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

Consensus exists at many levels. All the habitats in orbit around one of the gas giants
will normally join together to form a total Consensus. Sub-Consensus also exists
within a habitat personality to monitor various situations or activities, such as security
and defense, which might require urgent and immediate decisions. Sub-Consensus
members are drawn from the multiplicity of living Edenists who have the relevant
experience in these fields. Though they can act with considerable autonomy, they are
ultimately responsible to the Consensus itself.

Each habitat has an elected administrator, and elections are held every five years. No
individual may serve more than three terms, and anyone may put his or her name
forward. The position of habitat administrator is largely ceremonial, dating back to
the founding, as the habitat personality itself performs every administrative detail,
eradicating the need for a civil-service bureaucracy. He or she is also the
representative to whom Adamist ambassadors are appointed, and is responsible for
diplomatic relations with the Adamists and Confederation in general. In effect, these
administrators form EdenismтАЩs diplomatic corps. The administrator also has some
legal power, including the authority to repeal habitat personality judgments (see Law,
below).


Law
Because every Edenist is committed to a common ideal of civil behavior, there is
very little illegal activity. Indeed there is little point in anyone trying to commit a
crime, since the habitat consciousness becomes instantly aware of every activity
within its interior. Cutting corners when under pressure and heat-of-the-moment
rashness are the most common offenses. And it is interesting to note that most of
these occuroutside the habitat. The habitat personality serves the role of judge and
jury. Informal warnings are the norm, and a formal public rebuke from the habitat
personality is normally punishment enough to prevent any repetition. However, for
persistent offenders an ever increasing scale of fines, as well as leisure-time
restrictions, is available.

For extremely serious crimes (there have only been five murders in 500 years of
Edenist history within Edenist domains), a habitat personality will prevent a convict
from any external travel, in effect imprisoning them inside the habitat, and the
ultimate sanction is to refuse to accept that individualтАЩs memories at death. An
Edenist has the right of appeal to the habitat administrator against any such judgment.

Only a direct order from the administrator can reverse or reduce these sentences, and
a habitat personality must accept the administratorтАЩs decision. This man-in-the-loop
failsafe was included right at the start of Edenism, when the nature of a habitat
personality was not fully understood, and EdenтАЩs multiplicity had not properly
developed. It has never been removed, since Edenists and habitat personalities alike
acknowledge that humans must have such a psychological safety valve. An
administrator will typically use this power of revocation twice every ten years, though
it has never been used to pardon a really serious crime.


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