Demarchists

The Demarchists (pejoratively referred to by outsiders as zombies) were a faction of humanity who had a political system of democratic anarchy, or "Demarchy". The Demarchy functioned by means of a neural implant that constantly sought the user's opinion on aspects of Demarchist life. This constant prompting eventually faded away into the user's neural background, much like the ticking of a clock might fade away into background noise. The Yellowstone Demarchy, which was the main Demarchy in human space for nearly two centuries, used such a technique.

The voting process was run by "Polling Cores" in Demarchist cities and space stations. Each core was tasked with collecting and processing votes, and also determining whether or not the elected decision was the best one in previous elections -- voters who continually made "good" decisions were rewarded by having their vote count for more than one standard vote. Other known Demarchies included the Haven and Europan Demarchies -- the latter appears to have risen and fallen multiple times -- as well as Fand, Grand Teton and many other colonies in human-occupied space.

Until the time of the Melding Plague there were several powerful families within the Yellowstone Demarchy, such as the Voi family. One of the most influential of these families was House Sylveste, which controlled Sylveste Institute for Shrouder Studies; it also controlled the Sylveste Institute for Artificial Mentation before it was destroyed by Panoply during The Clockmaker incident. It later organized the archaeological expedition to Resurgam to research ancient Amarantin society. They were immensely wealthy, being the closest thing to royalty in the Yellowstone system. Notable members of House Sylveste include Dan Sylveste, who led the Resurgam expedition, and Calvin Sylveste, who was known for the Eighty.

The pre-plague Demarchists -- particularly the Yellowstone Demarchy -- used to have expertise in nanotechnology, life-extension, and biological alterations, among other things. They also utilised a sophisticated information network known as abstraction. Abstraction was used to simulate environments and co-ordinate servitors and other robots. The height of Demarchist society, the Belle Époque, was only brought low by the Melding Plague, which pushed Chasm City, the main city of the Yellowstone Demarchy, into a dark age lasting forty years.

Later, after the Conjoiners stepped in to help revive Chasm City, the Demarchists, unhappy with their new role as second fiddle, declared war on the Conjoiners; a war which first went well as the Conjoiners, thanks to their hive-mind nature, became predictable on the battlefield. The return of the war-hero Nevil Clavain ended that, and by 2615 only the most partisan of Demarchists would even deny an eventual Conjoiner victory.

In any case, human civilisation around Yellowstone was eventually destroyed by the Inhibitors in 2698.

Demarchist weaponry consists of, among other things, antimatter munitions (or "pinhead" bombs, called such for the tiny amount of antimatter necessary), and massive rail guns that accelerate foam-phase metallic hydrogen to a massive speed using a series of timed detonations along a barrel. They also utilised various ionisation-particle weapons and compact "fold-out" beam weapons.

Demarchists in the Revelation Space series

Major and named Demarchist characters appearing in the series, sorted by narrative era and by the works they appear in.

Pre-interstellar era (Solar System)

• Great Wall of Mars (short story)
  • Sandra Voi (leader/co-founder)

• A Spy in Europa (short story)
  • TBA

Belle Epoque era (Yellowstone)

• A Prefect Dreyfus Emergency (novel series)
  • Jane Aumonier (Panoply, Supreme Prefect)
  • Tom Dreyfus (Panoply, Field Prefect)
  • Sparver Bancal (Panoply, Field Prefect)
  • Thalia Ng (Panoply, Field Prefect)
  • Dr. Demikhov (Panoply, medical specialist)
  • Gaston Clearmountain (Panoply, Senior Prefect)
  • Michael Crissel (Panoply, Senior Prefect)
  • Lilian Baudry (Panoply, Senior Prefect)
  • Sheridan Gaffney (Panoply, Senior Prefect)
  • Pell (Panoply, pilot)
  • Valery Chapelon
  • Caitlin Perigal
  • Aurora Nerval-Lermontov
  • Julius Devon Garlin Voi (political activist)

• Diamond Dogs (novella)
  • Richard Swift
  • Roland Childe
  • Celestine
  • Dr. Trintignant

• Other
  • Sylveste family
    • Lorean Sylveste *
    • Calvin Sylveste *
  • Philip Lascaille *
  • Carine Lefevre *

Post-Melding Plague era (Yellowstone, Resurgam, Ararat)

• Dilation Sleep (short story)
  • Uri Andrei Sagdev
  • Katia Sagdev
  • Janos

• Grafenwalder's Bestiary (short story)
  • Dr. Trintignant
  • Grafenwalder
  • Ursula Goodglass

• Chasm City (novel)
  • Chanterelle Sammartini
  • Dominika
  • Lorant
  • Quirrenbach
  • Sister Amelia
  • Sister Duscha
  • Voronoff
  • Zebra

• Revelation Space (novel)
  • Case
  • Calvin Sylveste (simulation)
  • Dan Sylveste
  • Nils Girardieau
  • Pascale Dubois
  • Henry Janequin
  • Gillian Sluka

• Redemption Ark (novel)
  • Antoinette Bax
  • Xavier Liu
  • Pauline Sukhoi
  • Zebra
  • Sandra Voi (eponymous descendant)
  • Thorn

• Absolution Gap (novel)
  • Antoinette Bax
  • Xavier Liu
  • Vasko Malinin
  • Urton

Note: * - based on post-Plague era narrative information

RS Glossary entry

Demarchists: A human faction using implants to achieve real-time participatory democracy.
- description from the official RS glossary

Notes

• Demarchist society is heavily featured in A Spy in Europa and the A Prefect Dreyfus Emergency spinoffs.
• The "demarchy" term exists in real world politics, but with a different meaning: it refers to the selection of representatives by random choice (i. e. Sortition). It is a currently rare form of democracy but was practiced in ancient Athens.
• Cultural nicknames for Demarchists as a faction include "zombies" (pejorative, used by outsiders, probably as a reference to the notion of "constant, mindless voting with implants") and "Stoners" (used by Demarchists for themselves, at least in the case of Yellowstone Demarchists).

Inspiration

In the afterword of Galactic North, Alastair Reynolds comments that the Demarchists are not his own invention. He credits the Joan D. Vinge book The Outcasts of Heaven Belt as the inspiration for the Demarchist Society.