Santa Claus as Post-Scarcity Memeweapon

I'd wanted to get this idea for Eclipse Phase out earlier, but I've a new Dominant and she's been needing ALL the service, so I've been busy!

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You might think that the Jovian Republic, as the seat of the Jovian Catholic Church, largest of the three primary successors to the pre-Fall Catholic church* would be a wonderful place to be come December 25 on the pre-Fall Earth calendar (which happens eleven, or rarely twelve, times a Jovian year). You could be forgiven for expecting a festive atmosphere, decoration, feasting, and celebrations throughout Jupiter's system.

And, in fact, these things all exist in some fashion. The uniquely Jovian blend of Christianity, fascism, bioconservatism, and nanotech refusalism has had its mark on the flavor of the holiday. Institutional Christmas trees stand hyper-Brutalist and stark, adorned with images of a militant Christ-child in service to the state. With any gathering of twenty or more quickly dispersed by the Civil Defense Corps, this imposing symbol of governmental authority isn't even softened by crowds of people enjoying themselves by doing such things as ice-skating at its base, as was common for decades in pre-Fall New York City, for example; a few scattered tables attempt weakly to do the same as small clusters of up to five share a warm beverage and a small meal which bravely struggles against governmental nutritional regulations to provide sweetness and comfort. Meanwhile, individual Christmas trees are scarce, items of tastefully private conspicuous consumption by the Jovian military higher-ups, senators, Security Councilmembers, the rare few Jovian hyperelite, and Jovian Catholic archbishops, cardinals, and pope; the farms beneath Liberty City can barely produce enough food to meet the demands of a population allowed a feast of 15% more calories for Christmas Day, with the 2% per day ramp-up leading up to it, without giving precious space over to putting a decorative tree in every dwelling!

Jovian habitats are enlivened with decorations during the season, however ~ foil, plastic, and even paper are cheap enough to mass-produce after all, even eschewing nanofabrication. Every Jovian civilian is given a small allotment of money by the Republic every Christmas with which to purchase these decorations from vendors vetted and approved by governmental and church censors. Citizens receive a little bit more, enough to fund a few twinkling decorative lights if they take care to budget the cost of the power outlay. The Masses provided by the Church via simulspace (with added XP undertones), however, are even more airy, grand, beautiful, and full of colored light than usual, and most Jovians find themselves drawn to greater attendance during the season, if only to enjoy these magna opera of Church simulspace artisans. Movies, XPs, and simulspace games flood the Jovian mesh with their hybrid of military propaganda, religious themes, and Christmas movie. In years when the Junta and the Planetary Consortium are experiencing political friction, the old movie Santa Claus Conquers the Martians tends to come into popularity (after suitable editing by governmental and Church censors).

Don't think the bleakness of fascist spectacle and VR escapism define the day for Jovians. Many fully enjoy the season, throwing themselves into decorating and family gatherings that sometimes risk edging over the CDC's limit on assemblies. Many Jovians even express gratitude for the restraints placed upon them by their government, claiming that it compels them toward greater intimacy and reminds them to return to more family-focused celebrations. Fond memories of warm celebrations are almost as powerful an escapism as Mass, and creative ways found to get around the nutritional limits. Stories abound in Jovian media and the memories of the people concerning acts of kindness and are brought to life as Jovians pull together to make everyone's lives brighter for the twelve days leading up to the birth of their savior. Caroling is just possible, if the chorus is kept small. Gift-giving even persists as a tradition, with handmade gifts cobbled together with hoarded scraps being the rule. This is as much due to the JCC absorbing elements of American Protestantism vehemently opposed to the commercialization of Christmas as it is due to their resistance to post-scarcity technologies.

It's also where Christophie Odinskind and his team come in.

Born in a Titanian hulder morph well before the Fall to two proud papas, a life consciously modeled after that of old American West cowboys, and an Asatru family tradition, Christophie became a dedicated nanarcho-democrat and member of A-Bloc while attending Titan Autonomous University. Co returned to the peaceful life of a caribouherd after graduation, cor political beliefs disconnected from any action stronger than a presence on the @-list and a voting record in the Plurality. An idle conversation with cor ariel friend Rudolf Morin, a baptized and confirmed member of the Anarchic Roman Catholic Church-in-Exile changed that.

Sitting around taking potshots at ice pebbles, the two began mocking the Jovian Republic, a common enough time-wasting conversation among Titanians and among these two in particular. This time, however, Rudolf began ranting about the JCC, as he often did, and their heretical beliefs around Christmas. Anarchic Roman Catholics have a tendency to describe everything about the JCC as heretical.

Christmas gifts and Santa Claus came up in their conversation, and a spark of inspiration began its quest to fill Christophie's mind with, as they say, An Idea. What better way to undermine Jovian fascism, spread nanarcho-democratic ideals, and have a few yucks than bringing Santa to the beleaguered masses memewashed into scarcity worship?

The two Titanians burned a lot of @-rep and built a decent amount of g-rep only to burn it in order to finance their operation. One EVA sled, a modified olympian morph, a handful of modified ring flyers, and a very visible desktop cornucopia machine later, and they made their first run into Liberty City. It was a modest success, but it was fun and it was enough to attract significant attention from the Jovians, the @-list, the Plurality, and media across the system. That was AF 7; they've continued ever since.

The idea is basic memetic warfare. By leveraging imagery inherent to the Republic's memetic landscape in such a way as to showcase the CM, “Santa” works to inspire the Jovians toward developing a desire, and then a demand, for nanofabrication. Though Christophie believes that this taste for post-scarcity will naturally lead to breakdowns of the fascist regime and an upswelling of nanarcho-democracy, co purchased two griefers after that first run, smuggled them into Liberty City, and began an art/propaganda campaign to ensure that result.

The team has grown, now including 4 transhumans other than Christophie and Rudolf:

* a Titanian journo and hacker covering this daring and artistic effort to undermine the Junta (and hoping to get on MRGCNN in the process) who goes by the name “Goodness's Sake” when embedded as one of Santa's elfs,

* Eetu Laakso, a surya child born after the Fall who won an @-list contest to get a place as an elf last year,

* an AGI from the Jovian moonlet Carpo who loves Christmas as only a virtual Victorian who's lived its life almost entirely in simulspace can and goes by the name Florence Beechworth, and

* Batch Quanta, a scum bot jammer who's one of the Lost, who both serve “Santa” as reindeer


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* In 1 AF, the Council of Liberty was held on Ganymede. There, the Jovian Catholic Church was founded and almost immediately experienced their first schism. Shortly after the appointment of the Exilic Pope, a large number of delegates stormed out, railing about the Line of Peter, apostolic succession, and the mass murder of the College of Cardinals by the TITANs. These priests quickly began to build what they called the Anarchic Roman Catholic Church-in-Exile, founded upon the theological claim that God had ushered in a new period of the Church in which it had to find His grace without the protection and guiding hand of Peter. Ironically, the ARCCiE both enabled the hardline bioconservatist elements within the JCC to embed their beliefs in doctrine and theology and also represents the closest theology (if not liturgy) to that of pre-Fall Catholicism, as the JCC has incorporated a few elements of American Protestantism (including Mormonism), Russian Orthodoxy, and Chinese Patriotic Catholicism into what does still remain a Roman Catholic framework.

The third largest post-Fall Catholic denomination is a small but rapidly growing group within the ARCCiE. They call themselves the Anarchist Catholic Church of the Enduring and New Third Scripture (ACCENTS). Building a new theology out of combining anarchist political theory with Catholicism, they have begun to compile a new Scripture or Testament from the texts of Christian anarchist and communist writers. Thus, it includes the Books of Francis, the Book of Petr Chelčický, the Books of the Diggers, the Hopedale Book, the Books of William Greene, the Book of the Kingdom of God, the Book of David Lipscomb, the Book of the Heavenly Discourse, the Book of Thomas Hagerty, the Books of Nikolai Berdyaev, the Revelation of Precarity, the Book of Ammon, the Books of Dorothy Day, the Book of Peter Maurin, the Books of Ernst Bloch, the Book of Jacques Ellul, the Books of the Berrigan Brothers, the Book of Ivan Illich, the Book of Diane Drufenbrock, the Book of Camilo Restrepo, the Book of Vernard Eller, and the Books of Alexandre Christoyannopoulos.