3D Futures: The Disembodied, the Departed and the Dispossessed

By Rob Walters

Driven by current economics, technology and politics, the people of earth gradually take three distinct and separate routes forward. The rich go down, the dispossessed stay put and the adventurous take off.

This book follows their progress through parallel, intimate and gripping story lines where the digitised are terrorised by corruption, the dispossessed are hunted by cannibalistic seekers of immortality and the departed are enslaved by the cultural mores that they carry with them.

3D Futures creates worlds that are exquisitely believable and populates them with characters who test their, so human, traits in extreme conditions. This book is grand in its scope and there will be more to follow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rob Walters
• Release date: Jul 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301421619

Rob Walters

I always wanted to write, even as a kid, and now I do. I can transfer the desire to other projects and often do - but if there is nothing much on then I need to write. In my past life in the technical world I was often puzzled by colleagues who hated writing in the way that some people hate maths.They were forced to write whereas the pen had to be wrested from my hand. When my children were young I wrote for them. I clearly recall reading the second chapter of a book I started on the lives of a family of city foxes. I had almost finished reading a section in which most of the cubs were gassed in their earth when I looked up and was amazed to see tears streaming down the faces of my two daughters. The power of the written word? My first full book was published in 1991, It followed many technical papers and articles and was followed by two newsletters which I edited, and mostly wrote, for the next ten years. Four more technical books appeared after which I abandoned the world of technology and began doing my own thing. I travelled, became an Oxford city guide, and wrote a number of books and articles, some fiction, some non-fiction, some published, some not. See my bookshop on the web for all of my books and a shocking experience in an online pub.

Book preview

Chapter 1: Introduction and Acknowledgments

The idea for this book occurred as I walked from Yoxford in Suffolk, England, to Oxford in 2012. I started the walk with a friend, but on the second day all of the blisters on one of his feet merged into one so he had to complete the journey by bus. Nonetheless, I decided to continue the journey alone which gave me plenty of time for introspection—there is nothing like a long hike for refreshing the mind.

In my youth, I read science fiction books avidly, sometimes as much as a book a day. My masters were: Asimov, Clarke, Sheckley, Aldiss, Moorcock, and many others. My favourite publisher was Gollanz, how I loved that startling yellow cover. Unfortunately, I think that I overdid things: a little like a beer aficionado given a free ticket to an endless beer festival, I was replete and my reading moved on to other genres.

But I could never entirely forget those sci-fi books. I think they helped to shape the network that is my mind and certainly left an undeniable respect for the imagination and prescience of those authors and the worlds that they created. Later, when I started to fancy myself as an author, I began to realise that the sci-fi genre offered a writer the ultimate freedom in creativity. Nevertheless, I did not feel inspired to tackle a genre which, I suspected, was still dominated by the mentors of my youth.

Staggering along a dusty and lonely section of the Icknield Way on that long walk from Yoxford to Oxford, the main themes of 3D Futures came to me unbidden and I spent many hours of the remainder of my lone journey developing them. When, at last, I limped into Oxford, my only desire was to rest my poor feet and to sleep. However, the next day I began making notes for the book and entirely neglected writing up my observations of the Yoxford to Oxford walk. I was hooked and I really hope that you too will be.

3D Futures is an exuberant book: it covers three overlapping worlds interspersed with ‘historical’ depositions. There are many characters, three major stories and an inevitable clutch of new words and specialised usage of old ones. All should be clear as the plots develop but I have, at the suggestion of an early reviewer, included a couple of safety nets. At the end of the book, you will find a 3D Dictionary and a list of 3D Characters. The entries in each section are preceded by the tilde or flourish character (~) so that you can easily search for them. For example if you have forgotten who Tian is then just search for ~Tian. You probably will not need them, but the safety nets are there if you do.

Be aware that the disembodied communicated almost entirely by thought, a tendency that challenges the use of speech marks. I have enclosed their thoughts in the characters < and >.

It is feasible to read this book non-linearly. Though the narratives of each world are loosely coupled, they are sufficiently independent to be read as separate units. For that reason, I have labelled each chapter head with a suitable symbol. You can therefore hop from chapter to chapter of any one world by searching for the relevant symbol:

The Disem world is tagged with Ξ

The Depar world is tagged with Θ

The Dispo world is tagged with Φ

The ‘historical’ depositions are tagged with §

This volume of 3D Futures is fully self-contained. However, the future goes on, possibly forever, so there are likely to be future 3D volumes which pick up the carefully laid threads from this book and weave them onwards! In other words, there may be more.

I have inherited from past activities a reasonable knowledge of the computer and communications world which, I believe, helped a lot in writing about the strange world of the disembodied. Other people helped with the book, often inadvertently, but I would like to thank Peter Ashby, in particular for his help. Despite his hatred of what he regards as ‘dirty’ environments, he ploughed on and made many useful suggestions which have helped to shape the book. Thanks Peter. Also to Angie Driscoll who zoomed in on so many missed typos. Thanks Angie, I’ll make you into an SF fan yet.

Rob Walters

June 2013

Email: [e-mail]

Chapter 2: Inside the Book

§ 3D Deposition Number 0001

Ξ Disem Account 01: Zimbaud

§ 3D Deposition Number 0002

Ξ Disem Account 02: Corruption

§ 3D Deposition Number 0003

Θ Depar Account 01: Tali

§ 3D Deposition Number 0004

Θ Depar Account 02: The Bridge

§ 3D Deposition Number 0005

Φ Dispo Account 01: Remus

§ 3D Deposition Number 0006

Φ Dispo Account 02: Under Attack

§ 3D Deposition Number 0007

Ξ Disem Account 03: The Glitch

§ 3D Deposition Number 0008

Θ Depar Account 03: Unrest

§ 3D Deposition Number 0009

Φ Dispo Account 3: Boar’s End

§ 3D Deposition Number 0010

Ξ Disem Account 04: More Corruption

§ 3D Deposition Number 0011

Θ Depar Account 04: Loris wiped

§ 3D Deposition Number 0012

Φ Dispo Account 04: The Town

§ 3D Deposition Number 0013

Ξ Disem Account 05: First dispersal

§ 3D Deposition Number 0014

Θ Depar Account 05: Infiltration

Φ Dispo Account 05: Attack

§ 3D Deposition Number 0015

Ξ Disem Account 06: Corex Examined

§ 3D Deposition Number 0016

Θ Depar Account 06 Visiting Loris

Φ Dispo Account 06 Joining Tablish

§ 3D Deposition Number 0017

Ξ Disem Account 07: Second Dispersal

Θ Depar Account 07: The Vanished

Φ Dispo Account 07: Metal Hunters

§ 3D Deposition Number 0018

Θ Disem Account 08: Founder Contact

Θ Depar Account 08 Leaving Hell

Φ Dispo Account 08: The Mine

§ 3D Deposition Number 0019

Ξ Disem Account 09: Game Plan

Θ Depar Account 09: Entering Innership

Φ Dispo Account 09: Save Tablish

Ξ Disem Account 10: The Child

§ 3D Deposition Number 0020

Ξ Disem Account 11: Minds Reunited

Θ Depar Account 10: Second Father

Θ Depar Account 11: Revolution

Φ Dispo Account 10 Aftermath

Φ Dispo Account 11: Armageddon

§ 3D Deposition Number 0001

There is no exact date for the commencement of the trifurcation of the people of earth: the process was slow and progressive. The starting point is defined as the year in which the civilisations of the planet finally united around capitalism and liberal democracy under the aegis of the United Nations and its wordy World Constitution. For some this became known as the year in which history ended – though their evangelical cynicism was unfounded. There is of course a clear date at which the trifurcation was complete: this is the year in which the disembodied finally cut themselves adrift from the disintegrating society inhabiting the surface of the earth and accepted no more transfers to their world. This is known as the year of Separation. The departed were well into their journey to the stars by this time and so the three Ds were clearly defined, these being: the disembodied (Disems), the departed (Depars) and the dispossessed (Dispos).

Separation was considered a far more important marker in history than the birth of a once popular religious martyr and so the year of Separation became, particularly for the disembodied, the year zero. On this measure, the World Constitution was adopted in 139 BS.

Ξ Disem Account 01: Zimbaud

Wispy clouds in a blue sky. Drifting aimlessly I, Zimbaud, watched one of my clouds; I became the cloud. I varied the blueness of the blue, the contrast between white and blue. I became the swirl of the cloud.

Gelen joined me. I knew that she was here among my thoughts, touching the tendrils of a cloud, nudging them into a slightly different formation, just saying hello in the way that only she can. Testing the atmosphere of my space, she edged back towards her own segment until I answered her with a welcoming wave of pleasure.

I love my cloud world. It began ages ago with a collector lying on his back in PreD earth staring up at a summer sky. But that was simply the start. I have woven that original data into a thing of infinite beauty, something that I will only share with Gelen. The collector is long dead, or maybe he earned enough credits to disembody—I do not know. In any event, the cloud world is now mine. I spend a lot of time luxuriating within it. Gelen thinks I spend too much time there, but what is too much time? When there is no end to time, no end to my existence in Cworld, time has no meaning. The only danger is ennui and I feel no onset of ennui, not in my cloud world, not in any of my worlds.

§ 3D Deposition Number 0002

Well before the World Constitution of 139 BS, the technological and cultural routes to disembodiment were taking form. The so-called Internet with its slow and physically massive servers and their arcane software had started to bring people together in ways which were previously quite impossible. It had already become a major factor in social interaction undermining the need for physical interaction and creating new social groupings. It also undermined political nationalism, though governments tried hard to resist this attack on their power bases. Understanding of the human brain had increased enormously through the use of scanning combined with experimentation. Virtuality progressed in two separate directions: one through research into virtual reality technology and the other through the progressive richness of computer games. The continuing horror of terrorist attacks and the subjugation of what were known as rogue nations led to ghastly injuries to soldiers. In earlier years, they would have died or continued life as near-helpless paraplegics, but new technologies provided them with new limbs and new lives: the clear distinction between man and machine began to blur.

The advances were predominantly technological rather than scientific. In this era, interest and investment in fundamental science began to wane as the cost of large experiments rose in inverse proportion to the number of people who could understand their results. There was also a growing perception that science was not providing any practical answers to the planet’s social, environmental and energy problems. Thus, investment shifted into the development and improvement of known technologies which lead to a significant decline in academic research. One exception to this trend was in space flight. Here a frantic race developed between the East and the West in the search for a technique that could release mankind from the shackles of earthly existence in order to seek other habitable worlds beyond the solar system. This search was partly fuelled by the immense pressure of continued population growth, and partly in preparation for a time when life on earth should become untenable for some other reason.

One of the most significant global advances followed the acceptance of the World Constitution and observers later recognised it as key to the evolution of disembodiment. Immense funds were unlocked to boost the bandwidth and server speed of the old Internet. Coupled with this the use of political, economic or religious firewalls between nations were removed. The new network rapidly evolved into a truly open global network called Gnet. As the speed, security and power of this network and its servers increased, it became possible to create a private hub within it: a hub which pandered exclusively to the very rich, the jaded and the amoral. Access to this hub was fiercely guarded and the entry price was so high that only a tiny proportion of the world could afford it. The hub incorporated the most advanced server technology together with high definition data capture techniques and sophisticated software: this combination allowed access to experiences that were often obscene and certainly illegal. The hub was developed by the top programmers, engineers and technologists and administered by the most ruthless and evil profiteers on the planet. Its very existence was little more than a rumour to the world at large.

The hub supplied online experiences to its subscribers that could rarely be sampled in reality and, if they were, would certainly expose the subscribers to criminal proceedings. It provided something way beyond the familiar visual and audio experience of a movie or even a hologram. Through virtual reality suits and enclosures, its subscribers could experience almost anything from their own palatial homes. Naturally, every variation of sexual deviation was available on line, but the operators of the hub went further: beatings, torture, and ultimately variations on the ‘snuff’ movie were on offer. The victims of these obscenities were real, sometimes their dependents were paid handsomely for their performance, sometimes they were kidnappees from poor areas of poor countries lured to operators of the hub with promises of careers as movie stars then slaughtered for the delectation of a small number of sick, over stimulated millionaires.

For the authorities breaking into the hub was very difficult. They were not even sure that the thing existed and, if it did, they had neither the contacts nor the money to join it. An unfortunate occurrence led to its exposure, unfortunate that is for the subscriber. He died whilst indulging in some unmentionable fantasy and his wife heard him collapse. She rushed to his upstairs office and found him still encased in the virtual reality gear that gave neural access to the hub. She tore off the VR helmet in order to try to find what was wrong. She soon realised that her husband was dead. She also accidentally overheard the verbal part of the session that he had been part of: she rang the police as well as the doctor.

The police acted quickly. They drafted in their top IT experts who managed to maintain the link to the hub. Using various sophisticated techniques they managed to track down the hub’s physical location and arrested many of the people running it. The technicians were given minor sentences, often suspended. The real punishments were reserved for those accused of running the organisation, particularly those procuring the victims.

The story ran and ran in the newsfeeds of the day saturating Gnet and the remaining TV networks. No details were ever given of the technology involved in creating the hub or of the VR gear that subscribers used to access it, but it was clear to some knowledgeable analysts that this technology used was way in advance of anything then on the general market. Furthermore, an autopsy revealed that the dead man had unexplained surgical adaptations to his body which the coroner described as connections for no known purpose.

The police and judiciary were more concerned with the cruel exploitation of innocent people for the gratification of rich clients than the technology used, so the hub servers were sold off to a company which had some interests in VR and the suit that the man was wearing at the time of his death vanished mysteriously from the police station soon after the trial and inquest were complete. The technicians were quickly re-employed by the same company that had bought the hub equipment and all went quiet as the news channels moved on to other stories. That company became CoreMax in 106 BS and the new hub became Cworld, an immensely powerful set of network servers controlled by complex software called Corex.

Ξ Disem Account 02: Corruption

I opened my mind to Gelen and received the conventional greeting, I saw her chosen image appear within my cloud world and float towards me.

I responded and we absorbed each other’s persona. I thought that I detected a slight edge of fear in Gelen’s thoughts. It concerned something that she was holding back, something unshared. And, of course, she knew that I sensed it. Despite this, we soothed each other as we always do.

Gelen and I are close. We did discuss merging at some point – but in the end we did not. We had observed the merging of others and witnessed the blissful happiness that ensued. But we had also monitored the gradual decline that occurred for some as the merger progressed. As each memory became exposed, the conflict grew so great that it demanded either demerger, with its ugly consequences, or produced a rapid degeneration towards fragmentation. We remained individual entities linked only through those worlds that we were happy to share and linking only when we both wished to do so.

thought Gelen

I thought calmly. In my innermost mind—that area that none but a merged mind can reach—I found this a little odd. Gelen is always enthusiastic, but this time her invitation was not. She seemed so much more serious than usual.

Gelen loves music; she spends much of her time creating musical minsdscapes and categorising them. She shares her ‘scapes with the whole of Cworld and has many followers which gives her almost as much pleasure as the process of creation itself. Her works are a montage of existing performances from the Corex vault, carefully edited and then interspersed with her own syntheses. Some of the recordings she uses are from pre-Separation days and have accompanying video material of orchestras, music groups or singers. Some are creations by other Cworld composers and for these, if there is no video, Gelen creates suitable images or modified sequences from others. Her compositions are often very long—but time means little to us.

As I entered her segment, the new mindscape started automatically. Percussion rolled into my mind accompanied by abstract visions of colourful spheres swelling and bursting with the crashes of the music. Then the percussion faded slowly away to be supplanted by a thin sound a little like a female voice which grew to become a wonderful melody as the percussion gradually returned to support the tune. Meanwhile the imagery faded into a sheet of green, pulsating slightly with varied hues like a thin veil wavering in a breeze. I could perceive the smell of apple blossom and the soft touch of sunlight warming skin. The sounds faded and the veil dissolved revealing a vast panorama of countryside. Fields dotted the landscape each filled with a differently coloured, differently textured, crop: the yellow of ripening corn, the blueness of lavender, the bright yellow of flowering rape, a swathe of bright red poppies. A soundscape emerged, a combination of natural sounds producing their own type of music: water tinkling over the stones of a shallow brook, the cooing of doves, the soft humming of bees, the rustle of leaves disturbed by a faint breeze. Beyond this an eerie synthetic theme appeared, providing a delightful backcloth to the sounds of the natural world.

Then, quite suddenly, blackness replaced the image. The sound rose into a painful cataclysm redolent of a maniacal scream and an image grew out of the blackness, a terrifying image without an exact form. Its effect was shocking: it seemed that my mind was shattering, my senses disintegrating. My memories seemed to be spreading across the universe then disappearing amongst its myriad stars and black holes. I felt fear, real fear, something that I had not experienced since I had disembodied. I withdrew from Gelen’s segment as rapidly as I could, retreating into my own and closing all links immediately.

I remained isolated for some time: without stimulation, without communication of any sort. I tried to make sense of what I had experienced. I had not thought of death since I disembodied, yet that awful feeling of disintegration brought the concept back to me. My fear was the fear of death reborn. Death had retreated from me on my disembodiment day. I had escaped its clutches, we all had. Yet death seemed to be facing me when I absorbed Gelen’s mindscape.

Why had she done this to me? She was my closest friend in the whole of Cworld. In Pre D time we had been lovers, though naturally not mentally intimate. She had disembodied before me, but when I followed we found each other almost immediately within Cworld and, with the exception of the occasional mutually agreed exclusions, we had linked regularly ever since. I was a passionate fan of her compositions: always the first to experience them; always honest in my reactions; always supportive of new directions, new combinations, new emotions. Why had she deliberately exposed me to that horrible experience, that horrible mindscape which could have destroyed my persona? Had she created it deliberately or had one of her experimental mixes simply taken an evil turn?

I just could not believe that Gelen was capable of producing such horror purposely, so I concluded that the terror must have been a by-product of some weird combination of media. But then why would she expose me to it? I needed to blank, but I knew that this would be useless and possibly dangerous in my current state of mind. Corex recommendations strongly warned against blanking whilst the mind is disturbed. It recommended settling the disturbance and then blanking. There were rumours of personas who had blanked at times of personal crisis or paranoia and who had never returned. Later, their segments were found to be destructured to an extent that left them unviable as personas.

I had only one option. I opened my link request channels, though only at the highest level. Two requests were waiting. I absorbed the one from Gelen. It oozed regret, apology and sympathy. She came across as almost tortured. She begged my forgiveness and pleaded to link with me. I did not hesitate. I linked.

I demanded immediately.

< I had to know. I thought I must be aberrating. I just thought that if someone else experienced the same thing, or at least a similar thing, then I could continue. Otherwise I knew that I would have to submit to defrag or dispersal. You were the only one that I could trust.>

I asked then continued,

As I projected this thought, I felt waves of perplexity and sympathy emanate from Gelen. I waited for her reply.

I explained as best I could. Throughout my account, I could feel her growing horror as I described the fear that her mindscape had induced in me. When I finished she enveloped me in tides of warm sympathy.

I felt her pain and neediness as she expressed this. I was sure that her reactions were honest. I realised that the mindscape held some mystery and that we had not experienced the same thing at all.

I demanded.

she paused.

I prompted.

she continued.

I echoed with disbelief.

Her persona seemed to shrink as I said the dread word. In a world where we existed as data the concept of a corruption in the data that was ourselves was entirely unacceptable, more that that it was unthinkable.

Gelen continued.

She paused for a moment thinking, then continued,

I broke off and continued thinking in my own segment for a while. Gelen waited.

I blared, erupting back into the linkage with Gelen.

I could feel the mix of emotions that my announcement created in Gelen. The seriousness of calling a conference strengthened her fear, but there was also a conflict somewhere between my suggestion and her own desires.

She did not respond. In fact, my question increased the conflict that she felt. Suddenly, I thought that I could discern the problem.

I asked as kindly as I was able.

This provoked an emotional release and the conflict became clear.

she hesitated before continuing,

I linked more closely and tried to console her by thinking,

I thought sincerely.

In my inner mind I knew this. It was something that we did not discuss, yet I knew that I had to share Gelen with her followers: my comments and praises—much as she valued them—were not enough to sustain her creativity. I knew it and had grown to accept it, but her bland statement still made me unhappy and she sensed this.

she continued.

I thought very seriously,

she responded miserably.

Gelen responded with spirit.

I asked gently.

thought Gelen sadly.

I announced slowly.

She asked in amazement.

I could sense a duality in thinking as I absorbed Gelen’s suggestion. I understood that she would prefer news of the corruption of her mindscape to be limited to a much smaller group than Cworld, but she did have a point. I delinked in order to consider her proposal.

There had not been a Cworld conference for many years. In fact, the most famous one had been called to agree the questions to be applied in the Test and to appoint Test administrators. It had followed many years of problems caused by rogue personas who had clearly aberrated but would not submit to mental defragmentation. They were not a danger to others, but they were becoming an increasing nuisance: forever trying to link to personas that they did not know, blocking the normal channels, expecting complete strangers to share in their aberrated world, spoiling public mindscape performances with inane interjections and so forth.

It took months of discussion to agree the nature of the Test and appoint the fourteen administrators (two from each language sector). During these discussions, it was accepted that the administrators would apply defragmentation if a persona failed the Test. The question of what happened to a persona who then failed the Test again after defrag was not considered until the last moment. One school of thought favoured dispersal; another preferred long-term blanking followed by a further application of the Test. The second solution was open ended: a persona could be repeatedly blanked and subjected to the Test forever. Some thought that this was a fate worse than dispersal, others that the aberrated persona would not be aware of the blanking periods. After nearly a year Cworld finally agreed on a compromise: three periods of blanking followed by Test failure in each case would lead to dispersal.

I had been in favour of the compromise from the outset, but recalled with depression the months of wrangling required to persuade sufficient personas to adopt it. That recollection convinced me that Gelen might be proposing the correct strategy for the wrong reasons.

Relinking I thought,

she replied, clearly pleased with the outcome. She soothed me and I responded before we delinked.

§ 3D Deposition Number 0003

The largest obstacle to acceptance of the World Constitution was China, or the Chinese Economic Entity (CEE) as it became (or Chinese Economic Empire as it was known). Adhering firmly to its strange mixture of one party communism, aggressive capitalism and social control, the growing Chinese block seemed set to dominate the world’s economy if not the world itself. The smooth take over of Indonesia and the Philippines went virtually unchallenged as China moved from dominant supplier of imports to chief banker and finally to a virtual annexation of the two nations. Even the Philippines former masters – the USA and Spain – hardly moved a finger when it was formally linked to its rich near neighbour. In 161 BS the annexation created a combined state of more than two billion people as the Chinese set about eradicating religion and enforcing contraception on these two island states which had continued to breed uncontrollably despite UN sanctions. China’s imposition of birth control measures no doubt muffled many vociferous opponents of the loss of independence incurred. Even ageing Japan, China’s old enemy, silently welcomed the change, swamped as it was with Filipino immigrants and constant demands from its southern neighbour for help in feeding its starving millions.

North Korea was a natural early conquest as China helped it to modernise following the disintegration of its extreme communist oligarchy. This made closer links inevitable between China and South Korea as they excitedly shared domestic markets and exploited the economies of the western hemisphere. Japan became an economic slave as its dominance of Western markets faded and its prime export and import market became the CEE. Similarly, many smaller countries joined the CEE because they had little choice. China was ruthless in imposing eye-watering tariffs against any of its neighbours that did not join and consistently undersold them in markets outside the CEE. Soon only India remained as a truly independent Asian nation. Their growing integration with China was not straightforward, but revolved around a joint strategy to wrest the exploitation of African natural resources from the West. The conflict left much of the African continent in an impoverished state whilst the two newfound Asian friends continued their resource-hungry modernisation unabashed.

The western world managed to resist the CEE hegemony by forming closer links between the European Union, the USA and the South American Confederation together with the western states of a disintegrating Russia and the Arabic Union. This led, perhaps inevitably, to economic integration under the American dollar—sensitively renamed the Western dollar and recoloured brown from its original green. This integration of western federations and countries was empowered and supported by the English language-based Internet as a common market for the interchange of goods together with agreement on a common taxation system to govern its transactions.

These changes in the West and the East, together with a decreasing adherence to organised religion (particularly Islam which was fractured by violent internal sectarian disputes), oiled the wheels which led towards the World Constitution of 139 BS.

Relatively minor outbreaks and scuffles aside, there were no wars in the lead up to the Constitution. It seems that the attention of most nations was fixed on economic integration, growth in an age of declining resources, and the problems of over-population, of pollution, and of food and energy supply. Science and technology provided many of the solutions to these problems, particularly advanced technology in the supply of food, energy and transport. Yet there were many leading thinkers amongst industrialists, politicians, philosophers, financiers and investors who believed that the only escape from over-population, declining resources and pollution was—escape!

There were two major schools of thought. The first advocated migration for an elite to some barely defined dimension which would then leave the earth to the ravages of the masses underwritten by a vague forecast that they would quickly decline and the earth would somehow regenerate itself. The second believed that the solution was the pioneering of space: finding or creating habitable planets and then settling them with those willing to emigrate. As it happened, both solutions were to evolve in parallel: the first by disembodiment, the second by the race for space.

Θ Depar Account 01: Tali

My name is Tali and I cannot remember Earth. My parents bought a shopstake on the ship. They became ‘Stakies’ as opposed to the Crew and Guardians who were known as Caggies and were paid a salary whereas we had to make our own money. Mum and Dad had owned a small chain of shops in the northern province of Shaanxi specialising in suitcases, backpacks and such. Naturally, there was no demand for these things on the ship, but they felt that they understood retailing and applied for a stake as a supplier of clothing. They had already purchased a tailoring machine as a possible new venture for the shop chain and had learned all about its operation and maintenance. It took old clothing as an input and reprocessed the material into new items which they designed at a console. They could specify the material required for each part of a garment, the shape of it, the colour and style and—after some time—out came a new pair of trousers or a skirt or blouse.

On the ship they made garments to order for specific customers, others they made as display items for the shop so that Stakies and the Caggies could view them as a basis for their own requirements. Naturally, the old clothing had to sorted and separated: a job that fell to my brother and me just as soon as we were old enough to do it effectively. The machine could also take in other fibrous materials as a basis for its clothing manufacture so my parents had brought a stack of things with them ranging from hessian sacks to old ropes. The clothes machine could take in anything fibrous, break it down and use it as an input to the fabrication of a new garment. My brother Tian and I were regularly sent out to the many recycling points in the ship to seek out and salvage any fibrous stuff that might be useful. Through this we got to know the ship quite well as we grew up. Other children mostly stayed in their own quarter.

My brother is two years older than I am, but the age difference mattered little as we grew older. He was the more adventurous and I the more calculating.