The Silent Legion - plus a sprinkle of philsophy et. al.

[Anonymous]

OK. So the backstory is being moved to the right forum spot. <= (in case the first couple of comments make no sense )

 

So when I decided to really commit to Dual after lurking many a month (since commit = goodbye life), I got to thinking about the notion of organisations in the human context, and what that might look like in 500 years.

 

"But the game is set in 10,000 years" you might say.

 

And I'd respond by pointing out that the game is set after all players have slept 10,000 years. Which means the baseline social reference frame is really circa 22^nd century to 26^th century Earth.

 

"Why 4 centuries. The backstory says 2537 (CE)."

 

No - the backstory says the U.N committed to the Rebirth Program in 2027. We know the Program called for thousands of ships. And that each one holds millions of people.

 

The sheer logistics and the 500 year lead time would almost necessitate an plan for an orderly and staggered migration plan - that is - Arks will launch as each one is built. It is unlikely they would be built all simultaneously - almost certainly they would be built in orbit due to the fuel required to escape the gravity well (we know they are massive enough to withstand a controlled collision and solid embedding into planetary crust - think about that a second...) if they were built planet side. So  I assume the short story talks of Arks as smaller loading/ferry ships. Aetherios' posts make a nice plausible idea there - the Arks are made up of smaller sections which could be these ferry ships.

 

So, beyond that - being conservative, let's assume it takes no more that 100 years to design and build and test the first ships, including the working (and tested!) technology for associated systems - namely, working cryogenics and fully realised AI - not some pre-canned chat bot - both of these very key (and currently non-existent) technologies are critical to Dual's backstory just to get us to the new worlds.

 

Based on that, I am working from a premise that the first ships started leaving no earlier than around say 2125.

 

"Yeah, well that's all good and all but so what?"

 

Well, the so what is that we are already, via the backstory/game site and (canon) short story, making assumptions about the nature of human society in the 26^th century. Such as assuming the idea of a corporation, or indeed, a nation state, (and by inference the U.N) still exists, although I further note that all things change in form over time. And I thought to myself, "well, if those things still exist, other social constructs born of those things would probably still exist."

 

One such construct that really interests me is the notion of the Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO). While many are familiar with the notion of a DAO through the classic Al 'Qaeda terrorist model, or more recently in the media, the D.A.O blockchain project that raised $50 million in a kickstarter -  neither the pursuit of being a griefer pretending that being an asshat to people is "roleplaying a terrorist" nor pursuing an E.V.E style commercial empire is really of interest to me in Dual - not like the politics / government side of things does.

 

So if only there was a DAO I could use as a model which had a political and/or government angle. And is interested in the common good, a key element of roleplaying online in a community. Maybe one that wanted to actively prevent a re-occurance of humanities usual ailments: "The first guerillas were born, the first battles. The first madmen greedy for power and resources established their little empires, enslaved villages, attacked isolated communities with their ships to raid them for raw materials, energy and constructs. A resistance is organized, but it is weak." 

 

Luckily I found one in Anonymous.

 

In short - the Silent Legion is so far a thought experiment in how a group like Anonymous might evolve into a DU law enforcement / vigilante justice group.

 

More soon!

[Vyz Ejstu]

"It's a very interesting story you wrote. I hope to see more of it. But as a little piece of advice, if you don't mind: lore and fiction belongs to the Library of Mankind History. 

I want to read more of your stories, but it will be a shame if the experience is marred by people complaining about it being in the wrong place at the right time. Please keep it up.

"

[Anonymous]

Ah. Right you are and will do!

 

I'm actually rethinking it all (the org) heavily anyway as it is proving difficult to tie in 500 years of pre-history, and now I have all that lore to catch up on! So it will get polished and rewritten - it was just a quick piece anyway

 

Watch this space

 

Cheers