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

None, since all Edenists are atheists.


Serpents
When an Edenist goes bad, they go all the way, so the saying goes. There are a very
few Edenists who will reject their culture after all the educational techniques and
therapeutic counseling available to them. Those that do are referred to, with some
irony, as тАЬSerpents.тАЭ Statistically this occurs to approximately just one in 15m, and is
a considerable source of embarrassment to the rest of the Edenist population.
Although affinity can open their minds to one another, the sharing of thoughts cannot
be forced. Serpents shut themselves off from communal affinity, and invariably leave
the habitat of their birth. They nearly always drift into quasi-legalтАФor actively
illegalтАФactivities, presumably in reaction to the very moralistic culture in which they
have been raised.

To add to the embarrassment of Edenists, the Serpents, with their high intelligence
and relish for challenge, tend to be highly successful in these nefarious fields. The
independent bitek habitat Valisk was germinated by Rubra, and remains the
ConfederationтАЩs premier example of Serpent achievement, though Rubra was
something of an exception. Serpents in general bend towards infamy, and in more
extreme cases to outright evil.


Converts
A slow but steady stream of about 1,000,000 Adamist converts join the Edenist
culture each year, though notably not from the ranks of the religiously devout. They
are given neuron symbionts so they can take part in communal affinity, and specialist
tutors help them make the mental adjustments necessary. One of their major reasons
for joining is the life-continuity granted by transferring memories into the habitat at
death. Nobody is ever refused Edenist status, and a surprising 91 percent of converts
make a successful adaptation. Genetically their absorption poses no problem, as 85
percent of Adamists already have geneering in their heritage, and the all-important
affinity gene becomes dominant, so that the offspring of any Edenist Adamist pairing
is always a true Edenist.

Converts tend to be young, under thirty, since older people have trouble adapting.
Over a third of converts join because of romantic attachments they have developed
with individual Edenists. Sixty percent of these cases involve voidhawk crew-
members, leading to the Edenist claim that the hundred families have тАЬwild blood.тАЭ
As yet there have been no xenoc converts to Edenism, though should any ever apply
they would not be refused.


Government
Edenism can be regarded as a super-consensus democracy, in which every single
individual not only votes but takes part in forming policy. The Consensus is the
collective consciousness of all Edenists living within a habitat, joined through affinity
and acting in concert. It is normally called into session once every year, to review
policy and mandate new laws. In practice there have been few new laws introduced to
Edenism in the last two centuries.