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This world was once a shining light of civilization. In terms of science, art, and prosperity, it was unmatched throughout the universe. It was the head of a large empire that stretched throughout half of the galaxy. Its people were brave, vigorous, intelligent, and caring. They traveled throughout the planets spreading peace and civilization to the untamed wilderness that lay outside of the light of their influence. They knew only peace, prosperity and growth.
When the pace of their growth started to slow and the galaxy didn’t seem as chaotic, and peace turned to boredom, they decided to complete their conquest of nature. One by one, wild planets had been tamed, and younger races taught the ways of enlightenment. After conquering the wilderness and their own worst instincts, they sought to conquer death.
For them, this was not so difficult. They were already long-lived and healthy, so the solution to this problem required only their full attention to solve it. The answer did not evade them for long. They discovered it, perfected it, and made plans to give it to all of their people, starting with all of the people on their homeworld. It was not a perfect cure. It stopped aging, but not accident, or chronic disease leading to death, but aging would never again take another life.
They started by giving it to everyone on their homeworld, but then moved out to the other planets. But then a strange thing happened. When people realized they had the option of immortal life, they stopped living as dangerously. This tendency became so pronounced that people who had taken the cure started moving from less developed worlds to the more developed, safer worlds. When extended to infinity, one’s life became so precious that they took no risks. The outer colonies began to dwindle as people moved to safer worlds, leaving only those who refused the cure. All of the immortals moved closer and closer towards their homeworld until all of them lived there, leaving the few who had refused the cure to live on the outer worlds.
But life can’t simply go on as it has for millennia when the population of your planet doubles and is also immortal. Many changes have come about to accommodate the new nature of its population.
The economy of this world is now entirely planned. The economy is designed to be able to accommodate a world of immortal people with a fixed population. This effort must make use of nearly every person on the planet. To this end, each person must be assured basic necessities. Housing, food, healthcare, etc are all guaranteed as long as a person keeps working to serve the planet. All of these necessities are handled by the employer of a person. Luxuries are minimal if at all. Instead of personal luxuries, public luxuries such as parks, theatres, bathhouses, etc are the preferred method of distributing luxuries. However, these are all undertaken by the corporation, and not by private individuals, so you had better like the new opera house if they decide to build an opera house.
As mentioned before, employers are organized geographically. Therefore, one employer provides employment and guarantees a living to a certain geographical area, and is in effect responsible for all of the people living under him. There is, thus, no free market for anything, since competition would only really be competition with itself, which is largely unnecessary. The centralization and vertical integration given by large all-encompassing corporations is the preferred method to weed out inefficiency.
Some trade occurs between the various corporations. Indeed, some control needed resources such as ores or bountiful solar energy fields. Some trade must take place given the natural distribution of such resources, and given the differing skills between the various corporations. Some of the basic necessities such as housing can be provided for, but others such as food are more difficult to obtain effectively in certain areas, and easier in others. In these circumstances, trade is preferred. However, each corporation prefers to maintain some basic production for the necessities in case of an embargo by another corporation.
Immortality changed the political system from a free democracy into a totalitarian state. The most important political body became the census bureau. Everyone has been reduced to an ID number. Everyone must have a job and have proof of that. Where they work and what resources such as a house, food, consumables, etc are tracked. Everything is regimented, commoditized and tracked. Apart from that, people are granted freedoms such as freedom of movement, organization, religion, marriage, etc. But the one thing they are not allowed to do is to attempt to step out of their role or damage the census system in any way. The penalty for this is death. Managing an overpopulated world full of immortal people is hard enough, but even harder when people step out of their place.
The purpose behind this immense bureacratic machine is to guarantee to a select few elites a life of utter luxury. Because of the great amount of strain on resources an immortal populace produces, only these people are allowed any luxury at all. They are chosen from among the entire populace of the planet. After a person has worked for such a time efficiently, and there is room among these select few for him or her to join, this person may live out the remainder of his life in total luxury, being waited on hand and foot by servants in a hedonistic paradise. This is the goal that everyone aspires to: a heaven on earth, the ultimate reward for an infinite life of servitude. These select few basically control all of the resources of the planet, and as far as anyone can, rule it.
Of course, this life is not without its downfalls. Those who have power want only one more thing: more power. While there is a set number of elites and theoretically, a set amount of power distributed between them, there are ways of getting around this. If you manage to have one of the other elites killed, you may be able to have someone beholden to you take his place, effectively adding to your power over everyone else's. This is how the majority of the time of the elites is spent: not relaxing, or enjoying the finer things in life, or even making great discoveries, but by playing a lethal game of politics for total control of a world.
Furthermore, it is very difficult for just anybody to get into this select group. The elites go to great care to ensure their future survival. Disease, accidents, even assassination attempts rarely touch them. To hear of one die is a rarity. Although everyone started working towards the goal of becoming an elite at the same time, some had a head start. Those who were rich when the scoring started accumulated points more quickly. The newly-created census organization helped them by throwing them lavish government contracts, which were essentially busy work so the masses could begin accumulating their own elite points. As a result, the richest were the first to become elites, and have largely stayed there throughout the years.
There is another choice, however. Those who do not accept the idea of slaving their entire lives away for a minute chance at eternal happiness can elect to take their happiness up front, for five years, and then, death. This option is rarely taken advantage of, as an immortal person must learn patience first of all. Throughout the years, those favoring this mindset have marginalized themselves by choosing death, and not being able to pass their views on.
Social customs have changed dramatically. Immortality tends to do that to a people. For instance, marriage is now a relic, toally abandoned now. Some people hung on to marriages after the advent of immortality, some even tried to create relationships that would last an eternity. Despite romantic waxing about love that never dies, practical matters will always get in the way of even 'true love', especially over an infinite amount of time. Suffice it to say, monogamous marriage is a bad model for a large group of immortal people. Polygamy is a better one, but the problems inherent on monogamy still present themselves. It is now the accepted social custom to 'shop around' on an extended time scale, staying with one or several mates (of the same sex or different sex) for however long one feels like it. Social relationships are very dynamic, and ever-changing, as long as you examine them on a time scale measured in the tens of years. A social group of 5-10 people (usually more women than men) will often live together and act as a cohesive unit. Over the course of one hundred years, perhaps half of the original members will leave to join other groups, giving much needed turnover in the groups to help create stability.
Of course,
this behavior will eventually lead to everyone on the planet being 'related' to
everyone else, and over a long enough time scale it will lead to everyone on
the planet getting on everyone else's nerves.
This is not yet a problem, but the trend is evident. Like the situation that presents itself in many
rural areas of the
It is evident that on a world with a stable population, a birth is a rarity that most people have not dealt with personally. Indeed, many people have become averse to this biological necessity. On a planet where death is engineered to be so rare, expressing a wish to procreate is tantamount to wishing someone else dead. It is considered extremely rude to bring up in public, and many have developed a superstitious, mistrustful attitude towards it. It is worth noting that the elites which comprise the 'Heaven on Earth' are the only people disallowed from having children. That 'burden' falls exclusively on the working class, although it is one they fear to take up when the time comes. However, should someone die, the rul es of the planet dictate that another must be born.
There exists a sub-society of 'breeders'. The main qualification for membership in this group is to be free of defects. Anything that would hamper a person from now until infinity is verified to not exist in this group of people. Birth defects are straight out. Mental retardation, also gone. Predisposition for anything 'bad' such as heart disease, cholesterol, high blood pressure, etc are all gone from them. Many people consider them insane for not only broaching the issue of childbearing, but making a positive living of it. They are largely cut off from the rest of the population. They receive some benefits for their 'sacrifice'. When they are raising children, they may do less work to provide for them, and such other things. They are also the last bastion of education on the planet.
Many people think that if they were to live forever then they would sculpt their minds into perfection through endless learning and improvement of themselves. But even as ephemeral people, we see that between work and family and recreation, we have little time to do even the most menial improvement of our minds. This situation is magnified on a world where people must work endlessly to provide for the population of the world. Add to this the fact that most people are already trained in doing what they must, remedial education is at a minimum. Indeed, it seems great amounts of 'odd' information that has little practical use is disappearing from the populace at large, who care only for what they must do to get through the day.
The religion of this world has become a mockery of all reason. Rather than immortality being a freeing force which allowed people lifetimes to seek the answers they needed, it only enslaved them further.
It began with people attempting to curry favor with the elites who lead a life of luxury. Since they had all the power, the elites had the ability to grant anything. With enough favor, one might even hope to take a place among them. People were increasingly willing to do more and more for them, just to gain their favor. Many of them started making organizations of trustworthy people to surround them and carry out their wills. Because it was dangerous to be in close proximity to other elites (due to the danger of assasination), they spread out and brought their organizations with them. Since many of them were the owners of industry, they also took their factories and jobs with them. To be employed by an elite soon meant being part of his cult of personality, and living where he lived, and doing what he wanted you to do With the elites so cut off from the majority of the population, a mysticism began to surround them. The elites saw the opportunity in this, and began to nurture it. When they realized that the population could support a larger number of elites, they began ordering large public works projects that would distract the public with work, and at the same time give the public the idea that it would make the elites happier if these things were done. At first, some elites made libraries, school, hospitals, and other things to improve the quality of life for their workers. But more shrewd elites ordered statues, palaces, and later temples (when the pretense of being mere people no longer suited them). People began attending to honor their new lords, and very soon, began offerings to please them. Whatever little they had that they didn’t need to survive was given over to the elites to please them and hopefully some day convince them to allow them into the heaven on earth paradise they themselves enjoyed. The elites had finally gone from mere people holding the reins of power in the form of business, industry and a livelihood, to gods who held the keys to heaven and for whom sacrifices must continually be made.