The back story to Tales of the Quantum Corps takes place in a time frame that spans the last third of the 21^st century and the first half of the 22^nd century.    Taking the year 2100 AD as a center point for this time span, the next few posts will describe what life is like in that year…sort of a backgrounder to all the stories of Johnny Winger and the Quantum Corps. 

GENERAL

Life in 2100 AD is generally a time of great technological progress, conflict and promise.  The growth and spread of ANAD-style nanotechnology has had profound effects on every aspect of life in the last fifty years.

ANAD systems and poorly regulated fabs based on ANAD technology are widespread, around the world, in every city and village and on every farm or commune.  Fabs (fabricators) based on ANAD can create almost anything inorganic that human beings can imagine.  Cars, furniture, clothing, sex toys, homes, electronic devices, guns, etc can all be fabricated from atom-scale feedstock.  All you need is the fab, the core with its software drivers and the requisite feedstock.  Organic structures, especially living systems (strictly forbidden in most places) are still difficult, expensive and generally not worth the effort.  Otherwise, the sky’s the limit.

More importantly, robotic nanoscale systems based on the original ANAD design (from the 2050s and Northgate University, Dr Irwin Frost) are widely recognized to be a parallel sentience and life form, both a companion and competitor to Man on this planet, even though the devices were created by Man.  The swarming nature of ANAD bots and the complexity of their swarm formations have given rise to the belief and understanding that ANAD swarms are worthy of being called a new life form. 

Moreover, the spread of ANAD technology has been so explosive, and the swarms so compelling in their sophistication and behavior that the term angels has now entered popular use as a way of describing such swarms, with all that implies.  Angels (now a generic term for ANAD swarms) are originally defined as messengers from God, spiritual beings and protectors and guides for humans in their relationship with God.  Angels as ANAD-style swarm entities are companions, love mates, partners, and all other things, even pseudo-religious beings to many people on Earth today.  Some people have even developed swarm analogs of themselves, so that when they die, the swarm version remains behind…a strange form of immortality.

A growing symbiotic (some would say parasitic) relationship has developed between Man and ANAD.  Because of the growth and spread of independent swarms, quasi-official recognition of their status has been granted formally by the UN and by most other political entities.  In other words, ANAD swarms have rights, now defined by law.  Not only do they have rights, ANAD swarms have independent lifestyles and can reside (if they choose) in protected sanctuaries, which are almost like nation-states.  During Johnny Winger and the Golden Horde, ANAD swarms (angels) were given political representation in the UN.

Humans have a conflicted relationship with ANAD swarms.  On the one hand, humans are deeply dependent on ANAD technology and the fabs which are spreading so quickly.  Human economies and lives depend on fabs now.  Many economies and societies would fail if ANAD systems vanished or were banned.  Yet many people are uneasy with this growing dependence and the rapid growth in sophistication and complexity, and now official status, of ANAD swarms.  Man has not had a serious competitor on this planet for millions of years.  Now he does.  And this competitor is of his own creation.  There is growing concern with where this relationship is going. 

Will Man and ANAD remain partners, with ANAD a more or less junior partner?  Will Man and ANAD fight each other?  What will be the outcome?  Will Man and ANAD merge into a new life form, symbiotically blended? 

And what of the Old Ones and their imminent arrival?  This is now universally known and both anticipated and dreaded in equal measure.  The use of the term angels for ANAD swarms accords very well with the coming of the Old Ones, whom some regard as a return of the Messiah or even God Himself.  There are overt religious, even existential, undercurrents in the relationship between Man and ANAD and the expected arrival of the Old Ones, who are popularly understood to have been the ancient progenitor of the nanoscale assemblers’ core software. 

What do the Old Ones want?  Should we fight them or welcome them?  There are some sects and cults on Earth who want to merge with the Old Ones and join them in traveling around the galaxy.

These questions plague human beings profoundly in the opening years of the 22^nd century. 

POLITICS AND GOVERNANCE

Global politics in 2100 AD centers around the UN and its satellite organizations.  There is a Secretary-General and a General Assembly and a Security Council.  The SG is probably the most powerful, or at least influential human on Earth, though his power is tightly proscribed by procedure, precedent and law.

One key attribute of global politics in 2100 AD is the proliferation of entities represented in the UN.  In addition to the more than 200 nation-states, there are dozens of non-state entities which have achieved some kind of representation: corporations, societies, cartels, and now, even the swarms themselves.  As a result, the General Assembly is an unwieldy, unmanageable, contentious faction-ridden body which produces nothing of consequence except reams of debate and oratory.

Real power lies with the Security Affairs Directorate, and its commissioner, known as UNSAC.  In the year 2100AD, this man is the Swiss national Gerhard Niemann.  Below UNSAC, the enforcement arm of the UN is called UNIFORCE, which has a General Staff (based in Paris) and numerous military and police elements.  These elements are UNIFORCE Net Corps (UNINET), Security Corps (UNILAND, UNISEA, and UNAERO), Frontier (formerly Space) Corps (also called UNISPACE), Quantum Corps, and Sanctuary Patrol. 

The UN organization is nominally democratic with all General Assembly members having a vote.  The Security Council is limited in membership to a permanent group of five voting members, and about ten associate members.  Five of the associate members are changed every 2 years. 

A key concern in 2100AD is how to integrate the ANAD swarms into public and political life.  This is a highly charged and contentious issue.  For representation purposes, the swarms are treated as a single entity, sort of a nation-state.  Even though nanobotic experts insist that the ANAD swarms form a single, global organism (a kind of hive mind), the UN considers them or it, a form of nation-state, with citizens.  In reality, ANAD swarms are a single entity like a body and to consider its constituent parts as citizens is like considering your arm and your nose as citizens of your body.  It’s ludicrous and meaningless.  But that is politics in 2100AD.

There are even proposals to grant representation to the Old Ones, in absentia, to better prepare the way for their arrival. 

CRIME/LAW ENFORCEMENT/PUBLIC SECURITY

There is plenty of crime in 2100 AD.  The use of nanobotic technology and the use of fabricators (fabs) is tightly controlled by law.  Society cannot tolerate unregulated use of fabs and matter engines and the production of goods and items without some measure of control to keep the economy and the environment stable.  Some areas of the world do a better job of this than others, like North America and western Europe.  East and South Asia, Africa and the Middle East have minimal and poorly enforced controls over fabs, which run riot in those regions. Cultural and economic forces ensure that people in these regions will not follow containment regulations very well.   UN BioShield and Quantum Corps have global responsibility for enforcing laws and regulations on licensing and use of fabs and nanobotic swarms.  As a practical matter, UNQC relies heavily on local law enforcement to carry out these responsibilities.

Because of the continuing and galloping demand for fabs and what they can produce, criminal cartels and gangs have moved in on this business in a big way, and not just Red Hammer.  Fab lords, hackers, twistheads and others routinely steal and peddle unlicensed fab cores (the matter compilers).  Others use their knowledge and skills in nanobotic devices to create bots and swarms of bots to assemble anything imaginable, even organic things which are strictly forbidden and usually not very successful. The end result, when combined with twistheads and other rogue gene sequencers who hack into the genomes of any living entity and mix and match with abandon, is a riotous profusion of living, semi-living and non-living organisms and entities for sale around the world.

Hackers and twistheads will even hack into your own genome and graft new gene sequences onto your germline or other chromosomes, to provide you with new abilities, new prosthetic devices, new capabilities…all for a (sometimes steep) price and with no real quality assurance or proof that it will work and won’t kill you.  The gutters and alleys of many cities (especially in Asia) are filled with deformed and mentally unhinged people who are the result of failed hacks and swaps, half-alive, semi-conscious zombies who can barely take care of themselves.  Combine the zombies with angels (swarms of uncontained nanobots resembling para-human life forms) let loose on the environment and the back alleys of these cities take on the look of feverish nightmares from some drug addict’s fried mindscape. 

There are cartels and gangs which have attempted to organize all this.  Red Hammer has been the most successful and they are under constant assault by UNQC and other UNIFORCE authorities and enforcement agencies.  Some of these cartels have acquired finances and technology which enable them to rival nation-states in influence and power.  In the case of Red Hammer, having access to the technical archive of the Old Ones also made them a particularly nasty threat (and, of course, the Old Ones used this cartel for their own purposes, which became clearer as the 22^nd century opens). 

The atomization and diffusion of nanobotic and genetic knowledge and technology around the world has made it possible for even single individuals and very small groups to wield extraordinary power and influence.  Criminal activity and threats proliferate and spread like viruses and the only realistic way to enforce law and order on the environment is to diffuse and proliferate as well.

Toward this end, the growth of BioShield and UNQC and Sanctuary Patrol has been likened to growing a law enforcement immune system for the planet, some organization or group of organizations that can automatically seek out and destroy threats as they are detected.  This philosophy of law enforcement has come into vogue in the latter years of the 21^st and early 22^nd centuries.  The only problem with BioShield as a planetary immune system is the question of human rights, justice, the presumption of innocence vs guilt and massive violations of privacy and security in one’s home and personal life.  But the threat of unregulated nano and rogue gene sequencing, not to mention climatic disruptions and environmental breakdowns caused by the above is so severe, that quick and effective reaction is a necessity, if the planet and its biosphere is to survive. 

However, just as our bodies’ immune systems occasionally go haywire and attack the body itself in auto-immune diseases like AIDS, a planetary immune system like BioShield might also turn against the planet and destroy or damage the very thing it seeks to protect.  Or worse, a criminal cartel might be able to gain control of BioShield and pervert it to use as a threat against civilization or authority, for a ransom, for political or religious gain or for other purposes.

This is an ongoing dispute (hasn’t it always been?) between the forces of individual freedom and the forces of stability and containment. 

 

The next post to Quantum Corps Times will be more background information on life in 2100 AD, in this case dealing with Business and Trade, Arts and Entertainment and Life and Culture.