floor and toward her mother as the hatch behind the suit splits open.
Sarya kicks the suit’s interior. She hurls punches that are arrested before they land. She tries to bite, but she can’t reach anything. Outside, in perfect fidelity, she sees what very few intelligences have ever seen twice: the Widow battle stance. It’s shakier than it was, it’s cockeyed, as if one or two of those limbs can’t quite handle what’s asked of them, but it’s there. Her mother has inserted herself between Eleven and this massive thing, between her daughter and danger—
But no. That is where Shenya the Widow has always been.
Sarya is not prepared for the war cry. It ascends like a living thing. It battles and conquers even this grinding chime of metal. It reflects off every surface, and Sarya forgets about everything but pressing her hands into her ears. She can barely see through the burn around her eyes, but she refuses to close them. She will not abandon her mother. She clenches her jaw against the pain in her head, against the ice-pick cry working into her temples.
Even that massive silver shape hesitates in the face of the Widow’s shriek. It draws itself up, towering above that black shape, and waits. But the cry does not stop. It shatters, it breaks into a wild peal of deafening Widow laughter. And then the metal reaches past her mother and her mother strikes more quickly than thought and when they both withdraw Shenya the Widow has one less limb. And yet she laughs, her cry of fierce joy ricocheting around the dock like lightning.
But her daughter is not laughing. “Mother!” Sarya screams, unable to help herself and forgetting everything but the fact that she must be out there, she must help somehow. She claws at the straps but it is too late because the suit has launched itself backward through a sparkling pressure field and into the black and gold of space.
(“Welcome to Network!” revision 5600109c, intelligence Tier 1.8-2.5, F-type metaphors)
WELCOME TO CHOICE!
Many species have noted, when pondering Citizenship, that Network law appears to be relatively inflexible. For example, some have already developed or even depend on technologies that are illegal for Network Citizen species to possess. This is as good a reason as any to wonder: is Network Citizenship mandatory?
By no means!
If your species would like to continue its development in isolation, it is free to do so. If that is the case, you will simply need to agree to a few simple requirements, and your solar system will be marked off-limits to the rest of the galaxy. You may even change your mind in the future; all you need to do is let the Network know.
WHAT ABOUT THE RUMORS?
Even with perfect mental communication and instant access to facts, rumors have a way of spreading. Thus, you may have heard tales of species who have refused Citizenship. Since such stories are almost always exaggerated, this document will attempt to clarify this scenario.
The Network is the only possible way for millions of species to coexist in a single galaxy. It is designed to be self-correcting, tending toward equilibrium, and the only reason this is possible is that every Citizen species desires equilibrium. In other words, the galaxy must want to work. If even a single species were forced to join or forced to remain, this system would fall apart. This is why any Citizen species is permitted to renounce its Network Citizenship at any time, or to refuse Citizenship in the first place. However, in both cases, the following must occur:
All Network registrations must be revoked (and with them the freedom of faster-than-light travel and communication).
All Network technology must be returned.
The species in question must return to its own solar system.
The species must agree that it will not develop anything on the list of illegal technologies (FTL, nanotech, weaponry, artificial intelligence, etc.).
To ensure that these requirements are kept, the species must submit to a Network sentinel intelligence in its home solar system.*1
WHAT IF THE SPECIES DOESN’T SUBMIT?
Many new species look out upon a peaceful galaxy and assume that it has always been so. This could not be further from the truth. The society whose invitation your species now considers was formed in a crucible, in millions of years of war and famine and genocide. The Network was created because this society decided: no more. Eons later, there is no war because the Network leaves no room for war.