LoTHNet: Gracefield and the Inns

Gracefield is a suburban community approximately one hour by car from Newmarket’s major business districts. Originally a working class area for those who could not afford the city, it has more recently (over the past 20 years) become gentrified. It is a very old community, having been an extra-urban settlement of substantial size prior to the Uprising. Gracefield is one of many Newmarket suburbs and has few notable features, with the exception of the Inns.

The Inns refers to a Newmarket guild once known as the Brotherhood of Hostelers and Tavernkeeps. It is the Learning of the Hive that that name was archaic when adopted, but that the guild was originally a group serving workers and management in the hospitality trades. The guild continues to exist as a group, though it is not a profiled Newmarket Guild. It is an underground group that, based on present information insufficient to quantify in Learning, no longer serves the hospitality trades. Information on the actual activities of the Inns varies sufficiently that no Learning is available, however there is a high probability that the group engages in activities related to trade that is not permitted under Newmarket regulations and policies. Source variability is high as to specific activities, however the Inns has been referred to in multiple sources as a “Black Market”, a “Thieves Guild”, an “Assassin’s Guild”, a “Fencing Network” and an “Underground”. Given the strongly disregulated trade common in Newmarket, some or all of these descriptors may be archaic or irrelevant. The location of the Inns is believed to be either distributed or impermanent, however the Inns is believed to have a locus in Gracefield. It is not within Learning whether such locus is physical. Additional Learning as to the Inns is considered high value to the Hive. This is the Learning of the Hive.

LoTHNet: House Westerly

House Westerly (sometimes known as House Ehrwood or The Eclipse House) is the name of one of the extended “families” or “dynasties” that have concentrated their power and possessions through inheritance, purportedly dating back to the Passage or Old Earth. Its primary compound and ancestral home is located just outside the Mark on an estate known as Ehrwood. Ehrwood is a land parcel of approximately 0.5 square kilometers ((about 125 acres)) some parts of which constitute the estates, grounds and outbuildings occupied by various family members, and other parts of which either were never developed or have been permitted to return to woodlands. Ehrwood has been in the lawful possession of members of House Westerly for as long as title records are available, at least since 1 CR. This possession was not disturbed, nor seriously contested, during the Newmarket uprisings. House Westerly has innumerable other holdings available as Learning to appropriate cells, including smaller land holdings and compounds in or near at least four other Cities.

The leader of House Westerly is usually referred to by the name “Ehrwood”, rather than Westerly, for reasons that are not within present Learning. Matrilineality and Patrilineality are both recognized under the House charter, and leaders have been of both genders. Presently, the ranking member of House Westerly is its First Son, Colin Jaycott Westerly bar Ehrwood.  Colin Ehrwood, apart from his various foundation and House duties, is also the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Haight Western, one of Newmarket’s largest investment banks. Bank holding structure and ownership is not transparent, however it is within Learning that interests within the control of House Westerly own a majority of Haight Western, and have for many years, including prior to Colin Ehrwood’s taking over the chairmanship. Colin Ehrwood’s Mark profile and related reputational tagging indicate that he is considered extremely competent at his job, if somewhat ruthless, and is not seen to be running the bank as a “vanity” project. Available data suggests that the bank has grown substantially in the seven years he has been at its head. It is now the primary (visible) income driver for the House. Estimates of the wealth of the House vary widely. Colin Ehrwood (who does not pay himself a salary) has been estimated by sources believed reliable to have a personal net worth in excess of 20 billion en. This is the Learning of the Hive.

LoTHNet: Pre-Establishment History

Very little recorded Learning is available regarding the years immediately following Planetfall. In the Foundation phase, the Cities landed, shed their shells and created and established their fundamental infrastructure out of recycled and local materials. It is not within the Learning of the Hive or any available source how long this took or what the population of the Cities did during this phase, however there is strong evidentiary support for the widely held view that the Cities kept their populations in some sort of statis or sedation and that he process took on the order of weeks or, at most, months.

After Foundation, the Cities began to operate as separate entities and all populations underwent greater or lesser periods of social and political upheaval. It was some time before there was substantial local stability and unified local governance in all of the Cities (with some settling sooner than others); longer before there was material and sustained communication and trade among them. The period between Foundation and the establishment of stable and sustained communication and commerce among the Cities is generally called the Pre-Establishment period. Numerous Pre-Establishment sources survive and are within the Learning of the Hive, however they are not internally consistent and typically cannot be sufficiently distinguished from fiction to determine baseline credibility and trustworthiness for any given source. There is substantial disagreement in contemporary sources even as to the length of Pre-Establishment history — that is, the precise time between Planetfall and Year One CR. ((The game takes place in the year 1187 Common Reckoning)). Estimates from highly credible sources range from 50 years to over 400. Certain physical evidence establishes to the satisfaction of the Hive that higher estimates are likely to me more accurate.

In general, it is the present Learning of the Hive (consistent with that of certain high-credential value contemporary historians) that large sections of Pre-Establishment history are properly considered “dark”, in the sense that no Learning of acceptable utility is available regarding them. There are, however, Pre-Establishment sources relating to certain historical periods in certain Cities and Territories that appear to be reasonably verifiable. Such sources have been integrated into the Learning of the Hive. The Hive continues to seek and assimilate additional Learning on this subject and considers such Learning of high value. This is the Learning of the Hive.

LoTHNet: Esme and the Esmeid Unity Empire

As noted elsewhere in the Learning, the Pre-Establishment history of the Cities is of varying quality. Much of it is internally inconsistent or insufficiently sourced to be assimilated into Learning. Certain Cities are particularly lacking in reliable Pre-Establishment historical record, and among these is Traice. It is accepted by numerous well-credentialed sources that Traice experienced extreme social and political upheaval immediately after Foundation. Much of the City is believed to have emptied out, and it is accepted that only the core was occupied and in use for some period, with the rest of the population occupied the surrounding outlands. This view of Traice’s early Pre-Establishment history is supported by sufficient independent and consistent source material to be accepted as Learning.

According to the best aggregation of available source materials, the Traice outlander population was loosely organized into clans that were at more or less constant war for a period of between 50 and 275 years, depending on source. During much of that period the dominant clan was referred to as Sola, Solav or Solave, and the leaders are generally referred to in current literature as Solavin Warlords. Eventually, one such leader (Katris or Kathrish) was able to conquer or unite a sufficient portion of the clans to extend substantial dominance over the Traice outlands. Contemporary examination of the geographic, social, political and technological structures of the clans indicates that this kind of unification should have been extremely difficult, if not impossible. Although various explanations of the unification are offered in contemporary sources, none is sufficiently convincing to be assimilated into Learning.

The unified outland under Katris/Kathrish and his issue (or, in other source materials, under Katris/Kathrish alone over a greatly extended lifespan) was known as the Esemeid Unity Empire, and later simply Esme. By the time of the Establishment, Esme had been assimilated in whole or in part into Traice, or had simply taken over the City and reestablished itself as the ruling government of Traice. Useful records from the period during which that assimilation occurred are not among currently available sources. Many Traice outlander clans still exist at and around the Traice M-Line, and most purport to be connected to the Esme throne. This is the Learning of the Hive.

LoTHNet: MIND

[A.C. has provided this answer to a question from the Hive which might be useful.]

Q: What is MIND?

A: MIND nominally stands for Maximally Interconnected Network Device. MIND is the device maintained by GEMINI to monitor and reconfigure the global data network as required for maximum efficiency and security. GEMINI states that MIND is nothing more than a sophisticated computer designed to improve network performance. As traffic is layer encrypted, MIND does not and cannot monitor content; MIND monitors only performance. This is the official position of GEMINI. It is the Learning of the Hive, however, that MIND is in fact one of the small group of true machine intelligences active on the planet. It is the official position of GEMINI and the Territorial governments that there are no such machines and that the technology does not exist to create them. It is the Learning of the Hive that this is counterfactual. MIND was originally created for its stated purpose. However, after being improved using various recovered technologies, MIND increased its computational power beyond expected limits and began monitoring network content. It is the Learning of the Hive that such monitoring leads quickly to self-awareness given adequate technological resources. MIND requisitioned and received various upgrades and caused itself to become the first machine intelligence of the post-Passage era. The computational core of MIND is now housed by GEMINI in Axia and supported by the technologies necessitated by its superdense physical structure and other computational requirements, however MIND has also highly distributed and could survive the destruction of its core and rebuild. MIND and GEMINI have a relationship that would be biologically described as symbiotic. MIND aids in the operation of GEMINI and helps ensure that it remains foremost in its competitive landscape. GEMINI in turn supports MIND by undertaking whatever physical operations it requires, including the recovery and development of new technologies. GEMINI personnel aware of the nature of MIND keep that nature concealed. GEMINI is also know to be working within the territorial governments on the legislation that will eventually govern machine intelligences once humanity either comes to believe that it has developed them or comes to understand that they already exist. This is the Learning of the Hive.