Blue Planet

Native Settlement Culture

Sex Relations and Marriage

Sex relations between the islanders are liberal, the basic law in consent. Children allowed to play and express themselves sexually, this is considered to be their right. It is also pleasurable, bonding those involved and educational. Heterosexual penetrative sexual relations are not allowed until a person is an adult and married. The earliest age for adulthood and marriage is 12 for girls and boys. Married sex is encouraged because of the urgency and necessity of reproduction of the Island. Nudity and public sex are nothing unusual. By a young age children understand the mechanics of sex and its important. No questions go unanswered and responsibility for oneself and ones partner is emphasised. For a community based on a group of scientific peers, it is no surprise high value is based on education and understanding of every kind.

Homosexual sex is accepted between marriages as a way of feeling pleasure, intimacy and fulfillment. It is not encouraged when a person is married and they are typically expected to spend time engaged in reproductive heterosexual sex. Heterosexual sex is therefore always partially reproductive in aim, and contraception is not allowed. This rule has been so strictly enforced, there are no known contraceptive substances on the Island.

Sex relations with fins in typically amongst the younger generations. The sexual interest fins have in people and the close community relationship between the fins and Islanders means these relationships are a natural extension of mundane relating. Typically they are sensual, involving lots of stroking, nuzzling and hugging. Like homosexual relations, fins sexual relations typically take place between marriages.

Marriage is so important because of the urgency of reproduction and the high infant mortality rate on the Island. Ritual vows to each other are taken underwater using Interspec – the whole fin and Islander community observes. A large celebratory feast follows, usually semi-aquatic and involving lots of dancing, singing, playing and intoxication. The newly weds are expected to go to their hut at sunset and spend the night making love.

Marriages usually last four years. The biologists and psychologists that were part of the original survivor team understood that this is the average length for a monogamous relationship due to important biological reasons – the raising of an infant. After 4 years the infants formative years are over and couples usually feel compelled to seek other sexual relationships to ensure genetic diversity. Many cultures have denied this basic urge for ideological reasons, but the Islanders enforced divorce on the day of the fourth wedding anniversary – if not before – on that day is another celebration of the marriage, especially if it resulted in children. Four years gives a couple the opportunity to learn about each other, to conceive and to understand their responsibilities to their children. Multiple marriages ensures genetic diversity and tends to bring the community closer as non-physical intimacy tends to last after divorce. Re-marriage only happens if the community is in deep trouble and there aren’t many members left. It is hoped that such regular marriages ensure most people will get to marry every member of the opposite sex in the community over their long lives.

Marriage is so important and adultery and fornication are major crimes because it is imperative that the certainty of a child’s genetic parents is 100 percent. Otherwise incestuous reproduction is a possibility and this would jeapordise the communities future survival by weakening their genetic inheritance and future children. Needless to say, incest is worse than adultery and fornication and the community elders have always kept track of every marriage, conception and birth in a complex family Tree stored on Synopsis. Molly is the custodian of the Tree now, and the Tree provides the Islanders not only with reproductive guidance but a powerful symbol for their community – it is complex and 3D, dating back over 80 years and including the names of everyone who has ever lived on the Island. It is a monument to survival and friendship. The Tree is exceptionally important data, and Molly has it memorised. Decedents of Molly are fond of tracing their genealogies back to her. Molly ceremonially enters new marriages, conceptions, births and deaths in the Tree database.

Molly has the important duty of examining the Tree to see who are the most distantly related and thus would make the best genetic combinations and be the next for marriage. Molly arranges every marriage, usually announcing it at over lunch. She also presides over the marriage ceremony. Usually, older Islanders can make requests of Molly, they have typically married those furthest related from them and are no free to follow their feelings. Thankfully everyone on the Island are friends and care for each other, so marriage is an exciting and happy time.

Divorce can occur at any time, though is usually announced at noon over lunch. It is very easy to do in theory, a public announcement being all it takes. Usually though, it is best to make sure Molly approves of the divorce, which is unlikely if a marriage has been childless. Adultery and incest result in automatic divorces, though any such liaisons are expected to be kept secret, so this is just an official rule. Like violence crimes, adultery, fornication and incest have so far been unknown.

The reasons for divorce are usually that a person has such strong sexual feelings for another person that they are not married too, that they feel they cannot bear to be without them and must marry them instead. This has only happened a few times in Molly’s lifetime.

Women cannot re-marry until after two months to ensure that they are not pregnant. Non-reproductive sex in encouraged in the meantime. If she is pregnant the old husband is considered the father and has his responsibilities.

Some of the young males who are contemporaries form fraternities. The fins are the direct inspiration for this dynamic, which results in a very close bond of loyalty and affection. The fraternities do most things together, like sharing huts, hunting and relaxing. The two current fraternities have a friendly competition going on. Unlike the fins they do not fight or compete for sex however. Mohammed in the unofficial leader of his fraternity, and Temple the more-or-less official leader of his. Generally fraternities are life-long and involved a lot of homosexual activity between marriages.

Punishment is enforced by social sanction. If a person does wrong the eyes of the Islanders s/he has lost honour. Honour is basically a person’s trustworthiness, their reputation. Sanctioned beyond this have proven unnecessary – Islanders have never committed crimes against each other and rarely disagreed with the rules, as co-operative and benevolent community ensures individual and collective survival.

Rite of Passage takes place when a child begins adolescence. The first signs of sexual maturity are usually announced by the child at lunch and celebrated. A RoP usually involves reiterating the history of the Athena Project and Haven correctly (something all the children learn, so as to stay aware of their roots), as well as the rules concerning sexual relations and reproduction, reproductive biology and child development. Exams are typically questions asked by Molly over lunch. A test is then set – this is usually learning how to build a boat and catch fish, or how to build a weapon and hunt for a boy, and how to build a hut or delivery a baby for a girl – the latter via simulation on Synopsis to ensure safety and availability. Tests are always individualised, so if a child has a specific interest, this may be the subject of the test, herbalism for example. A child becomes an adult when s/he has succeeded in the test – eg, by building a house or catching food. Often fraternities go through the Rite together.

Marriage usually follows shortly. The average age of RoP is 13 and the average age for marriage is 14, the early age ensuring reproduction starts as soon as possible.

Pregnancy and Child-rearing

The next stage in adulthood is marriage and parenthood. Biological parents are expected to take special (though not sole) responsibility for their child’s safety, education and happiness. Otherwise, the whole community contributes to raising a child who can rely on many aunts, uncles and siblings. Biological parents and their children have a special place in the Tree of course.

Pregnant women receive special treatment. Conception is announced over lunch and a celebration takes place. Pregnant women are treated with more than great care – they are pampered. They eat first and best at the meals, with Molly serving them. They are considered extremely attractive in appearance and women are typically over-joyed to be pregnant. However, pregnant women are expected to avoid certain substances and activities so that the foetus is not harmed. If the community is short on men and marriages, the new father may find himself remarrying shortly after a successful birth. Motherhood itself is an extremely important status, and like fin mothers, human mothers are highly regarded.

Birth takes place underwater for ease and comfort of labour and to acclimatise the new child to the water in which they will spend much of their live, and to the fins which are integral to the community. Like the Islanders, many fins stay close by during birth, and they come close to the newly born. Fin births are regular events, and their failure is not as great a disaster or pre-occupation as it is for the Islanders.

Abortion is another serious crime and, like contraception, abortive resources on the Island are unknown. Failed conceptions and gestations are treated with funerals – the Islanders equate a foetus with a person to emphasise the importance of gestation (despite the better thinking of pro-choice ideas in the original survivor community).

Funerals

Corpses are laid out naked on the beach near the Mangrove. They are covered if their state is upsetting. Stories about the lives dead are told over their bodies. Favourite poems or music may be said or played over them. Everyone remembers and usually there is a lot of weeping and laughter. Big rocks are painted during this time, usually with images that mark the passed life, or simply the dead person’s name, or a short eulogy. These many rocks, and perhaps appropriate, useless personal effects, are tied to the ankles of the body once it is carried into the water. The body is then to sink into the blackness below the Grove, usually accompanied by mourning fins. The weight and the sinking symbolise grief, and the blackness of the water is death. But the water is also a warm, comfortable womb, and when the corpse is eaten, it becomes part of the life cycle that the community respects and the fins venerate.

The Song

Song is the name of the philosophy the fin community brought with them from Earth. The Islanders have adopted many of its ideas, when the subtleties have been understood, and Song lends itself to adoption and adaptation, as indeed its ideas are not dogmatic and singular.

The basic points Song shares are holism, environmentalism and anti-dogmatism. Song philosophy is holistic in that it considers all living and non-living beings to be part of the same self-regulating whole. It is similar to the idea of Gaia – that much like ourselves, the planet is a large organism that contains and supports many other organisms, each with their own role. Songs disagree on how the balance is distributed and the role of consciousness is this scheme. Some Songs consider consciousness to be omnipresent, perhaps mediated by quantum activity or a metaphysical substance, others restrict consciousness to neural networks or specific patterns of carbon atoms. Song is environmentalist in that all versions respect the environment and seek to sustain it. Some Songs advocate total preservation, others sustainable use and development of resources. Song encourages the diversion and growth of ideas through disagreement, discussion, and resolution. Most of the thoughtful fins have their own malleable and sophisticated ideas about Song, and the various philosophical positions inspire the humans, especially the young. Without these core ideas, the philosophical or religious system is not considered to be a Song.

The young are attracted to the more religious elements of Song. Temple’s fraternity is especially attracted to deistic interpretations of the environment and cosmology and are working on a new religion which they call Delphism. Delphism encourages intuitive action and getting closer to ones instinctual self. In this regard it shares some idea with fin Songs that seek a re-familiarisation with pre-uplift ways of thinking and perceiving. This can be done through art, meditation, intoxication, sex and other emotional extremes. The Delphists are extremely emphatic regarding holism, consider themselves very small parts of a very large Multiverse – though the Blue Planet is their immediate concern. They seek to be close to it, and one of their central ideas, which diverges from Song, is that they are on the threshold of a stage of evolution that will bring them closer to the Planet. Temple has expressed that those who will not evolve and unite with the World will simply be lost in some cataclysm or another. He imagines the world has been testing the humans and fins that have arrived here for this merging, and expects it to rid itself of those who have failed, who have not heard its "call", who do not respect it and recognise it as greater than them.

Temple’s fraternity are the only Islanders who call themselves Delphists. They are hostile towards settlers from Earth; they consider Earth culture corrupt, dangerous and morally bankrupt and reject the rules concerning marriage – for them sex and love are impulsive things and must not be governed.

A Typical Day

Lots of hunting is unnecessary. Most of the men fish at dawn, following the flight of the Dragon Eels who know where the largest fish schools are. Hunting amongst the fraternities - like many of their activities - is exclusive, so no-one else joins them. The women, children and remaining men work at minor chores and walk on the North beach when the tide is far-out, picking up the beached creatures and plants it has left behind. Fishing doesn't take long, but more is done during spring, in preparation for the storm season, and even more is caught prior to Cyclone 11. These extra fish are dreid and salted and stored, extra vegatibles and vinagered, fruits sweetened for storage, meats salted or spiced - all ready for the days of storms that will keep the Islanders huddled inside, or even the weeks that might keep them in doors when Cyclone 11 hits.

The older fraternity go on irregular hunting expeditions for richer meat, finding it on the Island, or morel ikely in the Mangrove. After the beach walk, the other Islanders pick berries and fallen fruit, then sit on the beach or swim with the fins, chatting, making, mending or dying clothes or tools, and cooking little meals. Later, the frat.s might join them if they aren't still hunting, or laze in their boats or swim with fins.

After lunch Islanders tyically follow individual pursuits - Lorkyn might see White Flight or SSP, Synopsis might be visited, or Molly's stories listened to. The older frat. tend to have less individual pursuits than the young frat., though personal artistic endeavours, or courtship and love-making with a spouse might take a person from the community, or it might not. Only White Flight and Sue are a little shy about public love-making. Competative games might be played, and then there is more food preparation for the big communal dinner late in the afternoon.

Over dinner, stories about the day are told, or Lucile might have a poem to read, or Sweet a song to sing and so on. The evening is spent much like the afternoon, though the young frat. are forming a habit of going to an isolated place to develop their rituals and induce visions with drugs. If it is close to cylone-season, dusk hunting might be done, where only certain kinds of tasty animals can be caught.

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