Skip or keep? Opinions, folks?

Directed EMP Emitters

These are the "electric guns" seen used by members of TSR.

Radio Relay/Boosters

Small TAU-independent communication devices used mainly by explorers entering territory outside the necklink range. They relay radio messages sent on specific frequencies, allowing the "in" teams to communicate with the supporting "out" teams in the Middle Cluster.

Sonic Mappers

Fist-sized devices used for finding out the internal physical structure of various solid objects such as machines. They must be placed as a ring (or better yet, complete 3D sphere) around the structure to investigate (the shape doesn't need to be regular). They will then send precisely modulated ultrasonic waves through the material to the other mappers on the other side, then analyse the structure based on the received signal.

From Subcultures to Rings

National and ethnic boundaries lost more and more of their meaning during the decades leading to the Technocracy. The ever-globalizing commerse, migration, and the Internet created connections between different people all over the Earth, to the point that at the founding of the Technocracy it was agreed to make national borders the exclusive content of history books.

This was not the end to cliqueness and confrontation, though. As the borders faded, different ideological, aesthetical, and other kinds of subcultures became more and more prominent. When everyone was connected, it was possible to find people to agree with the most peculiar notions. Many subcultures were the same old ones, based on religion, music tastes etc, but the variety and scope increased dramatically. Even nationalities gained their own subcultures - for instance some people were dedicated to the preservation and practice of all things French, such as wine, sugary romantics, and escargot ice cream.

Many of the subcultures were informal, without even a generally agreed-upon name. Others became organized enough to be on par with religions and political parties: The Retropop Union, Association of Astrophysics, and Followers of Quon were only a few examples of groups that had an undisputable impact of many of the decisions made by the Technocracy.

Some subcultures, such as The Islamic Faith, lasted for decades without changing much. Others, for example the fan club of Kat the Kitten, fluctuated in and out of fashion on a weekly basis. Most people would join and leave subcultures at whim, being more or less active in several at any given time. Many sociologists argued that while this was a very free form of interaction, many became lost in this virtual sea of possibilities. This point was all but proven by the sudden popularity of rings.

Rings started off as teams in a very popular Massively Multiplayer Virtual Reality Ball Game called Batball Megaleague. (They were called "rings" in the game's lore to make the game stand out from all the other MMVRBGs.) In order to have a chance of winning the game, each ring would have to make alliances and trade balls with some of the other teams, giving the game a bit of a political aspect. Of course, out-of-game issues soon entered the game: Retropoppers would be seen joining forces with friends of Ambient Choy to fight the proponents of Post-Classisism. Members of the Jorian Reformist Party tried to outmaneuver the Martian Alliance on the playfield in addition to public panel discussions. (And everybody generally hated the Kat the Kitten fanclub.)

The game became extremely popular - too popular, many argued, to be explained by the accurate physics engine and simple yet elegant ruleset. Instead, what pulled people in was the immensely close-knit team spirit many of the rings had developed. But it was only after the rings started a life of their own when they truly became a phenomenon.

It was of course not unusual for the same teams to be involved in several MMVRBGs, but suddenly everyone started to invite their non-gaming friends to the rings as well. The Batball Megaleague community site with its ring profiles had to upgrade its equipment as suddenly it was being flooded with new members and even new rings with no connection to the actual game. Every other subculture wanted to be part of the new trend, competing about who had the most ambitious profile and catchiest slogan. Many entered the Batball virtual reality, standing around with their bats idle in their hands, hardly even looking at the balls but instead spending their time promoting their rings and ideals, arguing about topics of the day, often resulting to insults and shouting (which could be very impressive if you used certain exploits in the audio calculation system).

What was it that the rings could offer that the earlier similar systems couldn't? Firstly, the popularity was self-feeding: you could tell someone you met on the street what ring you were in and they were likely to know what you were talking about, making ring membership more meaningful. Secondly, the ring membership was exclusive: you were part of one ring and one ring only. Thus, the rings became more closely knit, since anyone who was in your ring believed your ring was the best, not only somewhat interesting. For many, the ring became a second family.

Of course, none of this was new - closely knit Internet communities had existed for over a century. But this was by far the biggest wave of such communities being built around a single concept.

The rings were a hit during the fourth decade of the Technocracy, and were already fading when the Seed ships launched. However, the word "ring" had then been established to mean a closely knit group of people, almost like a family. When the First Colonists of the Seed ship Solidarity felt the need for a family, it was natural for them to use the ring pattern to build upon.

Name: Locke
Rank: Ringmember

Neuro-Electronic Interface (Necklink technology)

The Neuro-Electronic Interface connects a person's brain to into a computer circuit, enabling data transfer between the two. This is used mainly for the purposes of communication between people with necklinks and the download of knowledge and information from a computer system to the brain.

The interface between the necklink and the brain is a complex one, since the principles by which the brain operates are very different from those used in electronics. The necklink is only a part of the Neuro-Electronic Interface: it controls a nanoswarm spread over the celebral cortex. The individual nanobots connect to individual neurons, reading their state and stimulating them when needed. The bots communicate on a bandwidth that doesn't interfere with brain activities.

Each Neuro-Eloctronic Interfece is calibrated to the individual brain it's connected to, and this calibration must be updated regularly as the brain continuously changes its shape. This is achieved by regularly scheduled reading and analysis of the brain activity, followed by adjustments to the settings of the interface.

The User Interface

In addition to knowledge transfer, the Neuro-Electronic Interface acts as the user interface between the colonist and TAU, and by extension, other colonists. In many ways, this resembles telepathy. However, the interface is too simple and clumsy to feel like being truly connected to another mind. TAU's queries and necklink messages feel just like that: queries and messages, albeit complex and versatile in their content.

There are various alternative user interfaces geared to different people. Visual people often choose to represent the interface visually. This doesn't mean covering up their eyesight by popups and dialogs, however - the interface operates purely through the "mind's eye" - the UI components show up in the person's imagination, and they imagine the responses. One can often tell someone is using a visual interface when they close their eyes, stare intently at nothing, or look to the top right.

Most people use a combination of visual, aural, and conceptual user interfaces. Some application only allow one modality, anyway - images the in personnel database can naturally only be viewed visually. The conceptual interface is arguably the most efficient for, for example, TAU queries and necklink messaging: instead of images or sounds you cut straight to the meanings behind. This can, however, be confusing to many. Conceptual interfacing is also the only way to efficiently send feelings over the comms.

In addition to these, there are more exotic modalities: some, for example, prefer tactile elements to their interface, making them operate an imaginary interface through hand movements.

On Monday there's a meeting about a LARP we're making.

Really, it's great you're so enthusiastic but really I think we can handle a week's break.

Well, if it's going to be a week day, it should start around 17:00 CEST (or 18:00 at latest) so I can go to bed at a time that doesn't ruin my day rythm. Is this even theoretically possible to happen?

Personally, I wouldn't mind just skipping this one week.

I suppose that's one of the things you fight first and join later. Like mobile phones for me, a while back.

OK. Let's play tomorrow then, at 13:00 CEST.