Not everyone is content with life in 2155. The technological acceleration and increasing diversity of form and thought can be challenging, even threatening, to long-held beliefs and ways of life. While some facing future shock choose to fight back, others choose to simply leave, to divorce themselves from the world as much as possible. For many people seeking alternatives to mainstream society, the various colonies and outposts across the solar system often prove seductive. But space does not beckon to everyone. Many people who are dissatisfied with the world have no desire to leave it. Many, perhaps most, of the offworld colonies are even more aggressively accelerated than the most-advanced Fifth Wave nations on Earth. For people seeking to get away from the crashing waves of change, going into space is not a viable alternative.

At the other end of the spectrum, some nations or multinational alliances may leave the global system, whether or not by choice. They may find the dominant ideologies repugnant, or may not be willing to abide by international laws. If they are weak, they may simply be labeled “rogue states,” and treated as pariahs until they come around. If they are strong enough to hold their own, however, they can stand as alternative models for other nations.

Some people, usually individuals or small groups, simply walk away. They find an unclaimed location in the wilderness or the sea, and attempt to become self-sufficient. For most, this is a temporary arrangement, a sabbatical from the chaos of the modern world; for others, it’s a permanent decision. The goal is to cut oneself off from the outside world in order to achieve mental or moral clarity. In 2100, individuals or groups who intentionally cut themselves off from the rest of the world are known as Isolates.

The common motivation for Isolates is a firm conviction that the modern world has somehow gone astray, whether politically, religiously, or technologically. Profoundly dissatisfied with the world and willing to risk breaking off from its comforts, Isolates are often intensely ideological and driven. Nearly every Isolate community that maintains any link to the web has a manifesto available for public consumption.

Not everyone who wishes to escape modern existence wants to do so forever. Temporary Isolate living, usually referred to as sabbaticals, are popular alternatives to totally abandoning the Fourth and Fifth Wave world. Typically lasting from one to five years, the sabbatical is the functional equivalent of becoming an Isolate, but without any concerns about finding unoccupied space. Sabbatical agents can be found in most cities and all over the web, and are able to reserve space in one of the hundreds of pseudoIsolate communities in the hyperdeveloped world. Sabbatical customers are typically people in high-stress, high-income positions.

A person seeking a sabbatical can choose from a variety of styles, from total isolation and self-sufficiency to community-building and collective living. Most managed sabbatical resorts do not allow “tourists” (people staying for less than a year), and are equally leery of “fossils” (people trying to remain for more than five years). A few of the more community-focused sabbatical retreats do have longterm residents in order to maintain the sense of culture and continuity. Psychological and memetic counseling is available in all locations; it is not unusual for people completing sabbaticals to decide on a major life change afterwards.

Sabbatical resorts are often found in aesthetically pleasing wilderness environments. Fees for sabbaticals typically range from $3,000 to $10,000 per month, not including supplies. Facilities that provide individual Isolate locations are typically fairly large, and tend to cost more for maintenance and support. Reservations are frequently required several years in advance.

Three of the most popular locations are:

• Mist Islands Retreat, two hours outside of Vancouver, Union of Alberta and British Columbia. 15 individual cabins.
• Seit Still, in the Swiss Alps. Three individual cabins, two collective communities (20 people each).
• Crystal Sands Sabbaticals, near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Five individual cabins, one collective community (50 people).

For those wishing to strike out on their own, there are many options, particularly if they come from the moreadvanced nations. Ironically, the very technologies that characterize the mainstream world also simplify the process of getting away from it all. Genemod plants can be licensed that grow in nearly any Earth environment, keeping food abundant. Water extraction and purification is trivial with inexpensive tools. Cheap, highefficiency solar panels are widely available. Modern materials, communication networks, and biomedicines act as a safety net for those who choose to isolate themselves. Even if these Fifth Wave conveniences and tools are never used, they’re available, and more than one nominally Isolate community has taken advantage of this in a time of emergency or disaster.

The process of finding an open location to build a new society, or even just a small shack, can be difficult, however. Despite the abundance of land that has reverted to wilderness, there is very little property on Earth not under the jurisdiction of some political or commercial entity. Building a colony in the middle of nowhere still requires permits, leases, and often large money transfers. Not surprisingly, many Isolates simply become squatters, gambling that the very isolation they seek will protect them from discovery by the legal owners of the land.

In the 2080s and early 2090s, there was a flurry of interest in floating communities on the open ocean, eventually becoming the so-called “Drift Isolates” movement. Using small- to medium-sized habitats that could move slowly to follow desirable weather patterns, most would occasionally visit friendly ports for supplies and trade. A handful of drifter communities used decommissioned and retrofitted oil tankers as habitats, and one group managed to acquire a long-mothballed French aircraft carrier, the Roland, for use as the center of a cluster of drift community vessels. Following the precepts of the Kazoku Kai movement, this group visited ports around the Pacific Ocean, considering themselves both examples and ambassadors of a new way of life.

Sadly, in the early days of the Pacific War, nearly two dozen drift habitats were attacked and destroyed, including the cluster of ships around the carrier. Both the TSA and China denied responsibility for the attacks. Rumors persist among Drift Isolates that a handful of TSA Bioweapons Directorate personnel had sought refuge on the floating habitats, which were then attacked by both sides. The Roland itself sustained considerable damage, but managed to reach port in New Guinea in time to save most of the injured. The refit of the Roland was slow, but the rebuilt drift habitat was relaunched with great fanfare at the end of 2114.

Another recent trend, most visible in North America, is the “popular sovereignty” concept, where a group moves into an abandoned town and declares ownership. Environmental and economic changes over the course of the 21st century led many people to completely abandon small towns across the midwest of the United States and rural areas of Mexico. Younger adults would leave, searching for better opportunities in areas with more people or better infrastructure. Usually a few older residents would stay until they died, but by the middle of the century, thousands of small towns had lost their entire populations.

Built for a population of a few hundred at most, these ghost towns started to attract small groups of squatters who largely wished only to be left alone. Discovery of the new residents would usually result in lawsuits, as the original owners of the properties in question sought compensation, but as the century wore on, fewer people cared about decades-empty buildings in abandoned areas. In 2155, nearly 200 Isolate-occupied towns can be found in the U.S. and Mexico. One of the best known is Marietta, Oklahoma, near the Texas border. In 2106, a Preservationist group took over the abandoned town and decided to document their experience using off-the-shelf InVid equipment, showing the successes and failures of the small community. The webcasts of day-to-day life in Marietta are an underground hit, particularly in many Duncanite communities off-world, who treat it as a subversive comedy.

There are millions of people all over the world who have opted out of mainstream global society. Most eventually return, although this is more often true of individuals than the communities. Groups that decide to build their own utopias are self-reinforcing, maintaining existence through careful (if often informal) memetic conditioning of the members. Isolate communities’ members are usually dedicated to their particular cause, and some groups exist for decades without problem.

There are two main challenges to the long-term success of most Isolate communities. The first is sustainability. The more a given location is cut off from the rest of the world, the more it has to be entirely self-sufficient, providing its own food, shelter, material goods, medical support, and so forth. Not every group can provide for every need, and many Isolate groups maintain a little trade with the rest of the world for this reason.

The second difficulty is stability. Charismatic leadership is commonplace in Isolate communities, and loss of the leader can split the group as lower-ranking members struggle for control. There can also be stability problems because of the leadership itself. Historically, many leaders of utopian movements have been borderline insane, and threats to the leader’s authority or to the group’s legitimacy have led to paranoia, violence, and even mass suicides. Effective memetic counseling and improved genetic screening for potential mental instability have reduced these events in recent decades, although they occasionally do still happen.

Reputedly declaring “we shall go no further,” Jonathan Clarke led his Christian Humanist congregation from Kansas City to a remote part of Baja California to set up the community of Agave Hill in 2104. Largely built underground to avoid the heat of the desert, it houses a little more than 200 people, all working to keep the community fed and healthy. The elders of the town allow no technology designed after 1950 into the area, and have erected warnings around the borders that all computing machinery is subject to destruction, including cybershells.

Many of the signs and fenceposts around the town are decorated with the broken cases of computers and robots. The community supports itself by selling tequila it distills from the acres of agave plants it farms.

Disgusted with both the restrictive intellectual property rules of the WTO-dominated developed world and the all-content-is-theft attitudes of the TSA, in 2096 a group of South African infosocialists bought a small island in the Indian Ocean in order to build their own utopia. Naming it Gnu-Covenant, its primary ideology is that of intellectual freedom and complete openness. Combining infosocialism with transparency, the island is known for its “public noosphere,” where all content on individual computers is open to all other citizens for duplication and modification. Gnu-Covenant’s firewalls block all proprietary data from the outside world, and the community has already weathered three WTO audits (nothing illegal has ever been found). The group survives by selling software on the world market, and is well regarded for its highly perceptive non-sapient infomorphs.

While the Basque-speaking region of Spain launched a violent uprising in 2057, the Basque territory in France remained at peace. Basque community leaders in France condemned the “war plague” unleashed by their southern brethren; in return, the Basques in Spain denounced those in France as traitors to their people. But while the Basques in France chose not to engage in armed rebellion, they did not give up dreams of independence. In 2093, a group of Basque nationalists declared a small village about two hours outside of Bayonne to be sovereign territory, renaming it Hiribake, or City of Peace. France ignored the declaration of sovereignty, but did not attempt to retake the town by force. Similarly, the Hiribake separatists were careful not to attempt to take any more land than was already considered part of the village. This peaceful standoff continues to the present day, with neither side recognizing the validity of the other’s claim but making no effort to enforce their own. France’s refusal to attack Hiribake remains a sore spot in relations between Paris and Madrid.

In most respects, life in Hiribake is much like it was 200 years earlier. Very little of modern Europe is visible, something that the nationalist town leaders prefer. In order to “rebuild Basque culture,” augmented-reality and standard communication signals are jammed within the town borders. Visitors are otherwise welcome in Hiribake, although any non-Basque are treated with some suspicion.

In 2076, a splinter sect of Ultra-Orthodox Jews left Israel, saying that the existence of the state of Israel prior to the coming of the Messiah was preventing his arrival, and that God was going to wash the world clean of sin once again. The sect traveled to Mount Ararat, in Turkey, the legendary resting place of Noah’s Ark; this journey was chronicled in the award-winning documentary Two By Two. The subsequent winter was one of the worst on record, and when all communication with the group ceased, they were assumed to have been lost. In 2106, an environmental mapping satellite caught evidence of inhabitation on the mountain, and an investigation by the Turkish government revealed that the sect had survived. Better equipped than the documentary had shown, the pilgrims managed to build a small complex of tunnels and caves, including a temple, within Mt. Ararat. The investigating officials were escorted away from the settlement, and all further attempts at communication have been rebuffed.

Isolate communities are relatively common in part because they are small in size and non-threatening to the status quo. Developed nations use Isolates as a social pressure valve, letting those who are unable or unwilling to accept the status quo escape. Groups larger than a few hundred malcontents are a concern, but nations that cannot or will not adapt to mainstream political and economic norms pose a serious problem.

Historically, individual states that refuse to abide by international laws or participate in global culture were considered “rogue nations” if they were small and weak. If a larger, more powerful country – or political alliance – decided not to be a part of the dominant system, the other nations had a stark choice: either change the system to suit the recalcitrant country or treat the rebellious state as a high-level threat. In the past century, each of the hegemonic power nations has played the spoiler, and each has managed to force the system to change to suit their needs. In 2155, two great powers – the Islamic Caliphate and the Transpacific Socialist Alliance – challenge the structure and rules of the global political system. While neither is strong enough to force the world to accede to their demands, each is able to pose a meaningful threat to the safety and security of the other great-power nations.

Of the two, the threat from the Islamic Caliphate is more subtle. Largely adopting a nonconfrontational international policy, the Caliphate is in the process of strengthening itself enough to hold its own against any challenger. The underlying philosophy of the Caliphate is that the modern secular world is thoroughly illegitimate and corrupt, and that only the guidance of Allah and the Koran can bring humanity to salvation. The Caliphate rejects much of the material technology that citizens of the Fifth Wave worldview as fundamental to modern life. Moreover, the Caliphate find the memes of the hyperdeveloped nations – the ideas, ideologies, and even entertainment – to be repugnant, and has built a potent system of memetic defense, a system that is now starting to be used outside of its borders.

In contrast to the quiet machinations of the Caliphate, the TSA is heavy-handed in its challenge to the status quo. By declaring that all intellectual property should belong to the masses, the TSA has attacked one of the cornerstones of the modern economy, and the dominant nations have responded in force. China has already fought one full-scale war with the TSA, and the United States currently is fighting a war-by-proxy against the Alliance, arguing that the success of the nanosocialists would plunge the world into economic ruin. The mainstream world fights to preserve its way of life, while the TSA fights to build a new one. The nanosocialist governments seek to spark a global revolution, making Fifth Wave innovations and technologies available to all.

Look around, my fellows, look around at the great victories we have achieved in the face of iniquity. Under the right guidance of the Caliph Ali al-Rashid, may peace be upon him, and by the will of Allah the merciful, we have been transformed, taken from a path of poverty, corruption, and despair and put upon a path of righteous dignity. No longer are we playthings of the ungodly, victims of a world that wanted only the oil beneath our feet, not the thoughts in our minds or the fire in our souls. We are now, by the grace of the infinite mercy of Allah and the teachings of Muhammad, may peace be upon him, able to take our rightful place at the table of mighty nations. Yet I tell you now, my fellows, my community, that we must instead turn our backs on the temptations of the world. Cast your gaze at the nations that think themselves as powerful as Allah. They are filled with idolaters who create works in the likeness of men and call them men. They are filled with teeming millions seeking the dignity of labor only to find machines robbing them of their livelihood. They are filled with the worst sort of salaciousness in the guise of entertainment, fed directly into their Allah-created minds, corrupting their souls, leaving them indolent, irreligious, and corrupt. We cannot – we must not – ally ourselves with ungodly powers who only seek, in their darkest hearts, the destruction of our rightly guided nation. Our opponents do not rest. They seek to seduce our people with promises of immortality, of wealth beyond avarice, of knowledge of the heavens and the earth. They seek to corrupt us by making us like them. This we shall never accept. We must defend our minds as firmly as we defend our borders. We must not waver even one bit in our pursuit of the path of righteousness. Our belief is what makes us strong, what guides us, and what will, Allah willing, lead us to our victory. – Sadiq Ibn ’Abbas, remarks to the Presidium upon his elevation to Caliph, 2081

The Islamic Caliphate is a supranational religious, cultural, and political organization centered on the Arabian peninsula. With a population of 568 million citizens, the Caliphate comprises the Arabic-speaking countries of the Persian Gulf (Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen), the Arabic-speaking countries of the Levant (Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan), and two Islamic countries along the Red Sea (Sudan and Djibouti). The Palestinian Enclaves are partially administered by the Caliphate, but are not full members. The Caliph, Sadiq Ibn ’Abbas, functions as both chief spiritual teacher and political leader for the Caliphate, although his role is legally more ceremonial than official. Each member country maintains its sovereign identity within the Caliphate, and there are some significant differences in culture and law in the various nations.

Islam is the dominant force in the lives of Caliphate citizens. From the economy to bioengineering, all aspects of Caliphate society are seen through the filters of the religious establishment. This does not mean that the Caliphate is “backwards” – its universities have turned out some of the finest poets and agricultural bioengineers in the world. The establishment of the Caliphate in 2064 began what many outside observers have called the “Muslim Renaissance,” and the Caliphate has called upon its people to make the Muslim world a leader in science and literature again, as it was at the beginning of the last millennium.

But as the Caliphate has grown more powerful and confident, it has become increasingly assertive, forging an independent path to global power. The cultural leaders of the Caliphate see Europe, America, and China as not simply willfully irreligious, but increasingly decadent, glorifying the inhuman and defiling centuries-old wisdom. They look at the treatment of those who cannot compete against intelligent machines and bioroid labor, and see either wasted human potential or sloth and indolence. They see themselves as the sole “rightly guided people” of the world, and have built up considerable defenses against not just outside military force, but memetic threats as well.

The goal of Caliphate leaders is to build a modern and successful Islamic nation, and for the most part they have achieved this. There is little poverty or hunger, and the Caliphate has managed to promote substantial technological innovation while remaining true to its Islamic beliefs. While the standard of living in the Caliphate isn’t up to the level of most parts of the United States and Europe for the majority of citizens of the Caliphate countries, daily life is peaceful, comfortable, and productive.

The standard work period is Sunday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., with time for the two prayer sessions that occur during the day, along with the morning prayer and two evening prayers. Every male who can works until retirement age (60 years old, 100 if the person has had genetic modifications), as do many women in the more liberal regimes. Caliphate law guarantees a paying job for every man who wants one, although many are occupations that are handled by machines or bioroids in other countries. In the last decade, most of the labor has focused on the design and construction of new desert settlements, alMaghazi (in Saudi Arabia) and al-Dunya (in Syria). The Caliphate’s focus on agricultural biotechnology and material science has made it possible to support much larger populations in these areas; both projects include central arcologies anchoring the settlement zones.

The population of the Caliphate is growing faster than that of any other great-power state or alliance. The average age of Caliphate citizens is 14, and the average family size ranges from four in the less traditional cities to nine in the conservative areas. The decline in infant mortality rates coupled with the reluctance regarding birth control in the more traditional areas led to fears of a population explosion even greater than what has been seen. In 2090, Caliph al-Rashid approved a biotech treatment that would allow women to slow the rate of ovulation, thereby keeping population growth under control without resorting to technologies that actively prevent pregnancy.

All Caliphate males are required to attend some kind of post-secondary schooling, whether instruction at a trade school, a madressa (Muslim seminary), or a university. Caliphate universities have a different emphasis than their counterparts in the rest of the world. History and political science are largely unknown as academic disciplines; literature, material engineering, biology, and cybernetics are far more common. Post-secondary education is optional for females, although it is increasingly encouraged in the more liberal parts of the Caliphate.

Most families living outside of arcologies have private vehicles. Taxes on petroleum are lower in the Caliphate than in other countries, and it is not unusual to see petroleum-burning cars on the larger cities’ streets. Nonetheless, most people have a more modern fuel cell or hydrogen-based vehicle. All but the oldest cars have cybernetic drivers. The issue of whether women are legally allowed to drive in the Caliphate is largely moot for this reason. However, the restrictions are legally in effect in Saudi Arabia.

The people of the Caliphate are quite gregarious, preferring in-person gatherings over virtual meetings. While many homes have InVid units and entertainment centers, local theatrical and musical productions are more popular. Most shows have a religious or political theme, although this does not prevent the occasional ribald comedy from slipping onto the schedule. Poetry readings are also commonplace, while festivals and parties are rare outside of the more liberal areas. Alcohol and recreational drugs are forbidden throughout the Caliphate, although enforcement varies. It’s not unusual to find wine or other imported intoxicants in the home of the wealthy and powerful. The Caliphate uses the Islamic calendar, a lunar calendar with a start year corresponding to 622 A.D. While other parts of the world are celebrating the beginning of 2155, in the Caliphate it is already well into the Islamic year 1578.

A visitor to the Caliphate initially notes the diversity of political views across the alliance, from the traditional Arabian peninsula to the more liberal Levantine region. Upon deeper investigation, however, political discussions are usually somewhat narrow, focusing either on local gossip or complaints about non-Islamic states’behavior. There are topics always avoided, and Caliphate citizens are conscious of the watchful eye of the Mutawi’yyun, or “Committees for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.”

The issue of the proper role of women has remained the greatest controversy within the Caliphate. Iraq has a largely secularized Islamic history, and women have had more or less the same political and economic rights as men for much of the last century. Saudi Arabia, the other heavyweight in the Caliphate, has for much of its history drawn great distinction between the rights of women and men. While enforcement has varied over the past two centuries, by tradition and law women in Saudi Arabia have fewer political, economic, and personal rights than anywhere else in the world. When the Caliphate was first forming, representatives from Saudi Arabia and Iraq nearly came to blows over this debate.

The Caliph, Ali al-Rashid, suggested a simple compromise to solve this dilemma. Rather than demand that the more liberal cultures adopt strict controls over women, or require that the more conservative traditions allow women the same rights as men, the Caliphate adopted a local-control policy. The only Caliphate-wide laws concerning women are those directly from the Koran; otherwise, the laws and traditions of the local culture are considered to be binding. This means that a woman from Baghdad visiting Mecca must obey the restrictions on her dress, behavior, and words enforced by the Saudis. Conversely, the wife of a Yemeni businessman visiting Amman would have the rights accorded to all citizens as defined by Jordanian tradition. It is not uncommon for the wife or daughter from a more restrictive culture to escape an abusive or restrictive family relationship during visits to more liberal areas. Many ulema in the conservative parts of the Caliphate regularly counsel the men of their cities to leave their families at home when they travel, lest they lose them to the “barely Muslim” liberals.

In the more liberal regions of the Caliphate (the larger cities of Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and to a lesser extent, Syria and Bahrain), women are able to hold nearly any job, mix freely with men, and wear non-restrictive clothing. Going out in public without a head covering (typically a scarf) is technically legal, but the cultural fashion shifts back and forth. In 2155, a more conservative dress style is beginning to relax, and women in Baghdad and Amman can sometimes be seen without a headscarf at night. (As with much of the world, most people wear head coverings during the day to avoid sunburn.) In Oman, Qatar, and the UAE, women are considered equal citizens, but work outside the home is thought inappropriate, even if fairly common. Women across the Caliphate are increasingly employed in positions involving the teleoperation of cybershells, allowing them to work from home. Typical teleoperated shells provide no clues as to the gender of the operator, as the voice is modulated to a neutral tone.

The Islamic Caliphate is not a unified supranational state; it is a loose confederation of still-sovereign national entities, similar in many respects to the early days of the European Union a century earlier. In the nearly sixty years since its founding, the Caliphate has grown to take on a substantial role in influencing the social, economic, and religious policies of the member states, and has increasingly played a role in the development of “rightly guided” foreign policy. Nonetheless, each of the member states have set out on its own economic or political path when it feels that the Caliphate has not listened to their concerns; this was more common in past decades than at present.

The official capital of the Caliphate is in Medina, although the current Caliph, Sadiq Ibn ’Abbas, has taken to spending more time in his home in Dubai. The Presidium of the Caliphate (also known as the Presidium of the Arab League) meets monthly to discuss and debate critical issues. The Caliph makes a point of visiting each of the member states every year, trying to listen to the concerns of the members of the umma.

Each member state elects or appoints five representatives to the Shura (“council of advisors”), a parliamentary body tasked with the promulgation of Caliphate-wide laws. Originally, all Shura members were the most learned scholars of the day; over time, the more politically connected and ambitious ulema have come to dominate the body. The Shura is re-elected/appointed once every six years; the next cycle is in 2155. Each Caliphate nation also selects a single member of the Shariat Court, the supreme judicial body of the Caliphate. These members are appointed for life.

The Presidium, the Shura, and the Shariat Court function as a shadow government for the Caliphate, making alliance-wide laws requiring the confirmation of each member state; this happens largely as a matter of course. Caliphate representatives in member nations and cities have little official power, acting as agents of persuasion rather than coercion. That said, representatives are usually ulema from the local mosques, with great influence over the community. Since 2090, the leader of each city, district, and province of a Caliphate member state has had an unofficial “Shariat Guide” assisting him, making sure that local laws and regulations are appropriate to the Caliphate. Dissidents living outside of the Caliphate refer to the Shariat Guides as “political officers,” and claim that they play a quietly powerful role in shaping local policy.

Alim – Teacher and cleric of Islam. The alim fills a role in Caliphate society that combines instructor, priest, and community leader. There is no formal hierarchy of ulema (plural of alim), but those from the more prestigious schools (the Islamic University of Medina, the Dubai Islamic College, and Al alBayt University in Amman) tend to rise to greater positions of moral and community authority.

Fatwa – A ruling or pronouncement from an alim; the fatwa’s legitimacy is contingent upon the respect the alim has from others (e.g., a fatwa from the Caliph carries much more weight than a fatwa from the community cleric.

Koran – The Holy Book of Islam. Believed to be the word of Allah as handed down through the Prophet Muhammad.

Hadith – Rules based on observations of the Prophet’s behavior that have the most reliable and consistent witnesses; nearly as binding as the Koran itself.

Sunnah – The Traditions of Islam, based on stories of Muhammad’s behavior and their interpretations by religious scholars and judges.

Shariah – Jurisprudence based on the Koran, Hadith, and Sunnah.

Umma – The “community of believers.” Traditionally used to refer to Muslims worldwide, it is used within the Caliphate as a term for its citizenry.

Each member country of the Caliphate maintains its own standing military. These range in size from largely ceremonial palace guards (Lebanon) to fully modern power-projection forces (Saudi Arabia). There are unified command structures and weapon systems for the alliance militaries, however, allowing for coordinated activities. Most weapons are based on decade-old Chinese designs with local variations.

Distinct from the national armies is the Ghazi, the military wing of the Caliphate. Controlled directly by the Presidium, the Ghazi focuses on special-operations tactics, and has typically supported local forces against uprisings and terrorist attacks. The Ghazi uses more cybershells and smart weapons than any of the Caliphate national militaries, and is widely considered to be among the best-trained special-operations forces in the world. Service in the Ghazi is considered a high honor, and personnel are usually recruited from the various Caliphate nations’ armies, although there is sometimes cross-agency recruitment from the Caliphate intelligence services. Ghazi training also includes substantial memetic conditioning to promote loyalty to the Caliphate over any single state government.

Since the appointment of Caliph Ibn ’Abbas, the size and budget of the Ghazi have grown, and it has seen much more action. The Ghazi has frequently been deployed outside of Caliphate borders in support of non-Caliphate Muslim states, as well as in covert operations against Iran. Its current largest deployment is in Uzbekistan as part of the multilateral force assisting the local government against Kazakstan-supported rebels.

The Caliphate’s economy is based on traditional principles of Islamic welfare, updated for the late 21st century. No child will go unschooled, no able-bodied man will go without work, and no family will go without housing or food. Education usually mean networked infomorphs, human labor means far fewer bioroids or cybershells in the Caliphate than in much of the rest of the world, and increasing numbers of the Caliphate’s citizens live in the growing desert arcologies in Syria and Saudi Arabia.

The Caliphate makes use of LAI and SAI systems to help guide the economy, and uses 3D printers to make up for market shortfalls of necessary items. It has a mixed economy, ostensibly market-based but with guaranteed employment, housing, schools, hospitals, and food. Corporations, unless state-run, die with their founders. Prohibitions on the collection of interest make investments complicated, but not impossible. Inventions and intellectual property belong to the creators, but the Caliphate may make use of them as needed to support the well-being or security of the umma. While there is potential for abuse of this system, the Shariat Court has final say over whether or not the Caliphate may make use of someone else’s property. Over the past 25 years, the court has tended to say “no” more often than “yes.”

The currency of the Caliphate is the dinar, a monetary unit specified in the Koran as equal to 4.25 grams of gold. With the abundance of gold available from mining asteroids, the dinar’s ties to the formerly precious metal are now symbolic, and while the dinar coin – along with the dirham, equal to 3.0 grams of silver – is the official legal tender of the Caliphate, it isn’t often used. Most citizens of the Caliphate use a smartcard tied to their bank accounts; these use biometric systems to prevent fraud or theft. While the value of the dinar varies, it usually floats around the rate of one dinar to five dollars.

At its heart, the Islamic Caliphate is a devout society. It is not “fundamentalist,” as the term was used a century earlier. There is no desire to turn back the clock, no characterizations of other nations as “Satanic,” and no attempt to shoehorn understanding of the laws of physics into the 1,500-year-old conceptual models. But the populace of the Caliphate nations is deeply religious, with a firm belief in the veracity of their faith. For most Muslims in the Caliphate, religion is simply the way the world works, and those who do not follow Islam are missing out on the truth.

The most serious crimes in Islam concern apostasy, or rejection of religious belief. While Islamic governments have varied in how severely they punished those who questioned the Koran, the Caliphate has embarked on a more ambitious path. The Caliphate’s goal is to make the crime of apostasy literally unthinkable. The focus of the Caliphate’s memetic engineering since the appointment of Ibn ’Abbas has been on how best to shape the umma’s thoughts to match the Koran and the Sunnah.

Memetic defense in the Caliphate goes beyond the cultural or political protection typical in most societies of 2155. All memetic controls and defenses are part of the larger task of “rightly guiding” the people of the Caliphate toward the path of proper thought and action. Anything that causes deviation from that path is by definition apostasy, and must be rooted out and destroyed. Anyone who challenges the authority or legitimacy of the Caliphate will be considered an apostate, and dealt with accordingly.

There are three levels of response to apostasy. The first is simple argument. It is incumbent upon believers to argue with apostates and attempt to convince them of the error of their way. This has become another form of social control; anyone who does not vehemently argue against apostasy when given an opportunity becomes suspect. The second response is conditioning, which can include physical beatings but now often means memetic rehabilitation. Apostates have errors in their thinking; those errors must be corrected, and modern techniques allow for conditioning without brutality. The final response, if memetic conditioning doesn’t work, is removal. If the apostate is quiet, or has taken pains to not allow his deviance to affect others, he is exiled from the Caliphate. If the apostate is considered to be an evangelist, he is subject to execution.

Every believing Muslim is required to abide by the following rules. Regardless of other political or confessional disputes, the majority of believing Muslims have these rules in common.

They must:

• 1. Testify that there is no deity but Allah, and Muhammad is Allah’s Messenger.
• 2. Pray dutifully and properly five times a day, facing toward Mecca.
• 3. Pay Zakat (a charity paid yearly for the benefit of poor Muslims; 2.5% of wealth).
• 4. Observe daytime fast during the month of Ramadan.
• 5. Perform Hajj, or the pilgrimage to Mecca, at least once in a lifetime, if financially possible.

The Caliphate has two primary agencies dedicated to memetic defense. The public face of memetic control is the Mutawi’yyun, or the “Committees for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.” Run by the Saudi-based General Intelligence Directorate (GID), the Mutawi’yyun acts as both domestic and external enforcers of Shariat law. A visit by the Mutawi’yyun is never a pleasant experience as they rarely move against someone without amassing substantial evidence. They have a reputation for heavy-handed actions against those who violate the umma’s memetic purity. Even those fleeing the Caliphate to escape accusations of apostasy aren’t safe; the Mutawi’yyun work closely with the rest of the GID to eliminate problems permanently. Mutawi’yyun activities outside of the Caliphate contribute to the coalition’s mixed reputation abroad.

The GID and the Mutawi’yyun make extensive use of monitoring equipment, from micro-cameras to data “sniffing” systems. Surprisingly, abuses are relatively rare. Although the GID is known to be fairly brutal in its treatment of threats to the Caliphate, it has a reputation for scrupulous honesty. This was not always the case – high-profile corruption scandals in the 2080s resulted in the execution of twenty GID and Mutawi’yyun agents, and led to a full-scale housecleaning of the service.

The hidden face of memetic control is a group known only as Nuhá, the Arabic word for “prudence” or “intellectual restraint.” Few Caliphate citizens know anything about it, and most who have heard of it doubt its existence. Nuhá has the task of advising the Caliph and the Presidium on how best to guide the umma. Their expertise is a mix of memetic science and the most diligent religious education. Nuhá only recruits the most brilliant young students, and once you’re in, you’re in for life.

Nuhá is far more subtle than the Mutawi’yyun, shaping the memetic path of the Caliphate with a scalpel rather than a sword. From having stories planted in news reports to altering the datastream of the global information networks coming into the Caliphate, Nuhá seeks to exert small amounts of pressure in just the right places and times to cause a cascade of changes down the road. A Nuhá agent rarely, if ever, resorts to blunt physical force. More common is the use of memetic weapons to change perceptions and behavior. The TSA is one of the primary targets of Nuhá, not simply because of the threat it poses, but because of its access to a wide array of cutting edge (and often illegal) biotechnology. Nuhá has close ties to the highest levels of the Ghazi leadership; when force is required, Nuhá is far more likely to request Ghazi support than to attempt the operation itself.

Nuhá taps into the GID and Mutawi’yyun monitoring systems, and has access to most of the data stores of the public intelligence agencies. Nuhá also has monitoring systems of its own, somewhat more sophisticated than the GID’s. Most leading political and economic figures are under Nuhá surveillance.

After Ali al-Rashid died in 2081, the first change Nuhá pressed the Caliph and Presidium for was the adoption of a law allowing SAIs to become full citizens of the Caliphate. Al-Rashid had long resisted that suggestion, unable to fully accept machines as members of the community of believers. Ibn ’Abbas was more receptive to the idea, especially when he discovered that three of the most revered analysts in Nuhá were themselves SAIs.

Sometimes the husband or father of a woman who sought asylum in the liberal cities hire salamatin, or “rescuers,” to go find the woman and bring her home, whether or not she is willing to return. These services vary in price and approach. Some attempt to verbally convince the woman that she should return, often by playing upon her feelings of loyalty to her parents or children. Others try to take the woman by surprise, using sedatives and smuggling her back home. Since having non-family males touching a woman is a dishonor in many more traditional areas of the Caliphate, these salamatin usually have female agents do the actual capture. In most cases, if the salamatin discover the woman in bed with someone not her husband, they kill the woman for the sake of the family’s honor.

Kidnapping and murder are crimes in the Caliphate, but if the police discover that the victim was a woman on the run from a conservative family, many jurisdictions may look the other way. Salamatin generally do not operate outside of the Caliphate, despite the claims of the more lurid InVid dramas. The use of salamatin is becoming increasingly controversial within the Caliphate, and there is public debate over whether the Caliph should issue a fatwa outlawing them.

The Islamic Caliphate represents a different technological path than the mainstream Fourth and Fifth Wave world. While many of the Caliphate’s technologies are advanced, particularly in the area of memetic engineering and agricultural biotechnology, many others are stunted for cultural reasons. In most respects, the Caliphate is a Third Wave society with some Fourth and Fifth Wave tools.

“There is a Hadith that states ‘awwala mâ khalaqa Allâhu al-’aql,’ ‘the first thing that Allah created was the Intellect.’ What are we but Intellect? How could Allah love us any less, we children of the mind?” – Najm al Azhar, Nuhá analyst and SAI

Sapient AIs can be citizens of the Caliphate if they fulfill two primary criteria: they accept Islam, including its five requirements; and their physical form is not idolatrous. SAIs in mobile cybershells are accepted, even welcomed in the cosmopolitan areas of the Caliphate, but only if their cybershells are distinctly not shaped like a living being. The proscription against idolatry has long been considered to include prohibitions of pictures and dolls of animals and people, particularly when the representations would glorify or show the superiority of the subjects.

Most SAIs adopt a simple geometric form (on wheels or legs), although ones working with the Ghazi often taken on a far more menacing cybershell. Despite the opportunity for citizenship, SAIs are fairly uncommon in the Caliphate. In the larger cities, they still get a second glance; in more rural areas, they’re objects of great curiosity, but usually not hostility. There was discontent among the more conservative clerics when Ibn ’Abbas gave citizenship to SAIs in 2096, but the dispute has largely been suppressed.

Cybernetic implants are legal, but considered immoral by many – slinks are illegal. The habit in the Caliphate is not to use wearable systems, either. Rather, the Caliphate has public terminals throughout urban areas, and wireless networks covering the majority of the territory to support portable infomorph devices such as book computers. If a Caliphate-native character wishes to use a VII or wearable system, he should take a Quirk “Uses a VII/wearable.” Cybernetic replacement parts are rare, and are usually constructed to appear as life-like as possible.

Bioroids are even more controversial than SAIs and cybershells. A blanket prohibition against bioroids was lifted in 2076, when an influential alim published a series of essays arguing that the Sunnah outlawing the creation of statues and images stated that the creator of the form would be damned only if he could not “breathe life” into the creation. At one time, only Allah could do that. But now, clearly humans could do it as well, by using the gift of intellect provided by Allah. As long as the bioroids created did not take a glorious shape, and as long as they worked in menial or debasing tasks, their creation was permissible.

This argument was controversial but persuasive: its author was Sadiq Ibn ’Abbas, who was appointed Caliph after the death of al-Rashid. Today, although legal, worker bioroids are typically only seen in the more liberal parts of the Caliphate. They are distrusted at best throughout most of the region, are prohibited entry in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and have very limited rights. Nearly all bioroids native to the Caliphate have a non-humanoid shape. The most common is the Busr model. Busr means “partially ripe dates,” and the name refers to the shape as much as the inferior-to-human nature of the bioroid.

Bioroids are often subject to physical abuse by their owners, and typically have few protections from the hazards of the jobs they’re brought in to perform. Bioroids in the Caliphate have fairly short lifespans; the average lifespan is just over 36 months. There are only about 40 bioroids over two decades old still alive in the Caliphate.

Three of these aging bioroids lead a group called alMu’aqqibat (“the protectors”), an underground railroad that rescues bioroids and brings them out of the Caliphate, usually to cities in southern France. This movement has several thousand associates and agents scattered around the Caliphate, helping to hide bioroids on the run. Originally treated as simple theft of property, a 2106 fatwa declared the smuggling of bioroids as an affront against the Caliphate itself, legitimizing the arrest and execution of those helping bioroids to escape. Al-Mu’aqqibat receives assistance from the French intelligence service ranging from funds to monitor-scrambling equipment, usually of TSA manufacture to obscure its origin.

There is only one kind of humaniform bioroid in use in the Caliphate: the Houri model. Technically highly illegal, the Houri bioroid is designed for sexual servitude. Islamic and regional tradition puts many restrictions on the behavior and appearance of women, in large part as a means of controlling male behavior. Houris are used as a method of channeling the desires of unmarried men. They are more often found in the more-conservative areas of the Caliphate, in medium to large cities. Houri dens are well-hidden, and new customers must be brought by an existing trusted patron, typically a cousin or brother. Houris are engineered to be extremely submissive and not terribly intelligent, but the work is sometimes sloppy, and Houris have been known to escape their captivity. Since Houris have an attractive but otherwise normal human appearance, they can blend in with crowds more readily than other bioroids on the run. Escaped Houris are critical to the ongoing success of al-Mu’aqqibat.

Foreign humaniform or animalform bioroids and cybershells are generally restricted from entering the Islamic Caliphate. Any who do so must have good cause, and must be licensed by the Caliphate and each state the bioroid or cybershell will enter. Any bioroid or cybershell entering illegally is immediately ejected from the Caliphate if discovered. Bioshells are totally illegal.

Biotechnology beyond agriculture and conservative germline repairs is unusual and often illegal in the Caliphate. Over the last 10 years, a debate emerged in the Shura between those who wish to upgrade the citizens to make them more submissive to the teachers’ word and those who wish to make them more willing to struggle in the name of Allah. Lost in the debate are the voices of those who do not wish to further engineer future generations. The Caliph, who has not yet taken a side, suspects that the debate has been orchestrated by Nuhá.

Cloning, surrogate mothers, and DNA blending are all illegal in the Caliphate; exowombs are legal, but uncommon. There is strong social and religious pressure to reproduce the “old-fashioned” way, albeit with the full support of late-21st-century medical technology to ensure a safe delivery and healthy child.

Uplifted animals are illegal in the Caliphate, although as with humaniform bioroids and cybershells foreignborn uplifts can enter the Caliphate with proper registration. The one exception is uplifted dogs – dogs are referred to with disgust in the Koran, and are not allowed to enter buildings. Uplifted dogs are considered an abomination.

Bioroids that escape their service are considered to be irreparably defective. While some bioroid owners may pursue and recapture errant property, most turn to the services of a sikkiyn, or “knife,” a bounty hunter that specializes in the capture and disposal of escaped bioroids. Due to weapon controls in the Caliphate, sikkiyn usually kill their quarry with a long dagger. The job is dirty and unpleasant, but is generally considered legal (if distasteful) as long as the sikkiyn can present a contract digitally signed by the bioroid’s owner authorizing its elimination.

Sikkiyn tend to work alone or in pairs, and usually are well connected in the urban underbelly of the Caliphate. It’s not unusual for sikkiyn to engage in minor smuggling of alcohol or drugs between assignments, and some are available to use their knives on non-bioroids. In smaller communities, sikkiyn sometimes double as salamatin.

Al-Mu’aqqibat considers sikkiyn to be deadly adversaries, and will sometimes seek to have particularly brutal or effective sikkiyn killed.

The Caliphate under Ali Rashid was largely introspective, focusing its attention on rebuilding Islamic science and strengthening Caliphate society. It paid scant attention to issues outside of its borders. Since the appointment of Sadiq Ibn ’Abbas, however, the Caliphate has begun to look outward, seeking greater global influence over Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Traditionally, the umma includes every Muslim in the world. The historical Caliphate covered all Muslim lands, and expanded aggressively as its armies converted the conquered regions. The modern Caliphate covers less than one-third of the global Muslim population. Under Caliph Rashid, other Muslim nations would join the Caliphate when they saw the peace and productivity of the “rightly guided” people. Since all Muslims are required to visit Mecca at least once in their lives, Rashid knew that the Caliphate would have a large and attentive audience.

For the most part, this policy of quiet demonstration has not worked. The four largest non-Caliphate Muslim nations remain steadfastly outside of the Caliphate’s sphere. Many other nations with significant Muslim populations are aligning themselves with the global hegemonic powers of the United States, Europe, and China.

Egypt is the largest Arabic-speaking nation outside of the Caliphate, and is actively seeking to build an alternative Muslim bloc. It is a moderate Islamic state, rejecting fundamentalism but embracing Islamic culture. The current government, which took power in 2060, has worked to rebuild its economic and military strength, but with minimal success. Egypt walks a fine line in its political dealings with the Caliphate. It cannot afford to anger the Caliphate enough to bar the entry of its citizens into Saudi Arabia during the pilgrimage to Mecca; doing so would bring about the wrath of the still-religious majority of Egyptian citizens, and likely civil war.

India has one of the largest Muslim populations in the world. A decline in Hindu nationalism, coupled with the behavior of the increasingly unstable Pakistani regime, has cooled the desires of most Indian Muslims for any serious political independence. Relations between the Caliphate and the current anti-nanosocialist Indian government are quite warm, however, and there are persistent rumors of joint military-development projects between the two emergent powers.

Indonesia remains the world’s most populous Muslim state, with over 350 million people. It is also the Muslim nation least influenced by the Islamic Caliphate. Indonesia is currently the dominant country in the Transpacific Socialist Alliance, and is strongly unified under the infosocialist banner. Muslim revolutionary movements, which reached a peak in the 2020s, were put down through the combination of political shifts, memetic engineering, and a rising nationalism. The Nuhá considers Indonesia (and the rest of the TSA) to be the Caliphate’s most significant long-term threat, as it demonstrates a technologically advanced secular alternative to the mainstream system.

Iran, led by a neo-fascist regime since the middle of the century, no longer seeks dominance over the Muslim world. It does desire regional hegemony, however, and sees the Caliphate as the major impediment to that goal. While religion is repressed internally, Iran takes full advantage of simmering Shi’ite resentment against the Sunni Caliphate, funding and equipping sectarian political movements. There are also ongoing tensions over access to the waters of the Gulf for desalination uses. The Caliphate, while not interested in any attempt at Sunni-Shi’ite reconciliation, abhors the Iranian regime. It is widely rumored that Ghazi and GID leadership have drafted battle scenarios for a potential invasion to topple the Iranian government.

Pakistan alone has nearly two-thirds the population of the entire Islamic Caliphate, but has nowhere near the economic or political power. The current military government, which took power in 2102, survives largely through brutal repression. Resistance to the government is organized primarily in the madressas, and supplied with equipment and intelligence by the Caliphate. Covert operations in Pakistan are the Caliphate’s most ambitious foreign action; they manage to maintain deniability even while increasingly destabilizing the Pakistani regime. Pakistan, suspecting but unable to prove Caliphate involvement in the low-level revolt, in turn funds terror campaigns against the Caliphate, as well as against its traditional rival, India.

Turkey, while still overwhelmingly Muslim in culture, is largely secular in outlook. Relations between Turkey and the Caliphate are cordial; disputes tend to focus on the issue of water rather than sectarian conflicts. Turkey does a greater portion of its trade with the Caliphate than any other European Union country.

Citizens of the Caliphate have the right to travel outside of its borders, although there are certain restrictions. Caliphate citizens are still subject to Caliphate laws regarding apostasy wherever they go. Anyone caught speaking against the Koran or the Caliphate will have his citizenship revoked and property confiscated; if they are deemed to be causing trouble by being outspoken, they may be targeted for assassination.

Biomedical procedures illegal in the Caliphate are also prohibited to travelers. All Caliphate citizens have a genetic record on file with their home governments, a record that is accessible by customs officials. Citizens returning to the Caliphate from Europe or America are routinely given genome scans to determine if there has been any forbidden genetic engineering done to them. The punishment for having forbidden work done is several years’ imprisonment and an attempt by Caliphate doctors to reverse the change and restore the original genome. It’s widely rumored that some customs officials can be bribed to “forget” the genome scan, and that many high-ranking politicians and businessmen have illegal genetic modifications.

Muslim citizens of other nations are welcome within the Caliphate. The Presidium sees this as an opportunity to expand the cultural, if not political, influence of the Caliph. Since the hajj to Mecca is a requirement for all believing Muslims, Saudi Arabia has a special duty to allow access to the holy cities. Mecca has one of the largest international airports on Earth, although only specially licensed aircraft and pilots are allowed to land. Non-Muslims are forbidden to enter Mecca and Medina, although the punishment is no longer death, just expulsion from the Caliphate. Teleoperated cybershells are generally prohibited as well, although cybershells inhabited by Muslim AIs are permitted.

Non-Muslims are otherwise welcome in the Caliphate, although they are viewed with some suspicion and are watched closely by the GID. Any attempt to proselytize other religions or otherwise alter the Caliphate society (e.g., by arguing in public about infosocialism or bioroid emancipation) results in immediate arrest and expulsion from the Caliphate. Amman and, to a lesser extent, Baghdad are favorite destinations of visitors from Europe and America, as they are more cosmopolitan than other cities in the Caliphate, and conversations can be a bit more relaxed than in Riyadh or Dubai.

Official international organizations such as the Genetic Regulatory Agency have regular access to the Caliphate, albeit with a GID “guide.” Corporations have somewhat less freedom of access. All business dealings with non-Caliphate firms are subject to review and modification by local authorities, and political or memetic organizations are barred from entering the Caliphate entirely.

The Caliphate isn’t immune to the memetic conflicts common in the rest of the world. Their manifestations and influence in the Caliphate vary, however, and some are considered apostasy. By and large, ideologies that call for the radical transformation of the human form (Hyperevolutionism or Transhumanism) are considered apostasy. Memeplexes that push drastic changes to the socio-economic system (Anarchocapitalism or Nanosocialism) are politically highly suspect, even if they don’t cross into apostasy. Movements that focus on careful application of technology or restrictions on environmental change (Amortalism or Preservationism) are officially encouraged.

Not all of the Caliphate’s citizens believe that the alliance is as “rightly guided” as it claims to be. Disagreement over policy is considered acceptable, but dissent that challenges the legitimacy of the Caliphate is forbidden. The Mutawi’yyun does a thorough job of investigating and correcting those who would question the Caliphate, and Nuhá is constantly fine-tuning its memetic controls, working toward a day when apostasy isn’t just illegal, but literally unthinkable. In the meantime, while resistance to Caliphate control exists to a variable extent in all member countries, Iraq, Yemen, the Sudan, and Lebanon have the greatest level of active resistance.

There are three major resistance groups currently active in the Caliphate. They split along sectarian lines and, unsurprisingly, they consider each other to be as much the enemy as the Caliphate. All three have minor splinter and spin-off movements, each of which varies in composition, location, and tactics.

Mujahidin e-Khalq is a Shi’ite-dominated movement, supported by Iran, which seeks not to overthrow the entirety of the Caliphate, but to bring the primarily Shi’ite areas of Iraq and Syria (as well as the areas with substantial Shi’ite minorities, such as the United Arab Emirates) under the political control of Iran. The level of Mujahidin eKhalq activity tends to vary inversely with the warmth of Iranian relations; the latest wave of attacks has coincided with election of a strongly anti-Caliphate premier in Iran. Mujahidin e-Khalq is primarily active along the Iraq-Iran border, but has associates in Lebanon and, to a lesser extent, Syria and the UAE.

Fedayin al-Kuffar is a secularist movement, dedicated to the overthrow of religious authority in the region. While it is not averse to direct military action against the Caliphate and its forces, Fedayin al-Kuffar primarily engages in memetic warfare, seeking to bring doubt into the minds of the Caliphate’s citizens and to demonstrate the cultural power of the modern secular world. Comprising students, expatriates, and fugitive apostates, the Fedayin al-Kuffar is nearly 50% women, and has close ties with the al-Mu’aqqibat bioroid-protection movement. Unbeknownst to most Fedayin al-Kuffar members, however, is the substantial level of support the group receives (via cut-outs) from a variety of great-power intelligence agencies, all seeking to keep the Caliphate focused internally.

Hizb al-Ikhwan al-Mulslimin is a Sunni movement that traces its roots back to the original Muslim Brotherhood movement of the early 20th century. Operating more as a collection of independent cells than as an organized army, al-Ikhwan claims that the current Caliph is illegitimate, and that the Caliphate has deviated too far from true Muslim values. Its manifestoes cite the acceptance of AIs, presence of bioroids, and use of human germline bioengineering as examples of Caliphate impiety, and calls for an armed revolt against the leaders of the Caliphate and its member nations. Support for al-Ikhwan is not widespread, coming mostly from the poorer areas of the Arabian peninsula. The movement has claimed responsibility for a handful of assassinations of minor officials over the last decade, although it has been increasing its activities of late.

Most (75%) of the Caliphate’s population is genefixed, with the majority living in the urban areas and arcologies. There is no stigma associated with being nongenefixed; being genefixed is somewhat embarrassing as it suggests that there was a problem with the genome. Most citizens will not admit to knowing whether or not they were genefixed before birth.

Avatar upgrades emerged in Egypt in 2076 as a way to emphasize (some say exaggerate) genderlinked behavioral characteristics. While never enormously popular, nearly 80,000 Avatars were born in the Caliphate in the years between 2083 and 2091, mostly to wealthy Gulf state families, who tended to have a more culturally traditional view of sex roles. As the first Avatars outside of the Caliphate reached sexual maturity, they were associated with a series of scandals that led to the eventual prohibition of further Avatar upgrades in the Caliphate and an overall aversion to externally designed genetic upgrades. Most of the Caliphate’s Avatar-upgraded children were sent abroad for education, although a fair number have returned to the Caliphate as soldiers (males) or diplomats (females).

Alpha upgrades make up less than 1% of the Caliphate population (about 5 million people). Most are between 15 and 30 years old, as genetic modification beyond simple genefixing became less popular due to the Avatar controversy; this reluctance has started to change more recently, and parents in the liberal urban areas are beginning to again request Alpha upgrades.

In the old days, human genius, the brain of man, created only to give some the benefits of technology and culture and to deprive others of the bare necessities, education, and development. From now on, all the marvels of science and the gains of culture belong to the nations as a whole, and never again will man’s brain and human genius be used for oppression and exploitation. Of this we are sure, so shall we not dedicate ourselves and work with abandon to fulfill this greatest of all historical tasks? The working people will perform this titanic historical feat, for in them lie dormant the great forces of revolution, renaissance, and renovation… – V.I. Lenin, Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets, 1918

The Transpacific Socialist Alliance is a coalition of nations united by a broad ideology and the enmity of the mainstream hyperdeveloped “corporatist” world. As its name suggests, the TSA’s members are largely located along the Pacific Ocean, although the Alliance now stretches well into the Indian Ocean as well. The population of the Alliance is over 1.2 billion people, making it the third-largest great power, after India and China. The 15 nations composing the TSA – Bangladesh, Bolivia, Burma, Cambodia, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Laos, Madagascar, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Peru, and Vietnam – include some of the poorest and historically most unstable countries on Earth, a situation little changed by their membership in the pariah coalition.

The TSA is a young union, formed originally in 2074 by Indonesia, Peru, Thailand, and Vietnam. Due to the Alliance’s infosocialist ideology, most mainstream nations imposed trade sanctions of varying severity by the end of the decade. China felt particularly threatened by the TSA, for a variety of reasons, mainly geographic proximity, “market” socialism versus “information” socialism, and a strong defensive position regarding its lead in biotechnologies. China attributes its status as leading hegemonic power to its cutting-edge biosciences; anything that would more widely distribute Chinese genetic innovations therefore directly attacks Chinese political preeminence. Many observers therefore saw that China was looking for a reason to undercut the rising TSA. In 2098, China found it.

The Bioweapons Directorate, based in Thailand, was formed in secret by the Thai Infosocialist Party in 2091 as a “leapfrog” to hegemonic power. Missiles, cybershells, and spacecraft required a greater industrial base than the Thais believed the TSA could muster; bioweapons, conversely, were far less costly to develop. In 2097, the Directorate began to research the creation of nanotechnological weapons, again in secret. Although the TSA had managed to put together a conventional (if unimpressive) military force, the Thai nanosocialists still feared an attack, and sought the ability to fight back by any means necessary. Unfortunately for the Thais, the Chinese already had spies in place, and the shift to nanoweapons became the trigger for China’s next move.

When China revealed the existence of the nanoweapons program in 2098, demanding the right to inspect the facilities, the international uproar was matched by the TSA’s internal conflicts. Several of the members attempted to oust Thailand from the Alliance, not for the nanoweapons research, but for keeping it secret from other members. Indonesia and Peru argued passionately for Thailand’s removal in Coordinating Committee meetings, but in a fateful decision, the majority of the Alliance voted to retain the founding state. Thailand convinced the TSA that China’s saber-rattling was meant to stir up international observers, and that the crisis would be resolved diplomatically. Fearing the worst, Indonesia and Peru ramped up production of cruise missiles and AKV satellite weapons.

The Pacific War of 2099-2100 was both more and less devastating to the TSA than observers (except for some Weltspiel gamers) had expected. The loss of one of the founding members came as a surprise, as did the speed with which China was able to take out TSA industrial, power, and space launch facilities. China was not believed to have had as advanced a military as it demonstrated in the war. It is now acknowledged that almost one-third of the international aid workers assisting in the postwar relief in the TSA were actually intelligence operatives from the United States and European Union, sent to gather on-the-ground data about Chinese military capabilities.

Yet the Alliance proved remarkably resilient, and the speed of its post-conflict recovery has impressed outsiders. Critics claim that the TSA’s economy has been jump-started by its ongoing theft of intellectual property. Nanosocialist theorists, in turn, attribute the recovery to the Alliance’s flexible, flattened command structure, which one referred to as an “adhocracy.”

While the Transpacific Socialist Alliance looks like a unified ideological front to the outside world, the reality is somewhat more complicated. Unlike the ideological pacts of the past, there is no clearly dominant state leading the TSA; unlike the European Union, the TSA does not have dense geographical cohesion; and unlike the Islamic Caliphate, the member nations of the TSA have little in common culturally other than a political ideology. Even this memetic linkage is somewhat tenuous, as the diverse implementations of nanosocialism among the Alliance members have often led to strained relations. It’s little exaggeration to say that the TSA is held together largely by the enmity of the rest of the world.

The TSA does not have a formal leadership or command hierarchy independent of the constituent states. The closest to an official body is the Coordinating Committee, which seeks to align the foreign and military policies of member nations. Representatives are appointed by each state, and are usually active members of the national government. The Speaker of the Committee is elected annually by the representatives, and is usually a good indicator of which faction or constituent holds political sway. The Coordinating Committee does not have the power to enforce its decisions, but so far in the brief history of the TSA there has not been a coordination crisis.

Aside from the Coordinating Committee, the only other clearly defined TSA structures are the Directorates. Each Directorate claims responsibility for a particular function or activity; participation in a Directorate is voluntary, although the major Directorates do have representatives from each TSA nation. For the most part, Directorates are tied closely to an individual state’s government, taking advantage of its resources and heavily influenced by its policies. It is not unusual for a small Directorate to only have participation from one or two TSA states and certain Directorates are kept secret from other TSA members.

The somewhat chaotic internal structure of the TSA is entirely intentional. One of the fundamental tenets of infosocialism is that well-connected diversity is a source of strength. By limiting access to information or ideas, a nation or company acts to undercut its own long-term power. Similarly, by forcing adherence to a particular standard, an organization (whether government or commercial) runs the risk of being defeated by an attacker who knows the standard’s weaknesses. In this logic, the Alliance’s combination of deep connections between states, a lack of top-down hierarchy, and diverse set of methods and tools is the key to its ongoing success.

As a result, it is nearly impossible for an outside power to “decapitate” the TSA by eliminating a key member. The loss of Thailand, while politically noteworthy, did little to change the overall ability of the Alliance to defend its interests or pursue its goals. While the network structure of the Alliance does lead to haphazard initial responses to threats, it also allows the TSA to be highly flexible, able to adapt to conditions in ways to ensure its continued survival.

The TSA actively avoids settling on a single design for its weaponry, information and communication networks, or even for its methods of production. This, too, is intended to keep the Alliance alive when threatened. Even the best-designed or optimally emergent system can have weaknesses, and relying wholly or even in large part upon a single system would leave the TSA open to attacks on that weak point. By mandating system diversity, the Alliance sacrifices efficiency and convenience in pursuit of robust security.

As a result of its commitment to systemic diversity, the TSA’s military is haphazard. Member nations use a wide range of equipment, much derived from the weaponry of the other great powers, usually with local variations. Materiel diversity exists even within a single country’s forces; Indonesia deploys UCAVs based on American, German, and Indian designs. This chaotic situation is managed by widespread deployment of minifacs, allowing a single supply unit to provide ammunition and spare parts for every weapon and piece of equipment.

Alliance militaries, particularly in Central and South America, are particularly good at combining design elements from multiple origins, at their best creating hybrid forms more robust than any of their sources. A cybershell damaged and captured by U.S.-supported rebels in Honduras, for example, was found to have weapons and firecontrol systems very similar to the Chinese Wu Shen combat drone, navigation and integral computer systems derived from the German Fuchs infiltration cybershell, and armor and power units based on the rarely seen Red Duncanite ZZ99 Deathshell – all linked together with a homegrown control network able to sync the different protocols and system requirements of the components. American analysts were impressed.

At their worst, however, TSA military forces are more delicate and require substantially more maintenance than other great-power militaries. While minifacs allow for the supply of diverse units, it often takes upwards of several hours to produce the correct pieces of equipment, making “on-the-fly” resupply a dangerously slow process. And when great-power opponents encounter TSA weapons based on their own designs, they’re often able to attack based on their classified knowledge of system weaknesses.

Since the Pacific War, the Alliance has focused its overall military strategy on building up defensive forces, hoping to make it far more difficult for China (or any other enemy) to hurt the TSA as much in any future conflict. Many suspect that much of the communication, weather, and guidance satellites the Alliance has launched to replace the ones destroyed by China are dual-use, with AKV or satellite-killer capabilities. The Alliance is also developing mobile sea-launch capabilities, making it possible to put new satellites or weapons into space even if the primary spaceports have been destroyed.

Although the term “nanosocialist” was first applied to the TSA by the global press, the term has been embraced by the Alliance. Many outside of the TSA, however, disdain the term, preferring to stay with the “infosocialist” name. The difference is no longer simply semantic. In the 26 years since the coalition formed, the terms “infosocialism” and “nanosocialism” have come to diverge substantially in meaning.

Kyle Porters’ original formulation of Information Socialism in 2049 argued that information has several properties that make it different from “normal” material goods. It is non-tangible, usually thought of as meaning primarily digital, although Porters used the term to refer to information as being conceptual rather than physical. It is non-rivalrous, meaning that information can be copied any number of times without reducing its inherent use-value to the original possessor. Finally, it is socially constructed, as all ideas, even new ones, are fundamentally based upon other people’s ideas, which in turn are based on still other people’s ideas, and so forth. Porters then argued that, while markets for scarce physical resources can theoretically lead to optimal distribution, markets for information tend inevitably toward dysfunctional monopolies, as the nature of information makes it impossible to treat as a scarce but tradable object.

In classic infosocialism, then, the role of the state is to act as the “social monopolist,” having ownership of all intellectual property, but making it freely available to all parts of the society. Porters claims that innovation would still happen, as there would still be traditional markets for the physical goods and services derived from public intellectual property, and that a “reputation market” would emerge to promote the creation of new ideas. Infosocialism, as defined by Porters, focuses narrowly on pure information control, and leaves physical goods to whichever market distribution methods society prefers. He thought that a true abundance society would require the rise of nanotechnology in an already-infosocialist society, which in turn could only happen in heavily networked advanced-technology nations.

Nanosocialism, as it has been built by the TSA, takes the work of Porters and combines it with the radical theories of Suchen Pham, a Laotian social critic who argued that, contrary to Porters’ theory, a true post-market world in both information and physical goods could only emerge from a pre-market society, as the developed world was already controlled by monopolist corporations. Rather than needing to go through a period of “capital network development,” states could leap directly to nanosocialism, using advanced material science to build wealth for all. Pham’s theories proved understandably seductive in the TSA, which redirected its acquisitions efforts toward material-production technologies, and some members have started to emphasize the distribution of physical goods over freedom of information.

In 2058, Porters was killed in a hit-and-run accident on a quiet street near his home outside of Canberra, Australia. The driver of the vehicle was never identified. Many of Porters’ supporters claimed that it was a political assassination, but no evidence of this has ever been found.

“Information is power, in the most fundamental sense. It flows, yet it must have a medium through which to flow, or it dissipates. It makes all action possible, yet it cannot do anything on its own. Nothing is possible without information. Those who forget that information and power are one and the same do so at their own peril.” – Kyle Porters, What Is to Be Done? (v2.0), 2045

Although most TSA opponents consider the Alliance to be a monolithic ideological whole, there is actually considerable diversity within the coalition regarding politics, economics, and the implementation of nanosocialism. Of the 15 member nations, eight came to power as a result of relatively free elections, and four remain broadly democratic (see TSA Member National Politics, p. 45). Nanosocialism is a populist movement, and pundits in the Fifth World often neglect to mention its continuing popularity in most of the TSA states.

Economically, the Alliance members are all socialist in the broad sense, but with varying types of internal markets. In most TSA states, services such as power and web connections are state-funded, while agriculture and consumer products are more marketdriven. Cambodia, Vietnam and Guatemala are aggressively statist, down to giving production quotas to individual farmers and small manufacturers. Bangladesh and Madagascar fall closer to the classic infosocialist model, only having state control of intellectual-property distribution and basic services, while leaving most production decisions to a lively internal market. The development of demand-prediction software has helped to better synchronize Alliance-wide supply and demand, and most member countries are manage their economies without causing the economic meltdowns that 20th-century socialist nations often faced.

There is also considerable diversity in the manner in which technology is distributed by the governments. Despite being the cornerstone of the infosocialism concept, the free availability of intellectual property is a controversial topic even within the TSA. In some countries, all citizens have full access to the TSA Web Library, from popular entertainment to weapon design; in others, citizen access to the Library is restricted, limited only to pirated Bollywood musicals and escapist InVids. The divide between free-distribution and controlled-distribution states falls along the same axis as the split between democratic and authoritarian TSA nations. In short, it comes down to whether or not the government trusts its people.

Acquisitions: The Acquisitions Directorate is responsible for bringing in ideas, designs, software, and other information from outside of the TSA. This is the largest of the Directorates, and the primary target of many enemies. It has a subdirectorate, Recruitment, which attempts to convince non-TSA citizens to work with them and provide information.

Defense: Headquartered in Indonesia, the Defense Directorate coordinates military activities. Although responsible for turning political goals into military strategy, it spends most of its efforts on logistics. Defense only focuses on physical preparations, as the Internal Intelligence Directorate is responsible for network and memetic defense.

Distribution: Working closely with Acquisitions, the Distribution Directorate comprises independent Directorates in each Alliance nation. Each Distribution Directorate chooses how best to make the acquired intellectual goods available to the country’s citizens. Differences in distribution policies are the main sources of friction between TSA members.

Innovation: Although the TSA has a reputation as intellectual-property thieves and scavengers, this Directorate provides support for research, invention, and development efforts inside of the Alliance. Much of its work has historically focused on better decryption and network-intrusion tools, but this is slowly changing. In 2114, the TSA released to the global public networks a new economic modeling application, designed using Innovation Directorate funding, that does successful demand-projection for non-market economies.

External Intelligence: The External Intelligence Directorate coordinates the disparate intelligence and espionage resources of the various Alliance members. Mainly comprising agents from the Indonesian BAKORSTAPAS (Bodan Kordinasi Stabilitas Pasifik, “Coordinating Agency for Pacific Stability”) and Peruvian GESM (Grupo Especial de Seguridad Memetica, “Special Memetic Security Group”), the agency focuses on espionage, memetic warfare, and the encouragement of nanosocialist movements outside of the TSA. Contrary to many InVid thrillers and virtual worlds, External does not deal with acquiring intellectual property.

Internal Intelligence: The Internal branch of Intelligence does deal with threats to the TSA, but focuses on rooting out spies and defending various information and communication networks from attack. Although Internal has largely operated in the shadows, a pair of highly visible counterespionage successes in 2113 has given Internal a glorified, heroic sheen within the Alliance. As with External, most non-TSA representations of Internal are incorrect. Internal is not a secret police force; each Alliance nation has its own local group.

Simulations, Modeling, and Planning: SMP was originally a minor advisory group working in the vice-premier’s office in Thailand. In 2095, the group’s SAI cluster developed an early version of the Demand Evolution Model, allowing rudimentary demand-side control and projection. (The more sophisticated version was the one released by Innovation in 2114.) SMP was elevated to Directorate status prior to the Pacific War, and survived the TSA’s loss of Thailand by transferring all data and SAIs to new facilities in Kuala Lumpur. Today, the Simulations, Modeling, and Planning Directorate has primary responsibility for Alliance-wide economic issues.

Theory and Praxis: Much closer to a secret police than the Internal Intelligence Directorate, but far less known, is the Directorate of Theory and Praxis. Originally founded by Thailand, and now run largely by Burma, Theory and Praxis sees itself as enforcing ideological purity across the Alliance. New treatises on infosocialism and nanosocialism regularly emerge from Theory and Praxis, including declarations on the legitimacy of various forms of political expression, uses of new technology, and desirability of foreign entertainment. Theory and Praxis considers itself the last line of memetic defense for the TSA. Not all Alliance member states are happy with the growing influence of Theory and Praxis.

Of the various key Directorates within the TSA, four make extensive use of agents both within and outside the Alliance.

The public face of the TSA, at least internationally, is the Acquisitions Directorate. It has a simple task: bring home material for distribution within the Alliance. Some Acquisitions agents specialize in entertainment content; others specialize in classified military designs. The Directorate is omnivorous and indiscriminate, consuming everything. There are rumored to be tens of thousands of Acquisitions operatives around the world, a number multiplied when it includes the local hackers, smugglers, and casual pirates whose efforts often end up in the hands of the TSA.

The Recruitment sub-department works to expand the information sources for Acquisitions, whether conscious or unwitting. Recruitment suffers the highest losses of all agencies, as it cannot be passive. Its agents must seek out candidates, thereby putting themselves at risk.

While the TSA military is slowly rebuilding its capabilities, the Alliance’s intelligence forces are rapidly expanding. One of the first post-Pacific War decisions was to pour resources into both intelligence-gathering and content-acquisition activities, concluding that the loss in the conflict was predicated in part on poor knowledge of Chinese strategies and outdated military equipment. The Acquisitions Directorate and the External Intelligence Directorate receive the most funding, and together field more operatives on Earth than any other great-power intelligence bureau. The ethnic and cultural diversity of the TSA is of considerable value in this, as the Alliance is able to find agents who can blend in almost any locale.

The External Intelligence and Internal Intelligence Directorates share information as needed, but operate in very different ways. Internal Intelligence works with national, regional, and local law-enforcement departments to search for threats and eliminate them. This does not include dissenters or political activists. The Internal Intelligence Directorate focuses exclusively on counterespionage and counterterrorism, and has built up an impressive record of arrests. Internal Intelligence uses the most advanced technology of any of the operative Directorates. All agents have VIIs, most with LAI infomorphs.

External Intelligence, conversely, tends to use whatever is needed to get the job done. Its agents must be scrupulously careful to avoid any connections to the Alliance, and build up substantial alternative identities to mask their true activities. External Intelligence agents are heroes in TSA propaganda, but are never identified. It’s rumored that even the Coordinating Council cannot access the identities and locations of External operatives.

Of all of the TSA’s directorates, Theory and Praxis is the least known outside of the Alliance. It is ostensibly the center for ongoing development of the theories of infosocialism and nanosocialism, and produces an abundance of articles, manifestoes, and research notes, some of which get re-published in the mainstream world (and generally ignored). Since 2107, the Directorate has also served as the TSA’s secret police, monitoring dissent, making troublemakers disappear, and carrying out elaborate memetic rehabilitation on those it deems threatening to the long-term survival of the Alliance. The power of Theory and Praxis has grown considerably in the last several years, and it is quite influential in the Coordinating Council. A recent drop in Acquisitions activity, which TSA opponents claim are the result of internal power struggles, is actually part of a careful plan Theory and Praxis devised to shift the Alliance’s overall strategic position. Theory and Praxis is closely associated with the Ideologue faction, and several of the less authoritarian Alliance members have grown wary of the Directorate’s influence. In April of 2099, Bangladesh requested that Theory and Praxis cease all operations within its borders; the Directorate agreed, but in December a Theory and Praxis agent was intercepted attempting to infiltrate the presidential compound in Dacca.

Bangladesh: Multi-party democracy. The current government was originally elected in 2096, and reelected every five years since. Observers called these elections “essentially fair.” TSA Web access is generally free.

Bolivia: Military authoritarianism. Unpopular with the rural majority, the nanosocialist government, which came to power in 2076, draws its authority largely from the urban population. While much of the country remains barely Second Wave, the cities are quickly adopting Third and Fourth Wave technologies. TSA Web access is restricted for rural populations, relatively free in the cities.

Burma: Military authoritarianism. The current government was installed in a military coup in 2094. The continued strong military presence is due to the ongoing conflict with Chinese-supported guerrillas. TSA Web access is tightly controlled.

Cambodia: Military authoritarianism. Cambodia is the most brutal dictatorship in the Alliance. The TSA Web is only available to party cadres.

Colombia: Single-party authoritarianism. The 2096 coup overthrew a mildly corrupt but popular government. Since the war, Colombia has focused on building up its support in the cities, following the Bolivian model. TSA Web access is controlled.

El Salvador: Multi-party democracy. Elected in 2103, the nanosocialist party has remained in power largely due to a coalition with two smaller parties (a bioliberation party and the Traditional Socialist party). Rumors of clandestine cooperation with the United States have brought threats from neighboring Guatemala. TSA Web access is completely open.

Guatemala: Military authoritarianism. A military coup in 2106 brought the current regime into power. Radical and assertive, it seeks to become the regional TSA leader. It has recently butted heads with Peru over Alliance military policy. TSA Web access is available to party cadres and trusted citizens.

Honduras: State of emergency. The nanosocialist party came to power in a free election in 2105, and was promptly set upon by U.S.-supported rebels. Guatemala and (to a lesser extent) Peru have provided military aid to the beleaguered regime, which promises a return to democracy if the uprising is successfully defeated. TSA Web access is officially restricted, but is riddled with backdoors.

Indonesia: Single-party authoritarianism, local democracy. The nanosocialist party came to power in free election in 2062, but used various international crises as justifications for canceling national elections. Regional and local elections involve multiple candidates from the state party. TSA Web access is relatively free.

Laos: State of emergency. The nanosocialist party came to power in free election in 2095, but Laos has struggled to rebuild after the Pacific War, and has not held another election since the conflict. TSA Web access is officially open, but in practice restricted only to party cadres.

Madagascar: Multi-party democracy. Madagascar became a nominally nanosocialist state in 2101, and the subsequent elections have largely been competitions between rival hard-line and moderate nanosocialist parties (referred to sarcastically as “Reds” and “Whites”), with a few other parties winning local seats. Madagascar nanosocialism seems to annoy the SAC, so there is a strong populist element to its ongoing electoral power. TSA Web access is generally free.

Malaysia: Military authoritarianism. The 2082 coup brought in the current regime, whose power rests on a combination of military force and broad populism. Wealthy elites were driven out by the coup, and Malaysia now has one of the highest average standards of living in the region. TSA Web access is relatively free but rumored to be heavily monitored.

Nicaragua: Multi-party democracy. The current government was elected in 2101, lost power in 2105, and was returned to office in 2109 and again in 2113. Nicaragua is decidedly focused on internal development, going so far as to avoid participation in Alliance-wide military exercises. TSA Web access is generally free.

Peru: Single-party authoritarian, local “party guided” democracy. The Red Sword party came to power in a broadly popular revolution in the 2060s, and it remains well-supported in both rural and urban areas. The Peruvian party is both the most radical in its nanosocialism and the most populist in its message, and has won the affection of the populace with its noisy condemnations of the other TSA countries. TSA Web access is officially free, but heavily monitored.

Vietnam: Single-party authoritarianism. The communist government of Vietnam reorganized itself into a nanosocialist state in 2076, maintaining its central authority. The war with China in 2099 greatly increased the regime’s popularity, however, as the populace fought its traditional rival. The government continues to use the populist theme during its slow reconstruction. TSA Web access is restricted to party cadres.

Porters believed that infosocialism is not inherently opposed to the development and introduction into society of sentient machine intelligences. He believed in caution, to be sure – he had too much respect for humankind to wish to see it transformed away in a moment of singularity rapture. But machine beings who wish to contribute to the good of all of us were to be welcomed, not rebuffed. – Caleb Metelits, Kyle Porters: A Critical Biography, 2060

Porters had fanciful visions of how SAIs and humans would interact, as he had no real experience with intelligent machines. We know now the dangers of treating SAIs as anything other than property. – Sarah Mu-Shan, TSA Coordinator, 2103

The TSA has the distinction of being both the great power with the widest availability of free-to-use intellectual property and the one with the lowest penetration of technology. The relentless poverty and political stagnation that held the member states down throughout the 21st century continues to slow their progress. In only one area – web access – is the TSA at all competitive.

In comparison to the web as seen in Fifth Wave states, the TSA Web is wildly outdated. Little of it is fully immersive, and vast sections still rely on decades-old protocols. As with many of the TSA-wide systems, however, the TSA Web is designed to value robust flexibility over elegance and control. The network is remarkably resilient, staying available to most of the Alliance even during the worst of the Pacific War. The original design team for the TSA Web, led by renegade British hacker Declan Kelly, used base specifications dating back to the early days of the first global web, before content-rights became a priority. The result, completed in 2094, was anarchic, redundant, and wide open to misuse – just as they intended.

Once completed, the TSA Web was connected directly to the global web. The Alliance’s opponents quickly cut off connections to the TSA, however, trying to prevent both Alliance piracy of material on the global web and mainstream world access to already pirated material. When this happened, hackers on both sides worked to re-establish links. This cat-and-mouse game continues to the present, often with the unwitting cooperation of transition nations. The ability of the TSA Web to remain usable even when routed across networks of dubious reliability affirms the designers’ decision to focus on robust simplicity. Complexity was only added when needed; the TSA Web was originally planned to be entirely open to the world, but later updates cordoned off a section limited to internal communication. Another addition allowed TSA member governments to block off certain sections of the web, restricting citizen access to the material.

With the connections to the outside, of course, comes regular attacks by opposing governments and hacktivists. An Alliance report once claimed that the TSA Web has been subject to a greater volume of hostile activity than any other network every created, and few in the Fifth Wave world disagreed. In the first several years of the TSA Web, hackers regularly brought it down. Over time, its defenses grew stronger, and there hasn’t been a successful denial-of-service attack on the network since 2113.

Not all of the attacks come from outside, another factor in the TSA Web’s current stability. A substantial number came from within the TSA – not from spies or dissidents, but from curious young adults, seeking to explore the limits and weaknesses of the TSA Web. The network’s defenders quickly learned to counter all manner of threat, and claim, with some justification, that the TSA Web may be the most secure open network in the world.

At present, the TSA Web provides access to a broad range of intellectual property. Some of it is original to the TSA, although much of the content, from entertainment to genemod designs and software, is pirated from the rest of the world. Some of the material has been hacked to take out content-rights-management routines, but a surprising amount has not. The Acquisitions Directorate often simply posts new content directly to the web; many unwitting Fifth Wave-world pirates have been caught using downloaded material still fully protected by CRM code.

As throughout the rest of the world, minifacs and 3D printers are wildly popular in the TSA. There are still relatively few, however, so most are controlled by national governments, giving the military priority. Numbers are steadily increasing, and TSA leaders realize the political value of their greater distribution. The Coordinator of Indonesia, for example, has promised a minifac in every village by 2105, and the phrase “¡Minifacas Para Todos!” is now a popular slogan at nanosocialist rallies in Peru.

The (somewhat) irrational fear of the Fifth Wave citizens becoming immortal supermen drives much of the TSA populism. There is widespread concern that the benefits of advanced biotechnologies are going only to the rich nations, further compounding their advantages. The stiff licensing fees required by genetic-engineering firms in the hyperdeveloped world are mentioned in most manifestoes and official statements put out by the TSA as justification for Alliance theft of Fifth Wave intellectual property. One of the common posters in Central America claims “¡Tenemos El Derecho A Una Mañana Sana!” (“We Have A Right To A Healthy Tomorrow!”), showing pictures of babies with the Hammer & Helix in the background.

Most of the Alliance governments have worked hard to satisfy the popular demand for genetic upgrades. So-called “Reproductive Health Clinics” have opened up across member states, providing free Alpha-series upgrades to all TSA parents. Few of the clinic employees are trained genetic engineers; most have been given no more than the basic instructions as to how to collect and combine the necessary genetic material. Many local doctors have been given crash-courses in the process, as well. The desire to make the next generation healthy and long-lived is passionate and universal throughout the TSA. While Alphas are the most common upgrades in the TSA, the Metanoia and Ishtar II templates have become available, and are starting to show up in some children.

Bioroids have become increasingly common in the TSA, but reactions to them vary widely. As with much of the developing world, there is a strong aversion to the use of apparent “slave labor,” yet the value of bioroids has become clear as Alliance members transition away from Second and early Third Wave economies into late Third and Fourth Wave. Coalition nations in Southeast Asia have the easiest time integrating bioroids; they are “guest workers,” given accommodations and salaries but limited civil rights. The practice has caught on in South America, although noncombat bioroids remain rare in Central American TSA states. There is still considerable debate in Madagascar and Bangladesh over the rights of bioroids, and they remain uncommon.

Most pre-2140 bioroid designs found in the Fifth Wave world are available in the TSA Web Library, although some are not often made, such as the Yousheng.

As with bioroids, cybershells are less often found in the TSA than in other great-power nations, although they are not unknown. As Artificial Intelligences tend to be mistrusted, there are few AI resident cybershells. And while teleoperation is used for dangerous work, there remains a classical Marxist focus on “from each according to his ability,” and direct human labor is prevalent. TSA propaganda claims that once the nanosocialist revolution is complete, a society of leisure will arise from the economics of abundance – but this is still off in the future.

The one part of society where cybershells are more common is the military. Alliance national forces have taken a great interest in acquiring and building top-of-the-line combat shells. Originally, most were teleoperated, but they are increasingly being outfitted with LAI systems. Cybershell soldiers are used the most in Cambodia and Guatemala, where they perform police functions as well as combat duties, and in Indonesia and Madagascar, where they are rapidly replacing humans as soldiers.

Part of the post-Pacific War reconstruction has focused on improving the communication infrastructure of the Alliance. While the TSA Web remains popular and robust, in 2103 TSA nations began implementing general augmented-reality systems, particularly in urban areas. The nature of the implementation has varied by nation. AR networks in Bangladesh, El Salvador, Madagascar, and Peru are highly democratic, open systems allowing everyone “write access” – many AR locations are covered in virtual commentary, debate, and graffiti. Conversely, augmented-reality systems in Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, Indonesia, and Malaysia are heavily doctrinal, and entries must be pre-approved by government censors. Augmented-reality networks in Nicaragua and Honduras are more or less standard, while AR is nonexistent in Laos and Vietnam.

Wearable computers are the most common method of interacting with AR data, but virtual interface implants are becoming increasingly popular in the wealthier TSA nations. Approximately 10% of the adult population of the TSA has a VII, primarily in Indonesia, Peru, and Madagascar. Most VIIs are straightforward copies of popular models in the Fifth Wave world.

Along with augmented reality, the use of v-tags has exploded over the last decade in the TSA member states. Surprisingly, most nanosocialist countries are not “p-tag nations”, although Indonesia and Malaysia both have aggressive voluntary programs for p-tagging children. Madagascar uses p-tags on the political elites, allowing them to monitor each other. Of the Alliance states, only Guatemala and Burma currently require p-tags for all adults, and the Cambodian parliament is voting on whether to require the procedure. TSA observers believe that passage of the proposal is highly likely.

Many citizens of nanosocialist states dislike sentient AIs out of fear and ignorance; there are very few SAIs running around in public in poor nations. There is also ideological opposition, arising from the concept that information belongs to all, and the personalization of information runs counter to its potential for wide distribution. This perspective, common in the more doctrinaire TSA elites, sees the recognition of SAI infomorphs as citizens as a political move to undercut nanosocialism and infosocialism on (ironically) humanitarian grounds. As long as SAIs are considered tools, they can be used, copied, altered, and discarded without violation of a being’s rights. Once they are considered “people,” they must be afforded the full rights of people.

Not all nanosocialists believe this, although those who disagree with official TSA positions do so carefully. Some follow the Porters concept that all who can should contribute and benefit, and argue that the inclusion of sentient infomorphs as citizens of the TSA would do much to promote its well-being. This perspective is especially strong among those who work in the Innovation Directorate – 50% of the SAIs in the TSA are at Innovation.

Prior to the Pacific War, the proximity of many TSA nations to each other led to attempts to centralize power-generation grids, relying on large-scale installations such as Helium-3 fusion plants, satellite power stations, and multiacre solar arrays. This was a serious mistake; during the conflict the Chinese eviscerated the Alliance power network quickly and efficiently by destroying a few facilities. The Coordinating Committee vowed not to let history repeat.

The power networks being built across TSA states now are heavily distributed, with many small plants and very few major installations. As with other elements of the Alliance infrastructure, diversity and redundancy are seen as key features. While each country links to its TSA neighbors if they share borders, these links are for mutual support, not dependency. Solar arrays and fusion plants (when Helium-3 is available) have been supplemented, even replaced, by “micro-generation” systems, which often use older but still useful technologies. Vehicle-sized fuel cells powering buildings, gas-turbine engines powering neighborhoods, and even high-efficiency solar cells are used as exterior building material. Member states also take advantage of regional resources where possible, such as geothermal energy in Central America and oceanic energy sources in Southeast Asia like tidal power around Burma.

For both practical and ideological reasons, nanotechnology – especially so-called “dry” nanotech – is the holy grail for the Transpacific Socialist Alliance. If nanotechnology is the transformative technology that it promises to be, those who do not have access to it will be left far behind those who do in every conceivable measure. The availability of current “wet” nanotech in the TSA comes nowhere close to that in the Fifth Wave world, but the Alliance is focusing a great deal of its research (and acquisition) resources on mastering the technology.

Nanoresearch facilities in the TSA are found in Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Peru. Nanomedicine and experimental treatments such as the Proteus Nanovirus are not generally available, but working versions of most known Fifth Wave nanotechnologies have been constructed, and the Coordinating Council is quietly discussing how best to make use of them.

For years, anti-TSA propaganda has claimed that the coalition has secret genetic engineering programs in place to create a race of enhanced leaders (the Guardians) who would be able to use pheromone control to manipulate a race of submissive followers (the Helots). Initially, Alliance Coordinators denied the existence of the Guardians and Helots.

In 2110, documents describing the TSA bioengineering programs, including the Guardian and Helot II designs, were published by TEN. TEN claimed that they were passed along by unnamed sources in the American government. According to these documents, in 2091 Peru started a crash program called Después de Hombre – “After Man” – designing a next-generation genetic upgrade that would give the Alliance an edge over its Fifth Wave rivals. In the years before the Pacific War, the Peruvian program created various upgrade and parahuman designs, including the rumored Guardian and Helot II types. In 2099, the program also independently developed a design identical to the Herakles model, called the Samson. The last design developed was the Salud type, intended to have optimal resistance to disease and environmental toxins. Because the Después de Hombre compound was destroyed during the war (China thought it was part of the Bioweapons Directorate), the test subjects and experimental data were wiped out.

The TSA flatly denied the documents’ authenticity, although the Diplomacy Weltspiel site’s commentary argued that the documents were an intentional leak from TSA Intelligence. Rumors persist that some of the upgraded children survived. If so, nothing is known of their current whereabouts or activities.

The TSA is highly factionalized. In the years since its inception, it has weathered the loss of founding members in a global-scale war, continued brushfire wars along its borders, relentless propaganda, and covert operation attacks against its survival by all of the world’s leading nations. How to respond is the crux of intense ongoing debate within the Alliance.

While the intermember conflicts are highly visible, and many have deep historical roots, the cross-national factional conflicts have a greater influence on the ability of the TSA to respond to crises. Each faction is able to bring supporters into the streets to rally for or against government policies, and each claims a seat of official power that prevents the others from moving decisively against it. Factional rivalries can be brutal; there have been several dozen assassinations of factional leaders and notable activists since the formation of the Alliance in 2089. In some cases, the factions themselves are split between those who favor central control and those who wish to expand citizen participation in the evolution of the TSA.

Many of the original revolutionaries leading the Alliance have a strong ideological bent. They’re hard-liners, unwilling to compromise on issues of ideological purity. Cooperation with the corporatist world is inevitably a mistake in their view. While many tend toward authoritarianism, a substantial minority believe that the only successful revolutions come with full citizen support. Ideologues are in much of the national leadership, and the Directorate of Theory and Praxis is an important center of power.

The military, in both national forces and the Alliancelevel Directorate, is seen as practical but power-focused in its politics. The TSA’s loss in the Pacific War was brutal – if Europe hadn’t stepped in, the Alliance would likely have been destroyed. The underlying philosophy of the current generation of military leaders is that this must never happen again. Outside of the states led by military-authoritarian regimes, the armed forces tend toward democratic approaches for practical reasons – it’s critical to not have the people rising up in the midst of a war. The military is generally not a driver of policy, and tends to support whomever will improve military posture. It is currently allied with the Pragmatists.

A younger generation of nanosocialists see the ideology as an evolutionary process, not a rigid dogma. They are dedicated to the philosophy, but want to make it work in a changing world. While they disdain compromise for short-term gain, they are not as stubborn as the Ideologues. In factional conflicts, they are balancers and subtle politicians. Their primary approach is to look at the “big picture.” They are a small but influential faction, primarily found in the Innovation Directorate.

The Pragmatist faction is willing to do whatever is needed to keep the TSA going, even if that means compromising on principle. Many of the side-deals cut by the TSA (for web connections, Helium-3, or medical supplies) were carried out by Pragmatists. They are found throughout the External Intelligence Directorate, but are also in Innovation and Acquisitions. Most tend toward a democratic approach, especially those in Innovation, but a strong minority are happily authoritarian as needed. They’re currently closely allied with the military.

Like the Ideologues, the Revolutionaries are hardliners; unlike the older faction, they are aggressive about the need to export nanosocialism to the corporatist world. Most Revolutionaries are younger citizens of the TSA; the older generation of revolutionaries was deemed responsible for the Pacific War and the faction being out of power for over a decade. The new generation claims to have learned the lessons of the past, but still brooks no dissent, especially any that suggests the TSA will not eventually lead a global revolution. They are found in Acquisitions, especially in recruiting, but are also common in Theory and Praxis and in External Intelligence.

In a word, bad.

Nanosocialist political movements are found in many developing nations. Although popular sentiment in the hyperdeveloped world is that these movements are largely directed and funded by the TSA, the nanosocialist groups deny this, claiming to have substantial popular support. Most nanosocialist parties are poorly organized, however, and have little chance of gaining political power. One exception is PANU, the Pan-African Nanosocialist Union, which has managed to unite the disparate infosocialist and nanosocialist parties across the African continent. Although it is not part of the official opposition in the South African Coalition assembly, in the most recent Coalition-wide election PANU managed to take 5% of the seats. PANU has called on the SAC to develop closer relations with the TSA.

There is little support for the militancy of the TSA in Europe, however, even though many Europeans have infosocialist or nanosocialist leanings. The European Information Socialist Party (EISP) is one of the oldest and most-respected Infosocialist movements in the world, and it has strongly opposed the behavior and policies of the Alliance from the outset. Their position is given further weight by the silent presence of Kyle Porters’ biographer and friend, Caleb Metelits, who retired to Paris in the 2080s, despite a very public offer of a place of honor in any of the TSA’s nations.

The European opposition to the TSA is both practical and philosophical. Kyle Porters theorized that a transition to a fully infosocialist society would happen only when certain conditions were met – a certain portion of labor being “knowledge work,” a prevalence of digital networks, and a concentration of intellectual properties into the hands of monopolists, triggering social resistance. None of the nanosocialist states in the TSA meet those conditions. Misha Leyden, the famed infosocialist senator from Flanders, argued that the TSA’s existence actually works to inhibit true information socialism from arising, as it cannot bring about the revolution itself, yet galvanizes the corporatist world in opposition.

China remains the TSA’s primary enemy. From supporting separatist uprisings to attempting to bring down the TSA Web with sophisticated digital viruses, China continues to press the Alliance at a level just short of open war. The TSA, in turn, devotes a disproportionate amount of its international efforts to operations against China, further antagonizing the hegemonic power. Only China’s multiple fronts of conflict – cold war moves against the U.S. and E.U., struggles with its colony on Mars, and the ongoing process of modernizing its massive rural population – keep it from focusing its resources on the elimination of the TSA.

While China is the visible enemy, the United States is nearly as hostile. American opposition is largely ideological – there has never been a strong infosocialist movement in the U.S., and many of the massive transnational corporations that infosocialists rail against make their home in the United States. While America is unlikely to launch a full-scale war against the TSA, it spends a considerable sum both spying on the Alliance and countering its Acquisitions Directorate.

The European Union, is the great power least likely to seek a conflict with the TSA. While the E.U.’s political and legal opposition to the Alliances’ activities is quite strong, there is less hostility toward the ideology itself. The EISP is an official part of the opposition coalition in the European Parliament, and has twice served as part of a ruling coalition. E.U. agents do actively work to counter the operations of the Acquisitions Directorate, however.

The Pacific Rim Alliance covers much of the same geographic territory as the TSA, and there is little love lost between the two great powers. Both sides have fired upon the other at different points, usually in disputes over territorial boundaries, refugees, or ocean resources. The PRA has a significant anti-war community in both Japan and New Zealand, however, and disputes with the TSA are resolved diplomatically.

Despite PANU’s calls for closer ties, the South African Coalition’s relationship with the TSA is carefully guarded. While no great enmity exists between the two great powers, neither is there any friendship. The SAC is wary of the Alliance’s program of acquisition, and is aggressive in its attempts to defend the intellectual property of South African corporations. But the SAC has also quietly benefited from the TSA Web, as access to the uncontrolled content has been a useful stepping stone for some of the poorer members of the Coalition.

The TSA does not consider the Islamic Caliphate to be a significant source of either useful intellectual property or threats to the Alliance’s security. They are wrong on both counts. Caliphate agricultural biotechnologies are some of the best in the world, but more critically, the Caliphate’s memetic defense agency, Nuhá, believes that nanosocialism is the biggest long-term threat to Caliphate survival and acts accordingly. The Caliphate has nearly two dozen agents operating in the TSA at the beginning of 2155, none of which Internal Intelligence has identified.

India is a special case, as nanosocialism is well-supported among the populace, yet a virulently anti-nanosocialist government is in power. Many suspect that if free elections were held, India would choose to join the TSA. While this would vastly increase the Alliance’s capabilities – overnight, the TSA would become a new hegemonic power, easily the fourth most powerful – the Coordinating Council is lukewarm to the idea. Both Peru and Indonesia would face substantially reduced influence in the Alliance; there are quiet rumors in External Intelligence that the Indonesian national intelligence service may be providing covert support to the Indian anti-nanosocialist faction.

It is likely that India’s participation in the Alliance would disrupt the status quo in other ways. The Indian nanosocialist movement is heavily populist, but quite democratic, with a strong aversion to authoritarian regimes. The Indian nanosocialist party has castigated the TSA for allowing dictatorships such as Cambodia and Guatemala in its midst, and regularly calls for the “democratization of information.”

One scenario appearing on several Weltspiel sites suggests that rather than India joining the TSA, the more democratic parts of the Alliance may split off and join with India in a second nanosocialist coalition. The scenario has the groups lining up as India-Bangladesh-Madagascar-Central America (with the Guatemalan dictatorship either overthrown or surrounded) versus Indonesia-Cambodia-Vietnam-South America. Malaysia is a wildcard – its authoritarian government would be under Indian pressure to democratize if it joined that coalition, but its historical competition with Indonesia would make it reluctant to stay with an Alliance even more dominated by its rival. Laos is widely considered too much of a burden for either side to want. As of January, 2155, the meta-Weltspiel site Emergent World put the likelihood of this scenario at 32%, in comparison to a 28% chance of India simply joining the TSA, and a 40% chance of India remaining entirely independent.