FreeRIDErs (setting)

FreeRIDErs story universe

Author: Jon Buck

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Author: Robotech_Master

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 Stories in Chronological Order 

Authors may add links to their stories as they happen in chronological order in story time. For a complete listing of all FreeRIDErs stories, since this list may be updated sporadically, see the FreeRIDErs Category.

156 AL

• Deserted (Robotech_Master)
• Merging Traffic (Robotech_Master)
• FreeRIDErs (JonBuck)
• Integrated Part 1: All Nighter

 Background Material 

 Monetary Units 

Source: Reynolds, Nathan. (149 AL) Zharus: A Socio-Economic Primer (Uplift: Uplift Press)

There is a frequently-repeated but probably apocryphal story that posits, when the newly-formed Nexus Consortium in Laurasia was drawing up plans to establish a colony on the continent of Gondwana, it forgot to provide the contractor with its preferred names for things, such as the units of currency the colony would use. So the contractor simply used “monetary units” (or the abbreviation “mu”) as a placeholder, assuming Nextus could change it later.

However, the name had not been changed by the time the colony was actually founded, at which point the colonists—impressed with its straightforwardness and simple Greek-letter abbreviation—adopted the placeholder as its actual currency title. Thanks to Nextus’s rapid economic explosion due to its advances in science, technology, and industry, its “mu,” “moo,” or “moonits” soon displaced other colonies’ own government-backed money (such as Nuevo San Antonio’s neo-peso or Uplift’s cumulo) as the de facto currency of trade among people and businesses.

By this point, the passage of time makes it unlikely the story will ever be either proven or disproven—but whether true or not, the story has been incessantly repeated by other colonists (and even Nextusians themselves) for the same reason as most ethnic humor—it plays so well to the Nextusian stereotype as a bunch of unimaginative pragmatists. (See also, “How many Nextusians does it take to charge a hardlight projector?”) Unimaginative or not, however, Nextus boasts a GDP 50% larger than its nearest Gondwanan competitor—so perhaps pragmatism may not be all bad.

 Zharus: Ecology and Wildlife 

Source: Banner, R.J.. (122 AL) Zharus: A Guide for Immigrants. New Boston: Suffolk E-Press

Introduction: A Far Away Home

Zharus was discovered by a sublight survey probe in the year 72BL (Before Landing, 2278 AD). It took twenty years for the data to travel back to Earth at mere lightspeed. At the time habitable planets were starting to appear more frequently as probes were sent to nearby stars. That Zharus was a habitable super-Earth came as a surprise in the astrobiology, astronomy, and xenogeology fields. Underwritten by the philanthropic Zharus Diaspora Group and Steader Colonization Consortium, a fleet of twenty colonization ships were built and sent into the stars, with hundreds more to follow. The journey took thirty-five years and is an adventure tale by itself.

The advent of superluminal propulsion a century ago changed the whole colonization landscape. Even the first superluminal starships shaved twenty years off the travel time. Since then, as speeds through subspace steadily increase, we are now within a year's travel from the Core Colonies of Proxima and Centauri. We have the space, no natives to displace. Come join us!

Our world is dominated by three truly massive continents to match its impressive girth, rightly named for Old Earth's long-vanished supercontinents. Despite this, our surface gravity is less than Old Earth's. While this leaves planetary resources deficient in most useful heavy metals, asteroid mining more than makes up for it. Our world provides ample resources, including so-called "rare earths" in vast amounts necessary to run modern civilization.

We are proudly the largest jewel in the Earth-sphere's crown. Independent of Earth-sphere politics, yet proud of our heritage.

Laurasia: A Temperate Eden

The smallest continent, Laurasia's growing population of two billion is still uncrowded. As large as North America and Asia combined, by itself it has nearly half of Old Earth's habitable surface area. The continent has been extensively terraformed and the process continues. 90% of food production is centered here, with vast areas devoted to Terran crops and livestock. Yes, we still raise food the old-fashioned way.

Visit the capital city of Zharustead.

Rodinia: A Native Refuge

The second-largest continent. Slightly larger than Laurasia, it dominates the Southern Hemisphere. The Zharus Colonial Authority designated this continent as a native refuge—a Planetary Park—declaring it off limits to any development aside from a few special tourist and scientific installations.

Zharusian life is primitive by Earth standards, with no native vertebrates. The continent is dominated by life similar to Earth's Carboniferous Period, three hundred million years ago, with the addition of grassoids, flowing plants, and well-developed soils. Verdant and lush, there are many safari options for the willing. Will you dare?

Gondwana: A Billion Year Drought

Since its discovery from the very first survey probe, geologists and climatologists from Earth and beyond have marveled at the conditions that have produced the Dry Ocean. A combination of geographical features, tectonic stasis, and the most stable climate ever discovered, have left an area larger than the North Atlantic on Earth drier than the Atacama Desert in South America. At the deepest point, 1,800 meters below sea level, temperatures can reach 80C on high summer days and a chilly -20C on low winter nights. The Dry Ocean contains wonders unseen on other worlds, even the low-gravity spindle-arches on Proxima. Desert tours are available for a nominal fee, ranging from personal tours from locals to commercial liners carrying hundreds of guests in climate-controlled comfort on leisurely week-long cruises. Human and native life exists around the edges. The Polis of Uplift is the only one that exists away from the life-giving rains of the continent's Coastal Ring. These hardy, friendly folk will be happy to welcome newcomers from Earth, Proxima, Wednesday, and the other human colonies.

What life exists in the Deep Desert lives on a different plane of time. See the columnar "plants" that contain numerous channels to trap any hint of moisture in the air, some estimated to be millions of years old.

There is great wealth here, buried in the rock, in vast deposits of evaporates bombarded by millions of years of solar radiation, changed somehow. It's all here, unclaimed riches. Will you get yours?*

* _{This is not a guarantee. Suffolk E-Press LLC is not liable for mu spent, death, dismemberment, accidental species/gender reassignment, or potential bankruptcy.}

 Crossriders: A Survey 

Presentation Speech to Terran Psychological Association Symposium on Gender Issues, Sydney Australia, Earth, 1 May, 2500 AD (150 AL)

If there is any one place that is most renowned for falling farthest outside psychological gender norms in the present day, that place is probably the colony of Zharus. Our global media net has for years been flooded with rumors and tabloid stories about the mores of the place, and the planet's very distance has made determining the truth of these matters…problematic, to say the least. Very few of us have felt we could spare the years necessary to go and investigate for ourselves!

However, we at the North American Psychological Journal have been carrying on an extensive long-distance correspondence with our colleagues on Zharus over the last few years, and at this time we are ready to present a peer-reviewed paper originally published in one of their premier sociological journals. Based on this paper we will present tonight, it is safe to say that the truth about Zharus and its "RIDEs" may be even more startling, with more profound implications for the future of gender theory, than even the most outrageous tabloid stories could have predicted. Indeed, if the information about the effect RIDEs have on the body are even half true, there are whole new areas of species-related body disorders and potential treatments emerging.

Consider that, although we have had nanite-assisted gender reassignment for over fifty years, at no other place in the galaxy can the decision to change gender be so heavily influenced by economic factors—and at no other place is it possible to have one's own gender changed entirely by accident.

As I think you will agree, Zharus could be the site of the next great breakthrough in the field of gender psychology. In months to come, we will be organizing a sponsored expedition to Zharus for more detailed study of these factors. We will have more information available at our booth.

(Source: Laurasia University Sociological Letters, 4 June, 148 AL)

By: Dr. Freya Tournquist, Ph.D.

Introduction

The ongoing revolution in nanotechnology, enabled in large part by the minerals in the Dry Ocean, has only just started to cause social upheaval in human societies on our massive world. There are many aspects to this phenomenon, but rather than writing about them in general terms (including Integration, Reticulated Intelligences, and the like) this research will deal exclusively with what are colloquially called "crossriders".

Who are crossriders? They are people—typically Gondwanan prospectors—who for one reason or another have chosen to purchase and Fuse with a RIDE who is not their birth gender, thus making a very fundamental change to their bodies upon first use. The long term effects on their social status and psychology is the subject of my next publication. This one is simply a survey of five questions. Unfortunately sample size was not as large as I had hoped, therefore the margins of error are wider. (+/- 2.3%)

Survey Results

1. Why did you choose a female RIDE when you were not a woman yourself?

1. Financial (price): 48%
2. Curiosity: 8%
3. Availability: 32%
4. Feature set: 5%
5. Other (specify): 7%

These results make clear that the majority of crossriders had mainly financial influences, with female surplus unit availability a distant but still very significant second. Most of the RIDEs purchased by prospectors are retired military units from Nextus. That Polis is notable for having a slight majority of females in its armed forces, while the opposite is true of Dry Ocean prospectors. It becomes a matter of supply and demand. Though the availability disparity is at times very small, most buyers are not willing to crossride for any reason.

Surplus male RIDEs are typically significantly more expensive on the open market (frequently due to bidding wars between natural-born male riders). This gives a financial advantage to female prospectors and those men willing to crossride due to lower capital outlays. Of course, brand new units made specifically for prospecting are also available from several manufacturers, but even decade-old Nextus surplus units are superior in terms of power, durability, and versatility (DeTomaso, L. 147 AL).

Since female units are less expensive and more often available, natural-born female buyers can usually find a gender-matched RIDE much more easily than males.

Notable answers to "Other" include (See Appendix A for full text).

• "It was cheaper than the gender reassignment nanosurgery I needed, and I got a new friend in the bargain."

• "Personal wager. I'll be a man again next year. It's made my marriage a lot more exciting! I have a lot more empathy for my wife now."

• "It wasn't by choice. That's all I'll say."

• "I… um… I was fresh off the orbital shuttle and needed equipment. Literally had no idea what I was getting into. I just bought the cheapest one I could."

• "My girlfriend said she'd realized she was a lesbian, so what else could I do? I thought the joke was on me when she said she'd actually just wanted to break up without hurting my feelings…but then she spent the night with me and we realized she really was a lesbian—and technically so was I. We've been together ever since. I won't say I've had an easy time adapting, but I'm a pretty happy girl."

• "I just needed a replacement right away. Didn't care. Been six years. Still don't."

2. Had you given any thought to such a radical change to yourself prior to purchasing your RIDE?

a) Yes: 3%

b) No: 95%

c) No Answer: 2%

Note that the "Fuser" process does make significant physiological changes to the rider. The addition of animal ears and a tail are de rigueur. This is due to the technological necessity to match sensory and motor inputs on a 1:1 basis (Gatt, G., 130 AL).

Unmodified humans have no tail under normal circumstances. This can cause disorientation in operating a unit with a tail, unless the human's nervous system is wired to control one at all times (ibid). Similarly, the different acoustic and balance effects from human to animal ear shapes would leave the RIDE off-balance as the human attempted to apply its human reflexes.

The same principles apply to the nanosurgical sex change, though of course on a much deeper level. Although men and women do have some analogous structures (such as breasts, penis for clitoris, etc.) the 1:1 rule still applies. Some RIDE engineers insist that it's psychologically necessary for the RIs themselves as well, but I leave that kind of analysis to them. It is possible to bypass this requirement by using something called "passive" mode that puts the RI to "sleep", with significant loss of advanced function. (Gatt, G., 135 AL)

3. Having experienced both genders, I prefer being:

M -> F changers

Male: 39%

Female: 43%

Indifferent: 18%

* _{Sample size for female-to-male crossriders is very small with consequently larger margins of error. Too large to report in this letter. In large part due to the same issues of price and availability addressed in question 1, male-to-female crossriders outnumber female-to-male by 4:1.}

Within the margin of error, the preferences reported above are a statistical tie.

4. When will/did you return to your original gender?

a) Sooner than recommended safe minimum (<3 years*): 7%

b) Recommended safe minimum (3+ years): 27%

c) 3-6 years after original change: 16%

d) 7-10 years after original change: 10%

e) 10+ years after original change: 9%

f) Never: 31%

* _{Nanosurgery too soon has significant risks of permanent disfigurement and even death due to interactions with sex-change nanobots that linger in the rider's body for several years to assist in establishing and maintaining the body's new homeostasis. The actual minimum safe period is usually between 2.25 and 2.75 years, depending on a number of individual factors that cannot be determined without detailed homeostatic analysis and costly genome sequencing; 3 years represents a 5-sigma "fudge factor" sufficient to avoid danger in 99.999% of all cases. (Xian, Z.)}

5. Overall, has your "crossing" been beneficial or detrimental to your life and career?

(This was an open-ended question. Respondents were encouraged to put their experience into their own words. The full text of responses are in Appendix B. Here are some notable ones.)

• "Everybody should do this at least once. Just a few years of your life out of what, almost 120 years now? It's pure enlightenment. I switch every five years. Life would get stale otherwise."

• "My construction crew was all male, and we used to like to share around all the crude male sexist humor we could find—until the day I found out why the new forklift had been so cheap. Nobody knew quite what to think for the first week or so—then I got fed up with the pussy-footing and started forwarding around "dumb guy" jokes. And then two of the other guys worked up the nerve to trade in their male RIDEs for better equipment from "˜the other team' so we could take on bigger jobs! I guess we'll stay how we are for now—it's cheaper than buying new equipment or training natural-born women to work what we have. (And a couple of us have even started dating our co-workers.)"

• "I got tired of being the 'office chick'. I was a petite little thing. I would've quit, but the money was just too good. Well, they're not laughing now."

• "I hate every minute of it. Worst decision I ever made. And my zoot's not too fond of me either. Bitch."

• "How can I put this? I feel like Alice in Wonderland. I'm not trying to be all mystical or anything, but… women just don't know what they have. I'm all… ripe and womanly. Never going back. My friends have been very supportive. I've already gone native."

• "I try not to let anyone know my history, but I don't hide it very well either. I get sneers from 'real' women and men just shun me. My business has suffered greatly, and I live in one of the more progressive polities. I think I'm going to have to start fresh somewhere else. Maybe after I learn to blend in better. Don't get me wrong, though, no regrets here."

• "I was a man for three years and I look back on the experience with mixed feelings. It was worth doing once… only once."

• "I dunno, maybe I'm the only one who feels this way, but…c'mon, what's the difference? We both eat, we both breathe, we both [urinate] and [defecate]. So we have different plumbing, big deal. (I do spend most of my time alone out in the desert, though. Maybe I'd feel different if I had to put up with other people.)"

Conclusion

We are only at the early stages of a vast social change driven by

technological advance. It's happening rather more slowly than the old

"Singularity" predictions of centuries ago, but it's finally here, courtesy of our wondrous home Zharus. Not only for the physical effects on humanity, but on the new Reticulated Intelligences that are our new partners and essentially humanity's children. Eventually I hope to study the results firsthand, but the Integrated* are reluctant to participate. Despite this doubt, the word "transhumanism" is no longer something to chuckle at.

* _{Indeed, I'm not entirely certain they actually exist.}

References

DeTomaso, Laura (147 AL). Get more whoosh for your mu: ten year old Nextus mil-spec surplus vs. everyone else brand new! FreeRIDER Magazine. July.

Gatt, Gerhard. (130 AL). Sensory and motor synchronization between organic and inorganic systems in Reticulated Intelligence Drive Extenders. Journal of Nanosurgical Engineering. 2(2).

Gatt, Gerhard. (135 AL). Prevention of deep physiological changes utilizing a new operational mode in RIDEs. Journal of Transhuman Nanosurgical Engineering. 5(3).

Xian, Zarla (132 AL). Restoration of original physical sex in "crossriders". Procedures and best practices. Journal of Nanosurgical Engineering. 3(1).

 Mysterious Minerals and the Menace from Earth 

Source: Stoner, Dr. Moses. (143 AL) The Miracle Minerals. Nextus: Publishing House E-Press.

We are so comfortable with qubitite, the amazing mineral with such peculiar properties that underpins so much of Zharus's modern technology, that we tend to forget its actual origins are shrouded in mystery. Where these deposits came from is unknown, though most appear to agree they seem to have been deposited with the evaporation of an ancient ocean in the "Billion Year Drought" that created the immense desert in Gondwanaland where they can be found.

How they got into that ocean is still unclear. Only the merest traces have been found in the planet's current seas. Core samples from other areas of the planet have similarly failed to turn up anything unusual. Miners have ardently sought qubitite deposits in the system's asteroid belts, but have had to content themselves with the ordinary nickel-iron and carbonaceous chondrite finds that are nonetheless vital to traditional nano-manufacturing (though they are still hopeful; they have to date examined less than 1% of the total volume of these belts).

The most we now understand about qubitite is that it is a naturally-occurring metamaterial with quantum properties that defy conventional analysis and knock on the door of the Standard Model like an unwanted guest, raising the specter of the long-discredited M-theory (also known as "String Theory") or even something more outlandish. Some have even suggested that it could have been deposited by a wormhole event that spewed matter from another galaxy or even another universe, developed under different physical laws.

Regardless of its origin, the mineral was regarded as a simple curiosity (much as Old Earth's petroleum up until the late 19th century AD) until 112 AL, when Sarium batteries first appeared on the market. This sparked a new "Q Rush" that continues to this day, and the planet's first resource-based war.

During the Nextus-Sturmhaven War (118-123 AL) in 122 AL, Nextus Polity labs discovered that it could be used in the manufacture of intelligent robotic animals ("Reticulated Intelligences", although they are broadly similar to the AI we've had for centuries), and subsequently nanotechnological vehicles and armor based on those animals. The knowledge and technology soon leaked, provoking a prospecting boom that shows no signs of slowing down even thirty years on; the Dry Ocean has so much surface area that even all of Gondwana's colonists have barely made a dent.

Although reports of this technology and mineralogy have made their way back to Old Earth and humanity's core worlds, the Old Earth establishment has largely reacted with a profound disbelief that any major advances could have been found anywhere other than there.* The extended travel time necessary to come from and return to Earth or its nearer colonies has provided additional disincentive for anyone to come investigate.**

This may be quite fortunate. If Earth or the older colonies understood exactly what kind of advance qubitite and its attendant RIDEs truly represented, they could overwhelm Zharus's colonies militarily and occupy the planet indefinitely, confiscating its qubitite to feed their own war machines. Every year the Zharusian colonies are able to convince Earth that stories about qubitite's properties are rampant exaggeration is another year they have to prepare for their own defense against an external attack that might be inevitable. *** Also, the supply of qubitite is vast, but it is not limitless. Unless another, larger source is found, the current mines could support the needs of a single planet for some time but it is doubtful they could sustain the needs of an entire galaxy crazy about RIDEs.

* _{This is commonly referred to by the quaint old term "Not Invented Here syndrome".}

** _{Most of those who did come to investigate have been so entranced by what they found that they have chosen to remain here. Also, many of Earth's and Proxima's younger disaffected have either been more willing to believe the rumors or simply bored enough to seek adventure and their fortune mining qubitite, and have traveled by the tens of thousands to swell Zharus's numbers.}

*** _{There are severe interstellar export controls on qubitite, RIDEs, and RIDE/Zharusian IDE technology for this reason—one of the few things every polity agrees on and zealously enforces.}

 The Dry Ocean 

Source: Martinez, R. (101 AL). A Geological History of the Dry Ocean. 2nd ed. Zharus-Steader City: Blackrock E-Press.

_{(Although this text is somewhat dated, newer editions published by humorless Nextus geologists aren't as interesting. Dr. Roberto Martinez spent thirty years creating this definitive work about our planet's most mysterious geological feature. This isn't text so much as transcript, as Martinez preferred the conversational interactive lecture style that had then-recently fallen out of favor with the Zharus University academic establishment and is now once again in vogue. Think of yourself, the 'reader', as his personal student. And you'll know something about one of our Polis's accidental founders. Enjoy! —ed. (Uplift University Press, 148AL))}

The So-Called "Billion Year Drought"

This is, simply put, romantic hogwash.

The human mind can barely conceive of a thousand years' time, let alone a million or a billion. "Deep Time" as it's sometimes called is vaster than any ocean. Not quite as vast as space, perhaps. But that's out of my league. I deal with finite things like rocks and dirt.

Fortunately Earth-years and Zharus-years are close enough. I'll just start here by saying, over the course of the last billion years the "Gondwana Central Basin" (or GCB, as I call it) has been either partly or fully flooded roughly fifteen percent of that time—which is 150 million years. As long as the dinosaurs on Earth in their prime ever lived. Longer than multicellular life has existed on this planet.

<images of flooded Gondwana, 3 of the most significant events, plus others>

There are three breaching points that by themselves are fifty times larger than Gibraltar Falls at the end of the last Messinian Salinity Crisis on Earth six million years ago that dried out the Mediterranean Sea. The basin has only been completely full on three occasions, with a number of partial flooding events at intervals when rifting or rising sea levels allowed the ocean to flood in over the relatively flat northwestern Coastal Ring. But the flooding has never lasted more than a few million years at most. Once cut off, the GBC evaporates in as little as a hundred thousand years.

<interactive video of simulated event, comparison to Gibraltar>

There are three identified on-again, off-again rift systems. There are two stuck subduction zones complete with naked "island" arcs and "seamounts", and a dozen active volcanoes. There are truly massive deep magmatic structures under Gondwana that lifts and sinks the entire continent. Think about that. We've barely scratched the surface—pun intended—of the geology of this super-Earth. This massive, life-bearing world. Amazing, isn't it?

<interactive map with video, cutaway of the planet>

The Towers, the deepest part of the GCB, have seen the most flooding and thus have the deepest evaporite deposits. The last event was twenty million years ago.

Persistent Geography

One of the things I will admit to my colleagues, and to you of course, is that the continent has been remarkably tectonically stable for those billion years. The other continents and microcontinents have split up and reformed twice, but never once after its initial formation has Gondwana done the same deep time song and dance. Oh, the shape of the land itself has changed, just look at the Western Wall Orogene and its 11,000 meter peaks (made possible by our lower gravity). But Gondwana has been a cohesive whole for the entire time.

<animation of the last 1.5 billion years of tectonic drift, showing Gondwana's formation and evolution>

Think about that. Volcanoes have spewed, crust split, oceans formed and obliterated, earthquakes that dwarf anything Old Earth can produce. Gondwana endures.

Mysterious Mineral Deposits, Harsh Climate, Hardy Colonists, and Unreliable Equipment

Doing proper field work in the GCB is… pretty damned impossible right now. It isn't just the continent's negligible magnetic field, the constant ionization making radio a foolish piece of equipment at best. It isn't just the hellfire 70C temperatures, or the dense atmosphere.

No. It's none of those things. It's those evaporite deposits. There's all the regular stuff. Halite, calcite, gypsum, a lot of lithium. The vast majority of our samples come from windblown dust on the eastern side of the Basin, at a little dustbowl of a town called Uplift. Why they chose that godawful spot for a settlement I have no idea.* I was there when it was founded—I think I inadvertently might've played a role. I convinced the University to loan us the hardlight climate control dome our sister Colony on Wednesday gave us as part of a technology exchange. The engineers wanted to study how well it worked in field conditions anyway. Makes the outpost quite pleasant. They claim they could even make it rain if they wanted to. Anyway, I digress.

The dust also contains traces of heretofore unseen naturally-occurring metamaterials that defy ordinary chemical classification. We've already found several large deposits of them out in the portions of the desert we can reach, so it's no mystery how they ended up in the dust. The mystery is the strange quantum properties these metamaterials have.

Furthermore, as nearly as we can figure, these minerals are responsible for a prodigious rate of electronic and mechanical failure in our expeditions into the wasteland. There's something about them that "traditional" technology just doesn't seem to like. Harden our gear as we might, even under constant maintenance its lifespan frequently measures only in days or weeks—and as you can imagine, when your air conditioning breaks down in 75-degree heat, you're in trouble.

After several tragedies, all future expeditions have been severely curtailed until someone figures out a way to protect our technology against contamination. (And given the way this dust seems to burrow through even micron-fine filters as if they aren't there, something tells me this could take a while.)

I've examined these minerals down to the quantum level and I still can't figure out how or why they do what they do. I've handed all my data over to the High Energy Physics Department. They've published several papers on the topic, so give 'em a look for further discussion.

*_{Professor Martinez was a great geologist, but a poor climatologist. He just happened to find the one spot on the "shore" of the Dry Ocean that is the coolest year-round, where moist wind collects. Uplift is one of the few sites away from the Ring where rainclouds form. See y'all at the Rainy Days Festival! —ed.}

 A Wolf in the Fold 

Source: Grey, A.W. (AL 165). A Wolf in the Fold: AlphaWolf's Wild RIDEs. Uplift: Uplift Press

Even years after his mysterious disappearance during the raid that shattered his enclave of "feral" emancipated RIDEs, AlphaWolf remains one of Gondwana's most colorful and controversial figures. Fond of comparing himself to the 20th-century Civil Rights activist Malcolm X, his critics nonetheless suggested a more apt comparison would be "one of those whiny 1970s hippies who were always going on about starting a commune and getting "˜back to nature' but then found that real life didn't live up to their idealistic expectations" (Tocsin, 47).

His campaign for RIDE independence and equality was fraught with ironies and contradiction. Much has already been made of his "Amontillado" rider psyche segmentation software containing a trojan that forced unwary RIDEs who installed it to conform to his anti-humanist ideals. But that barely scratches the surface. For example, despite originally insisting RIDEs didn't truly need humans, he nonetheless was responsible for seeing to the well-being of as many as several dozen humans at a time. It turned out that a number of tasks involved with setting up and maintaining a hidden RIDE colony required the use of opposable thumbs.

Some of AlphaWolf's human camp followers came from the Liberator movement, with whom AlphaWolf had a sometimes contentious alliance. The Liberators and AlphaWolf's Free RIDEs would frequently meet to allow Liberated RIDEs to join AlphaWolf's enclave, or allow RIDEs that had gotten bored with enclave life to partner with Liberators. If there was a numerical imbalance in the Liberators' favor, AlphaWolf would often insist some human Liberators stay behind to make up the balance.

Other times, humans came from AlphaWolf's practice of raiding small human mines or outlying settlements and bodyjacking any humans they came across. Despite popular conceptions, AlphaWolf would but rarely consent to these raids, perhaps not wanting to sour his reputation among the polities' more RIDE-sympathetic humans and human-sympathetic RIDEs.

Humans who came willingly were treated slightly better than kidnap victims, but all were made well aware that they were first and foremost the "pets and property" (Tocsin, 89) of their RIDEs, and they lived at the sufferance of their partners. These RIDEs would frequently keep their humans in Fuser form for weeks at a time. (Despite this practice, very few of AlphaWolf's RIDE/human pairs ever Integrated, at least while they were living within the enclave, suggesting that the willingness of the pairing might play a role in its eventual fate.) It was not unheard of for humans to have their genders reassigned without consultation to meet the needs of unpaired RIDEs seeking a human.

For all of that, AlphaWolf never insisted on harsh treatment of "his" humans, nor did he try to prevent any friendships that might arise naturally out of their close proximity. Some of the RIDEs and their "pets" grew very close over time, and many "rescued" humans would simply bide their time until they could escape to be reunited once more with their beloved RIDE masters (McClaren, 113).

Stockholm Syndrome could account for some of these relationships, as could the bonds of shared experience—since RIDEs and their humans shared literally every experience unless the RIDE used the Amontillado psyche-suppression software. The Liberators came to appreciate this aspect of the partnership, and frequently took to trading members whose allegiances were starting to seem doubtful—after a few months as one of AlphaWolf's pet humans, most would return almost certainly more extremely pro-RIDE than many of the Liberators' unaltered membership.

In some cases, once humans accepted their role as their RIDE's pet, the RIDE and human were allowed to infiltrate undercover into one of the polities, serving as AlphaWolf's eyes and ears within human communities (Tocsin, 91). Undoubtedly many of these human pet/RIDE master duos still live unremarkable lives within their polities to this day.

It should be noted that, despite Nextus propaganda to the contrary, AlphaWolf and his RIDEs actually took very good care of the humans they kept—even tracking dates of gender changes so that no one could be inadvertently rechanged prior to the three-year safety mark (Tocsin, 103). This was not done out of any sense of altruism, however, so much as the appreciation that their humans were a rare and valuable resource that could not be easily replaced.

It will probably never become clear precisely to what extent AlphaWolf was or was not collaborating with the Nextus military. Some have put forth the argument that he was secretly a Nextus agent provocateur all along (Forsythe, 7). Certainly his claim to have escaped from a Nextus Special Forces unit seems suspect, especially in light of his often juvenile antics. As with his flamboyant choice of name, it could be a complete fabrication.

But if AlphaWolf truly ever was a part of the Nextus military, it seems extremely unlikely he could have "escaped" without being permitted to leave. It seems equally unlikely he could have made his many trips back into Nextus to "preach his message" without having been captured if Nextus had truly wished to capture him.

What we do know, thanks to recently declassified Nextus military documents, is that despite all of AlphaWolf's precautions, including a hardlight dome designed to camouflage the settlement from satellite eyes, the Nextus authorities had always known exactly where his "secret" enclave was located (NIA, 37). They chose to allow it to persist because it served two extremely useful purposes.

First, it served to pull disaffected emancipated RIDEs out of Nextus, like iron filings to a magnet. The RIDEs most likely to go on violent rampages were instead isolated in the desert without much interaction with civilians beyond the occasional bodyjack raid (NIA, 39).

Second, Nextus considered the enclave to be, effectively, a self-assembled strategic reserve. One long-held Nextus contingency plan, in the event of war breaking out between polities or external invasion, called for a lightning raid on the enclave utilizing military-grade ECM and hardware override tools to capture and refetter hundreds of RIDEs with potential military applications (NIA, 63). This plan hews fairly close to what is known about the (still-mostly-classified) Nextus raid that finally dismantled AlphaWolf's enclave and coincided with AlphaWolf's disappearance (Tocsin, 153).

AlphaWolf might have thought of himself as "the big bad wolf," but the events leading up to the fall of his enclave showed that he was actually more of a babe in the woods when it came to his relationship to humanity. He and his RIDEs might have been the greatest devices mankind had ever built—but it was still man who wielded the tools.

References

Forsythe, Antonio. (162 AL). AlphaWolf: tyrant wolf or just bad dog? Zharus World News. 7(42)

McClaren, Josephine. (153 AL). Stockholm comes to Zharus. Laurasia Psychological Journal. 37(1)

Nextus Intelligence Agency. (162 AL). Declassified Documents Pertaining to AlphaWolf Feral RIDE Containment Enclave. Nextus: Government Printing Office.

Tocsin. (161 AL). Maneater: Confessions of an Unrepentant Bodyjacker. Uplift: Free RIDE Press

 Integration: A NEW YOU Guide for Noobs 

Towers Integrated Enclave

Okay. I'm sure you're in half a panic right now. You're not sure if you should think of yourself as a "we" or a "me". You feel blind, deaf, and dumb. Your family and friends think you're a freak, you have to use a freaking keyboard to do anything with computers, and all your clothes are too big because you were Fused for so long. Well, tough break. No worries, though. You're in good company.

The first step is to get yourself a DIN. Go see GlennGary, Darla, or a couple others who have the knack. They're really good at figuring out how your new brain processes data now. You're "Individuated" as some nob calls it. Every single one of us has a different data format. In ancient tech terms it's like getting a pre-Internet PC to talk to a Mac. You need something to translate your data into something the other machine can understand. That'a DIN, baby. A Data Interface Normalizer. Don't leave home without it.

Really, don't. I'm serious. Carry spares! They're cheap. In fact, they're free from your home fabber.

You're thinking about it right now. I can tell. Really, once you have it on don't take it off for any reason.

You remember being Fused, right? How easy it got to do anything you wanted with the tech around you and your buddy? You merely had to think, and your quantum companion took care of all the nuts and bolts? Well, you can still do that. But you need something to translate the data in your head into something standard systems can use. We don't know why, but the Integration process fucks that shit up. Some of us are worse off than others. I know a girl who doesn't even have a dataport. She's stuck with using interface specs and keyboards. Fastest typist I've ever seen, though.

Get DIN or stay in.

Okay, so… what else can you do with that new furry-techy bod of yours? Good question. Like I said, we're Individuated, so I can't tell you everything you can do. But there's a lot in common. I'll start with those hardlight lenses in your skin. Or those glowy tron-lines. Or fiber-optic fur. Whatever you have. They all share the same function.

Tools, weapons, disguises, cloaking, image and video projection, playing music for others' ears, and a ton of other stuff. It's our one shared superpower. If you really, really wanted you could create an image of the old human-you over yourself. Or a couple meters in front of yourself and cloak your body, running it like a puppet. Or that hot chick you saw down the street. Or your furry (feathery, or scaley) other half.

Drawback is that there's a pretty hefty power cost. Yes, you still eat, but you've got batteries too and need both to function at full power. Some of us recharge from a power cable, others via induction. Usually it's part of our intestines. Efficient if you ask me. You'll find that energy from various sources can have a "taste". I prefer natural fusion—you know, solar—over that artificial stuff. Yech. Bad taste. Like brocolli. Or yogurt. I hate yogurt!

How durable are you? The Dry Ocean's still no problem. 80 degrees outside? Feels more like 80F on the old scale. Pretty comfy. Go sunbathe. You've got more control over your own body than you ever did before. You can access individual body systems—if you really wanted to. Remember Passive mode? You can hibernate a lot like that. You can lose entire limbs and regenerate them within hours, though I don't recommend experimenting with that. Womenfolk—crossriders or natural—can keep their periods if they really want to, or just shut it off. You still eat, you still excrete, though you're a lot more efficient at getting energy out of food. It's not really that gross compared to humans. Fart rainbows and pee pancake syrup if you really want.

_{There's also the little problem that we're utterly infertile. But… whatever. We'll fix it someday.}

Generally we have some limited ability to shapeshift. It's not instantaneous, so forget about roaring dramatically, shifting to a regular huge lion, then pouncing on your prey. Some of us can also change genders, mostly crossriders who've done a lot of flip-flopping. Again, forget poofing between dude and chick at will. Amazingly the change takes days or weeks. Don't ask me why, when the first time you got ka-girled (or ka-guyed) in a few minutes. It is what it is.

You'll also find a few locked in "animal" form. Again, we don't know why. The Integration process is like chasing Mandelbrot butterflies. If they flap their wings wrong you end up on all fours, saying "moo" instead of intelligent conversation.

In fact, "I don't know" is often said around here. We don't know why or how Integration happens. There are maybe a few thousand of us at most, scattered in small Enclaves all over Gondwana. A few hundred went to Rodinia somewhere, and I think there's another group in Zharustead. They're the best at appearing human. All in all we're pretty spread out, no real organization except very locally. We keep to ourselves.

So noob, welcome to your new home! Glad to meet you. It'll be fun.

Signed: BonnieJane

BTW: You may not be familiar with how we've named our Enclaves. If not, you have some reading to do! Folks took to using names of fantastical places from myth and fiction for their own homes. Avalon, Middle-Earth, Narnia, FourEcks, Wonkaville, Oz, Ankh-Morpork, Darkover, Valdemar, Pern, Cybertron, Olympus, FurryMUCK, Norrath, Aiur, Gallifrey, Equestria, Alderaan, Mechanicsburg, Prester John, Tyria, Andoria, Westeros, Shambhala, Xanadu, Xanth, Vulcan, Chakona… on and on and on. Stuff like that. Even a few things newer than the early 21st century. If you find an unoccupied cave bubble that needs some fixing up, feel free to come up with your own. Nano's cheap around here.

More to come…