Who is a Republican? Identity and belonging in the Verge Republic. Legally, a citizen of the Verge Republic must either have been born in the territory of the Republic, or lived in the republic for at least 100 Megaseconds, passed a citizenship test, and sworn an oath of loyalty to the Republic. For non-Humans, being hatched, budded, or cloned within the Republic is considered the same as being born within it. But if you ask a Republican who actually is a Republican, you'll get a wide variety of answers. This can range from "anyone who came here intending to make a life as a Republican" to "The only real Republicans are those who can trace their ancestors back to Republic worlds before the Bump in the Night. And not any of those Zhǎngshānese or Jeffersonites!" In turn, most Humans, Pannovas, and Laers of the core Republic worlds and minor worlds (excluding Zhǎngshān and Jefferson) will say that they are Republican. Immigrant Tweechi, Mant, and Pirangs have a more diverse set of identities, but their first generation of native-born offspring and beyond usually see themselves as full members of the Verge Republic. Gummis are something of an exception, as they do not naturally identify with an in-group, instead seeking to become associated with any social structures they come across. Humans and Mants are the species that tend to most strongly identify with larger abstract organizations such as national goventments, and thus tend to have the most pride and loyalty to the Republic. And if you ask a Republican who they think that they are, you'll get an even more diverse set of answers. What makes up a person's self identity is in some ways similar to today's world, but with several important differences. Many people strongly identify with their world. There are proud Valleyans, Agustínians, Gatewayers, and others. This is not universal, however … many people are more cosmopolitan and easily move between worlds or at least don't identify closely with the people of the world where they live. Even within a world, there are often many sub-cultures that can contribute to one's identity. The Palauans of Žemyna are physically and culturally separated from the metropolitan center, for example, with their own customs and identities. The different tribes of Homestead maintain their unique traditions, and the clans of Solace form strong cohesive social groups. Religion has always been a primary source of one's identity. While not everyone adopts their religion as a central element of who they are, there are many who do. Of the major religions in the Verge, Catholicism and LDS are the most likely to cultivate a strong sense of in-group identification. The Humans of the Verge often develop a strong sense of pride in their ancestry, which may feed into their personal identity. Knowing that your ancestors were, for example, Chinese, Arabic, and American can give you a sense of belonging and continuity, ground you in a set of cultural norms, and allow you to find communities of people with similar identities. The mixing of cultures and ethnicities has gone a long way toward blending the Humans of the Verge so that many of people from the American worlds have mixed backgrounds. But usually if you claim to be from a culture and make an effort to carry on its traditions you will be welcomed by others who also claim that culture. Humans are the dominant species in the Republic, and thus there is little reason for them to explicitly identify as Human. Personal identification at the species level is much more common among the non-Humans of the Republic. And a Human is likely to use a non-Human's species as the first and primary way of identifying them as well. Pannovas in particular are bound together by a shared heritage of mistreatment and suffering, and are likely to identify strongly with their species. Among non-Humans, Pannovas tend to most strongly identify with their clan and troop, Laers with their covey, Tweechis with their flock, and Mants with their hive. While Pirangs strongly associate with their pack, they also strongly identify with the Gummis they work with and also with the wider shared cultural group of those with similar musical interests. Race is no longer considered significant in one's identity, any more than having blonde hair or freckles is today. Race is different from culture and ethnicity: it is a concept that there are different sub-species or strains of humanity that exhibit characteristic and covariant physical and often mental differences separate from culture. The concept arose during the early modern period as a justification for colonialism and the slave trade in Africans. The concept of race is treated in the Verge much as modern society views phrenology, the divine right of kings, or phlogiston theory – as an outdated idea left behind by the march of history. That's not to say that people of the Verge do not recognize different ethnicities or cultures, or see that people of different ethnicities have characteristic appearances – they just don't group them together into the racial categories of the 15th through 21st centuries. Discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice is sadly alive and well in the Verge. There are many who distrust or feel uncomfortable around those not of their species. This is perhaps most pronounced in the attitudes of many Humans towards Mants. While many Mant refugees settled in the worlds that would become the Republic after the Zox's loss of Triangulum to the Squirm, and many defectors have likewise settled in the Republic since then, they tend to be viewed with distrust, fear, and even open hostility. Gummis are an interesting case. Many Humans absolutely love them, and welcome their new ideas and peaceful and accepting ways of life. Many others, however, fear them. Among these later, conspiracies of Gummis run rampant – of how they are allied with the Squirm, of how they are secretly undermining the Republic and planning on seizing control, of how they already control the government and financial institutions and are manipulating the honest Humans of the Republic for their own nefarious purposes. There are those among the Pannovas, in turn, who distrust and hate Humans. Their history gives them ample opportunities to find reason for their feelings and reject the broader Republic society. Squirm are, of course, near universally feared and hated. They are not considered people under the law and will be exterminated without hesitation if they are discovered. There are a small number of people who think that peace is possible with the Squirm, that they are simply mis-understood and that the conflic with them is the result of some big mistake. These people, however, are considered among the fringe of the fringe. Their attitudes are commonly seen as offensive, un-patriotic, and insulting to those who have been lost, and these views often lead to shunning and isolation with only a small community of like-minded believers with whom to bounce their beliefs back and forth in a kind of self-reinforcing echo chamber. Beyond the species level, you will also often find bigotry toward people in Isolate communities, or toward people from Jefferson or Zhǎngshān. These people are often seen as dirty untrustworthy primitive savages. Meanwhile, Prospecters are often viewed as dangerous Christian fanatics and terrorists. People from these backgrounds will often find fully integrating a challenge due to the views of the unaccepting.

Robots, AI, & automation

Robots in the Verge Republic are ubiquitous. Most families can afford several domestic robots for handling household chores, and only the very poorest families or those who are intentionally removing themselves from society cannot afford a single multi-purpose household robot. Wealthier families will have large numbers of robots, most of them specialized for particular jobs such as floor cleaning, gardening, cooking, or washing laundry. These domestic robots tend to be mostly overlooked, and often are programmed to be as unobtrusive as possible as they go about their jobs.

In a city, a pedestrian will see hoverdrones zipping by on various errands, robot cars ferrying their passengers to their destinations, delivery robots emerging from robot vans to deliver packages, AI-controlled doors to businesses opening to customers while refusing entry to undesirables, and even robot vending machines. While high-class establishments may employ biological sapients as clerks and cashiers, most businesses will handle customer service with robot consoles and AI surveillance – although customers will usually have the option of summoning a sapient manager for any issues the automation cannot deal with.

Most people going about their daily lives will have AI assistant software on their hand computer. This AI assistant will have a simulated personality and be capable of receiving input and delivering output via natural language. Smart visual displays (whether glasses, contacts, or retinal interfaces) also allow for visual output displays, while gesture recognition and tracking algorithms let the user give input by pointing and swiping at virtual images projected by their glasses. For serious computing sessions, haptic gloves may be worn to allow a sensation of touching the displayed icons - those who frequently rely on interfacing with their computer may install haptic implants. The AI assistant is able to take care of many routine informational tasks - handling schedules, managing subscriptions and bills, filtering email and calls and advertising, serving as an intermediary and facilitator of social exchange (such as reminding the user of birthdi celebrations, or recommending potential social networks of interest), mapping routes, performing web-based research regarding its owner's queries, and dealing with administrative tasks such as applying for permits and determining the proper channels and protocols for performing regulated tasks.

The user's smart visual displays are often used for augmented reality displays to give information about the physical and social world. The AI assistant will serve as an intermediary between the user and outside agents seeking to display information. If the AI decides the information is relevant to its user, it will show them on the display. This can take the form of displays such as virtual shop signs indicating a business's name and type of product, people's names hovering over their heads, civic informational postings, public virtual art displays, paths displayed along roads or sidewalks showing where to go to reach a destination, and so on. People usually create a public facing profile, which can be accessed by interested parties that they meet, commonly giving their names, interests, profession, relationship status, clever or inspirational sayings, and perhaps a visual tag or avatar that they choose to represent themselves. This profile can be accessed quickly by those they meet to facilitate social exchange, again mediated by a layer of the AIs of both users. Of course, an AI can also perform a more in-depth search of people its operator meets – querying public databases for details like criminal records, educational history, news stories relating to that person, and so forth, not all of which may be necessarily flattering – but this level of intrusion is considered impolite if discovered and can take seconds to minutes to complete.

Economy & Productivity

A consequence of ubiquitous robotics and capable AI is a significant boost to the productivity of each sapient. A person can be freed from the drudgery of repetitive mechanical or clerical labor, and instead focus their efforts into fields at which sapient minds excel – those involving creativity, inclusive decision making, common sense, and ethical behavior. The ability of robot factories to produce abundant goods decreases the relative worth of these goods compared to a given amount of sapient effort, thus leading to low prices for manufactured products. This includes the manufacture of robots, which makes robots cheaper, so that robot factories in turn are more readily available, leading to a cycle of increasing productivity and decreasing costs. Low cost robotics in turn lead to easy access to labor for agriculture, forestry, mining, retail, and out-of-factory construction (such as road-laying or house building). Architectural and civil engineering construction (such as houses, roads, bridges, dams, canals, and buildings for industry and civil affairs) is not only cheap but rapid, with large specialized robots accompanied by swarms of helper robots capable of making a single family dwelling in under a diurnal.

In a similar manner, ubiquitous AI decreases the labor cost of mental jobs, with AI taking on the role of collating, organizing, basic administrative tasks, searching databases, and assembling and displaying data in a manner more intuitively grasped by sapients. They act to increase the effectiveness of engineers, doctors, architects, civil planners, and other technical fields with easy visualization, expert systems, computer-aided design, user-friendly information displays, and sophisticated numerical models. This allows, for example, a team of engineers to design and prototype a sophisticated aircraft with fewer personnel and in far less time than in our modern world.

The practical consequence of all this is that the sapient population of the Republic lives in a time of material prosperity, wealth, and abundance. In terms of average income, material goods tend to cost an order of magnitude less than they do in 21^st century Earth.

A population less than that of the modern USA combined with a dozen core worlds and dozens more minor worlds mean that land is also cheap. In major metropolitan areas, land is in as high of demand as ever. But out in the boonies a person can often obtain legal title to a plot simply by staking a claim and occupying, using, or making efforts to improve it.

Housing

With low construction costs, even the lower middle class can afford to have houses that are custom built for them. Inside cities, most people still rent apartments due to the cost of space, but the insides of the apartments can be freely renovated to suit the occupants' tastes. In suburbs the space available for housing can be constrained due to the need for relatively dense housing and the demand for land near the city, but within a plot houses can be quite extensive and are often many stories tall to take advantage of the available vertical space. Rural house of even a family of moderate means could be as large as one of today's mansions. No longer are houses seen as one of the most significant financial investment a family can make.

While the middle class can get a basic house designed for their needs by architectural AI, the truly wealthy display their status by hiring top-tier sapient architects to design their buildings and landscapes. Landscaping or architecture that looks AI designed is thought of as gauche and pedestrian, and their neighbors are likely to gossip. Some wealthy people have "living houses" that are continually being re-designed and changing into forms that are new and unique, with rapid and discrete robot-enabled construction. Some of the more ostentatious mansions include houses that slowly rotate to continually shift their view, or houses on tracks that move around a property.

For those who don't like to be tied down, there are mobile houses. While offering little room and only basic amenities, these habitat modules fit in the form factor of an intermodal cargo container and are hauled around by a self-driving truck chassis. The entire setup can fit on a train flatbed for long distance transport or wormhole transit.

Urban Life

Buildings themselves are often dynamic, built to change shape for display or to adapt to local conditions. Balconies may fold in during high winds or bad weather. Rooms may be designed to simply unfold from the sides of houses as needed. Facades are usually capable of changing texture, color, or even re-arranging their structure. Entire buildings, or perhaps just their upper levels, may be designed to rotate, elevate, or retract into lower levels or the ground itself. Occasional buildings are put on mag-lev rails, completing regular circuits through the city.

A significant portion of a city extends underground as well as toward the sky. Hallways, offices, store rooms, warehouses, transport tunnels, and more can be built underneath the surface to make better use of the limited and valuable space of a city. Underground spaces are often seen as less desirable, so they tend toward transport tunnels, storage spaces, industrial use, laboratories, and other utilitarian uses. That said, large area holographic screens can mimic windows onto virtual environments nearly perfectly, even to the point of projecting streaming beams of artificial sunlight into a living space. Combined with good ventillation, this can make underground or sealed living and work spaces seem to be well-lit above ground rooms.

Efficient transportation is the lifeblood of a city. Cities in the Verge are usually built around public transportation to move masses of people. Superconductors allow cheap and efficient mag-lev trains, commonly moving as subways or on elevated rails. Roads for automotive traffic may be on the surface, as expected, but are also often packed away in underground tunnels or run over elevated bridges and overpasses. Roads are mainly geared toward the transport of goods rather than personnel. People with personal automobiles still mainly use public transport within the city and only drive for trips outside of their immediate urban area. Where surface roads may once have existed, cities now sport extensive greenways with walking paths and bike lanes, often built on wide bridges and elevated platforms as well as on the ground. Similarly, networks of skywalks often pass between buildings. Air transport is common, most buildings have landing and parking areas for personal and business VTOL aircraft on their upper levels.

While cities are designed to allow efficient movement of goods and people, many workers can avoid the daily commute altogether by teleworking, virtual reality, and telepresense. A home office is likely to feature at least a small VR cubicle for the illusion of meeting clients and colleagues in person, with VR goggles, haptics, and wall-spanning holo-screens for more casual meetings or just computer interfaces and displays. Many businesses have many of their employees living far from the business's physical facilities.

Living away from the city, however, removes you from the bustling heart of society and culture. While you can always rent a telepresence bot to stroll down the parkways, or order goods on-line and have them delivered, living in the city offers many opportunities not available in more rural areas. From chances to socialize and network to ready access to goods and businesses to experiencing the arts and cultures through museums or live performances, cities are where people go when they want to be where things are happening.

The high demand but expensive heart of a city naturally leads to housing developments within easy commute. These can be apartment blocks for higher density housing but rapid commutes, or plots with single family dwellings in suburbs farther away. These often develop along mass transit corridors, typically a rail trunk serviced by feeder bus routes. Unlike in the modern world, suburbs are not endless tracts of homogeneously repeated cookie-cutter houses surrounded by sterile lawns. Exo-city living spaces generally cluster in small communities with their own neighborhoods, facilities, public spaces, and identities; with distinct civic centers and commercial areas. Meanwhile, the 20th century fetish of a bland monoculture of turfgrass is replaced by landscaped gardens or patches of native or engineered ecosystems, generally interspersed with larger green spaces, agricultural areas, or natural reserves.

Standardized products of all kinds are usually purchased on-line through e-commerce, and shipped to the purchaser directly either by post or robot delivery. This has not, however, eliminated the shop – or shopping! Many goods work best when customized to the user … if you buy a mass produced pair of boots you are likely to find that they fit poorly. For clothes in general, a customer will typically go to a tailor or cobbler to have their body scanned (or just their feet, for a cobbler). A holo-display can show the customer various garment designs in a virtual mirror so they can choose what looks best on them. After placing an order, a cabinet fac will print up the item, which can then be either delivered when ready or picked up later. Once the customer's measurements are on file, future orders can be placed on-line – at least until their body shape changes enough to warrant another scan.

High value or high importance goods are usually purchased in person at the vendor. For example, most people will want to take a vehicle out for a test drive or flight before purchasing it. Similarly, they might want to check out the ergonomics of a firearm – seeing how it "feels" – before deciding on which one to get. And, often, even for lesser value goods it helps to be able to directly see and interact with the item before deciding … although AR displays allow much more flexibility for virtually checking out items and seeing how they will look in place to decide on your choice.

And finally, marketplaces have always been a place for people to gather and socialize. Even people not looking to purchase something will often visit a public market to hang out, look at the displays, and get things to eat. Open areas, similar to the agoras of old, provide a place for people to gather and mingle. Shops set up for selling trinkets that people buy on impulse, or providing food to go. Farmer's markets often accumulate in such places, so that people can select fresh produce that appeals to them. Many shops are a fusion of retail and leisure, with many restaurants and pubs offering basic fac services, menus of electronic entertainment, and delivery addresses for customers to pick up items. Such places often feature entertainment in the form of street music or public artworks (often virtual spectacles visible through augmented reality). Crowds of people wandering past market stalls and storefronts are as much a reality in the Verge as they have always been.

Rural Life

Major corporate interests in rural areas generally involve large teams of robots overseen by relatively few sapients. These employees are generally well-paid and can afford a comfortable life, although it generally attracts people who don't mind spending a lot of time with few other people around.

Small-scale rural producers often have trouble competing with large corporate conglomerates. One solution is the emergence of farmer's collectives. These organizations of free and independent farmers and ranchers provide a market for agricultural products, collective marketing services to obtain favorable prices, financial and legal assistance, and equipment rentals or referrals; not to mention an important social network for these often isolated people. There is a market for rented agricultural equipment, including robots, for seasonal harvests by those who don't have the means to afford their own equipment for their limited land.

The products of rural areas need to make it to market. Skycars and gyrodynes do not offer good economy for bulk transport; ground transport over roads or lighter than air dirigibles are cheaper and used when possible. Dirigibles are preferred for moving large quantities of goods because of their economy of scale and the lack of capital outlay for a road network. Rugged trucks scale down better, particularly where roads have been built around towns. Environmentally sensitive areas may prohibit road construction, forcing dirigible or aircraft transport. These intermediate transport methods lead to trains or water ports, which are the cheapest methods of bulk transport.

Where the transport routes converge you get towns springing up to provide services. Here is where you find the general stores, charging stations, small restaurants, heavy robot dealerships and repair shops, and general purpose garage fac businesses. The more picturesque towns may also boast numerous kitschy shops and resorts catering to tourists. Pubs and bars serve as places to meet and socialize.

Connecting many small rural communities and isolated households are groups of caravanners. These nomadic groups migrate through in airships, offering transport of goods, bringing supplies, and offering some basic services that are not always locally available such as repair or fac work. The arrival of the caravanners is often a time of celebration and welcome, allowing different people to meet and mingle. Many young adults will spend a season or two on caravan so that they can see more of their world. Many people meet their spouses among the caravanners, or while on caravan.

While rural communities and homesteads may be isolated, most still maintain communications and internet connectivity allowing a widespread virtual community. This gives rise to a maker culture, where farmers and rural land-holders compare methods and share information such as new designs, software, and entertainment as well as offering a social venue to stay connected with like-minded souls. A young couple recently married and intending to start a rural life are commonly given a cabinet fac as a wedding gift so that they can start building their household together.

Some people move out into the wilderness not to make money but to escape society. Some live alone as hermits or mountain people. But for those who do not want to entirely abandon society, there are isolate communities. Spooked by the sudden collapse of the Bump in the Night and worried that it might happen again, they don't want to be reliant on a wormhole connected economy. They generally live apart from the rest of society in small communities that act as techno-autarchies. Without economies of scale, life is necessarily simpler with fewer goods and services available. They typically have a garage fac and often many pac facs or cabinet facs to produce the goods needed for a minimalist technologically advanced society, generally with simpler equipment. These can range from isolated hamlets of a handful of families consisting of a pit recycler, some solar panels and wind generators, a garage fac, several family farm plots, and some simple robots; to moderate sized towns with a relatively comfortable and close to modern standard of living.

More notorious are sects following a charismatic cult leader who disappear into the bush to escape society's notice. Whether following a strict religious doctrine or attempting to build a perfect society, these communities have a reputation for removing people from the social safety net that protects them from exploitation.

Education

Expert system and personal assistant AI, combined with a friendly, patient, and understanding personality simulator, allows for a personalized educational tutor and curriculum unique to each student. The student can learn at the pace they are ready for, using pedagogical techniques adapted to maximize their engagement. The AI system will adapt and grow with the student over their developmental years, providing a consistent and trusted voice in their advancing studies. Virtual reality allows immersive educational environments, demonstrating important concepts, showing diagrams and relationships, or allowing virtual presence at important moments in history, civic landmarks, or environments.

However, even given all that, most parents still send their children to schools. This not only gives the child important experience in socializing with their peers and developing a strong social network of friends, or provides a network for exploring all variety of extra-curricular activities and clubs, but also gets the child out of the parent's hair for hours on end.

In school, teacher still act to guide and organize the students. But rather than directly presenting instruction to their charges they work to manage the AI tutors. The tutor can help deal with unruly behavior, or provide extra guidance for slower learners or advanced material for the more gifted in the class.

Adults can continue to use AI tutors as they pursue advanced education or to pick up new skills. This can teach the introductory basics of a field of study, generally at about the level of a community college. Subscription services can interface with the local system tutor to not only supply curricula but also to record the student's progress and capabilities in order to provide an accredited degree if the educational requirements are met. Further education generally requires the attention of experts in the field as the student gets hands-on experience in the realities of their chosen field of study.

What's their gear? Police: Any warranted police officer will be issued a badge, a gun, handcuffs, and official sensor glasses synced to a department hand computer. The badge is not just a shiny piece of metal, it contains electronic credentials that can be read by a citizen's AR interface and cryptographically verified. The sidearm of most departments is a laser pistol, but this varies from precinct to precinct. The sensor glasses use an improved camera; the assistant software runs facial recognition software keyed to active arrest warrants while serving as a recorder and Witness link and will automatically call for help if the officer gets in trouble. Different jobs within the police force will be issued different equipment. Your average beat cop will get around in a patrol skycar, boldly marked with "POLICE" in easy-to-read letters as well as the municipality's logo, and equipped with flashing lights and sirens. An ESD-21 Argus police drone or equivalent can be quick-deployed from the vehicle, and just as quickly dock with it. The officer usually travels with a security android of some kind, such as a Mk-8 Sentinel or an XM-Thor. The officer's patrol uniform includes muscle exosuit and a body armor vest, with a carbolam or shatterplate cuirass in the trunk if things go bad. If Gummis are common in her beat, she may have a capture bag as well. In addition to her service sidearm she will carry an E-stun pistol, and very likely a set of zipcuffs in case she has to arrest many people. The patrol skycar will have a dual-mag I-shot with tanglers in one magazine and buckshot or slugs in the other; her car may also have a restraint carbine for when she needs to stun someone with more knock-down power than her E-stun pistol can deliver. SWAT officers will usually wear carbolam hardsuits and carry a mix of needle carbines and laser carbines, with one member of the squad toting a break-action I-launch. Not all SWAT operations require a sniper; if one is indicated she'll have a sniper laser. The team will have available any access equipment needed for their job. SWAT teams will work with any number of security robots, particularly ESD-21 Argus and XM-Thor models and possibly ABR-6 Katars or Mk-48 SwarmBot swarms for the most serious missions. Riot police are usually officers commanding a number of robots. Robots in the first rank are commonly Mk-8 Sentinels or XM-Thors. They will have riot shields and stunsticks. ESD-21 Argus drones are common second rank robots, used for launching tear gas or sleep gas or targeting particularly unruly rioters with their restraint carbines. The officer commanding the robo-squad will usually be wearing a carbolam hardsuit and carry a restraint carbine. All police weapons will have biometric locks and smartlinks. ESD-21 Argus drones are often used for scouting, flying patrols, or watching fleeing suspects from the air. Fire: On many worlds, the term "fire department" is a holdover from earlier days because not all breathable atmospheres support or encourage flames. Nonetheless, whether fires are common or not, the fire department are who are called for general rescue operations – and yes, that includes fires when the happen. But it can also include structure collapses, natural disasters, people trapped in holes, stranded motorists, and more. The most iconic equipment of the fire department are their bright red gyrodynes and trucks with sirens and flashing lights. Common models of gyrodynes are the RR-12 Marlin and Heracles Skylifter; the latter of which is used to bring large amounts of water or retardant to dump on fires. Trucks may be based on an Alexia Bulldog chassis. A firefighter geared up for their job will have a muscle suit, environmental helmet, SCBA unit, flame suit, hard hat (treat as an activity helmet), and 10 meters of rope. A ruggedized hand computer with a tracker will call for help if the firefighter is trapped or disabled, and will be synced with a chemsniffer and dose rate monitor to detect and monitor hazardous environments, and to a high sensitivity microphone to listen for victims. Emergency rescue workers are exempt from legal restrictions on invasive scanning during the course of rescue missions, and firefighters will often use portable multiscanners to assess a job site, locate victims, and see through dense smoke. Firefighters will have access to any access equipment needed for their job, as well as chemical and sonic fire extinguishers. They may use an environment suit when working around dangerous chemicals. Firefighters are likely to work with several robots. XM-Thors are popular and capable models, and Stryx drones are often used to survey a disaster site, enter buildings to look for victims, or perform wide area search and rescue. ESD-21 Argus drones refitted to remove the weapons and add useful rescue equipment are also often used for survey and scouting because of their multiscanners, which smaller drones often lack. Emergency Medical Services: The most obvious equipment of EMS are their ambulance gyrodynes. These are usually boldly marked in red and white with flashing lights and sirens. A common model is the RR-8 Utility Heliplane. The ambulance will be equipped with a wide range of emergency medical equipment, designed to keep patients alive long enough to get them to hospitals. This includes an auto-doc, a hibernation unit, a life support pack, and a variety of smaller gear such as bandage spray, first aid kits, medscanners, nerve blocks, reactive bandages, and synthetic blood, as well as most common pharmaceuticals.

Policing & Security

In urban and suburban areas, public spaces are for the most part under near-ubiquitous surveillance. Every stoplight and streetlamp will have a public camera. Civil observation drones drift overhead, recording events below them. Public information kiosks hold cameras that blankly watch the streets in front of them. This information is fed to a municipal oversight database, generally called "Witness", parsed by AI expert systems. This tracks the movement and activities of individuals in public spaces, watching for signs of activity warranting emergency action. Suspected crimes in progress, traffic accidents, house fires, medical emergencies, mental impairment, and other potential security threats or dangerous situations will be routed to dispatch the appropriate police squads, fire engines, and ambulances appropriate for the situation. Witness is capable of identifying patrol officers and police drones nearest to the action that can provide the swiftest response. However, police need a warrant to access direct feeds or stored information. Aggregate, depersonalized information can be provided to researchers, urban planners, and citizens who go through the proper channels to request it.

Witness only surveils areas in public view. Through-wall scanning into domestic residences legally requires a warrant and is not a part of routine surveillance. Consequently, Witness misses a significant portion of domestic abuse cases and rapes.

Civic and government buildings, and places where public figures are performing their jobs, are under the watchful electronic eyes of Witness. Similarly, information from resources purchased with public funds is stored in Witness databases. Officers of the law and other public employees performing their assigned jobs outside of public buildings are generally required to wear body cameras and tracking that is uploaded to Witness. This information is flagged as public, anyone can freely access it. There are exceptions for national security purposes; intelligence and military operations are generally exempt from this kind of recording.

Police are allowed to directly access the feeds and records of any robots and drones directly operated by the police department, as well as body cam footage of police officers, taken during the normal course of police operations.

Witness is good but not perfect. Experienced criminals and those paranoid about their privacy can learn ways to throw off the tracking algorithms, mess with facial recognition, and spot the areas least likely to be under observation.

Witness is generally centralized only to within the municipality, precinct, or borough level. Off-site backups to more central storage areas are available, but increased centralization comes with increased risks of data breaches affecting a much larger system and many districts prefer to keep their data on site. Different districts can coordinate Witness activity for certain joint operations when deemed necessary.

Many businesses keep their own surveillance of their public-facing (and often restricted access) areas. Similarly, private residences, commercial drones, self-driving vehicles, and so on often record footage of events of interest to the authorities. This is not part of the Witness system, as this is all legally private property. Police can request surveillance footage, of course, and even compel its disclosure with a warrant.

Combined with Witness is the routine sampling of municipal wastewater and stormwater runoff for eDNA. This tests for Squirm presence, as well as early warning of epidemiological events that might otherwise slip under the radar. This eDNA sampling, by default, only tests at the species level. To test for individual markers requires, again, a warrant.

Out in the boonies, there will be no Witness system. Authorities have to make do with periodically updated high resolution satellite imaging and the occasional overflight when something seems particularly interesting; along with the old standbys of witness reports, forensics investigations, and other gigaseconds-old methods of policing. Environmental DNA sampling is, however, usually conducted at the level of watersheds and gyres and can help to alert to Squirm threats or previously unknown isolate communities.

Love, Dating, and Marriage

Isolated households deep in rural areas and the urban professional living a life of electronic isolation, e-commerce, and virtual interactions both face a similar problem – how to meet real people for romance.

One tried and true method is simply to get out where more people are and socialize. Which is great if you are able to do so. In a city or town this can be as simple as heading out to the local market or establishments that cater to the kind of people you are hoping to meet. Cities, with their increased diversity, will also have the option of various clubs dedicated to a variety of activities, in which you could hope to meet someone with similar interests.

But in remote rural homesteads, this can be harder. In late adolescence or young adulthood, children will often take off on adventures. Perhaps this will be enrolling in an in-person college, providing ample opportunity for socializing with people of similar age and educational prospects. Perhaps it will be joining an airship caravan. Or maybe they will wander the Verge for a few years to see the worlds.

Many people meet on-line. People specifically looking for romance can spend time in virtual rooms or message sites for people seeking to hook up or find partners. Your personal assistant AI can be of significant help here, working to match you with a compatible partner. More advanced AI match-making software are also available via subscription services, with increased success rate and a somewhat better chance of an enduring relationship.

However, when a significant part of socialization occurs long distance over networks, it is not uncommon for two people to fall in love before they even meet in real life. Very often, the pair may be physically located far apart, leading to all the challenges of a long distance relationship. Improving haptics and VR technology can overcome some of these problems. But one not-uncommon problem occurs when two lovers first meet physically and one (or both) person's on-line persona and avatar is not reflective of who they are in the physical world.

A related issue occurs when a person falls in love with an AI. An advanced personality simulator can lead, in some cases, to romantic attachment. The person may even come to harbor delusions that their AI is actually a sapient mind. Some companies even design their personality profile products to provide companionship and give an illusion of an emotional bond; such products are currently under scrutiny for risks to mental health but are not yet restricted. With modern haptics and VR, such an AI can even be physically present for their master and owner.

The worlds of the Republic are diverse in terms of what kind of marriage and romantic arrangements are socially acceptable. In Žemyna, San Agustín, Garcia's World, and especially New Carolina you are likely to find a more casual attitude toward dating and sex, often with polyamourous families. In most of the Republic, sexual orientation is rarely an identity – being gay or lesbian is not who you are but just a preference in who you are attracted to. Prospect is an exception to any of these liberal attitudes; on Prospect marriage is only recognized as between one man and one woman, and adultery, promiscuity, or homosexuality is considered shameful.

Non-Humans, of course, have markedly different reproductive behaviors. Wherever they go, these differences are tolerated at least as much as the non-Humans are. Solace, in particular, with its majority Pannova population, generally sees the clans facilitate the dispersal of females between troops within the clan and working to pair up errant females with the most compatible troops.

Isolate communities often have highly divergent marriage customs, although these are often looked down upon and may be subject to legal sanction if discovered by society at large. This can involve arranged marriages to support family wealth and social position; communities where sex is forbidden and all reproduction is carried out artificially; or patriarchal polygynous arrangements where a few men monopolize the women.

Sex and marriage, of course, often leads to children. Medical contraception and family planning services are sufficiently available that most children are wanted children. The high standard of living from ubiquitous automation, ease of off-loading many housekeeping and parental responsibilities onto robots and AI, and the ready availability of housing mean that fertility is generally high – where children are not a significant financial burden and are less of an investment in available time, families can have as many children as they want rather than how many they can afford. Most worlds, with plenty of room in which to expand and grow, needing only productive highly educated workers to drive their economies forward, have pro-natalist policies and subsidized education to encourage large families.

For those who can't have children naturally, Verge medical science usually has a solution. Mere infertility is usually easily fixed, although many couples still choose to use assisted reproduction to ensure their child will be genetically healthy. For same sex female couples, assisted reproduction is also relatively simple. An egg cell can have its genetic material transferred to another egg in such a way as to make a viable zygote, which is then implanted into the uterus of one of the two partners (having both partners pregnant at the same time is generally discouraged unless there are more than two adult partners in the family). It is more difficult for same sex male couples. Although a zygote can be made from their combined genetic material, unless they can find a surrogate one of them will need to have a uterus grown and surgically implanted in order to carry the fetus to term and the infant will need to be delivered via C-section. While artificial wombs are available for livestock and de-extinction work, they fail to replicate the full uterine environment in subtle ways that affect a fetus's cognitive development. This results in learning and developmental disorders and difficulty socializing and forming attachments.

Recreation

People still engage in all of the traditional pastimes, such as going for walks, reading novels, playing sports, watching sports, gathering with friends, listening to music, and pursuing hobbies. The main differences are where technology enables entirely new pursuits.

Exosuits allow a broader range of physical activities than are possible today, and open up activities that once required extreme endurance or strength to regular people. Ornithosuits, for example, allow recreational flight and many people enjoy slipping on an ornithosuit to fly around the landscape for an afternoon.

Augmented reality allows many new games that are a hybrid of computer games and sports. Examples include Zap Tag, where you score points by "zapping" other players with an imaginary ray; route race games where the AR shows you the path across the landscape and you race other players to the destination, catch games where you snatch virtual objects out of the air or that appear to move among clutter and surfaces, and even treasure finding games where you follow clues across the real landscape to a hidden virtual goal.

Virtual reality allows immersive experience in artificial worlds. Almost any kind of game imaginable can be found for VR, including racing, combat, puzzle, or exploration games. Compared to modern gaming, VR allows haptic and olfactory sensations so you can feel the texture of a stone wall, or the heft of a sword. It also allows for realistic grappling simulations that can lead to virtual fights that seem more raw and brutal. Virtual reality gaming is often criticized for encouraging gamers to shut themselves off from society in their own imaginary worlds. However, compared to modern console games at least it keeps them active.

Robotics are often used for interactive and moving figurines. These can be collectables, knick-knacks, or children's toys. Children, in fact, often bond closely with a favorite robot toy, which can be upgraded with improved software and synced to the house AI to monitor the child, remind it to do its chores, and assist with its education. Robots are also used as assistants or helpers for other recreational activity, such as carrying your gear when hiking or cleaning and filleting your fish after a day of fishing. Robotic sports are quite popular, with professional robot gladiators creating one of the most profitable sports franchises in the Republic. But robot fights are not limited to professionals – amateur robo-gladiator clubs assembling fighting bots out of scrap and pack facs can be found at just about every high school, college, and town.

Passive entertainment is still popular. Written novels have never gone out of style. But holographic and VR shows dominate the market for passive entertainment. Fictional shows deliver action and adventure, comedy, or romance. News media report on current events and sports. Documentaries give viewers a glimpse into everything from sub-groups pursuing odd hobbies to the lives of wild animals across the many planets of the Verge – among the most popular are documentaries following explorers into remote areas. Game shows offer contestants engaging in tests of skill, knowledge, athletics, or just dumb luck; these are often designed to put contestants into ridiculous or humiliating situations for the amusement of the viewing audience. These often grade into reality shows, which use elimination rules and victory conditions that force drama among the competitors.

Health Care

The medicine of the Verge allows nearly any injury or physical disability to be fixed. Depending on the world, this treatment can be state subsidized or covered by some form of universal health insurance. A result of this is that, except in extreme old age, disability is a choice. This results in attitudes that have less tolerance in general for physical disability, with exceptions for the aged and those with recent injuries that are being treated. In the Verge, you are less likely to see emphasis placed on accessibility than in the modern world; particularly so because exosuits (possibly with a neural pickup implant) largely replace wheelchairs and wearable AI assistants allow sensory disabilities to be better handled at the AI-person interface rather than through workarounds such as braille. However, the increasing population of non-Human sapients in the Republic is leading to increasing focus on accessibility due to differing body shapes, sensory modalities, and cognitive differences rather than disability.

Workplace safety places less emphasis on non-fatal injury prevention – but since most hazardous work is done by robots there is not a significant increase in workplace injury. Even then having a valuable and skilled employee out of work for a mgeasecond or three as their limbs are regenerated is a financial incentive to minimize risk.

However, there are still issues with liability. If you are responsible for an injury, either intentionally or through negligence, you are responsible for the cost of the medical care. While the injured victim will be treated without cost to themselves, you are likely to be sued by their insurance company or the state health authority to recoup expenses. Similarly, elective surgery without a recognized medical need will not generally be covered by the state or insurance.

The advanced technology for healing injuries and replacing lost body parts means that prosthetics are almost unheard of. There is little demand for robot arms, cyber eyes, or other cyborg body parts; and hence little development into the technology of doing so. Anyone sporting an obviously artificial prosthetic (and who is not undergoing treatment for a biological replacement) is likely to be met with discomfort, avoidance, and discrimination.

Mental health care is not as advanced as physical care. Treatment for psychological illnesses still primarily uses therapy, although there are some medications that increase brain plasticity to allow recover from some psychiatric conditions while some implants can help condition the mind to overcome certain learned responses. Gummi mind surgery offers the possibility that mental illness can be cured, but is still experimental. Its successes are only occasional, and mind surgery procedures often leads to severe side effects. However, many hope that this will allow cures for mental illnesses such as depression, PTSD, anxiety disorders, others that lead to loss of quality of life. Others worry that this will be used to eliminate diversity of thought, remove undesirable traits that do not adversely affect quality of life to support the status quo, or even forcibly adding mental traits to support the interests of others. These opponents point to common practice in Gummi Space of non-consensual mental rehabilitation of criminals. On the opposite end of the spectrum, certain radical conservative and populist influencers openly welcome this latter possibility (while often simultaneously fearing increasing Gummi influence in public decision-making and economics).

Politics

There are two main political parties in the Verge Republic: the Progressive Party and the Conservative Party. In the modern Republic, these parties mostly stand for the things you'd expect from their names, the Progressives fight for increased egalitarianism and social and economic equality, often with a socialist bent. The Conservatives' interest is oriented more toward preserving traditional customs, values, and institutions. As most worlds in the Verge use first past the post voting and governmental systems based largely on those of the old United States of America, this tends to marginalize third parties and maintain the two party system – although the values a party holds can drift as they morph to appeal to different demographics over time (famously, there was a roughly 1 gigasecond period where the Progressives were more conservative and the Conservatives more progressive).

Political parties exist to support the party. While individuals may hold admirable views and motivations, the institution to which they belong works to maximize its own power and those who are unable to adapt to this truth lose influence in the party and lose any chance of gaining the power they need to realize those views and motivations. A politician in a party gains the support of that party to put her in influential positions, and connects her within a powerful patronage network from which she can request favors, but her loyalty will be expected in return. Fortunately, in a democracy ultimate power resides with the choices of the people so that there is a brake on the unchecked ambitions of soulless institutions. Parties vie for the favor of influential voting demographics with promises of policies in their favor if that party or their chosen candidate comes to power.

A few worlds, particularly those with a strong Gummi influence, are working within different systems. San Agustín and especially Valleya have abandoned first past the post elections in favor of something more closely reflecting a direct democracy. Valleya's method of representation allows continuous and real-time election of representatives, even to the point of foregoing representation altogether to cast your vote on important issues as an independent agent. This has generally reduced political polarization on these worlds and brought increased civility to government. Grass-roots attempts to reform the governance of other worlds to a more Valleya-like system are, naturally, commonly opposed by the institutions currently in power.

At a federal level, congressional representatives serve for 100 megaseconds, senators for 300 megaseconds, and the president for 200 mgeaseconds. Major federal elections are held every 100 megaseconds, with senators' serving overlapping terms so that only one senator for a world is up for election at any given time. Local elections, for positions such as city councilors or government auditors or insurance board, are generally held more frequently. The president is constitutionally barred from serving more than two terms in office. The lead-up to an election is usually heralded by extensive (some would say excessive) news coverage of the antics and shenanigans to the major parties and their anointed candidates, along with advertisements and propaganda by the candidates and parties.

Holidays, Holidies, and Festivals

A number of federally recognized holidies (a holidi is like a holiday, but demarcated by diurnal rather than any planetary day) are observed across the Verge Republic.

• Remembrance Di: Every ten megaseconds on the anniversary of the Bump in the Night, the Republic takes a diurnal to remember all that was lost. People gather with family and friends and share a meal. Traditional foods are yams, potatoes, pies, cranberry jelly, baked stuffing, gravy, and some kind of meat or meat substitute pie as the centerpiece. This is commonly turkyculture, but varies regionally to include cricket cake, yeastmeat loaf, harvested fish or game, or actual farmed turkey or ham. Many will decorate their homes with ornaments and other displays that bring to mind Old Earth. There are numerous poems, songs, games, and holovids that are traditionally only recited, sung, played, or watched around this time.
• Republic Di: On the twenty-five megasecond anniversary of the founding of the Republic, a diurnal is set aside for celebration and patriotic displays. There are community gatherings featuring bands, parades, and patriotic speeches by public figures, followed up by public displays of fireworks, illuminated drone shows, and colorful lasers.
• Turnover Di: Whenever the clock turns over at ten megaseconds is a Turnover Di. The type of celebration on the turnover goes in three cycles of three, with a special extra celebration when the clock turns over 100 megaseconds.
  • Renewal Turnover: At 10, 40, and 70 megaseconds into a 100 megasecond cycle, people gather for parties and celebration with their friends and loved ones. There is singing, drinking, feasting, light shows with drones and lasers and fireworks, and general revelry. Children are given small gifts of money, treats, or toys.
  • Joker's Turnover: 20, 50, and 80 megaseconds into a 100 megasecond cycle is a day for mischief making, jokes, and pranks. People wear costumes, sling puns, and engage in insult competitions.
  • Reflection Turnover: 30, 60, and 90 megaseconds into a 100 megasecond cycle is a day for quiet and peaceful family gatherings.
  • Grand Turnover: At the 100 megasecond mark, all the stops are pulled out on the festivities. Splendid carnivals and parades are held, people dress in elaborate costumes, with dancing, extravagant displays, and general revelry. Giant puppets of monsters, dragons, and caricatures of famous people, operated by several puppeteers apiece, wander through the celebrations to frighten and encourage the party-goers.
• Election Di: Every 100 megaseconds, federal elections are held. Most people are given the day off work to perform their civic duty. Patriotic displays of flags and other symbols of the Republic are common, and citizens are regularly encouraged to get out and vote.

Pannovas across the Verge recognize Liberty Di, to remember their escape from captivity. It is a time for communities to come together, commonly sharing a group meal.

Religious holidays are still observed. Some of the most well known are Christmas and Easter, Vesak or Bodhi Day, Ghost Festival, Eid Al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha, Passover and Yom Kippur, and Diwali. Unlike in the modern United States, Christmas is primarily a religious holiday without the secular aspects of consumerism and gift giving, and is not as culturally significant in the Verge. Similarly, numerous cultural festivals are still recognized, carried over from Old Earth and usually on an Earth-based calendar. These are usually used as occasions to celebrate the culture they originate from, and include the likes of Chinese New Year, Saint Patrick's Day, Cinco de Mayo, and so forth. Religious holidays and cultural festivals are usually observed on an Earth-based calendar, either solar, lunar, or some combination of the two.

A person's birthdi is usually recognized every ten megaseconds, with a major celebration every hundred megaseconds. Following a tradition going back to Old Earth, cake is usually served at a birthdi. However, candles are commonly replaced by electronic versions or other artifical light, due to the difficulty of getting fires to burn on some worlds.

Individual worlds commonly have their own unique festivals and holidays, held on their own calendar.

Major Cultural Locations and Monuments

There are many monuments, buildings, and features of major cultural importance in the Verge Republic. Many of these are described on their respective world pages. But if you were to ask a Republican what were the main places that define their nation, they'd probably come up with a list something like the following:

• The Olympus Arch, Olympus, Garcia's World. This marks the historical entrance to the Verge, and hence is a significant symbol of Republic identity.
• Crossroad of the Worlds, Thistledown Station, Žemyna. Main Thistledown Station is the nexus of all traffic in the Republic, serving to connect the country together. The central foyer contains a monumental statue of a woman in a triumphant pose, arm raised toward the sky, surrounded by orbiting worlds. This statue is the famous Crossroad of the Worlds, symbolizing the unity and combined strength of the Republic worlds.
• Contact Park, Playa, San Agustín. This park commemorates the peaceful meeting of Gummis and Humans. Located at the site of the old Hendrickson farm where this first contact took place, it is now a source of civic pride and hope for a future in which all sapient species can live together in peace. It's most iconic element is the statue of Alice Hendrickson and Huubuuruu.
• The Backbone of the Republic. The Tīan Nán – Garcia's World – Zemyna – New Carolina – San Agustin rail line and wormhole route is the busiest in the Republic and a major engineering accomplishment. It continues on to Bondle and Grummer, tying the Republic to Gummi Space.
• Capital Mall, Capital, Žemyna. This broad, open-air boulevard contains monuments celebrating its most revered leaders and its fallen heroes. A towering double spiral commemorates the loss of bartholomew and Soretta. A series of statues of soldiers in heroic poses serves as a memorial for the reconquest of Homestead and Gateway. The Providence reflecting pool serves as a reminder of the loss of that world.

Back to Vergeworlds Main Page