Canon Prodding

[sprocket]

Readers who have read Cyteen, and maybe Regenesis, some worldbuilding questions.

1.) How does final tape work? Canon says the general plan is that some fraction of azi will get final tape, become CIT, and generally do all the things CITs do. The only time we see this in canon is Ollie. (I was about to mention 40,000 in Gehenna, but the azi get tape for a new Contract, not final tape. That the Contract is pretty much "have some kids, good luck" doesn't get them out of second-class status.) So, does an azi apply for final tape? Is the offer made by a Supervisor? Are they ordered to take it? Is there a transition period?

2.) How does Cyteen's voting system work? Emancipated adults are in a Bureau; everyone votes for representatives within their Bureau; there are nine Bureaus. Why does State get to be a Bureau; and Science? Do you have the option to change Bureaus? And how do professions get assigned? For example, if you're a researcher in a Defense facility, are you Science, or are you Defense? If you're an office manager for an independent journalist, are you Citizens or Information? (It says early on that Citizens is "labor and farming and small business". Define "labor" and "small business" for me.) If you're retired military, working, as, say, civilian law enforcement, are you still Defense, or do you vote in a new bloc? If you're a merchanter, do you get to vote in Trade elections? (And in that case, can you have dual citizenship / voting rights in the Merchanter's Alliance?)

3.) Anyone who wants to assess the Expansionist/Centrist positions in Cyteen versus Regenesis, with attention to any retcons, go wild in comments.

Comments

[wendelah1]

I have read both of these books, Cyteen maybe three times, and I can't answer any of your questions.

I'm not sure any of this was addressed in the kind of detail you want. I think you can just assign your characters to whichever voting block makes sense for your plot. There is probably a mechanism for people to switch from one to another if their status changes. The same office probably decides what block a new business is slotted into. Retired military is retired. They're in whatever group they moved into--the ex-military civilian law enforcement character is whatever that would be. Local government? Retired and not working would be a citizen.

I think if someone is working for defense at a high enough level, they're defense, scientists included. Their center of influence and interest would be defense, right? The janitors are probably low level azi and they don't vote.

The office manager would be a citizen unless she is writing or copy-editing or doing some journalistic function. If she wants to vote as information, and her boss is okay with that, there is probably a work around. Incorporate as an information company and make her part owner, based on whatever salary she draws.

People who own a business that employs fewer than ___ number of people are a small business. You can define it however you want. Five, ten, fifty? Whatever works for you. Labor are people who work for other people. They're on someone's payroll. They get a paycheck, they don't make the big decisions.

The merchanters alliance is more like a loose coalition of family-owned companies than a planetary government isn't it? I doubt anyone gets dual citizenship. The Cyteen people would not want merchanters interfering in their business. Planet people and space people do not see eye to eye on much of anything from what I recall. They don't in her other two series, anyway.

[sprocket]

I think you're right; in the absence of canon I get to make up whatever I want, within reason. Most of canon takes place in Reseune, where most of the citizens are probably Science and everyone else is azi, but for places like Novgorod and Cyteen Station things are probably a little different.

I imagine there might be some wiggle-room about merchanter citizenship, at least on the books in Union law. But I imagine that Union citizenship comes with submission to Union laws, including search and seizure, which is almost certainly a sticking-point for merchanters. (Since ship independence was one of the major contributing causes of the Company Wars.) For the unusual ship that incorporates as a Union political unit and gains citizenship and voting rights, I would imagine voter turnout is pretty dismal, given the fairly insular trends ship-families seem to demonstrate in canon? Or it could go the other way; the ships that incorporate are the most zealous about Union ideals and civic participation. *shrugs* Depending on what makes the most sense for the plot; and this is background worldbuilding. I really just need a sense of overall mobility.

The merchanters alliance is more like a loose coalition of family-owned companies than a planetary government isn't it?

Hmmm. It starts out that way. Later on they get planets and the problems associated with planets, like a shift of population centers and power from space stations to gravity wells. (Which might get back to the Centrist/Expansionist rift. Huh!) That bit about Reseune's mail getting addressed to Cyteen Station always struck me as a telling bit of worldbuilding, in tension with Cyteen the planet as Union's major population center. At the end of Regenesis it looks like Defense is about to have a major shift of power from the navy to the groundpounders. Which I should have thought about before now, but that's not why I'm poking at the worldbuilding this week. This week, I really want to know how final tape works.

Building at an angle, the exercise of self determination isn't really one of Reseune's core values, is it? There are very managing parents (Olga, Jordan, Amy Carnath's mother), and very carefully managed azi programs, and very carefully managed psychogenesis projects, like Ari (and Rubin, sort of, except the Rubin project went off the rails). Reseune isn't a big believer in fate or predestination, not exactly, but it's a big believer in its ability to match geneset and tape, and/or the early developmental environment, to an intended purpose. So I'm guessing final tape is probably usually offered when an azi hits a point in their, um, life program, or when the master program needs to balance out the azi-CIT ratio. I bet there's scoring and quotas involved.

How this plays into motivation and perception and life goals - be a better person than your predecessor, be a happier person than your parents, have kids, do art, don't have kids, save the world, write a novel, write a civilization - I think that's the theme that I was circling around and hadn't quite articulated. Thanks for giving me an excuse to think out loud about that.

(Worldbuilding questions are the best. It tells me what I'm actually trying to write, rather than what I think I'm writing.)

[wendelah1]

Building at an angle, the exercise of self determination isn't really one of Reseune's core values, is it?

That would be an understatement.

Feel free to bounce ideas off me anytime. I loved Cyteen. It would give me an excuse to wade into it again. I don't remember Reseune that well, truth be told.

[sprocket]

Ah, maybe the understatement of the century? Reseune wants vision, but it wants vision channeled in very specific ways. And that's not the same as self-determination or free will.

Oh, if I have ideas to bounce, I will. Thank you!