A clandestine worldwide peacekeeping organization. Primarily based in cyberspace, the Nexus was composed of volunteers from all levels of all societies. In the beginning, their operations were considered illegal, so it became customary for Nexus operatives to take on code names and conceal their identities. This custom persisted into future generations, even as the Nexus itself gained more popularity and public approval.
From its foundation in 2011 until the crisis of 2042, the Nexus was primarily an extra-governmental peacekeeping organization. Its most powerful weapon was the Interdict. The terms of Interdict, in theory, were unyielding: an offending nation could have no commerce or contact with the world community until they were ready to rejoin it. No trade, no tourists, no Net connections in or out. Only the press was allowed to enter. Only refugees were allowed to leave.
In this period, the Nexus did not decide when and where to impose the Interdict; instead, it acted when the United Nations passed a resolution against a particular nation or area -- and the Interdict stayed in effect until the United Nations was satisfied.
The first Interdict, in 2011, was primitive and easily avoided; by 2042, with the co-operation of most national armed forces and countless volunteers, the Interdict had become an airtight barrier. The result was an uneasy few decades of world peace.
As its symbol, the Nexus adopted Drake's Starburst: a diagram indicating the position of Earth (and the Solar System) relative to a number of bright pulsars. For the Nexus, the Starburst became a symbol of a united Earth (and, later, Mars), regardless of nationality, ethnicity, race, or any of the other dividing factors that had almost doomed the planet in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Following the crisis of 2042, the United Nations was superceded by the Terran Council, whose delegates were largely Nexus members. For all intents and purposes, the Nexus became the de facto government of Earth and Mars.
By 2153, the Nexus was into its fifth and sixth generations. Many Nexus codenames had become hereditary names and developed into the Idara (tribes), and the Nexus itself had the flavor of an informal aristocracy. The six Nexus Worlds formed the nucleus around which the First Terran Empire coalesced.
copyright (c) 2007, Don Sakers
Find out more in Dance for the Ivory Madonna by Don Sakers
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