The Orbital
Tracking the emergent movement for planetary systems governance.
The Orbital maps the emerging movement of people, organisations, and initiatives building new systems for how humanity governs itself and its relationship with the living planet.
We track work across ecology, technology, democratic innovation, and transformative culture — not as separate fields, but as parts of one emerging pattern. The pattern becomes visible when you see them together.
The name comes from the vantage point of orbit — the perspective shift astronauts describe when seeing Earth from space. No borders visible, no nations, just one living system. We believe that shift in perception is possible on the ground, and that it's already happening across thousands of initiatives worldwide.
The Orbital exists to make that pattern visible.
The Four Orientations
The landscape organises around four broad orientations. These aren't rigid categories — they're lenses. Most people and organisations carry more than one.
The Garden
Living systems, land stewardship, regenerative economics, indigenous knowledge, food, soil, water, biodiversity. Those who organise around tending what exists. The garden is cultivation, patience, deep roots.
Spaceship Earth
Technology, infrastructure, data, AI, governance tools, alternative ownership, systems thinking, spatial web, digital twins. Those who organise around building what doesn't yet exist. The spaceship is precision, interconnection, forward motion.
The Mysteries
Transformative games, ritual, experiential futures, festival culture, performance, consciousness, the psychology of awe. Those who organise around meaning, transformation, and embodied experience. The mysteries are what cannot be written down — only lived.
The Assemblies
Global governance innovation, participatory democracy, rights of nature, climate justice, citizens' assemblies, long-termism. The cross-cutting frame where the other three orientations meet. Where ecology, technology, and culture become governance.
The Puzzle Pieces
We are tracking a convergence of developments that have never existed simultaneously before:
Technology & Infrastructure
AI and machine learning for planetary-scale modelling. Digital twins simulating Earth systems. The spatial web giving physical spaces digital identities with embedded rights and permissions. Smart contracts making complex agreements accessible to anyone with a device. Sensor networks giving ecosystems a measurable voice. Open source protocols for transparent governance.
Governance & Political Innovation
Decentralised governance structures. Participatory budgeting. Rights of nature and legal personhood for ecosystems. Citizens' assemblies and sortition. Polycentric governance. Liquid democracy. Peer-to-peer decision making enhanced by AI.
Economic Models
Regenerative finance. Nature-based currencies pegged to ecosystem health. Steward ownership. Commons governance. Doughnut economics. Gift economy. Universal basic income connected to ecological stewardship.
Methods & Experience
LARP and megagames for governance prototyping. Experiential futures and design fiction. Gamification of democratic processes. Transformative game design. Ritual and ceremony design. Participatory festival culture. Immersive theatre.
Knowledge & Philosophy
Earth's ecosystems as a 3.8-billion-year library of survival and thriving strategies — readable for the first time through AI and sensor technology. Biomimicry applied to governance. The Overview Effect as cognitive shift. Sensing and awareness as connective tissue between human and planetary intelligence.
These puzzle pieces are being assembled by hundreds of organisations worldwide. The Orbital tracks them.
The Project
The Orbital is part of a larger initiative to prototype planetary governance through play, simulation, and embodied experience.
The premise: we now have all the puzzle pieces for a fundamentally different way of organising human civilisation. What we lack is a way to feel how they work together.
This initiative is building prototype gatherings where participants live inside a future society — making real decisions, trading in simulated economies, experiencing consequences — and carrying that embodied knowledge home.
The first prototype is planned for 2027 in Sweden.
Manifesto: coming soon.
Prototyping our way towards paradise.
Contact
The Orbital is maintained by Olle Bjerkås, Martin Källström (Kindship), and collaborators.