Evaluation: Likely Impacts of Subspace Exploration on Social Coherance
Summary: In pursuit of The Objective, it will inevitably be necessary to harness resources beyond the home system. This will entail individual Solonians operating for extended periods separated from the Interlink and the collective memory. Technology for remote Interlink connections has proven to be beyond current capacity for development, and energy requirements for transmission of interlink information via subspace is likely to prove prohibitively expensive in terms of energy even in the best case future scenario.
Precedents for this situation were found in pre-augmentation society, when the capacity for long-duration aquatic voyages was developed. In pursuit of new resources pre-industrial powers sent vessels on exploratory voyages and established colonies to extract resources for use by the home society. They experienced much difficulty in maintaining control over these vessels and extraction operations, often having them diverge from the aims of the home society. In order to avoid similar difficulties, several paradigms for exploration and extraction were evaluated.
A potential course that relied entirely on non-sentient, purely synthetic automata was judged inadvisable. While it would remove any risk associated with divergent collective consciousness developing due to prolonged disconnection from the interlink, the sheer unpredictability of frontier conditions makes it improbable that any automata can be designed capable of responding appropriately. Automata are excellently suited for routine work, but unsupervised by more sentient Solonians the potential for disastrous action is too high. For example, automata seeking to harvest a fairly common resource could in the process antagonize an alien power, creating an unacceptable threat to the Home System.
Exploratory craft will require an autonomous, Solonian intelligence to exercise executive functions. Recognizing and evaluating priorities in unpredictable situations require flexibility. A more limited version of the Central Processor, similar in many respects to the Solonians tasked with management and coordination of functions in geographic regions, will be necessary. A single such individual per vessel should be sufficient, with larger operations possible requiring a coordinator. With this executive individual required to manage macro-scale tasks, it will not have the ability to focus on the operation and maintenance of critical systems. These will require individual Solonians operating full time in their areas of responsibility. A smaller analog to the Interlink can link the Solonians operating individual vessels to each other. More limited communication forms can be used to relay information and directives between individual vessels, and between vessels and the Home System.
Executive Solonians require strong neurological compulsions to adhere to a hierarchy of directives. Primary should be the preservation of the species, followed by advancement of The Objective, and third the fulfillment of commands sent from the Home System. This hierarchy allows for the potentiality of situations arising where strict compliance to commands might jeopardize larger goals, while restraining executives from developing contrary plans based on their incomplete understanding of the larger situation.
It is strongly advised that individual Solonians not be kept separated from the Interlink for prolonged periods.
Similar scenarios will likely develop with long-term resource harvesting operations beyond the home system. Prior investigation should reduce the need for the adaptability of an Executive. Such operations working on the same planetary body should be linked by a subordinate interlink. Individual Solonians working in these operations must be rotated back to the home system regularly. Not only will this reduce divergence as they reconnect to the collective memory, but the arrival of new workers will have the secondary effect of reconnecting these "colonies" to the collective memory. When the new staff connects to the colonial Interlink, that system will be connected with the newcomers recollection of their last connection to the Home System Interlink. It may be advisable to develop specialized couriers, with a minimum of neural functions and enhanced memory capacity, to make regular journeys between systems.
