Aldira’s conception of human rights diverged radically from that of the rest of the world, as it was not grounded in claims of objectivity or universality. The Order never signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, dismissing it as a culturally contingent construct. Instead, it upheld its own internal system of rights, found nowhere else. Within this framework, what might be harmful to a Chinese citizen could be considered beneficial to an Aldiran, and vice versa. The consequence was a dual process: the dehumanization of foreigners and the deification of Aldirans. Other peoples were frequently perceived as subhuman or inhuman, a view that served to justify acts of brutality.
Aldira possessed no concepts equivalent to “good” and “evil.” In their place stood the categories of “pure” and “impure,” through which even mass killings could be framed as acts of “cleansing.” As a result, the Order rejected the existence of any objective ethical standard. While this framework produced policies widely regarded as inhumane, it also conferred a form of cognitive autonomy. By abolishing moral norms shared by the rest of humanity, Aldirans experienced neither fear nor hesitation in their actions or judgments.
Women possessed legal and institutional equality with men across all domains of public and private life. When situated in its temporal context—an era in which even some formally democratic Western states still denied women basic political rights such as suffrage—Aldira’s approach was strikingly radical. Gender was deliberately neutralized as a category of civic differentiation: political participation, professional advancement, and intellectual authority were formally detached from sex, as part of a genderless doctrine rendering categories such as “man” and “woman” administratively irrelevant. In practice, this also meant men could perform domestic labor and childcare, while women could serve in combat roles and rise to senior military rank. This arrangement stemmed less from a policy of gender equality than from deliberate indifference to gender.
Children’s rights, in the conventional sense, did not exist within Aldira, because the minimum age of membership in the Order was sixteen. Individuals below that threshold were classified as children and, by definition, non-members; consequently, they were treated as stateless and were not formally recognized as legal subjects by the Aldiran regime. This exclusionary framework was ideologically consistent but structurally unstable. The authorities were aware that a permanently stateless juvenile population would produce long-term social issues. For this reason, despite their juridical nonexistence, children were granted a limited set of protections and material provisions that were denied to stateless adults, such as free schooling, though this was more about indoctrinating them. Although these measures never approached the status or privileges of full Aldiran members, they were designed to prevent endemic child mortality and developmental collapse, functioning as a pragmatic concession within an otherwise rigid legal system.
Workers’ rights were unevenly developed. Because the means of production were collectively owned, workers were not subjected to market competition, excessive working hours, or wage exploitation, and compensation generally reflected labor performed. However, dissent was prohibited. Complaints about the existing order, strikes, or the formation of independent trade unions or syndicates were criminal offenses.
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The sense of punishment was absolute. Individuals labeled “rebellious” could be executed without formal trial. As a consequence, common crimes such as theft, smuggling, or murder were rare. The regime’s violence, though ruthless, deliberately excluded humiliation and abuse, and largely avoided prolonged torture. Punishment was intended to be swift and final: a clean death, neither embellished nor theatrical. Additionally, unlike many totalitarian states that resort to mass executions to intimidate the population, Aldira simply “erased” those it deemed necessary to eliminate. In other words, opposing the regime and its metaphysics resulted not in a violent and noisy execution but in a quiet and inevitable disappearance.
Aldira never formally recognized the LGBT community, but it did not openly oppose it either. Individuals were free in private life regarding sexual orientation and were not subject to penalties such as fines, imprisonment, or death; however, the legal system was almost entirely indifferent to gender and sexuality as juridical categories. Aldiran law did not recognize gendered identity as a basis for exemption, representation, or differentiation in any public domain. Since the Order explicitly prohibited the politicization of sexuality, it could not be used as a basis for association, activism, communal identity, or public discourse. In official doctrine, sexuality was classified as a domestic phenomenon, intentionally restricted to the bedroom to keep the public sphere strictly asexual.
Homosexuality was further relegated to social marginality due to its classification within Aldiran doctrine as a foreign sociocultural artifact. Same-sex relationships were regarded as a form of social corruption promoted by the West to weaken and destabilize total regimes and Eastern cultures. Consequently, even though homosexuality was not persecuted, it was rendered politically irrelevant and treated as an externally induced anomaly, and was largely ignored in public discourse.
Public spaces were free of tobacco smoke, public drunkenness, gambling dens, and drug-related violence. Tobacco, alcohol, gambling, and recreational narcotics were strictly prohibited, and comprehensive enforcement programs ensured none were produced legally within Aldira. Anyone found using such substances had necessarily obtained them illegally—by clandestine production, smuggling, or underground trade. Those caught producing or distributing them were often detained, subjected to forced overdosing to induce physical collapse, and then removed from public record. Their families—especially prominent ones—were frequently subjected to legal disenfranchisement, compulsory re-education, or forced labor, serving as a collective deterrent.
Aldira’s closed sexual culture rendered it unattractive to sex tourism. Brothels did not exist, prostitution was forbidden, and all forms of pornography were prohibited. This erasure of sexual commerce both blurred gender distinctions and prevented bodies from being commodified as objects of desire.
