"Peter F. Hamilton - A Night's Dawn Companion - The Confederation Handbook" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Peter F)

industrialization, always a time of large expansion and raised horizons. Families of
these eras can have typically eight to twelve children without placing repeated
childbearing stress on the mother.

Asteroid dwellers and starship crew-members tend to deposit large quantities of germ
plasm in storage once they reach adolescence. Radiation exposure during flight is still
a problemтАФcertainly accidental exposureтАФand exowombs give them the opportunity
to have тАЬnormalтАЭ families despite the hazards of their jobs.


Education
On all advanced worlds and asteroid settlements this consists almost entirely of
didactic laser memory imprints: subject matter is loaded directly into the brain, the
rate being varied according to an individualтАЩs ability to absorb it. School for Adamist
children consists of a weekly didactic memory-absorption assessment, and then the
imprint of a new memory. This leaves children with considerable time on their hands,
creating a large industry of day clubs to keep them occupied through organized games
and events, and helping to develop their social skills. Basic education is completed at
around age sixteen, after which brighter children, nominally 70 percent, have the
opportunity to go on to universities, which employ a combination of didactic imprints
and traditional tutorial sessions or research projects aimed at developing studentsтАЩ
intellects and analytical abilities. For the remainder there are job-related
specialization imprint courses, where appropriate, e.g. maintenance and machine
operation, which the average citizen will continue to take throughout their working
life.


Governments
There are as many variations of government as there are colonies. The Confederation
embraces almost every ideology and religious society possible, from interactive
democracies to absolute dictatorships, religious orthodoxies, monarchies, company
fiefdoms, anti-tech pastoral and anarchies, rich and poor. This variety is a source of
some perplexity and bemusement to Edenists (and presumably to the Tyrathca and
Kiint). However, the vast majority of Adamist governments are democratic republics
along the original Western European and North American mold.


Religion
Adamists still follow the major religious beliefs of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism,
Buddhism, and Shintoism, as well as every minor orthodoxy. On Confederation
worlds, types of faith vary in accordance with the ethnic origin of the population.
After the unrest experienced on the initial multiethnic colonies, subsequent colonies
(post-2130) tended to derive their population from just one ethnic or religious group,
thus giving the majority of Confederation planets a single religion, and adherence to it
is often an immigration requirement. Sacred cities and shrines such as the Vatican,
Mecca, Amaterasu, and Mt. Abu remain the centers of their respective faiths.

Christian evangelical movements and Islamic fundamentalism have declined to
negligible proportions; both of these religions have mellowed considerably since the
twentieth century, especially among their followers on Earth, and there is even