Imagining a different world This book offers an introduction to the Utopian Confederation RPG series and the peaceful, prosperous, and high-tech future society that provides the setting for its adventures. In this world, the island-republic of Utopia isn’t an imaginary land; it’s a diplomatic, economic, technological, and cultural trailblazer that has succeeded in unifying the world’s nations under a banner of peaceful collaboration – thanks largely to the Utopian mindset that combines a strong rationality and pursuit of scientific knowledge with a social and political philosophy that’s grounded in a deep spirituality and theological sensitivity. Will we find the answer around other stars? By the 2130s, the Utopian Confederation – and its technologically posthumanized society of human, animal, and artificially intelligent beings – has deftly mended and revitalized the earth and established new footholds throughout our solar system, on bodies including the moon, Mars, several asteroids, Callisto, Europa, Titan, and a number of orbital spacebases. No signs of life have yet been detected from from other worlds; contact with even a single alien civilization would be an epochal event that would rewrite our understanding of the universe. And advances in slower-than-light propulsion have finally brought within reach the dream of undertaking our first journeys to the nearest star systems. The recent perfection of the subluminal nuclear pulse (SNuP) drive by the Utopian Academy of Sciences has at last opened the door to the creation of true “starvessels” and made feasible the next step in our exploration of the cosmos: scientific missions to the extrasolar planets of Alpha Centauri, Barnard’s Star, Epsilon Eridani, Tau Ceti, and Wolf 1061. This endeavor is aimed at shedding light on the Fermi Paradox, which remains the most vexing scientific, technological, philosophical, and theological puzzle confronting humanity: why are we yet to discover any evidence of intelligent life “out there” in space, when all of the best scientific theories and evidence suggest that the galaxy should be teeming with advanced civilizations? Not just “utopian,” but “Utopian” Central to the game is the realm of Utopia. The remarkable history of the Utopian island-state – from its founding in ancient times up through the early 1500s – was described in detail in the eponymous volume published by Thomas More in 1516, which was based on the firsthand accounts of the traveller Raphael Hythloday, a former travelling companion of Amerigo Vespucci and one of the first modern Europeans to visit the island. Within the future gameworld of Utopian Confederation, Utopia is not a “nowhere” (as is suggested by the Greek roots of its name) but a concrete “someplace” that has played a critical role in shaping the course of events in our world – and beyond. The atmosphere of Utopian Confederation At its heart, Utopian Confederation is a game of better worlds. It is an intellectual, emotional, and spiritual exploration not only of the past worlds that might have been, if human beings had made wiser and more compassionate choices, but (more importantly) the future worlds that might yet be, if we manage not to continue destroying one another and our planet. It’s a fundamentally optimistic and hope-filled meditation on the mysteries of theodicy, metaphysics, science, and the depths of the human heart and mind. An gameworld with an “8-bit ethos” The world of Utopian Confederation also possesses a distinct aesthetic and philosophy: it’s lovingly wrapped in an “8-bit ethos” that inspired by classic video games that moves beyond the realm of graphic design to permeate all aspects of its gameplay experience and mechanics. This design philosophy not only lies at the heart not only of the Utopian Confederation computer games that are currently under development; it also serves as the foundation for a series of sourcebooks (to which this volume serves as a brief introduction) that will allow you to adapt the gameworld as a setting for tabletop RPG sessions or campaigns employing your favorite rule systems.

What would humanity’s future look like, if the isle of Utopia had been real – and had guided the creation of a joyful global civilization free from all selfishness, competition, and discord? Utopian Confederation: From the Mall to the Stars presents such a world. In the 22nd century, human society exists not as an array of rival “states” but as a halcyon confederation of all living persons everywhere that’s voluntarily reaffirmed with each new day. Here it isn’t just material goods that are held in common: even persons’ innermost thoughts are a shared public resource, thanks to advanced neurocybernetics. Written laws and politics no longer play any role in society, as all individuals are raised to embrace a single vision for achieving the greater good – and to live it continually. Scientific inquiry and thaumaturgy go hand in hand, as human beings seek to understand (and shape) their place in the cosmos through both technological and miraculous means. And now the perfection of SQuarM reactors and the SNuP drive has allowed construction of the first vessel capable of completing an interstellar journey in decades rather than centuries. The colonies on the Moon and the “Cinnabar Planet” of Euthyphrar have already expanded the horizons of human experience – but now it’s hoped that a multigenerational voyage to the planets of Arcana Centauri might shed light on the greatest spiritual and intellectual puzzle still facing humankind: namely, is it really possible that our Solar System is home to the only life in the cosmos? Is Earth the focal point of the universe? And if intelligent life is abundant in other star systems, why have we been unable to discover any evidence of it, despite centuries of effort? The Utopian Confederation series is a game of philosophical, theological, scientific, technological, and sociopolitical exploration – and From the Mall to the Stars is the 200-page sourcebook that introduces its hopeful, pacific, and intellectually inquisitive world. In this volume, you’ll discover: • The administrative structure that organizes 21 billion human beings into communities from households and agathanias up through conurbs of millions of residents. • The ingenuity of the 200,000 persons living offworld in colonies, spacebases, and spacevessels. • Technologies like the Wellspring and the SGI Seliadne that make real-time “cognitive publication” possible. • Elements of Utopian Synergeticist thought, including ratiomysticism, thaumaturgy, hypophenomics, Iridic Bubble Theory, and the field of aetheromechany that conceptualizes the natural sciences as “applied angelology.” • The societal spheres of the pragmatic demeyne, metapsychic demeyne, and Ecclesia Peregrinans that operate in natural synchronicity. • Why money and private possessions don’t exist – but “shopping malls” play a pivotal societal role. • Cosmopraxis, axionomy, and the management of fields like housing, transportation, energy, agriculture, education, and healthcare. • Utopian aesthetics, architecture, and fashion. • The stats of the biodimensionary, aretalogue, and propellibrium, through which persons assess their own psychic strengths and failings. • SQuarM reactors, SNuP drives, HERUs, and the basics of starvessel architecture. • The cosmic enigma that is the “Imperceptance”; the nature of the Starflume Collegium; and the aims of the mission to Arcana Centauri. • The historical path from the ancient Utopian Commonwealth to the “reunification” of humanity and the Utopian Confederation of ADI 2175. • Character sheets for a group of four 22nd-century Confederation citizens.

"This work 'is a chronological record of American life, events, and thought ... It is a comprehensive general compendium of source material containing laws, speeches, stories, transcriptions of dialogues, on-the-scene reports, reminiscences, and other primary sources." Wynar Guide to Ref Books for Sch Media Cent. 3d edition.

The second volume of the definitive political history of Northern Ireland.

This landmark synthesis of political science and historical institutionalism is a detailed study of antagonistic ethnic majoritarianism. Northern Ireland was coercively created through a contested partition in 1920. Subsequently Great Britain compelled Sinn Féin's leaders to rescind the declaration of an Irish Republic, remain within the British Empire, and grant the Belfast Parliament the right to secede. If it did so, a commission would consider modifying the new border. The outcome, however, was the formation of two insecure regimes, North and South, both of which experienced civil war, while the boundary commission was subverted. In the North a control system organized the new majority behind a dominant party that won all elections to the Belfast parliament until its abolition in 1972. The Ulster Unionist Party successfully disorganized Northern nationalists and Catholics. Bolstered by the 'Specials,' a militia created from the Ulster Volunteer Force, this system displayed a pathological version of the Westminster model of democracy, which may reproduce one-party dominance, and enforce national, ethnic, religious, and cultural discrimination. How the Unionist elite improvised this control regime, and why it collapsed under the impact of a civil rights movement in the 1960s, take center-stage in this second volume of A Treatise on Northern Ireland. The North's trajectory is paired and compared with the Irish Free State's incremental decolonization and restoration of a Republic. Irish state-building, however, took place at the expense of the limited prospect of persuading Ulster Protestants that Irish reunification was in their interests, or consistent with their identities. Northern Ireland was placed under British direct rule in 1972 while counter-insurgency practices applied elsewhere in its diminishing empire were deployed from 1969 with disastrous consequences. On January 1 1973, however, the UK and Ireland joined the then European Economic Community. Many hoped that would help end conflict in and over Northern Ireland. Such hopes were premature. Northern Ireland appeared locked in a stalemate of political violence punctuated by failed political initiatives.

In reaction to the spread of globalization, the number of collective communities has grown apace. In this collection of articles and lectures the author, a leading authority on the history of the kibbutz, analyzes various aspects of the philosophy of the kibbutz, and draws parallels with other societies and trends.

First Published in 1976. The first volume on this two-part biography traces Engels' carer from his youth in the Wupper valley, through his periods in Bremen and Berlin to the Manchester years and the beginning of his long collaboration with Marx. These early years are described against the background of the prevailing social unrest in Europe, culminating in the 1848 revolutions and portraits are included of many Marx's and Engels' friends and fellow communists.

First Published in 1976. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.