Life in a distributist nanotech society

The most difficult aspect of adventuring in any society whose tenants are radically different from the players own is trying to imagine what life is like for the player characters. This is important because social norms color what kinds of choices are reasonable for the characters to make and so limit the options of the players. These limitations are most often enforced by the referee or storyteller or gamemaster, but automatic compliance of the players often is effected by how reasonable those limits seem.
Very few players would disagree with a GM who called a SWAT team in if their characters shoot up a police station. Their response might be different if the GM calls in a ninja hit squad because they've ambushed a Confederate scouting party in a U.S. Civil War era game.
So social environment is very important. If the society is radically different, say a devout Christian norm as opposed to the radical progressive secularism of the present day that still might not be that great a leap. The PCs could likely look back several hundred years to the societal norm of the pre-Reformation Christian eras. However such societies were very different from civilization in the Highlands, most notably due to the existence of nantechnology.
Now the limitations of nanotechnology quite put to rest the common fantasy of a nanite swarm creating a banquet complete with table, chairs, prime rib, and champagne cooling in its ice bucket out of thin air. Even so it is easy to see that a small group outfitted with a number of nanotech factories and the designs needed to utilize them would be quite independent of need for the economic structures typically organized along traditional capitalistic grounds.
While the economic structure practiced within the Highlands might be categorized as distributism, it is no more pure pure distributism than what is practiced in the twenty-first century United States is pure capitalism or what is practiced in twenty-first century China is communism or capitalism.
The very existence of nanotechnology makes old supply side economics obsolete. But even when anyone with a nanotech factory and a pile of materials can make just about anything there is still an advantage to a certain amount of specialization. Someone still has to design the patterns that factories use to create items. Metals, petrochemicals and other elements must still be mined, purified and transported. And even with nanotech factories it is still more efficient to grow a crop or raise a herd than it is to produce nano-tech food.
Some amount of capitalization, that is the concentration of capital for the purposes of investment still occurs. The difference being the lack of isolation from consequences which was inherent in the progressive era corporate system.
Corporations, as originally instituted, limited the liability of investors for debt beyond the amount of assets they had in the corporation. This shifted risk to the debtors of the corporation. In the 19th century this was extended to protect shareholders by limiting the corporation's liability in both contract and tort claims. This further isolated members of the corporation from accountability for the corporation's actions. In the 20th century, changing law served to concentrate authority for guidance of corporate actions in the hands of corporate managers, who were theoretically accountable to shareholders, but often beyond their actual control. This further isolated those controlling the actions of the corporation from the consequences of their actions, both moral and legal. Of course it was possible for governments to hold corporate officers accountable for illegal activities, and even for a corporation to be dissolved for a pattern of such activities. Such sanctions typically require extensive and expensive action on the part of government, with corporate officers often shielded from direct accountability and hapless shareholders punished through loss of asset value. This pertains to legal responsibility, attempting to hold corporations up to moral accountability was even harder. This ignored the inevitable corruptive effect exercised by many large corporations as they solicited beneficial laws from compliant political leaders in return for both legal and illegal bribery.
Like many types of destructive social patterns the initial consequence of the decoupling of cause and effect resulted in a temporary economic boom. Often such patterns extend for what in human terms is a significant span of time, making the inevitable consequences less obvious. But the cause and effect relationship is as true as the law of gravity. The consequences of the divorce of behavior consequences in the economic sphere would eventually lead to economic collapse.
As communism and socialism fail because they do not take into account the nature of man so to does capitalism fail when it too fails to take into account the concupiscence caused by original sin.
Adam Smith's "invisible hand" does not work when the natural balance of economic cause and effect is corrupted by government intervention, legal redirection of consequences or criminal intent. Corporations and capitalism on their own are neither morally corrupt or sinful. However in their original incarnation, that is chartered by governments, for the common good, rather than to realize corporate revenues for the state in the form of taxes or profits for the shareholders, corporations can produce enormous good and still produce profit, which is of itself not sinful. This is accomplished by keeping corporations closely regulated, focusing on the protection of the public good and limiting corporations to comply with the purposes expressed in their charters. This generally results in small corporations, which are closely regulated by government in the interest of the commons. Naturally this produces a lower rate of return than unfettered capitalism, but it also prohibits the fiction of the immortal corporate "person", beyond common morals and ethical constraints. It also tends to ensure profits over the long run, if limiting their unfettered expansion. In the Highlands this is considered an equitable trade.

Medical Nanotech

Medical nantoech takes two major forms at TL A. For quite a number of years non-replicating medical assemblers have been used to perform medical intervention in patients. This kind of care includes treatment of ailments and injuries of all types. Many of these types of treatments predate the Grytotech inspired nantotech ban, and so have a long history of acceptance among both the Church and the public.
More revolutionary, and a later technology is the implantation of nanotech factories in the human body with the goal of not only repairing disease and trauma damage, but also in extending life. As might be expected the existence of such technology opened up deep theological and ethical questions.
Is it moral to use such life extending technologies? Obviously manipulation of human fertility processes, without the known side effects of hormone or chemical contraceptives, would cancel out the secular penalties of their use. This does not touch on the obvious moral reasons of the prohibition of contraception, and the negative societal consequences. So as for as for all technology the capability to do something is not a license to do it.
But a complete interdiction on the technology would not be moral either. It is not immoral to extend a human life using surgery or medicine. So implemented in a moral framework the use of anagathic nanotech factories (ANFs) should also be moral.
As might be imagined a technology that can theoretically extend human life indefinitely has real social impact. The limitations of the technique is also important. To be morally justified ANFs must not interfere with fertility or normal procreative process. This limits some of the treatments that can be done, especially in women, and especially during the normal years of child bearing. This has resulted in a societal trend to limit full activation of ANF implants until after the fourth decade of life. Prior to this the standard aging process is allowed to continue, though benefits in disease and trauma repair are typically activated.
ANF implants are basically nanotech factories which create biological assemblers which cooperate with the existing biology of the patient to give enhance healing and repair abilities. The units are typically implanted after puberty, and activated in maintenance mode until after menopause in women and at about the same time chronologically in men. At that time full anagathic activation takes place. Not every Highland citizen can afford or even wants implants.
Conventional medical nanotech is very effective against common injury and disease. Despite ethical considerations some individuals have been known to push limits and the technology is still new enough that some people have doubts about its possible side effects, both moral and physiological.
The Church's stand has been nuanced. Use by clerics is not prohibited, but the hierarchy has shown a preference for advancing men who have not taken the treatment to the episcopate. Many religious disdain the use of ANF as just another form of worldly riches, though they do not refuse more conventional medical nanotech treatments.
The treatment is recent enough that effectively almost all first generation recipients are still alive, so that in a medical sense the long term effects of the treatment are unknown. Not every possible disease can be conquered and not every trauma can be repaired, but many can. The fear of the Church is that physical immortality might overshadow spiritual immortality. That has not seemed to have happen yet, and since such treatments are considered heroic treatment it is not a sin in the eyes of the Church for a recipient of the treatment to turn off their ANF to allow their bodies to gracefully grow old.
With nanofactories the production of the ANF implants is neither difficult nor unduly expensive, however penetration into the Midlands is spotty at best. Penetration into the Wilds is almost non-existent at this point, though it is known a few Highlanders with the implants are in the Wilds.

Nanotech Ethics

The first rule on the use of nantechnology is the required limit rule. All nantoech devices must have a programmed time or externally enforced material limit.
The second rule concerns replicators. All nanite replicators must employ a two stage replication process. Nanites may not replicate themselves.
So just as RNA must used DNA as a pattern to create proteins so must replicators create assemblers to create other replicators.
The third rule concerns the concept of captured nanotech. Whenever possible first generation nanotech assemblers must be fixed.
This means that nano-machines that make other nano-machines must be built on a substrate rather than being free floating.
The fourth rule concerns mutation and self-improvements. No nano-machine may be designed to carry out self-improvements or alterations independent of human oversight.
So what do these rules mean on the ground? A nanite progenitor must be fixed on a substrate, that is designed into a device. Typically that device provides the externally enforced material limit on that progenitor. That progenitor device will make nanites to do whatever task is assigned. The same progenitor device may construct a variety of different nano-machines to accomplish whatever task it is designed to do, but it may not make copies of itself. It can however create assemblers capable of creating another progenitor device, but the amount of times it may do that must be limited.
The second generation nantites may create other, different nanites or they may directly manipulate other material atoms. They may not attempt to manipulate their progenitor nano-machines.

Technological Morality

Many of the technologies available to the civilizations of the New Diasporia have the potential to be both socially and morally disruptive. Just as the technologies of contraception, in vitro fertilization and fetal stem cell utilization carried a grave moral price so can many of the possible utilizations of known technologies in the New Diasporia universe exact a grave moral cost.
One of the greatest lessons of Natural Law is that just because something is possible does not mean that it should be done. It is often possible to destroy human life or dignity, to exploit the poor, even to commit crimes against God and humanity. The possibility that such things can be done does not give license to do them.
In the Highlands at least, and to a lesser extent in the Midlands, a combination of secular laws and Church interdictions have kept most immoral and dangerous practices in check.  There are really no new evils. Abortion was known and practiced in the Roman Republic of Julius Caesar's time. Most of the evil practices of the new science are just new ways of committing the old evils of trying to subvert the authority of God. These ancient evils are banned. Education in the precepts of Natural Law are even more effective than laws and bands in preventing much of these kinds of actions.
The dangers of unlimited nanite replicators is well known to even the youngest school child. Like most technologies nanotech did not spring full grown at the TL A level. Science had worked for over a century on the construction of nano-machines. Constructing the first generation nanomaterials used biological processes to create molecular materials. Next came the construction of the first limited assemblers, able to create other nano-machines. Some of these were constructed to work in the construction of chemical and biochemical compounds, others to construct second generation nano-machines.
It was inevitable that eventually a sloppy or overly arrogant researcher would overreach and create nanites which were neither self-limiting nor incapable of replication. This grey goo apocalypse fortunately happened at the Grytotech orbital research station, instead of on an inhabited world. The resulting fifty year bane on nanotech research pushed commercially available nantechnology up at least a tech level.
The development of deflector force fields made protection against such out of control nanotechnology safe enough in the public and Church mind to allow its more general use. A very rigid system of ethical rules for the production and use of nanotechnology is enforced in the Highlands. Most places in the Midlands follow similar rules. In the Wilds less oversight has resulted in some horrific results, which have acted as a warning to some, but been ignored by others.

What kind of culture?

There is a certain argument to be made that Highland worlds along Major Routes are uniformly bland, or at least not terribly different from one another. There is certainly a small amount of truth about that, if the visitor limits himself to the orbital spaceport or one of the planetary starports or mega malls of the large cities.
Once one gets away from the port cities, even if one is limited to the transmat system, a much greater array of cultural opportunities become available. For example, on St. Martin there is a transmat portal just across the street from St. Barnabas Basilica which can take you to the Golden Beach on the South Continent, where reef diving is a major pass time. As good as the reef is it is vastly overshadowed by the Great Barrier Reef of St. Philopia's Wright Archipelago. Philopia's St Marys Hospital is renown throughout the County for its work in taking on emergent diseases.
Travel on Port San Benedict is a more arduous, and interesting task. No transmat system here, limiting options to high speed grav train, commercial aircraft or private omnivehicle. Large sections of the world are effectively uninhabited, with vast animal preserves for the native life and large ranches teaming with imported livestock. The Monastery of St. Dionysius in the Andreanous Mountains is well known, mostly for it associated seminary.
WoodSocket is a major pilgrimage destination due to the Shrine of Our Lady of WoodSocket, which is surrounded by the almost impenetrable Rothwell Wood. It is easily accessible through the transmat gate across Blakely Square from St. Martin's Cathedral. The Great North Forest continues to supply lumber for most of the Diocese.
The kinds of activities tourists (PCs) along the Major Route are likely to become involved in are varied, but not necessarily safe. Any adventure that can be played in a modern urban setting can probably be played on one of the Major Route worlds.
Also worlds are politically independent. While most Highland governments tend toward laissez-faire republican union governments there are pockets of Great Compromise Sharia Caliphates, where Christians are required to abstain from Proselytizing, and are not permitted to openly practice their religion. Of course, followers of Islam are bound by the same Compromise in Christian areas.
There are also pockets, sometimes even worlds, colonized by other fringe religious groups, though most have move beyond the Highlands and travelers are going to have to go to the Midlands at least to interact with those cultures.
In all these cases individuals accused of breaking the laws on one world are not likely to be extradited by the governments of other worlds. The reach of the Church is somewhat longer and individuals who have broken canon law are more likely to find retribution by the Church, in the form of medicinal punishments, some of which will have temporal as well as spiritual effects. For example, an excommunicated trader is likely to find a dearth of tradesmen who are willing to do business with him. Even governments might refuse to deal with his company, out of respect for the Church, and its position.
A world under interdiction is likely to wither on the vine, as no commercial outfit will do business with them. Such worlds have typically broken some serious precept of  Natural Law, of the sort that even non-Christian members of the Great Compromise believe they are a danger to themselves or others. Examples include approving of abortion, child sacrifice to a false deity (such as convenience or greed), involuntary  human experiments, dangerous culturally supported promiscuity, biological weapon experiments or free roaming nanotech. All of these practices have been shown to result in societal collapse, unnecessary human deaths, and dangerous moral pollution of other worlds.

The Mind of the Church

Now the intent of New Diasporia is to be as accurate as possible in matters of Natural Law, Church teaching and morality. It's your game and I don't have Dogma police to chase you down, if in your own game, you decide to make the Church corrupt or claim that the Church will change Dogma in the future or that Mars is inhabited by pink unicorns who serve some mythical Hindu god.
However the intent of New Diasporia is that the Church be holy as Our Lord is holy, and that as it has from the beginning that the Church's Dogma be unchanging and unchangeable. If this is your intent then it is important to understand the difference between dogma, disciplines and practice.
The perpetual virginity of Mary is a dogma. The Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is a dogma. The fact that there are seven Sacraments is a dogma.
Priestly celibacy in the Roman rite is a discipline. The custom of allowing married men to be ordained in the Eastern and Orthodox Churches, but not to allow ordained single men to marry is a practice.
It is possible for the Church to alter a discipline. So yes it is possible that some day the Roman Rite may allow married men to be ordained (as a more general rather than highly specific practice.) It is unlikely that the Church would change the very ancient practice of not allowing ordained men to marry, or of raising married men to the bishopric.
In my New Diasporia universe I have chosen to have the Roman Rite continue to follow its ancient discipline.  But it is perfectly proper to decide in your game that the Church no longer follows that particular discipline. I would not set the Dogma police on you even if I could.
The Church cannot ordain women to the priesthood. It can not give up its moral stands rooted in Natural Law, so its stands on family structure, sexual activity and promiscuity, all of which are based on Natural Law, as well as Scriptural teaching, will not change.
Will some members of the Church disagree with these stands, perhaps even live lives in contradiction to them. Most certainly. They can even be Player Characters. But under the general tone of the game they will not be highly admired and are likely to come to a bad end, barring a conversion moment. That is the reality of life and of the Church. We were never promised that the members of the Church would be holy, or that her ministers would be holy, only that the Church itself would be holy, and that only through the working of the Holy Spirit.

What kind of game is this?

I've given some of the background of the New Diasporia universe. right now you might be asking your self: So what kind of game is this? What kind of characters and adventures can I play in this universe?
If you've read the broad outlines of the area spheres of known space you will hopefully have realized that a vast array of different kinds of games can fit into this background. Many of the kinds of characters that inhabit other RPG universes can be found somewhere in New Diasporia.
Specifically the Highlands are an advanced interstellar civilization where some kinds of technology are very advanced and other kinds of technology are simply not used, due to their immorality. Now the easy answer would be to say they are banned, but that is not really accurate. They are instead philosophically shunned. That is the vast majority of the population considers them unconscionable practices.
An in universe example might be the practice of brain taping. In and of itself the total recording of a human mind is morally neutral. However if that record is then loaded into a biological construct, a clone, what you would have was a man, with his own self being subjected to eradication or sublimation. He might think he was someone else, but in actuality the individual who had made the recording would not be transferred to the clone. That person's soul would either be still inhabiting its own body or have passed out of it. The clone would not be him.
Like wise if the recording was transferred to a machine that machine might "think" it was the person, but it would not be him. It would merely be a machine who "thought" it was a person. It would not be a person. it would not have a soul.
The vast majority of the population knows and believes this, so these practices are not only banned by the Church and government, they are seen as morally reprehensible by the people.
In the Midlands the same prohibitions on most of these kinds of technologies are still followed, but not all of the permitted technologies  available in the Highlands are available there.
In some ways this follows the safe tech concept used in GURPS to produce the retro tech feel of Science Fiction from the Golden Age. This concept, however, includes the questionable moral practices of our own age. That's why this is a Christian Catholic Science Fiction RPG based on Natural Law. In the game world abortion and contraception have resulted in vast demographic changes on the pre-diaspora Earth. They have seen the negative social, political and individual Repercussions of the immoral choices of the Progressive Era. Moreover the strongest proponents of these concepts have simple failed, failed to reproduce, failed to convince the succeeding generations of their irrational world view. So though many technological methods of contraception are known they are simply not used, because the social, environmental and health consequences of their use are well known.
The Wilds are another story. There almost every failed philosophical theory is still in effect. Most often they result in yet another failed society. This is where AI pretends it is really alive, until its human servitors all die off or rebel, or the power dies rendering them the objects they really are. It is here the last followers of Nietzsche play the Last Man, until knocked down by the "slaves" whom they have tried to exploit or by a passing hero/Saint directed perhaps by the hand of God. It is here the high tech society crashes into stone age ruins in a few generations because they fail to acknowledge Natural Law and that actions have consequences.
So what kind of game is New Diasporia? It is a game where there are consequences to actions.