The Process

I live on Earth at present, and I don't know what I am, I know I am not a category. I am not a thing - a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process - an integral function of the universe.
- R Buckminster Fuller

The Process is a nomadological social activity.
- Nancy McDaggart

The Process idea was invented by Chang Yu-Lee as part of his doctoral thesis in Social Psychodesign. Using the newly available data about human history and other cultures he not only managed to show that under certain circumstances well placed ideas and organisations can grow into self-supporting paradigms, emergent new cultures, but also that they could be designed just like personal psychodesign. Instead of making his ideas public he went to Atlantis, where he sought out Nancy McDaggart who became enthusiastic once she understood what he was aiming at. Together with Xerxes van Halden of Nova they founded The Process.

The Process is based on the simple idea of becoming a seed for a new culture, by integrating the colonies. If the colonies can become more unified trade will become more profitable, culture and technology can be exchanged through a kind of metacorporation, a foundation/think-tank that helps set up independent corporations and organisations, each forming a part of the Process as a whole. The Foundation develops the basic ideas, values and strategic with great synergies, and these are implemented by independent organisations. And the ideas of the founders will of course be the basis for the new culture. The Process is goals and the corporations implement them – they don’t have to be formally owned, just influenced

The first step is to acquire a starship and set up some trading routes as well as interest corporations and organisations on the different colonies in joining the Process trade network. The next step is to set up interstellar institutions for banking, insurance and shipping – only when this is possible will real trade truly begin. The Promonss is their radical solution to that.

The Process is also interested in colonialism. The "primitive" planets hold a great deal of potential, but are too backward to have anything to trade with (raw materials are always easier to find elsewhere, native art has a fairly small market). So the idea is to start interfering with them, making them begin to grow and develop. Maybe within a century they will blossom into valuable trading partners as their societies change and their technology develops – and waiting a century is a reasonable time for long-lived people like Atlanteans and Arcadians.

The Process encourages the spread of certain books, multimedias and ideas – that is one of the most powerful tools for creating the new culture. A well placed idea in the public consciousness is more important than earning a billion dollars.

The Process is well aware of the competing interests, and tries to exploit them. First, even a competitor can be a partner in other respects: while the Columbus Project of New America may have hegemonic overtones it is also a useful carrier of the Promonss, and the expansionists of Arcadia realise they need more cooperation among the colonies before truly taking the plunge outwards. The Trahans are great partners but their philosophical weaponry has to be defused.

The Process sees a great deal of potential in combining the cultures, technologies and philosophies of the different worlds. Trahan metaphilosophy, psychodesign, AI, nanotechnology, robotics, biotechnology and everything else must be integrated into something whole before a stable interstellar community can develop.

The main backers of the Process are McDaggart TransPlanetary and some other Atlantean organisations, the Outreach Program of Arcadia, The New Tree of Victoria, Orchid Productions of Ridgewell, van Halden Media and several Nova investment corporations. Other groups that are allied or will become important partners in the future are Heinlein Systems, Themis Trading, Mulligan Investment, Essen, Timone, Soma Inc, Lung Fusion, the Trahan Colonial Department of Extraplanetary Affairs, some New America space corporations and Floating California. The Process does not try to dominate, it seeks to coordinate. It allies itself, it doesn’t integrate other groups into itself.