BY LETTER
Corporate Transcension
The simultaneous transcension of an entire megacorp, including all, or most of its employees. Sometimes called transruptcy, since like bankruptcy it typically means the effective dissolution of the original organization.
Though it is infrequent, it has happened often enough over the course of history to have acquired its own term as early as First Federation times. A typical process might begin with company virchmail in a common format, followed by neural link software that makes meetings run more efficiently. The next step is difficult and rare, but it can be very rapid. As one observer described it:
"You link the three million employees together in a unitynet to make things more efficient, and the next thing you know the routing system has achieved sentience, gotten the purchasing department to order in some Godbug transencenceware, and by Tuesday the whole company has merged into a supermind, converted all assets to computronium, and taken off for the Lesser Magellanic Cloud to remake the place into its own image."
Businessminds sometimes evolve to a higher toposophic through a form of corporate transcendence. The story of Eä Mulsystems is a classic example of the phenomenon, and the resulting entity is still worshipped as the fundamental economic deity in parts of the NoCoZo. Most famously, the original Metasoft corporation was taken over by its own equipment.
Inadvertent corporate transcensions were more common before the final precipitating factors were well understood, but they still occur today, especially in backwater areas and along the Periphery.
Though it is infrequent, it has happened often enough over the course of history to have acquired its own term as early as First Federation times. A typical process might begin with company virchmail in a common format, followed by neural link software that makes meetings run more efficiently. The next step is difficult and rare, but it can be very rapid. As one observer described it:
"You link the three million employees together in a unitynet to make things more efficient, and the next thing you know the routing system has achieved sentience, gotten the purchasing department to order in some Godbug transencenceware, and by Tuesday the whole company has merged into a supermind, converted all assets to computronium, and taken off for the Lesser Magellanic Cloud to remake the place into its own image."
Businessminds sometimes evolve to a higher toposophic through a form of corporate transcendence. The story of Eä Mulsystems is a classic example of the phenomenon, and the resulting entity is still worshipped as the fundamental economic deity in parts of the NoCoZo. Most famously, the original Metasoft corporation was taken over by its own equipment.
Inadvertent corporate transcensions were more common before the final precipitating factors were well understood, but they still occur today, especially in backwater areas and along the Periphery.
Related Articles
- Transruptcy - Text by M. Alan Kazlev
The aftermath of corporate transcension.
Appears in Topics
Development Notes
Text by Anders Sandberg, Todd Drashner, and Stephen Inniss
Initially published on 24 September 2001.
Initially published on 24 September 2001.
