As I haven't had the time yet to read all the Fenspace [and where did that name come from?] threads, I decided to make a little meta-thread for some of the ideas that popped into my head when I read the precis.
First off, handwavium basically shot all of humanity pass the event horizon of the Technological Singularity, with the Fens being truly Rapturous Nerds (a la Ken MacLeod).
This means that the second generation will be almost completely unrecognizable to the first generation of Fens. Their children will be weirder and with interests that will have little in common with their forebears. The Fandom of Tomorrow may be something incredibly weird like . . . watching cheese mature in a cave. They'd discuss the best moisture level for the types of cheese, how the various molds fight against each other, which section would taste best at which stage, etc.
There may be entire nations built around the fandom of cheese.
And that's just one example
Secondly:
Here are some ideas for various clades and polities that are relatively small in number but could show that nothing is monolithic in space . . .
except for the Black Monoliths: Fens who had uploaded themselves into the Black Monoliths of 2001 fame, and have secreted themselves in one of Jupiter's moons, possibly Hegemone. They rarely deal with other inhabitents of the Jovian system, i.e. browncoats, but do occaisonally trade information. Their goals have to do with modelling genetic experiments on baseline humans, though rumors abound that they have a bioreactor and have gone beyond simple modelling.
Bekenstein Breakers: Quasi-monastic infotech order that have devoted themselves to achieving informational density beyond that possible within a black hole, i.e the bekenstein bound. They are supported by various ideospace clades and polities, who see the breaking of the bound as the key to true immortality beyond the end of the universe.
Satanists: Contrarian order who believe in God, but really dislike him. Hooked themselves up to life-support, chemically gave themselves MPD, uploaded prayers from all religions, and then started praying to initiate a DoS attack on God 24 hours a day, 6 days a week. (wednesdays are margarita and bowling nights).
Blakes: Anti-Federation terrorists who regularly stage prison escapes (if there are such things in Fenspace) and disrupt trade. Known also for factionalizing, so there are Real Blakes, Continuity Blakes, True Blakes, The Avon Brigade, The Provisional Blakes Army, Blakes 700, etc.
Kuiper Brain: a computronium mass originally made from a middle sized kuiper belt object, now massing about the same as the moon, holds a community of purely ideospace beings running about 100X human cognitive speed. Not much is known about them, as yet.
The "Socialist Swarm": name given by outsiders to ideospace/baryonspace amphibians who travel the solar system and possibly beyond for fun and "mutually benefitial resource merger." When seen in baryonspace, resemble porcelain figures daubed in abstract paintings, while in ideospace they resemble platonic spheres. Travel in coffin-sized vessels that "swarm" together and apart like a cloud, but can also merge into larger "ships."
Cold Shatter: Ideological movement or dangerous terrorists, depending on your point of view. Believe that anything larger than an asteroid is just wasted space, with no way to easily access the "precious planetary metals" inside. Want to build and use planet-cracker bombs to get at the resources in all the planets, including Earth. Hated by terraformers and Earthies.
New Sun: Ideological movement for remaking the sun into a stellar engine; possible connection to Kuiper Brain.
Eschaton Express: Two Island 3 cylinders retrofitted into near-light starships so that a community of humans would skip "all the boring bits" and go straight to the end of the universe. Rumored to have devised a time machine so that they could come back with the True Cosmological Knowledge. In their wake, grew a powerful legend that sees other groups of humans doing the same.
Possibly more to come.
-murmur
First off, handwavium basically shot all of humanity pass the event horizon of the Technological Singularity, with the Fens being truly Rapturous Nerds (a la Ken MacLeod).
This means that the second generation will be almost completely unrecognizable to the first generation of Fens. Their children will be weirder and with interests that will have little in common with their forebears. The Fandom of Tomorrow may be something incredibly weird like . . . watching cheese mature in a cave. They'd discuss the best moisture level for the types of cheese, how the various molds fight against each other, which section would taste best at which stage, etc.
There may be entire nations built around the fandom of cheese.
And that's just one example
Secondly:
Here are some ideas for various clades and polities that are relatively small in number but could show that nothing is monolithic in space . . .
except for the Black Monoliths: Fens who had uploaded themselves into the Black Monoliths of 2001 fame, and have secreted themselves in one of Jupiter's moons, possibly Hegemone. They rarely deal with other inhabitents of the Jovian system, i.e. browncoats, but do occaisonally trade information. Their goals have to do with modelling genetic experiments on baseline humans, though rumors abound that they have a bioreactor and have gone beyond simple modelling.
Bekenstein Breakers: Quasi-monastic infotech order that have devoted themselves to achieving informational density beyond that possible within a black hole, i.e the bekenstein bound. They are supported by various ideospace clades and polities, who see the breaking of the bound as the key to true immortality beyond the end of the universe.
Satanists: Contrarian order who believe in God, but really dislike him. Hooked themselves up to life-support, chemically gave themselves MPD, uploaded prayers from all religions, and then started praying to initiate a DoS attack on God 24 hours a day, 6 days a week. (wednesdays are margarita and bowling nights).
Blakes: Anti-Federation terrorists who regularly stage prison escapes (if there are such things in Fenspace) and disrupt trade. Known also for factionalizing, so there are Real Blakes, Continuity Blakes, True Blakes, The Avon Brigade, The Provisional Blakes Army, Blakes 700, etc.
Kuiper Brain: a computronium mass originally made from a middle sized kuiper belt object, now massing about the same as the moon, holds a community of purely ideospace beings running about 100X human cognitive speed. Not much is known about them, as yet.
The "Socialist Swarm": name given by outsiders to ideospace/baryonspace amphibians who travel the solar system and possibly beyond for fun and "mutually benefitial resource merger." When seen in baryonspace, resemble porcelain figures daubed in abstract paintings, while in ideospace they resemble platonic spheres. Travel in coffin-sized vessels that "swarm" together and apart like a cloud, but can also merge into larger "ships."
Cold Shatter: Ideological movement or dangerous terrorists, depending on your point of view. Believe that anything larger than an asteroid is just wasted space, with no way to easily access the "precious planetary metals" inside. Want to build and use planet-cracker bombs to get at the resources in all the planets, including Earth. Hated by terraformers and Earthies.
New Sun: Ideological movement for remaking the sun into a stellar engine; possible connection to Kuiper Brain.
Eschaton Express: Two Island 3 cylinders retrofitted into near-light starships so that a community of humans would skip "all the boring bits" and go straight to the end of the universe. Rumored to have devised a time machine so that they could come back with the True Cosmological Knowledge. In their wake, grew a powerful legend that sees other groups of humans doing the same.
Possibly more to come.
-murmur