Multiplicity

Posted By: Skinwalker, Firewall Sentinel

Transhumanity has adopted a bewildering variety of approaches to the practice of forking.

Artists

Artists pursue forking for unique cultural and social events. Brilliant dance compositions by the artist Dominique LeStrange have deployed up to a dozen forks simultaneously, and the recent performance of the show “One’s Self ” at Noctis is widely regarded as one of the most significant artistic events on Mars in the last five years. As more people with cultural caché explore forking for art and entertainment, they help improve public perception and counteract the stories of narcissistic pleasure-seeking. Forking for artistic endeavors is almost universally short-term and is coming to be seen as only the start of what can be accomplished.

Ascendants

Where multiplicity pushes boundaries, the ascendants shatter them. To them, forking is only the first step down the path to entirely new, posthuman modes of being. Ascendants go beyond forking to challenge basic ideas of personhood: Why should you only merge with forks of yourself? Why not manipulate and change forks to create entirely new personalities? Why not merge forks that have been separate for years or longer?

Few are willing to publicly support such blatantly posthuman positions. Notably, Professor Rokuzawa Chi at Titan Autonomous University has published research and articles on forking and individuality that lay the groundwork for the exploration of such ideas, though this has created some backlash.

The practices and pursuits of the ascendants are radical and experimental, incorporating untested psychosurgical methods and merging/integration techniques that are illegal in many habitats. More than once, this has resulted in horribly traumatized egos or personalities that are so different from their sources that they can’t be considered the same person.

Autocrats

Though frowned upon in the outer system, many inner-system transhumans adopt an autocratic relationship where the primary ego governs over a collection of forks — usually betas carefully pruned for obedience, but sometimes alphas as well. Autocrats rarely re-integrate with their forks to maintain a clear separation and rank over their lesser selves, while also defending their standing as the only “real” version. Since most inner-system habitats treat forks as property and not people, autocrats can and often do subject their forks to restrictions and limitations in their quality of life that would be distasteful or intolerable for others. Since the forks themselves are limited or pruned and only created for specific tasks, it is very likely that they’ll be kept exclusively in VR simulspaces or run as infomorphs if they have to work with outsiders. More often than not, they are deleted or put into cold storage whenever their immediate task is completed. Cognite execs are infamous in corporate circles for this type of forking, but it’s also rumored to be widely used by Gorgon Defense System’s R&D department to help speed up productdevelopment times.

Conjuncts

Though rare, a few asyncs have discovered an ability to mentally link with biomorph-sleeved forks of themselves in a manner that allows them to act simultaneously with precise coordination. This capability only seems to work when the asyncs remain in proximity to each other, but seems to have greater range than other async abilities, possibly because each mind operates conjointly, in sync with one another.

Conjuncts are capable of amazing feats of coordination, from synchronized dance routines to handling complex mechanical operations in concert with one another.

Additional reports that some asyncs have the capability to remotely share memories and other information between forks without needing to merge remain unconfirmed.

Exes

Like any other relationship, the ties between a primary ego and their fork sometimes fray. Many primaries and forks choose to part ways, sometimes amicably, sometimes less so. Some forks continue on as friends, maintaining distance but keeping contact like former friends or distant family.

Forks derived from competitive personalities often find themselves in friendly rivalries with their primary, urging each other on and driving each other towards shared goals. There has been at least one case on Venus of two separated forks running for political office against each other.

At the opposite end, forks and primaries can also become life-long enemies. This can range from creating as much distance as possible from each other to actively interfering and sabotaging each other. More than one socialite and celebrity has driven themselves to ruin and disgrace after a high-profile tiff between forks escalated out of control.

Families

Families build social units of forks that work and live together for extended periods of time without merging or integration. Individual forks within the family are typically psychosurgically edited to fulfill specific work or social roles. Since the preferences, attitudes, and proclivities of the core personality remain present in each fork, it’s easy for the primary and its iterations to form and maintain strong, long-lasting relationships.

Though most often used for companionship to create friends or “siblings,” there are also people creating forks to populate intimate relationships as lovers and spouses, or to replicate extended families. Given the intended long or permanent duration of the forks and the attendant illegality and social stigma, this approach is rare and limited almost exclusively to a few isolated habitats with small populations and infrequent contact with other communities.

If a family is too inwardly focused, it can lead to extreme social isolation and a rise in misbehavior as pre-existing personality disorders or negative traits are ingrained and reinforced. The perception of being anti-social and disordered makes family personalities an easy target for anti-forking commentators, though few other multiplicity adherents do much to defend them.

Gen Gaps

Backups have been around long enough that some people have copies of themselves that are several decades younger. These previous iterations are sometimes re-instantiated to give these younger versions of themselves a “fresh chance” at life, with the knowledge of the choices they made and how their lives turned out. This sort of mentorship can be challenging — the Fall and upheavals of transhumanity’s technological progress is difficult for revived forks to process and catch up with.

Hedonists

Transhumanity has a long history of turning innovations towards the pursuit of pleasure, and hedonists have done all there is to do with multiplicity. Orgies and bloodsports are by far the most common pastimes, but given the costs involved for the necessary physical instancing of the participants and damage the morphs can suffer, only the wealthiest can afford such extravagant amusements. The exception are small communities of scum who revel in this lifestyle and dedicate all of their shared resources towards it. Most who use forks for such pursuits quickly tire of the novelty and move on. The majority of hedonists content themselves with multiplayer virtual environments.

Slavers

Can you exploit yourself? Some primary egos have shouldered past this question as they ruthlessly commodify and profit off of their own forks by selling them into indentured service. Multiplicity advocates strongly condemn this practice, but with the return of indenture to the legal codes of most habitats and the creation of the IndEx contract exchange, indenture contracts are a focus of economic innovation. With the landmark ruling of the Lunar- Lagrange Alliance’s Supreme Judicial Court in Shelby v. Shelby, it was deemed legal for an originating ego to negotiate and agree to an indenture that bound a fork before it was created. Despite widespread public disgust over the ruling and proposal before the Planetary Consortium to ban the practice, it is legal for now and IndEx is actively brokering contracts. As much as market forces enable this practice, however, they are also holding it back. Most corporations and individuals refuse to touch these types of contracts for fear that they’ll soon be nullified.

Outside of IndEx, the underground market for soul-trading remains strong; any egos that find their way into the hands of Nine Lives or similar cartels are forked and sold repeatedly.

Survivalists

Standing aside from other approaches are the survivalists. Since the Fall, there has been a widespread focus on transhumanity rebuilding a robust population, and one argument is that forking is the best way to do so quickly and effectively. While infugees are steadily re-instanced through indenture programs, they come back to society out-of-touch and less-equipped than others who survived the Fall intact. The first generation of transhumans born since the Fall is still in its infancy and, given the horrific failure of the Futura project, speed-raising new egos in VR is an attempt few are willing to contemplate. It will take years for the next generation to develop and become a strong, contributing part of society rather than a precious liability.

Survivalists argue that those with valuable skills should create permanent forks of themselves and spread across current habitats in the Solar System and into the exoplanets beyond the Pandora gates to help re-establish transhumanity. Extreme ideologues even suggest taking forks of entire habitats or the whole of transhumanity and sending them off in fleets of colony ships with different destinations. Creating forks of transhuman society outside the Solar System and, hopefully, beyond the reach of the TITANs and any other existential threats could dramatically improve the likelihood of civilization enduring. While some criticize these ideas as foolish, their supporters are quick to point out that transhumanity almost fell to the TITANs precisely because the vast majority of the population was still concentrated on Earth.

A number of backup cliques within Firewall support this survivalist view, and they are slowly rolling out some low-key social manipulations to forward their beliefs.

Twins

Twins run and maintain a single fork of themselves. Most often instanced as an infomorph, twins frequently keep the fork in a ghostrider module, use it in place of a muse, or incorporate it with the multiple personalities mental augmentation to split their attention and efforts. While some twins focus on the efficiency of tackling problems with multiple versions of themselves, most focus more on the companionship and awareness brought by having a fully instanced ego sharing your life with you. Serious twins work to establish an equitable relationship where one ego isn’t always or exclusively in control, mentally or physically. The fork is allowed to persist more or less permanently, growing and developing on its own with only infrequent re-integration with the originating ego. Over time, one twin may decide to change the relationship and backup or instance separately.

So-called “parasitic twins” are far less equitable, keeping one instance limited or dependent on the other. This is usually a beta fork, but some prefer the efficiency of alpha forks, modified to be subservient and seek affection from the primary ego. The dependent fork is most often kept as a muse or virtual minion.

Summary of Fork Legalities

Anarchists/Extropians/Scum

• No limitations

Jovian Republic

• Forking is outlawed

Morningstar Constellation*

• Forks must be registered, given fork ID
• Forks considered property of primary ego
• Primary ego responsible for fork’s actions
• 48 hour maximum instance limit, subject to re-integration
• Alpha forks instanced longer than one week may apply for citizenship and personhood status with permission of primary ego

Planetary Consortium & Lunar-Lagrange Alliance*

• Forks must be registered, given fork ID, tracked
• Forks considered property of primary ego
• Primary ego responsible for fork’s actions
• Some activities (travel, financial, legal) limited without primary ego authorization
• Limited to 24–48 hours maximum instance
• Forks exceeding time limit subject to deletion

Titanian Commonwealth

• Forks considered dependents of primary ego with limited rights/protections
• No time limit, forks may apply for emancipation/citizenship

* Varies by habitat; these are common legalities