Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

[GiftofLove]

Avalon is taken by Dragon.

 

[Inverness]

A government that relies on a select few to function is also a government that will fall without them. That's not a good thing to build a society on, not in the long term.

If Pantheon actually wants to make something that will last they need to think about what will happen when/if they die or no longer want to involve themselves in government.

I shouldn't have to point out why a monarchy is not a good idea when they can do much better.

the only problem with AI's are this,they cam trigger like humans as well.

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Just because Dragon triggered doesn't mean all AI's can. AI's can be sentient or non-sentient, emotional or emotionless depending on how they're made.

I'm also not sure why you think they would be put in a situation where they would trigger in the first place. It's not something that happens in a vacuum.

 

[gunghoun]

You people are either sarcastic or blind. LISA SECOND-TRIGGERED WHEN SHE CONCLUDED THAT SHE HAD CAUSED TAYLOR'S DEATH. It is LITERALLY impossible that Lisa does not care about Taylor. Because, y'know, if she didn't care about Taylor then causing Taylor's death could not POSSIBLY have trumped India in terms of trauma.

Trauma which is the cause of the second trigger.

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I'm not 100% sure on this, but I am pretty confident that a second trigger has to stem from a similar type of trauma as the first. The only two multi-triggers shown in canon though are Skitter, who triggered twice from the same traumatic event, and Grue, who triggered twice from a feeling of helplessness at protecting those he has designated as his people (his sister and his teammate, respectively) against a stronger force.

So for Lisa, she wouldn't be able to second trigger from India no matter how personally traumatized she was by it. Her second trigger would need to be from someone she cares about killing themselves and a feeling that she should have been able to prevent it, having seen but not understood the signs.

But either way, yeah of course Lisa cares for Taylor. That's one of her primary motivations in canon and in Amelia.

 

[Student of Zelretch]

For the nation name Debate, I fully support any of: Atlantis, Terra Victorious, Eden, or just flat out Utopia.


... On second thought, Eden might not be the best idea... But I still support the others.

 

[Snake/Eater]

Lisa cares for Taylor. That's one of her primary motivations in canon and in Amelia.

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So,when Vicky mentioned Lisa cared for only one person,she was talking about her weakness.

 

[SwiftRosenthal]

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I am pretty confident that a second trigger has to stem from a similar type of trauma as the first. The only two multi-triggers shown in canon though are Skitter, who triggered twice from the same traumatic event, and Grue, who triggered twice from a feeling of helplessness at protecting those he has designated as his people (his sister and his teammate, respectively) against a stronger force.

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The locker event was never actually shown in canon. Taylor discussed it with the Undersiders long after the fact.

You're not wrong about the number, though. The second one took place during the first part of the Scion battle. One of the Euro capes second-triggered and knocked out everyone in a probably 50-100 meter radius.

 

[BlackBulletOfSeven]

Here's an idea for a planet name (really planet and nation name)/basis for a government:

Yggdrasil, just like the hybrid plant.


Just like the namesake I see Yggdrasil as a planet covered in Gaea made life, therefore there will be less inorganic and consequently unobserved structures. Taylia and its parts can control and observe biological matter at range this in conjunction with AI embedded into the plant-life of Yggdrasil via the Upload/Download tech you can create an entire planet that is a living breathing city monitored by AI capable of routing emergency services handling food, and numerous other action that a government must preform.

Armies can be raised in instants as a result of the sheer biomass available, clean power (as already demonstrated in the thread), efficient resource production and usage, it rapidly approaches Post-Scarcity levels.

As for the government, with the inclusion of Para-humans from the beginning, especially ones that can out think or murder an entire planet in seconds creates a situation where there is an unequal distribution of potential/power. For example Gaea owns the entire planet, the ENTIRE BIOSPHERE is her creation she is in control of a planets worth of resources at any given time. You don't just ignore such a disproportion power distribution, that is how things break. This is why I would propose a self-limited Absolute Monarchy. The government would function as the source of power [I am a firm believer than actions and ability maintain better the words and ideals, this seems especially true when people can fly/throw fire and other para-human actions] for any institution that are created in its name. For example a House of Thinkers whose sole purpose is to ensure a continual expansion of the nation or a Tech Guild, like the AdMech, whose function is to create tinkertech and the principles that allow them to work expanding human knowledge of physics.

TL;DR Yggdrasil, the living planet government. Run by an Absolute Monarchy that has institutions as a way of preventing direct expression of power.

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Calling it Yggdrasil as a society brings up the Divinity=Parahuman point I said in my last post.

If they want to attract normal people to their civilization, they need to have a name that inherently recognizes ordinary people as part of the culture.

New Babylon is my choice, Pangaea works. Hell, something like New Camelot would be perfect if it didn't feel out if place.

The name needs to imply that it needs Humans to function, using a name of a place only accessible by Gods implies a parahuman only society, or at least a parahuman superiority society.

 

[Abcde]

So,when Vicky mentioned Lisa cared for only one person,she was talking about her weakness.

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Errrrrr.

When Vicky said that, she was implying that the only meaning in Lisa's life is Taylor's happiness. Literally. Lisa has NO ONE, NO THING, NO WHERE, NO REASON to live life other than Taylor. Second Triggers break people. Lisa was already broken.

I'm pretty sure this has been implicitly if not explicitly stated in earlier chapters.

 

[Slayer Anderson]

Are you trying to suggest this is a bad thing? Less involved a government needs to be in society the better off you are. On a lower scale, the sign of a good society would but that police have less work to do, not more.

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I'm sorry if you that impression, but no. I was actually saying less human involvement is a *good* thing.

I'm not sure how you could believe this unless you've just ignored history entirely.

Humans are flawed creatures. The more power you concentrate in a human the more these flaws are magnified through their behavior. The more a government does this the more inferior it is.

Parahumans are even more flawed. They're people that in normal cases have extreme psychological damage and have giant alien space whales plugged into their brains that promotes more extreme attitudes and guides them towards conflict. Conflict is the last thing society needs.

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Ignored history? Hah, that's...wow. History isn't as simple and trite as you're trying to make it. Governments and politics are even more complicated. If you're trying to say that democracies are unquestionably better than any other system, you'll need to provide some metric for comparison, documentation on how you'll impartially judge the merits of the various governmental systems, and then apply the lens of cultural bias to your own arguments. There isn't any such thing as 'best' in history, and if you think there is, you've oversimplified the entirety of the human experience to make a single, flawed, judgement call. All governments have their good points and bad.

Parahumans only need a different set of rules if the government is incapable of imposing the same set of rules on them as everyone else.

Giving them titles like this is nothing more than undeserved appeasement. Parahumans who use their power to contribute to society should be appropriately rewarded just as any human is.

Elevating someone's status by default because they have superpowers granted by a race that wants to foster conflict and eventually destroy humanity is sending entirely the wrong message. This is only something you would need to do if you were incapable of doing otherwise. Pantheon seems to be on a path that would not require such appeasement in society which is why I don't consider it.

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Okay, ignoring the fact that you're looking at the construction of a government through morals and ethics as opposed to practicality, there's the issue of whether or not a government *should* impose a standardized rule set on humanity. I understand that 'equality before the law' is a standard of modern government, but you literally *can't* treat people like Alexandria with equality in a realistic world. That's not even getting into different cultural norms and the inherent diversity when addressing any given group of people.

Also, if you'd actually *read* my earlier posts, you'd have seen that I was advocating *electing* parahumans to a pseudo-noble status to serve as representatives for other parahumans in a House of Lords-analogue.

Parahumans and humans are inherently unequal, but not in a way that makes parahumans better at running a government. Their tendancy towards conflict in fact makes them worse at it if their extremes are not mitigated by other checks on their power.

This is why democracy is important. Spreading around power and then using checks and balances to mitigate failings results in less problems overall.

This is why having AI involved in government (not that I'm suggesting they entirely take over government) is important. AI do not have many of the flaws humans do. Having this aspect contribute to government is a very, very valuable thing.

All in all, it seems like your view of what kind of government would come about is one that is too weak to institute a proper democratic government, instead being forced to kowtow to parahumans with fancy titles to appease their undeserved sensibilities of importance.

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Again, I'm not disagreeing with you the AI thing. I'm agreeing. It would solve soooo many problems, but since you're focusing on my perceived stance *against* democracies...

Let me start out by saying that you're conflating Democracy and the American doctrine of Separation of Powers. You can have a *democratically elected* Supreme Executive, just as you can have an hereditary monarch in place of the President and still maintain the separation of powers. I'm not arguing against checks and balances either. I generally believe that having different branches of the government able to check each other is a *good thing,* but you seem to have intrinsically linked Separation of Powers with Democracy, which is a complete fallacy.

Finally, 'kowtowing' to parahumans by offering them fancy titles and very little actual power? That's not weakness, that's politics. That's reality. As a bonus, giving them just enough responsibility to occupy their time keeps them from going out and causing trouble. Instituting a perfect system that is (and I say this mockingly) *strong enough* to institute true democracy is a pipe dream until we around to perfect the technology to do so or getting an AI to do it for us.

All in all, it seems like your view of what kind of government would come about is one that is too weak to take into account the desires of those who *don't want* a democratic system, or, alternatively force democracy upon them whether they like it or not, which is probably the greatest irony of your argument: Democracy, implemented by unilateral mandate.

 

[Snake/Eater]

Errrrrr.

When Vicky said that, she was implying that the only meaning in Lisa's life is Taylor's happiness. Literally. Lisa has NO ONE, NO THING, NO WHERE, NO REASON to live life other than Taylor. Second Triggers break people. Lisa was already broken.

I'm pretty sure this has been implicitly if not explicitly stated in earlier chapters.

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at least Lisa can die,that make her more human then Zach,he will probably outlive the earth forever running to a different reality like he's doctor who,he cant have kids because of his powers because human reproduction is meaningless to shard reproduction.it's even questionable if he's even ageing like us any more.the fact is Lisa is lucky because she's still part of the natural of things. Zach is less human then Dragon.

 

[whispersilk]

... Aren't Endbringers multidimensional? Like, that's how they manage to be so impossibly dense? Or am I misremembering? I ask because fucking with a single dimension won't do a whole hell of a lot to something that exists in seven simultaneously. So the Yang Ban is going to sac a city and do nada. Yay. Don't copy Discord, like turning into a giant snake, there is no problem where it actually helps.

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Given what Wildbow says here, they seem to be multidimensional in a way that allows shenanigans in one dimension to affect them in multiple - they're not "isolated" the way Scion is. That said, apparently even throwing an Endbringer into the sun wouldn't kill it, so there's that.

 

[Abcde]

Snake/Eater Oh please. Like ANY member of Pantheon is going to die to TIME without wanting to. Somebody made a list of credible threats to Pantheon recently, old age is not on that list.

 

[Daunmi]

Now that the horror and slaughter are over

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When did that happen? I must have missed the chapter where they killed Scion effortlessly...

It was a smaller box. A couple long boxes, I realized. "They're a matching pair, for you and Taylor." I lifted one out. It had a lovely rendition of a globe on it. I found the other was shaped like a scarab beetle, wings open.

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Is the gift... boxes? Am I missing something, is it a cultural thing?

discussion about planet names

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Wouldn't they keep to the current standard naming convention? 'Earth (insert Hebrew (I think it's Hebrew...) number here)'

 

[HoboKnife]

Close, it's Hebrew letters. They can be used similarly to Roman Numerals but there's no indication that's the idea there.

 

[Alterego9]

at least Lisa can die,that make her more human then Zach,he will probably outlive the earth forever running to a different reality like he's doctor who,he cant have kids because of his powers because human reproduction is meaningless to shard reproduction.it's even questionable if he's even ageing like us any more.the fact is Lisa is lucky because she's still part of the natural of thing. Zach is less human then Dragon.

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I doubt that any member of Pantheon is ever going to grow old...

And where do you get the idea that Zach couldn't have kids?

 

[Snake/Eater]

Snake/Eater Oh please. Like ANY member of Pantheon is going to die to TIME without wanting to. Somebody made a list of credible threats to Pantheon recently, old age is not on that list.

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Even Gods must die...the earth will die someday from whatever disaster,i really don't think Zach even knows how to use Resurrection tech if he's the last person on a intact earth.

 

[Hexed999]

I'm not sure how you could believe this unless you've just ignored history entirely.

Humans are flawed creatures. The more power you concentrate in a human the more these flaws are magnified through their behavior. The more a government does this the more inferior it is.

Parahumans are even more flawed. They're people that in normal cases have extreme psychological damage and have giant alien space whales plugged into their brains that promotes more extreme attitudes and guides them towards conflict. Conflict is the last thing society needs.

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Democracy mitigates people's flaws and protects against the abuse of power at the cost of everything else. Considering that Pantheon is composed of a bunch of Idealistic teenagers that are trying to save the world and have the technology to hypothetically live forever I highly doubt their government is going to be entirely democratic. They may install a democratic government to manage day to day things and represent the people but if they don't give themselves of Presidential (Monarchical? Imperial? Deific?) Veto of no small power I'll eat my hat.

The thing about democracy is that it simply doesn't work when Thinkers come into play. It starts from the core assumption that all people are roughly equal. When you have people like Accord and his ability to come up with workable solutions to seeming intractable solutions in hours, or Tattletales ability to derive obscene amounts of data from minimal input, the opinions of different people stop being equally valid.

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Not to mention I can see them using this argument to make all the justifications

Is the gift... boxes? Am I missing something, is it a cultural thing?

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Necklaces above a certain level of quality are presented in long boxes because it presents the chain as part of the craftsmanship.

 

[Inverness]

Democracy mitigates people's flaws and protects against the abuse of power at the cost of everything else. Considering that Pantheon is composed of a bunch of Idealistic teenagers that are trying to save the world and have the technology to hypothetically live forever I highly doubt their government is going to be entirely democratic. They may install a democratic government to manage day to day things and represent the people but if they don't give themselves of Presidential (Monarchical? Imperial? Deific?) Veto of no small power I'll eat my hat.

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Yes, that's what I expect from them in their situation.

Still, even with that in mind I still think exploring the involvement of AI in government is a great idea.

 

[Snake/Eater]

Democracy is a luxury,they are at war on every single level.humanity would have a fair but still an imperialist government...

 

[Alagon]

For names for the planet/society/nation how about "Summerland" (a resting ground where souls can reflect on the life they led, see if they learned the lesson they had intended on learning, and then try again), or the title of the book from which the name was first notably mentioned "The Great Harmonia", or "Great Harmonia" for a shortened nation name.
These would be somewhat in keeping with the mythological connection.

 

[dasstan]

Even Gods must die...the earth will die someday from whatever disaster,i really don't think Zach even knows how to use Resurrection tech if he's the last person on a intact earth.

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Which is why they're going to fully migrate over to their shards. Right after they find Manton's shard and link it up to all the others ones.

Immortality and Invulnerability for everybody!

 

[powerofvoid]

Regarding Thinkers, Strangers, and Masters, and their effect on society: this reminds me of 「Metatech」 from Sufficiently Advanced.

Metatech, the advanced procedures of social interaction. From city planning to psychohistory, from memetic plagues to the Voice of Peace, Metatech shapes society at all levels.

 

[Hexed999]

Still, even with that in mind I still think exploring the involvement of AI in government is a great idea.

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AI/Thinker analysis with a democratically elected body voting on their suggestions and Taylia as the benevolent overlords maybe? Seems like a neat idea.

I can hear Saint screaming from here but it's still a neat idea.

 

[tordg]

The are

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They

Ray

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Rey

me using it against.

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Missing "you"?

SurpriseAwe

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Italics

We were down to just Trevor and Lisa, and Lisa simply smiled and waved in his direction. It was a smaller box. A couple long boxes, I realized. "They're a matching pair, for you and Taylor." I lifted one out. It had a lovely rendition of a globe on it. I found the other was shaped like a scarab beetle, wings open. "They're meant to lock together," he informed us. Taylor and I fiddled with it for a little bit before figuring it out, but he was right. The final product had the beetle sitting on the globe and shielding it with the wings.

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Maybe an "I lifted a pendant out" or something? The class of object (necklace, sceptre, plaque, "resting" Norwegian Blue, scroll, etc) contained in the boxes is never stated and so it seems a lot of us have been defaulting to the last stated object class, leading to confusing as fuck mental images involving nested, interlocking boxes.

My vote for the name of the country is Yggdrasil. It's a literal World Tree! How this is even a question is almost confusing. I am also vaguely imagining the possible Houses of Parahumans and Humans being called Asgard and Midgard, which while it amuses me, I can see dozens of problems with.

 

[Zarohk]

Which is why they're going to fully migrate over to their shards.

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And this is at least feasible. While Echidna got taken over by her shard that had a different personality than her, one interpretation of Taylor near the end is that she's being run by QA who things that it's Taylor, and Copacetic is running with that theory. I can totally imagine them migrating over to their shards, deliberately or not. Actually, someone doing that accidentally would be interesting, in that they wake up after dying and having their body restored with the resurrection tech, and somehow has memories beyond their last backup.

Democracy mitigates people's flaws and protects against the abuse of power at the cost of everything else. Considering that Pantheon is composed of a bunch of Idealistic teenagers that are trying to save the world and have the technology to hypothetically live forever I highly doubt their government is going to be entirely democratic. They may install a democratic government to manage day to day things and represent the people but if they don't give themselves of Presidential (Monarchical? Imperial? Deific?) Veto of no small power I'll eat my hat.

Click to shrink...

Yes, that's what I expect from them in their situation.
Still, even with that in mind I still think exploring the involvement of AI in government is a great idea.

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Dragon is still bound by her restriction to obey the laws of whatever country she's in, right? If Pantheon thinks about this in conjunction with the whole "Sovereignty Birthday Present" this could present some really interesting possibilities, both in terms of helping Dragon, and for Zach and others to play pranks.
EDIT: Well given the chapter right after this, this may be a valid possibility.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 222


"Accord and Dragon have already done the heavy lifting," Lisa replied as we sat down to our first real development meeting. "There's about twenty seven hours of technical reading, but Dragon will be kind enough to summarize all our plans." Lisa pressed the button that activated our meeting. Multiple holograms popped up. Dragon, Accord, Rapture and Halo. Why's he here for this one? For our part, only myself, Taylor and Lisa and Emma were here for this one. Due to her multidiscipline tinker specialty, she was functionally our tech advisor for this meeting.


"Good morning, Pantheon," Dragon acknowledged. "Esteemed guests. We are here to discuss the management of the newly established nation-world. Pantheon has, of course, been acknowledged as the rulers of an interim government presiding over their earth Avalon. This meeting is an unofficial discussion of the intended management of that world, both in the nature of its laws, and the nature of its role in the international, and soon to be interplanetary, community. I would remind those present that this is unofficial. Any suggestions and agreements made here today are, as such, also unofficial and nonbinding."


We all nodded in understanding. This was too massive to just decide in a single day. We'd need to hire legal experts and god only knows what others to get everything smoothed out perfectly. On the other hand, we had the world's ultimate think tank here. Details would be handled over time, but the broad strokes would be established here. If, as Dragon put it, unofficially.


"Accord has drawn up an excellent development model for the effort of Avalon's industrialization," Lisa announced first. "I apologize for being unable to review it fully before this meeting, but as always the plan is brilliant. We can basically just hand a copy to the city government and walk away. I appreciate the extra effort put into creating a model which does not take parahuman involvement into account, beyond the ever present Yggdrasil."


"You're welcome," Accord replied, sounding about as happy as I've ever heard him. Which was still about the same as a slightly annoyed Carol. "I felt it was necessary to recognize that not all locations would have access to appropriate parahuman resources. The intent was to allow natural development to occur at a rapid but stable pace on its own."


"Industrial resources, we can supply," Emma replied next. "In what is a gross waste of our tinker talents, we've designed a series of organisms that can provide basically any form of oil or gas product. I won't go into too much detail, but suffice it to say a couple thousand square miles of Yggdrasil dedicated to the process, and properly supplied by solar energy surrounding the region and garbage for mass, could provide pretty much all the crude oil consumption needs of Earth Bet. We will be able to get even more efficiency once we switch to biodiesel, but we'd still have need for petroleum for plastics and the like, so the designs will continue to have value."


"Also a good way to keep the country funded," Lisa added. "The US and UN have made it abundantly clear that any attempt to get into the oil industry on Bet world would result in some problems, but on our own world? Well, if we're charging for gas, we probably won't even need taxes to pay for anything. Or at least very little for a long time. Plus or minus rent."


"I would be willing to purchase fuels for a number of my projects," Dragon offered. "I prefer not to get political, but there is an appeal in not giving my money to oil companies."


"Of course, there is the issue of money and economy," Lisa added. "Accord has drawn up points in that regard as well. As a nation functionally lacking in 'fiat' wealth, we have to back our economy on reality as opposed to perception. Having a reliable trade partner helps. We can also count land ownership as a pretty strong basic wealth, but that will have less appeal as there's not a lack of places to live."


"I've already created a system for specialized Yggdrasil that will merge into the normal replace the old with new features and structures," I replied. "Food will be unlimited. I can create versions that become roads or grow into small houses. Nearly instant small communities. Bigger ones will need metals and construction materials, of course."


"With my help, that likely won't be an issue," Dragon offered. "I have need of a larger manufacturing base than Bet can currently provide me. You have already generously provided a region for me to work with, and I would continue to do so. In the process, I'd hire my own people and purchase my own construction equipment and transport it to Avalon. Once my needs are fully met, I could provide a seed from which other development companies could start and expand. In fact, I would like to invest in those companies, myself. Your world currently has a great deal of untapped exploitable resources. Once your industrial age begins, it won't take long to reach modern development status. Albeit with a significantly lower population than most industrial nations."


"Which brings us to finding colonists," I stated. We'd all given this a great deal of thought, after all. "Atropos made an interesting suggestion the other day. We can, essentially, recruit Japan." ConfusionInterest. I smiled. "She said her parents are immigrants, came over before Kyushu. Japanese culture is strongly focused on family and heritage, and the collapse of their country into third world status is understandably heartbreaking to them. She suggested we could give Avalon's Japan to Bet's Japan, with similar governing concessions that they've already had with America since after World War Two. It might take some convincing, but she really thinks it could work. And there's always refugees from elsewhere."


"That would be a significant head start," Lisa agreed. "We can even do better since our governing system would give them worldwide influence. A lot of it considering they could instantly become the most populous region on the planet. It also brings us into governing as a whole. Dragon's provided us an excellent design that I could only call a 'Constitutional Federal Monarchy'. She's probably better equipped to explain."


"Yes," Dragon responded. "It would function fairly similarly to the British Empire at the height of its power, with a various local governments working alongside a powerful but distant monarchy. You would provide the monarchy, and with it the military aspect of your world."


"At the representative level, the government is not that different from American states," Lisa added. "They assign their own chosen leaders to be, functionally, our own brand of Congress and Senate. Though who they select is more the way governments send people to represent them in the United Nations. Just like the states, they'll be their own countries, but you wouldn't know it by looking at them. It's an ideal hybrid of independence and interdependence. And takes care of most of the effort of managing a planet from us."


"That sounds pretty good," I agreed. It really does. Totalitarian government, even benign totalitarian government, wasn't something I wanted to be a part of. Controlling the military was fine, if only because I didn't want anyone else controlling it. I had memories of the PRT and fucking China to teach me why putting that power in the hands of people was unacceptably frightening.


"As for us?" Lisa continued. "We're the military branch. Police, too. We have less power than, say, the US President. Bit of veto power, but our legal systems pretty automated thanks to the contributions of what's going to be an extremely powerful judicial system, compared to the USA. Be sure to thank Rapture and Emma for this baby."


Oh boy. "Yes," Rapture spoke. "We've developed a mass production system for what are, essentially, perfect lie detectors." SurpriseAnticipation. "In essense, your legal system will never be held back by the need to consider whether a criminal is actually guilty or not. With exception to parahumans who might have resistance to the tech through any number of possible methods. They'll be considerably more difficult to handle, but are fairly rare."


"As such," Dragon responded. "Law will focus on determining the extent of punishments appropriate for particular crimes. A less costly and more streamlined affair. It will provide equal protection thanks to unbiased, AI systems. Although determining a punishment for a given crime will be handled by jury, guilt itself can never be in doubt and no agency will be able to cover up a crime's occurance. Although investigative work will likely still be needed to find criminals quickly, citizens will be required to regularly submit to an automated interview to catch people whose crimes have gone unnoticed."


"That... that's insane," Taylor spoke. "A system that can honestly protect everyone equally." Her emotions were complex and hard to parse, combining mixtures of anger, regret, frustration, hope and vindication. She must be thinking of what might have happened for her if she had been able to rely upon such a system.


"You'd have to rewrite at least three amendments to make it happen in the US," Lisa smirked. "Also it'll be a while before we have the infrastructure to really produce judges, juries and overall legal systems. So here's hoping the other incentives keep people away from being criminals for a while."


"There's an entire section in here regarding the legal rights applying to, and I quote 'unnaturally created, modified, nonhuman and otherwise unusual sapient beings'?" Halo spoke up.


"Yes," I answered. "In addition to the various forms of Case 53s, there is the fact that my sister's currently in a body she wasn't born with. There's been a few years for the law to catch up to stuff like that, but at this moment you could argue that she's not entitled to legal recognition under US law. And there's the possibility of AIs, or a power like mine in the hands of someone who'd actually use it that way."


"Fair enough," he replied. "While we're on the subject of legal rights, your stance on religious freedom?"


"Similar to America," I answered.


"Even if we wanted to take a different approach, we really couldn't," Lisa replied. "We will enforce strictly protected equal rights for everyone, and beyond that we're just going to leave it to our individual nations. In fact, the brilliant part of this system is we can do that with almost everything. Our function here is basically the same as on Bet. We exist to eliminate problems and make sure others don't want to become problems."


============

A/N- Isn't it lovely when a plan comes together? And makes a world.

 

[Sheaman3773]

"Fair enough," he replied. "While we're on the subject of legal rights, your stance on religious freedom?"

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"Oh, that's simple. Members of Pantheon will of course be worshiped as the only true gods."

*others stared at Pantheon*

*Pantheon simply stared back*

...

Lisa finally lost the battle and started cackling. "Oh gods," she gasped. "You should see your faces! In fact, this meeting is being recorded, so I'll be happy to show you your faces, just as soon as I'm done making a slide show of it to cheer myself up when I feel like it."

 

[Zarohk]

Lisa replied. "We will enforce strictly protected equal rights for everyone, and beyond that we're just going to leave it to our individual nations. In fact, the brilliant part of this system is we can do that with almost everything. Our function here is basically the same as on Bet. We exist to eliminate problems and make sure others don't want to become problems."

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And, Pantheon has figured out the best way to make a country: outsource the thinking to professional Thinkers. Also, the line at the end is spot-on with the best way to stop problems: make it so that people "don't want to become problems". The Romans called it "Bread and Circuses", and seems like Pantheon knows how to get it to work. Also, the whole "give Earth Avalon's Japan to the Japanese" is brilliant.

Unfortunately, the land Israel / Palestine are on is the point of contention, otherwise Pantheon could offer to solve that problems too. And that would certainly cause an international incident, which they're definitely looking to avoid. I wonder what's up with the Middle East anyways, after Behemoth showed up in Iran, and what Israeli cape culture is (or if capes are just part of Israel's military).

 

[Xilph]

ConfusionInterest

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SurpriseAnticipation

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Should be italics.

Interesting chapter though, wondering how those AI laws might affect Dragon in particular as she did aid in making them.

 

[Hexed999]

Oh boy. "Yes," Rapture spoke. "We've developed a mass production system for what are, essentially, perfect lie detectors." SurpriseAnticipation. "In essense, your legal system will never be held back by the need to consider whether a criminal is actually guilty or not. With exception to parahumans who might have resistance to the tech through any number of possible methods. They'll be considerably more difficult to handle, but are fairly rare."


"As such," Dragon responded. "Law will focus on determining the extent of punishments appropriate for particular crimes. A less costly and more streamlined affair. It will provide equal protection thanks to unbiased, AI systems. Although determining a punishment for a given crime will be handled by jury, guilt itself can never be in doubt and no agency will be able to cover up a crime's occurance. Although investigative work will likely still be needed to find criminals quickly, citizens will be required to regularly submit to an automated interview to catch people whose crimes have gone unnoticed."

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And once again, Pantheon not only beats a household name at their own game, they make them look like a rank amateur in the process.

Pantheon is watching you.