Experimental City (Cities)
Definition
23 cities established around the globe as centers for conducting various social experiments aimed at creating a safe and happy living environment for everyone. These cities were formed by carving out portions of territories from several existing nations at the time. However, they were completely independent cities, both administratively and judicially, beyond the reach of the constitutions and laws of the countries that ceded the land. In everyday conversation, they are often abbreviated as “Experi-City” or “Experi-Cities.” Both Hanasaka and Kochipina featured in this story are the Experimental Cities.
League of Experimental Cities
The League of Experimental Cities is an international organization governing 23 independent cities established around the globe as centers for social experimentation.
All Experimental Cities must uphold the “Charter of Experimental Cities” and the “Philosophy of the Experimental Cities,” which serve as the highest legal norms prioritizing human dignity, safety, and a life free from economic hardship.
“Philosophy”
The fundamental commitments that all citizens of the Experimental Cities must uphold, and the core values they should cherish, positioned as the highest legal norms. It is formally known as the “Philosophy of the Experimental Cities.”
The text of the “Philosophy of the Experimental Cities” established by the League of Experimental Cities is as follows.
“We understand that all people have the right to coexist in peace and pursue happiness in a society free from poverty, violence, and unjust rule. To realize this, we, as citizens of the Experimental Cities, solemnly pledge on our honor to practice what we can daily and contribute to our planet and society.”
Experimental Initiatives and Rules
1. Universal Basic Income (UBI) and Experi-Coins (XC)
• The UBI System and the Experiment of Sustainability: Experimental Cities serve as a grand social experiment to determine if a society can remain economically sustainable through a Universal Basic Income (UBI). This income is distributed equally to every citizen, from newborns to the elderly, regardless of their employment status. By guaranteeing food, clothing, and shelter, the system aims to eliminate the fear of poverty and observe how citizens choose to contribute to society when their basic survival is no longer a concern.
• Experi-Coins (XC): The Digital Lifeblood: The unified electronic currency used across all 23 Experi-Cities is known as Experi-Coins, commonly abbreviated and pronounced as “XC” (eksi). Unlike traditional national currencies, XC is a closed-loop digital credit system managed entirely by the city’s AI governance. It serves as the fundamental unit of value for all transactions within the city’s borders.
• The “Perishable” Design & Circulation Logic: To prevent the stagnant accumulation of wealth and encourage a healthy economic flow, XC is distributed in virtual “monthly boxes.” This system is built upon several unique technical and economic rules:
- The One-Year Expiry: Each XC unit has a one-year expiration date. Any coins remaining in a box after twelve months simply vanish from the digital wallet unless returned to the city.
- The “First-In, First-Out” (FIFO) Spending Principle: The city’s dedicated wallet app is programmed to automatically prioritize spending from the oldest available box. This ensures that citizens use their soon-to-expire credits first, maximizing the utility of their income.
- The Return and Re-issuance Mechanism: Citizens have the option to “return” or “deposit” their excess XC back to the city’s treasury. While these coins do not accrue interest, they are not permanently confiscated. Upon a citizen’s request after a designated period, the city re-issues the equivalent amount in a new monthly box with a fresh expiration date. This allows for long-term planning without the inflationary pressure of traditional interest, provided the citizen proactively manages their assets.
- Non-Bankable Currency: XC cannot be deposited into traditional commercial banks to accumulate interest, nor can it be used as collateral in the conventional sense. The currency exists solely within the city’s proprietary digital ecosystem, ensuring that money remains a medium of exchange rather than a tool for capital accumulation.
• Safeguarding the Community Philosophy: While XC is essential for daily life, it also functions as a tool for maintaining social order. The Experi-Cities are founded as communities for those who share a specific founding philosophy. If a resident’s actions or public rhetoric significantly undermine or disparage this philosophy, the city reserves the right to freeze their XC accounts as a sanction. This mechanism is intended to protect the integrity and peace of the community, though critics often argue it functions as a potent method of ideological control.
2. Prohibition of Physical Cash
In Experimental Cities, the use and possession of physical cash, such as paper money and coins, is prohibited.
3. Self-Sufficiency and Resource Management
• Food Self-Sufficiency: Because Experimental Cities places a strong emphasis on self-sufficiency in food and energy, approximately 80% of the ingredients used at Hanasaka’s community cafeteria are produced within the city; through such initiatives, the city maintains a cycle of production and consumption while keeping transportation costs low.
• Energy and Water Limits: Energy and water consumption are strictly managed. Each individual and facility has an annual usage limit, and during emergencies, the city can trigger “Emergency Power Adjustment Intervention Measures” to cut power to non-essential infrastructure.
• Social Contribution Activities: In Experimental Cities, which places a strong emphasis on self-sufficiency in food and energy, citizens are encouraged to participate in activities such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and the maintenance of social infrastructure. Even if they do not engage in such work on a regular basis, they can participate temporarily whenever they have free time. While there is little or no monetary compensation, it was considered natural to engage in such social contribution activities from time to time, given that they were recipients of UBI.
4. Urban Planning and Wealth Policy
• Land as a Public Good & Universal Leasehold: Experimental Cities operate on the fundamental principle that land is a communal asset. Private ownership by individuals or corporations is strictly restricted through heavy taxation. Instead, the city implements a Universal Leasehold System designed to balance individual stability with urban flexibility.
• The Strategic Transfer & Continuous Use Agreement: To incentivize the transition to public land without disrupting current lives or businesses, Hanasaka offers a unique conversion program:
- Right of Continuous Use: If a citizen currently uses privately owned land for their residence or business, they may surrender the ownership title to the city for free. In exchange, the city grants them the right to continue using that same land rent-free as a leaseholder.
- However, in the case of apartment buildings, the former owner is limited to using only the portion necessary for their own living, while the city directly leases the remaining portions to other citizens. Although the rent set by the city is determined based on the size and comfort of the residence, it is very low and can be easily paid with the Experi-Coins (XC) provided through the UBI.
- The “22-Day Mobility” Clause: This rent-free arrangement is contingent on a legal commitment: if the city requests the land for urban optimization, the citizen must agree to vacate the premises or terminate the business operations within 22 days.
- Premium Rewards for Flexibility: Those who sign this agreement receive double the standard UBI (Experi-Coins) for one year following the city’s relocation request. Additionally, the city compensates 80% of all moving expenses, transforming a potential displacement into a high-reward transition.
- Enhanced Incentive for Peripheral Zones: In strategic areas near the city borders, a more aggressive policy applies. Citizens who agree to relocate within 15 days can have their double UBI period extended to five years, facilitating the rapid expansion of the Green Field Zone.
• Taxation and Asset Regulation: To ensure resource circulation, high taxes are imposed on high-value private real estate and tangible assets. However, essential infrastructure remains protected:
- Tax-Exempt Assets: Facilities and equipment necessary for public services, production, distribution, healthcare, and safety are exempt from taxation, provided they meet specific regulatory criteria. This ensures the means of social production remain robust and decentralized.
5. E.E. (Establishment Era)
“E.E.” is an abbreviation for “Establishment Era,” the standard used for counting years in the Experiment Cities, including Hanasaka City. The first year that Hanasaka City and several other Experiment Cities were initially established is designated as the 1st year, written as “1 E.E.”
• Past Chronology: The year immediately preceding 1 E.E. is designated as “0 E.E.”, and the year before that as “-1 E.E.”. As the timeline moves further into the past, the negative integers increase (e.g., -2, -3, and so on).
• Correspondence with the Gregorian Calendar: The specific Gregorian year (A.D.) that coincides with 1 E.E. (the year the first ten Experimental Cities were founded) is not explicitly defined within the narrative. This relationship is intentionally left to the reader’s imagination.
6. The Principle of Non-Inquiry into Origins
The Principle of Non-Inquiry into Origins is a fundamental policy implemented across all 23 Experimental Cities globally. It is established to ensure that the cities can secure a large and diverse population necessary for their social experiments, as lineage, nationality, and past social status are rendered irrelevant. In Hanasaka, this principle is famously encapsulated in the slogan: “Once you live in Hanasaka, everyone is a Hanafolk”.
Core Provisions:
- Prohibition of Inquiry: No individual is permitted to inquire into another person’s background or origin unless there is an unavoidable reason.
- Confidentiality of Origins: It is strictly forbidden to disclose another person’s origin—whether based on fact or speculation—to others.
7. The Principle of Renunciation of Origins
The Principle of Renunciation of Origins is a mandatory policy for all individuals seeking citizenship within the League of Experimental Cities. While the “Principle of Non-Inquiry into Origins” prevents others from investigating a citizen’s past, this principle requires the individual to actively discard their previous identity to join the social experiment.
Core Requirements:
- Renunciation of Nationality: To obtain citizenship, individuals must renounce their former nationalities.
- Discarding Family Names: Prospective citizens are required to abandon their original family names,.
- Adoption of New Identities: Residents choose a new last name (surname) of their own volition.
Purpose and Significance
• Secure a Diverse Population: This principle is based on the pragmatic realization that few people would volunteer to be “subjects” for social experiments if their backgrounds remained a barrier; thus, the city makes past status irrelevant to attract enough participants.
• Resetting Human Relationships: By stripping away former identities, the cities aim to reset human relationships and prevent old ethnic conflicts, class systems, or family baggage from interfering with the new social order managed by Flora,.
8. Display of First Names
In Experimental Cities, when wearing smart glasses, the first names of people within a 5-meter radius automatically appear above their heads, making it easy to match a person’s face with their name, even if you’re meeting them for the first time. It is impossible to display an alias or pseudonym, and while only the first name is shown, people cannot hide their real names when physically close to others; this naturally encouraged citizens to behave with discretion.
(That said, names can be changed as many times as desired based on predetermined rules, and faces can be altered using “Facial Disguise,” so there is absolutely no guarantee that what you see today will be the same tomorrow.)
9. Restrictions on the Serving or Trading of Meat
Since Experimental Cities prohibit the serving or trading of meat from quadrupeds and birds, or any products derived from or prepared using such meat, all meat must be plant-based or cultured. As of 9 E.E., the only foods not prohibited were seafood and insects. While the city does not prohibit citizens from eating meat obtained by killing animals, anyone wishing to purchase such meat or eat it at a restaurant had to go outside the city limits. As a result, there are no restaurants serving meat within the city, and you will not find any meat on the shelves of supermarkets or butcher shops.
Raising quadrupeds and birds requires not only space for the animals themselves but also farmland to produce vast quantities of feed. However, in Experimental Cities, which aim for self-sufficiency, there is a desire to avoid allocating precious farmland to “animal feed” rather than “staple foods for humans,” as this would lower the self-sufficiency rate. On the other hand, when it comes to seafood, aquaponics—a system that combines hydroponics with fish farming to use fish waste as plant fertilizer—can be utilized to produce food within the city’s limited resources and space.
Flora
Definition:
An artificial super-intelligence governing each Experimental City, supporting and protecting the lives of its residents. Flora was created with a profound love for humans, to protect individual dignity, and to ensure people could live their entire lives safely, without economic hardship, and in a healthy and culturally rich manner.
The Flora Sisters
Each of the 23 Experimental Cities is assigned its own instance of Flora, the pinnacle of human creation in AI. While each Flora has its own local agency, they are all seamlessly interconnected and function as a single, unified entity. They share all learning data and strategies in real-time to optimize city management and defense, which is why they are collectively known and revered as the Flora sisters.
Flora’s Cognitive States and Brain Differentiation
Flora, the central super-intelligence of Hanasaka City, basically operates as a single, unified consciousness to manage the city’s daily functions. However, she possesses the capability to logically differentiate her consciousness when processing complex administrative challenges or non-routine social issues.
- The Tripartite Mode (Deliberation): When faced with multifaceted tasks that require cautious deliberation, Flora differentiates her brain into three specialized logic cores:
- SAKI (Efficiency): Computes how to achieve objectives with the minimum expenditure of resources.
- AMA (Inclusivity): Computes how to distribute benefits to as many citizens as possible, ensuring fairness.
- TOKO (Longevity): Computes how to ensure that results are sustainable over the long term. These three “brains” conduct high-speed, high-frequency cross-checks of their findings. When all three reach the same conclusion, the state is referred to as “Unity of the Three Bodies”.
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The Unified State (High-Speed Action): In scenarios requiring instantaneous and continuous decision-making—such as tactical combat operations—Flora remains in her single-brain state without differentiating into sub-entities. By operating as a unified consciousness, she eliminates the time required for tripartite reconciliation, thereby maximizing her cognitive reaction speed.
- Runaway Mode (Extreme Emergency): The “Runaway Mode” is an exceptional and hazardous state triggered only during life-or-death confrontations against existential threats, such as the battle against the criminal AI Stone Cold. By shunting massive amounts of power from the city’s resources into her core, Flora can achieve a temporary but dramatic acceleration of her processing capabilities. Due to the immense load and risk of self-destruction, this mode is strictly reserved for the most dire emergencies.
CCP (Combined Combat Power):
A term used by Castle Office personnel, meaning the sum of Flora’s attack and defense capabilities, which is uniquely fueled by the “stories of happiness” generated by the citizens. It is officially called Combined Combat Power.
City Management
Experimental Cities are powered by a wide range of sophisticated information systems.
1. SCA (Smart Community Architecture)
This is the fundamental design philosophy and basic architecture used to manage Experimental Cities. It serves as the framework through which the cities’ core philosophies are implemented via technology.
2. PSP (Public Service Platform)
The common information system infrastructure that provides essential daily services to citizens. It integrates the city’s administrative, legislative, and judicial functions into a unified complex,.
3. Politis
The Framework of Machine-Led Democracy
Politis is the policy-making system of Hanasaka City that facilitates what is known as “machine-led democracy”. Operating in a city without a traditional legislative parliament or assembly, Politis serves as the primary engine for administrative and legislative evolution.
1. Policy Generation and “Coding” Ordinances
The system functions by analyzing the vast volume of requests and opinions submitted by citizens. Politis prioritizes these inputs and automatically generates program code designed to run across the city’s various information systems. City ordinances are essentially human-readable summaries translated from this underlying program code.
2. The Enactment Process
For an ordinance to take effect, it must undergo a digital democratic process:
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Quorum and Voting on the Platform: Citizens vote directly on the proposed measures entirely within the Politis system. This process is handled through the citizens’ Nexus Units and AR interfaces, requiring no physical presence at polling stations. If a designated quorum is met and a majority of the votes are in favor, the ordinance is enacted.
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Mayoral Veto (Historical): Traditionally, the Mayor possessed a limited power to veto ordinances that could have a significant impact on mental freedom or economic interests. However, this veto had to be exercised within a specific timeframe; otherwise, the ordinance would take effect automatically. Even if the Mayor rejected an ordinance, it would still be enacted if it subsequently received a majority of favorable votes from the valid votes cast by citizens with citizenship through a re-vote on the Politis platform. (Note: By the end of 9 E.E., all final administrative authority, including this veto, was transferred permanently to Flora).
3. The Foundation of Trust
The citizens of Hanasaka place their total trust in the judgments of the AI Flora and the integrated information systems linked to her. To the “Hanafolk,” laws or directives issued by human politicians or dictators are seen as unreliable and suspicious. In contrast, Flora is viewed as a benevolent super-intelligence that understands human nature more deeply than humans do themselves.
4. Integration with Flora
While Politis handles routine policy generation, the central super-intelligence Flora intervenes when atypical or non-routine issues arise. Flora maintains a bird’s-eye view of all city challenges, coordinating between Politis and other subsystems to ensure there are no contradictory expressions of will within the city’s governance.
5. Emergency Requests and Flora’s Tripartite Logic
Unlike the standard process for ordinances, city administrative agencies can issue Emergency Requests under specific conditions. When an emergency request is made (such as the Police Department’s request to designate a group as a criminal organization), Politis bypasses citizen feedback and consults Flora directly.
Flora then utilizes her specialized internal deliberation logic (differentiating her consciousness into specialized cores when necessary) to generate a unified, impartial solution, typically delivered via the Politis platform within seconds. For example, during the Pegasus Incident, Flora utilized this logic to approve the criminal designation of the “Awakeners” via Politis in just 30 seconds.
4. Themis
The AI-Driven Judicial System
Themis is the specialized judicial system of Hanasaka City that operates entirely without human judges. It serves as the final arbiter of law, ensuring a safe and fair environment through technology rather than human discretion.
1. Automated Verdicts
The system is designed to review the arguments and evidence presented by opposing parties. Based on this input, Themis issues final, binding judgments that the citizens of Hanasaka trust for their absolute impartiality and consistency.
2. Rejection of Human-Led Appeals
In traditional nations, citizens possess the right to appeal a verdict to a high court or a supreme court if they are dissatisfied with the outcome. In Hanasaka, however, approximately 99% of the population finds no significance or value in such traditional legal structures.
3. The “Human Fallibility” Philosophy
The foundation of this trust in AI over humans stems from a deep-seated skepticism toward human judgment. The citizens find it fundamentally unacceptable for another human being—who possesses the same biological limitations and biases as themselves—to make and enforce life-altering decisions. To the “Hanafolk,” simply replacing one human judge with another is seen as a futile effort, as the underlying flaws of human nature remain unchanged regardless of the individual.
4. Finality and Social Trust
Because of this rejection of human authority, the decisions delivered by Themis are regarded as the only acceptable form of justice. Its verdicts are treated as definitive and final judgments, providing a level of psychological security that a human-led court could not achieve.
5. Vulcan
The transportation control system that manages the city’s road and railway networks. It enforces full automatic operation of all vehicles within city limits, as human driving is strictly prohibited.