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Simple, Economics.
People will go where there are jobs and money, right? And in many 3rd tier economies the standard of living is, at best, marginal. And remember that the first bit of unreal estate (the Island) was originally built somewhere in africa. So I can see any number of non "WASP" types dreaming of getting into space where they'd be free from local oppression and have a chance at a much better lifestyle than they have at home.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children
I agree to Rakhasa, wrecking Europe by killing the EU or the Euro doesn't fit the basic mood of Fenspace.
I think we already have some hints that Europe took a position somewhere between the "Wavium only for military" of the US and the "Lets embrace our new friends" of Australia. I think Warringer mentions a German spaceport during Season 1 and my ESA/JAXA story suggests at least a good contact with Fenspace in Season 2.
I wonder which stance the European states will take about AIs... deciding that AIs are people might be a definite turning point for any country on Earth, but it also gives Earth the helpers to untangle the economic knots that made the whole financial crash so severe.
If even one party (maybe a new one, like the Pirates?) manage to get a few interested AIs on checking whats going on in the financial market, things might get very "interesting" for a lot of Bankers... 
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Quote:robkelk wrote:
Who's going to move "up"? (Most folks like living where they are; it takes a certain amount of wanderlust or desperation to move permanently.) As of 2012, Fenspace is primarily middle-class Western (and, one is tempted to add, white - which is why I specifically made Serenity I non-white). Will that continue to be the case? Why or why not?
"Most" is not all. Fenspace was able to get to 1,5 million when the pioneers were living in magic tin cans in the middle of nowere. Now, the current inmigrants will find hotels, condominium homes, public transport, hospitals, entertainment, industry, shopping malls ful of goods -all the trappings of civilization, plus the extra exotism of the Moon or Mars. That is even if we ignore the opportunities opened for people in the developing world.
While only a very few people (the original fen) are enthusiatic enough to move to an empty planet, a lot more will be willing to move to an exotic (but still english-speaking) city.
Also, Fenspace is much too small to even allow a tiny fraction of Earths humans to live... how many people are living outside Earth in 2020? A few million? A dozen million? Most likely Earths population increased quicker than people could get off Earth.
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Quote:[b]HRogge wrote:[/b]
I wonder which stance the European states will take about AIs... deciding that AIs are people might be a definite turning point for any country on Earth, but it also gives Earth the helpers to untangle the economic knots that made the whole financial crash so severe.
The matter has not turned up yet, but, for the record, I will set the Spanish position, unless someone complains: they have the same rights as any other human.
As a longer explanation: Genesis C&D refuses to trade with any nation that does not grant rights to AI or biomods. As the owner is spanish, and he wanted to hire thousands of unemployed construction workers after the spanish construction bubble exploded, this position mattered to spanish politicians.
While Oscar was not gathering blackmail materials (because that is wrong and illegal, and no one will be able to prove otherwise) on several relaevant politicians, the optimistic nature of the setting came through, is was time for the elections, someone decided to use the "full rights" as a stance to get extra votes, and the rest of the main parties went with it to avoid losing their own votes; Oscar was happy and stopped his attempts to get blackmail (honest).
The first law that passed the wining party was a equal rights, and full nationality for Bernie (the eldest of Vykos' AI children, and the only one to awaken in Spain). There may have been conservative parties against it, but the experts in Public Relations of the Hellfire Club released to the press touristic brochures to Marduk than stubbly emphasized the churches and cathedrals under construction, so the moderate conservatives did not grumble too much -a new market to trade with, less unemployed workers, and it seems not all of then are those godless leftists. Good enough to pretend neutrality, even if you think otherwise. (the brochures may have not mentioned minor matters like Oscar himself not being able to remember the last time he actually went to a Mass...)
From Warrigner's stories we know that Germany has no (legal) problems for biomods, as his company is actually a German one, not a Fenspace company with german owners. Europe is a liberal continent, as a rule. While inmediate equality is not likely, legau discrimination of AIs and biomods after it is known they are people would be quite out of character. Even the more radical anti-immigrant politicians in Europe do not suggest to pass discrimination laws to make, say, Argelians second class citizens (they "only" want then gone, the gits)
I always pretend that AIs are better working with LOTS of numbers than humans... so how long after Spain gets its first AI citizens it will take until one of them notice that they are heading towards a MAJOR problem.
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Soonish? But it will not be Bertie, anyway, because while he was "born" in Spain, and has the nationaly, this was mostly a publicity stunt: He left Spain years before he even had his own body (he was an awakened laptop), lives in Marduk, and he is an architect anyway, not an economist -he may not even care all that much about economics, in fact.
I don't know if there are actually any other AI's in Spain... but on second thought, by European Union "no border" laws, all european citizens can settle and work in Spain at will. Also, by spanish law AI have the same rights ad humans. So if, hipotetically, an AI awakens in France, and it has no rights there, could it move to Spain with the same rights as a native human frenchman? (on one hand, a single AI loose in Spain, doing god knows what. On the other hand, humilliating the french/british/italian/(insert european nation here) by how much more moderna dn openminded our politicians are... wellcome home, son, welcome home)
Since out goal is a nice and non-dystopian future, we may even lessen the current worldwide crisis with the help of a few naturalized AIs (lessen, not eliminate, because the Greek disaster has been building up fo fifty years, and the Spanish construction bubble at least 15-20). An Awakened Central European Bank main computer... (all blame on this idea falls on Warringer's Perestroika AI, just for the record)
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Rak, now you're giving me Undeground Railroad flashbacks, with AI's trying to hack their way out of French and German cyber-sweatshops to make it to freedom in Spain or the Netherlands... subverting bank accounts to hire Jason-Statham-style couriers to ferry their hardware out... it could make for a few stories. 
--
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ECSNorway Wrote:Rak, now you're giving me Undeground Railroad flashbacks, with AI's trying to hack their way out of French and German cyber-sweatshops to make it to freedom in Spain or the Netherlands... subverting bank accounts to hire Jason-Statham-style couriers to ferry their hardware out... it could make for a few stories.
Not sure how Germany would handle the AI thing... I would say they always have been a lot about 'rights of people'.
Still, we might need a decision from the meta point of view what to do with Europe... in 2017-2018, they were okay to have a deal with the Fen to make sure their new space station would be safe at Saturn... and they had at least a few people in orbit during Serenity Con time, that organized their copy of the Catalog.
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Germany's more likely than France, IMO, to recognize them, given their current stand on biomods etc as we've defined it... maybe it's just the French that stall on recognition and we have a couple of minor stories before somebody has a little chat with them... I could see Buckaroo Banzai 'sitting down' with the French president, say, and explaining to him just how wrong he is about his 'property rights' stance....
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The European Union, while a dinosaur in political and economic matters, is very liberal in social matters. A few troubles at the beginning are likely, but it should get rid of any discrimination soon. And it is important to remember that the EU is a multitude of nations, which have a long history together -"history" meaning "we have spent the last two millennia invading each other"- The rivalry nowadays is more "Sibling rivalry" that "homicidal hate", but that only means that you are louder in the minor fights and stand together in the important ones. "It will show up France" (Germany, Britain, Spain, etc.) is considered a reasonable part of a policy.
AI are few (at lest in the minds of the policymakers), they aren't a real problem like the masses of poor waiting on the other side of the Gibraltar straits dreaming for a better life, which cannot be ignored; the conservatives should not have the same knee jerk reaction ("keep they away") as they have with immigrants; that is one less hurdle. When the spanish parlament passed the law, it though it was doing a publicity stunt: The AI was only one, and living safely away in the Moon. By the time the newly franchised AI came out of the electronic closet, it was too late, so it is time to get their votes instead.
AI discrimination would start to collapse once the first nation accepted then. Every nation has at lest one important left wing party, and lfet wing press. They would position thenselves for equal rights. It would collapse even faster in the Undergroun Railway scenario -it's doubful it would take even more thna once case for the humillation to change laws. Lets imagine a french AI runs to Spain, and earns asylum. Asylum as a full french citicen being denied its rights. It will not end there: The news will leak, even if the government tries to keep it quiet (some politician would leak it for their purpsoes, and if they didn't the Hellfire Club would, for their purposes). Spanish leftist newspapers like El Pais would praise the stand for freedom. The rest of the europena lefttist papers would follow this stannce. Right wing papers like ABC may not care about al that pinko suff, but they are very nationalistic: They would praise showing up France at minimun.
Quote:Unless the Catholic church is against AI. There has been no suggestion, so far, that they are, and they do accept the Church of Fenspace as a full denomination, so it is unlikely.
While there will be fringe groups in every faith (both for and against), we should think on how the mayor faiths stand in the AI and biomod problem.
Meanwhile, in France, there is a shitstorm. They have not only been humilliated in Europe (french "people" asking asylum... in Spain of all places, merde!) , the Parti Socialiste and its press are on a rampage (if they are in charge, they have a problem; their voters are on a rampage) . Le Pen and their like may be crowing about the evil AI, but the average frenchman, in normal times, is unconfortable when facing political extremist. Equalitè, libertè, fraternitè. Yes, it is a bit tarnished for the modern cynism, but it still matters in France. The discriminatory AI laws would have survived because, to be blunt, no one who mattered cared, but that only workes in obscurity. Now in the open, the government would need to get a solution that (not to put too fine a point about it) does not drive liberal (and any conservative who cares abour freedom for all) votes into the hands of the first party who promises equality.
Edit: Mmmmm... methinks we may have a plot
It's worth noting that France, the most hostile european nation to the 'wave, will eventually have no problem in turning a Girl of the Black Lagoon into a celebrity supermodel.
If I understand it, March 2010 was Kandor Con, where the Articles of Convention were established. Any 'Dane government that wanted to do business with Fenspace needed to sign these. In signing these they agreed to AIs being treated as legal persons, and gaining full (what had previously been just human) rights. After Kandor Con various details such as Turing Tests, and maturity tests, for AIs to prove that they were competent adults, were hashed-out.
So, on that basis, if a country is directly trading with Fenspace, doesn't that mean they have signed the Articles, and therefore AIs have legal rights in that country?
I asked about this in another thread, as it is relevant to Arthur doing trade from Dublin, in Eire, and getting AIs in his employ treated as persons, so they have a legal existence and bank accounts. And, so they can do that thing so beloved of almost all governments, pay taxes. [grin]
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
Ace Dreamer Wrote:If I understand it, March 2010 was Kandor Con, where the Articles of Convention were established. Any 'Dane government that wanted to do business with Fenspace needed to sign these. In signing these they agreed to AIs being treated as legal persons, and gaining full (what had previously been just human) rights. After Kandor Con various details such as Turing Tests, and maturity tests, for AIs to prove that they were competent adults, were hashed-out.
I don't think the Kandor treaty contains anything about how Earth will handle AIs... maybe you are mixing it up with the articles of the Fenspace convention... these articles are only binding to Fen (and Fen factions) who are members of the convention.
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Quote:If I understand it, March 2010 was Kandor Con, where the Articles of Convention were established. Any 'Dane government that wanted to do business with Fenspace needed to sign these.
Not quite right. The Articles of Convention were drafted, signed and all that good stuff in 2009 at IslandCon. This was the Fen declaring "we're not just a bunch of crazy people, we're a nation with governments and everything." The Kandor Treaty was where the nations of Earth said "okay fine, you're a nation with governments and everything." AI rights were one of those things not directly in the treaty (AIs were still very uncommon as far as anybody knew in 2010, before the war and whatnot brought hundreds of 'em out of the woodwork, and even so most either had a very good cover or weren't interested in visiting Earth anyway) so the rights of AIs as Convention citizens was... murky. To say the least.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
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M Fnord Wrote:Quote:If I understand it, March 2010 was Kandor Con, where the Articles of Convention were established. Any 'Dane government that wanted to do business with Fenspace needed to sign these.
Not quite right. The Articles of Convention were drafted, signed and all that good stuff in 2009 at IslandCon. This was the Fen declaring "we're not just a bunch of crazy people, we're a nation with governments and everything." The Kandor Treaty was where the nations of Earth said "okay fine, you're a nation with governments and everything." AI rights were one of those things not directly in the treaty (AIs were still very uncommon as far as anybody knew in 2010, before the war and whatnot brought hundreds of 'em out of the woodwork, and even so most either had a very good cover or weren't interested in visiting Earth anyway) so the rights of AIs as Convention citizens was... murky. To say the least. Does Fenspace have any leverage to get 'Dane governments to recognise the rights of AIs, then?
As I understood it, sometime in 2010-11, Australia effectively has. The USA definitely hasn't. I was assuming that Eire had decided it gave them economic advantages, and had. Commonwealth countries were a bit ambiguous (apart from Australia).
Could we agree a table of when (if) various countries give AIs legal rights?
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
Ace Dreamer Wrote:Does Fenspace have any leverage to get 'Dane governments to recognise the rights of AIs, then? Not that much... some countries will do it because of internal discussions, some might do it because they trade a lot with the Fen.
Quote:As I understood it, sometime in 2010-11, Australia effectively has. The USA definitely hasn't.
Exactly.
Quote:I was assuming that Eire had decided it gave them economic advantages, and had. Commonwealth countries were a bit ambiguous (apart from Australia).
I would guess that Europe mostly has done it at the end of Season 1 (2014)... most likely France will be late because of their traumatic experience with the Professor, but I think they can be pragmatic too if they see an advantage.
The USA? Maybe in Season 2 (2014-2022)?
China? Unlikely...
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Here's the FenWiki page on Fen-Dane Relations. Some of what's been discussed here really should end up there...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
robkelk Wrote:Here's the FenWiki page on Fen-Dane Relations. Some of what's been discussed here really should end up there... OK, I've added 'The Commonwealth' as that tends to stir the political pot, and I've expanded the 'British Isles' section.
Now, in the process of researching that I've looked-up a few things:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOTOL
HOTOL died in 1988, and HOTOL 2 was never started. But, there was a follow-up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_%28spacecraft%29
with:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w...senger_Module_for_Skylon
by:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w...Reaction_Engines_Limited
You may have heard of them in the tech or aviation press, these are the ones with the helium pre-cooler on their engine.
http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/press_release.html
These people will use handwavium if it will make their engines work, though they will likely keep almost everything hard-tech. You will have to lock them up to keep them out of Space.
How might this fit into Fenspace?
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
I think I posted a link to SKYLON a year ago... if they are willing to use Handwavium on the engine itself, they will quickly get something that can compete with the typical Fen engine.
If they want to keep the engine hardtech it will take longer, because they have to figure out what parts they can keep hardtech and what parts they have to wave. Maybe 2014-2016, as a part of the supply chain to Nouveau Paris?
HRogge Wrote:I think I posted a link to SKYLON a year ago... if they are willing to use Handwavium on the engine itself, they will quickly get something that can compete with the typical Fen engine.
If they want to keep the engine hardtech it will take longer, because they have to figure out what parts they can keep hardtech and what parts they have to wave. Maybe 2014-2016, as a part of the supply chain to Nouveau Paris? If they wanted to go with a waved airframe and a couple of waved-up test engines, I think they could have a demonstrator flying sometime in 2009, if not earlier. British space fandom would queue-up to help them.
I could see the British government unofficially asking Brains to help them, late Summer 2008. If they were happy with him waving-up an airframe from plywood and mylar, with glued-on ceramic heat tiles, I doubt it would take him more than a month. Meanwhile, they could be ordering the real hard-tech airframe from aircraft manufacturers, and handwaving-up the missing tech in their helium-pre-cooler. Then reverse-engineering that. Fuel, load, start proof-of-concept flights. I think you could pry-loose money from the UK government and the EU by taking a few official parties into orbit...
(I think the design says up to thirty astronauts.)
Pretty sure you could sell them on 4.6hr flights from Brussels to Sidney, Australia, too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_Engines_A2
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"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
Ace Dreamer Wrote:If they wanted to go with a waved airframe and a couple of waved-up test engines, I think they could have a demonstrator flying sometime in 2009, if not earlier. British space fandom would queue-up to help them. If they want something waved, there is no reason to build something as complicated as SKYLON. You can just wave a 40 tons truck.
Quote:I could see the British government unofficially asking Brains to help them, late Summer 2008. If they were happy with him waving-up an airframe from plywood and mylar, with glued-on ceramic heat tiles, I doubt it would take him more than a month.
I think we have established that the Earth nations do NOT embrace waved spaceflight this early... otherwise there wont be much space left for Fenspace.
Quote:Meanwhile, they could be ordering the real hard-tech airframe from aircraft manufacturers, and handwaving-up the missing tech in their helium-pre-cooler. Then reverse-engineering that.
I think you are making this "reverse engineer Handwavium stuff" much too easy.
Quote:Fuel, load, start proof-of-concept flights. I think you could pry-loose money from the UK government and the EU by taking a few official parties into orbit...(I think the design says up to thirty astronauts.) Pretty sure you could sell them on 4.6hr flights from Brussels to Sidney, Australia, too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_Engines_A2
Yes, but please lets move this closer to Season 2 than Season 0... I think there is a reason why the current consensus of the early history of Earth is that the large nations do not use Handwavium that quickly.
Ross Van Loan
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Wouldn't bringing in standard terrestrial governments be rather like inviting Cortez to the buffet? If anything I should think agencies and initiatives should exist to quietly and rigorously ensure that 'Wavium is never taken seriously by anyone other than Fen-Spacers. Given my limited knowledge of Fenspace, Section 9 would seem the logical body for such operations.
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Ross Van Loan Wrote:Wouldn't bringing in standard terrestrial governments be rather like inviting Cortez to the buffet? If anything I should think agencies and initiatives should exist to quietly and rigorously ensure that 'Wavium is never taken seriously by anyone other than Fen-Spacers. Given my limited knowledge of Fenspace, Section 9 would seem the logical body for such operations. If we want to go this route, the Lollipop Guild should also have a hand in the disinformation campaign.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
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The Hellfire Club, too. Their end goal is for everyone in earth to become fen, but that is for the (really) long range; till then, they would center their efforts in 'danes moving to fenspace and try to keep the muggles distracted.
A possible path may be to emphasize the "fen insanity" -mix cause and effect a bit: Convince everyone that you don't built the fen marvels because you are batshit crazy; you are batshit crazy because you built the fen marvels.
So convincing the governments that using the 'wave for "minor" things (cleaner energy, of enviroment restoration) is safe, but if you try to overachieve you will end up believing you are a Klingon and moving to Mars in a flyiing van.The sensibke (aka, boring) people would try to avoid that, while the ones than would probably end up as fen anyway will not care and continue exploring.
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Ace Dreamer Wrote:robkelk Wrote:Here's the FenWiki page on Fen-Dane Relations. Some of what's been discussed here really should end up there... OK, I've added 'The Commonwealth' as that tends to stir the political pot, and I've expanded the 'British Isles' section. And I just tidied up the page a bit... and added a map. (Graphics are good - it seems very few people enjoy looking at pages of text-only unless they're actually reading a book.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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