The Imperium.
Overview: Founded roughly 2,500 years before the present day, the Imperium is the largest polity that exists within inhabited space. Spanning tens of thousands of worlds, and encompassing countless lives, the Imperium is ruled by a bureaucracy of Nobles, individuals who possess the cognitive ‘patterns’ of the Imperium’s Founders. Chief among these Nobles is the Emperor, whose authority over the Imperium is unquestioned.
The Founders: Eight hundred and eighty-eight extraordinary individuals made names for themselves during the War of Conquest, a century-long campaign fought to establish the Imperium as the sole ruling power over all humanity. Their talents were varied, from strategists and warriors to politicians and scientists. Each of the Founders had their cognitive patterns recorded and stored within the brainband, to be passed along when they died. The inheritor of their pattern is known as a Noble, and when that Noble dies, the pattern is passed along once more, creating a ‘line’ that stretches back generations. Nobles inherit both what made their Founder great, and what made them flawed, often creating patterns and cycles which each Noble repeats, time after time.
The Pre-Imperial Era: Otherwise known as the Warlord Era, this period saw humanity controlled by various factional rulers collectively known as Warlords. They maintained control through violence, and typically exploited their subjects brutally in service of personal enrichment. The first Emperor sought to replace this corrupt status quo, and gathered an army, beginning the War of Conquest to unite humanity and eradicate the Warlords.
The Imperial Creed: As a society, the Imperium is dedicated to a singular cause- the permanent abolishment of death. Thanks to technology, the human mind can be stored independent of a biological substrate, but due to finite resources, not all minds can be given bodies at one time. Instead, humans are granted two hundred and fifty years of embodiment, after which their mind will be placed in storage, to be preserved for the time in which entropy is solved, and all minds can be embodied permanently. Under this creed, the permanent destruction of a human mind is the highest crime.
Imperial Law: True capital punishment is not permitted under any circumstances by Imperial Law. Instead, the highest crime is ‘early retirement,’ wherein an individual’s embodiment privileges are permanently revoked, and they are placed in storage immediately. Other important Imperial laws include the following: No mind may have more than one body at a time. No mind may have more than ten active instances of itself at one time. No cloned instance of a mind may persist independently for longer than one day.
The Citadel: Located on Akademos, one of three moons of the Imperial capital-world Prime, the Citadel is where young Nobles are educated and evaluated. Not all Nobles are automatically considered worthy to inherit their Founder’s role in the Imperium bureaucracy. In order to prepare them for that role, and test their personal character, the Citadel was founded. Nobles attend for two years, sorted into four units, which compete against one-another in a series of contests, the most notable of which are the War Games.
The Imperial Calendar: The measurement of date and time in the Imperium revolves around the formal founding of the Imperium itself, at the end of the War of Conquest, roughly 2,500 years ago. Time before the Founding is measured ‘backwards,’ i.e. the year prior to the founding is recorded as 1 B.F., the year before that is 2 B.F., and so on.
Imperium Technology.
The Brainband: Humanity’s greatest accomplishment. The brainband is an all-encompassing network of microscopic nanomachines that inhabit every human body, recording the present mental state and cognitive patterns of all living humans. If the life of a human is taken, their most recent ‘backup’ is uploaded into a new body, effectively resurrecting them. The brainband also allows pseudo-telepathic silent communication, transferring information via the network from mind to mind. Information can be downloaded via the brainband as well, allowing one to temporarily become an expert in a certain field or subject, although knowledge obtained this way tends not to be retained permanently the way it would be if learned the old-fashioned way. Because the brainband’s nanomachines cannot cover the entirety of space, information transfer from between planets is handled by a series of relay satellites. The brainband also ‘archives’ all of its information on a series of dedicated, planetoid-sized server farms, the locations of which are a closely-guarded secret.
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Resurrection: When a mind requires a new body, it goes through the process of resurrection, which involves a body being grown from raw biomass, artificially aged to the required level, and modified in various ways. A certain basic level of genetic engineering is applied to every human body, from basic quality-of-life changes like a small gland in the mouth that produces teeth-cleaning bacteria, to a unique genome sequence that removes the possibility of developing debilitating or life-threatening illnesses. Individuals are given relative freedom in designing their body, although social convention discourages significant visual modification, with an appearance that largely resembles a ‘basic model’ human considered the norm within most of ‘polite society’ in the Imperium.
Reproduction: The basic family unit within the Imperium involves somewhere between five and fifteen individuals in a polyamorous relationship. Due to this, and to the inefficiencies of human reproduction, ordinary pregnancies are a thing of the past. Instead, humans reproduce via combining their individual cognitive patterns into a gestalt, which forms its own individual personality and consciousness, developing to a certain age without a body, eventually naming itself and creating its own first body once it’s old enough. Basic education and socialization takes place entirely within the brainband, largely administered by limited AI programs, although the child’s parents are allowed some input, and the ability to ‘visit’ their child within the brainband at any time.
Copyclans: The human mind, reduced to the form of data by the brainband, can be copied. Due to Imperial law, the human mind can’t be embodied more than once at a time, but non-embodied minds are permitted, so long as individual instances don’t persist past a single day. These instances are known as a ‘copyclan.’ The benefits of such a system are obvious- dividing one’s own work among ten additional instances of the self is merely the start.
Teleportal Network: Imperium technology allows for the generation of small Einstein-Rosen Gates, or ‘teleportals,’ which provides the possibility of near-instantaneous transit from one point to another. These teleportals are only stable at small sizes, meaning they’re mainly useful for transporting individuals and small quantities of goods. Long-term space travel is still required for bulk transit, among other things.
Mindkiller: The only way to permanently kill someone whose mind is backed up by the brainband is to erase or irreparably damage their personality, such that resurrecting them would be pointless. The most reliable and common method of accomplishing this is Mindkiller, an incredibly potent drug that can induce permanent ego-death in a subject within less than a minute of contact. It’s highly illegal, possessing Mindkiller is the second-highest crime in the entire Imperium, second only to actually using it, and grounds for immediate early retirement.
The Meritocracy.
Overview: A breakaway state from the Imperium, formed several hundred years after the Founding by a Noble of the line of the Deceiver Admiral, whose name has been struck from Imperial history, referred to only as the Betrayer. A long and bloody campaign was fought to prevent the rogue systems from seceding, but was ultimately unsuccessful. Strictly speaking, the Imperium does not recognize the Meritocracy as a legitimate polity, and they remain in a state of war, but due to both sides controlling certain critical resources that the other lacks in abundance, they do engage in limited trade and diplomatic relations.
Governing Structure: Unlike the Imperium, the Meritocracy is built upon a pseudo-democratic foundation. Their core dispute with the Imperial system was the idea that Nobles are not inherently best-qualified to be leaders, despite inheriting the cognitive patterns of people who were, the Founders. Instead, leaders of the Meritocracy are chosen based on the will of the people, but from a selection of candidates who qualify for office by passing a set of challenging examinations and aptitude tests. Almost every civil service role, from military leaders to judges and politicians, and even members of the clergy, is determined by this system. Despite the instructions of the Meritocracy’s first leaders, a party-based electoral system has arisen that controls which candidates are allowed to actually run for office, which sometimes results in the most qualified individuals being unable to win against someone with more institutional backing and support.