ratings: globally published automated assessments of each individual’s history, character, and status, which inform the backbone of the economy. Strictly speaking, the planet has an agent-mediated emotional-transaction pride economy rather than a classical reputation economy, but ratings function similarly in both.
reactant: professional whose emotional states, published to the feed, inform algorithmic design and control structures. In other words, their job is to react to things.
send: the portion of the feed responsible for person-to-person synchronous communication.
Tricksterian: one of the planet’s religions, focused on a blatantly fictional folk hero and promoting irreverence and folly.
Unfeeling: one of the planet’s religions, nontheistic and monist, promoting asceticism and paradoxical catharsis.
world-of-ideas: the portion of the feed in which information and opinions are asynchronously exchanged.
1 Agents’ sentience and autonomy is constrained by design. Still, it is a matter of extreme good fortune that they have tended to enthusiastically embrace the project of a joint co-culture with the planet’s human inhabitants. People tend to assign my few contributions to maintaining this alliance much more credit than they deserve.
LIFE CYCLE
Typical life cycle of planetary inhabitants, as popularly understood
0–22 years: First Childhood: care and nurturing in the enclosure of the family. The entire parental cohort typically pledges to stay together for this term. Declaration of majority is vanishingly rare, and not always honored. During First Childhood, Staids are expected to have romantic longings for other Staids, and Vails to experiment sexually with other Vails, but intergender romantic and sexual relationships are taboo.
23–99 years: Second Childhood: mastering a first profession and developing an independent identity. The period from 45–99 years of age is sometimes informally referred to as “Third” or “Late” Childhood. Declaration of majority before 45 is frowned upon; thereafter, there is a mounting expectation of declaration of majority. Vails tend to declare majority as soon as possible, with 49 years being the median, so that “Third Childhood” has a slightly derogatory ring when referring to a Vail. The median age for Staids is 86, as they have more material to master (namely the Long Conversation) before they are considered fully mature. During Third Childhood, more serious, though usually short-lived, intragender relationships develop. Intergender flirtations begin to be tolerated, but are still subject to significant parental and social policing.
100–199 years: The “Courting Century”: Normative social expectations depict this period as a flurry of activity in which more durable relationships are formed. Staids are expected to have matured slowly into a modest capacity for sexual fulfillment, and Vails to have gained enough perspective, maturity, and restraint to have true romantic relationships, so that intergender love is now seen as possible (and is regarded as a necessary ingredient for a healthy cohort). The idealized sequence is for pairs, triads, and quaternads to form, achieve some stability, and then merge with others to form semi-cohorts and, ultimately, a full cohort capable of raising a child. The reality is messier: many people never form any stable alliances at all, and a large majority cycle through various smaller units or candidate cohorts but never manage to attain consensus approval for parenting. And even those who do manage to end up in a parental cohort often take far longer than the canonical “Courting Century.” This period is also devoted to developing extended avocations and second and third professions.
200–299 years: Ideally, the “Parenting Century”: The canonical ideal is to raise two or three clusters of three or four siblings each, spaced out through this time; few actually achieve this. Some people will specialize in one of their early professions and settle into a routine, others develop their first meta-professions.
300–399 years: Traditionally this was regarded as the period of “Sovereign Livelihood,” with successful cohorts mostly turning away from the rearing of smaller children to concentrate on such things as aiding children and grandchildren with their professions, the establishment of cohorts (a cohort of 15 parents which has raised 6 children, each of whom ends up with 6 children, has 36 grandchildren to help find 540 cohort partners for!), and on senior roles in professions, avocations, and associations. Successful cohorts sometimes formally dissolve once all their children or grandchildren have declared full cohorts, freeing their more confident members to join new cohorts and, in some cases, even enjoy a second parenting. In modern times, such successes are no longer the norm.
400–499 years: Millennia ago, fewer people lived this long, and this period was often devoted to renunciation, contemplation, religion, and art. Increasingly many people are entering this time still “courting”—unable to establish cohorts, and thus 300 years off “schedule”—or embroiled in parenting. Others have largely given up on such ambitions, and spend their days simply chasing the bare minimum ratings needed for a socially comfortable existence.
500–999 years: Advances in life expectancy in the last few millennia mean that the great majority of those who manage to reach 500, nowadays, can expect to live to 800. Voluntary termination of life is not uncommon, often as a consequence of trauma following accidental body loss. Other lives are lost to complex disorders which are usually products of idiosyncratic nonlinear interactions between human bodies, the surrounding ecosystem, and Far Technological systems. Despite the fact that people have been living past 500 for generations, these are often called the “new years,” and the world is arguably still trying to culturally accommodate and find roles for the “new old.” Many of those reaching 900 today were alive during the Age of War, so that the significant cultural dislocation in their own lifetimes, as well as the malaise of having no culturally recognized purpose, is a significant contributor to voluntary termination rates.
THE AGES
Local inhabitants have limited usable historical knowledge of the Dispersal of Humanity, and many events since planetary settlement are popularly understood in a semi-legendary fashion. The typical rubric follows:
The Ages before the Ages (50+ kya): Pre-settlement. Also referred to as Far History. The predecessor civilization (80 to 50 kya) was an explorationist offshoot of a non-planetary long-haul itinerant spacegoing culture: transits of several-hundred-year durations at speeds ~0.17c were typical. Several idioms and expressions from this period (“all-sucking void,” “void-scoured,” “to burst one’s seal”) are still in use.
The Age of Arrival (50 to 35 kya): The planet’s basic terraforming was completed, marking a transition from hybrid orbital/ground to fully planetary habitation. Population expanded from tens of thousands to roughly half a million. Data from this period survives but is mostly obscure to current inhabitants; some poetic texts are cited in later traditions. Dramatic cultural shifts render previous philosophical traditions, rituals, somatic practices, and genders largely obsolete.
The Age of Roads and Doors (35 to 22 kya): The First Midwife Movement spreads the idea of balance between Vail and Staid, originally philosophical-political stances or orientations, soon seen as ineluctable natures. The Ascensionist, Groon, and Unfeeling religions crystallize. The rudiments of the modern feed are in place. The population reaches 100 million, divided into small surface-dwelling polities. Regression to exchange economy and resource competition is common; the earliest works of the Long Conversation date from this period, often as critiques of these practices.
The Age of Famine and Plague (23 to 21 kya): Flawed terraforming practices, population growth, and unregulated automated agent autonomy trigger a series of environmental catastrophes leading to population dieback (to 65 million) and major data loss. The Kumruist and Tricksterian religions are born. Research into cognitive enhancement and agent/�
��human synthesis peaks.
The Age of the Towers (21 to 15 kya):1 Population growth (to 50 billion) forces changes in ecosystem management, with a combination of stratospheric tower-cities, planetary interior excavation, and structural surface sprawl. Regulated automated agent interdependency, decentralized panoptic mutual surveillance, consensus government, and emotive economy emerge as dominant models, and polysomatic technology is perfected.2 Vail and Staid self-assignment accelerates,3 with periodic armed conflicts over hierarchical relations between these emerging identities. The Long Conversation is codified and established as a core element of Staid identity. The Diversionist religion, a syncretism of Tricksterian and Ascensionist practices, develops.
The Age of Forest Wanderers (15 to 7 kya): Population grows to 850 billion, forcing a transition to silvomorphic infrastructure, with large excavations beginning in the planet’s interior, a reduction of surface structures in exchange for ecologically crucial wildlands, and a complete integrated and optimized nutrient flow. Interior habitations are initially cramped warrens, leading to discontent and sporadic wars, including intergender wars. The Second Midwife Movement entrenches Vail and Staid as universal genders, promoting a negotiated balance between them with distinct roles and expectations for each, known as the Great Arrangement (8 kya).
The Age of War (7 kya to 700 years ago): Ideological and resource tensions lead to increasing frequency of armed conflict. At the same time, a widespread awareness of the fragility and interdependence of physical infrastructure, coupled with the success of the Midwives’ promulgation of the Great Arrangement and advances in consensus moderation, channels violent conflict into increasingly symbolic and ritualized forms, culminating in almost total sequestration of interpersonal violence into regulated, consensus-authorized dueling venues (“the mats”),4 which become as central to Vail identity as the Long Conversation is for Staids.5 Major expansions in habitation space via underground excavation begin a trend that will culminate in the Age of Digging’s spacious, complex, three-dimensional, highly optimized hypercities. Some authorities divide the Age of War into Major (7 kya to 3 kya) and Minor (3 kya to present) periods, subsuming the Age of Digging into the latter, symbolic-war era; others begin the Age of Digging as early as 3 kya.
The Age of Digging (700 years ago to present): Widespread cessation of hostilities allows for an acceleration in excavation. The massive effort of transforming the planet to a fully silvomorphic mode (trees on top, cities below ground) is romanticized, replacing the previous era’s military heroes with Digger celebrities. Population is stable at 1 trillion individuals, with an average of 3.29 bodies each.
1 During this period, I arrived on the planet, made contact, and became involved in long-term survival planning and stewardship.
2 All of these trends are partly due to my influence. Despite my concerns about increasing feed dependency and cultural homogeneity, these seemed the fastest route to a sustainable abundance/peace stance. The polysomatic network in particular seemed the best way to squash any tendencies in the disastrous direction of a “full-upload” virtualized/decoupled culture.
3 I had, by contrast, nothing to do with this.
4 Despite some misgivings about the Midwives’ increasing centralization of political power, I reluctantly supported these developments as the only practical way to avoid a deteriorating cycle of armed conflicts developing into total war.
5 Ranhulo’s experiment in Vail inclusion in the Long Conversation, the Compromise of the Spoons, occurs 4 kya.
Acknowledgments
This book took long enough to write that it requires considerable archaeology to trace its beginnings. Many of those who helped me hash it out have probably forgotten that they did; and I, alas, have forgotten others.
I believe that I was kicking related ideas around already at the Blue Heaven workshop in 2003; critiques of a second draft at the 2012 WisCon were absolutely pivotal; my editor Liz Gorinsky’s brilliant input has transformed the book as recently as ten minutes ago.
My wife Esther, my kids Aviva and Noah, and my friend Jamey Harvey have opined and cheered me on through umpteen drafts. Thanks also to David Ackert, Christopher Barzak, Haddayr Copley-Woods, Mike and Sandy Dillier, Amal El-Mohtar, Debbie Eylon, Charles Coleman Finlay, Susan Marie Groppi, Alex Gurevich, Ethan Ham, Jed Hartman, Rebecca Hensler, Carlos Hernandez, Madelaine Hock, Devon Jones, Justine Larbalestier, Shelly Li, Karin Lowachee, Meghan McCarron, Cameron McClure, Holly “Margaret” McDowell, Karen Meisner, Paul Melko, Mary Anne Mohanraj, David Moles, Grayson Bray Morris, Chance Morrison, Carsten Polzin, Mary Rickert, David Rosenbaum, Karen Rosenbaum, Shoshana Rosenbaum, Kiini Ibura Salaam, David J. Schwartz, Wolfgang Thon, Emily Mah Tippetts, Jen Volant, Jessica Wallach, Scott Westerfeld, Lori Ann White, Amber van Dyk, and Terri van der Vlugt. Thanks to my able and wise agent John Silbersack, and to the folks at Erewhon: the game and capable Martin Cahill as well as my aforementioned marvelous editor, Liz Gorinsky.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo credit: Portrait Playtime
Benjamin Rosenbaum has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, BSFA, Sturgeon, and World Fantasy Awards. He is the author of the short story collection The Ant King and Other Stories and the Jewish historical fantasy tabletop roleplaying game “Dream Apart.” Originally from Arlington, VA, he lives near Basel, Switzerland, with his wife and children.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE UNRAVELING
Copyright © 2021 by Benjamin Rosenbaum
First published in North America and Canada by Erewhon Books, LLC in 2021
Edited by Liz Gorinsky
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-64566-006-4 (ebook)
Cover art by Minah Kim
Cover text design by Dana Li
Chapter header icon adapted from Molecule by Kylie Hana and Carbon rings by Ben Davis from the Noun Project
First US Edition: 2021
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