The Confederation Handbook (4 page)

Only a direct order from the administrator can reverse or reduce
these sentences, and a habitat personality must accept the
administrator’s decision. This man-in-the-loop failsafe was
included right at the start of Edenism, when the nature of a habitat
personality was not fully understood, and Eden’s multiplicity
had not properly developed. It has never been removed, since Edenists
and habitat personalities alike acknowledge that humans must have
such a psychological safety valve. An administrator will typically
use this power of revocation twice every ten years, though it has
never been used to pardon a really serious crime.

The Edenist unit of currency
is officially the dollar, though it is now referred to entirely as
the fuseodollar. It is the strongest, most prevalent currency in the
Confederation, remaining stable since 2135, and as such has become
the standard against which every other currency is measured. With one
or more habitats in most of the Confederation’s 862 inhabited
systems (the principal exception being the Kulu Kingdom), and the
infallibility and incorruptibility of the habitat consciousness which
handles all fuseodollar transactions, Edenism has become through the
Jovian Bank the premier interstellar banking institution.

The Jovian Bank has branches
on a large proportion of planets and asteroid settlements throughout
the Confederation (including the Kulu Kingdom), and all major
multi-stellar organizations (such as the Confederation civil service)
use the Edenist dollar as their currency.

The foundation of Edenist
wealth comes from mining He3, the fuel used in fusion reactors
throughout the Confederation primarily because of its clean burning
qualities (low neutron emission) when combined with deuterium. Not
only is it used for commercial power generation on- and off-planet,
it is the principal drive system of all Adamist starships, both
interstellar and interplanetary. The cloudscoop mining operation of
gas giants, around which the habitats orbit, is considered to be
owned by all Edenists equally, and its finance is administered by the
habitat personality (see Finance, below).

The price of He3remains the
same throughout the Confederation, even in systems where there is no
cloudscoop operation, and that price has remained stable for 500
years. Although not a pure monopoly, the Edenist operation is so
large that anyone else running a cloudscoop operation is forced to
supply He3at the same rate.

When Eden and Pallas declared independence from the UN in 2090, they
also initiated a (hostile) buy-out of the JSKP multinational
consortium which had originally funded Jupiter’s atmospheric
mining. Because of the enormous cost involved in starting up the
operation, the debt was not paid off until 2135. After this the
Edenists were truly independent. Fusion remains the major power
source throughout the Confederation and, given the gas giant reserves
of He3, is likely to remain so. Research continues into direct
mass-to-energy conversion and other systems, but as yet none has
demonstrated any practical application. Following the one serious
attempt to break the Edenist energy monopoly, when Earth built
antimatter stations, Confederation politicians have retained a policy
of quiet moderation in this field.

The continuing demand for
He3, and their use of self-sufficient bitek habitats, means that as a
group Edenists have the highest socioeconomic index in the
Confederation. It is worth noting that even if He3fusion were
completely abandoned by the Confederation, their bitek habitats,
financial services, and industrial strength would mean that Edenists
could retain their standard of living with little disturbance.
Although Adamists complain bitterly among themselves about the
He3monopoly (excepting the Kulu Kingdom and Tranquillity) they also
acknowledge that the Edenists, with their high ethical standards, are
an ideal group to supply the Confederation with this fuel. Political
blackmail is not an option ever considered by Edenists, even as
regards the most oppressive Adamist dictatorships. Edenists regard
the Confederation Assembly and its Navy as the only legitimate method
of censure.

The habitat personality acts
as bank and accountant for all financial transactions, corporate or
personal. There is no physical cash in the form of notes and coins,
and the fuseodollar is an entirely electronic currency, distributed
through Jovian Bank credit disks.

Although Edenism is certainly not a Communist ideology, revenue
raised from He3mining is administered by the habitat personality, and
made available on a communal basis; a research project or an artistic
endeavor considered worthwhile, for example, will be funded from this
central source. Capital for commercial enterprises is also advanced
by the Jovian Bank. Edenists do not seek funding from Adamist banks,
which is another source of contention, as Adamists frequently apply
for loans from the Jovian Bank. Because of affinity, the habitat
personality (through its financial sub-Consensus) is actively
involved in the planning of commercial ventures from conception
through to researching marketability, etc., so that when a project
reaches the stage where finance is necessary to fund start-up
manufacturing, it will always be granted.

Edenism is technologically and industrially self-sufficient, and the
habitat-based companies export a great quantity of manufactured
products across the Confederation. Problems with radiation shielding
aside, gas-giant orbits are an ideal place to site zero-gee
industrial stations, providing proximity to supplies of raw material,
energy, and habitat populations. Jupiter is the greatest
concentration of manufacturing capacity in the Confederation, even
managing to out-produce Earth’s O’Neill Halo. Edenist
companies tend to be run on a family level (extended family), with
executive ownership spread among participating members; primary
funding always comes from the Jovian Bank. Children of participants
are eligible to work their way in after they reach legal maturity (at
age nineteen).

The relative wealth of the
citizenship, plus a prodigious appetite for luxury goods and exotic
food make Edenist habitats an extremely valuable market for the
Confederation, and commerce is correspondingly brisk. Adamist
starship companies rarely have any complaints about Edenists in
public or private, as their habitats, right across the Confederation,
provide a huge market. Although He3is Edenism’s main export,
their high-technology astroengineering industries are also extremely
competitive, and sell throughout the Confederation. Even though He3is
carried almost exclusively by voidhawks and Edenist-owned tankers,
the shipment of manufactured goods is put out to free tender, and
Adamist starships obtain a high percentage of the contracts. There
are over 20,000 starship movements daily in the Jovian system, making
it the busiest sector in the Confederation.

These are bitek cylinders of living, highly modified coral (polyp),
always found in orbit around gas giants. All Edenists live in these
enclaves, with the exception of Atlantis (
see
page 53
). In the Jovian system they orbit 550,000km above
the planet, which puts them above the orbit of Io and its lethal flux
tube and hazardous ion torus, but they keep well within the planetary
magnetosphere, thus giving them a sidereal period of about two days.

They are grown from seeds
(teardrop shaped, approximately 150m long and 50m wide), which are
manufactured in specialist bitek stations, and are the largest
artificial creatures ever designed (voidhawks and blackhawks claim to
be more sophisticated). A new seed will be removed from its
manufacturing station and germinated before being attached to a small
asteroid (1km diameter) which contains appropriate trace minerals to
support its initial growth phase. The first stage of germination
produces a membrane which envelopes the entire asteroid, and then
digestion begins inside. The membrane is flooded with enzyme fluid to
break up the minerals, and these are reabsorbed by a root network.
Minerals and organic compounds are processed inside the seed by
rudimentary organs, and so polyp growth begins.

Once the basic cylinder
shape is achieved, after four to six years, the seed and membrane sac
digestive mechanism withers away and disengages. The cylinder at this
point is 2km long, and is little more than an empty shell with a more
sophisticated digestive system at one end. A new asteroid is
maneuvered into its maw (a hemispherical indentation at one end,
covered with spinelike cilia), and the primary digestion process
begins. Growth to full size takes up to thirty years, and several
asteroids are ingested during this time.

The first habitat to be
germinated, Eden itself, is 10km long and 3km wide; the second,
Pallas, is 15km long and 5km wide. Both are still alive, as cellular
regeneration is constant provided the maw is fed with raw material.
More modern habitats are up to 45km long and 10km wide, with
hemispherical endcaps, and an external ring of starscrapers around
the center. They rotate along their long axis to provide a 0.9
gravity field in the park, and a standard Earth gravity at the base
of the starscrapers. Each habitat will typically house up to
2,000,000 people. The shell is 500m thick in total, which is more
than sufficient to protect the inhabitants from Jupiter’s (and
all other gas giants’) hostile radiation environment.

The external layer is made
up from a crust of dead polyp 20m thick, which is gradually abraded
away by particle impacts and vacuum ablation, though there are
several surface sections of living sensitive cells which allow the
habitat to “seeâ€

Starscrapers are tower-like
accommodation sections, up to 500m long, which protrude from the
central section of the habitat, forming an equatorial band. There are
windows on every level, giving spectacular views over the gas giants
and their moon systems, and these are all fitted with irises which
close during radiation storms. Essentially they are vertical towns,
containing every civic amenity from individual apartments to
theaters, with shops, bars, and offices included. Most Edenists live
inside a habitat’s starscraper, given that there are few other
internal structures; Edenists like to keep the chamber parkland
unspoiled. The main exceptions to this rule are the habitats in orbit
around Saturn, which have no starscrapers because of the higher
particle density that makes them susceptible to damage (Saturn
habitats have much thicker external shell layers).

All starscraper apartments are provided with food-synthesis organs,
providing a steady if monotonous diet of fruit juice and paste-like
protein-rich hydrocarbons of various flavors. Secretion teats are
provided in every apartment wall. Human excrement is carried away
through a digestive tract, and reprocessed in organ clusters at the
base of the tower, while harmful toxins are vented through porous
sections of the shell. The food organs are not widely used, since
Edenists favor cooking food (there is no butchery—meat is grown
in clone vats), and import a great many delicacies from across the
Confederation. This waste matter finds its way directly into the
ecosystem via the digestive tracts.

Most of the biological
processes within the habitat’s major organs utilize variants of
electrolysis and ion-exchange mechanisms, rather than straightforward
biochemical reactions. This reduces the dependence on fresh chemicals
to a considerable degree, cutting down on the amount of minerals
which have to be ingested. Though its chemical consumption is still
prodigious, a habitat’s main power source is electricity. This
energy is generated by simple induction from Jupiter’s (and
other gas giants’) colossal magnetosphere.

Hundreds of specialist
extrusion glands are situated around the rim at each end of the
cylinder, producing 50m, lengths of organic conductor cabling.
Because of the habitat’s rotation the cables extend straight
outward and slice through the magnetosphere’s flux lines. (This
means that spacecraft have to approach every habitat along the
rotation axis.) Cables are grown on a more or less constant basis, as
dust impacts continually weaken them and breakage is frequent. As
well as indigenous organ functions and maintaining the environment
temperature, the cables provide electricity for domestic use and the
light-industry plants situated in the endcaps.

Habitats have a large
reserve of electricity stored in electroplaque cells to cope with the
fluctuations caused by cable breaks, and in emergencies fusion
generators can be plugged directly into the power circuits. Without
this pick-up system it is difficult to see how an organism like a
habitat could survive, given the amount of energy it requires to
heat, light and feed its inhabitants. Photosynthetic membranes, as
well as being extremely inefficient, would be impossibly cumbersome
on the scale required to provide an equivalent amount of energy.

Electrophorescent cell
clusters are used throughout the skyscrapers, although inhabitants
are free to redecorate by using electric lighting (chandeliers and
lasersolids are popular). The central cavern is illuminated by a
column of fluorescent gas contained inside a webbed tube of organic
conductors extending down the length of the axis. The web’s
magnetic field confines the ionized gas, which is constantly
fluoresced by a high-voltage discharge. During the night-time period,
the luminosity is reduced to the light level of a full (Earth) moon.
Repairs to the web are conducted during this period by bitek
servitors specially designed to be resistant to the high magnetic
flux level and energized gas; these creatures resemble giant spiders
with a hard dermal layer.