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A huge amount of political reorganization occurred between the previous snapshot and this one. The driving force was the Altemeyer/Stonebender sentencing guidelines which lead directly to uncovering the massive moral corruption in the U.S. government structure. This, in turn, led to the Political Anti-Corruption Laws, which required that anyone standing for office or being appointed to office had to have an A/S score less than 10. (A/S scores go from 0 to 40, meaning roughly "patsy" to "foaming at the mouth psychopath." The national average is 5.) The same test applied to religious ordination and high military officers (equivalent to O5 and above). It did not apply to business leaders, however.
One of the things that makes the new system work is the brain scan verifier: everyone on a legal committee is required to testify, under verification, that they've heard (and understand) all stakeholders and have taken all viewpoints into consideration, including all research and hard data. One effect of this was that most of the ideologically motivated organizations started doing hard research to back up their positions; this turned out to be inordinately difficult because organizations with other viewpoints would find flaws, if they existed.
The result was an almost complete replacement of people in the political landscape, and opened the door to the national consolidation called the North American Association. It also led to lots of people bailing out of the old U.S. and forming the Totalitarians.
The new government organization involves a system of legal committees, each of which is responsible for the law in a specific area. The Congress still exists, but confines itself to general oversight, investigations and making sure that the system as a whole makes sense and is properly integrated.
Once the ideologs and power-mad were out of the way, the political system turned traditionally conservative: if it works, don't fix it. If it's not causing problems, it's working. If the wheel squeaks, grease it once. After that consider replacing it.
Another major consideration is that the starting point for change is always current practice. This means that the neo-conservative Supreme Court decisions aren't simply being overturned; each one is being examined and changes are being made slowly and carefully. Consequently, the system of contract slavery has not simply been thrown out; it's being worked on.
The country has turned very anti-ideolog. That hasn't stopped ideologs, but it has made them come up with sound reasons for their proposed changes.
The political cleanup in the United States enabled the formation of the North American Association in 2026. This initially consisted of Australia, Canada (except Quebec), Mexico, New Zealand, most of the Carribean (except Hispanolia), most of the South Sea Islands and the old United States. The national symbol became Canada's maple leaf.
The world's most powerful (although by no means all-powerful) nation suddenly gobbling up two whole continents (North America and Australia) prompted a worldwide consolidation. The result was a massive reduction in the number of nations, followed by the dissolution of the old UN and its replacement by the World Government.
The old United Nations was replaced by a World Government. The World Government set a population target of 2 billion, and instructed each of its members to get to its alloted population by whatever means was socially appropriate.
The Full Faith and Credit laws, as well as the non-intervention laws, meant that a lot of international tension went away. Ideological groups (including religious proselytizers) who were trying to interfere with other nations were banned.
The World Government also sponsors the Peaceforce, and does not allow any national government to have more internal forces than are needed for policing.
The NAA established a national wireless network as an entitlement. The network infrastructure didn't extend to very lightly settled areas. Those areas were encouraged to set up their own mesh networks.
The ID system was merged with the brain scan verifier and morphed into the Contract Machine system.
In 2018, the Control Collar was delivered to the Bureau of Prisons as a result of contract developments. The control collar was delivered with a "Bureau of Prisons demonstration system" that included network linkage, the permitted area and invisible fence system, and a takedown. The Bureau didn't know what to do with it and didn't accept it, however it proved to be highly popular with BDSM and slaveowner groups.
The Goodwife Institute had been one of the sponsors of the Control Collar develoment effort, even though it was officially a Bureau of Prisons project. When it was delivered, they started advertising it heavily as the "Goodwife Ribbon", a mark that indicated a woman had taken most of the Institutes courses and subscribed to the Goodwife Philosophy. The primary effects of this advertising campaign were, first, to downplay its use as an actual control collar for slave control, and second to delay other, more productive uses.
Likewise, the device proved to be very popular with the Totalitarians once they got organized.
In the early years, there were a number of different, incompatible systems. By the mid 30s, the chaotic situation with control collar software has stabilized somewhat: there were only four leading systems (the Goodwife Institute's being one,) and less than a half dozen other systems with much smaller market share. The competition regulators classify the situation as a 4-way oligopoly. Three of the systems (the Goodwife Institute's system being the outlier) can run most modules written for any of the other three. Part of what's driving the consolidation is the legal committees that are charged with overseeing relationship law.
A control collar is a very sophisticated device, and correspondingly complex to manage. Simple situations are managed by getting a suitable configuration and leaving it alone; infrequent changes are done at a boutique or kennel. More complex situations are managed with an external collar manager.
These started out as methods of managing an enterprise with several slaves almost as soon as the control collar became available in 2018, and gradually became more general until 2085, when external collar managers became required.
Early collar managers were matched with their own versions of the control collar software. The situation consolidated until 2043, when there was only one version of control collar software (except for the Goodwife Institute's version, which didn't consolidate until 2047). The result was a modular architecture. The usual modules for an individual or small household include:
Early group versions tended to run on local computers. Management services started appearing in the 2030s, and by the late 40s there were a variety of management services that differentiated themselves either on price or in-depth knowledge of specialized fields.
Biologically, there are a number of second level DNA modification programs that manage modifications from different vendors. Some of the modifications have gotten Health Service approval, which means that the Health Service will install and support them.
The Premier Ponygirl Organization is one of the leading suppliers of ponygirls. The consolidation of other organizations into Excelsior has not yet begun. PPO has their own combination of DNA mods (they didn't invent any of them, they just integrated them into a package).
Ponygirls have become common enough that there are over three dozen enclaves which use ponygirls internally, and around a half dozen agricultural areas likewise. The rest of the country is basically oblivious to the situation; they've gotten to the point where they simply tune out anyone they think is ideologically motivated, which includes the Anti-Slavery Society. That does not mean that they're at all common: less than one percent of the NAA (by area) is involved.
The government reorganization lead to a system of legal committees; the central legislature still exists but it confines itself more to major policy. There is now a legal committee that deals with slave contracts: it's just getting itself started, and it's somewhat hindered by a different major legislative project that will eventually result in a total overhaul of the relationship laws.
The World Government mandated a world population of 2 billion, with each regional government required to meet its target in whatever way was culturally appropriate. The NAA decided on a birthright lottery system. In 2033, the first attempt at a birthright lottery is foundering under an excess of males, and a large amount of bribery and corruption.
The Prisons Authority is in the process of reducing the prison population by placing as many prisoners as they can with Individual Custody. For reasons best understood as bureaucratic inertia, they haven't asked the courts to review all existing sentences to conform with the Altemeyer/Stonebender sentencing guidelines, which would result in a rapid massive reduction in the prison population. The Victim Chooses Punishment laws result in relatively fewer prison sentences anyway, since enslavement (which has to be agreed to by the convict) is a relatively popular victim-chosen punishment. Likewise, the laws permitting a criminal condemned to death to choose the method of execution have emptied death rows. Death sentences are automatically reviewed by an administrative board that evaluates the quality of the evidence; the courts refuse to hear appeals until after that review is in hand.
Somewhere in this time frame, someone invented floating islands.