Canon Schisms

(Copied straight from .XML 'backup' file, needs formatting and corrections. ZM User (talk) 16:51, 22 April 2024 (PDT))

Canon Schisms (Splits)

   (This page is a summary of several schisms or splits in Swarm Cycle 'canon', where we have two different versions of how things work.  The following is a mix of 'fact' from various stories and opinion from the writer, Zen Master.  It is an attempt to explain the issues and a plea for the various authors to come to some kind of agreement.  Or, as I put in an email to one of the other authors who asked for a resolution to an issue:

   You are absolutely right.  Various authors have written different things about this.  It's been 11 years, 300 stories, and fifty different authors since TH first published "Average Joes" -and I have rough drafts of another 50 or so stories from various writers that never got finished/published.
   I have no doubt that you can find conflicting data on any number of subjects.  There are some stories, and even some authors, that we have bluntly labeled as 'non-canon' or "Heresy" that shouldn't be quoted in, or used as references for, other Swarm Cycle stories.  Even TH himself has agreed that some of the things in his early stories don't match his vision of the universe.
   I would be delighted for you to write this up and add it as a new section [on this page].)

Replicators Need Templates

   It is 'canon' that a 'replicator' requires either an actual item to duplicate or a stored 'template' to follow.  Most stories have new colonists told this as part of their initial shipboard briefing.  However, there are a couple of stories that show that the AIs can in fact create a completely new item.
   ZM's 'The First Command' has several instances where new items are created by trial and error; it is said that any independent AI (starship & up) _can_ do this when not busy.  They _cannot_ do this when they _are_ busy.  Shipboard AIs need almost all of their resources for hyperspace navigation.  There was enough left over to run a replicator in 'copy template' mode, but not enough to run it in 'produce original' mode.  If colonists were told the truth, the shipboard crew and AI would have to deal with constant arguments from all of the passengers about desperately needing a green baby rattle or 'my purple suede boots'.  It is just easier for the colony ship crews to tell all the passengers "You can only have something we have a template for" rather than get into what the AI could or could not do when and where.
   TFC also points out that shipboard AIs are collections of limited modules; the more modules available the 'smarter' the AI will be.  Cargo pods have very limited AIs.  It is likely that pod AIs cannot produce items without a template.  A transport starship, however, has the powerful built-in shipboard AI which runs the ship and navigates in hyperspace as well as, usually, numerous pod AIs to help.  Such an AI can produce new items in a replicator when not 'busy'.  It would follow that AIs running colonies would be even more powerful than the one installed on a ship.
   What the transport ship passengers are told, then, as unified policy across all transports, is what we have codified in canon as what replicators can do: "You can only have something we have a template for."  This is true if not quite complete.

• In Kenn Gannon's CAPable stories, the AI - Hermes - improves Calix's armor, revealing an ability hither to unknown to humans and remaining unnoticed at the time... (Added by Omachuck)
  

Alcohol Use in Confederacy Facilities

   Many stories show alcohol use as a normal part of social occasions (parties, meetings, etc).  Many stories have replicator alcohol as tasting horrible, to the point of being undrinkable even by an addict.  Of course, many stories don't even bring the subject up.
   No reason for this "bad alcohol" is ever given in any story.  It is treated as just another aggravating thing to deal with.  My working explanation while writing TFC and IC was that the Secretary-General ordered it early on, to ensure that all of his workers were working, not partying.  That would make it a part of the basic Confederacy-UN agreements, or a contract requirement to the AIs.  "The replicators will not produce any intoxicant."
   As of this writing, the sequel to "The First Command" is still being developed.  It is supposed to answer a couple more questions about how and why things work in the Swarm Cycle universe.  I can give this or another explanation in "Squadron Command", if everyone agrees.  It didn't go in TFC because we never got agreement on it.
starfiend added:    I personally subscribe to a combination of (1) the religious right/temperance/quaker type movements (2) the idea of idle-hands causing trouble worse with alcohol (3) the "just hate alcohol anyway" brigade (4) the no time for alcohol too much work to do (5) general safety issues, both perceived and real, of potentially inflammable intoxicants being available in dangerous situations - phew - all sort of combines to end up with a general directive that alcohol should not easily be available.
   When you add that to the idea that some people just know sod all about alcohol and bring crap/cheap/quickly to hand stuff for scanning, and it's easy to see that just maybe it's simply the case that the replicators can do a perfectly fine job of producing the very best wines spirits and beers, they just aren't given the opportunity.
   In WW (or was it ww2, I can't remember now) I had the captain of that ship ban alcohol because of his own religious beliefs.

• The "Chosen Frozen" series show replicators freely producing alcoholic drinks.
  
• 'A Pickup in Texas' has volunteers bringing beer because there isn't any on ship.
  
• 'The First Command' shows drinks as undrinkable but 'pure alcohol' was available for mixing.
  
• 'Independent Command' has breweries because replicator beer is so bad.
  
• 'THE Harem Tales 3 What's So Maybe About Katie!' has Katie mixing fruit juice with grain alcohol to get her sponsor drunk.
  

Real-Time Interstellar Communications

   When the "Swarm Cycle" was first started, there was no early attempt to set 'canon'.  Some early stories have, as an integral part of the plot and action, the use of a radio-like device to send messages to another system, or even have a live video conference with their boss in another system.  Other stories have, as an integral part of the plot and action, the need to send a ship (later automated to a message torpedo or 'drone') to pass a message on, since that's the fastest way to get messages from one system to another.
   This could be passed off as a developed technology if the stories with hypercoms were set late in the timeline, but some stories that have hypercoms are set in the beginning of the war, when later inventions aren't available yet.
   This was resolved by working backwards from first principles.  The Thinking Horndog wanted each writer to be able to create his or her own colony with its own culture which would be different from any other colonies.  The Arabs have a religious dictatorship on their colony, the Brits have moved their royalty to theirs, etc.  If Central Command could pick up the phone and micromanage all the colonies, the colonies would all be run the same way, look the same, and everyone on them would act the same.  There would be no freedom for each writer to create his own colony and culture.
   Therefore, in order to allow each author to create their own colony and culture, instant communication across the Diaspora can't be allowed.  The delay generated by the need to send a ship/drone to deliver a message is an integral part of the universe.  It forces CC to organize semi-independent 'Military Districts' which try to manage completely independent colonies.  Because of this, many early stories use concepts now labeled "Heresy". Examples include:

• Alien Bear Baiting includes a hyperphone.  TH has said that we should treat the interstellar phone calls in his early stories as 'non-canon'.
• Neptune includes pleas for help via "hyperlink".
• The Ishtar series include real-time videoconferencing between the colony and their District Headquarters in a different system.

Pets

   Some stories say that no pets are allowed.  Other stories have all sorts of pets.
   This might be explainable by the AIs early on being adamant about not taking anything extra, and slowly allowing pets as time passes and some early experiments go well.  Stories set early in the timeline will show no pets allowed, stories set later will show that more and more are allowed.

Bonus 'Mother' Concubines and other CAP limit workarounds

   Some stories revolve around the AIs' strict adherance to the rules set out in the "Average Joes" special, while others show a variety of special circumstances that allow additional concubines.

• Take My Wife, Please! says that "this was a pick-up for Vulcan colony" so "one extra concubine being allowed if one was a qualified mother."  It appears that the qualification is "bringing a child with her".
• A Simple Extraction says that ‘Any volunteer involved in an extraction within Australian territory is allowed to choose one additional concubine over and above their CAP limit’.  On the other hand, 'Canon' is that Australia was strongly Earth First and no extractions were allowed in Australia, so never mind.

Marine Corps Formation Manning

   The number of bodies in a platoon, company, or other formation varys wildly among stories.  After discussion on the email list, we decided that we had originally gone with one manning schedule and later basically doubled it after experience 'in the field' fighting the Sa'arm.  See Marines for examples of each schedule.

CAP Score distribution

   Different stories give different proportions of people who pass the test.  For any population the CAP score distribution will be a bell curve, but different populations will have varying slopes and centers for the curve.  The 'average' CAP score for a Canadian Army retiree reunion will be different from the 'average' CAP score for an illiterate village of Amazon Basin Indians.  Thus, we might be able to explain this schism by simply claiming that the different numbers given in different stories were for different populations.
   The numbers given in The Thinking Horndog's story 'Average Joes' can be taken as canon for that point in time, but it is also recognized as an approximation made before extensive testing gave the Confederacy's AIs enough data to refine the curve.  Later stories might have a different set of canon numbers for the whole-world population, or for all first-world residents, or for all USA college-educated draft dodgers.

Minimum CAP Score to be a Concubine

   Some stories say anyone who has taken the test can go, if sponsored.  Some stories say that the concubine must have at least a 2.0 to be eligible.  Some stories also say that "Criminals are not eligible", while others show pickups in prisons.

• Average Joes has "Even if you have a low CAP score, you may be selected for emigration -- but if you do not obtain a score, you will NOT be considered."
• Also, later, "If you want a big-titted blonde with a CAP of zero point two, that's cool..."
• Wooly Wilds says "...if you have a CAP score less than two you are ineligible, unless that is down to problems that can be fixed medically."

Transport Capacity

   Some stories give specific numbers as the Word of God; an Aurora can only hold 96 sponsors, etc.  Other stories say that this number is fuzzy; maybe you'll have two sponsors in each pod or maybe this particular Aurora has 106 pods.  Still other stories point out that life support has to be one of the limits:

• A standard Aurora-Class transport carries 96 pods. A 'Kilo' carries 1024 pods.
• "Aurora Replacement" says that each pod can support 800Kg of Homo Sapiens.  That can be 5 150-Kg Marines and a 50-Kg concubine, it can be 8 100-Kg normal adults, it can be 16 50-Kg tweeners, it can even be 100 8Kg babies, or it can be any mix of the above as long as the total does not exceed 800 Kg.
• Somewhere it is written that a starship should follow Earth's SOLAS agreements; a ship should not carry more people than it has lifeboat capacity for.  This won't apply for pod ships, since the passengers normally live in their own lifeboat, but what about the crew?  And what about the non-pod ships, the warships and Cubes?
• (this section not complete)

Sleep-Trainer Use

   Some stories show the sleep-trainers as just another tool to be used as needed.  Some stories show them as causing trouble if used too long.  Some stories straddle the fence, saying that some people have adverse reactions to spending too long in them.

• ZM's story "The First Command" shows sleep-trainers as having no side-effects.
• AJ's most recent story "Living a CAP-Based Life" shows users as having migraines if they use sleep-trainers too long.

Confederacy Age

   Some stories say that the Confederacy is many thousands of years old.  Other stories say that it is millions of years old. (this section not complete)

Crew-Conk Uniform Colors

   Some stories say that concubine uniform color is "wildly variable, but for uniformity most ships only allow basic gray. One common exception is white for concubines with medical skills. Another is gold for the CO's lead concubine (the ship's "head bitch").
   Other stories say that Naval Regulations specify that all shipboard crew would wear "...our basic white ship-suit as working gear.  The white was specified to make it easy to locate a casualty in the aftermath of combat damage or other disaster, as well as ease of inspection.  Damage to the suit would be much more difficult to notice if it was a different color, or even worse a different color for each man." and "The suit worn by a vessel's commander had a gold stripe around each wrist, ankle, and neck so that he could be identified immediately whether you could see his whole body or not."  This would apply to everyone on the ship, not just crew.
   Naval regulations specify white coveralls/ship-suit/skin-suit will be worn by all crew when at Conditions 1-4 (underway, in combat, and abandoning ship), and all on-duty crew when at Condition 0 (anchor watch).  Some ships add a pink bunny (the old "Playboy" magazine symbol) on the shoulder as a type of rank insignia.  The gold coveralls worn by many COs' lead concubine are a known and tolerated violation of the uniform regs.  Many ships do not allow this violation.

(All wiki users are invited to email ZM with additional stories which take the two sides on any of these subjects, or even to add another category of canon schism)

(Someday this will be a navigation template.  It will provide a bar across the bottom of each article with useful navigation links.  Until then, this is just a placeholder to get rid of all the red "broken link" indicators. -ZM User (talk) 10:00, 3 May 2024 (PDT))