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Kassiopeia
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Jyväskylä, Finland
Jul 2001
time: 07:23
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The Future of a Society
Principals
The human animal has always had a need to organize itself, to create a society. A unit of many people, deriving strength from each other, complementing and supporting each other. Society is the basis of all civilization, along with education and agriculture.
But not until the 19th Century was the human as a social animal regarded as an object of research. The advent of sociology brought forth such people like Karl Marx, who studied human behaviour in a society and analyzed it, trying to piece together a better system, something which would endure the 'test of time'.
The most important aspects of a social system are support from it's subjects, the citizenry, and it's ability to adapt to any new situation or crisis that may arise. If war breaks out, mobilization of industrial efforts is fluid and swift; if famine strikes, more effort can be directed to producing food.
It's the tradition of this research in sociology, and the tradition of other humanistic sciences, that are being carried on by our Directorate of Social Engineering here on the new world Chiron. No more are people divided by lines drawn on maps ages ago, or what colour their skin might be - instead, those with similar thoughts and ideas huddle together to create their own utopia.
This is the challenge that the Directors of Social Engineering face - to produce the perfect society. It is a task that shall require massive efforts from countless people, but the end result is uncomparable to any other human achievement - for those achievements spring off the foundation that is called the society.
It's a Kind of Magic
In our first term I worked as our Director of Social Engineering. Foreseeing the immense task of building a utopia for our descendants, I decided not to reach to far on my own and instead kept on constructing a basis from which to start on, for the next Directors to use as a guideline and for help. Our technological level was yet somewhat meager, and the ideas of such concepts as Democracy, Free Market economics, or Knowledge values, had not yet been refined to a doctrine which to peruse in Social Engineering.
So, instead of making the world better, I and my staff just made it easier for the next people to make it better.
It was fascinating, though, to watch as the computer networks and protocols were quietly set up in our office, in the higher levels of the Headquarters building at New Apolyton. After we managed to uplink our consoles to the mainframe and the datalinks, we started writing programmes effectively from scratch. The splintering of the Unity mission was something no one, I myself included, expected, yet this affected our plans greatly.
The perfect example of our wrk is the Social Engineering Controlling and Executing Program, SECEP. SECEP is directly linked via commlinks to all the other bases, and in every base there is a specific SECEP node connected to the central unit at Headquarters. The SECEP works as a communications and information network between the D of SE and his subordinates in other bases, and serves the Director with a direct connection to the energy banks and network nodes. Via these, in the future as our tech level allows, the Director can swiftly and just by moving energy credits around here and there alter the Society's current status, helping it to amend to the new parametres and bringing effect the new regulations.
What the Future Holds
Then what challenges shall the future Directors of Social Engineering (and, if the people so wish, possibly me among them) face when striving for our ultimate goal?
Other factions pose an interesting factor. Our selections, settings and ideologues are bound to clash with others. Namely the Believers, the Hive and the Spartans, who adore blind fundamentalism, direct civil control and oppression, and the toils of war over values like democracy, free will and scientific knowledge. Will the Director follow suit with these idealogues to maintain peace, or will he stick up with them and, in a way, manifest the ideals - war, hatred - he so much detests?
Also comes the question of morale. Already, a subsection of populace is slowly growing in numbers - the Drones. The next Directors will likely have to resort to increasing education funds and the support and number of recreational facilities to keep the number of Drones in check. This will bring an extra player to the ever-interesting field of factional economics, which so far have been only producing bulk materials like Colony Pods and churning out energy to run the research laboratories.
And what about our own utopia? As technological progress picks up pace, we will face new social chances and possibilities the previous generation had never even dreamt of. Choices of complete happiness, or maybe complete ignorance (then again, what's the difference?). With the co-ordinated efforts of the Directorates of Research and Social Engineering, these new ideas can be discovered and refined, and maybe in the end, what waits us is, indeed, the perfect world we strive to create.
Last edited by Kassiopeia on 14-10-2002 at 00:36
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14-10-2002 00:17
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