The Evolution Revolution

[Anders]

I have been extending my writeup of my take on Provolution and would like to hear your comments.

Provolution

That which does not kill us, makes us stranger.
--Trevor Goodchild, Aeon Flux​

The future needs a push, so lets get pushing. Join the evolution revolution!

Ideology

I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.
-- Jack London​

There is no unified Provolution movement, and even ideologically they cover everything from angry transhumanists chafing at ESA bioethics rules to Manchurian nihilist Dao-bombers. There have been dozens of “official” manifestos widely discussed online. This is the great strength and weakness of the movement, making it impossible to pin down but also impossible to hold together.

The following short manifesto was posted in May 2311 from a hijacked Manchurian cruise ship outside the Midway Islands seconds before it (and the passengers, including several leading officials from the Bureau of Memetic Security) was blown up. It is relatively typical for current Provolutionist thought.

“This what we want: we want to become as fluid as the Pentapods. We want to soar like the Sung. We want the rage of the Kafers. We want the stamina of the Ebers. We want to photosynthesise with the Klaxun and change genders along with the Xiang. We want not only their traits, but also all abilities of all species on all planets – the deadliness of Cold Mountain razorflies, the sense of smell of burrowargs, the longevity of bristlecone pines and radiation resistance of Deinococcus radiodurans. We will not be content until we are evolution itself.

We are not interested in things getting better; what we want is more: more human beings, more dreams, more history, more consciousness, more suffering, more joy, more disease, more agony, more rapture, more evolution, more life.

For this we are willing to do anything. We will eat the sacred cows with ketchup. Any force standing against unleashing the life force is a force of death and must be destroyed.

• The sclerotic powers of Earth must relinquish their grip over the colonies, allowing them to seek their own destiny in the universe.
  
• Governments must relinquish their grip over the bodies, minds and genes of their citizens, allowing them to change into something new.
  
• Our false selves must relinquish their grip over our actions, so that the will of the universe may act through our living bodies.

The only truly alive beings are those unafraid to die for life. They are the heroes of existence. Those who serve entropy are already dead without having noticed it. Wiping them out is no more a crime than composting.

The universe is a womb for the genesis of gods. The birth will be painful and bloody, but we will stand by as midwives. Natural evolution is done, humanity must finish the job.

The Midway Mutagen Cooperative”​

Symbolism

“Why do so many apparently sane and intelligent people become Provolution supporters? I think it is because they are a mirror. Look at them and you will see what you want to see or understand. Zhou Hifeng saw people who wanted to give everybody the experience of power he felt in his combat walker. The Ekstein family saw corporate greed. Nick Lohmann found idealists who wanted to explore the entire universe. The Manchurian government finds anarchists while the American government finds terrorists. As long as there is no official Provolution das Kapital to disagree with people will think that Provolution is on their side or are their arch-enemies.

I don’t think Provolution actually is on anybody’s side, not even Provolution’s. It doesn’t exist; it is a figment of our collective imagination. People conjure it up, and then it becomes real – people join, money flows, atrocities get committed. That is also why it can never be destroyed unless we completely change our culture.

But I fear that this might just be my mirror image. I see mirrors reflecting mirrors to infinity. Maybe this is a media professional’s Provolution.”
--Louise Danver-deCorza, Concept Analyst Trilon Corporation​

Provolution does not have any set logo, although the following symbols are occasionally used:

• A stylised, open plasmid.
• The biohazard symbol.
• An expanding phylogenetic tree.
• The Chinese character huà, meaning “person transformed”/change.

There is no set colour or style, but black is popular.

In media a black DNA helix or the crescent-and-axe of Spalko Bobzar’s Semipalatinsk Republic (the origin of the “first” Provolution) are sometimes used to symbolize the group.

Identification

We want revolution
constant evolution
start your engines blow your fuses
burn the bridges for the future
this is our solution
-- Covenant, We want revolution​

Provolution members learn various signs and expressions that help identify other members. Being able to recognize quotes or allusions from Zhou Hifeng, the Tirane Manifesto or the poetry of X-Chiang is a good start. Some Provolutionists use symbols that can only be seen using ultraviolet light, infrared or pinging implants with the huà character or the Kozak-45 genetic sequence.

Much Provolution communication occurs through coded channels. Members may have implanted one time pad crypto in their fake RFID tags or make use of key pairs given to them by contact with other cells. The information is also often hidden inside pictures or texts posted on the Link, appearing as innocuous messages.

 

[Anders]

Organisation

“Are there provolutionists out to set themselves up as the enhanced masters? Quite likely. There is no evidence whatsoever that Provolution members are on average above normal humans ethically (and plenty of evidence to the contrary). The temptation to see yourself as just a bit more enlightened and valuable than everybody else is always there, even in ordinary organisations. In a place like Provolution it would be a miracle if self-serving sociopaths did not rise far.

If we could trigger some infighting everything would be great. But Provolution is not held together strongly enough to have a working internal quarrel. As long as they care more about their tools – implants, terror, science – than the fine points about their ideology they are invulnerable yet politically weak.”
--Adam Lichtmann, Political Commentator Tirane​

Like all successful rebel groups Provolution has found a source of income: illegal biotechnology. It often acts as a mix between a multi-level marketing franchise and a classic drug cartel: clinics pay dealers and smugglers for implants and drugs, these pass on profits upwards. If a local dealer manages to expand the market they will get more money. The supply side works similarly.

Unlike a traditional MLM or cartel Provolution does not have a capo or any central leader: beyond a certain level it consists of independent cells. This is based on network analysis and many centuries of antiterrorist experience. Whenever a cell or leader gains too much power or becomes too central it is obliged to split into two linked, smaller cells. This makes the network much harder to unravel or decapitate, although it also makes it less powerful. But as one of the founders said, it is better to be tenacious crabgrass than an oak prone to getting hit by lightening.

Many Provolution cells are “introns”, nothing more than wannabees reading and distributing Provolution material. They provide a pool of potential prospects and catspaws. “Real” members scout them and recruit promising people for various minor missions and errands to check their loyalty and capability. Such recruiters build up “germs”, new cells that expand the network but do not have much capacity. Still, they can be activated when needed to provide local security, distractions or investigations. A recent approach has to be to fund Core buds to go off to the colonies, inserting themselves into colonial society as colonists and making use of their often-important Core skills to become essential. More successful cells that have gained a particular function like smuggling, developing new biotechnology or linking different cells are called “exons”. The “regulator” cells are the most rare: they are cells coordinating other cells, making long-term plans and funding great efforts.

Groups of cells working on related projects form “operons”. Operons are sometimes created by regulators, but often emerge spontaneously and get their support. Members of an operon may know there are other cells, but the aim is to make the different parts act as independently as possible. Information is shared using various coded channels or a few linking members. A major operon project (like supporting the Kimanjano uprising) might involve cells splitting: successful approaches should be copied and developed further.

Many Provolution members act on their own, forming single-person cells. This makes it impossible to track them, but they are also lacking in resources. Often the solution is to enhance them as much as possible and let them loose, either as “bombs”, agents that can if cornered unleash plenty of violence, or “retroviruses” that are enhanced to blend in and use stealth to achieve Provolution objectives.

Provolution enforcers are few but very, very fearsome. Many of the “Provolution terrorist acts” of the past have actually been about making gory examples of disloyal members or groups. They are essentially hitmen hired solely by Provolution top level cells. More subtle are the Provolution agent provocateurs seeking to undermine society from within, protecting the real operations by triggering infighting and rebellion.

Politics

“At the core of any truly mimetically successful revolutionary meme is the breaking of a taboo. Provolution breaks the taboo of transforming humanity. When mankind encountered aliens our species identity became something to guard, and transgressing it became a crime of the first order. That gave power to Provolution, or rather ushered it into existence. It cannot exist without the great taboo that defines it. People flock towards the antipode of a taboo just as they flock to protect it. Had the turn-of-the-century cybernetic fashion been allowed to run its course it is likely the taboo would have weakened, Provolution would have disintegrated and radicalism and terror would have found something else to crystallise around. But the Kafer War caused a massive surge in species identity and order-oriented politics. That gave Provolution more power and cohesion than ever before, and created an anarchic environment where it could prosper. It is powered by the culture of the Core but acts throughout the frontier.”
-- Professor Ludwig K. Lamonte, Gauss-Universität Freihafen. Lecture on the memetics of convergent terrorism.​

Provolution supports colonial independence and often base operations in newly independent colonies. “Do not foul your own nest” is a common adage among these groups. They do their best to avoid confrontation with the local government, often going out of their way to ingratiate themselves by providing newly formed intelligence agencies with information or scarce enhancements, promising to aim their subversive activities outwards at the colonial powers rather than inwards. Even governments that clearly dislike Provolution are not fought outright: every independent colony is a step towards total colonial independence.

A typical example is Provolution in Freihafen, where the major cells have an explicit “be good boys” policy and slap down more militant cells. They refrain from activities that would reflect badly on the Pro-Entwicklung movement. One reason Manchurian Provolutionists have gained refugee status in Freihafen might be secret promises from the local cells to keep them quiet.

Anarchist Core provolutionists tend to dislike such “appeasement” unless the new governments are explicitly pro-provo. Some sympathisers worry that there might be a subtle split between idealist biotech anarchist and pragmatist colonial independents in the movement.

Provolution tries to support colonial independence movements but is hampered by its lack of skill in winning hearts and minds. Colonial independence movements are generally not very keen on being seen next to Provolution. Past terrorism, gruesome experimentation and a tendency to use any means in pursuit of its goals make bad PR. Current hotspots such as Kimanjano might be the chance to break through, but it could just as well go the other way around.

Many provolutionists in the colonies come from the Core: enhancements are cheaper and more readily available in the Core, but the colonies have much more freedom. Also, the high level of control makes it cumbersome for highly enhanced people to go back into the Core, keeping them in the colonies.

 

[Anders]

Methods

"People think Provolution is just terrorism and black market clinics. But they are making a concerted assault on the human genome. The NeoGaucher’s are just the tip of the iceberg. There are likely a dozen similar projects going on, where rich and powerful people quietly manipulate our genes and create their own little offshoots of humanity. Each just a few people, but those people are going to have children. In time all our descendants will be modified. And that leaves out the possibility that they figure out how to get DNAM into the air…”
-- Caller, Dakar Vox Populi SpliceSite​

The Implant is the Message
This view is common among the moderate Provolutionists and many Transhumanists. If enough people use enhancements, people will discover how useful they are and the stigmas associated with them will disappear. Hence Provolution should support the use of enhancements in general and make them easier to acquire.

Chaos, Glorious Chaos
Among the Daoist-anarchist Provolutionists and trans-situationists, the chaos doctrine simply states that a too ordered and regulated world requires a heavy injection of chaos. This can take the form of a terrorist bombing but just as well a campaign of sabotage or the sending of mysterious grafitti messages that make the paranoia level of the authorities go through the roof. Sometimes the chaos is a more subtle rot: Provolution actively supports the corruption in Libreville and other parts of the French empire since it poisons the whole or society.

Strategic Terror
Some Provolution cells go for the big targets: capitals, starships, key individuals like heads of state, industrial magnates or intelligence services. They aim for high-profile murders, abotage or kidnappings, hoping to either raise public awareness, force governments to accept demands or simply suffer significant losses. While bringing Provolution into the limelight in the early noughts, the strategic terror cells have become more rare. It is very hard to pull off stunts like the walking nukes of New York or hijacking spaceplanes, and it is even harder to get away with it. Many of the big terrorists are now dead or in jail.

The Root of All Money

“The implants we found at the clinic were from different origins. A few we could trace to known cells or suppliers, but several must be from off-arm. The most horrifying thing is not the surgery they did at the clinic, but its purpose: quality control. We are dealing with a terrorist group that has routines for product development. That is something truly unique and extremely dangerous.”
-- Commisar Lue Xiaoban, Manchurian Imperial Bureau of Antiterrorism​

The less activist and more research oriented Provolutionists are more interested in finding ways of funding and protecting their research. A common tactic is to find sufficiently wealthy individuals or organisations (such as lean and hungry corporations) willing to support clandestine labs and experiments. Often the Provolutionists pose as an inocuous research organisation, developing a plausible cover. After a while they usually have enough evidence to blackmail the supporter if needed to continue support – although as some critics point out, occasionally things can go the opposite way if the cell is not careful enough.

Your Enemy’s Enemy
Supporting groups that make life hard for the main enemies of Provolution (nations, OQC, SAMN, some crime syndicates) is a classic method. Provolutionists may offer assistance, enhancements, information or extra muscle under various guises to complicate things. For example, Provolution has supported trade organisations criticising OQC, human rights groups critical of French intelligence services and the Californian independence movement. An even more devious strategy is to give hints to the enemies that Provolution is behind the group, and then carefully keep back as law enforcement tears into a largely innocent group, causing public outcry, loss of prestige and waste of resources.

Pillage, then Burn
Provolution is always on the lookout for new technology and ways of keeping ahead of the forces of repression. This has made infiltration/sabotage and surgical strikes/theft runs useful. “Actin comet” cells specialise in finding corporate or national research labs that have results or equipment worth grabbing, hiding the theft in general chaos and often the apparent involvement of third parties such as ecoterrorists, foreign intelligence or (on the French Arm) even Kafers. One of the most spectacular and successful cases was the 2315 raid on Technocentre Sophia Antipolis, leaving the entire biotech complex in ruins and causing a diplomatic incident when French military followed (a decoy) craft into Italian territory. Exactly what was stolen remains unknown: the DST invoked the de Perthes National security Act from 2290 to suppress any media investigation.

Ecological Terrorism

We have already evolved so much that our actions would be incomprehensible to a human from a thousand years ago. It's the evolution revolution. Tomorrow we speed up the process. All sectors, all species.
--Trevor Goodchild, Aeon Flux​

Why invent bioweapons when evolution has already done it? A strategy to tie up OQC and national authorities is to use organisms from colony worlds as economic weapons or distractions. The right invasive species can do amazing damage: imagine Dunkelheim kamelinsekten or Cold Mountain razorflies introduced on a Core world – or just some ultra-hardy Aurore plants. Provolution would likely pay anything for eggs from the Nightmares or Komoran.

 

[Anders]

Famous Provolutionists

Strength is not an absolute value. To be strong is to evolve. Mutability is strength. Evolution is a string of victories by the strong over the meek. The meek shall not inherit the Earth.
--Trevor Goodchild, Aeon Flux​

Dr Tsai Ming-hua
One of the key leaders of the original Provolution in the early 2000’s. When Spalko Bobzar established the brief Semipalatinsk Republic in 2009, he gathered a group of scientists to advice and support him. Dr Ming-hua and Dr Racek Yesenin became dominant and formulated a plab to spread a “trans-national revolution” across Central Asia by a program of assassinating national leaders. When the Republic was defeated in 2010 by the warlord of Xinjiang the “pro-evolutionist” plot was exposed and widely publicized. All the leaders of the republic were executed.

“Dr Tsai Ming-hua” was used as a pseudonym in the manifestos of the Chinese arm bombings of the 2290’s. Since then the name has cropped up in numerous places. Among many pro-Provolutionist groups heavily romanticized depictions of the Semipalatinsk Republic and how it could have solved all problems of Central Asia circulate. In some parts of the unstable CAR these ideas may be taking hold too.

Zhou Hifeng

"Being no longer human, why should I pretend humanity or don the frail attire?”
-- Ezra Pound, Paracelsus in Excelsis​

The most famous Manchurian combat walker pilot of the Central Asian War. After the war he became a media darling, military instructor and industry consultant until he suddently and quietly fell from grace. While still alive and living in a Beijing suburb he is no longer mentioned officially in Manchuria.
[Dan Hebditch and David Gillon, La Mort Qui Marche]

Samuel Maxwell Ekstein
Wellon industrialist, CEO of Anternal Inc. Contacted sometime in the early 2280’s by Provolution, he bankrolled their research in an intelligence-enhancing DNAM that eventually led to the neo-Gaucher. He also provided contact with other ambitious upper crust Tiranese who supported the project and used the DNAM on their children. When the affair was revealed in 2287 the Provolution cell disappeared without a trace. Ekstein and 5 other parents were found guilty of severe child abuse, terrorist financing and medical malpractice. After serving 22 years in prison Ekstein was released, largely due to ill health. He has avoided the media ever since.

X-Chiang
Pseudonym used by an unknown transhumanist poet online 2303-2310. The identity of X-Chiang has never been ascertained; linguistic analysis implies that the author lived in the US. The poetry is dense with allusions to biochemistry, Baudelaire and Central Asian Twilight-era slang. The poems “My spirit goes clad in pregnant suns”, “Air is like a connexin” and “Our dark and luxuriant ways are bearing down on you” became instant hits among the pro-expansion enhancement crowd. “This is the arsenal”,”Tunduk”, “Carb tuss” and “Cast the world” are widely quoted among provolutionists. The last published poem, “5-aminolevulinate synthase”, is a warning against militarism and government infiltration of the transhumanist movement. The last lines of the poem, “Low signature flashbeam\\Excited singlet state\\Intersystem crossing occurs” are often used as an enigmatic explanation for apparently paranoid security precautions or as a hint to be very careful.

Natille Pershing
Tiranese suicide bomber, killing 43 people when she detonated in 2309 in central Mirabeau, Nouvelle Provence. Her sheer bravado in walking up the steps of the colonial administration building, delivering a brief epigram and detonating (caught by the ever present cameras of local journalists) during a visit of a major metropolitan dignitary made her an instant posthumous celebrity. Some now call suicide bombers “pershings” in her honor.

Icepick Lau
One of the most feared Provolution assassins; possibly mythical or several people, never seen and never caught. Icepick Lau is believed to be a master assassin, killing government officials across the Chinese Arm. His name is based on his preferred murder method: using a sharp implement like an icepick on the heads of the victims. Reputedly this can be so subtle that the attack looks like cerebral hemorraghing, but sometimes he instead induces deliberate serious (but nonlethal) brain damage. Manchurian authorities deny the existence of Lau; outside crime aficionados generally think at least one Lau has been active on the Arm for a few years.

Bai Shuhan
The man behind the Siping Massacre 2308, where over 300 people fell victim to a bioweapon distributed by suicide terrorists. According to Provolution the weapon had been developed for the Manchurian army for “crowd control” in the colonies, and the terrorists were merely bringing back a sample for the mainland to experience. Although Bai Shuhan was hiding in Canton, Manchurian agents managed to kidnap him. After a speedy trial he was sentenced to 100 years of heavy labor and deported to Kwantung.

Nick Lohmann
Freihafen explorer and pundit. After a successful career within the Bavarian survey corps he resigned when Bavaria joined Germany and settled on Freihafen. He became well known across human space for his books about exploration and colonization where he eloquently promoted the need for further interstellar expansion. During the noughts he became increasly allied with the Pro-Entwicklung movement, promoting their cause together with interstellar expansion and colonial independence. While critical of the terrorist methods of Provolution he has repeatedly claimed they might be “unavoidable given the current reactionary climate” and defended radical Transhumanism in the media.

 

[epicenter00]

I think it reads pretty well - it's not quite my take on the Provos, but I think I may steal some ideas from yours. Given the reality of 2300's universe, I'd would suggest more of the names be French - people in wealthier countries tend to have more leisure time to worry about things like politics and the future of the human race.

An interesting take on Natille Pershing should be that evidence at a number of bombings suggests she's blown herself up ... two or three times. No-one is really willing to say (nor are they sure) if she's cloning herself or if there's some sort of retrovirus involved in making other people's genetic evidence match hers, or if there's hacking/graft going on in the police forensics labs to make it match.

 

[Anders]

Yes, there ought to be a few more French provos. But as I see it, there has been some kind of bias towards/against Manchuria (based on the mentions in the old canon). That may be shifting now when the French arm is ideal for subversion.

I have written up two major cells for the arm, but will not post them now since there is a small risk my players might read them. Right now they just know that the "Zinc Finger" is powerful, apparently located on BC and definitely to be feared...

I like the perpetual suicide bomber idea. It fits in with some of my other ideas, and the possibility that it is just psywar rather than real cloning or retroviruses makes things even more confusing. Which is exactly what Provolution wants!

 

[epicenter00]

Yes, there ought to be a few more French provos. But as I see it, there has been some kind of bias towards/against Manchuria (based on the mentions in the old canon).

I think the original goal was that each of the arms was supposed to have something "interesting" going on in them. You had the Kafer War in the French Arm, AmeriCo in the American Arm, and Provolution in the Chinese Arm. Sadly, AmeriCo wasn't that interesting of a plot device, and Provolution was a fantastic idea, obviously very much harkening to the communist ideas of the "socialist man" and the concept that a person could be perfected by his own efforts in his lifetime, that sort of ended up as a bad caricature of itself.

I rewrote Provolution for my own games with the intent on running something with it later (though I never got around to it) and added it to my personalized TNE-era Traveller variant under the name of Posthumanism (rather than Transhumanism).

The idea I was toying with Provolution is that it would be a "revolution" that would turn even the accepted ideas of revolution on its head: Provolution's greatest core of support is not from idealistic young men and women in university agitating to organize the disempowered masses, but instead would have its greatest support amongst the old and wealthy and jaded. There, Provolution could offer the hope of regaining youth and vitality to the old and disabled, new kinds of recreational drugs and passtimes for the jaded, all of which would only really serve those who could afford it. Provolution would be extremely hard to stamp out, because their supporters were often members of the very institutions interested in control and conformity. Corporate executive parents wanted smarter kids, high executive and leaders wanted eternal life, Europe's nobility wanted a genetic basis to their desires to be superior to hoi polloi. Rich kids wanted clones of the famous and beautiful to "play" with, drugs that you wouldn't develop a tolerance to, or chemicals that could give them new experiences. Provolution didn't necessarily like these people, but recognized they were useful - giving them protection, funding, and a ready test-bed for their latest ideas.

Provolution wasn't interested in revolution in my version - at least not to create a new state run by them. Their acts of terrorism were very specific in mission - that by threatening the common mass of humanity they could keep humanity on its toes and keep it from getting complacent.

The independence of mankind's colonies from Earth was also for this purpose - Provolution saw that humanity's increasingly homogeneous nature was disastrous, similar to inbreeding in animals causing a stagnation of the genetic pool except applied to ideas. With the concept of nations and borders on Earth becoming increasingly meaningless, where would humanity get its sense of competition? Without lots of countries, how could humanity achieve a "Tansley Effect" of dozens of different approaches continually being tried and discarded until the most superior solution(s) were discovered? While colonial independence was a good step towards this, they saw that even independent colonies were still a sham - dependent upon Earth for supplies, colonists, and worst of all, innovations and new ideas.

 

[rfmcdpei]

I think the original goal was that each of the arms was supposed to have something "interesting" going on in them. You had the Kafer War in the French Arm, AmeriCo in the American Arm, and Provolution in the Chinese Arm. Sadly, AmeriCo wasn't that interesting of a plot device, and Provolution was a fantastic idea, obviously very much harkening to the communist ideas of the "socialist man" and the concept that a person could be perfected by his own efforts in his lifetime, that sort of ended up as a bad caricature of itself.

Oh, Lysenko. Where did you go wrong?

The independence of mankind's colonies from Earth was also for this purpose - Provolution saw that humanity's increasingly homogeneous nature was disastrous, similar to inbreeding in animals causing a stagnation of the genetic pool except applied to ideas. With the concept of nations and borders on Earth becoming increasingly meaningless, where would humanity get its sense of competition? Without lots of countries, how could humanity achieve a "Tansley Effect" of dozens of different approaches continually being tried and discarded until the most superior solution(s) were discovered? While colonial independence was a good step towards this, they saw that even independent colonies were still a sham - dependent upon Earth for supplies, colonists, and worst of all, innovations and new ideas.

The implications of anything like this line of thought for human relations with non-human species, especially potential or actual competitors like the Sung, Ylii, or Kafers, could be troubling. Are these species useful as anything other than a source of interesting genetic materials?

That's an interesting question: What do the Sung think about Provolution? They're technologically advanced, they're on the Chinese Arm, they seem a bit unhappy with the current state of affairs with humanity.

 

[Anders]

I like the idea of a "Provolution conspiracy". Without some support from powerful groups or individuals the organization would never have been as successful as it has been. Maybe one reason for the terrorist strikes on the Manchurian arm was that parts of Provolution got funds and help by French intelligence? Something the French now deeply regret, and would do their best to cover up.

I don't see any clear Sung position on Provolution. Given that Sung likely have completely different moral systems than humans some Sung societies might find enhancement very acceptable. This might pose an enormous strategic problem: suppose one of the medically advanced Sung nations begins to adopt enhancement tech in order to compete with Atchektoon. They could start a kind of arms race towards enhancement, and suddenly mankind could find that the stable order everybody had trusted might be destabilized by a "transsungian" movement. Provolution would likely love it: who better placed to get human tech the authorities did not want spread to the Sung?

 

[epicenter00]

That's an interesting question: What do the Sung think about Provolution? They're technologically advanced, they're on the Chinese Arm, they seem a bit unhappy with the current state of affairs with humanity.

It's entire possible that some Sung nations might allow Provolution to operate openly in their countries. After all, unlike the rest of humanity, Provolution should be philosophically willing to share all of its secrets with anyone who wants them - to paraphrase Billy Bragg, "Transhumanism for a few isn't Transhumanism, it's just privilege extended." - If everyone who wants to can't participate in the Transhuman evolution, it's a failure. So it'd go to say that Provolution cells might be willing to help Sung nations improve their own biotech industries, whereas other human organizations would want to hold onto their "trade secrets." This would fit in with the Sung idea that those more advanced as required to help out those less advanced - in fact, the Sung might not see Provolution as a terrorist organization, instead seeing them as "playing good Sung." In addition, many more cynical Sung might intentionally harbor Provos just to see exactly how much of humans claiming to respect Sung traditions and sovereignty is honest and how much is just rhetoric.

 

[G. Fieendish]

But what happens when someone uses Nanotechnology to "upgrade" humans rather than the Genetic Engineering methods used by Provolution ...?
Would they embrace it, or reject it as a abberation...?
(I'm thinking here of the Santa Chicans from the Peter Hamiliton novel Fallen Dragon, in that the inhabitants of the colony world, Santa Chico, embraced the Provolution tenet as a alternative to terraforming, & genengineered themselves to adapt to the planet, or Bruce Sterling's "Shaper-Mechanist" wars from Crystal Express...).

 

[Anders]

But what happens when someone uses Nanotechnology to "upgrade" humans rather than the Genetic Engineering methods used by Provolution ...?
Would they embrace it, or reject it as a abberation...?

I would expect Provolution to care more about results than the means. But if nano enhancement starts moving forward there could be a split between "bioist" provos who take promoting Life and Evolution seriously, and pragmatist provos who think it is all about diversity and transgression. That might be fun.

I would think there was a lot of economical and government issues hidden behind the scenes in Sterling's shaper/mech conflict, motivating it rather than dislike of biotech/implants.

The big question is what other groups would think. Overall, 2320 doesn't seem to be very enhancement-friendly regardless of method. But nano might be more controllable: maybe it would be the government- or corporate-approved way, in which case Provolution would want to free it or use "open genome biotech".

The real challenge would be if (say) Trilon or Japan made a breakthrough and started enhancing. As long as every major group is on the same side everything is fine, but if defections start there will be an arms race. This might actually be a strong reason why most of the powers are avoiding enhancement: they have old, classified and convincing reports that prove that if they start to go down the enhancement path the world system would be completely destabilized. Which would of course be great news for Provolution, small nations or the colonies (at least at first).

Maybe there exists something like Gibson's Turing Police, keeping enhancement under control: Sometime around 2200 the major powers realized the danger of enhancement arms races, and set up a few very inconspicious agencies to keep things in order. Who suspects the World Medical Ethics Organisation to be a secret "police" that discourage enhancement research and makes sure no power develops illicit enhancements? They seem to be enforcing high standards of healthcare and research. Everything was fine until the mess of the Central Asian War and German Reunification - suddenly France dropped the ball, Germany appeared as a power that had never been informed about the secret reasons why WMEO was doing what it was doing, and the Tirane nations were also outsiders and hard to control. WMEO did what it could but had lost much power, and the enhancements of 2300 appeared. And now things are slipping out of control: different countries are starting to do "strategic" research, transhumanists are winning seats in parliaments, WMEO oldtimers and senior diplomats are trying to get the new nations to sign up on the controls, and who knows what Provolution is doing - it was after all intended as agit prop to scare people away from enhancement but seems to have become independent...