Deriving their name from the famous Greek philosopher and polymath Archimedes of Syracuse, the Archimedes Society is an open-source society whose exact founding remains a mystery, but who remain active throughout the Verge and Bleed, sponsoring lobbying organizations and sending specialists and advisors to help direct governments and businesses willing to listen in a more scientifically minded direction. Like the ASAI, they are often considered to be part of the "society of letters," although they and the ASAI tend not to get along very well, owing to their mutually exclusive approaches to intellectual property: the Archimedes Society is entirely open source, rejecting the idea that information can be trademarked or copyrighted, while the ASAI depends on that ability to survive and fund future expeditions.
Who the ARchimedes Society IsThe precise date of founding for the Archimedes Society is unknown, although they began to make an impact after the Ascension Crisis. They consider themselves to be descendants of a tradition that began with the JASONS in the United States, which if it is true means the organization is incredibly old. What can be said is that the organization explicitly tries to pry science away from the hands of businesses, hypercorporations, and governments that routinely seek to abuse it, and push for science for its own sake, promoting an agenda that is unashamedly technoprogressive. Their solution to most problems can be summed up as "more technology" and they tend to promote a type of socialism that's often called information socialism or info socialism. While the organization itself isn't a formal educational institute they fund such institutes; free educational facilities that exist throughout the Verge in Bleed both in person and online that are open to anyone without people having to pay are generally the result of Archimedes Society influence, usually moving money through the Freemasons when necessary, a group they associate closely with. The Society is well known and well-respected among many scientific institutions within the Verge and Bleed, and while the society rarely acts in a direct manner - they prefer to take on an advisory role or act indirectly through shell companies, making it harder for totalitarian governments and hypercorporations to come back after them - they do have a number of campuses throughout the Verge and Bleed where they offer free educational training to anyone willing to take them up on the offer, often with some sort of state sponsoring or through capitalizing on the post-scarcity nature that the access to the fabricators brings. For this reason, they are also relatively close to the Autonomist Alliance, as well.
It's ironic, then, that so little about the society would ultimately be known, and that rank within the society is very important. The Society functions like most intellectual institutions, and is sensitive to rank and an individual's place within the society in addition to their r-Rep, which can determine precisely how much help they get and what quality (the organization never turns down anyone asking for help, but someone with lower r-Rep will not get the same help that someone with higher r-Rep will; similarly, they will not be as open to individuals who lack ranks in their organization as they would be to those with ranks). Major facilities can be found throughout the Verge and Bleed, but especially on Bluefall, where the info-socialism finds a neat if uncomfortable ally with Bluefall's idea of IP rights, and in some parts of the Verge and Bleed, and especially in the Technocracy. However, their actual headquarters, and the store of all their knowledge, is known only to their highest ranks. The Archimedes Society tends to staff their local campuses with individuals who are no higher rank in the organization than Sectional Supervisor, or individuals who are functionally tenured with the organization and the various educational bodies that also work with the Society. Higher ranking individuals rarely stay in one location for very long, and are constantly on the move, likely to stay one step ahead of hostile governments and corporations that would like to see them silenced or that they crossed. The lack of transparency for such an anarchist-friendly Society makes them the focal point of conspiracy theories. A common accusation leveled against them is that they're propagating technocracy rather than democracy, and that their technoprogressivism is just worship of the God AIs in disguise. While the Society very much disputes this latter point - and counters by noting that's what the ASAI and Escott Institute are for - their bias is well known when they reveal themselves. But because they don't always reveal themselves as being behind a particular shell-company that's promoting educational software - mostly for their own safety - many chose to read a degree of maliciousness into their actions, which makes them a repeated target online. |
|
What the Society Wants
Ultimately, like all educational and research institutes, the Society wants validation - empirical or otherwise - of their theories, whatever those theories happen to be. This often comes in the form of information and data, and the Society has serious computation devoted to just crunching data alone, which they can then use the conclusions from to draw up their own plans of action. They lack the focus of the ASAI; while they would love more information about ASIs and XSIs, the ASAI has a virtual monopoly on that information - not that they'd let this stop them. They also lack the funding that the Escott Institute has, so they have to make due. All researchers, especially those who can't afford to reveal themselves because they've made very real enemies, are happy to pay individuals to travel into the field to try and get that information for them. There are also those who are willing to play dirty - the Society is rumored to have no problems hiring crackers and black market mercs to do their work for them, often retrieving some piece of information or data.
What the SOciety Can Provide
Given that they set at the center of a vast educational and research network that connects numerous universities and educational institutions throughout the Verge and Bleed, the Society can provide almost all things that an institution of its size is capable of providing including access to the following:
- Information. The society runs a public-access database that anyone can search through; this vast database collects information from all over the Verge and Bleed an none of it is hidden behind a paywall, meaning that most scientific research can find its way to the RNA database and the Archimedes Server.
- Accommodations. Those doing work for the Society or those who are part of the Society can generally get living arrangements with a few beds in the student dorms, but sometimes it's better than nothing.
- Tools and scientific gear. Only those who have high RNA ranks or who are members of the society can request it, but the Society has access to a wide range of gear and technology, some of which may be illegal in a given area and thus, requires the utmost care in using and is only given to those with the society trusts the most.
- Training, mostly in scientific and related fields.
Rank
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 |
Title
Student Sectional Director (non-tenured) Sectional Supervisor (tenured) Senior Professor Secretary General Vice President President |
Advantages
Rank 0 Rank 1 Rank 2, Tenure Rank 3, Security Clearance [3] Rank 4 Rank 5, Security Clearance [5] Rank 6 |
Open Source ScienceOne of the major goals of the Archimedes Society is the foundation of an Open Source network, where everyone can share software, scientific data, and the like. To this end, they maintain a large number of servers in the Verge and Bleed, often a server in every major system where they're legal, and they use this to help propagate their goal of information and databases accessible for everyone. Naturally, this runs right into the recalcitrance of the Ain Soph Aur Society, which opposes such measures with their knowledge, an especially the Escott Institute, who charges for their knowledge. And since the ASAI has a head-start on the Archimedes Society by at least several centuries, they have data that the Society could never hope to get their hands on. Even with this handicap, however, the Society still commands a great deal of resources, making them responsible for the upkeep of one of the largest open-source databases in the entire Verge and Bleed. |
History of the archimedes society
The history of the organization is lost to the sands of time; it's likely connected with a number of very early, pre-Interstellar Period organizations that include groups like the JASONS and a number of hacktivist organizations that attracted scientists and amateurs alike. The general goal of the Society is a very old one as well, with groups pushing for information freedom as far back as the pre-Interplanetary Era. The confluence of these groups plus time and distance likely gave rise to the idea that would eventually become the Archimedes Society. What can be said is that the Society, if it formed during the Utopian Era, did so outside of the immediate sphere of control for the God AIs, since the God AIs were fairly transparent and flat, while the corporations, states, governments, and other groups beyond them were not. Given how close the two are, it's likely the formation of the Autonomist Alliance either kicked off or was influenced by the formation of the Archimedes Society.
The first mention of the Society in history is as the Archimedes Club, on the Procyon Reach. The Club was likely tied to the AlphaCen Lodge of Freemasons, many of whom sponsored movements like the Club. From there, the club expanded and grew, and at some point before the Battle of Storm a group called the Argonauts emerged promoting a very similar memetic scheme to the Archimedes Society; it's likely they were just two iterations of the same thing. The Argonauts existed as a group from the Battle of Storm up through Verge Consortium "civil war," when they were fully integrated into the Archimedes Society. The Society emerged onto the scene fully by that point, and as they did, they brought the AlphaCen Lodge back to the fore as well, although it's unknown if the two organizations are still connected, or if they ever were connected to begin with.
The first mention of the Society in history is as the Archimedes Club, on the Procyon Reach. The Club was likely tied to the AlphaCen Lodge of Freemasons, many of whom sponsored movements like the Club. From there, the club expanded and grew, and at some point before the Battle of Storm a group called the Argonauts emerged promoting a very similar memetic scheme to the Archimedes Society; it's likely they were just two iterations of the same thing. The Argonauts existed as a group from the Battle of Storm up through Verge Consortium "civil war," when they were fully integrated into the Archimedes Society. The Society emerged onto the scene fully by that point, and as they did, they brought the AlphaCen Lodge back to the fore as well, although it's unknown if the two organizations are still connected, or if they ever were connected to begin with.
Archimedes Society Culture
The Archimedes Society is often held in contrast with the ASAI in terms of difference, but this isn't entirely warranted. While the Society promotes open source science and generally regards most information as belonging to the general public regardless of IP laws, the society itself is very quite and secretive. They don't openly speak about leadership roles and they don't often reveal where their major bases of operation are, likely due to fear of being targeted by autocrats who have it out for the organization. This can sometimes make them just as secretive and evasive as the ASAI, if not more, since the ASAI is open about where their base of operations is and who their leaders are - 13 immortal liches who have transcended death and probably moved into a post-human state (ironically, leaving the Escott Institute the most forthright of the three). However, unlike the ASAI, who have a government and are practically a stellar nation unto themselves, or the Escott institute, who have are bankrolled by the Sabatini family, the Archimedes Society doesn't have the luxury of that status, and so members are always acutely aware how vulnerable they and their organization might be at any given time, in any given place. This colors their outlook considerably, and leads to the interesting study of contrasts ∎