For many observers, the Pacific War of 2084-2085 was foreshadowing greater conflict. With a multitude of mighty nations competing for international power, rapidly growing countries seeking greater influence, and a variety of corporations, ideological movements, and global mafia looking for opportunities to expand their horizons, Earth of the year 2155 is a far more dangerous place than many believe. For the smaller countries that are the economic and military battlegrounds of the dominant powers, the peace and prosperity of 2155 is a mask hiding perpetual conflict.

At the close of the 20th century, political scientists argued that the nation-state model had been weakened by global telecommunications and information networks, the increasing authority of nongovernmental organizations, and the evident power of transnational corporations. Events in the early 21st century, from a series of wars in the Middle East to the near-collapse of the global environment, made continued need for the capabilities of the nation-state abundantly clear. Competition between a small number of hegemonic powers has come to dominate the political system both on Earth and throughout the solar system. Smaller nations, businesses, organizations, and even ideological movements find that their fortunes rise and fall with the status and influence of the great powers.

Yet even as competition between nation-states continues to dominate world events, changes to technology, the environment, and the global economy have tied nations together closer than ever before. Globalization reached its full flowering in the first third of the 21st century. By 2155 it has become nearly impossible for one country completely to cut itself off from the rest. High-bandwidth information networks covering the planet allow individuals to work, socialize, and learn alongside people half a world away. Ecosystems are equally dismissive of borders, and the rights of nations to defend their environment from the actions of others is now widely recognized.

Most important is that national economies are intimately connected to the cycles and rules of global markets. From natural resources to intellectual capital, modern economy is dependent upon the easy trade of goods, services, and especially ideas across the planet. Few nations can be self-sufficient, and fewer still have any desire to cut themselves off from the rest of the world. International groups such as the World Trade Organization and the Genetic Regulatory Agency make certain that everyone abides by the same set of regulations. Although most assume that the states that lead the global economy long ago set the rules of trade to keep themselves in power, most nations are willing members of the system, believing themselves better off as part of the dominant structure.

In a global economy founded on ideas, care must be taken to ensure that the rights of the originators and users of ideas are both respected. Yet some believe that the advanced world has gone too far in the defense of the owners of intellectual property. The nanosocialist nations of the Transpacific Socialist Alliance uphold this, arguing that the works of the mind belong to everyone, and have faced war as a result of their ideology. But moderate voices, too, express concerns about what is done in the name of ownership of ideas and experiences.

There are currently three hegemonic powers and a handful of emergent-power countries and alliances pushing differing agendas on the global stage. Together, these key international actors are known as the “great powers,” a term from late- 19th-century and early-20th-century global politics. Analysts in 2155 use “great powers” to refer to those nations or alliances that are sufficiently powerful to shape the policies of other globally potent nations. Three hegemonic powers stand above all others in terms of system-wide capabilities: the People’s Republic of China, the United States, and the European Union. This trilateral balance of power emerged gradually over the course of the century, and has been surprisingly stable. These three nations, while not able to dominate the world, have military, economic, cultural, and political influences that easily extend around the globe and throughout the solar system.

The other players in international competition are the emergent powers: India, the Pacific Rim Alliance, and the Transpacific Socialist Alliance. These actors are not in the class of the hegemonic powers, but are still prominent enough to shape politics and economics outside of their borders. Some strategists include the Islamic Caliphate and the South African Coalition among the emergent powers, as their influence and capabilities are growing rapidly; Mexico and the Mercosul alliance based around Brazil are also potential emergent powers, although they have largely focused on internal development. The shifting relationships between the various nations has helped keep international politics relatively stable, if dangerous.

Great-power politics often play out in the developing world, where weaker states provide ample opportunities for economic and ideological expansion. Transnational corporations work closely with great-power patrons to open up new markets and capture new customers. Political and ideological movements seek new converts and greater global influence. Civil uprisings and identity conflicts function as proxy battles for the great powers, allowing the testing of new weapon systems and military technologies. Diplomats work out agreements and treaties as intelligence agents seek out their opponents’ weaknesses.

Most states, of course, are not great powers, and the majority do not belong to a great-power alliance. As described in Transhuman Space: Fifth Wave, a great deal of the planet is reasonably advanced and secure, focusing on providing economic and technological opportunities for their citizens than on rattling sabers or playing political games. These mainstream nations are careful with their alliances, developing good relations with a regional or hegemonic power with close cultural or economic ties, but avoiding drawing too much great-power attention to themselves. Smaller countries with powerful Fourth or Fifth Wave economies may be regional powers themselves, able to avoid significant internal interference from the great powers. Established, comfortably wealthy, and technologically advanced, these states are interested in maintaining global stability, although some may play host to less-popular ideological movements.

The combination of social stability and wide access to new biotechnology and nanotechnology is the hallmark of what sociologists in 2155 consider the “developed world,” a term that is often used as a contrast to the faster and slower nations. Noting the ever-accelerating pace of change in the most advanced states, scholars refer to the handful of Fifth Wave nations as the “hyperdeveloped world.” Nations with limited or no access to modern technology, or with unstable governments and societies, are optimistically referred to as the “developing world.”

Despite a century of advancement, many states – for reasons of history, politics, or geography – remain poor or on the verge of collapse. Some have managed to pull themselves out of abject poverty, building Third Wave societies able to play a role in the global economy. These developing nations are often tied closely to patron great powers who provide technology, economic assistance, and a measure of political reinforcement as the countries bootstrap into the Fourth Wave world. Great-power corporations and memes have lots of influence here, although there can be significant local resentment.

Developing states with Second or Third Wave economies that aren’t tied closely to any patron are often political/economic/military/memetic battlefields for great powers. In some cases, assistance from the external world is welcomed, providing support in disasters. In other cases, outsiders are rebuffed, sometimes violently, as warlords seek to consolidate power. If ignored, these warlords can cause problems for their neighbors.

As the power and capabilities of governments grew over the 21st century, so too did the power of large corporations. The long-predicted dissolution of governments and rise of total corporate control never happened, but transnational and interplanetary corporations have substantial resources for achieving economic, political, and even military ends.

Even if they have not replaced governments, corporations do have great influence over policy. The familiar saying of “what’s good for business is good for America,” still holds, and could easily be applied to Europe and China as well – governments in the developed world are aggressive about protecting the property rights of their corporate citizens, particularly intellectual property. Throughout the developing world many believe, not without cause, that great-power conflicts with the TSA over copyright and patent infringement are driven by business interests. Similarly, memetic campaigns and physical threats against infosocialist political parties around the world often have major corporate sponsorship.

Actual corpocracy, where a firm or set of firms take complete political control over a state, is almost unknown. Businesses that attempted total political control usually found that the details of running a state – from infrastructure maintenance to jurisprudence – were distractions from their core organizational goals. Large corporations found it more lucrative over the long term to build a close relationship with an existing political structure rather than replace that structure.

Corporations are not the only alternatives to traditional political power. Transnational organizations (TNOs) emerged over the course of the last two centuries as mechanisms to regulate, organize, and improve international transactions. Some have purposely narrowed concerns, focusing on rules for fisheries or the trade of textiles; others have broader agendas, monitoring compliance with international bioengineering and intellectual-property rules. While they have varying degrees of power, all operate with the explicit backing of the most-powerful states. Three TNOs stand out in 2155: the Genetic Regulatory Agency, responsible for the enforcement of biotechnology regulations; the World Trade Organization, which is the chief intellectual property (IP) rights manager; and Interpol, which focuses on non-intellectual-property crimes such as fraud, virus creation, and rogue AIs.

While TNOs are largely funded by national governments, nongovernmental organizations – or NGOs – sit outside of the traditional sources of authority. They are often nonprofit in nature, and usually focus on narrow issues, such as eliminating human-rights abuses or debt in the developing world. A number of nongovernmental organizations focus on the developing parts of Earth.

The Archive Foundation has the ambitious goal of creating a repository of all human knowledge and culture. Fearing the possibility of global-scale disasters, from plagues (natural or engineered) to out-of-control nanoweapons and astronomical long-shots like a local gamma-ray burst, Marian Babbage used her family fortune to bankroll an archive of human knowledge, intending it as a “backup” library for the survivors of any future disaster. In 2061, it merged with the Civilization Archive Project, an academic attempt to document and catalog the knowledge and culture of societies overwhelmed by the pace of change, giving the Archive Foundation a body of information and art larger than any other known collection. The archive grew slowly, but attracted attention in 2078 when it started offering data-archival services for corporations and governments. In 2155, the Archive Foundation is a respected organization, regarded as somewhat eccentric, but providing valuable services to the largest corporation and smallest tribal community alike. The data-storage facilities are in an undisclosed location, widely believed to be on the Moon.

The Terran Genome Trust seeks to catalog the genomes of plants and animals endangered by ongoing environmental changes. Although a great deal of this work was done in the mid-21st-century, the Trust continues to sample the genetic information of life forms around the world, seeking to build a better understanding of biodiversity. As they make all of their findings publicly available, the Trust has come under fire from biotechnology firms for accidentally publishing copyrighted genetic information.

Venture Altruists, Inc. is an ambitious group that seeks out promising social and technological innovators in the developing world and gives them block grants of money, usually sufficient to allow the recipient to live comfortably for several years. The selection criteria are often opaque; the organization does not tell the recipient precisely why he has received the funds, other than that they believe he will use it wisely. Little is known about the group, which has been awarding grants on an erratic schedule. They have a website which allows for nominations, but are otherwise unresponsive to attempts at communication.

Political movements are abundant in 2155, and a moderately active individual may be a member of half a dozen or more different groups, depending upon the person’s range of interests and connections. Dense information and communication networks make it possible for an activist to have more detailed knowledge of problems, communities, and factions in places on the other side of the world than do the local citizens. Nearly all political movements are virtual in some way, some groups never physically meeting. While the handful of violent political movements get most of the media attention, the majority of activists rely on peaceful forms of protest, education, and memetic engineering.

As activists network, they transfer memes, ideologies, and ideas, blending concepts and solutions from disparate regions or movements. A bioroid-freedom group in Mexico City can learn social engineering tactics from an infosocialist group based in Aberdeen, which in turn receives tips on spotting government informers from a South African Coalition bioliberationist cell with Red Duncanite sympathies. This cross-pollination leads to new memes popping up all the time, combinations of established movements and new ideas.

The abundance of movements is also a weakness, as the multitude of different groups can diffuse a given movement’s power, and activists sometimes find themselves working at cross-purposes. This situation is exacerbated by “astroturf” movements, corporate- or government-funded pseudo-”grass roots” organizations. Historically used to show apparent support for an embattled policy or company, they’re now often used to distract activists, thinning the numbers in any one group by multiplying the choices. In 2103, the investigative journalist Cynthia X uncovered proof that Biotech Euphrates was funding over a hundred different minor Preservationist groups, all of which were more active in factional struggles than in actually pushing anti-biotechnology agendas.

With three great powers, five or more emerging powers, dozens of regional powers, hundreds of large transnational corporations, and thousands of global political organizations and movements, it’s little surprise that disputes are commonplace. Limited resources, ideological differences, and territorial disputes cause friction between different groups, with results ranging from passionate editorial webcasts to military assault. Technological acceleration, questions about pan-sapient rights, and challenges to controls over intellectual property have added to tensions. The diversity of issues and multiplicity of actors often means enemies on one issue can be allies on another.

All too often, when global powerhouses come into conflict, they do so in the markets or territories of less-powerful nations. This is rarely a case of two invaders choosing a convenient battlefield; more commonly, it is the result of opposing local factions calling on the support of powerful patrons. Support can be as surreptitious as intelligence reports or as obvious as cybertanks rolling down the highway, but always comes at a price. Increased access to markets or resources, realignment of policy or ideology, or even a change in leadership are demanded in return for aid. Worse still, a shift in the patron’s strategy can leave the client in a precarious position, abandoned and left to defeat. In 2093, prior to the Pacific War, China gave substantial intelligence and materiel to anti-nanosocialist rebels in Thailand, and promised support for a planned coup attempt in Bangkok. Days before the coup, Chinese generals managed to convince the Premier that China would suffer heavy losses from a TSA retaliation, and that the armed forces needed another year of preparation before going to war. China unceremoniously cut off contact with the Thai rebels, and the coup was crushed.

The ongoing maneuvering and competition between the great powers is now called Weltspiel. Originally meant as a derogatory term when coined in 2073 by the Bavarian political philosopher Heinrich Gephardt, it found currency in Europe and the developing world as a way to refer to the state of international politics. The concept of Weltspiel, or “world play,” treats great-power competition as an abstracted game, where players – nations, alliances, and international organizations – earn or lose points through bold or careless moves. Implicit in the idea is that regardless of the score nobody ever “wins” the game. But what started as a cynical joke has evolved into a popular model for understanding the daily struggles between the great powers.

By the end of the 21st century, there were several thousand popular websites providing real-time Weltspiel scores. The game ratings are based upon the current “positions” of the players, as determined by a random sampling of votes, a heuristic scan of news headlines, or the assessment of specialist AIs. In many of these sites, projections are made of each nation’s future position, likelihood of success of current policies, and changes to overall capabilities. Of particular interest to social scientists and gamblers alike are the metascore sites, which compare scores from different judges, looking for emergent patterns. Many Weltspiel metascore sites accurately predicted the onset of the Pacific War six months before its onset, and a handful correctly projected its duration and outcome.

As Weltspiel has grown in popularity, national leaders have become increasingly aware of its memetic influence. In November of 2112, the Johannesburg New Guardian newsweb reported that the South African Coalition had paid a small number of Weltspiel sites to change their ratings of the SAC, a claim loudly denied by both the Coalition’s leadership and the Weltspiel boards accused of accepting bribes. As a result of these reports, the SAC’s average score dropped by more than 10%, and the Southern African People’s Party was voted out of power in the 2113 elections.

As of late December, 2154, as determined by Metameme web ratings service:

1. Diplomacy. By far the most read Weltspiel site, Diplomacy is run by senior advisors to the former European president, Chloe des Lysses. The Communiqué section is known for interviews with current global leaders, including (most recently) Stephen Alexis, the U.S. secretary of state. Although the accuracy of its score is notoriously low, Diplomacy has the best post-event analysis of any Weltspiel site.

2. Emerging World. One of the longest-running Weltspiel metascore sites, Emerging World pulls its analysis from a secret list of Weltspiel judges. Its ratings are surprisingly accurate, and the TSA is rumored to offer a bounty of $1,000,000 to whoever brings in the authentic Emerging World list.

3. Weltgeist. Unlike the majority of metascore sites, which try to pick the very best Weltspiel material, Weltgeist is all-consuming, making use of – and giving equal weight to – every public Weltspiel score. Its results have been all over the map, with some projections almost eerily on target and others being wildly off the mark.

4. Weltspiel Site of the Second. Rather than aggregating multiple sites, Weltspiel Site of the Second redirects visitors to a random Weltspiel judge. Many obscure sites have credited WSS for sudden spikes of attention.

5. Geestspel. Geestspel, based in Amsterdam, is notable due to its total rejection of intuition or “gut feelings,” relying instead on an evolving mathematical model. Although its scenarios have not been significantly more or less accurate than other Weltspiel judges, Geestspel has gained notoriety for the Countdown to the Singularity clock that now greets all visitors to the site. As of January 1, 2155, the Countdown claims that the Singularity will occur on March 10, 2131, at 3:32 AM GMT.

At the close of the 20th century, it was said that the majority of the people on Earth had never made a phone call. While this was no longer true by the close of the 21st century, most of the technological changes that characterized the last hundred years were nonetheless limited to the people of advanced nations. The majority of people on Earth in 2155 have never teleoperated a cybershell, experienced a slinkie, or knowingly interacted with a sapient artificial intelligence. The issues of human identity, pan-sapient rights, and morphological freedom that shape the politics of Fifth Wave societies are rarely considered in most households on the planet.

This does not mean that the waves of technological upheaval have not affected the developing world. Even in many of the less advanced societies, telecommunication and information systems are robust, naturally occurring famine and disease are almost unknown, and material goods are readily available. Life for most is far more comfortable and healthier now than it was a century earlier. But the technological capabilities that emerged over the course of the 21st century also made possible far greater control over people’s lives, efficiency in killing one’s adversaries, and precision in crafting ideologies and shaping beliefs, while questions of ownership of ideas, designs, and even human genetics are increasingly sources of conflict.

Most countries in 2155 are going through a transition from earlier forms of social and technological systems to newer ones, whether it’s a central African state embracing Third Wave culture or a European nation slipping quickly into the Fifth Wave. Some societies handle it better than others, however. Economic dislocation as new technologies change the nature of work, cultural conflict as new memes alter beliefs and opinions, and simple “future shock” all undermine political and social stability.

One of the problems facing developing countries is the availability of cutting-edge technologies from the hyperdeveloped world. Quite often the introduction of new systems or processes shatters the fragile social compact developed around the previous level of technology. In the 2090’s, Uganda reached a consensus about the morality of genefixing the next generation, and a program called “Gift of the Future” was launched to provide biotech services to growing families. In 2107, a small group of elderly Ugandan business and political leaders quietly traveled to Johannesburg to undergo the radical cellular-rejuvenation process that had recently been developed. When their actions were discovered, so many Ugandans were angry about “the last generation stealing the future from the next” that the group went into exile.

Technology changes culture, but it takes time. Social change is slower than technological change; societies that succeed are the ones that can manage both types. New technologies enhance existing social struggles, from disputes between ethnic factions to broad questions of democracy versus totalitarianism. The race to adopt new tools and systems becomes an accelerating spiral, with competing sides seeking the temporary advantage that will allow victory. New technologies can also spark new conflicts as the balance of social and economic power shifts and as denser networks make it impossible to shut out new ideas.

Even in nations not already facing substantial challenges, the hectic pace of change can be intimidating. Economic disruption is widespread; jobs aren’t just lost to new forms of automation, but also to larger shifts that eliminate the need for entire industries. The rapid adoption of augmented-reality systems eviscerated the conventional outdoor-advertising industry, as billboards were replaced by individually targeted ads. Dedicated AIs reduced the need for a wide variety of professional-service providers, from graphic artists to accountants. Local economic weakness can give more Fourth and Fifth Wave transnational corporations an opportunity to come in and control emerging markets. Individuals and businesses with limited resources are often both the hardest hit by and the least able to adapt to rapidly shifting economic conditions.

Social challenges from rapid change are more than financial. Beliefs and behaviors that were once unthinkable can become commonplace, especially as memes from more dominant societies work their way in. Sexual experimentation, non-traditional religious beliefs (or no religion at all), and abandonment of traditional gender roles tear away at established cultural norms, causing tension between generations, regions, and classes. In 2067, the International Psychiatric Association officially identified Social Transition Stress Disorder, or STSD, as a reaction to “future shock” (see p. 55).

This is not to say that all changes are bad. New technologies and memes provide new opportunities for increased wealth, broader knowledge, and improved health. Once-isolated areas have a far greater ability to learn about the world than even the most advanced nations of half a century ago. There is a strong correlation between economic and technological modernization and greater freedom for minorities and women. Given time and stability, the improved economic structures usually mean better standards of living for all, even if the financial gap between the very rich and the rest also grows.

Opponents of Preservationism accuse us of being Luddites, opposed to technology and its comforts. They are wrong. We do not seek the abandonment of technology. What we seek is its careful application, a step back from the careless adoption of systems that will one day eliminate us as a species. This doesn’t mean making our lives less comfortable or complete. We know that it is possible to both live more simply and live well, because there are examples in the world. In many respects, some less-developed nations are paradigms of what we might call “appropriate limits” on technological advancement. In the more stable of these so-called “backward” states, commonplace technology is at a level somewhere around a high-Third-Wave/low-Fourth-Wave level. This is, arguably, the point that maximizes the value of humanity. Knowledge is commonplace, but the state is not a panopticon. Machines are helpful, but do not presume to replace human minds, and any alterations to the human genome are made simply to cure disease, not to reshape the body to new, inhuman forms. Indeed, we may best serve humankind by working in these less developed societies, encouraging them to hold firm against the siren song of advancing change. – Robert M. Weber, Toward a Preservationist Model for Sociology, 2098

Although life in a Third Wave country does not afford the comforts of life in the hyperdeveloped world, there are certain benefits to living “off the grid.” While the data networks and communication infrastructure may be limited or nonexistent, this means that it’s far simpler to disappear, to get away from the constant connection typical of Fifth Wave societies. There are fewer parahumans, AIs, and bioroids in the less-developed regions, a state of affairs which some people find appealing. This also means that the conflicts around identity and fears of an incipient posthuman singularity have yet to arise. Human biotechnology, where it exists, focuses on the basics of keeping people healthy rather than radical changes in physiology or the pursuit of extreme longevity. In general, the conflicts and challenges arising from Fourth and Fifth Wave technologies are far less common in the developing world.

As in years past, the vast difference in power and wealth shapes the relationship between the advanced and the developing worlds. Less visible, however, is the economic exploitation commonplace at the end of the previous century. Modern production techniques are less labor-intensive than earlier methods, effectively pricing out even the most outrageous sweatshops. When Fifth Wave companies employ local workers in developing areas, they often pay above-average wages, hoping to stimulate consumption.

In some cases, the motivations are less altruistic. Corporations, governments, and individuals from the hyperdeveloped world are sometimes attracted to the developed regions for reasons they’d rather not make public. The combination of reduced surveillance, less technology, and occasional instability in the developing world makes it easier for Fifth Wave groups to carry out activities that are inconvenient, immoral, or illegal in their home countries.

While officials in the developing world are not necessarily easier to bribe, Fifth Wave corporations are able to offer spectacular inducements to look the other way. Sparsely populated and poorly monitored, rural areas in the developing world are frequently the perfect settings for factories or labs that won’t pass environmental or genetic regulations back home. The more dangerous installations may require large bribes at high levels of the government. The Genetic Regulatory Agency has been known to run sting operations, setting up government officials to expose corruption, as well as working with local functionaries to trap foreign corporations trying to evade the law.

A number of corporations also find Third Wave societies to be perfect testing grounds for new or experimental (but legal) devices.

Many intelligence and law-enforcement agencies have fewer restrictions on their actions outside of their home borders, and find it easier to operate in those regions without advanced surveillance and counter-intelligence technology. Operations in developing countries can more readily be covered up, made to look like the work of another group more hostile to the interests of the host nation. Civil wars and uprisings provide attractive opportunities to test new technologies, whether supplied to the government, to rebels, or to both.

Very often, one of the first requests made by a developing nation to its more-advanced allies is for improved police and monitoring technologies, so that criminal activity by Fifth Wave corporations or individuals can be more readily prevented. This, too, can be a Faustian bargain. Many believe that military and police technology provided by the hyperdeveloped world to the developing nations is riddled with intentional security holes and backdoors allowing the more-advanced partner easy access to systems in use. While no evidence of such backdoors has ever been uncovered, the meme is commonplace throughout the developing world.

Governments, organizations, and individuals in the developing world also find it valuable to build and maintain links with Fifth Wave societies. Economic aid and trade agreements improve the material lives of citizens, and are the most common kind of intergovernmental connections. The provision and withholding of aid is a standard great-power tool for influencing smaller countries.

Assistance from Fifth Wave nations can be less formal. A variety of groups, both profit and nonprofit, provide assistance to developing areas. Some specialize in environmental mitigation and disaster recovery, others in teaching and infrastructure development. A few organizations blur the line with mercenary forces by specializing in law enforcement. Most of these groups are small and made up of freelancers.

Technology transfers are also fairly commonplace, whether by Fifth Wave companies opening up shop in developing states, or by the direct provision of technological assistance to Third Wave military and police forces. This is, at best, a mixed blessing for the developed nations. Fifth Wave production techniques can greatly undercut the competitive ability of local manufacturers, driving them out of business; conversely, access to advanced technology is a key to successful assimilation into the global system.

Of all of the transfers from the hyperdeveloped world to the developing nations, few are more controversial than memetic migration, the flow of new ideas, ideologies, and cultural artifacts from one society to another. Memetic migration is simultaneously desired and despised. Philosophies, InVid, books, music – all are rapidly consumed by audiences hungry to have what the great-power societies have, yet all are decried as eviscerating local culture and arts. As a result, the market for memetic material is usually quite strong in Third Wave countries, but also the most targeted for government regulation or attacks by local cultural leaders – it’s not unknown for material to go from highly popular to illegal in a day.

While the struggle between different cultures can turn violent, it is far more often a clash of ideas. Popular entertainment, advertising, religious beliefs, political ideologies, and more compete for the limited attention of the 22nd-century citizen-consumer. A typical city-dweller in 2155 is confronted by a cacophony, all designed to entice him to pay attention. Across the globe, people have built up strong intellectual defenses in order to ignore these constant demands. In turn, those seeking to command attention have grown more sophisticated in their approaches, in an ever-spiraling memetic arms race.

The development of memetics as a formal science has refined this system to a degree unimaginable a century earlier. In the hyperdeveloped world, messages can be tailored not just to an individual, but to his transient moods, his momentary surroundings, even his blood sugar level. In the developing world, the methods are usually more blunt, but no less intrusive, especially in societies that have moved fully into the Third Wave. The vast majority of messages a person receives are advertisements, ideological screeds, and lurid come-ons; the primary duty of an infomorph is to act as filter, making certain that only legitimate communications get through.

For most of Earth’s inhabitants, a significant portion of every day is spent enjoying some aspect of global popular culture. Live music (whether in person or virtual), books and websites, InVid and movies, slinkies, and virtual worlds are all effectively ubiquitous, giving the typical consumer of 2155 an almost overwhelming set of options. For societies that have largely become generous welfare states, this abundance of pop culture is a key to continued success. Even in less technologically sophisticated nations, access to the global culture market is often used to distract the populace from political or economic uncertainty, in a 22nd-century version of “bread and circuses.”

In many Fourth and Fifth Wave nations, a significant portion of the populace does not have traditional employment but does have access to a sophisticated array of communication and information devices. Social critics call this environment “pantainment,” reflecting the dominance of entertainment as social discourse. Most forms of communication and information presentation are designed to be entertaining or enjoyable; ideological, journalistic, and commercial messages are embedded in entertainment media, to a degree that blurs the distinction. “Serious” information will usually be presented in a manner that echoes common entertainment semiotics. Individuals brought up in the local culture will be able to distinguish readily between entertainment that’s just entertainment and entertainment meant to send messages. Outsiders, even those from other Fourth and Fifth Wave societies, will be confused, unable to tell the difference.

Similarly, most citizens of a pantainment society will be highly attuned to fame, even as a surprisingly large part of the populace achieves minor celebrity status through participation in virtual environments, harmless but attention-grabbing stunts, “slogging” (or “slink-logging,” the use of a slinkie interface as a daily journal published on the global network), or appearing in an InVid based on real-world events. The use of entertainment-industry jargon such as “fame curve” (the speed with which a given celebrity will rise and decline) and “going BC” (becoming a “background character,” still present but no longer the focus of an event) is also quite common. A popular variant of the standard Mugshot augmented-reality program highlights individuals based on type and degree of celebrity.

Not every media-dense culture is a pantainment society. Many late-Third-Wave and early-Fourth-Wave nations are considered to be attention-deficit societies. In these societies, the amount of information demanding an individual’s attention is overwhelming, from work-related data, to advertising, to entertainment and news – and the ability of individuals to keep up is decreasing. Each medium attempts to cut through the clutter and grab the person’s focus; as a result, it is difficult to pay sufficient attention to any given information source. Personal infomorphs are usually of great assistance in this sort of culture, but in many developing nations the ability to broadcast data of all sorts is more available than the individual system’s ability to act as a filter.

People raised in an attention-deficit society typically demonstrate a well-developed ability to ignore information that doesn’t personally concern them, although this often manifests itself as becoming easily bored without constant new stimulation. A major difference between a pantainment and an attention-deficit society is the primary form of information. In a pantainment culture, entertainment dominates and other messages must be constructed in a manner consistent with that model. In an attention-deficit culture, advertising dominates, and other information often takes on similar characteristics: single theme, persuasive pitch, and targeted toward immediate needs.

In every market economy on Earth, advertising is a commonplace form of expression. Competition is cutthroat for customers that are increasingly able to have their basic and even luxury needs met cheaply, and some of the most advanced SAIs outside of government service are employed by advertising agencies looking for new memetic hooks to attract and retain customers. No idea is too obscure or bizarre to be considered. In an advertising market that has had two centuries to perfect its craft, true novelty is worth millions of dollars.

In much of the world, advertising has taken on the characteristics of memetic warfare, using deception and intimate knowledge of the audience in ways that would have been shocking even half a century earlier. Massively complex computer systems plumb the depths of transaction databases, scan newsfeeds and public upslinks, monitor systems, and watch communication networks, all with the goal of compiling accurate customer knowledge. Rather than providing a limited set of perfectly targeted inducements, however, this has led to inundations of personally customized messages that still seem only to offer junk. Augmented-reality systems are common targets of intrusive advertising, in which competitive messages get plastered like graffiti across shops and vendors. Voice and text messages are also quite common, usually triggered by short-range speech and behavior-recognition systems.

Sometimes sophisticated advertising software gets out of control. Adviruses are a form of weblife that attempt to gain access to the main processing area of a virtual interface or augmentedreality system. A notorious advirus cases happened in 2103, when an Egyptian soft-drink company advertisement evolved into an advirus that infected VIIs with a constantly scrolling logo across the user’s vision. Although antiviral software can now delete most adviruses, they remain a persistent annoyance.

Adrenaline Junkie: Slink feeds from people doing dangerous stunts. Although Adrenaline Junkie features its star Dawn Aguilar jumping off of bridges and wrestling alligators, the real attraction of the program are slink recordings from regular people around the world (and off-world) doing crazy things. There is a small underground market for slinks of people who die while attempting stunts for the show.

Don’t Eat That!: Hidden camera stunt and prank InVid based in Pretoria, but produced and popular globally. Practical jokes are inflicted on a victim until he realizes that he’s being recorded, when the hosts switch to offering payment for increasingly messy stunts. Appearance as a Don’t Eat That! contestant guarantees a brief but intense period of global fame.

Naughty Bits: A combined InVid and virtual-environment program set in the Relaxation Island virtual world. Contestants are groups of couples who inhabit random virtual bodies and try to find their mates while trying to keep competitors from finding their own. Banned in the Islamic Caliphate, it’s one of the most pirated InVids in production.

Secret Eye: Live feeds from randomly selected upslinks. Secret Eye uses gray-market equipment to tap upslink signals around the world and convert them to standard InVid for rebroadcast. The people providing the feeds (usually) don’t know that they’ve been tapped. Secret Eye subjects, if they reveal their identity over the course of the slinktapping, can become wildly popular. In early 2154, Secret Eye was forced to provide a lock-out code that would prevent slinktapping; as of 2155, only about 40% of the known upslink users on Earth have chosen to use this code.

Slogistan: Cyberdemocracy meets slink-logging, Slogistan provides links to slink-loggers – sloggers – around the world. Visitors vote on the merits of the various slogs, and Slogistan keeps a running tally of both absolute number of votes and preference-matches.

“There is no greater accomplishment than disrupting a society’s memespace. Once the traditional hierarchy of ideas is overturned, all memes become equal, even the most ludicrous or hysterical. Especially the most ludicrous or hysterical, as a point of fact; it can take traditional memetic institutions months or even years to chase down and eliminate these virulent memes. That’s why I call them ‘weapons of mass distraction.’” – Ang Wen, A Guide to Meme-Hacking Politics

The techniques of the more-aggressive forms of advertising closely parallel what is often called “memetic warfare” – the intentional manipulation of perspective, idea, and belief to achieve political ends. In 2155, many political or social struggles center on changing the way people think about an issue, recognizing that this is a lever to effect greater change. While argumentation or the demonstration of an idea’s invalidity can work, the effort must be both very subtle and powerful, focused on making the target start to doubt his own paradigm.

One of the classic forms of memetic warfare, propaganda is commonplace in 2155. Every government statement, every newsfeed article, every slinkie recording is consciously edited to support a particular worldview. There is little controversy about this – indeed, people all over the world have learned to be distrustful of those who claim that their stories or facts are unbiased. The primary counter to propaganda is diversity – citizens of advanced democratic societies rely on a multiplicity of perspectives on an issue to form their opinions. In contrast, citizens of states with less diversity (either due to a lack of advanced technology or censorship) tend to not believe anything they are told.

The more sophisticated version of propaganda is to create apparent “facts” that the diversity of perspectives accept as real, thereby directing the public’s attention. This remains controversial, as it makes people not just mistrust what they are told, but even what they see; the most infamous cases involved using an individual’s own augmented-reality gear against him. Reality hacking uses staged events – disasters, attacks, attempted assassinations, and the like – created using advanced virtual-world systems and broadcast in such a way that people believe that the event truly occurred.

One of the first known cases of reality hacking happened in 2049. A small group of Kurds returning from a peaceful protest in Ankara were stopped in a remote area by Turkish police and beaten severely, leaving two protestors dead. A local filmmaker, hidden in some trees, caught most of the event on video. The uproar was immediate and worldwide, and Kurds across Turkey held angry rallies. But when a new video emerged, showing a different set of Kurds stopped, tortured, and killed by police, the riots lasted for days, leaving nearly a thousand people dead across Turkey. Five years later, investigative journalists discovered evidence that the second video was entirely fabricated by opponents of the (then) leading political faction in order to cause unrest and instability.

More recently, in 2113, a minor scandal erupted in Korea when the mayor of Pyongyang was seen by a dozen witnesses exiting a brothel, climbing into a car, and driving away. Some of the witnesses recorded what they saw, recordings that were used by political opponents of the mayor to discredit him. The tables were turned when the mayor’s allies in the Korean government uncovered an elaborate plot to implant a completely synthetic image of the mayor and car in the augmented-reality implants of the witnesses. The trick was planned to happen only when people with active AR implants were nearby, allowing the conspirators total control over what they saw.

Religion and spiritual belief remain powerful forces in the world of 2155, especially in the developed parts of the world. Religion, historically, has been a fundamental means of solace and comfort for societies mired in poverty and conflict. Religious leaders are often cultural and political leaders, providing education, community, and channels for artistic expression.

While the radical changes to the human form and conflicts over non-human sapients’ rights have driven the emergence of new religions in the Fifth Wave world, the political and cultural struggles that characterize the developing world have solidified the influence of traditional beliefs. Many of the new religions emphasize the power or transcendence of the individual. Older religions are typically community-focused, trying to empower believers as a whole, even at the expense of individual expression.

This is not to say that traditional beliefs haven’t changed over the course of the 21st century. Discoveries such as life on Europa and the planet Virginia have altered most people’s belief in the uniqueness of Earth. The development of sapient AIs and bioroids has undercut the concept of humanity’s distinctiveness. Yet for most older religions, these changes have only altered the tone, not the content, of the sermons. Some communities strive for inclusiveness, considering all sapients to be children of God. Others are less tolerant, rejecting parahumans, bioroids, and especially SAIs as the spawn of the Devil.

With over two billion Muslims worldwide, Islam remains one of the largest religions on Earth, with more followers than either Christianity or Hinduism. Although Islam remains anchored in the Middle East, Muslims are found worldwide, including Russia, Southeast Asia, Southern Africa and Mexico. Most Muslims consider themselves to be well-educated, modern people who happen to have deeply held faith in a traditional religion.

The Muslim world has been relatively tolerant of machine intelligence, with a few exceptions (Iran and Pakistan in particular). Few Muslims have significant genetic alteration; taboos about body alteration are particularly strong, and notions of the “perfectibility” of humans are considered irreligious. For similar reasons, most believing Muslims find Transhumanism or posthuman transcendence to be repugnant concepts. The main exception to this can be found in Sufism, which is a form of Islamic mysticism with more in common with Zen Buddhism or Gnosticism than with traditional Islam. While it has existed for centuries (many of its practices predate the Muslim era), Sufis have often been persecuted, and remain few in number in the traditionally Muslim world. The Sufi beliefs, however, which focus on enlightenment and curiosity, mesh well with the transhuman philosophies of the Fifth Wave world. An increasing number of Muslims living in the hyperdeveloped world have turned to Sufism as a way of reconciling their religious culture with their material world.

Although Christianity in the hyperdeveloped West has evolved a number of novel variations, in the developing world it has remained close to its roots. Protestantism and Mormonism are both strongly evangelical, and they along with Catholicism have waged a friendly but intense interdoctrinal struggle to convert peoples throughout Africa and Asia. Most of the world’s Protestants can be found in China and southern Asia, where official restrictions on the religion have done little to stop missionary work. Mormonism has become the dominant form of Christianity in India, and is gaining converts (largely from Catholicism and Protestantism) in South America.

The Catholic Church in the 22nd century has an interesting history. Intense doctrinal disputes between the socially traditional and the socially liberal factions in the church eventually led to a split in 2053, with a Chicago-based faction calling itself the Catholic Church (Reformed) capturing many of the congregations in Europe and America. Although its many critics derided it as “neo-Anglicanism,” the Reformed Church’s willingness to accept married and female priests appealed to many disaffected Catholics.

The Reformed Catholic Church, while closer in cultural outlook to the Fourth (and, eventually, Fifth) Wave societies in which it was founded, has receded in popularity somewhat, particularly in the United States. The one exception to this is the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuits. Essentially extinct in the traditional Church, the Jesuits saw a resurgence within the Reformed communities when they began accepting female priests in 2062. The Jesuits are the only branch of the Catholic Church (Reformed or Traditional) to embrace nonhuman sapience and transhuman philosophies, and in 2105, the Society of Jesus (Reformed) quietly began accepting SAIs as members in Europe and Mexico. As of 2155, there are about three-dozen ordained SAI Jesuits.

Still the dominant religion in India, Hinduism has slowly declined in relative power as increasing number of Indians embrace current ideologies and philosophies. Hindu religious leaders have generally opposed genetic modification and are cool toward nonhuman sapients, although neither is true for the Indian population as a whole. Hinduism is increasingly a cultural system rather than a faith; many Indian citizens call themselves Hindu without actually believing in its scriptural orthodoxy. Two major ideological competitors are challenging Hinduism in 2155. The Mormon church has hit upon a persuasive conversion meme in India, and now nearly 5% of India’s population considers itself Mormon. And nanosocialism – while not inherently opposed to religion – is a very popular secular belief system.

Buddhism, while remaining grounded in its core philosophies, has managed to adapt with relative ease to new developments and ideas throughout the 21st century. The first religion to embrace machine sapience – prior to its actual invention – and with a core philosophy that teaches transcendence as a goal, Buddhism is the fastest-growing religion in the Fifth Wave world, although its tenets have yet to gain a substantial foothold in the developing nations. The one exception is Indonesia, where the dominance of nanosocialism and a local decline in Islam among the citizenry has led to a rise of a form of Buddhism heavily influenced by local Sufi mysticism.

Comprising Confucianism, Taoism, Chinese Buddhism, and local traditions, Chinese Traditional religion is the term used by scholars to describe the constellation of faiths that adhere to Chinese cultural practices. For many believers in China (and regions with a strong Chinese influence), these various traditions form a coherent composite worldview. China’s increasingly cosmopolitan perspective led to a sharp decline in followers of traditional religions in the mid-point of the 21st century, but this trend was reversed in the 2080s and 2090s. While not rejecting the fruits of biotechnology and AI research, followers of Chinese Traditional religions tend to counsel a cautious approach. Of all of the conventional religions, Chinese Traditional beliefs were perhaps the least changed as a result of the radical advances of the 21st and 22nd century.

Information Socialism and Anarcho-Transhumanism are more similar than they are distinct. Both seek the withering away of the traditional forces of memetic control and the unfettered transformation of human existence. Both argue that the power of creation should not be restricted, whether by corporation or by government, but should in fact be encouraged. Where they part is in the recognition of the biologically based social characteristics of the human animal. Information Socialists believe that our biology is integral to who we are; Anarcho-Transhumanists see it as a defect to be engineered out. – Caleb Metelits, Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Development of Information Socialism with Porterist Principles, 2038

A variety of memes and ideologies have taken root throughout the developing world.

While many in the Fourth and Fifth Wave worlds accept the development of bioroids as a natural extension of biotechnology, many people in the developing world see bioroids as vat-grown slaves. Abolitionists want a total ban on the development and production of all forms of bioroids. Bioroids now in existence should be immediately freed from service and allowed to live their natural lives. (Many, but not all, abolitionists would allow bioroids to reproduce, if possible.) This meme is strongest in Africa, which was the primary victim of historical slavery, but is also particularly influential in Europe and South America.

Autarchy is the belief that a country or national group should be able to stand on its own, self-supported, selfruled, completely without any outside interference. Many developing nations have a tendency toward autarchism; the ideology is most common in areas where the great powers have been most economically or militarily interventionist. Autarchism is not the same as isolationism. For most autarchists, trade is acceptable, just not in goods or services that are crucial to the “national interest.” Alliances and regional associations are equally welcome, but never to a degree of entanglement that would force the state to act against its own self-interest – treaties with great powers are rarely considered worth the bits they’re stored in. Autarchists commonly press for the development of military systems designed and built entirely at home, as well as a strong local technological and memetic arts development. Autarchic movements are prone to violence if marginalized; victims of Social Transition Stress Disorder are often drawn to such groups.

Bioliberationists assert that a state has the right to decide for itself whether and how to deploy biotechnologies. More than that, however, they claim that no outside force (whether corporation, government, or international organization) has the right to prevent or require a nation to take any given action. For most Third Wave nations, there is extraordinary economic and political pressure to allow Fourth and Fifth Wave corporations to bring biotech services to and extract biological resources from the less-developed regions. Non-genemod populations are ready markets, and even in the late 21st century new proteins are still being discovered in remote areas. Bioliberation opposes the presence of outside biotechnology and biotech firms within the nation’s borders, arguing that it is a violation of national sovereignty. While bioliberation movements often have a strong Preservationist undertone, a number of political groups have taken bioliberationist positions to support local biotech experimentation, opposing the GRA and any external attempt to change bioscience practices.

In a world where information controls the form and production of physical objects, the environment, and even bodies, control of information is a critical issue. In the hyperdeveloped world, information is largely owned by corporations, who license designs for products (or genes) to consumers. The Digital Freedom movement, which dates back over a century in its various forms, argues for the “fair use” of information for non-profit activities and education, and argues against the continued expansion of rights management. Its critics have dubbed it “Infosocialism Lite,” although its supporters often take a libertarian perspective. By 2155 it is widely considered a lost cause, but there are some academics and activists in the developing world who still abide by it.

In 2082, a Tokyo businessman named Saburo Hattori published a series of short books calling for a worldwide revolution in politics and economics. Calling it Kazoku Kai – or “World Family” – Hattori argued that the current model was unsustainable, and that the upcoming point of transcendence would tear human civilization apart if it did not all move forward as one. The books were largely ignored in the hyperdeveloped world. But in the developing world, followers of the Kazoku Kai books are commonplace, in a variety of small but vocal movements. Most followers of the ideology can be found in academic and religious communities, although there are a handful of nascent Kazoku-Kai-based political parties. The basic concept – breaking down political and cultural borders in order to promote world peace, leading eventually to a oneworld government – is sometimes combined with nanosocialist and secular hyperevolutionist ideas. A group called the Okami Front has, uniquely, combined the philosophies of Kazoku Kai with an ideology of amortalism, calling for “transcendence through extinction,” and carrying out occasional terror attacks in the PRA region.

The so-called Majority Cultures movement, a dominant ideology among developing nations in the mid-21st century, has largely disappeared in its original form, which called for developing nations to abandon Western-dominated political and memetic institutions. The remnants of the once-revolutionary force, a journal called Hemisphere and a biannual “Conference of Majority Culture Nations and Peoples,” have largely become focused on the academic study of cultural friction and interaction. One splinter group remains active, a small organization of disillusioned E.U. expatriates calling itself “Kulturkampf.” It has been blamed for a series of bombings of embassies across the Third Wave world.

As countries become solid Third Wave cultures, with abundant information technology and dense networks, movements typically emerge calling for a so-called “transparent society” in which there can be no privacy. Arguing that historically laws around privacy and confidentiality have more often shielded the rich and powerful rather than the masses, proponents of the model believe that only in the total abandonment of secrecy can there be true democracy. This goes far beyond the common infosocialist demand for communal intellectual property; this is the complete elimination of the ability to hide any aspect of one’s personal or business life. Proponents argue that irrational prejudices disappear when everyone’s private deviances are on public display and, more important, crime becomes nearly impossible when any act can be watched by everyone else. Few businesses or governments willingly relinquish the ability to act in secret, and true transparent societies have rarely been attempted. Most have been small Isolate communities, although one of the largest experiments in transparency appeared in Lithuania.

In 2077, shaken by massive corruption scandals, an aggressively reformist Lithuanian government pushed through a series of total transparency laws, outlawing privacy for individuals, corporations, and government agencies alike. After time to adjust to the new social model, most Lithuanians found that they could tolerate, if not enjoy, the situation, and life continued more or less as usual. In 2089, the press uncovered a conspiracy between a handful of Vilnius-based corporations (primarily biotech firms) to market individual genome and demographic information internationally. Further investigation revealed that many corporations and government agencies had managed to maintain secret practices and base new policies on the mandated open personal information of citizens. The subsequent riots and widespread backlash resulted in the end of transparency laws and a strong antibiotech popular consensus that continues today.

Commonly called “voodoo” in the West, the practice of Voudoun was a West African traditional religion that migrated to the Americas with the slave trade. Over the centuries, it has proven able to adapt to a changing world. In 2155, Voudoun and other West African traditional religions are cosmopolitan faiths with nearly one hundred million adherents, combining aspects of Transhumanism, the Majority Cultures movement, and whichever religious traditions are common locally. Although most popular in West Africa, the Caribbean and parts of the United States, practitioners are found on every continent. Voudoun has proven remarkably flexible at combining 22nd-century concepts and millennia-old religious practices, and many sociologists argue that the belief is positioned to explode, as the advanced technologies of the hyperdeveloped world spread more widely into the developed nations.

If questions about identity and pan-sapient rights consume the passions of the hyperdeveloped world, the citizens of the less-developed places are more interested in basic questions of political power and ownership of information.

The early part of the 21st century focused on the impact of globalization, the increasing interdependence of economies and cultures around the world. For globalization’s proponents, the increasingly dense connections were a guarantee of greater overall wealth, the spread of democratic market ideologies, and improved competitive strength as nations and regions specialized in needed services. For its opponents, globalization guaranteed the suppression of local cultural variation, the enrichment of elites at the expense of the masses, and the reinforced domination of leading developed nations. Both camps turned out to be correct.

By 2155, it has become nearly impossible for most mainstream states to disentangle themselves from the global economic system. Trade in raw materials, product design, and intellectual property bound the developed and developing worlds together. Only the hyperdeveloped Fifth Wave nations could begin to cut the ropes, as increasingly sophisticated material and production technologies make it possible for an advanced society to become almost entirely self-sufficient. The Fifth Wave states remain connected to the rest of the world, but largely as the home for transnational corporations. Old propaganda cartoons showing the U.S. or E.U. holding the puppet strings of the developing world have taken on new life as activists realize how one-way the connections have become. A few of the more-prescient political movements realize that technologies of self-sufficiency won’t be limited to the most-advanced countries for long.

The hyperdeveloped nations aside, much of the world of 2155 is intimately connected via trade of goods and services. Although automated manufacturing and 3D printing have done away with many of the traditional cheap production jobs around the world, there are still substantial markets for textiles, cybershell components, and local agriculture. It can still be less expensive for transnational companies to make use of local human labor rather than build a high-technology infrastructure. In addition, the production and distribution of raw materials for 3D printers and minifacs in the hyperdeveloped world is an increasingly important part of many regional economies.

Knowledge work, such as genetic design, 3D-object architecture, and entertainment of all types has also become widespread. The overall increase in education levels worldwide allows more people to participate in the knowledge-based economy, in turn allowing a much wider variety of new ideas and designs to enter the market. Certain areas have become well known for producing highquality material, such as interactive video in Bangalore, genetic designs in Lesotho, and 3D-printer-design consumer goods in Mexico City. Knowledge workers around the world tend to gather informally in their home cities, sharing ideas, sometimes resulting in the appearance in regional “schools” of thought or design.

The high-bandwidth communication networks available to most countries also make it possible for individuals to live hundreds or thousands of miles away from where they work. This practice is highly profitable for companies that use it, but a mixed blessing for employees. Corporations often use remote workers in order to take advantage of lower labor costs. Since the only local technology needed for the workers is a web connection and augmentedreality interface, companies are able to very quickly shift their labor from one region to another when a cheaper location becomes available. In many Third Wave countries, local corporations are little more than labor brokers, seeking out companies looking for remote workers to match with local laborers looking for distant employers.

“There aren’t ‘haves’and ‘have-nots’– there are only ‘users’ and ‘used.’” – Bradley Wright, 2032, Download This Much of the world of 2155 is defined by the technologies available to everyday people. Outside of the hyperdeveloped world, however, many of the technologies commonplace in Fifth Wave societies are rare and expensive, available only to the rich and well-connected. Corporations from the Fifth Wave world place elaborate restrictions on the use, distribution, and reproduction of content. This does not mean that high technology isn’t available to the masses in the developing world, but much that is available is woefully out of date, underpowered, or even considered dangerous in Fifth Wave society.

In 2155, nearly all information, entertainment, and designs – collectively referred to as “content” – are owned by corporations and licensed for consumer use. Duplication, distribution, or use of content without the authorization of the license-holder is considered piracy, and violates international law. Global regulations adopted early in the century bar the use or creation of systems that can be used to avoid content-rights-management protections. Content rights (which encompass copyright, trademark, and so-called “experience” rights) are valid for the life of the rights-holder; with corporations effectively immortal, and humans increasingly long-lived, this for all practical purposes gives rights in perpetuity.

The World Trade Organization is the primary body overseeing content rights around the world. Anything that can be created or designed, from consumer products to genomes, can be registered with the WTO for contentrights protection. Once registered, it becomes part of a database available to law-enforcement agencies around the world. Any design, such as a DNA sample, a cybershell, or a song, can be checked against the database, which will then identify whether it is a protected design and who the rights holder is.

Where possible, protected designs include a content-rights-management (CRM) system. CRM systems attempt to prevent unauthorized duplication, distribution, or use by imposing code-level restrictions and encryption. Some CRM systems are very hard to crack, particularly those that use regular quantum-encrypted communications between the content and its rights-holder. Other systems, such as genetic-rights-management (GRM) codes that prevent unauthorized reproduction of a genemod, are much easier to break. In every case, hacking a CRM system is a crime.

Of all of the technologies common to the Fifth Wave world, minifacs are the most popular in developing societies. Wildly expensive now, they are expected to drop in price eventually, although the great demand for them is likely to keep prices high for the foreseeable future. Communities often pool money to buy a single unit. Raw materials can be hard to come by, but quite a few local suppliers have sprung up in countries that otherwise don’t make minifacs. The widespread introduction of these 3D printers often has unforeseen results, however. Models currently on the market in the advanced states are quite powerful, able to produce consumer items of a quality equal to or better than locally made goods. Retailers and manufacturers that specialize in mass-produced items see their business drop as minifacs start to become available. For most citizens in the (stable) developing world, the major expense with minifacs is not the device itself – still too expensive for any individual to own – but the licensing of designs for use with it.

The 3D printer’s larger version, the modular robofac, is also becoming more widespread in the developing world, albeit much more slowly due to the cost. As robofacs replace older automated factories, governments are closely watching their effects. There is often great tension between unemployed citizens and manufacturers using robotic systems. If the government doesn’t have the cash to provide a Fourth-Wave-level social-welfare system, it may enact laws to mandate the number of employees in factories. Such laws are also used to extract greater revenues from transnational corporations doing business in developing areas. It’s not unusual to enter a largely automated facility to find employees playing interactive webgames.

The developing world is also home to technology pathways that have been largely abandoned in Fifth Wave countries. An example of this is the continued development of cybernetic implants. While the genes and proteins that shape human biology are well understood, their successful manipulation is still fairly difficult, requiring technological resources beyond the reach of many countries. Cybernetics, conversely, is a well-established industrial technology, dating back to the late 20th century. Half-century-old designs are well within the capabilities of mid-late Third Wave countries in 2100, and innovations, improvements, and new methods are shared between developers. Cybernetic implants have a number of advantages for lessdeveloped nations. They can be developed and constructed locally, avoiding dependence upon hyperdeveloped patrons; pieces can be mass-produced and customized later, reducing costs; and cybernetic implants can give advantages hard to accomplish with biotechnology, especially in non-upgraded adults for whom genetic surgery is difficult and expensive.

Cybernetic implants have numerous drawbacks. Implants are hard to hide; cybernetic extremities tend to make noise, and few of any kind have a totally natural look. Implants require regular maintenance and energy to operate. The implantation process, while generally simpler than genetic surgery, is hard on the body, and few individuals have a strong desire to have a functioning body part medically removed and replaced with a mechanical device.

Devices, software, even (non-sapient) AIs that have long been superseded in the Fifth Wave world often find continued use in the developing nations. They’re available at bargain prices from technology brokers, well-connected sales agents who constantly hunt for obsolete equipment being dumped in the developed world in order to sell it elsewhere. Equipment recently rendered obsolete is very hard to come by in this way, but systems that are 10 to 20 years old (or older) can be found readily. Prices for earlier versions of technology can range from 10% to 50% of the price of equivalent new systems, depending upon function and design. Obsolete equipment is usually sold as-is, without much in the way of support or upgrades, and in less-than-perfect working condition. Some technologists have found lucrative careers in supporting obsolete systems.

Law enforcement in the Third Wave world is both helped and hindered by connections to the hyperdeveloped countries. Local criminals may get access to technology allowing them to more readily commit or cover-up crimes; law-breakers from the Fourth/Fifth Wave world may be able to take advantage of lagging law-enforcement technology. Conversely, in many states the police are among the first to have access to high-end technology, giving them a distinct advantage over local criminals.

Theft and other property crimes remain a problem, although they are more difficult to accomplish than in decades past. There is an ever-spiraling arms race between those seeking to prevent property crimes – through the use of monitoring equipment and item transponders such as v-tags – and those seeking to carry them out. This has tended to reduce the number of casual thieves, and increase the resources required to effectively commit property crimes, contributing to the resurgence in organized crime.

As many predicted, the trend toward the legalization of drugs and other “vice” crimes over the course of the 21st century undercut the financial base of many global organized crime families. Traditional syndicates were hit hard by the reduction in resources and stepped-up law enforcement, and a wave of arrests in the 2050s and 2060s spelled the end of a number of well-established organized-crime families across Europe, America, and Asia. Those that survived shifted their focus away from smuggling narcotics toward smuggling people and cutting-edge bio- and nanotechnologies across borders.

Smaller, more flexible organized-criminal groups emerged in the latter part of the century, usually localized to a single region, or acting as a bridge between other loosely organized networks. More sophisticated than typical street gangs, but rarely tied to a centralized organization, these crime networks adopted many of the ad-hoc and flattened hierarchy techniques used by modern business and guerrilla groups. The lack of a strong central organization means that these crime networks are difficult to fight using traditional enforcement methods. Conversely, the flexible and somewhat anarchic nature of these networks keeps them from getting very large, preventing them from exercising global influence on the scale of the classic 20th-century mafias. These networks tend to focus on smaller crimes, such as vehicle theft and burglary, and vary widely in the amount of violence used to carry out their activities.

The availability of sophisticated medical gear able to resuscitate people injured by extreme bodily trauma (as well as make ghosts and shadows if the bodies are too far gone) has changed the nature of violence in the parts of the world where the technologies are available. Guns and knives are much less reliable methods of killing than in years past. In some crime-ridden locations, even drive-by shootings have all but disappeared, except as intimidation tactics designed to frighten rather than slaughter. Unfortunately, the use of explosives has largely replaced shooting as a common means of committing premeditated murder. Bombs more reliably inflict enough trauma on a body and brain to prevent either resuscitation or replication, although targeting a particular victim can be difficult. Murder-suicide by explosive is an increasingly frequent headline in many parts of the world. Businesses and public buildings have installed sophisticated biochemical sniffers to attempt to detect explosives; some of these are designed to immobilize the person presumed to be carrying the bomb, using either tanglerfoam or a low-power electrolaser. Detectors able to pick up dangerous quantities of modern molecular explosives have a false-positive rate of around 1/100 of 1% – that is, about 1 in 10,000 people passing through will set off the detector, even if not actually carrying an explosive – limiting the use of the automated systems.

The practice of taking control of a mobile bioshell or cybershell, strapping on (or implanting) explosives, and teleoperating the body to send it to a target is known as bombjacking. This requires the appropriate interface equipment to take over the target system, which then watches helplessly as its body is used to deliver a bomb. Because of the technology required, this is mostly used by well-organized and well-supported terrorist and criminal groups.

Kidnapping is generally much less common in 2155 than a century earlier, due largely to the expanded use of tracking technology. Much of the modern world’s personal technology is intended to interact with other nearby systems, using short-range broadcasts and location-tracking signals. Augmented-reality gear is particularly useful in this regard, as it depends entirely on sending and receiving data about the environment surrounding the wearer; a standard AR signal, if not jammed, can typically be detected at a range of 1 mile. For children, who typically do not have implanted AR or communications gear, specialized implanted v-tags (known generally as p-tags when in people) are used to monitor their whereabouts.

An individual is most likely to be kidnapped in locations without a robust communications or data network, usually in the developing world or remote parts of developed countries. Kidnapping foreigners for ransom is a traditional method of fundraising for guerrilla movements around the world, although the more ideologically aggressive groups grab people from great-power nations in order to get attention. In either case, the relatives or co-workers of the abductee are typically contacted in a matter of minutes to communicate the demands. The transfer of funds to an anonymous account in a financial haven (such as Switzerland or Jamaica) or the broadcast of a political statement on a major website has to happen quickly, as the kidnappers have little time. Once the authorities are aware that someone has been kidnapped, multiple tracking cybershells (usually capable of long flights) are dispatched to search out the victim’s AR, communications, or p-tag signal; at that point, it becomes a race between the tracking abilities of the police and the mobility and stealth of the kidnappers. A kidnap victim is usually either released or killed within hours of his abduction.

A specialized type of kidnappers, xoxnappers usually don’t make demands of third parties. Their goal is to grab the victim and make as detailed a brainscan as possible, usually for sale on the black market or for espionage. Most xoxnapping victims end up dead, as creating a ghost – which requires destructive brainpeeling - is faster than creating a shadow and results in a more accurate copy. Still, xoxnapping in order to make a shadow is not unheard of, particularly for intelligence purposes; the greatest stumbling block is the week or more required for the deep brainscan process. In the early 2100’s, there was a fad for celebrities to register a brainscan with the WTO for content-rights protection, adding a piracy charge to any xoxnapping accusation.

From the perspective of the developed world, the number one law-enforcement problem in the Third Wave world is that of intellectual-property piracy. Nearly every physical object in 2155 has an information-content component, whether in its engineering, material, or intended use. Biomedicine and agriculture are now largely based on proprietary designs, 3D printers and minifacs use content-rights-managed instructions to create objects, and entertainment and augmented-reality information is all based on digital material owned by a person or corporation. Normally, fees for the use of proprietary content are automatically deducted from a user’s bank account. In the developing world, this may be difficult or impossible if funds aren’t accessible – or the prices, appropriate for a Fifth Wave consumer, aren’t affordable for Third Wave customers.

Piracy is pandemic in many Third Wave and early Fourth Wave nations. Software applications allowing the user to crack CRM protections are easy to find, although crack programs just a few months old are useless as copyright holders continually improve their CRM code. The Transpacific Socialist Alliance, which does not recognize the validity of global intellectual-property controls, is a primary source for CRM-cracking programs and cracked copies of popular content.

The actual practice of law enforcement has changed little over the last century. In-person patrols are still more effective than remote monitoring as a means of reducing random crime, the investigation process still relies on police-officer instinct and contacts, and in most places, law-enforcement personnel still have to be conscious of the civil rights of those they stop and arrest. Police augmented-reality systems and infomorph assistance, where available, allow individual officers to have ready access to population databases, behavior monitors, and other useful information. Even in areas with monitoring systems (typically cameras and p-tags), beat patrols are still a useful part of crime deterrence.

What has changed considerably, however, is the practice of forensics, the technical investigation of a crime scene. DNA databases and extremely sensitive geneticmaterial analysis make it extremely difficult for the perpetrator of a crime to avoid identification. Cameras, especially the ones built into personal augmented-reality systems, are commonplace even in the more libertarian societies, and warrants to allow the police to access recorded data are easily obtained. Whether to permit law-enforcement officers to directly retrieve this data rather than to request the cooperation of the camera wearer is a recurring issue of public debate in many countries.

Depending upon the resources available, convicted criminals can face a variety of sentences. In many nations, monitor systems and extensive therapy are the punishments of choice; execution has largely fallen from favor, and prison is often simply training for greater crimes. States without access to nanotherapeutic tools will frequently choose memetic rehabilitation as a next-best option. Combining intense psychological reconditioning with the careful application of neurotropic drugs, memetic rehabilitation is fairly successful at preventing future criminal activity, although it sometimes results in substantial personality changes. Memetic rehabilitation is the preferred punishment for data piracy in many regions.