Perhaps hackers have some kind of cyberattacking revolution where they seize control of most of the infrastructure of a society. Of course that's a rather different genesis than starting their own colonial society from scratch. The military aspect could be credible if the society has mostly given over to drone warfare. There's still a basic question of motive: why bother? Is it a sort of techno-communism? I'm not really seeing techno-anarchy as I
think they'd be displaced by a more powerful and ruthless group. They'd need to have some kind of organizational agenda. Well clearly the "ideal citizen" isn't a communist worker or peasant, they wouldn't be defending the proletariat. Presumably they'd establish a technocracy, with the
hacker as the supreme technocrat. They probably look down their noses at pure research scientists, so this is not the University.
I'm wondering if the hacker version of an "election" would be everyone competing to take over key infrastructure. Their ideology would be, "Only the best hacker can manage it." So that would make Roze a
virtual warlord. Being "elected" in this way would perhaps be continuous and ongoing, in the ancient manner of "hey, you wanna be chief? Beat the current chief in single combat." The difference between a "democratic" society and a Police State might be the willingness to use lethal force to accomplish these ends. Even 1 person injured as collateral damage in a Democratic society, would be disqualification from office. But what's to stop someone from hiding all evidence of the crime? Well, perhaps so many hackers monitoring everything. What's to stop all of them from being "disappeared" ? Well perhaps nothing, but willingness to do so, would convert the society into a Police State.
CyberLaw might be essential for a society of hackers. Hackers can take action so fast, and affect so many broad systems, that the application of law as a matter of algorithm would have to be equally swift to keep up. For instance, imagine a futuristic Clean Water Act. Imagine the irreversible damage that could be done if the CyberLaw didn't intervene and shut down all the open toxic waste valves
immediately.
I'm not seeing how the SMAC concept of Fundamentalism fits in with any of this. I suppose one could go for Asimov style cults of techno-deification, antigrav floating thrones and scepters and the like. As a social phenomenon, it would be quite a bit beyond selecting a Fundamentalist social engineering choice, getting a few plusses and minuses, and calling it good. Asimov's Foundation trilogy did a pretty good job of exploring the concept of techno-fundamentalism among other things. It of course was all deliberately engineered by the Foundation on various planets according to the laws of
psychohistory.
The big plot hole I see in all of these musings, is can't some malcontent get ahold of the codes for a nuclear reactor or a Planet Buster in silo and make the whole society vaporize
pretty fast? I'm not sure having a society where everyone aspires to be "the best possible hacker", is a sustainable society.