Academy Law

There are several parts of Academy law that will be broadly applicable to the interstellar expeditions that will be the core of play in Human Contact. I’m interested to see how these are interpreted (and ignored) in the course of play — after all, it’ll be years, or maybe decades (or maybe never!) before contact is made with the rest of the Academy again.

Those things listed as crimes are subject to investigation and are dealt with by subjecting the perpetrator to psychological treatment.

For legal purposes, a “meme” is “a unit of information expressed through symbols”, e.g. writing, speech, body language, or pictures. It is to distinguish direct manipulation of another nervous system without passing through the ethical, cognitive, and self-aware aspects of an individual’s mind, thereby removing their choice in the matter.

Note that Academics keep a record of their experiences. When on trial, specific parts of that record can be subpoenaed, but there is no law preventing one from deleting parts of the record. An accused individual is assumed innocent unless proven guilty. However, even a not-guilty result in a trial can damage one’s reputation.

  • Professional ethics
    • All Academics are expected to keep an objective mindset in their scientific careers with regard to their fellow explorers.
      • Preferential or detrimental treatment of individuals (and particularly their work) according to one’s relationship, rather than the value of the work, is a crime subject to censure (the reduction of one’s formal reputation, including the likelihood of publishing again
  • Hominin rights
    • Torture is a crime. This includes rape and coercion.
    • Killing another person is legal (but subject to investigation) in the following circumstances, and illegal in all others:
      • Defense of an individual from torture or murder
      • At that person’s memetically expressed request
    • Deprivation of an available necessity (water, food, air, choice, medicine) is a crime.
    • Prevention of the dissemination of memes (i.e. censorship) of an individual’s voice is a crime.
    • Directly affecting the nervous system of another (that is, outside of memetic modes, such as by drugging or tampering with their network wetware) without their consent is a crime
  • Interactions with colonies
    • If the colony is deemed dangerous by current standards for contact by a starship crew, a low-impact envoy mission must go first, with the starship taking a stealth route.
      • Envoys must make every effort to preserve the nature of the colony for study
      • Envoys must make the colony ready for the approaching starship in a way that will:
        • reduce the risk to the starship
        • reduce the risk to the colony
        • enhance the understanding of the society to the Academy at large
    • Interactions with other hominins are judged by the same standards as interactions within the Academy.

Things that are legal, but differ from many of our laws:

  • Any consensual activity between individuals. Consent must be transferred memetically.
  • Recreational drug use
  • Suicide (though depression is treated medically)
  • Any harm, experimentation, and modification of one’s self
  • Abortion (very rarely applied within the Academy, since conception is consciously controlled)

I’d love to hear some opinions on these matters. Some of these elements directly contradict each other, as they represent different schools of thought in Academic culture, such as the rules for envoy missions as regarding colonial culture.

6 thoughts on “Academy Law”

  1. I’m curious about abortion. At what point does a fetus / blastocyst / embryo start possessing human rights (i.e. if a mother decides to deny consent-to-carry at 8 months [or more appropriately ~-1 month of age] is society obligated to provide life-support?) I’m surprised that there’s not a mechanical womb equivalent which makes the whole question moot?

  2. Given that abortion is already pretty close to being available in over-the-counter pill form, I imagine that Academics either have something similar, or are capable of consciously controlling ovulation, either of which would make the whole question moot.

  3. This is the kind of law for when things have gone wrong, not when they’ve gone right. There’s a fetus. All of the conscious decisionmaking has already happened.

    I think it’s an interesting question. I’d sure like to hear from a woman on it, though.

  4. While I can’t speak for Womankind (or for that matter, Pro-Choicers), I think it’s a really fascinating question. Based on what I know of Academic culture (scientifically based, rationally based), I would imagine that the Academics would have no issue destroying unique clumps of cells that were not viable outside of a womb at any point throughout a female Academic’s pregnancy.

    The Academics are continually calculating risk, and their culture values experience and knowledge. I imagine with their technology that they have few infertility issues, and they carefully calculate resources. Why bother bringing an unwanted, unconscious clump of cells to fruition – why bother to risk that unwanted potential child’s health & emotional well being?

    As for the 8 months and beyond question, I imagine that the Academics would actively weigh the potential risks & rewards for the child rather than just removing the offending cells.

    I imagine, now knowing the Academic status on mercy-killing from this post, that if they believed a baby (baby as defined by any fetus that could survive outside the womb up to the point where they’re actively encoding memories, ~2.5 years) could have the potential to thrive, they would do everything possible to help zie do so. But if they thought the risks were too great, they would probably mercifully kill the child.

    My 2 cents.

  5. Thanks for reducing the sausage factor a tick.

    As for the 8 months and beyond question, I imagine that the Academics would actively weigh the potential risks & rewards for the child rather than just removing the offending cells.

    Sure. It seems also likely that a fetus could be removed without killing it.

    I imagine, now knowing the Academic status on mercy-killing from this post, that if they believed a baby (baby as defined by any fetus that could survive outside the womb up to the point where they’re actively encoding memories, ~2.5 years) could have the potential to thrive, they would do everything possible to help zie do so. But if they thought the risks were too great, they would probably mercifully kill the child.

    Well, now, that’s interesting. Particularly given that I remember stuff back to a year or so old.

    But it also seems likely that they can tell when active memory is happening objectively. This comes down to the ability to process memes, I suspect.

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