Wildworld

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A wildworld is a planet of the Dupliverse that is not signatory to the Allowance Treaty. This means that on many wildworlds, there is no legal limit to the number of duplicates a given person can have. In practice, however, this seldom leads to the proliferation of duplicates that many people expect; in practice, most people find it not worth the trouble to keep track of too many duplicates anyway, and while the average number of duplicates per person may be slightly higher on a wildworld than on a treaty world, the disparity is less than one might expect. In fact, however, the precise number of duplicates per person on a wildworld is rather difficult to arrive at, because of the possible number of lost duplicates there. Lost duplicates exist on treaty worlds, but are relatively rare; with a fixed, set number of duplicates it's easy to keep track of where they all are, and even in the uncommon case when a treatyworlder has an island duplicate it's not hard to monitor it. On wildworlds, island duplicates are much more common, since losing track of an island duplicate doesn't limit the number of future duplicates a person can create, and since duplicates in general are less precious island duplicates are more commonly forgotten or abandoned. The proportion of people on wildworlds who have lost duplicates is very difficult to estimate (and no doubt varies from world to world anyway), but may be significant.

Still, though unregulated, the number of duplicates most people have in wildworlds remains at manageable levels. In fact, then, the most characteristic feature of wildworlds may not be the number of duplicates there, but their independence. While the treaty worlds are connected by multiple accords and agreements—the Allowance Treaty most notably, of course, but the signatories to that treaty have also formed many other compacts and conventions with each other—, the wildworlds by and large each operate more or less by their own rules. They may have some sorts of charters or arrangements with individual treaty worlds or with other wildworlds, but they operate to a much greater extent than the treaty worlds do as independent entities. Although there are some groups of wildworlds that have united into interplanetary confederations—the Auriga League and Azzumala being among the largest—, for the most part each wildworld is a separate entity in and of itself.

Private worlds may or may not be counted among the wildworlds, but in any case it's an entirely semantic matter. Most legislation regarding wildworlds makes an explicit distinction for private worlds, and applies differently to them than to other worlds outside the Allowance Treaty.

Relations with treaty worlds

The defining fact that wildworlds are not subject to the Allowance Treaty leads to relations between wildworlds and treaty worlds being in general somewhat strained. Travel between treaty worlds and wildworlds is generally highly restricted, due to the difficulty in containing the entry to treatyspace of duplicates over an individual's permitted number. Most duplicators within treaty worlds will duplicate living material from wildworlds only with special governmental authorization. Native wildworlders can visit treaty worlds, or even emigrate there if they so choose, but the process requires a great deal of red tape that may take considerable time to arrange.

There is a perception in the treaty worlds that the wildworlds are lawless and dangerous, a veritable wilderness where anything goes and the strongest survive. Though some wildworlds may not entirely contradict this perception, it certainly isn't accurate applied to all wildworlds; the fact that the wildworlds are not signatory to the Allowance Treaty doesn't mean they're entirely anarchic. Still, the perception lasts, and is another factor discouraging travel from treaty worlds to wildworlds (or possibly encouraging it among thrillseekers). Conversely, many residents of the wildworlds tend to think of treatyspace as a single, monolithic, oppressive state, a characterization at least as inaccurate as the treatyworlders' stereotypes of the wildworlds.

Singleton worlds

The fact that wildworlds are not subject to the Allowance Treaty doesn't necessarily mean that there are no restrictions on duplicates; some wildworlds may have their own laws limiting the number of duplicates allowed, while for whatever reason not choosing to sign the treaty. A special case is that of the so-called singleton worlds, worlds where each individual is allowed to have exactly one copy in existence at any given time, with no additional duplicates. Some singleton worlds do not forbid residents or visitors to have other duplicates on other worlds, so long as only one exists on the singleton world; others, however, deny entry to any individuals with multiple duplicates existing anywhere in the universe, and may go so far as to destroy any duplicates on that world if it is later discovered that others exist. Of course, it may not necessarily be easy to find out for sure whether an individual has duplicates elsewhere, so some people with additional duplicates may still visit or live on that world and take measures to avoid being found out.

Some singleton worlds exist because their founders or leaders distrust duplication technology in general. On such worlds, not only the existence of additional duplicates may be outlawed, but the use of duplicators for translocation as well. Other worlds tend to view these antiduplication worlds as throwbacks stubbornly limiting their own development.

Partially wild worlds

There are a few worlds on which some governments have signed the Allowance Treaty while other areas remain unsubject to it. On such worlds, the typical tensions between wildworlds and treaty worlds tend to be amplified. In particular, the borders between the treaty areas and wild areas have to be tightly controlled, to disallow unauthorized entry into the treaty areas by conventional means. Because of the difficulty of such control, border forces tend to be extreme in their methods.

Such partially wild worlds are rarely stable for long. The border conflicts often escalate into war, and typically the situation ends with either the entire world being required to agree to the Allowance Treaty, or the wild part of the world overtaking the other and rejecting the treaty. In any case, it is in part to avoid such a situation that most planets have sought the consensus of all major planetary governments before signing the Allowance Treaty.

Transitions

When a former wildworld signs the Alliance Treaty, this generally opens up much closer relations to other treaty worlds, as they become more willing to share commerce and culture with a world that shares some of their core laws and don't require such difficult measures to handle. However, there tends to be a transitional period before a new treaty world is fully accepted. If the world is going to be given free access to other treaty worlds, it must restrict its access to wildworlds, and will not be fully embraced by treatyspace until that is done. For that interim, transitional period, then, the incipient treaty world tends to be extremely isolated, both from the wildworlds with whom it's cutting off relations, and from the treaty worlds who are waiting to open relations until the former is done.

Much more rarely, it may happen that a former treaty world decides to renounce the Allowance Treaty and become a wildworld. This process proceeds much more quickly than the reverse; the other wildworlds generally have no hesitation in immediately reopening relations. In fact, it may be that the world opens relations with other wildworlds more quickly than the treaty worlds can sever their connections to it, leaving a brief window of time during which the transitional world can be used as a sort of a back door for easy unauthorized entry into treatyspace. For this and other reasons, treaty worlds tend to be hostile toward former treaty worlds that "left the fold". While they can't actually prevent such worlds from withdrawing from the treaty, their relationships with them will long afterwards be chilly at best, even more so than with other wildworlds.