Confederacy Politics

(Copied straight from .XML 'backup' file, needs formatting and corrections. ZM User (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2024 (PDT))

   This article discusses a subject with undecided "Canon".  The Swarm Cycle writers need to discuss this on the email list, come to a decision, and then update this article to let readers know what Swarm Cycle "true canon" is.

Humans are not made aware of much of what happens among the other races of the Confederacy, but as the storyline develops authors like Zen Master are beginning to exploring the notion of some degree of conflict among the races of the Confederacy is happening. Thinking Horndog and others have added their ideas, and a developing idea of internal Confederacy political conflict is emerging in the overall storyline.

Political Limitations

From TH:

I would assume that AI communities communicate – but might have ‘political differences,’ based somewhat upon differences in basic construction and programming. We might end up seeing the Darjee go to the Council (or whatever) and complaining about Tuull interference. Since the basis of the complaints would have to be very carefully worded in the face of sentient beings, this could get to be interesting. One would assume that there are other power blocs of AIs that must be dealt with. The idea that there are different flavors of AI would tend to generate a concept of AI-level political maneuvering that would be more lively than that of the races they support. There won’t be just two types of AI out there. Who knows where THIS is headed! It’s too late to stop it, though…

Proposed Canon

Zen Master proposes the following:
Can we declare this as authors' canon, not known by the characters? There are 'old Confederacy' races that could get along for short periods with humans, but because of the reports AI >> Darjee >> Confederacy none of them will have anything to do with us? Only the Tu'ull are suspicious enough of the Darjee to go see for themselves.

This could, in the future, lead to the Tu'ull 'correcting' some of the Darjee reports. The Tu'ull would win some kind of points for showing the Darjee to be wrong on something, and the other races might want to see what's really going on. Naturally, both the Darjee and the Tu'ull would want to introduce those humans who are most likely to make their case.

The Tu'ull would want to show off some peaceful humans who build and create art and so on. See? The're not that bad. MO is already writing about that. The Darjee would want to show off some humans who are building, sure, but they are building warships and weapons and all that stuff. Stay away from these guys! These guys are crazy!

See Talk page for further discussion

Possible Explorations

This begs the following questions that authors may wish to explore:

• Is anyone other than the Darjee and Tu'ull aware of humans and their "membership in the Confederacy?" If not, why not, and how long can that last?
• Are humans actually members of the Confederacy, and not just some sort of colonial appendage of the Darjee with no rights and no authority?
• Why hasn't any other race than these two done anything to support the human fight against the Sa'arm?
• Are the humans being "blockaded" from outside contact by the Darjee such as England prevented their American colonies from directly trading with countries outside the British Empire?
• Does every Confederacy race have its own style of AI? How do these interact? Do they engage in political competition?
• What would happen if another Confederacy race came in contact with humans? What would their AIs be like?
• What lies are the Darjee AIs telling us? Why are they lying?
• If the Darjee are abusing the human race, is there any authority other than their AI systems to which humans can appeal for redress?
• If humans appealed to the Tu'ull for assistance, could the Tu'ull actually do anything to help us?

Inserting such significant new concepts into the Swarm Cycle Universe could be rather disruptive, so authors are cautioned to carefully consider whether any new ideas would be detrimental to the integrity of already completed works and existing canon. That existing canon does not envision a timeline extending much beyond the eventual victory in the battles for Earth, so beyond that point there is tremendous creative opportunity.

(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))