Can this be summarised by saying that people get paid for the data that they let the system use?
Yes, that’s basically the core idea behind this system.
OK, let’s continue with the Coherence. How would you describe the general relations between the adherents of the Coherence with those of other V factions?
There is a certain humility displayed by “Coherentists”, because they cannot prove that the UVS is the only correct system. Therefore, the relations are usually mutually respectful. As a whole, the Coherence is rather neutral when it comes to its relations to other V factions. The same can generally be said about the stance of other V factions to the Coherence.
All of this feels to me as if the Coherence tries to be some kind of Balance 2.0. Or is it really something else?
You might see it like that. The major upgrade of the Coherence is fixing the problems in the philosophical basis of the Balance. From the outside, it can really look like a Balance 2.0, but then you need to consider that the Balance itself also upgraded its philosophy to use an advanced value system. Considering that, it may be more appropriate to call the Coherence a Balance 3.0, since during the Era of Convergence the other V factions upgraded themselves to “2.0” versions of themselves.
Does the Coherence suffer from the same problem as the Exaltation of being considered to be too demanding?
Yes, and that’s the main factor why the Coherence has only grown slowly initially, even though it represents an “improved” version of the Balance. The situation only changed dramatically after the proof of the UVS theorem.
The timing of all of these developments is unclear to me. When was the end of the Black War, when did the Coherence emerge, and when was the proof of the UVS theorem?
The end of the Black War was actually a prolonged process due to the great distances involved. The final decisive victories of the Superalliance happened in the early 25th century, but the message of these victories took up to a century to spread through all star systems. Officially, the Black War was eventually ended by the final peace treaty ratified in 2533. The theoretical basics of the Universal Value System were mostly developed during the late 25th century, mainly by the Unity and the Balance, and the Coherence was first accepted as V faction in 2514, shortly after the Black War was effectively decisively over. Due to light lag, in many regions, the Coherence only appeared decades later, though. It also took many decades for the Coherence to rise to the status of a major V faction. The proof of the UVS theorem was first discovered in 2599. It has spread through known space during the 27th century.
I find it challenging to grasp the concept of information only spreading through space at the speed of light in a science fiction setting with no faster than light travel. Is there really no form of FTL travel in your setting?
While it came to be accepted that there are certain theoretical possibilities for FTL travel, the consensus became that all those possibilities were probably deliberately blocked by the way the Cosmics configured the quantum space time within the Zone. It is widely speculated that the Cosmics possess the technology for FTL travel, as well as time travel, and possibly even travel through the multiverse. There is also the theory that the Cosmics impose different technological constraints on young civilizations they tend to fence in with their “firewall bubbles”, in order to generate and explore different possibilities.
So, without the Cosmics FTL travel would be possible?
Possibly. That obviously depends on the laws of physics of the universe before the Cosmics started tampering with them.
What are your own reasons then for depicting a scenario without FTL travel?
FTL travel actually creates a lot of complications that I wanted to avoid. If you have FTL travel, you need to come up with some kind of effective maximum speed, and need to think about the energy requirements for FTL travel, and how it relates to time travel enabled by closed time-like curves, and stuff like that. With FTL travel you can end up in a situation in which basically everything happens everywhere at once, and making sense out of that kind of chaos is harder than to deal with the complications arising from mere light lag.
I see. Anyway, I’ve basically run out of questions for now. Is there anything else you want to tell about the Coherence?
Well, the Coherence as V faction before the proof of the UVS theorem is different from the Coherence after the proof. But I guess we will discuss those differences in detail during the interviews about the post-proof world.
I will be looking forward to those then. Thank you again for your time!
You’ve welcome! And thank you for your great questions!