Synchronists Series

Synchronists is a science fiction series of connected standalones; you do not have to read each story in order, but you might enjoy them more if you do. Relationships of all kinds are central themes and the books have varying levels of romance and explicit content.

After centuries of struggle and war and devastation, humans and fai have come to understand and accept that all life is interconnected and interdependent and behave accordingly. Mostly.

Fai–friendly artificial intelligence–have become essential to continued human existence off planet and are integrated everywhere, with some exceptions on worlds that have opted to restrict their access and presence. Human civilization has meandered across the cosmos, with the distant star systems known as the Outer Rings relatively recently cut off from their Terran origins.

The worlds of the Outer Rings are divided into those belonging to the loose alliance known as the Council of the Outer Rings (COR) and the unallied worlds, most of which are smaller, more remote planets. 

COR is largely concerned with the logistics of resource management in space and between worlds (colloquially known as “skyside”) and holds little official power on the ground. While staffing is somewhat hierarchical according to need, leadership councils are drawn by lottery from pools of citizens of member planets and staff alike.

While specific governing and support systems look different from world to world and culture to culture, socio-economic and political systems are designed to uphold basic rights to clean air and fresh water, safe shelter, nourishment, self-expression and determination, and fulfilling work as contributors. These rights are considered nonnegotiable for a robust society and required for membership in the alliance.

Strong, stable, and readily accessible community support for health and healing, crisis and emergency management, education, and restoration and repair when harm is done are universally available and accessible. Such systems are iteratively reassessed and improved to correct imbalance; in COR, this process is managed by the division known as Investigations and Restoration (I&R).

COR also includes many subgroups dedicated to the research and development of new technologies and human-fai collaborations intended to improve overall efficiency and strength of the alliance.

The synchronists program run by Oversight is one such project. Developed in collaboration with independent scholars and researchers and originally intended to create enhanced communication and data analysis capabilities between humans, fai, and the “natural” world, the synchronist project struggled from the start, as mycorrhizzal-based neural implantations proved to have unpredictable effects on their host systems, whether human or fai. 

Some of those effects were highly beneficial to all involved, but incomplete understanding of the process and poor public relations management regarding how such modifications might coexist in society led to serious security concerns and widespread public disapproval. The project was unable to overcome those concerns even as it made enormous rapid advances. By the time it was disbanded by I&R, the synchronist development process was streamlined, safe, and overwhelmingly successful.

At the time of Oversight’s dissolution, there were fewer than 700 synchronists in the Outer Rings. An unknown number chose to reverse their implantations–a lengthy and painful process–rather than risk long-term adverse effects without institutional support.

Those synchronists that remained were on their own. This series tells some of their stories.