Restrictions

The Restrictions

   Not Canon  Most Swarm Cycle stories are set in the beginning of the war, when the humans are still trying to figure out what they are doing.  Many stories are about trying something and discovering that it wasn't the best way.  One story, Zen Master's Ship's Morale Officer, is set in the far future some time after it has been realized that we need to make some major changes to the way we do things and after all the confusion of the changeover has settled out.
   One thing that had to change is the indiscriminate use of all the Confederacy's technology to make our lives easier.  If you make life too easy, humans never learn to strive, to struggle, to fight for what they need.  In order to raise the next generation of war-fighters that the Confederacy needed to win the war, it had to institute the "Restrictions", a set of social rules that were almost universally hated even though everyone saw the need.

Before and After Changes

   The Restrictions were a small set of rule changes that forced huge changes in Confederacy society:

Volunteer Status

   The most drastic of the Restrictions was the change in Volunteer status.  Before the Restrictions, Humans in the Confederacy were divided into three classes: Volunteers or Sponsors, Concubines, and Dependents.  Volunteers were those humans who scored 6.5 or above on their CAP tests and then volunteered to serve the Confederacy.  Concubines were all those humans who were past their 14th birthday and who were not Volunteers.  Dependents were everyone else; all those humans who had not yet reached their 14th birthday as well as the occasional human who couldn't be fitted into either 'Volunteer' or 'Concubine' status.  While the labels were different, the Concubines were, in every sense, slaves of the Volunteers.
   After the Restrictions went into effect, Volunteers were divided into two categories.  'Sponsors' were those Volunteers who had served the Confederacy for a minimum of twenty years, with at least five of those years in an actual war zone.  Sponsors had no limits on how many Concubines they could 'own'.  Sponsors could continue their military service, or they could 'retire' into a less-stressful lifestyle where they managed a factory or served as mayor for a town.  Either way, independent command was restricted to Sponsors only.
   This was one of the keys to the change: Henceforth, no one could order a Volunteer into combat unless they, themselves, had served in the war zone for long enough to understand the meaning of their orders.
   All Volunteers who had not yet served for 20 years were 'Citizens'.  Citizens were allowed to own zero, one, or two Concubines as before, but could not serve in any position where they held ultimate authority over other Volunteers.  Citizens could serve as junior officers with other Volunteers under them, but only if there was a Sponsor over them to take the ultimate responsibility for ordering men and women into combat.

Concubine Status

   Similarly, Concubines also gained a new subset.  A 'Free Concubine' was someone who had reached their 14th birthday and scored less than 6.5 on their initial CAP test, but who a board of Volunteers believed was capable of getting 6.5 or above in the future.  Such a person was required to accept Concubine status, but not required to immediately accept a Volunteer.  Instead, they were allowed partial freedom to choose their path in hopes that a future test would gain them Volunteer status.
   Of all the changes forced by the Restrictions, this was one which caused the most social strain.  Many of the "free conks" passed their next test and joined the ranks of the Cofederacy Citizens.  Unfortunately, as was to be expected with any new program, many of the free concubines never made the jump.
   Many colonies immediately outlawed Free Concubines.  They could not prevent any Concubine for applying for the program, but they could force those accepted to the program to immediately leave their jurisdiction as well as punishing all those who applied but were not accepted.
   Other colonies jumped on the opportunity to free as many slaves as they could.  While they generally had a high success rate, they also had a tendency to approve many Concubines who should never have been given a chance to cause trouble.  Naturally, those colonies which disapproved of the program were quick to 'recapture' any troublesome Free Conk who blundered into their system.  It became common for a Free Conk to enter into a temporary conditional contract with a Volunteer, good only while they were under the authority of that particular system.

Transporter Use

   Before the Restrictions, we used transporters to move everything. We used them to move cargo from planets up to ships.  We used them to move people from place to place. On some of our larger ships, we even used them to move people from one deck to another.  We built ever-larger transporters that could move ever-larger items.  The only limit was range, and there were rumors that even that limit was artificial, the 'old' Confederacy knew how to make them work across larger distances than we could.
   After the Restrictions, Confederacy space was divided into two zones, the supposedly secure 'core' systems and the non-secure 'war zone' systems.  Out in the war zone, transporters could still be used as before.  In the 'core' systems, transporters could only be used to move Volunteers, the Sponsors and Citizens, and even then only when their duties required the move.  Everyone else, from Sponsors down to babies, were no longer allowed to used transporters.  They hd to use stairs, elevators, and vehicles.

See Also

• Ship's Morale Officer

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