History of the Zambarau Concord

The history of the Zambarau Concord can be split into five main eras, ordered around a devestating war (the only official war in the Concord's history) that temporarily broke the Concord in two.

Formation Era
Once they had developed interstellar travel technologies Zambarau spread out to find company (a strong instinct for them) and made a lot of money in providing for a number of small civilizations (insignificant in galactic terms) that had yet to develop interstellar, sometimes even interplanetary, travel. The Zambarau specialised mainly in banking, investment, information storage and processing, as well as terraforming at a later date (though the terraforming techniques they used took decades or centuries to make a planet habitable).

Naturally all of these civilizations wanted in on the technology and infrastructure of the (in their eyes) highly advanced Zambarau, so the Zambarau Concord was drawn up.

The five main conditions the Zambarau Concord are:
 * The Free Flow of Information - all organisations must keep absolute transparency (especially in science).
 * A Defensive Alliance - a threat to one member of the Concord was to be considered a threat to all members.
 * Armed Neutrality - all other options (including military deterrance) must be exhausted before war.
 * Workers' co-operatives - employees must elect their employer, rather than the employer choosing employees. The Concord will be split into regions with a maximum travel time of 28 days across each region. Each workers' co-operative will have a monopoly over its region.
 * Technocracy - the quaternary industrial sector will take priority.

Some of the terms in the Concord seemed unneeded, random or confusing; nevertheless most of the races that the Zambarau had provided for signed the Concord (if only for the first two conditions) and have renewed the signing of the Concord on a regular basis. No amendments have ever been made to the Zambarau Concord, causing the Astatines to temporarily drop out in the Obsolescence Wars.

Pre-Obsolescence Era
At the time, the Pre-Obsolescence Era was seen as the dawn of a great golden age for the Zambarau Concord. With the scientific advances brought on by the free flow of information throughout the civilization, with different races all contributing in their specialist areas of science, from robotics to genetics to nanotechnology, it was thought that the whole civilization would soon be a scientific utopia.

At the time technocrats were very ambitious and visionary, with huge amounts of resources being pumped into the quaternary sectors, especially the fields of robotics and nanotechnology. The hope was that nanotechnology research would lead to the development of cheap nanofabricators that could allow people to produce almost any product they desired in their own homes. Meanwhile, advanced robots with simulated intelligence (Concord scientists had 'proved' mathematically that truly artificially intelligent machines were impossible) would provide for any other needs, eliminating both poverty and the Monday blues in one fell swoop.

An unexpected route that Pre-Obsolescence science took was the development of 'Drones,' these were creatures genetically engineered from scratch to be exemplary technicians and engineers. Their minds were designed to specialise in pattern rocognition and problem solving (they had a very strange manner, but this was not considered a concern). Drones were lanky, could get into small spaces and work in almost pitch-black conditions. They were considered superior to robots as they could be grown easily, could heal injuries (as they were organic), learn quickly and take initiative. Drones were usually assigned to command teams of robots, demonstrating that their problem solving skills made teams of robots more efficient.

Also, robots were soon replaced by 'Clones,' which were basically genetically engineered organic robots. They had all of the benefits of Drones except they were mindless vegetables that could only follow orders and perform simple tasks, they were also stronger, larger and had inferior senses.

The Obsolescence Wars
The Obsolescence Wars were a time of huge political, economic and social upheaval in Concord history. They were not martially-oriented wars as such (though bloodshed was involved), but were the systematic collapse of Zambarau Pre-Obsolescence society. The Obsolescence Wars lasted just two decades.

As the Zambarau Concord became the post-scarcity society that it had worked so hard to acheive in the Pre-Obsolescence years more and more work posts began to be taken by Clones. Most products were made using nanofabricators and most services were provided by Clones or Drones. Work became optional and a system was put in place in which workers were given 'allowances' to spend by their co-operative weather they worked or not. Many workers, however, became disgruntled by the fact that it was impossible to compete with the much more efficient robots and began to resent the Clones and the Drones.

However, problems began to occur. Vesting in their common skills and mindset, the Drones began to form trade unions, asking for 'equal workers rights' and teams of Clones began to be withdrawn from work. This was a massive blow for the Concord as there was suddenly a huge labour vacuum and nobody prepared to fill it. There was now huge friction between those who thought everything should stay as it is, those who hated the Drones and the Clones, and the Drones themselves. Violence began to break out.

Interstellar travel still took many weeks at the time so different situations took place in different solar systems, causing huge economic and political turmoil. Eventually, the Zambarau themselves decided to step in and made a direct agreement with the Drones for they and the Clones to leave the Zambarau Concord. This damaged the Zambarau' reputation bacause they seemed to get on well with the Drones; conspiracy theories started to break out, saying that the Drones were in fact Zambarau, that the Zambarau and the Drones were friends and that the Obsolescence Wars had actually been planned by the Zambarau (thes are known as the 'Obsolescence Conspiracies').

The aftermath of the Obsolescence Wars was terrible indeed. There was gross unemployment and the economy had completely collapsed. Productivity in the primary, secondary and tertiary secotors was all abysmally low, forcing the price commissioners to increase prices to extortionate levels. Millions of people died of starvation, weather they were paid or not (infuriatingly, at the time, the quaternary sector was unaffected; nobody starved and productivity remained high throughout the Obsolescence Wars).

At the end of the Obsolescence Wars the Zambarau were quoted as saying "Let this be a lesson, to the people of the Concord, on the vices of sloth and the value of hard work, however pointless it may seem." This furthered support of the Obsolescence Conspiracies.

Post-Obsolescence Era
The Post-Obsolescence Era was a time of recovery for the Zambarau Concord. The co-operatives assigned longer working hours to most of the populance and price comissioners kept prices quite high, meaning that people returned to more of a Formation Era lifestyle (in fact, the Post-Obsolescence Era is sometimes referred to as the 'Second Formation Era').

Meanwhile, the Drones, who had retreated from the solar systems of the Zambarau Concord, began to set up colonies in interstellar space within the Concord (this still conformed with their agreement with the Zambarau, as for ease of control the Zambarau Concord only polices the vicinities of its systems). The Drones mainly lived in cylindrical rotating habitats, which together became known as the Affiliated Habitats. There was little communication between the Zambarau Concord and the Affiliated Habitats through the Post-Obsolescence Era as each were concentrating on improving their own lot, but it is now known that the percentage growth rate of the Affiliated Habitats in this time was much higher than that of the Zambarau Concord (the Zambarau Concord, being much bigger initially, still had the highest unit growth rate). This is thought to be due to the fact that the co-operatives had become weary of autonomous production, switching back to the less advanced, more labour-intensive labour systems of the Formation Era. Meanwhile, the Affiliated Habitats took full advantage of the technologies of the Pre-Obsolescence Era, overseeing a post-scarcity style autonomous industrial system.

However, as they became established the Affiliated Habitats began to look inwards toward the resource- and energy-rich solar systems from which they came. In the same way, the Zambarau Concord began to observe the colonies that were forming in interstellar space and expanding at an amazing rate, beginning to think thoughts of wealth and industry not known since Pre-Obsolescence.

Consolidation Era
The Zambarau Concord is currently in the Consolidation Era (also referred to as the Second Pre-Obsolescence Era). The Consolidation Era is named because the key event taking place is the merging of the Affiliated Habitats and the Zambarau Concord, which has been going well as the Affiliated Habitats still use many of the political and economic structures reminicent of the Zambarau Concord.

Through the Consolidation Era the Concord has gradually been becoming more like it was in the Pre-Obsolescence Era with more success thanks to more integrated co-operatives, a better informed poulance and economic and social plans that have been devised and tested in the Habitats for many decades now.

The Concord is also experiencing a great resurgence in growth and technological development, after finally recovering from the Obsolescence Wars. There are various new technologies and projects being proposed and developed for the present and the future and only time (and perhaps the Zambarau) will tell if this 'Second Pre-Obsolescence Era' will be followed by a 'Second Obsolescence Wars.'