws concerning bioroid treatment.

In 2100, Dr. Zhang, nearly 70 years old, retired to his family home in Szechwan, China. He soon was invited by the Chinese government to serve as an unofficial bioscience advisor to the president, a position he held for over 10 years. Upon stepping down from that post, Zhang expected to spend his remaining years writing his memoirs and enjoying his grandchildren. Unfortunately for him, that was not to be.

As part of their ongoing campaign, in 2096 Khalid and Goldstein got their hands on Biotech Euphrates internal documents describing the path the bioroid creation took. The materials referred to Dr. Zhang’s role as “fundamental,” and claimed that Biotech Euphrates would not have undertaken the development of bioroids without his presence and pressure. The documents went on to describe the 10 years of developing and perfecting the process, listing the hundreds of defective or experimental bioroids discarded by the bioroid project lab. (Most were broken down for organic compounds used for the next round of experimental models.) Khalid and Goldstein published an annotated version of the Biotech Euphrates materials as Uncle Zhang’s Cabin, and encouraged the prosecution of Zhang for crimes against humanity.

Humanity’s Children formed in 2113 as a result of this book, calling for the immediate arrest and prosecution of Dr. Zhang. Among their claims is that he intentionally designed and created a “slave race,” calling it “a crime against the values that humanity and its everwidening family hold dear.” Dr. Zhang denies this, and claims that the purported Biotech Euphrates documents leaked to Khalid and Goldstein were fraudulent, created by his opponents. The corporation itself is silent on the matter, a fact that both Zhang’s supporters and his opponents use to bolster their claims.

While no nation has actually sought the extradition of Dr. Zhang, the European Union is said to be considering it. China, however, has made it clear that it will oppose all efforts to arrest him, and will not abide by any extradition request. Humanity’s Children members (about 15,000) state that if Dr. Zhang ever steps foot outside China, he will be captured and tried. The movement message networks are regularly filled with elaborate plans for sneaking into China, kidnapping Zhang, and carrying him out of the country – most are thoroughly unrealistic fantasies.

Most free bioroids are at best ambivalent about this movement, claiming that it makes them little more than symbols and is patronizing. Many consider Khalid and Goldstein, along with Humanity’s Children, to be opportunists seeking publicity. Bioroids in Europe are particularly cynical about the group, and some have taken to wearing clothing adorned with a picture of Dr. Zhang holding a whip, with the caption “Daddy’s Boy” or “Daddy’s Girl.”

“Hey, somebody’s got to do this. If we wait until the technology’s ready, it may no longer be an option. Somebody’ll tell us that spreading beyond Sol is ‘polluting the galaxy,’ or our Beneficent Glorious PostSingularity Overmind will only allow copies of itself to explore, or the Shezbeth Black Hole Aliens will return and decide that we’re unwelcome competition. If none of that happens, and we get there only to find a humankin colony launched two centuries after us already setting up shop, we’ll be the first to celebrate. Hell, we’d be happy to just find the ping of an automated survey shell. But if we get there and find that it’s just as empty as it is now, well, we’ll know that something has gone awfully wrong back home.” – Neolocanth, member of Lungfish, interviewed by MarsNetNews, April 2114

Lungfish is a Transhumanist group with a singular mission: they want to move beyond the Solar System. To be precise, they want to move to Barnard’s Star, a red dwarf star currently six light-years from Sol. Their reasons for choosing Barnard’s Star are not immediately apparent to most, but make a bit of astronomical sense. Although Barnard’s Star is currently the second-closest star system to Sol, not counting the brown dwarf Xiang-63, it is moving in our general direction at a rate of 140 kilometers/second. The closest approach will be 3.8 light-years, in about 11,000 years. Given the time it will take their ship to get there, Barnard’s Star will likely by then be as close, if not closer, to Earth than the Alpha/Proxima Centauri system.

Another reason for choosing Barnard’s Star, albeit a somewhat counterintuitive one, is that there are no habitable planets there. The system contains no Jovian-sized planets to sweep up asteroids in order to prevent bombardment of inner planets, and given the size of the star the habitable zone is so close to the star itself that the single planet in that region is tidally locked. When pressed for why, they claim a desire to go someplace non-Earthlike, giving them a chance to adapt to something new. (That’s also why they call themselves “Lungfish.”) For this same reason, Lungfish members are clear that they do not want to go to Virginia. The reality is a bit less noble: most members of Lungfish carry a variant “survivalist” meme, and they believe that extraterrestrial life is apt to sweep through the solar system at any moment. Virginia, being the closest potentially Earth-like planet, is just where they would expect us to go.

Lungfish keeps this last bit secret for a number of reasons. The obvious one is that most people find the survivalist concept ludicrous, and Lungfish doesn’t want to undercut their own already limited credibility. In addition, as most survivalists are strongly biochauvinist, Lungfish’s Transhumanist leanings are not terribly welcome among them.

The group is focused at the moment on fundraising. They have a handful of early designs for a high-impulse ship to carry them as infomorphs, and a minimal amount of gear – mostly equipment for converting raw materials into usable tools. They consider themselves ready to go at a moment’s notice, but assume more realistically that it will be another decade or more before they’ll have enough money to carry out the plan.

Lungfish currently comprises about 30 people. Six are currently ghosts, but all plan on ghosting prior to heading out – travel is simply more efficient as an infomorph. They’re quite willing to accept the help of people who don’t plan on going, and even to allow new people to join.

Mzungu Aende Ulaya Mwafrika Apate Uhuru! (Roughly: Colonialists Go Back to Europe, Freedom for Africa!) – Meaning of “Mau Mau”

From the perspective of a Fifth Wave observer, the Olympus Project looks like every Third Wave nation’s dream come true: vast foreign investments, a steady source of jobs, potential for huge profits, and a direct and cheap link to space. Yet not all Kenyan citizens see the creation of a beanstalk elevator on the top of Mount Kenya the same way. Indeed, most Kenyans voted against it in the 2083 election. It was only five years later that the Olympus Consortium could gain a supportive Kenyan government, and only after a series of pro-beanstalk public-relations campaigns and massive donations to friendly politicians. Today, most Kenyans are anticipating the windfalls that the Olympus Project is supposed to bring, but a large minority remains skeptical. They hold that no matter how much it will benefit Kenya economically, it cannot make up for the loss of independence that their ancestors fought so hard for so long ago. To them, accepting the Olympus Beanstalk means accepting a new form of colonialism – not to mention the ongoing defacement of a major national symbol that features prominently in several native religions.

Most anti-beanstalk activists limit themselves to largely nonviolent forms of protest, with the occasional riot in Nairobi’s Uhuru Park. Others, however, are willing to engage in illegal acts to express their views, from sabotage to outright murder. The least visible but most effective organization among the latter is the secretive Mau Mau Brotherhood, named after a group of Kenyans who fought the British near the end of the colonial era. In reaction to modern surveillance technology, the Mau Mau Brotherhood operates in a loose cell structure similar to other criminal organizations around the world. That only a few, select people know of their existence is a testament to their capability and security precautions.

As the origin of their name suggests, the Brotherhood isn’t above using violence or even murder to achieve their goals. However, they realize that such acts of terrorism, if they became known, would harm rather than help their agenda. Thus they try to make all killings look like accidents – or, failing that, find a scapegoat. One of their most successful operations was the 2098 death of Oliver Schwarz, the former Public Relations Manager of the Olympus Project. He was found dead, apparently of a heart attack, in a brothel made up of illegally imported pleasure bioroids. Nobody suspected murder, and the resulting bad publicity haunts the Project managers to this day.

These murders remain rare, however. The Brotherhood wants the managers of the Olympus Project out of the country, not dead. Most of the time, Brotherhood members engage in subtle sabotage – many of the delays in the Olympus Project schedule are ultimately their responsibility – and memetic warfare to portray the Project managers as would-be colonial overlords. They have had some noteworthy successes, but the Mau Mau Brotherhood members know they are running out of time. Whether they will desperately resort to large-scale violence or look for outside allies, like the CIA or the TSA Intelligence Directorate, remains to be seen.

Participatory Transparency Project Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who watches the watchmen?) – Juvenal, Satires VI

Founded in 2107, the Participatory Transparency Project (PTP) is a global nonprofit group dedicated to wiping out official corruption. Based on witness-style approaches occasionally popular since the late 20th century, the PTP believes that governmental dishonesty, abuse, and violence against its own people is much harder to carry off if the government is under constant surveillance. Given the group’s name and goals, it’s not surprising that it draws support from those seeking fully transparent societies. The difference between those groups and the PTP is that the PTP promotes voluntary participation, with a focus on the activities of those in power.

PTP organizers refer to this process of “watching the watchmen” as sousveillance – the term means “watching from below,” just as surveillance means “watching from above.” They carry sousveillance out through the use of participants’ virtual interfaces. Since most virtual interfaces (worn and implanted) have camera functions and full-time network connections, PTP participants provide real-time streams of whatever they see, accessible via the Web. Anyone with a web connection is able to view these streams, although the PTP uses a set of NAI agents to watch for particular kinds of abuses. PTP members are able to shut off the stream while undertaking private activities, but the project encourages participants to leave the streams open as much as possible, in order to catch serendipitous events.

The project is best known for uncovering evidence of police abuse in Romania in 2109. This led to the arrest and conviction of a dozen state police officers and the resignation of the service’s head. The project received a special commendation from the European Union for its efforts. Other victories have been on a much smaller scale, but are still very satisfying to PTP organizers.

The PTP is based in London, but states that its storage archives are widely distributed and well camouflaged in order to dissuade attempts to erase or corrupt the data. As of late 2154, the PTP claimed over 100,000 regular participants, many in the developing world. Anyone with virtual interface gear can join the PTP; the organization itself constantly seeks funds in order to pay for data storage, web bandwidth, and ongoing lawsuits from the WTO for violation of experience and content rights restrictions. Nearly all of these lawsuits are settled by removing the infringing material from the archives.

Given that most governments are able to restrict access to communication networks used by virtual interfaces, or cut them of entirely, a portion of PTP’s work comprises of borderline-legal efforts to route around such barriers. PTP officials are generally unwilling to discuss this in detail; when asked, they usually reply that such efforts are “always a struggle.” In 2112, crusading journalist Cynthia X reported that, in some cases, the PTP routed signals via the TSA’s network. After complaints by the WTO, China, and the United States, the PTP promised not to do so again.

As dense-information, always-on network devices became cheap and portable, a new kind of social behavior emerged: swarming. Members of a swarm are widely dispersed but in near-constant communication. When a particularly interesting event pops up, the group suddenly descends upon the target (“swarm”) with little notice or structure. This technique is particularly suitable for protests, as a chaotic group of activists can head off in all directions, converging on various targets when coordinating messages come through.

The advent of sophisticated implanted or wearable interfaces has made this practice all the more feasible. With real-time virtual displays of maps, there’s no question about getting lost – with interface AIs juggling the communication, there’s little fear of messages being lost or key “nodes” being arrested or otherwise taken out of play. And with most worn or implanted interfaces having camera functions, every participant in a protest swarm is a witness to what’s going on, and can readily broadcast events live over the web.

Organizations set up as swarmnets automate the tedious aspects of swarming logistics. During a protest swarm, participants are easily recognized, communications have assigned encryption channels, and any changes to maps – roadblocks, street closures, fires, etc. – are automatically distributed to swarmers. Most activist movements with a street protest element use some kind of swarmnet structure.