Tecton Web Pages

Web Sites are a phenomenon that I never wrote about in S/G because I never
got to write the '90s in that series, but also because they hadn't been invented
yet in our real world.

Now we have the challenge of figuring out what use the Tecton would make of
Web Sites and unsolicited email to motivate out-T Gens to donate selyn.

Remember, the Sime Territory economic infrastructure is high-tech with
elegance of form and function and stark economy in everything they do EXCEPT
the gawd-awful bureaucracy of the Tecton itself.  Out-Territory culture
revived and perfected mass-psychology, quick-and-dirty, gigantic engineering
by sheer strength and mass  (such as dam building for electricity).  They
build big and wasteful and massive (remember, large amounts of sheer mass
make it impossible to zlin through a structure so safety=mass in the Gen
group-mind unconscious.)

Given all that - how would cyberspace integrate into Sime/Gen society where
the Territory Borders are becoming transparent to nonexistent (like the
border between Canada and the US and Mexico when they made NAFTA) - that's 
the kind of trend in inter-Territory law that's happening simultaneously with the
sudden growth of Internet type facilities that cross Territory borders.

Can we construct a model Web Page or segment of our Web Page to be just what
the Tecton would put up (like a Chamber of Commerce advertisement) to get Gen
web-surfers to stop, browse, reconsider, and DONATE?

Could this Sime-Universe Web Page have Householding Pages where Houses sell
their wares, explain their Virtues, try to attract new Simes or youngsters
from out-T who share their philosophies?

And what about the Church of the Purity - surely they'd get into cyberspace
as a wonderful chance to influence children and others would try to counter that
influence.

Would web pages be forced to display warning signs as their opening screens
like cigarrette packages do?  And like the neo-nazis, would there be Freeband
Raider and Distect web pages that shifted Server and became phantoms of
cyberspace appearing on surfers screens for no reason they could figure out?

Live Long and Prosper,

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Creator of the Sime/Gen Universe

Dear Friends,

The Tecton would oppose the internet, but would not be able to
stop it.

It would make Sime/Gen anonymity possible--people would become
good friends on the net without knowing which the other was.  The web
breaks down barriers, providing a safe place to get to know someone.
Looks don't matter.  Nationality doesn't matter.  Age doesn't matter.
Sex doesn't matter.  Finances don't matter.  Location doesn't matter.
Only intelligence matters.  Everyone is equal on the WorldWideWeb.

The net will be the best recruiting tool the Distect ever had.
Keon will re-emerge on the net and take over the world.

Unto Keon Forever!  Jean

>Would web pages be forced to display warning signs as their opening screens
>like cigarrette packages do?  And like the neo-nazis, would there be Freeband
>Raider and Distect web pages that shifted Server and became phantoms of
>cyberspace appearing on surfers screens for no reason they could figure out?


I'm not sure how long the Freeband Raider stuff would stick around after
Unity. What would be the draw? Would people still _want_ to be killers, or
would it really be more of a rebellion against the "straight life" of fixed
dwellings, steady jobs, etc -- sort of like the motorcycle gangs of our
time? They don't want to be crazed killers, they just want to be "free" and
be able to take their transfers when and how they want them without having
to jump through society's stupid hoops.

However I definitely do believe that there would be floating Distect web
pages (or even whole sites), because there's a very real draw to the
Distect lifestyle. But how much interest does the Tecton have in
suppressing expression of _ideas_? I seem to remember somewhere that you
wrote to me that Sime senses make censorship irrelevant, and that it's
_witnessing or participating in Distect-style transfer_ that the Tecton
ruthlessly suppresses, but they allow anyone to blab about the pros and
cons of the Distect as much as they want, as long as they don't act it out.

"I do believe my crucifiction before the public has about reached its limit."
                                Admiral Husband Edward Kimmel

Leigh Kimmel, Ph.D. student in history, Southern Illinois University