Microstory 2472: Anadome

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Let’s talk about the Amish and the Mennonite communities. First, actually, let’s discuss what they’re not. They are not people who simply reject all forms of technology. After all, the plow is technology. It’s millennia old, but its novelty was never the concern. The only concern that these Anabaptists have is whether something supports their community, or harms it. Does it please God, or does it pull you away from Him? Vehicles, for instance, are not the issue. It’s whether that vehicle will be used to take a driver away from their family and community. If it’s being used to transport their wares to buyers, they’ve never had a problem with it, but that is why they held onto the horse and buggy for so long, because it would have been an impractical form of escape. Their way of life has changed over time, but their goals and principles have not. Work within the community, serve God. It’s a pretty simple concept. While religion has all but died out in the galaxy, the Anabaptists have persisted, and that’s because their beliefs inform their practices to a degree that other religions and sects could never have hoped to replicate. Sure, if you were Catholic, you went to service once or twice a week, and you performed your rituals. And maybe every night you prayed over your bed. That’s all well and good, but you didn’t live Catholicism. You just did things here and there, and while your convictions could inform your behavior in general, they couldn’t necessarily survive across the generations, because children come up with their own relationship to God. That was usually encouraged, but it was also the source of religion’s ultimate fading from the world, because people focused less and less on it, and it became less vital to how they lived their lives, and the choices that they made.

Anabaptists were always different, because God lives at the core of their ideals, and their daily patterns. In the past, the Anabaptists were able to maintain their practices by having a symbiotic relationship with society in general. They sold us their goods, and used our payment to support their communities. Centuries ago, however, currency disappeared from modern society, as we transitioned to a post-scarcity economy. A new relationship was developed to prevent the Anabaptists from going extinct. Instead of selling what they make to us, they barter it. In return, we give them whatever they require to survive, be it medicine, protection, transportation, etc. We don’t ask for a certain amount of goods in order for them to get a certain amount of return. It’s not simply symbolic—their customers benefit from the human touch and the craftsmanship, which is hard to find these days—but it’s not perfectly ratioed either. We take care of them regardless of the price. If one community gives us ten chairs one month, but can only make five chairs the next, we still give them whatever they need. That’s not us being generous. That’s how we operate internally anyway. We don’t ask a whole lot out of our citizens, so why would we ask anything out of these fine folk? Over a century ago, some of the Anabaptists decided that they wanted to found a new community on Castlebourne. They wanted to start from scratch. Till new lands. So Castlebourne made room for them. You can’t visit Anadome, and gawk at them. I’m here as an anthropologist, to educate you on what this community is all about. Click below for my full report.

Microstory 1627: For a Favor

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Most worlds progress in about the same way. Sure, there are plenty of notable differences, but they generally have a lot of things in common, and there are some things that just won’t happen, because they do not support that species’ survival, whether speaking evolutionarily, or socially. A species that can’t, or won’t, protect itself, won’t last very long, because nobody else is going to do it for them...most of the time. Guardian races do exist, and I’ll get to one or two of those in the future. The universe I’m talking about today didn’t have guardians, but the humans of one planet still managed to remain quite peaceful throughout their pre-singularity struggling period. That’s  probably not what you would notice if you went there during that time, though. You would probably first realize that the people of Whrweh never had any standard form of currency. They maintained a barter economy until they no longer needed to exchange goods and services with each other, when automation took over. They managed this by sticking to isolated pockets of civilization. They lived underground, and figured out how to build tallish structures pretty early on, which allowed them to remain confined in a smaller area, and leave more space between each region. They didn’t need to spread out too much, and they didn’t want to. They had recycling, and minimalistic principles, and they did not like waste. Surprisingly, this form of isolationism never led to war. In fact, though they did experience some violence, it was nowhere near what most civilizations had. They had no use for it, because everyone always had their own resources, and left others alone. Each pocket was pretty self-sufficient, and with little occasion to reach out to other pockets for help, there was also less of a chance of encountering conflict.

One thing they did to keep the peace was to have a sort of unwritten policy of sharing knowledge with each other. When a pocket made a breakthrough in science or technology, they wouldn’t be obligated to actually give the results to other pockets, but they would give them the tools they needed to develop it on their own. When someone invented the plow, they told everyone else about it, and pretty soon, everyone had a plow. Then, when someone else realized they could hook a plow up to a work animal, they told everyone about that too, and now they all had better plows, including the person who invented the first version. This had the added benefit of lessening their negative impact on their environment. By giving all new information to everyone, they were assured that someone would quickly discover downsides, and deeper solutions. They skipped right over using fossil fuels to power their vehicles, and other machines, because they soon learned that electricity was cleaner, and more efficient. This all just kept going until the whole planet was so advanced, there was no longer any need to stay separate. Technically, they were living in independent regions, but they were already one peoples, so coming together officially was a no-brainer. Once robots and artificial intelligence were created, everything fell into place. They shed their surface and underground dwellings, and flew off into the sky, to live in something called an orbital ring. It’s exactly what it sounds like, a giant ring that goes all around their planet, like you might find around Saturn or Neptune. Except this is artificial, solid and continuous, and capable of housing their entire population many times over. They did away with the bartering system for the most part, though elements of it are still there. You are allowed to have anything you want, as long as you contribute in your own way. Your peers are responsible for determining whether you contribute enough to be worthy of any given amenity, and for the most part, this works out with no terrible disputes. A second type of bartering was created in order to handle external interactions. Some humans left their home world, and went off to live elsewhere. Humanoid aliens also developed on their own worlds, and formed their own systems of government. When dealing with these people, the Whrwehs always ask for a favor, in exchange for whatever it is they’re asking for. This favor is never something they actually need, but they believe it’s only fair that the other side make some kind of effort, or even a sacrifice, in order to receive something in return. This was all great, and it protected them from Ochivari invasion, but it would not last. While time travel was not possible within the bounds of this universe, that rule does not extend to external forces, and one little mission changed everything about everything.