Planet Name and Description: RADX-001 - A planet with a toxic atmosphere to most life forms. RADX is filled with dangerous carnivorous creatures that are capable of eating through steel with ease. Most of the planet is covered in jungles which contain poisonous plants. There is only one ocean which it's said goes into the planet core. _L

History: _{Year 1 Pre-Enhancement- Arrival - hundred of thousands died from air/food-poisoning, animal attacks, faulty rad-suits and the many other dangers of RADX-001.
Year 2 Month 4 PE - First settlement away from the ship is build and it's named Resilience.
Year 2 Month 10 PE - All communications with Resilience are lost, no survivors found.
Year 3 PE - Doctor Ashevelen starts her research on human Enhancement
Year 5 PE - Doctor Ashevelen recruits volunteers for the human Enhancement program
Year 7 PE - Martial Law is declared
Year 10 PE - Humanity is getting closer to extincion once more. The population is going down fast.
Year 10 Month 3 - Doctor Ashevelen releases the first prototypes of the Enhanced humans.
Year 10 Month 10 - The Enhanced rebuild Resilience.
Year 20 - Doctor Ashevelen continues to improve her formula.
Year 23 PE - Doctor Ashevelen takes control of the government with the help of her Enhanced and forces everyone to submit to the program.
Year 1 AE - A new era dawns over humanity. Creator Ashevelen realises her mistake in making everyone submit to the program. Reproduction becomes impossible for the Enhanced. Other options are researched.
Year 3 AE - Genetic Labs are being built in every city, enabling reproduction.
Year 10 AE - Creator Ashevelen manages to clone herself before finally dying.
Year 50 AE - The formula gets tweaked once more. The Rejects appear. Half-human Half-Monster. They are quickly enslaved and used as workers.
Year 51 AE - The human nation is rebranded as The Chosen.
Year 100 AE - RADX-001 is for the first time since landing, fully colonised.
Year 101 AE - Creator Ashevelen becomes known as The God-Queen and becomes idolized as a God between Enhanced. Her body being constantly cloned and improved.
In the same year, churches start to appear all around RADX-001.
Year 210 AE - The God-Queen releases a new formula that manages to fix the genetic mistakes in some of the Rejected.
Year 220 AE - The Chosen build a space-elevator and colonise the moon, RADX-002, and releases all the Rejected on it. Given free choice for the first time in their existence, they continue to serve the God-Queen in the hopes that one day, she'll make another formula that will be able to help everyone.
Year 260 AE - The Chosen formula is tweaked with once more, giving them the ability to survive space conditions without a suit for a long period of time.
Year 286 AE - The God-Queen develops a side-serum using the native creatures of RADX-001. The serum gives the ability to change parts of the Enhanced bodies into claws/natural armor. It is given only to the most loyal and becomes a signifier of wealth and status.
Year 290 AE - The Ascended become the right hand of the God-Queen. Enhanced humans that rule over small portions of the population. Considered the greatest honor and a sign that one is closer to God.}

Culture and Society: _{The Chosen are living by the will of the God-Queen. A society that's built on the whims of Ashevelen. Most Enhanced serve as Clerics and ready themselves for the time when they will Ascend. Those that are not part of the Church, will serve the God-Queen in her labs trying to find other ways to improve the formula.}



Governance and Politics: _{The God-Queen leave all but the most important decisions to the Ascended. A group of 4 Chosen which serve as High Hierarchs in the Church Of The Chosen. They decided what crops to be engineered and the general direction of society. All decisions have to be suspended to the God-Queen for review and approval.}

Technology Overview: <sub>Most technology is similar to the ones they've arrived on the planet in the first place with the major changes in a few areas:
1. The Chosen are masters of genetic advancement. No injuries are permanent, nor illnesses incurable.
2. Organic matter - Instead of using metals to build, the Chosen are using the raw materials (wood/stone) of RADX-001 to build combined with a formula that enhances its strength tenfold. Allowing it to withstand great temperatures and weight.</sub>

Military Overview: _{The Chosen are made from the age of 16 to join the army for a minimal service of 4 years. In those years the Church watched the development of the soldiers. Those that are found worthy will later on join the Church as Clerics, spreading the will of the God-Queen.}


Additional Info: _{Theme song - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEJ8lpCQbyw}

-A council of 11 that has absolute say over what goes on in the government called “The Alliance”.





1.6 Billion



Human 40%
Osparians 50%
Half-Spars 10%



-Common- 95%, a language formed by the combination of earthly languages passed down through heritage. It’s an old and respected language that is spoken by almost everyone.

-Osparion- 60%, As humans adapted and developed ways to survive on Ospa they changed the way they talked. Letters formed into glyphs and became shorter to say. Osparion is spoken by the newer generation that has genetically split from the older human generation. Osparion is now adapted by the growing Osaprian population along with some of the human population.



Rural-20%, Rural living is mostly done in small habitation domes along Ospa’s surface. These domes are often formed in groups that are usually connected with tram systems or if close enough long walkways. Usually in rural areas there will be more Osparians than humans due to heat difference.

Urban-80%, Urban living is dominated by giant underground cities or huge habitation domes. These “Under-Cities” are powered by solar and geothermal energy, keeping the air underground clean. These Urban cities can stretch miles into the extensive underground cave system on Ospa.



Atheist-89, a large portion of the population is unaligned with a church or does not conduct any spiritual rituals.

Shadorn-11%, a portion of the population has now started to conduct a new type of religion not performed in the past. These individuals believe that they can obtain a place in an afterlife by committing to a life of silence. They believe in the great being “Dai’feron” who prepares a place for silent believers. He is the father of the universe and delights in seeing his creations bask in the silence of his art works.
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Ospa, a harsh desert planet that receives 23 hours of sun in its 30 hour day cycle. It’s locked into the orbit of a B-type star with 3 small moons that orbit at a fast rate. It’s located in a lonely system with the next closest planet being locked in the orbit of another sun forever away. It’s surface is dry and cracked, mostly covered in sand. There are only two water sources on the surface that are locked in a constant state of boiling. On its surface roams colossal alien creatures that have heavily adapted to the extreme heat.

Ospa does have a redeeming feature. It has a vast network of extensive caves underneath. These caves have flora and fauna of their own. Hidden away from the always burning sun there can be found cool water and geothermal locations where temperature from the core can escape.



(Year-1) Upon landing the colony originally started with 1,000,000 people. Upon landing on the planet it could be identified that it was going to be a hostile surface. The original 1,000,000 wouldn’t survive for long with how ill prepared they were.

(Year-5) They’re finally able to settle into the cavernous interior of the planet. Along with settling they are able to discover hot spots that help to power everything. Their population had taken a hit, they numbered 789,900. A decision has been made that a council of 11 leaders would have absolute say of the internal and external affairs of the colony.

(Year-14) Research has been done to help nurture human genes to be more resilient to heat. Test trials have started and the population has been on the rise.

(Year-52) Gene research has pulled through and they have been able to secure injectable genes that could help nurture infants to be heat resistant.

(Year-60) Riots have begun as people protest against the usage of injections to help protect the heat at the risk of abnormal mutations. 3 of the 11 council members have split off from the council to form their own government.

(Year-68) The beginning of a civil war has taken place with two factions, The Alliance and The Free People. The usage of artificial genes have been put into use with the main mutation being loss of all hair. Along with this civil war weapon and vehicle research has started to take off. Reclamation of the surface has also begun with the newer advancement of flight vehicles.

(Year-91) The civil war has come to an end with the result being a win for The Alliance. Domes have become popular on the surface for all the genetically modified humans. Studies are being conducted over how stable the heat resistant gene is.

(Year-120) The advancement of entertainment and vehicular enterprises have been achieved. People who have the mutated heat gene have started to notice changes within their biology. Their skin has grown thick and has started to form hard plating on their body.

(Year-140) Due to discrimination against carriers of the heat resistant gene they have started to call themselves a different race, Osparian, due to forming genetic and physical differences. The government has started to enforce large scale police action to stop the rise of anti-Osparian organizations.

(Year-160) Osparians and humans are living in unity for now. Reclamation of the surface is still in progress with construction being slow due to less Osparian workers. Large metropolises have formed underground and space bases have started to be established on the moons and in the planet's orbit. This has allowed them to mine for resources in asteroids that float close to them.

(Year-225) Society has started to advance towards more research to help advance the society. Crossing of humans and osparians have begun to take off. Due to almost mastery of gene manipulation birth defects that would occur are taken care of. Rising “half-spar” population.



The average age for a human is 89 years old. The average age for an Osparian is 100. Their society is largely capitalist based, with local “enforcers” as the police are called to monitor any crime. The standard unit of money is one oss, or “O”. A new religion has started to form with their belief in an all powerful being. They’ve started to erect small pyramidal-like buildings as religious centers. Most cities are underground where a huge amount of humans live alongside Osparians. Along with the market-economy there’s also the black-market. Ospa has crime rings which deal with drugs and human trafficking.



The government is controlled by a ruling 11 that gets replaced by a vote from the remaining. It is a position held until death or rendered unable to complete duties. These 11 control all aspects of society, this includes economy, military, crime, art, education, and ect. They allow no other governing party to exist other than them.



Ospa technology has advanced in many fields. In the field of energy, they’ve made large advancements in it. They’ve become completely dependent on renewable energy and have more than enough thanks to high quality solar and geothermal collection methods. In the advancements of medicine they’ve become skilled at working with genetic diseases. Most genetic diseases are curable with their level of technology. In the advancement of weaponry Ospa moved away from laser based firepower, which is heat based, in favor of electric charge based firepower. Due to the thick plating of the colossal beasts that roam the surface their weapons are made to shock their hearts to death rather than bleed them. As for vehicular technology, Ospa has made easy and smooth travel and landing when coming in and out of their atmosphere. Ospa developed a line of flight vehicles or “flyers” as they call them. They hover over the ground or fly through the air at high speeds within the atmosphere. On agricultural the growth of plants is done in giant surface side domes then sent below. Since farming space is limited the food has been genetically altered to give the most amount of nutrients, this does not do wonders on the taste. As for meat they raise some smaller animal like species below ground, but most meat is gathered from slain colossal beasts that roam the surface.



The Ospa military is dispersed throughout the planet and works with the “enforcers”, or police. The military will likely not gather together unless there is a large colossal animal about to make a collision with a dome or the 11 leaders command it. Every member of the Ospa military is given a shock rifle which requires electric cells to shoot. Every member is also given an exo-suit, the suit is temperature controlled and has the ability to store oxygen. The only difference between the human and osparian exo-suit is that the osparian suits were too big to add a jump pack on-to. Jump-packs release bursts of air that are able to swiftly carry people for maneuvering. Half-spars are able to equip human exo-suits due to smaller builds.

The structure of the military is as stated. One of the 11 will be nominated as high-general. They will gain complete control of troop movement. Under the high-general are the generals. Generals will take command over a designated amount of troops. Under the generals are captains. Captains will designate orders to squad leaders. Squad leaders will designate their orders to the squad that they are over, usually consisting of 10 members.

Additional Info:

Theme- https://youtu.be/XfR9iY5y94s

Osparians are green or gray in color. They often have bright green eyes that have a thin protective layer on them that protects against sunlight or flashes. They are usually 6-7 feet tall. They have human proportions except they have plating that looks like rock covering parts of their bodies. They lack hair on them instead having plating where hair should exist. They’re bodies are immune to heat which makes them far more adapted to Ospa’s surface than humans.

Government Form: Absolute Monarchy
Demographics: 99% Modified Human, 1% Pure Human
Population: 3 Billion

Augustillian Humans are the same as standard humans from modern Earth, albeit 99% of the population has been genetically modified by bioweapons deployed centuries ago. These modified peoples still look human, but their eye colors have begun to vary wildly, with orange, purple, red, white and yellow pupils being fairly common. Also, their hair colors are not as closely aligned to melanin, meaning dark skinned individuals can have fair colored hair, just as an albino could have dark colored hair. These modified humans do behave in a unorthodox manner as well, seemingly fearless and very obedient, albeit this may simply be due to culture rather than anything psychologically-altering...but its hard to tell.

The remaining 1% of humans still harbor the same genetics as the original colonists, looking like normal humans with no modifications to speak of. They do not have any behavior-altering effects that the rest of the population suffers from and are as varied in personalities as one would expect.

Planet name and Description: Vystrallia

Vystrallia is a massive sphere of lush, green and unexplored forests, jungles, vast plains comparable to Africa, few deserts and with a few large continents surrounded by blue bodies of water. Its home to an overabundance of rapidly breeding wildlife, both incredibly dangerous and docile, while having fertile soil for agriculture. Trees can take years rather than decades to grow, while damage done to the environment is seemingly 'erased' over the span of years, as if forcing the world back into it's original untouched state.

However, it is no paradise.

Given a massive war that occurred three centuries ago, there lurks many artificial and deadly diseases, strange genetically-engineered monsters, huge robotic war machines idly wait in jungles while the remains of advanced and deadly technology remain beneath the corpses and ruins of the original colonies. The world's propagating wildlife hasn't helped in this regard- these diseases coming ever closer to being rediscovered, with wildlife carrying them edging along the Augustillian civilization. Meanwhile monstrous creatures have begun to spread out across various continents, propagating enough to be a problem for the human population for centuries to come.

And, of course, the population itself isn't without its internal problems- wars between nobles, disputes over hunting territory and violent duels happen all the time.

History: Vystrallia was originally colonized by one massive colony ship, enough to carry people from several different continents and a wide variety of technology, history, culture and arts. They had advanced technologies, capable weapons and a thorough understanding of both themselves and the sciences.

None of which survived upon landing.

Due to differences between people, a lack of resources post-crash, simple bloodlust or a vile tyrant, the first year on the planet quickly wiped out more than half of the people that were to originally colonize Vystrallia. Engaged in a brutal series of wars with some of the most advanced technology at their disposal, the colonists fought each other until nearly everything they had brought with them had been sabotaged, destroyed, used up or broken. In a situation best described as apocalyptic, the remaining human groups, traumatized by the fate fallen upon them, not only made peace...but swore off the use of the technology they brought with them.

As people began to band together, the colonists recreated their society, basing it around whatever they found in the remaining historical texts. Latin inspired their language, Augustillia became their nation, the industrial revolution became their basis for their factories and workplaces while their warfare and tactics was inspired by the Napoleanic Wars and ancient warfare. Technology, no matter how advanced it could be, would always be held back from becoming anything past the 20th century. No new inventions were allowed, no new practices, no new traditions, no new cultures, nothing was allowed to stray from their strict guidelines of what society must be. The past, in the minds of the colonists, would never happen again.

Now, three centuries later, Augustillia remains the same as before- with a catch. The nobility is made up of what remains of humans unaffected by the original colonist war. Meanwhile, the majority whom had their genetics altered one way or another make up the vast majority of people on the planet and, through many generations of indoctrination, have been made to be as loyal as possible to the nobility that control the planet. And, perhaps, technology was allowed to develop a little bit, but only when absolutely needed...and if it helped the country expand further.

Augustillia, in its strange makeshift society, continues to carry on. Flashy sci-fi technology merges with brick-layered houses, men armed with semi-automatic weapons line up in formations and fire in single volleys as if they were Prussian infantry. Massive cargo ships float alongside wooden frigates while submarines explore the depths of the oceans, with officers wearing fanciful uniforms straight from the Victorian era. Any time cities become too large, new territory is colonized. The middle class remains eternally small and minute, while the peasantry constantly toils away in farms and workers struggle in massive unsafe factories. To these people, everything is as it should be, its what it always will be, and nothing is ever suppose to change.

...Except for the fact the king authorized the use of constructing massive space-fairing starships to colonize the stars. Also permits the usage of technology found in texts and blueprints from the original colony ship. May or may not have plans to build a space station.
Alright, Some things might just change.

Culture and Society: Incredibly dated, to say the least. But very obsessed with being civilized.

Albeit a merge of several different periods of history, primarily Western, such as ancient Rome, kingdoms during the Middle Ages, the British and French empires, as well as Prussia. The best place would be to start with who truly controls and affects society- the nobility.

While the king dictates everything, the nobility are the ones who really make changes or earn and lose power. They have personal territories they control, from their own miniature countries to city-states, having their own personal armies and rules for how things should be run. One could even argue that their own personalities are shown in the armies they control or the cities they manage, easily able to make their own personal touches to things as they wish- what clothes people wear, how they produce things, how they speak their language and even what ethnicities are valued members of their society. In a way, one could see it as a strange feudalism, with nobles being dukes of their own personal fiefdoms, able create what they wish with ridiculous amounts of power.

Essentially, a noble may do whatever they please...as long as tithes to the king are paid and mass genocide and death isn't spreading across the lands. Tithes are fairly simple as well, making sure Augustillia has enough resources to meet production quotas and food to feed their ever-growing burgeoning populace. When something truly goes wrong- a rebellious noble, a lack of vital resources or a lack of proper management, the most loyal nobles to the king will be sent to deal with the problem. Throughout history, this has proven to be successful...and lethal for those who've done wrong.

Meanwhile, the peasantry and plebs are nothing more than slaves to their masters, yet, unlike history, are astoundingly loyal despite their conditions.

Lives may vary from province to province, but peasants aren't gifted much influence in the grand scheme of things. They toil in fields, work in factories, form the rank-and-file soldiers and sailors while dying en masse whenever catastrophe strikes. Given their high birth rates and general lack of importance, they're considered expendable by all of nobility, with little care for when they die or when they suffer. Generally, the life expectancy is around 50 or 60 years of age, with those who have more comfortable lives (such as owning a successful private business) reaching around 80 or 100.

Everything looks as you'd expect from human history...albeit with some strange sci-fi flair. LED lights, fanciful skintight armor and even a few metallic structures here and there. Also it being a bunch of different histories slammed together- people in medieval clothes walking alongside automobiles, or ancient roman Mediterranean civilization architecture recently built alongside apartment buildings.

Religion: The Great Colonia is a revered and sacred place of Augustillia. While the original colony ship no longer exists- both due to war and the monarchy's insistence on keeping advanced technology hidden -the original landing zone is still a place frequently visited by the more spiritual and religious. Located in a sparsely populated rural area sits a great hill with a massive monument extending high into the sky, one of stone and concrete. It has many images at the base of it, crudely made but depicting important events- the landing of the colony ship, the horrific wars, the peace made between survivors and founding of the first Augustillian cities.

There is no official church, but many temples and sacred grounds exist with preachers who act as both prophets of their faith and historians teaching about past events and why technological advancement is forbidden. Sometimes peasants will congregate around large alters in tamed forests, sacrificing captured animals or chanting to the sky about the Great Colonia and the war that destroyed it. Others engage in wrestling and fighting, with the most physically fit of men attacking each other in what is believed to be reenactments of past battles fought by the original colonists. Others engage in dance, music, or placing prized possessions at these alters, as if showing respect to the deceased. These rituals, while sometimes violent or considered strange by nobility, are left alone by the government.

---

Governance and Politics: An Absolute Monarchy, Augustillia places complete control in it's king who, in turn, places control of provinces and territories in the hand of nobility. Both nobility and kingship is determined by heritage, with anyone who has altered genetics unable to achieve any sort of power or rank in the government. All nobles (and inhabitants in general) answer to the king.

The position of king is a difficult one- trying to keep the nobility together, forcing them to fear or respect the monarchy, making sure resources are being placed where they need to be and new farms are being built, all while trying to keep the past hidden from the populace and technology in a primitive state. Nonetheless the one and absolute monarch maintains Augustillia alone, or so they say, much to the chagrin of some aspiring nobles who do much of the finer paperwork.

Technology Overview: It has been tradition to keep an absolute firm grip on technological progress- but, recent generations of leaders have given some leeway, allowing some inventions to be used as long as they were developed by the original colonists...and aren't too dangerous. Some nobles even utilize age-extending drugs or advanced medicine, but, much of this is kept secret and refrained from being talked about publicly, as not to cause any controversy.

Due to this, much of the technology Augustillia has is heavily reliant on manpower. Everything has to be hand made, refrained from robotics, AI or assembly lines. The most advanced technology you'll see is from the 20th century, particularly the earlier parts of it.

Military Overview: Perhaps the pride and joy of the Augustillian society- ironically -would be the militarism.

Despite the fear inspired by original colonist war, it wouldn't be long before differences between descendants would bubble over into open warfare. However, wars are refrained from being all-or-nothing wars of attrition and instead take a very gentlemanly approach. Line infantry march against each other, firing in single volleys with incredible discipline. Nobility watch from afar while their personal regiments of soldiers, dressed in whatever uniforms they see fit, fight each other in open fields. Even the simplest argument can be turned into an armed conflict, with the lives of their men treated as nothing more than mere toy soldiers.

Despite having semi-automatic weaponry at their side, soldiers are trained to use them as muskets, firing only in volleys and when ordered to. Artillery, despite being incredibly long ranged, capable of firing often and more similar to a howitzer than a cannon, is still treated as a cannon- firing at shorter ranged and only at certain targets. Grenades, despite their existence, are only used by grenadier regiments. Automatic weapons exist, but seldom ever utilized as being seen as "ungentlemanly" and disruptive to the overall strict rules set out by the nobility. Anti-tank rifles and grenade launchers exist and have been made, but seemingly have been ignored throughout the planet's history.

There are strict codes of conduct as well- urban warfare is forbidden given the importance of cities, close combat is fought only when out of ammo or if necessary, civilians are not to be shot nor brought into conflict, prisoners of war are to be respected and nobility are refrained from being prisoners or shot. Given all the rules and regulations, it isn't uncommon for peasants to follow armies around if possible, watching them fight each other safely, seeing who survives...and more importantly to the nobles, wins!

Despite this incredibly organized nature, these codes of conduct and tactics are prepared to be abandoned in the worst case scenarios- or, in other words, if they ever encounter another civilization other then their own. Semi-automatic weapons could be used to full affect, automatic weapons deployed, bazookas and anti-tank rifles added to the arsenal...but Augustillia has had no reason to do so. One can only imagine how inexperienced and incompetent they would be.

Perhaps the most striking thing about Augustillians would be their fearlessness and loyalty however, seemingly unaffected psychologically by battlefield conditions and fighting down to the last man when ordered to. While the peasantry thankfully propagates at ridiculously high rates and keeps armies high with manpower, no battle is every walked away from without a couple hundred casualties thanks to this fearlessness. It also means there is a sizable amount of regiments composed entirely of veterans and having extensive histories to their name.

Ships and Vehicles:

Officially, advanced technology does not exist and isn't used at all.
Unofficially, the gigantic warehouse with hover technology floating around and following armies around with everything needed to keep an army supplied isn't against the rules at all.

As hypocritical as the monarchy is, ships and more advanced vehicles exist and for good reasons, making sure incase anything horrific happens, the people would be ready. There have been tanks developed, jet planes, even blueprints for massive vessels that work as part battleship, part boarding craft and part colony ship. These can be made given enough time, but given the serene little cycle of life Augustillia has developed, its hasn't come to mind.

As of late, one large vessel is being constructed for space exploration, but much of this is kept hush-hush until its finished and if to see if it works.

---

Additional Info
-There is an extensive hunting and exploration society/guild. Nobles often take armed peasants out on hunting trips to claim valuable hides from various wildlife that exists. However, given how dangerous the wildlife is, it isn't uncommon for a lot of people to die on these expeditions.

-Its also common for aspiring nobles to create their own miniature fiefdoms through colonization, often taking a bunch of people and finding the most dangerous land possible to create their own self-sustaining territories separated from more powerful nobles.

-Due to the organized nature of Augustillian society, crime rates are practically non-existent...Then again, someone from the government coming in and burning down a village isn't considered a crime, just a border dispute.

Planet Name and Description:
Zeta-5 is not a particularly friendly world to live on. With a thin, oxygen-deficient atmosphere, poor resistance to interstellar threats such as radiation, and extreme weather conditions and surface temperature range, most life on Zeta-5 is an extremophile of some kind. Competition is also extremely ferocious, with no animal settling into an apex position.

Despite all of this, there are some benefits to living on Zeta-5. Past eons of interstellar bombardments have left the planet rich with elements and compounds that would be considered fantastically rare on Earth, and its twin captured moons burst with even more such minerals, all of which are gleefully exploited by Zetan society. Furthermore, the unusual conditions not just on Zeta-5, but also on other planets and planetoids within the Zeta system are rife with unexpected answers to scientific questions, allowing for some truly unique research opportunities.

History:
To the initial colonisers, flung onto a system with no other habitable planets, Zeta-5 was a desperate attempt to preserve something, anything of humankind- to fling a lantern into the future. Drilling down into the planet's crust, they formed subterranean cities safe from predation, radiation and the temperatures of the surface. Here, among hydroponic farms and with robotic assistants, they carved out a niche for themselves and plumbed the surface for materials and resources. Most, however, were ill-content with the idea of cowering forever, and started to make changes to themselves to better accommodate the planet.

Skin was replaced by radiation-resistant dermal plating, limbs with tools, organs with steel. Zetans forged themselves anew from metal, and once they had done so they emerged onto the surface alongside their robotic companions to colonise the planet proper. So efficient and extensive were these replacements that they effectively halted senescence, allowing these early Zetans to live for hundreds of years. These men and women would be the prototype for what Zetans now refer to 'the transcended,' members of the Consciousness that have left their biological bodies behind.

These early Zetans also pioneered the early neural network that would form the foundation of Zetan society. By pooling their mental resources they could act more efficiently on the surface, and as the technology was developed, more and more could be transferred. Zetans spread their wings to their nearby system, establishing permanent settlements on the twin moons of Zeta- Z and З, and creating multiple space stations in orbit. Zetan slower-than-light technology is quite effective, with Zetan space ships using nuclear-based thrust systems to slowly, yet consistently, accelerate.

The harsh conditions of living on Zeta has fostered a close sense of togetherness. One day's feast could easily be the next day's famine, and so it pays to keep in the good graces of your neighbours, in case you came to rely on them. Early on, the colony operated through a more 'classical' form of representative democracy, but the neural network's increasing spread led to the 'representative' portion being slowly whittled away until politicians were no more.

Now, the planet of Zeta works together, with one goal- survive, thrive, and plumb the depths of the universe's secrets.

Culture and Society:
Zetan society is one of collectivism and cooperation. Zetans know that well-cared for people are happier, more productive people, and the neural network creates a strong sense of duty to the Collective. Although a Zetan could theoretically shirk from work and still be provided for, their mental link is a powerful incentive to not do so. No Zetan is viewed as 'more' than another, with housing, healthcare, food and electricity being distributed as evenly as possible. A Zetan works not just to improve their own lot, but also the lot of their entire society.

In matters of reproduction, Zetans handle things rather differently to old Earth. Pair-bonding is discouraged in the Consciousness, and mothers do not privately raise their children. Instead, young are taken care of communally, raised and educated in a complicated network of systems designed to maximise their potential. On the other end of the spectrum, 'death' is seen as an abomination to Zetan society, and few members of the Consciousness ever face it. Instead, Zetans slowly replace their minds with biomechanical replacements over the course of their life, so that when their physical forms grow frail and weak they can upload themselves into the Collective's cloud. Although most Zetans view this as a natural progression of their life, a few are downloaded back into mechanical bodies, treated no differently except for their new and unique physiological needs.



Governance and Politics:
The Consciousness operates through a form of direct democracy facilitated by their pseudo-hive mind. No individual is worth more than another, and all individuals are provided for, from cradle to their enlightenment out of physical bodies. Unlike most Old Earth direct democracies, the Consciousness can be highly efficient in its decision-making- the entirety of the Consciousness can make an educated decision on a matter simultaneously, and members of the Consciousness can petition the Collective for even the smallest of matters, although it is unlikely they'll receive much feedback for truly trivial topics.

Furthermore, the Consciousness also has no one single 'leader.' Although there are figures of authority, individuals with specialist knowledge and expertise who lend their unique perspective to the Collective, there is no 'hive queen,' and ultimately the Consciousness acts like a flowing river- an obstacle in the path is flowed around or bulldozed through.

Technology Overview:
The Consciousness is a technological powerhouse, having made great strides in almost all fields of study. Of special note are Consciousness computing and biomechanical technology. True AI have been born on Zeta's surface, incorporated into the Collective and granted rights as citizens, bringing with them a wholly alien perspective to the group mind. Alongside these true AI are sets of incredibly sophisticated, non-sapient self-learning algorithms, and the 'transcended,' Zetans that have uploaded themselves into the Collective's cloud. Haecceity in these 'uploads' is maintained via the nanomechanical replacement of brain matter, molecule-by-molecule. When the process is complete, the physical form becomes a vestigal organ, useful until it fails.

Military Overview:
The Consciousness' military is non-existent. Although their technological expertise could lead to quite a formidable fighting force, their isolation and collective nature has rendered armed conflict larger than petty squabbles between individuals a thing of the past. That being said, should the ire of Zetan society be roused, it is hard to imagine a more intractable foe. Non-sapient yet highly advanced systems could be used to pilot weapons systems, whilst downloaded or largely mechanical ground troops could suffer horrendous trauma and still continue. Every loss would be re-absorbed back into the Collective, each providing as much knowledge as possible for the next soldier to use in their fight.

During and after the War of Hollywoodite Aggression, Zeta has gone through waves of aggressive armament. With vast quantities of the population conscripted, weapons technology prioritised and plenty of in-field data being gathered, the Zetan army is slowly being formed and hardened to face both hard and soft foes, equipped with a variety of firearms and railguns, and assisted by missile artillery and increasingly larger warforms to support their infantry. In space, Zeta has begun to build up its own navy, and macrostructure projects such as the Oistos defensive cannon, Aegis defensive shield and Archimedes macroship have paved the way for future Zetan war machines.


Additional Info:

Thematic Music [+]

Planet Name and Description: Matuvista is an astounding planet in multiple ways. Firstly, it's classified as a 'Mega-Earth,' by old astrogeological standards. At roughly the size of Neptune, Matuvista dominates the trinary star system it inhabits, only outmatched by two particularly gargantuan gas giants, neither of which rotate the same stars.

Because of this, Matuvista has been home to many an interstellar encounter, quite a few of which have resulted in it ensnaring another planetary body as a moon. Three of Matuvista's moons are inhabitable- nicknamed 'the three sisters,' they each hold their own populations of settlers, acting as 'colonies' to the Grand Republic's 'motherland.'

On Matuvista's surface, the planet is dominated by wetlands and rainforests. Hot and wet, it's a prime place for growing modified old Earth crops and a wide bounty of Matuvista's own native foods, and its oceans teem with often dangerous, often delicious marine life to be hunted and eaten. Aside from the flora and fauna, Matuvista's geology hosts some of the most powerful lodestones ever found- so powerful, in fact, that they've been known to violently free themselves from the crust to burst upwards as floating islands. Lodestone prospecting is one of the few ways plebeians can really strike it big- it's dangerous, difficult and extremely demanding work, but the substance is always in high demand.

Most of Matuvista's population lives around the Lupatan Sea- a colossal freshwater basin that makes the Pacific look like a bathtub. Above the water hang some of the largest lodestone islands on the planet, with their own fauna, specially adapted to thriving among the unstable crags.

History: The first colonists of Matuvista came from the remnants of several old-Earth Hispanic countries. Upon initial landing, cultural and political differences almost shattered the nascent colony before it could get its feet on the ground, but through a series of increasingly more desperately power-hungry strongmen, the early Matuvistan settlements were held together.

The initial colonisation was not an easy one. Successive waves of settlers, fleeing whichever dictator had rested power that particular year expanded the borders out, at great cost to life and limb. The thick, choking jungles and lethal wildlife proved to be a combination enough to suppress even the most dedicated of colonisation efforts, and the small settlements on Matuvista’s moons hardly fared much better. As the population grew though, and the early terror began to subside, the successive and unstable ascension of dictators began to come under closer and closer scrutiny.

Eventually, one dictator- his name deliberately scrubbed from the record, overstepped his boundaries. Several unpopular reforms back-to-back caused almost every aspect of society to independently despise him, whereupon a woman by the name of Julia De Angelo rallied the people and overthrew the dictator, throwing him out of his capital and watching as he was devoured by one of the man-hunting beasts that lived in the jungles.

De Angelo’s temporary solution was to have a council of experienced individuals lead the country until a more equitable form of government could be arranged. The Technocracy was a short-lived period in Matuvistan history, as it was rapidly supplanted by the Patrician’s Republic. Now, De Angelo is a folk hero to most Matuvistans- widely accepted as the first plebian-knight, she set the model for both patricians and plebians.

The first challenge the Republic had was to establish control over the entirety of the Matuvistan system. The four separate nations that had sprung up lead to trade, yes, but also a constant struggle over resources and jockeying for political influence. United by the Republic, the Matuvistan home worlds launched what would come to be known as the Reconquista, a period of time that defined the tactics used by the Matuvistans ever since. Patricians, who were the only ones wealthy enough to use the then-experimental lodestone craft en masse, wreaked havoc in enemy lines- blurring along at reaction-defying speeds, they were able to punch colossal holes in enemy fortifications in the field, react to incursions within minutes of scout reports, and were manoeuvrable and capable enough in urban combat to still be effective. Alongside patrician footsloggers, the moons fell one by one, until at last Matuvista was the republic no more- now it was the Gran Republic.

Its tribulations hardly ended there however, for only a hundred years after settling down, they had a new threat to contend with. Unbeknownst to the initial colonists, a spacefaring civilisation had, centuries before mankind had ever left their solar system, sent slower-than-light colony ships to claim Matuvista for themselves. The War of Counter-Aggression was a five-year conflict fought primarily on Matuvista itself, and was largely a patrician’s war. Determined to prove themselves to an increasingly displeased plebian class, patricians demonstrated themselves to be every bit the gallants they so desperately claimed they were, and in the rare case of feudal overlords actually defending their vassals, drove back the initial invasion/colonisation force.

Not only did this demonstration of standing up to ideals actually prove that the patricians weren’t all talk, but the War of Counter-Aggression resulted in the deaths of around 20% of the younger patrician generation. To replace them, many more plebians than usual were drawn up into the patrician classes, further placating the unruly rabble.

Although the War of Counter-Aggression was short, the initial colonisation ships were not the only one. Even today, a steady stream of follow-up ships bring with them more Yyasum soldiers, to the point where fighting off Yyasum insurgencies is considered a vital part of any young patrician’s military training.

Thus has the Grand Republic been formed. Even today, things are rarely stable- be it disgruntled plebians, independence movements from the moon, Yyasum soldiers or simply the colossal variety of man-hunting wildlife in Matuvista’s jungles, a patrician’s lance is never unused for long, and the plebians are reminded constantly why their cultural and military betters should be in charge, whilst being distracted from the drudgery of their everyday lives by a well-established network of panem et circenses.

Culture and Society: Matuvistan society is a tapestry of old-Earth customs, blended with decidedly new-world attitudes and tribulations. At the lowest rung of society there are the majority of plebians- farmers, engineers, miners and office clerks, Matuvistan plebians have no political power whatsoever. Unlike serfs of the past, plebians have firm legal protections as subjects. Patricians can no more kill a plebian than they can anyone else without suffering serious consequences, and plebians are afforded a basic safety net in the form of universal healthcare, unemployment (although there are also compulsory work assignments) and have the expectation of protection by the patricians.

Off Matuvista, plebians take on a slightly different role. The triplet inhabited moons of Matuvista often chafe under the rule of the ‘oppressive’ Senate. Uprisings and rebellions are not uncommon, but the patricians maintain a much higher military presence in the ‘colonies,’ and those foolish enough to take up arms can expect no quarter from young jetknights looking to prove themselves on the field.

Plebians also make up the bulk of the Matuvistan military. Although patrician jet-knights steal the glory and the limelight, most of the hard work and drudgery is done by patrician dragoons and ground forces. The army is a quick way for plebians to rise above their station- stellar military service is the most reliable way to find yourself in the lower ranks of the patricians, and thus, the Matuvistan army is large, motivated, well-trained and experienced.

Above the plebians are the mathetes. Mathetes, or, as most non-Matuvistans would call them, scientists, sit between the plebians and patricians. Although not permitted to vote or own property, mathetes nonetheless have a privileged position. Patricians surround themselves with mathetes, both as advisors and because it’s considered important to do so- recognising what you do not know is a sign of a cultured man, not a weak one. Because of this mathetes receive a cushy position and allowed to dedicate themselves to their craft, along with limited access to patrician luxuries.

Finally, the top rungs of Matuvistan society are home to the patricians. From their carefully selected birth, patricians are expected to train themselves to be true warrior-artists. The cultural superiority of a patrician is considered just as important as military prowess- an uncultured warrior is little more than a tyrant in waiting, although Matuvistan society places little prestige on one form of culture over another, and there are relatively few gendered expectations when it comes to what art one excels in. Music, dance, poetry, drama, patricians are anything from celebutants, composers, novelists or even chefs.

Finally, Matuvistan society is a fairly spiritual one. Knightly ideals are, after all, fundamentally rooted in Christianity. Although the core message has been corrupted over the years, and the very different environment of Matuvista has spurred some quite radical shifts to the human experience, there are still plenty of obvious influences. From the almost polytheistic ideas they have about saints to the belief in a very Christian afterlife, not only is religion a large part of society at every stratum, but as more Machiavellian patricians know: religion is the opium of the people.



Governance and Politics: The Gran Republic is, in the strictest sense of the word, a democracy, similar to those of the Ancient Greek city states. Voting is restricted to the landowning patricians, and votes can be awarded to individuals as commendations for various actions (thus, there is no 'one person, one vote,' within the Grand Republic.)

Every patrician of majority age makes up the Lower Senate, a body that proposes, debates and discusses laws. Every five years, elections are held to select patricians to be a part of the Upper Senate, which is the Republic's executive. The Upper Senate contains several smaller committees specialising in various fields, such as the High Generalship, High Admiralty, and the Chancellors of Matuvista and the three inhabited moons. The Chancellor of Matuvista is the de facto leader of the Gran Republic for the next five years, and is given the honourary title of 'Condel' regardless of what their actual role in the military is (most Condels have been Generalissimos or Commandante en Jefes historically.)

Technology Overview: With the mathetes class and a healthy respect for the people that design their sophisticated equipment, Grand Republic research progresses at a healthy and well-rounded rate. The most unique aspect of Matuvistan technology is, of course, their unique lodestones, and how this tremendously powerful substance is used. Matuvistan lodestones seemingly defy the normal conventions of magnetism, with even the lowest-grade ‘rock rumbler,’ lodestone managing to be a superconductor. Although artificial lodestone can be made, the process results in a lower-grade, less useful end product: perfect for industrial and civilian use, but inferior to the real stuff in every way. A true patrician wouldn’t be caught dead using artificial lodestone equipment.

The most iconic piece of Matuvistan equipment is, of course, the jetbike. Kept aloft by powerful engines and a complicated network of agitated lodestones, jetbikes can remain airborne for up to a day at a time and also come with deployable wheels. Floating above the ground, jetbikes have a tremendously high max speed, although most are never pushed above a third to a half of their potential, where patricians can comfortably operate. Personal patrician jetbikes tend to also feature two plasma-casters at the front to maximise close-range damage, whilst plebian combat ‘jettrikes’ tend to feature heavier, pintle-mounted weaponry.

A true combat jetbike features almost no protection for the rider. A patrician is expected to remain safe through speed, agility, and their suits of power-armour, ducking and weaving through enemy fire, or letting smaller calibre bullets ping off their armoured shells. So-called ‘jettrikes,’ tend to have an enclosed canopy and other ‘un-knightly’ protective features for their riders.

Lodestones are also extremely useful when it comes to plasma technology. Industrial-quality lodestones make excellent magnetic plasma containment fields. Plasma technology is therefore in common usage across Matuvista- from generators to the archetypal patrician weapon of the plasma lance.

The plasma lance is nothing more than a patrician’s pride and joy. Each one is custom made for their user; their hilts designed to cleanly attach to a Matuvistan jetbike. The speeds at which these jetbikes operate means that to use a physical weapon would invite the loss of a limb. Instead, Matuvistan lances use an extremely fragile containment layer around a constantly agitated spike of plasma. When the field makes contact, it immediately disperses, resulting in a jet of plasma exploding out into the target in a manner similar to a shaped charge, clearing the way for the jetknight.

Other than these advancements, Matuvista has a firm grasp on genetic tampering. Revivalist gene therapy can add several decades if not a century to the lifespan of those able to afford it, and almost all patricians are the result of several generations worth of selective ‘designer babies.’ To actually modify, your child would be to cheat, but simply selecting the best candidate out of several and weeding out anomalies and defects is common sense. Pharmacological advancements further placate the population and enhance the soldiery- from old Earth coffee and marijuana to stims like tri-sun and savant a mathetes with an interest in the pharmaceutical can make a big name for themselves.

Military Overview: The Gran Republic is not only prepared to fight, but, in fact, relishes it. With a culture infused with colonialism, militarism and nationalism, as well as eager warriors ready and willing to prove themselves, a Matuvistan force is motivated, experienced and well-equipped.

When it comes to an open battlefield, the Matuvistans are most easily compared to the crusades of old. Heavily armoured cavalry screech through the skies, tearing through those foolish enough to challenge them in close combat, whilst heavier jetrikes follow behind the initial spearpoint to lay down a withering barrage of fire on whatever survived the initial charge. Once the cavalry has done the job, dragoons and footsloggers move in to neutralise any remaining threats and confirm the victory.

In urban environments, the plan changes little. Jetbikes turn from being used in mass charges to instead be lightning-fast strike and fade troops, smashing apart strongpoints with plasma before shooting off before proper retaliatory forces can be mustered. Even dismounted, patricians are no pushovers: their power suits and training in hand-to-hand combat means that even without their formidable jetbikes, they can still hold their own, and their men-at-arms are still professionals at heart.

If all that isn't enough, many patricians also train to be duellists. Although actual honour duels are relatively rare among patrician society (as generally speaking, cultured individuals don't attempt to murder each other over slights,) any patrician family worth their salt will have a set of pistols and swords that have tasted blood at least once.

Outside of planetary force, the Matuvistans also maintain a not insignificant navy, with purpose-built corvette-sized escort craft, heavily armed and armoured troop transports, and light interceptors. Interceptors and escort craft run interference and engage threats quickly and at close distances, giving troop transports the time they need to bring to bear their larger guns, and hopefully arrive at their destination to boot.

Planet Name and Description:



Bezia- sometimes called "New Hollywood"- is a once-ruined world that has since been given new life. The original inhabitants, nicknamed "Bezians," are thought to be the same aliens who colonized the homeworld of the One. But sadly, few things about them can really be confirmed: except that they used to be here, they are no longer, and they left nothing but dust, rust and ruins behind them.

So when the first human colonists arrived, that's all they found. A planet filled with cities that nobody lived in. Monuments of creaking, decaying metal. Water was scarce, and all native life was fully extinct. An endless wasteland.

The perfect blank canvas.

Before the revolution, New Hollywoodites were deeply focused on preserving and restoring the aspects of Old Earth life. To find a world so barren might have disheartened some other peoples, but it gave the early colonists a perfect starting place towards restoring the world they'd lost. Terraforming tech was heavily invested in, and as progress continues today, the world of Bezia is becoming more and more like a mirror image of Earth. And though hot, alien deserts remain the norm in large swathes of the world, plant life is creeping in even there, turning the world green.

In order to bring moisture back to the surface, vast amounts of H2O are currently being released into the atmosphere. This causes frequent rains.

History:

It all starts with the first Savant, Chun Zhang. Or well, no, it doesn't. But he'd convince you that it does.

Chun Zhang was a masterful speaker and beautiful propagandist- as befitting of someone who grew up in Hollywood. He always portrayed himself as the epitome of a cultured genius: intelligent and charming, determined and impulsive, stormy and mysterious. It was that personality- along with other things- which later won him leadership of the early colony.

Prior to that, the real facts of his life on Earth are blurry- unusually so, given the famous accuracy of Bezia's records, almost as if someone had scrubbed them. A handful of details are salient. He was born to Chinese immigrants, he lived in LA his entire life, and he worked as a part-time actor in his youth.

Post-revolution, more formerly locked records have been released to the public, revealing that a California university did indeed list him as the highest graded student in his freshmen class. Does that, perhaps, add some legitimacy to his claims of intellectualism? Maybe. It is still unknown what exactly he studied. And his grades dropped every year after, so that his GPA at the age of graduation was barely above 2.0. One teacher wrote "Chun is a genius, if he'd just work like one."

Genius or no, he managed to end up on the Champion.

This Champion was a rare breed of colony ship. It didn't belong to one nation nor one company, but instead was a mix of the finest minds of two powerhouses who had both led the world at one point or another: China and the United States. The selection process was complex, heavily algorithm-driven, using an AI to compare a potential passenger's academic achievements, IQ tests, and something called "Individual Potential Quotient." Whatever that was, it liked Chun just enough: he was the very last passenger selected. If he had scored even slightly lower on the AI's cryptic system, he'd never have set foot off of Earth.

That would have been for the better.

The interior of the Champion was a severely overcrowded, teeming-over hive of STEM field intellectuals. It seems the AI decided to place as many people in the available space as it possibly could. Men and women crowded twenty to a room. If you tried to escape to the hallways, you'd quickly find yourself shoved out of the way by someone who'd once made "fundamental progress" in the field of Quantum Computing. A dozen mighty minds wielding PhDs would slip by while you leaned against the cold, metal walls. In this environment, chaos was the norm.

The overcrowding was only compounded by the many passengers who were used to that structured, organized world of academia. There was no structure on the Champion. AI had selected them and placed them there, but little thought was given to what would happen afterwards- it was assumed a ship full of geniuses could simply figure it out. They could not. Not least because roughly half the passengers spoke English, and the other half primarily spoke Mandarin. How can you coordinate with those you can't even talk to?

Well, you'd have to ask Chun to translate for you. That was what the other passengers quickly realized; this unknown wanna-be artist was one of only a handful of passengers who actually spoke both English and Mandarin with great fluency.

Culture and Society:



Media-obsessed. Romanticist. Escapist.

These words described the people of the ECU, and still largely describe the people of the WFD. The average citizen spends all of their free time engrossed in media of one flavor or another: films, music, plays, holograph-enabled videogames, social media, news. They are materialistic and love entertainment.

The culture of Bezia is also still geared, just as it was back when it was called New Hollywood, towards the preservation of Old Earth cultures. Most citizens have what is known as a "Chosen Cultural Expression," or CCE, that they take very seriously. A citizen's CCE represents not only his favorite Old Earth cultures, but the ones he most identifies with, that he considers to be him. They dress accordingly. They listen to their music accordingly. When they speak, they'll likely put on an accent that fits it.

(OOC: For context, readers, Tanaka's CCE was American Western, and Abadi's is "Arabic with British and American influences." This is just a fancy new term for a concept I've been using from the start.)

You might call it performative, but a Flower (or a New Hollywoodite, for that matter) would argue that all culture is performative: they just happen to be the first ones to embrace it.

What has changed, when it comes to Bezia/Hollywoodite culture, is their stance on outsiders. The ECU was puritanical in ideology, xenophobic in character. Their nature was one of fear: fear of the alien, of the cyborg, of the mutant. But after exposure to so, so many foreign cultures, the more open-minded have begun to accept that not all peoples could stay as unchanged as they did, and- perhaps- that is not their fault.

Outside of xenophobia, there is one other aspect of culture that has been greatly altered: religion.

Religion is a touchy subject for the Flowers, having been illegal under the ECU. The old Oligarchs didn't like having competition over the minds and hearts of the populace. Because who can compete against a god? What can move a man's spirit more than faith? So it was illegal, with the largest religious group- the Mixtists- being driven out of the cities and into the wilderness, or else being driven into hiding their faith from the world.

But now that the restrictions are lifted and they've finally been reunited, the Mixtists are beginning to realize that they aren't all the same any more.







Governance and Politics:

Although very new and deeply unstable, the new government of Bezia is quickly coming to resemble a "Direct Democracy." That is, it is becoming a system in which most laws and other affairs-of-state are decided not by rulers or representatives, but by votes direct from the people themselves.

You see, most every citizen on New Hollywood owns a device called the infopad, a descendent of the smartphone of Earth's past. Under the ECU, these devices were used primarily (by the individuals) as entertainment and (by the government) as a surveillance device. However, the Flowers have justly appropriated them for the purposes of democracy. When a governmental decision must be made, New Hollywood citizens receive a prompting on their infopads, detailing the issue and allowing them to vote on it. Everyone gets a say on... everything.

Now, you may wonder: who decides which votes are to be held? And who watches over the system altogether? That work is done via a mass Bezia Bureaucracy, the closest thing New Hollywood still has to a traditional government. Except that the bureaucrats are elected, if you can believe it, by lottery. Any citizen who volunteers can be randomly selected to serve as a bureaucrat.

The bureaucrats serve for one year, and have a limit of two consecutive terms at a time. They work outside of offices, primarily from their infopads, to regulate the voting process. And this also works democratically: while any citizen can propose a vote, it must receive approval from a certain number of bureaucrats before the rest of the population is prompted to vote on it. These bureaucrats are random and numerous, to outweigh any personal bias one may have against a particular proposal.

Therefore, the process goes as follows:

A Flower citizen, let's call her Jane Doe, proposes a law that bans the use of tobacco within public spaces. The Anti-Tobacco Proposal is sent to a randomly-selected group of bureaucrats, with each one voting on whether the Proposal is relevant and possible. After receiving sufficient approval from many individual bureaucrats, the Proposal then appears before the citizens themselves, who vote en masse on whether the Proposal is good.

As infopad messages are near-instantaneous, this entire process can happen quickly, sometimes within an hour. AI is currently being developed to detect redundant laws.

In this way, Bezia's population can now decide major issues with neither rulers nor representatives. No masters. No kings. Only the will of the people.

It is perfect.

It is not perfect.

The obvious problem with such a system is that humans, when in large groups, tend towards a mob-like mentality. Already, the punishments leveled on former protectors have been brutal and unusual- because the mob hates them. No education is required to vote, after all. You do not have to be smart, or understanding, or a good person.

There are particular critics who point these flaws out. Very often. They come from the other side of screens- because they are, of course, embedded in the media. The old Oligarchs still have many sympathizers within the media groups that they used to own, who still attempt to divide the new democracy. And yet, those media anchormen who no longer care for the Oligarchs might just be worse.

The news thrives on eye-catching, anger-inducing headlines. The kinds that naturally drive people towards political extremes. Many arguments are had between the viewers of different news stations who, for all intents and purposes, are beginning to live in different worlds. The headline of one station says this, and the headline of another says that. It splits the vote. How can they be reconciled?

Division already wants to tear apart this new democracy. Time will tell if it does.

Technology Overview:



Hardlight: Originally designed as touchable holograms, the hardlight of the ECU is currently being expanded for use in other fields, especially matters military. Holographic soldiers and hardlight shielding in particular are becoming trademarks of ECU defensive strategy.

Micro-emitters, a new invention, enable the use of touchable holograms everywhere. As these holograms are replacing real workers at an alarming rate, socialist policies have become markedly more popular. A vote will be held about this.

Terraforming: From strategically releasing climate-altering gases into the atmosphere to building gigantic, sun-reflecting mirrors in space, the WFD understands terraforming. Their own world has been shifted remarkably, from a wasteland to a little almost-clone of Earth. It's great! And now the thought has come up to terraform other planets in the Bezia system as new colonies, or even- would we dare it?- to terraform Earth itself back to life. But the decision has yet to be made. A vote will be held about this.

Psychological Programming: A dark secret, buried in the past that is the ECU, perhaps best left alone. They learned how to "brainwash" a person to obey specific commands at the hearing of specific trigger words. Their psychological warfare tactics have recently become infamous. The WFD has formally condemned the former, but holds a place in their armed forces for the latter.

Military Overview:



The WFD fleet is growing quickly, and is no longer just Old Earth designs. If recent events have taught the masses anything, it's that a good military is a necessity; they've been shot at by enough people to learn.

See, when the Oligarchs evacuated Bezia, they left their bank accounts behind. All currency and all assets- a staggering amount- have been seized by the Bezia Bureaucracy, to be used for funding public works. Like the navy. The navy is a public work.

And due to the abundance of metal resources on Bezia, many ships can be constructed cheaply. The Flowers lean deep into this advantage to create countless, small ships, manned by one at a time. They are inexpensive in design, simply armed, but numerous. In fact, the one area where the Flowers have splurged is in hardlight shielding, leading to a new nickname for the Flower's one-man fighters: "Shield Ships."



The name is accurate to their strategies, as well. Shield Ships in combat often act collaboratively, generating group shields around themselves and important assets. When a larger, "warship" size Flower vessel enters the battle, its smaller comrades will be spotted swarming around it in a cylinder pattern, cloaking the warship in their shields. They can then deactivate shielding at key points to allow the warship to fire projectiles, reactivating it after the missile has passed through.

This tactic can't go on forever- it is a huge drain on batteries- but for the moments it lasts, a Flower warship is nearly invincible.

Finally, and borrowing again from ECU strategy, fighter ships often flood comm channels with random noise, making it difficult for enemies to coordinate- but, as a consequence, making it laughably easy to detect the ships doing the jamming. Really, they expect to be detected. They have to fall back on that shielding to keep themselves safe.

Being such a self-sacrificing role, AI is currently being developed to "autopilot" smaller vessels. But the Flowers are three centuries behind in AI development: they will need foreign aid to complete this project.

[Side-note: Most Shield Ships are carried inside the warships themselves, to be released during combat]


Additional Info:

A search has began for the famous icon of the White Flower movement, Martina Ward, who was sentenced to exile by the ECU. She is likely somewhere in the ruins. She must be found and brought back to her people, to be told how much things have changed.

The Scuttler's Gang, a Neo London criminal organization who helped the Flowers win, has become increasingly agitated by their lack of repayment. They pose a real threat to local security. A vote will be held about this.

The more anti-cyborg Flowers still call Zetans "toasters," and refuse to stop even when it's making everyone else increasingly uncomfortable. A vote will be held about this.

Planet Name and Description:
New Hollywood. A world of dust, rust and ruins.

Humans are not the first people to live on this planet. The predecessors (named Bezians, after the planet's original name: Bezia-72b) were a sentient race who, like humans, built cities, paved roads, and discovered the world around them. Then they blew it up.

Nuclear war seems to have been the likely cause of the Bezian's extinction. Radiation levels have faded in the eons since it happened, but remain a hazard today. Along with the intense clutter of ruined cities, and the uncomfortable alien-ness of the environment, the ECU has been prompted to invest heavily in terraforming. To date, New Hollywood is five years into a complex process of being terraformed into an Earth-like paradise.

Only time will tell if it succeeds.

History:
The history of New Hollywood is bloody. The first occupants, the Bezians, destroyed themselves. And the Noocracy has put down many potential uprisings and "Anti-Earth activities" in the time since. A rough timeline follows.



Culture and Society:
Socially, the Earth Cultural Union is both incredibly diverse and incredibly traditional.

The focus of the ECU, as always, is to preserve the cultures of Old Earth as they were before the Fall. With this in mind, the Noocracy has pushed "Earth Culture Parties" as a craze among the youth. These are large and intense gatherings where participants take on new names for an evening, speak in Old Earth slang, and eat New Hollywood's best approximations of Earth food.

Not that the rest of New Hollywood doesn't "keep to the Culture." Even outside the parties, you could walk down any street in Neo London and see dozens wearing their sacred folk costumes of blue jeans and hoodies, Japanese kimonos, or lederhosen. If it's Earth, it's valid.

And then, naturally, some of those street-walkers are probably headed towards a Holograph Suite, where they'll be given a list of options for a night of entertainment. They can watch Shakespeare premiere at the Globe Theatre, for example. Or they can have an intimate (pre-scripted) chat with Marilyn Monroe.

These programs, as with everything in New Hollywood, come pre-approved by the Noocracy and represent Earth in only the best possibly light. A paradise. A place we should want to go back to. Home.



Governance and Politics:
"Noocracy," as defined by Plato, is rule by philosophers. As defined by the ECU, it is rule by the intelligent. A subtle difference, but vitally important.

The Earth Cultural Union ruling class, sometimes called the Oligarchy, maintains that its members represent the most intelligent and educated members of society. Early on in New Hollywood's history, entry into the Oligarchy required passing a rigorous technical exam, a certain level of required reading, and an I.Q. test rumored to break men's minds.

Today, it requires you to be born the child of an Oligarch.

Over the centuries, the standards of the Noocracy have gradually been corrupted. Whereas once one had to be an almost savant-like genius to gain real political power, now the Oligarchy is mostly an insular group of families and dedicated social climbers. But in order to maintain appearances, the Oligarchy still presents itself as representing intellectual refinement.

Therefore, young Oligarchs often increase their social standing by walking around in public with books, or paying more genuine scientists to do research on their behalf. (In fact, most scientists on New Hollywood work for Oligarchs. They publish no finds the Noocracy doesn't approve.) If you ask an Oligarch if they have any hobbies, they'll sigh dramatically and confess "Tragically, my uncomplicated companion, I have not the freedom to engage in fanciful recreations. But I digress- my studies, the foul mistress, call me again." They spend most of their time at Earth Culture Parties.

At least, that is the case for most Rulers of today. Lately, there seems to be one dangerous exception: James Heralds is a middle-aged Oligarch who is best described as "gray." His voice is gray, his thinking is gray, and his hair is gray. And he's terribly clever. He's managed to build up a power base among more weak-minded Oligarchs, and was just elected Savant (the formal head of the Noocracy) by a razor-thin margin.

Technology Overview:
With the Earth Cultural Union's obsession with preserving the past, no scrap of knowledge- no matter how trivial- has been allowed to go forgotten. Since reconstructing a damaged database carried on their Colony Ship, the ECU has been able to tell you everything from the lifespan of Hericium Erinaceus (40 years) to the color of Johnny Depp's eyes (chocolate brown).

And with the Noocracy's determination to prove their intellectual might, Oligarchs will often fund any number of scientific pet projects.

Terraforming in particular is a specialty- the ECU has managed to transform sections of New Hollywood into Earth-like paradises, and they've gotten to be very good at it. There have been some rumors that, if New Hollywood can be brought back to life, perhaps Earth can as well. But it remains only speculation.

Another field that has flourished in the Earth Cultural Union is the use of holographic simulations. The invention of Holographic Suites has allowed touchable holograms to bring any fiction to life, creating an entire world before the user's eyes. This is popularly used to both distract and indoctrinate the populace. (On the more practical side of things, scientists also use holograms for visualizing complex simulations. Before a new terraforming project gets underway, it's always run through the Holographic Suite a couple of hundred times, mapping out any potential side-effects.)

New Hollywood does, however, remain "behind the curve" when it comes to two fields: robotic automation, and gene modification. This is primarily because their research is banned on New Hollywood, due to a fear that such inventions would lead to a new humanity- contrary to the ECU's mission to preserve humans as they are.

Military Overview:
The ECU has not needed an army for some time. There was a violent period, roughly 150 years ago, where a large policing force was developed to put down rebellions, but that time has passed. Today, the people are easily occupied with holographic fantasies and revelry, and rarely think of politics long enough to oppose the government in anything.

The only exception remains the Protectors. Originally formed during the rebellions, the Protectors are a combination of soldiers and police. They are trained and indoctrinated by Holograph Suite programs which have been designed to teach them to love Earth, fear anything foreign, and practice violence without hesitation. Recently, these men have been placed formally under the control of Savant James Heralds.

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GOVERNMENT: Technocratic Council
DEMOGRAPHICS: 3.2 billion total / 1.2 billion living

Vampires are the ruling elite of the Technocracy, each given the Void Blood which grants them youthfulness, speed, strength and perception. They do not have any fear of things such as garlic or sunlight, yet gold and not silver causes them great discomfort and headaches. They are expected to be polymaths, using their long lives to become true masters of as many subjects as they can. Most vampires are "half blooded", descendants of vampiric parents and only get a portion of their powers even if they are born from two vampires. True vampires are rare due to the incredibly limited amount of Void Blood. They can control Wights and Reanimated via neural implants, letting them command "networks" of unliving. While undoubtfully beautiful in their own way, they also have an eldritch air about them as if something is wrong with them on a fundamental level, almost as if they don't belong in this reality. Their eyes in particular are the most unnatural as their pupils move and shift and they blink far less than is comfortable.

Wights are those of weaker vampiric blood or candidates who fail to meet the immense requirements of being granted the Void Blood. They are instead given a synthetic version of the Blood which is much weaker but still grants them more ability over the average human. They act as relay nodes with vampires delegating them some control of their network of zombies so they may control more overall. They are often managers and overseers of the undead, taking routine gene therapy treatments to prolong their lives along with mechanical implants of their own. Their own neural implants are superseded by those of the vampires, thus rarely has a wight ever defied one.

Reanimated or "Zombies" are the dead corpses brought back to live with implants, prosthetic and a few drops of the synthetic Blood. They are little more than puppets and empty shells, used by the Vampires and Wights for menial or dangerous tasks, providing a very comfortable standard of living for the living citizens of the Technocracy. They have no free will or agency of their own and must be commanded to do tasks and while they can understand fairly complex instructions and sequences, if not given new orders they will repeat their current tasks over and over and over.

DCI (short for "Digital Conscious Intelligence") are the literal ghosts in the machine. They are the neural patterns of those individuals who have been granted a type of immortality that even the Blood cannot provide. They are replace AI for many advanced computing systems, living in the Technocracy's vast data vaults and technology systems, and utilize advanced hardlight projectors to manifest static bodies that flicker as if in continuous flux. Thus they can interact with the physical world, manipulating objects and while they can reach through objects, they cannot move through them as their floating hardlight CPU core is still a physical object.

Humans make up about half the population at any given time. Not all of their dead are reanimated but upon their death, their bodies are properties of the states

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PLANET: Trifera

Trifera is a world dominated by wetlands, marshes and bogs. Forests and mangroves cover the surface with only cities and mountains to break it up and vast underground caverns and cave systems below. It is colder and wetter than Earth and thicker cloud cover meaning more rain, fog and mist. Yet the mists and fog are always seen as comforting and warming as it persists even when the sun does shine through. Soil is often rugged and rough; one of the Technocracy's greatest achievements was genetically engineering breeds of crops hearty enough to grow and thrive in the rough soil.

The cities appear isolated on the surface: large, gothic metropolitans nestled between endless forests but that is because many of it cities are actually icebergs. Living humans tend to dwell on the surface while vast underground areas are carved out for the hordes of Reanimated. Train tunnels and underground super highways actually link the cities making overland travel rare with only hamlets and villages ever going over the rough terrain to the cities.

HISTORY:

Before the Technocracy, there was the Party. The Party was made of opportunistic vultures and radicals who took power when the Gateways were cut off. Supported by elements of the military, brought over through bribes, promises or threats, they promised peace, stability and a return to a nonexistent "glorious" past. Instead they created a state thought fictional by many. Over generations and about a 100 years after Trifera was isolated, they created a dystopian state that had them at the helm. Dogmatic political fanaticism, wide spread surveillance, secret police, secret police for those secret police, hidden agencies and departments, constantly shifting imaginary enemies, constant shortages to just barely keep the population supported, a massive bloated military, censorship of history itself and the ability to command the populace to do whatever at their whim. Privacy was banned and facts had become subjective to what the party said. They very easily could have survived the next 200 years had they not dug too deep into both the planet itself and their own hubris.

Buried deep below the crust was the body of an ancient alien, eldritch and horrifically unnatural that drove the miners who first found it mad. The Party believed that with the body could come immortality, a brew of undying life so hidden with the body that still bled. Even the most loyal scientists however raised concerns, believing that the alien was something so alien that it wasn't even supposed to be in this reality, but the Party didn't care. They had already mastered their own planet, so their egos told them it was nothing to dissect some dead giant monster. So a research team was assigned to it, under heavy guard and told to ignore their feelings or doubt.

It took months and a great deal of "encouragement" by the security team but finally, the researchers had drawn and purified the unholy ichor of the eldritch monster to create what they dubbed "Void Blood". Initial tests were proving positive and the team wanted to do more tests on animals before moving to humans, but the Party got impatient. They demanded the samples for their own use and the researchers in perhaps the bravest act of their lives, refused. But bravery was a poor shield against bullets so the security detail gunned them down until only a handful remained, locked in the lab with their samples. In a final act of rebellion, they each injected or consumed the Void Blood, only to be transformed into the first Blooded vampires of Trifera. With their new power, the scientists slaughtered the unexpecting guards. And then their reinforcements. And then the army unit sent to reinforce the reinforcements.

As the Party bickered amongst itself on what to do, the researchers made busy by exploring their new powers and using the technology of the facility combined with the bodies of the dead guards to create for them an army they could control. The Party kept sending in soldiers and brigades, each one never to be seen again save as shambling reanimated corpses. Hidden among these forlorn assault groups were dissenting soldiers and officers who began to loose faith in the Party. When one of these men openly declared himself against the Party in the middle of a battle, he was cut down by his more zealous comrades before they were slain in turn. Mortally wounded and bleeding out, the scientists decided to give this man a touch of the Blood and thus was born the first Wight.

As their ranks swelled, the scientist's armies grew as did their followers of rebels and political escapees who thought that life and even death under them would be better than what the Party could ever give. And thus they were crowned the Midnight Technocracy as an ever growing undead legion followed them as they ventured beyond their desolate research facility and towards the cities. The Party employed ever more brutal tactics against them, culminating in scorched earth tactics of fire and toxins that did little to stop the undead but caused unheard of suffering to the living civilians. Even the most fervent of supporters found their faith shattered as their homes burned and skin melted off their bone. Many of these dying men and women had vengeance on their lips, vengeance the Technocracy was more than happy to ensured came true. One by one cities fell or raise their banners in support of the rebels and the Party fractured, each person blaming the other to make sure they would not be killed in ever larger purges.

When at last the Midnight Technocracy stood triumphant, their hordes tearing the remaining supporters limb from limb and throwing their screaming, bloody torsos off the highest skyscrapers, they had a choice as what to do next. They never intended to get so far, to actually supplant the Party. They all believed in meritocracy and the ideal of technocratic rule, but the framework the Party had left behind would ensure dominance over whoever held the keys. And so, like clockwork, the Midnight Technocracy inherited what the Party left behind, adapting and changing what they believed to be the most abhorrent aspects while keeping just enough to ensure that they and their successors would endure at the top of society.

It was only by a stroke of luck did they manage to recover the body of the beast and find another of its kind buried in the stone, perhaps a mate or a rival. They perfected their formula and managed to extract even more Void Blood from the corpses but their attempts to synthase it was met with failure. They could not make true Void Blood from nothing and even after centuries, they remain no closer to it. Thus they use their lesser synthetic Blood to create zombies and wights, reserving the true Blood for only the worthiest of heirs and accomplished individuals.

SOCEITY:

Life on Trifera is one where the line between living and dead is thin. Humans go about their day with shambling (but well kept) undead all around them in resplendent gothic-styled cities and live fairly comfortable and carefree lives because of it. Wights and Reanimated do a lot of the hazardous and menial labor which by passes both cost and ethical considerations in their minds. It is widely believed that the soul and the body are two separate entities and that the soul is immortal while the body is not thus once dying, the body can be used for whatever. Once a person dies, their body is treated as if it was an article of clothing as anything remotely "sacred" has left with the soul.

Cities are still bustling with trade and commerce as the living still busy themselves with work and school as those who distinguish themselves can be granted immortality or even the Void Blood. The Council implements a very "bread and circus" policy of keeping the living happy with cheap food and a variety of entertainment options as well as low taxes and a lot of discounted things all thanks to the undead labor force. Of course they make sure people know exactly how terrible the Party was and how the Council is nothing like them. Taxes are often so low that there is only one tax people actually pay attention to: the Blood Tithe. In lieu of monetary taxes, the Blood Tithe is where citizens are required to donate blood for the consumption for the vampire elite.

The upper class themselves like to dress like old aristocrats and Renaissance intellectuals. Their crypt halls and mausoleums are magnificent palaces full of artwork and wealth and displays of their own works, nothing like the dingy dank graves that first come to mind. Although a technocracy and undying, not even the vampires can resist material possessions and bragging rights. They do their best to make sure they look more than like the monsters of fairytale and while they've convinced Trifera, its unknown how the rest of humanity will view them. As for all of the splendor and benevolence they put on, they have their own networks and systems in place to stay in power and keep the living docile, lessons learned from the Party before them.

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ADMINISTRATION:

As its name implies, the Midnight Technocracy is run by a council of technocrats with only the most skilled, educated and cunning vampires allowed. Many have at least a century of undeath behind them and are wiser than any mortal human could hope to be. It is the original researchers and their progeny who sit upon the council, although beside them are a wide variety of advisors from other fields. While politics is no longer as cut throat as it was when the Party ruled over Trifera, scheming and plots can still be found only now they can take decades or even centuries to complete.

Collectively, those who sit upon the council are called Adjutants and among themselves they elect a Lord Director. Currently the Lord Director is a man called Vladimir Karamazov.

TECHNOLOGY:

What some would call "necromancy", the Midnight Technocracy calls "mortology" as to them, the masters of life and death they are, it is only magic if you do not understand the process. Gene modding, cybernetics and mechanical augmentation technology are all incredibly advanced as one might expect although it extends beyond simply humans. Animals have been crossbred and edited to create entirely new species such as the wolf-like Dire Beast or the dragon-like Umbragheist born of giant bats grown to unholy size. Plants as well have been grown to accommodate Trifera's climate with creations such as bloodberries, cave grain and several variety of edible mushrooms and exotic herbs.

Although highly advanced in some ways, manually operated machines are still widespread due to the fact that they can simply have zombies operate them. Farming, mining, simple assembly and construction work are often all done by huge teams of Zombies with a Wight overseer or two, sometimes operating heavy machinery and more complicated mechanisms to assist.

MILITARY:

It should come as no surprise that the Technocracy utilizes their unliving servants in military and security affairs. Fearless and incapable of feeling pain or denying an order, Reanimated soliders are given armor and short ranged or explosive weaponry and told to charge forward while the living human soldiers take their shots from afar. This "mass distraction" tactic is the go to strategy of the Undying Legions since their initial rebellion against the Party.

Along side the more traditional array of tanks, artillery and aircraft, the Technocracy makes use of a variety of genetically engineered warbeasts and bioweapons that can sow terror and fear into any unused to their presence. The vampires themselves are also terrifying opponents, both well versed in decades of tactical studies and honed martial prowess to the point that it is impossible for anything less than a full company to even attempt to take one down. Of course, full blooded vampires rarely go on the battlefield and instead half blooded vampires and wights are much more common.

The Technocracy benefits from having a much smaller supply line relative to the size of their forces. Curiously as zombies do not need to breath nor are they affected by the cold vacuum of space, the Technocracy often uses zombie boarding parties in naval combating, hiding them among debris or "stealthily" shooting them towards the ship without containers making them much harder to detect on most radars.

Planet Name and Description: Oria

It was a name picked by the astronomer that found the planet, a combination of his daughter's name, Aria, and the word Ore, of which the planet had plentiful. The planet was joked by some astronomers to be a giant ball of gold just floating in space, however the truth was that it was incredibly rich in ores and minerals of varying kinds, and a fortune for whoever landed upon it and took up the responsibility of mining it out. Today, those materials are mined out in plentiful numbers by the colonists (though, primarily by automated equipment).

Oria, however, was not uninhabited before the arrival of Humans. A species known as the Vacuarians were it's previous ruling inhabitants. Governed by hive minds, the Vacuarians are akin to man-sized insects, almost like ants. Brutally hostile to Humanity arriving on their planet, they wildly attack anyone that they take notice of, and are the primary threat that Humanity faces on Oria. However, they are not the only threat. The atmosphere is toxic to be breathed by itself, requiring a filtering process to be made breathable. The Vacuarians, and other native fauna, are capable of living within Oria's atmosphere.

History: Upon arriving at Oria, a test of the atmosphere confirmed that it was not breathable. Whilst people originally began to panic, soon they had a small colony started on the planet, however still mostly lived out of the colony ship. Research was put into filtering out the bad bits of the atmosphere and making it breathable, and in the meanwhile, life support from the ship was pumped into the colony's buildings. It was a haphazard setup, but it worked, and the most that they had to worry about was the local fauna getting riled up, to which security cut down quickly. A local species was identified as the Vacuarians, and was labelled as not friendly to Humans, and not friendly to eat. The first settlement was named Hellgorth, a fitting name for the hell that many believed that they had landed themselves in.

Four years down the line, there had been problem after problem. The planet was becoming unbearable to live on, and with the Gateway closed, the colonists could not retreat and call the landing a failure. The newly formed Zelrio Corporation was using what shuttles the company owned to build itself a small facility in space in order to cut down on costs planetside, and to get itself a head-start for the space stage of the colony. However, the space stage, rather than coming when the planet had multiple settlements in place, came a lot earlier than expected. With all the problems occurring, none could compare to the colony coming under unexpected attack.

On the fifth year of the colony, the Vacuarians revealed themselves to be more than just mindless fauna. The first attack was small, albeit unexpected, however soon enough more attacks came, sometimes days apart, sometimes weeks apart. Large, insect-like creatures were storming into Hellgorth and attacking whoever they saw until being repelled, and then doing it again when the next attack came. This was the last straw for the colonists, and they began looking for other planets on the system to move their colony to. However, with so many supplies already on Oria, the effort to pick up and leave would likely lose a lot of those supplies, and the people to go with them. A full year was spent searching for solutions, only to come up with nothing. So, instead, the people of Oria looked to the Zelrio Corporation, who had began further expanding their operations into space after the attacks on Hellgorth. Soon, the population began to transition into life in space.

Many years later, Hellgorth remains the primary settlement of Oria, with a population of 120,000. In place of homes, it has gigantic smeltery plants, which processes everything that is mined on the planet before it is sent up the Tristam Space Elevator for further processing and usage in space. The Zelrio Corporation no longer is overseen by the government, as it is the government after widespread praise for it's work in pulling everyone off of Hellgorth. Space around Oria is peppered with many stations of varying kinds, from habitat stations to gigantic spacedocks and assembly areas.

Culture and Society: With the majority of the population living in space, there is often the worry of food. Most grown food comes from gigantic hydroponics farms, however the vast majority of meat is synthetic. Real meat is a luxury that is often only affordable to the upper class, as there is little space to host large amounts of livestock. On the other hand, water comes from ice asteroids within the system as well as being sent up from the surface (the latter of which often needs to be filtered to make safe to drink), and is recycled constantly, enabling a supply good enough to keep the population going.

The population often has to undergo training in order to survive in emergency situations. As well as having spacecraft licences and firearms licences, they also have emergency procedure trainings that have to periodically renew, with risk of arrest for those who do not renew their training, therefore putting habitats at risk. Due to the entire colony being run by the Zelrio Corporation, they often use punishments that benefit them, such as indentured servitude.



Governance and Politics: At a normal citizen's level, things are almost equivalent to a democracy. Citizens elect officials to help make decisions about the sectors that they live in, and where the funding that they are given is delegated. Habitat Councilmen, the head of each habitat (and the one who decides what sector each sector receives in finances) is also elected by the citizens of that habitat. Above that, decisions are handed directly to the Zelrio Corporation's directors, who are promoted from various places, such as of long-standing councilmen to employees hired directly by the corporation. Many director positions exist; The Habitat Director is the individual responsible for the management of all habitats, for example, just as the Financial Director controls finances all throughout Zelrio territory. At the top of the chain is the Zelrio National Director, who serves as the nation's top executive. When the National Direction passes away, or steps down, the position is then taken by their chosen Deputy National Director.

Technology Overview: The Zelrio Corporation has made significant strides in automated technology. Due to a lack of manpower at the beginning, robotics were introduced to fill in gaps, and that soon moved onto drone technology, using automated drones to search for the best deposits to mine from, and in many cases, to do the mining itself. Over time, growing trust in their advancements, the technology was moved to the military, and soon, drone carriers and other drone-related technologies were born and utilised, as well as the introduction of Artificial Intelligences. Command and Control technologies also advanced as a result of this, in order to be able to properly manage and control automations.

In addition to automated technology, cyber-defence and in turn cyber-offence became a large point of research, primarily for defending all of the technological advances that had been created. Whilst cyber-defence research was spread all throughout Zelrio territory, all cyber-offense technologies are given to Zerlio's military divisions and banned for anyone else to have or make use of; Those who manage to break cyberdefence test servers are rewarded for showing and reporting the exploit, providing incentive for others to help create an impenetrable system.

To defend their orbital habitats, the Zelrio Corporation has also put significant research into defence technologies, primarily in point defence in order to defend against asteroids and microasteroids, but additionally into shield technologies and other methods of defending themselves.

Due to mostly having to live in space, significant research has been put into Zero-G construction. As a result, construction of space structures and spacecraft has advanced to high levels, with new methods in place to both improve construction, and increase it's speed. New technologies and large orbital construction yards help to facilitate these advances.

Finally, and perhaps the most criminal of their technological advances, Space-To-Ground ordinance has also received a some research. Safe ways of bombing planets from orbit have been developed in order to counter outbreaks of Vacuarians on Oria with both precision and efficiency, without damaging the planet itself.

Military Overview: The Zelrio Corporation's military efforts are primarily focused on space domination. Despite living as a lonely colony for many years after the Gateways closed, the Corporation still holds a small navy due to the need to protect their stations from any threat that occurs. Most of these ships are small ships, along the lines of corvettes and frigates, however the proudest ships of the fleet would be the Drone Carriers. Because drones don't require air to breathe nor rations to feed, the carriers do not have internal hangars. Drone Fighters are stored on external racks, squeezed together with just enough room for the rearmament equipment to slip between every drone. A full compliment of drones costs about half as much as the carrier itself, however the ability to field that much ordinance with numerous fighters ensures it's an efficient payoff, and allows them to patrol their areas of space diligently, arresting (or eliminating) criminal ships.

Every ship and station holds a compliment of Zelrio marines, who take up the role of the police on board every ship, as well as the boarding force for any ship or station in space that requires boarding action. The marines are supported by infantry drones on larger operations in order to bulk up their numbers. The marines are rarely deployed groundside. Instead, that role is taken up by the Combat Controllers, which are Zelrio's Special Forces. These highly trained troops are deployed in very small numbers with their primary objective being to find and eradicate Vacuarian nests. They can often be in the field for weeks or even months, locating nests and calling in strikes from orbit. More often than not, they are supported by infantry drones, though many Combat Controllers opt to deploy on their own or with a few buddies to avoid detection. In addition to ground operations on Orea, Combat Controllers often deploy on other celestial bodies both for training, and to root out anyone that may be living on them, such as criminal gangs. Combat Controllers are among the most respected people in all of Zelrio, and it's commonly joked that one could take over a government with just a satellite communications kit.

Apart from the Combat Controllers, the other groundside element is the Zelrio Security Force. These troops aren't large in number, and aren't as experienced as even the Zelrio marines. The security forces are used to defend the groundside facilities of Oria and primarily the space elevator. They are additionally used to escort any ground convoys that require human support, though a lot of their role is facilitated by automated technology such as defence drones.


Additional Info:

Planet Name and Description: FT-8PO III - Ellara

At first sight from space, this planet might remind you of Earth. It has vast oceans surrounding several continents and countless islands, thick jungles as well as temperate forests, wide rivers as well as small streams, dry deserts as well as fertile lowlands. But do not be mistaken. This planet is hell. EVERYTHING here will try to kill you. Vast oceans are filled with creatures that would make megalodons cover and run in fear. The mainland is home to various predators - resembling Earth's felines, canines, reptiles, avians. You name it, Ellara has it. Of course, not all animals are first-hand dangerous. Some will just make their way into your storage facilities and eat or destroy all your food. Others will be attracted to the scent of fuel so badly, they will commit mass suicides drowning in your fuel tanks, rendering the content unusable. Some will just try to eat a tiny piece of you or suck your blood. Yes, alien mosquitos. Do I need to say more? How about a corroding fungus? Pollen that dissolves your mucous membrane and makes you sneeze blood until you die? Aggressive natives? I think you got the idea. No surprise that the ship's captain decided to call the planet after his ex-wife.

Three moons orbit Ellara. The smaller two are just lifeless useless rocks that might look pretty in the night sky but add no real value to the colony. The third (nicknamed Donut for its unusual shape) however carries large ore deposits easily accessible from its surface.

History:
When the SS Proxima exited the gateway near a beautiful, habitable planet, the colonists couldn't believe their luck. The ship landed a few hundred miles off the equator, on a flat area near an enormous lake. All the colonization procedures were started and 370 000 excited people swarmed out of the ship. Land, aerial, and water survey teams were dispatched to scout the immediate area. Other groups unloaded cargo, builders started to assemble prefabricated shelters brought from Earth; founding the city of New Haven. The basic infrastructure was ready in just a couple of hours and everything was looking great for the new colony.

The first sign of trouble was losing contact with the survey teams. One by one they failed to report. Only two teams ever returned, although you can hardly call it a return in either case. One heavily damaged hovercraft crashed on the outskirts of the new city, none of the crew survived. And a couple of hours later one man tottered out of the treeline. The scout was delirious, his body horribly swollen, fever clouding his mind. He kept mumbling something about trees and screeches and died just a few hours later. The next morning, 18 people reported feeling sore and swollen joints and having a fever. By evening it was 600. The 'Elbow fever' swept through the population during the following weeks, with an alarming death toll of over 70 000 people. And while the devastated population was trying to recover, a new threat came.

Even though the initial scans of the planet didn't show any signs of technology, it didn't mean it was uninhabited. The locals were primitive humanoids, comparable to humans of the Late Stone age. They were taller and considerably stronger than an average human, their long limbs allowed them to be incredibly agile. If their race had a name, they didn't bother to share it. They showed no interest in communicating with their new neighbors and immediately began to attack them. The natives were well adjusted to the local environment and could move through the terrain almost unnoticed, making it nearly impossible for the colonists to follow when they retreated. Even though armed only with primitive weapons, mostly spears and clubs, their brutal attacks claimed many lives. Given the huge technological advantage that New Haven residents had, the locals died by hundreds, even thousands. And yet there always seemed to be more coming.

As no war was expected when founding a new colony, only about 5% of the original SS Proxima crew were professional soldiers. Another 10% had some degree of military training but had never been in real combat before. There were enough scientists, teachers, people of countless imaginable arts and crafts, builders, farmers, even philosophers, economists, politicians were in abundance. But there weren't enough people capable (and willing) to fight. Even at that time, voices were demanding to stop the violence against the 'helpless primitives' and to start a dialogue with them. This pacifist wing was small but very loud, always questioning every decision that the newly founded parliament made, stalling it by endless debates about the value of all lives.

The democratic system was showing its greatest flaws and people kept dying. The captain of the SS Proxima Grant Park and the military commander general Erling Thorsen couldn't sit by and watch it any longer. They gathered what remained of the military units and took control of New Haven. The parliament was dissolved, martial law declared and all power was transferred to Park, Thorsen and a group of high-ranked officers called the Guardians. Every able man or woman was drafted and trained in combat. Unnecessary buildings were dismantled and used to build fortifications around the city center. New Haven slowly started to transform into what later became known as the Citadel. Those who opposed the new system were quickly dealt with - a few public executions for the biggest trouble makers and years of forced labor for the rest.

As the colony expanded, slowly pushing the locals away from their territories, there was an increased need for a workforce. Even though every person who for whatever reason failed to join the military was given some 'lower' manual labor job, it still wasn't enough to fill all the positions in newly opened mines, farms, or factories. Thorsen and the Guardians decided to start capturing the enemies whenever possible and putting them to work. Captain Park was against it, objecting against the brutal force that had to be used on natives to make them compliant. He was quickly pushed out of the leading position and when he tried to raise his voice in public, his heart suddenly gave out. During the hero's funeral general Thorsen held a long speech, in which he declared the newly founded country to be a military state. The nation of the Undefeated had only one goal - to take control of the entire planet eliminating all threats it would come across. The speech was met with thunderous applause.

Now, almost 300 years later The Undefeated control most of the central continent save from a few harder accessible areas in which smaller groups of natives may still be hiding. There are small strongholds along the coast of the northern continent and heavily armed divisions frequently venture inland to 'clear out' any threats and make room for more expansion.

Culture and Society:
Society is heavily focused on warfare, military aspects influence every part of people's lives. All children attend military academies and their skills are continuously tested, focusing mostly on strength, stamina, agility, and combat theory. Those who fail to pass these tests are expelled and become members of the lower 'caste' of people - the Rejected. The Rejected are still considered citizens but are only allowed to get simple and manual labor jobs and are generally despised by the rest of the population. There is one exception - Rejected that are exceptionally intelligent can obtain assistant positions in scientific facilities.

Aside from military success, science is the only other area in which a person might gain some social status. After the war with the natives started, the science was heavily focused on warfare, but as the situation became more stable, it allowed the scientists to also focus on improving medicine, farming technology, and other areas that were deemed useful for the new nation.

The culture on Ellara is unsurprisingly focused on all kinds of sports. The Olympics are held each year and several smaller races or tournaments in whatever you can think of are split evenly in between. It is common to see people workout in parks, there are multiple shooting ranges in each neighborhood. Art is not forbidden, but it is considered to be entertainment for the losers and unworthy - anyone who wants to climb through the ranks cannot be seen watching a theatrical play or painting a picture.



Governance and Politics:
The whole nation is controlled by the military. The highest position is the Grand General, supported by a group of 12 high-ranking officers called the Guardians. They have absolute power over everything that goes on in the whole country. These positions are usually held till death (or until physical condition no longer allows them to perform the duties).
On lower levels, the power is distributed according to military ranks.

Technology Overview:
For a long time, the technology level (aside from military technology) remained the same as it was on Earth. Some progress has been made since the Undefeated started to win the war and push the enemy away from the Citadel. The discovery of modular fusion reactors allowed new towns and strongholds to quickly become self-reliant. Currently, the researchers focus on making it small enough so it could be used to power smaller aircraft or troop carriers.

The field of medicine was crucial throughout history, from the very beginning when the Elbow fever was decimating the population and then during the endless conflicts with the natives. Progress was made in traumatology, tissue regeneration, transplants, prosthetics, antibiotics, and many other areas.

The main focus has always been on the main planet and so research of space flight and associated technologies is currently on the same level as it was when the colony ship left Earth. The Undefeated have several smaller spacecrafts that have been used to explore the planet's satellites and preparations are underway to start a mining colony on the biggest moon.

Military Overview:
The Undefeated military system is very complex and the whole society revolves around it. All adult citizens (except for the Rejected) are considered troops and have a military rank. The troops are assigned into divisions that rotate in being deployed into hot zones. Each division is split into several squadrons which then divide into platoons and squads. Some squadrons are specialized in different types of combat, some are medical or engineering units.

Most troops fight as heavily armed infantry. Equipped with a protective exoskeleton, they are shielded not just from enemy spears and arrows, but also from some of the aggressive wildlife. It also helps them to match the strength of the natives, should hand-to-hand combat occur. They can be armed with automatic laser weapons, projectile sidearms, different types of grenades, rocket launchers, flame throwers, or whatever else is necessary for a given environment. The troops are transported in armored hovercrafts, aircrafts, or amphibious transporters.

Long-range artillery and strategic bombers are often used to destroy enemies from a safe distance, using either conventional explosive missiles, or chemical and biological weapons. Even though the enemy doesn't possess flight technologies, the airspace is far from safe. Large reptiles similar to pterodactyls roam the skies of the equatorial area in great numbers and will attack anything that disrupts their territory. Northern regions are inhabited by smaller birds of prey, not a huge threat to the aircraft, but strong wind and violent storms are a constant danger here.

Planet Name and Description: Columbia is an Earth-like world dominated by vast oceans. Thousands of islands both big and small dot its surface and as well hosting several medium-sized continents. Over two centuries after their arrival, the colonists of Columbia had managed to colonize the Columbia's moon of Horizon, an arid, dry, but breathable moon, not unlike Mars of Sol.


History: The initial colonization was a rough process, many losing their lives in the crash that followed. Once the dust settled, proper colonization had begun. Despite Columbia’s near perfect conditions, the planet hid its own share of peril as the settlers had to contend with dangerous new forms of alien fauna, and the native Urkani, who did not take the presence of the colonists too well. Over the coming decades the colonists would undergo periods of civil unrest and division as new settlements dotted the landscape, while contending with Urkani raiders.

By the year 100 AC, tensions escalated as power blocs formed among the numerous colonial settlements, two of the most prominent and historically significant of which were the Southern Alliance, the URC's precursor and its rival and instigator of events to come, the Northern Colonial Coalition. The Unification War was declared and for over a decade, the two blocs would fight tooth and nail, the prize being complete domination of Columbia. In the end, the Alliance would prove victorious, the NCCs defeat would signal both the end of the division and the rise of the United Republic of Columbia.

The next century would mark a new age of space exploration as mankind would seek the stars once more. This era would lead to the colonization of Horizon, Columbia's moon, and the establishment of orbital infrastructure.

By the year 265 A.C., Columbia would face its greatest threat. An elusive alien empire from the far reaches of known space, the Yulzan, had sent a massive invasion armada to conquer what they believed to be an vastly underdeveloped system, regardless of any miscalculations, the invasion proceeded as scheduled. For fifteen years, the URC struggled against the Yulzan warmachine, battle and battle lost in the early years. Miraculously, however, the URC would emerge victorious in the end, sending the Yulzan back into the dark void of space.

While the war was won, Columbia herself was scarred, and battered, the war leaving its marks. countless numbers of slave soldiers of the Yulzan were left stranded on a hostile alien world, many fought to the bitter end, most however, surrendered themselves to the URC, helping rebuild the world they helped broke in exchange for citizenship, to be free for the first time in forever.

Twenty years passed since the war's end, the URC has mostly recovered in the aftermath, but many scars still linger deep down. A military outpost was built at the far reaches of Columbia's Orbit, it's main and only purpose was to monitor space beyond their borders, watching every vigilantly in case the Yulzan were ever to return.

Culture and Society: The People of Columbia are a diverse, traditional, and liberty-mind sort of people, importing old beliefs and traditions from Old Earth, and adapting and reshaping it on their new home, intergrading values and traditions of their xeno compatriots. They are an industrious, adventurous people who all seek a better tomorrow in their own respective image. While not inherently warlike, the people of Columbia are no stranger to war, and are always on the defensive, from the lowly citizens, to the most well-trained of soldiers.



Governance and Politics:
The Columbian Government is split between Three Branches, the Executive Branch, that being the Office of the URC Chancellor who is both the Head of the Senate and the Commander-in-Chief of the Republic Armed Forces. One of the many tasks of a Chancellor consist of the creation of Laws, the signing of articles of diplomatic importance such as treaties, to appoint judges for the Interstellar Court and so on.

The Legislative Branch, that of which being the Senate. The Senate's main tasks consist of the passing of laws brought forward by the Chancellor, passing or vetoing Legislation by the Chancellor, and are to give consent to enact a Declaration of War. And finally, there is the Interplanetary Court, who are responsible for the enforcement of the Laws created by the Chancellor and passed then enacted by the Senate. IC Judges are appointed by the Chancellor.

Technology Overview: Columbian technological progress had hit certain bumps during the initial colonization of the planet, Columbian technology reaching to an old earth level, if lagging behind in certain aspects. The war against the Yulzan and the years after have led to some interesting innovations. Among the first were the Combat Frames, humanoid war machines developed to counter Yulzan mechs, followed by improved medical technologies, directed energy weapons, and anti-gravity vehicles, most of which is still in the development stages as the present.

Military Overview: Only twice in the three hundred year history of the colony has the Columbian Military had to go through radical reforms to meet the demands of the time, first was the Unification War, and last was the more recent Yulzan War. The Military had went from a glorified security force, to a fully-fledged militarized warmachine. The years following the Yulzan War saw some reduction and downsizing in military capacity. While a large military was no longer needed in peacetime, a standing military nonetheless, was needed, especially with ever present fear of a Yulzan return hanging over their heads.




Additional Info:

Nation Name: The Xandalian Republic

Government Form: Unitary Democratic Republic

Demographics:

***Humans (Homo sapiens sapiens fotis) - The humans of the Xandalian Republic, looking the same outwardly save for their notably improved physiological capabilities and denser bodily tissues (see the first part of the “History” section for further details). Can interbreed with other humans who haven’t been too varied from the standard, generally passing on a few improvements to the children in the process, but are incompatible with wholly-changed humans or those whose genetics are too twisted to pair with theirs.

***Gusb - Sentient and sapient silicon-based life forms that originated from the planet of Karag in the same home system as Xandal. Their bodies might be silicon-based, but are hardy and can subsist on even carbon-based worlds due to generations of evolutionary adaptation (and some gene therapy) and the odd way their homeworld evolved to sustain life. Their race eventually became advanced, and detected human technology from afar...yet thought it was another sentient species itself. They thus arrived at Xandal, but were unable to recognize humanity as a sentient species and the machines as just tools at first and engaged in a war until the truth was discovered. Feed on electrical impulses and silicon-based foods primarily back home, but on carbon-based worlds their cells utilize a form of Cellular Nuclear Transmutation to form the needed silicon from carbon and so forth with other materials for their nutritional needs.

They do have a division of sexes, though in total there are 3. “Sex A” and “Sex B” can both mate with C and give birth to young, but note mate with each other. A only produces young of the C sex, and B only produces A and B young.



Population: 3.2 Billion (3.1 Billion Humans, 0.1 Billion Gusb)



Planet Name and Description: Xandal - A beautiful, flourishing planet the literal size of Jupiter, with wide temperate zones in the north between the large equatorial/tropical lands and the rather large northern pole (near which are terrains such as taiga and such things). In the south below the equator there are areas of desert and savannah and such dryer lands, but as one approaches the south pole things become rapidly cold and many icebergs can be found in seas near the southern pole. The spread of climes and types of wildlife is generally analogous to Earth, but the wider equatorial area and far colder/large poles have led to some interesting species evolving.

(A very barebones description added real fast because brain hurts and most of this was made super late the night of the 28th of May. XD)

History:



Culture and Society: Xandalian Society is one that generally embraces the efficient and latest in advancements, emphasizing a preparedness for bad events and sustaining the freedoms of its citizen species. Citizens as a general body enjoy the latest in civilian products and technologies made possible by continued advancements in Thalarite and its studies, ranging from clean energy producing miniaturized Thalarite-Engine vehicles to appliances that generally make daily life easier to manage for busy citizens. They are generally an industrious and resilient bunch, generally respect their elders, enjoy anime (the original colonists took to it and evolved it on their own), and who will on one hand work their hardest to accomplish their goals but also raise up arms to shoot anything that threatens their home with a zeal.

Whilst not unfriendly to outsiders, and even adaptable as immigrant species might come into their fold and are welcome to, they are also stalwart about being able to live their own way of life freely and frankly are stubborn about it. For others to force that on them is a terrible thing to do, but ironically likewise can relate to getting involved in things for their own interests. The desire to rehabilitate or at least study the old Earth of their ancestors is a matter that has floated about in the public eye at some point, and with the opening of the Gateway things have become even more interesting as unknown empires or friends or nasty things lurk beyond.



Governance and Politics: Governance of the Xandalian Republic takes the form of simpler but more efficient unitary models at the local and district and regional levels. Excessive amounts of staff and overcomplicated bureaucracy are avoided, and as such the elections for these positions are usually big turnouts and a major deal.

Above this there is the simple and full power of the Central Government. The Central Government takes the form of the neatly organized Senate, which represents the various groups and constituencies of the republic and is elected from all over, but which has the ultimate power. This body of the Senate controls the legislation, appointing by two-thirds majority an Executive Officer who is fully answerable to the Senate and executes the law and leads the military as the Head of the Military by the Senate’s permission. The Senate also appoints the Head Judge, who presides over a council of 7 judges they appoint and that the Senate approves and confirms.

Being a Unitary state the Central Government has the power, and has delegated power to the elected lower authorities to maintain over a given area (but with these lesser authorities still being answerable to the Central Government). As the Senators of the Senate represent the will of the people from all over the nation, they seek to reflect that lest they not be able to be re-elected to their Senatorial office. Functions of the various levels of government are kept streamlined and effective, from the judges to the legislation, and whilst the Central Government is given full political power it is also legally formed by the will of the people (thereby keeping it in-check from going full-tyrant).

The system can respond to threats and other actions with great speed, maintains a consistent system of communication on all governmental levels, and is ultimately the final form of governance formed during the Xandalian Republic’s history.

Technology Overview:

***Thalarite Technology -

(A) unique mineral on the world that came to be called “Thalarite”. This mineral, named after the scientist who first made the breakthrough of its uses (that being one ‘Thatcher Larsson’), had little known about its properties once it was first dug up in the 3rd year after the colonists settled. Many thought it to have been ionized by natural deep underground radioactivity, as being a decaying nuclear byproduct of some kind from some long lost ancient civilization or former settlers on the planet that left, or even as being the leftovers of ancient fossilized life. The theories would greatly abound until Thatcher discovered the mineral’s true nature: It was at base a simple mineral with many potent, versatile properties. The more it was refined the more energistic it became, and likewise the more compressed it was the more exponentially dense (and more energized in this case too if refined enough) it became, making it perfect for powering machines and vehicles and reactors and forming metal plates and such out of in the long term. The molecular structure was able to be compressed with minimal-to-low levels of refinement to create a passively semi-charged metal that could be used for military armor and so forth, as well as making civilian things such as dense metal sheets whose semi-charge would be able to be transmitted to weak electronics designed to take in that passive charge. Thalarite could also be turned into liquid fuel through much processing, though the mineral with low-to-moderate refinement was proven to make better quality and longer-lasting fuel than the unrefined mineral.

Transmitting the energy of the Thalarite was also found to be possible, albeit only some time later, making wireless power transmission and wireless charging and so forth rather viable.

A unique mineral of Xandal that, by current times, is both mined and synthesized to power the nation’s technology and fulfill other uses. When mined it looks like a silvery-gray rock that can’t be seen into (much less seen through), but as it is refined and purified it becomes a silvery/dark purple colored mineral. The more refined it is the more crystal-like its appearance and structure becomes, and the most highly purified Thalarite looks like a stunning pure light purple (as the coloration gets lighter and the faint silveriness is lost the more it is refined) cluster of crystals that is actively glowing said color and has raw energy literally crackling over its surface constantly and is too dangerous to not be contained within proper measures.

The uses of this mineral are incredibly diverse, ranging from fuel to engines to reactors to bombs and powering mechs and appliances to being used as armor and even medical applications and so forth. It is what revolutionized Xandalian technology the most of all things that have been found or developed there over the last three centuries. Also due to this revolution of technology, citizens are not rather used to non-Thalarite technology and its operation...though contact with the Gusb has mitigated this issue ever so slightly over the last century. Historians have records about non-Thalarite tech, as do the archives of the old former colony ships that remain public displays and are well-maintained as national history/planetary history exhibits. There are also a few major museums that display Thalarite artifacts and teach about the origins of Thalarite and the time period of “The Thalarite Century”.

(Aside: Was inspired by Ragnite and Ragnite-applicable tech from the “Valkyria Chronicles” game series.)

***Xandalian Mechs - A technological innovation whose roots began within The Thalarite Century, their idea beginning in the form of worker-piloted Labor-Frames (as the tech was called at the time) that used a humanoid designs scheme. When Labor-Frames were often weaponized for their use in revolts and various conflicts, those with humanoid frames were found to be more versatile in application. By the end of The Thalarite Century, many of these had been built or converted into military-style bots to be used alongside standard types of military vehicles or cobbled-together ones that so colored that time period, and came to become the blueprints for the Central Government that emerged from the end of that time period.

Sixty years of peace would allow for a semi-active development of these in order to raise effectiveness and hold them to a higher standard. In this vein the “Military-Frame Type 1” would emerge as the first ‘proper’ humanoid mech unit, and at first was mostly used in ground operations. It sported a wide base variety of equipment that it could both carry and have attached to it, but lacked the sophistication and fine-tuning of much later models. Whilst this would be the primary line that was used and upgraded, later experimental sub-types would emerge including (but not limited to):

-The “Military-Frame Type 2: Underwater Model” initially emerged as a design for deep sea operations and underwater combat, using long-reach melee weapons like harpoon-tipped spears, ranged components such as sophisticated torpedo launchers, advanced propeller technology for swift movement and evasive potential, and having both a far denser armor and an ‘Antique Diving Helmet’ style look around the cockpits for pilot protection/insulation. These units proved to be rather poor in effect when trying to move on land, making the design not good for amphibious assaults as the designers had hoped for, leading to the creation of the more successful “Military-Frame Underwater Type 2.5: Deep Sea Model” that abandoned the legs altogether, increased propulsion power, increased torpedo armaments, and kept the arms as the design became more compressed and crab-like aside from the head that sat on-top. These would be held underneath naval vessels, or dropped from the air, entering the water to perform operations.

-There was also the “Military-Frame Type 3: Paratroop”, which initially used a glider-style design and took on the role of a paratrooper-style mech dropped into combat zones by larger aircraft. Armor was lightened for carrying purposes, and their weapons standardized and lightened for swift and versatile use in the field, but proved to be ill-effective against heavily-fortified or highly-entrenched positions unless paired with a proper ground assault. In this manner they were successful, but ultimately led to improvements in aircraft and glider technologies that culminated in the making of the “Military Frame Attachment Line: Aviator” line of equipment that allowed standard ground mechs with better armor and far greater speed to deploy in the air for a limited time and land behind enemy lines.

Ultimately, the development of Xandalian mechs would close in on its speak during the shorter but far more intense fighting of “The Seven Years Tragedy”. Here the mechs would finally take on a space-variant simply dubbed the “Military-Frame Type 4: Exocombat Model”, which would prove effective at moving through space and landing on either of the two moons of Xandal (whose atmospheres were not as intense as that of Xandal itself). By the end of the war, the mechs received significant upgrades, mostly as an all-purpose unit was desired for the various theaters of war, and thus was born the “Military-Frame Version 2.0.”, which took the best from different models and past instances and data from the war to create a highly-advanced warform that could go underwater, fight in space, fight on the ground, and could make use of hard-mounted specialized loadouts (ones that admittedly had to be changed prior to deployment) to take on various types of missions from the same base frame. Versatile carried equipment that could be carried was also still made available, though it was far from the main emphasis now, which could act as Supplementary Equipment for units in the field depending on one’s tastes or the given operation/situation at hand.

This version of the mech could also undergo atmosphere re-entry, and exit with rocket assistance, directly. They could withstand the vacuum of space and the farthest of underwater depths, and utilize attachments updated for them to get behind enemy lines in planetary engagements. Omni-Adaptive Thruster technology made maneuverability in space or underwater much easier at that! Thalarite Armor and use of alien-inspired Thalarite energy shielding technology, the latter of which plays into atmospheric re-entry and exit capabilities directly, would give suitable versatile defensive capabilities for the Military-Frame Version 2.0. as well.

By current times, the design of the latest version has been ongoing, already seeing another generation of the Military-Frames pass on to the distinctly better “3.0.” version in regards to armaments and attachments and even the base mechs in full. Currently there are highly experimental but even more advanced “4.0.” versions, but none have been deployed into the field yet beyond limited experimental test runs thus far. Rumors say some of these fourth-generation Military-Frames themselves wield even more incredible highly experimental technology, ranging from micro-thrusters with manyfold the output of current standard ones...to even incredibly miniaturized supercomputers that analyze the battlefields the pilot is one, learn from them, and beam predictive battle info directly into the pilot’s mind for moment-to-moment battle adaptation capabilities (better and better so the more the mech is used in battle against various types of foes and strategies).

In the end, the Xandalian Mech is a technology that is no slouch when put to proper use.

(Aside: Was inspired by Gundams, because I thought that was cool. Experimental 4th generation models are highly experimental for a reason too, but still cool Gundams. Yeah!)

***Gusb Technology - Some of this has been imported alongside immigrants, but most of it has been adapted or converted to Thalarite power sources or is in its ‘true’ form only ever kept in scientific labs for study and research. This tech originated by the Gusb species works originally off of electrical/unidentified-alien-gas hybrid form of power created from a form of advanced-fusion energy tech. This Gusb energy tech utilizes a naturally-occurring and distinctly radioactive (by old Earth radiation detector measurements at least) alien mineral nicknamed “Gusbite” by those on Xandal (since the Gusb name for it is indecipherable by the human tongue). This mineral, which goes far beyond the old Earth period table, produces a more violent and far more intense reaction when enriched and used to create a far more advanced and potent fusion reaction. Little else is known or understood about it, save that it isn’t used on Xandal and the Gusb use it to create ‘batteries’ that are used to power their tech on the small scale and to make ‘reactors’ that power larger-scale tech such as their battleships and cities back home.

***Basic Translator Technology - Basic translation technology developed within the last 100 years after the advent of “The Seven Years Tragedy”. Gusb immigrants usually equip themselves with these for an ease of communication, though more have begun to learn the human tongue and some humans have learned to speak what of the Gusb tongue they can pronounce. Mostly acts as a basis for more advanced translation technology for the Republic post-Gateway-opening at some point.

Military Overview:

***Planetary-Level Combat - On-planet battles are predominantly divided into Land, Air, and Sea divisions.

Land Divisions are initially begun by deploying Xandalian Mechs, who take territory and handle enemy entrenchments/fortresses along the way. They are the vanguard of the Xandalian military, and generally will soften up areas and handle larger-scale threats, large enough warforms, and larger enemy numbers. Infantry equipped with protective insulated Thalarite-polymer armor and effective Thalarite laser weapons, brought in by and working alongside hover-tanks, hover artillery, and armored/armed hover APCs that can move over virtually any terrain (and all have rather limited ‘flight’ capability), will swiftly move in to secure and then hold the taken ground and clear out smaller threats left over. Infantry use their armor and Thalarite weapons alongside things such as portable shield generators to secure camps and deployable scouting drones as well as specialized deployable antennas attached to stronger portable scanning modules to thoroughly scan the area and search for holdouts or hidden traps and so forth as they more greatly secure the foothold on the area.

Air Divisions are usually composed of Jet-Glider-using Mechs that will provide land support by taking down anti-air emplacements by swiftly entering the area and rushing those positions. Massive armored airships will fly in and generally utilize high firepower and high defense to lay down fire on enemy positions on land or otherwise, even being able to safely fire smart torpedoes into oceans from high up in the air, and can deploy from its own hangars smaller helicopter-like aircraft with two rotating wings and two powerful jet engine-esque propellers on them for rather rapid acceleration and movement speeds. Such smaller craft are “Reliants” that can lift off from a stationary position and swiftly move about akin to a Jet airplane in the air as well. Each Reliant has four missiles or rockets on the underside to fire, dual-gatling-style Thalarite guns that can lay down high rates of fire, and can carry a small amount of infantry or other personnel to drop off to help secure points or board similar large enemy aircraft if such a thing is needed or frankly possible. The Reliants are employed as anti-small aircraft and ground-securing or boarding/transport measures, whilst the main Airship also has anti-smaller-craft measures installed alongside its array of bigger guns.

Sea Divisions are usually composed of advanced craft called “Maru” that can hover to the correct positions and submerge into the water from there to navigate the seas. These craft are basically super-sci fi submarines, and usually are only deployed on-world when submersible craft are needed for a given operation. They can then leave the water and hover back to their carrier after operations, or if their hover capabilities were damaged the carriers (called “Crane-Frame Carriers” can hover over the location of these craft and pull them up into themselves for storage and repair. At times the Maru can also carry and deploy a number of Version 2.0. upgraded “Deep Sea” model Mechs, which are akin to the old version but with improved systems and equipment and such all-round.

***Space Combat - Xandalian Mechs dominate the smaller-craft level battles of space, having incredible maneuverability and enough defenses and loadouts to take on that they can cut down smaller craft and assault larger ones in a combat role. These possess point-defense and defenses that make ships smaller than them generally a moot point, and they are supported by smaller, sleeker ships that usually sport high speed and run interference or harry enemy craft or even intercept small automated craft/drones/ships in combat as well. Destroyers are the first real ‘larger’ ship used beyond this, containing high defenses and firepower to lay into the enemy fleet with distinctly less speed but exceptionally good range ranging from close to long range capabilities at maximum. These Destroyers usually have the smaller sleeker craft, dubbed “Corvettes”, with them in some numbers.

Larger Carriers come after this, carrying large numbers of Xandalian Mechs and very high defenses in exchange for rather limited firepower and greater carrying capacity. These deploy their Mechs and receive them back after battle (or during battle if injured need to retreat), as well as designate a portion of their mechs as reserves that are saved for use when or where such reserves are needed. Some also carry even larger amounts of Corvettes to bolster those numbers in battle.

Beyond this, grand Battleships also carry their own contingents of Xandalian Mechs and are escorted by a couple of Destroyers, as well as the Destroyers’ accompanying swarms of Corvettes, and a couple of Carriers as well. These ships are far larger in scale than the rest of the ships previously mentioned, boasting a titanic size, high defenses, and even higher offensive capabilities and weapons that can be fired into the enemy from super-long-range (or other weapons for closer ranges) as the situation demands. These are usually the flagships, the ships on which the commanders from the Republic are placed in order to direct the battle, and as such these ships have the most robust and potent comms arrays that keep the fleet interconnected. Taking out the Battleship is the best way to weaken a Republic fleet, though is tough to do, though as an aside comms between their other ships will still be generally possible without the Battleship...just not as smooth as the chain of command rather ‘suddenly’ shifts to backup and ultimately emergency measures.



Additional Info:

***Important Note 1: The military is only at 25% deployment currently, aka: the peacetime level of deployment that takes care of smaller issues during peace and maintains anti-piracy activity and such. The full military isn't currently active. Do not worry.

Government: The four moons which orbit the Gas Giant Salome exist in a tedious state of peace and cooperation, only recently recoiling from chaos. There is no one executive government which governs all four Moons of the Alliance, but rather, each moon governs themselves independantly and cooperate as members of the Salome Assembly. Further details on the governance of each moon is found in the Governance and Politics section.

Demographics: While the vast majority of the population of the moons is human, around 5-10% of the population is alien, the population being largely transient and varying wildly year to year. Religiously, the religions of the Mission and the Teaching are both present, with the Mission having particular strength in Shem and the Teaching having particular strength in Da'lu, and while they both compete, most people don't associate with just one, so it's hard to put them into percentages. Robots are a large presence, but they are counted as property in census records.

Population:
Adama: 2 billion
Shem: 1 billion
Nereid: 400 million
Da'lu: 100 million
Capital Fleet: 2 million
Total: 3.502 Billion


Planet Name and Description: When the Ark first arrived in the Tifarah system, they miraculously found Salome, a massive, purple Gas Giant with four habitable moons. These four moons are Adama, Shem, Nereid, and Da'lu.






History: When the Ark which carried humanity to the Tifara system first arrived, the moons of Salome acted as a stopping point in a great, albeit slowmoving, galactic trade route. With a trade fleet arriving every few decades, the population of the moons was extremely sparse, with population and religious centers on Da'lu, small towns and trade hubs on Adama and Nereid, and sparse, nomadic desert tribes on Shem. While the population of Da'lu, followers of an ancient alien religion known as the Teaching, were welcome to human settlers, the populations of the other three moons feared human encroachment, especially when it became obvious that the humans sought control over the trade routes and whatever natural resources existed on the moons.

What followed was a short-lived war between the militarily advanced humans and the aliens, which saw the near extermination of sentient alien life on Shem and Nereid. On Adama, the merchant-based alien governments accept human rule, and the coming and going of trade ships became secluded almost entirely to Adama, creating a sort of interstellar, cosmopolitan culture on that moon which persists to today. The settlers who moved to Da'lu, meanwhile, largely embraced the Teaching, and settled nicely into the forested moon.

The reclusivity and stubbornness of Shem's alien "barbarians", as well as the harshness of the environment, caused Shem's settlers to become extremely militarized, and even before planetary unification, which was a bit of a bloodbath on Shem, the idea of mandatory military service to your state became ingrained into Shem's cultural fabric. Human settlement largely collected by the Great Lakes and in the region of Mt. Eish, though some human adventurers and enterprisers began to push out into the desert, collecting around oases and mineral deposits.

Nereid found itself in a sort of utopia, with its alien population decimated after the war, an abundance of natural resources, and a perfect climate. Out of the Nereidi idyll was birthed the first United Moon about 200 years ago, with all of Nereid very quickly united under its democracy. The Great Academy was built, and very quickly, the idea of all the moons becoming unified was a recurring concept which floated around in her intellectual circles.


Nobody's entirely certain when or how the religion of The Mission began to form, with its more orthodox members believing it was divine prophecy, whereas academics and its moderate members believing it came about as descendent from multiple older human religions. Either way, by the time of Nereid's unification and the settlement of the other planets, the concept of a Divine Human Mission began to heavily inform the daily decisions of Salome's leadership, which almost immediately began to clash with the universalist tendencies of The Teaching. The debates between these conflicting philosophies which took place around the various moons, Nereid in particular, birthed a form of Interstellar Mysticism. The mystical tendencies of The Mission would give way to its own form of Alchemy, wherein scientific advancement was seen as a spiritual practice.

The next moon to unify would be Adama. Both influenced by the Nereidi Unity, and pushed forward by its mercantalist/capitalist economy, The Adami State was formed as a means to drive economic prosperity, as well as safeguard the interests of those who profited from the Interstellar Trade Route. After a prolonged civil war, Shem would soon follow suit, and, by Mission Year 180, 3 of the 4 moons of Salome would be unified. Da'lu would never unify by choice, with its many villages content to mind their own business, although the city of Urrukh had been founded high in her mountains.

Now is when we must talk about the mysterious figure of the Alchemist. Nobody knows too much about the personal details of this man's history, but almost every important event in Salome's timeline-the founding of Urrukh and the Great Academy, the writing of the Mission Statement, the invention of sentient robots, and the invention of SLS (Salome Linear Script), has been credited to this man, who appears to be part prophet, part scientist, and part philosopher. His history seems to go back to Salome's founding, and yet he would never surface publicly until after Shem's unification, with a plan for a magnificent city. Life for the average person of Shem was difficult-the constant threat of bandit and barbarian, the extreme heat, a backwater infrastructure, and now, for the people of Mt. Eish, the looming threat of Volcanic Eruption.

So, in Mission Year 200, the Alchemist approached the heads of the Shem State with a plan-build a machine that could not only control the flow of Mt. Eish, but that could draw power from it as well. And using this machine, build the greatest city any of the Moons had ever seen, the Great City of Salome-Ursalome. And so, his will was done. He meticulously planned every detail of the building of the city, and th population center of Mt. Eish was transformed into the Megacity of Ursalome. People from every moon came to settle in the great city, and he built his Robotics Factory there to help stimulate the economy. The spirits of the people of Shem were high...perhaps too high. The Aluf of Shem, Amalak Hahayal, declared himself Commander and Aluf of all Salome.

To put it into context, as previously stated, the idea of Salome unifying under a single government had been floated around in intellectual circles since the time of the Nereidi Unification. That said, their idea was far more utopian-an uncorrupted democracy of the people just like in Nereid, for all the inhabitants of Salome's moons. The various texts supporting unification were then edited and propagated by the Adami Corporations, who simply wanted to increase the scope of their economic activities-the fuel and minerals of Shem and the pristine beaches of Nereid were at that point untouched by their hands. That is, until funds for this new fancy megacity on Shem were needed. And so most everybody outside Da'lu was in favor of unification. The question was then who would lead it.

Nobody quite had the guts to do much in the way of unifying, and even though Aluf Amalak declared his intention to unite the Four Moons, he didn't do too much to actually enforce it. The Alchemist publicly advised against any military action, but despite his massive popularity among the more mystical elements of Missionary society, another, far more militarized vision of the Mission began shouting far too loud to be ignored. They claimed that humanity's Mission was lost yet again, and that like Babel before it, Salome would be destroyed. And what caused Salome to far so off course? Well, corporate greed for one, materialism, the general excesses of Adami society. But they had guns. Who didn't? The followers of the Teaching, more specifically, Da'lu.

So thirty ago, with an independent industrial sphere thanks to Ursalome, Shem invaded Da'lu, the Adami corporations were thrown out of Shem, and the Salome Alliance between Nereid and Adama banded together to take Aluf Hahayal, and Shem as a whole, down. The Alchemist disappeared from public life, and the war was fought to a standstill for years, until an alien trade fleet, containing a plethora of mercenaries, arrived. The Alliance threw money at the mercs, the mercs invaded Shem, and the war was over. Following the War of the Alliance was the forming of the Assembly; officially, the moons have never been disunified, and the Assembly exists to promote cooperation and prevent another war. The Capital Fleet was formed to provide a defense against alien invasion, which Shem deemed necessary. But unofficially, Adama and her corporations are by far the most powerful force in all the moons, and their power grows ever stronger. Many in Shem resent the outcome of the war, specifically the fact that the alien mercenaries, better known as the Askari, have never left, despite their decimation of many parts of Shem. Much of Da'lu, meanwhile, was devastated by the Shemi occupation, and many of her glorious temples now lie in ruins. Nereid, as usual, is doing pretty well. A tedious peace persists among the moons, but any external force could quickly change that.

The Religions: Two religions dominate the four moons; The Teaching and The Mission. The Teaching is said to be a religion older than time, and its students proclaim that in fact, the Teaching exists outside of time. According to them, there is one Teacher, who reincarnates in infinite forms across infinite dimensions. We call this teacher by many names, but the Teaching remains the same. These, The 7 Fundamental Truths, are as follows.

1. All existence is temporary.
2. All life clings to existence.
3. All suffering is born by clinging.
4. Suffering ends when clinging ceases.
5. Clinging ceases when life ceases.
6. Life ceases when existence ceases.
7. All existence is temporary.

The idea of the same truth existing in many colors is a constant theme in the Teaching, being seen as a mirror of the many incarnations of the Teacher. Because of this, while the Red Truth and the Violet Truth are the same statement, they are still separate truths, as the Violet truth can only be found through the previous six Fundamentals. In practice, Students of the Teacher see life as a constant cycle of death and reincarnation across infinite dimensions. The goal of following the Teacher is to cease all incarnation. While they are many laypeople who follow The Teaching as a guide to living a fulfilling life, in order to cease incarnation, one must abstain from the material world and practice a lifestyle and meditation and compassion. The monestaries of Da'lu have existed for milennia, and followers of The Teaching build statues in honor of The Teachers' many incarnations. For many in Salome, this is The Alchemist, who many Students view as an incarnation of The Teacher. At the bottom of this section is a Teaching Death Chant.

While The Teaching is most visible on Da'lu, it is present on every one of the moons, especially Adama. In both Adama and Nereid it blends with The Mission, and people are known for having a Missionary Wedding and a Teachist funeral. The Mission is not quite as old, although many believe it is inspired by previous human religions. The Mission is a Monotheistic religion, who refer to God as "The Ascendent One who Remains Imminent." For the purposes of this RP, I will just say God. While the actual theology differs from sect to sec, The Mission believes that God is the creator of the universe, and is both entirely separate from that creation and fully embodies it. In the beginning of creation, all was perfect and unified.

Either as an act of divine providence or as evil was inserted into Creation, depending on personal interpretation, that perfection was broken, and the universe today exists in a perpetual state of Brokenness. To remedy this, God created, Man, or Am, who shall be referred to as Man in this RP (sometimes Am). Man exists as a perfect microcosm of Creation, created with divine purpose imbued into its being. That purpose was to use humanity's greatest ability-repair itself, and through repairing itself, repair the Brokenness of reality.

Humanity was created on Earth, known to Missionaries as Babel, but when Earth fell astray from The Mission, humanity was "Spilled Across the Stars", with those who arrived in Salome being referred to as "Shekhehan", or "Those Who May Forget", to keep those in Salome always aware of the Divine Mission.

To repair the Brokenness, humanity must bring the Divine Substances into reality; Peace, Love, and Truth, through the Tools of Repair, listed as follows.
1. Eved: Labor, devotion, acts of kindness, community building.
2. Shira: Prayer, song, meditation, praise.
3. Lamad: Study, repentane (as in learning from mistakes), apology, listening.
4. Asah: Literally, Creation. Often the most debated. Most often means Children, but what about Art? Technology? A united and glorious Salome? Could mean many things.

Much of Eved has to do with either abstaining for certain immoral acts or performing certain moral acts, known as Path-Walking. What these acts actually are is taken from the Mission's holy texts, which continue to be written and studied by The Masters, or Baalim. Baalim are known for their passionate debates, but one act which they all agree upon is Zakryiah; the daily reading of The Statement of Mission, which is inscribed on the Roof of the Ark, which many believe was done by The Alchemist, often seen as a central prophet in The Mission. The actual text of the Statement of Mission, or Zeker, is found below.




Governance and Politics:





Technology Overview: A better name for this category would be Alchemy, the mystical practice instrinsically tied to science and technology in the Four Moons. Alchemy has its origins in the early days of Nereid, and is often seen as a synthesis of Missionary and Teachist philosophies. Like the Teachists, Alchemy often stresses the removal of self from reality, but like the Mission, there is a heavy emphasis placed on the divine importance of Creation and the Natural World. To Missionary Alchemists, they are actively participating in the processes of discovery and creation which God intends, and to Teachist Alchemists, they utilize technology to find oneness and tranquility. That said, the Missionary tendencies in Alchemy far outweigh the Teachist.

A plethora of Alchemical texts exist, with many focusing on practical Alchemy, as in technology and science, and others focusing on philosophical Alchemy. Many blend the two, and those texts attributed to The Alchemist often do so. One concept Alchemists have always been fascinated with is Robotics. According to Alchemical philosophy, sentience and consciousness can only come through the soul. Therefore, for a robot to become sentient and "forge their own pathways", a soul must be given to them. One invention credited to The Alchemist is the encoding of the soul. It is also thought that The Alchemist invented SLS, Salome Linear Script, which often is believed to carry sacred connotations, especially in Missionary circles. One common practice is Mitzav Asah-a system of meditation and prayer which allows the Alchemist to achieve a state in which perfet creation is possible.

Military Overview: While a united fleet command does certainly exist in the form of the Capital Fleet, the militaries of the four moons are still largely separate. The two superpowers, obviously, are Shem and Adama, with Adama having a slightly larger military but Shem's military being far better trained. Nereid is not listed below, as the military is not a primary concern of theirs, however, for the small military they have agreed to keep for the sake of the Assembly, they use equipment purchased from Adama.

Planet Name and Description: Aurora - named for its prevalent magnetospheric disturbances known as "Aurorae" - is a "continental" world, though its oceans comprise a larger amount of its surface than that of Earth as well as being slightly smaller, if more dense, and as such it barely scrapes by on this designation. Nonetheless, featuring two large continents and one smaller, tertiary one, it is a human inhabitable world that featured vibrant but non-hostile and in some cases pseudo-sapient plant life, although with minimal risk or threat to initial colonization efforts.

Aurora possesses two moons, Boralis and Australis, who were both pushed into habitable by basic terraforming techniques concerned almost exclusively with inducing a human breathable oxygen content and are themselves resource rich. Boralis is a cold, arid and dry world, whilst Australis, with its much thicker atmosphere and ring system, is a significantly more tropical partner to Aurora, with numerous oceans and and some more enjoyable temperate zones.

History: Initially deposited into the vast local system of the Auriga's resident gas supergiant, the Aurigan colonization effort very nearly ended as it began, with the local system almost entirely devoid of notable "first choice" colonization sites and a difficult entry into the system from the wormhole exit point having damaged a significant portion of the colony flotilla's long range and survey sensors. With minimal information on the rest of the system and unable to countenance exploration of initial astrographical information, the effort's command staff initially detached a small portion of the colonial flotilla with a lion's share of resources. This detachment was to begin developing efforts at long-term habitation of the rocky worlds orbiting the gas super-giant, whilst the rest of the fleet headed to the innersystem on the barest of information that indicated a habitable world had been found before damage had obfuscated the effectiveness of the expeditions survey equipment.

Thankfully, the rest of the fleet found Aurora - and while a spectacular and very much unplanned interaction with her eponymous dazzling seasonal lights caused yet further issues with the founding of the first colonies on her surface, grounding much of the colonial expedition upon their first landing, Aurora was found to be welcoming and without issue for the displaced colonists of a dying planet.

While communication with the initial colonies was possible - the grounding of the larger ships of the fleet made relocating them difficult, and consequently the early colonies in the system diverged. With no sapient life on the planet - the closest being dog-like intelligence "migratory" forests and other related plant life - The founding of the first settlement, Rochette, signified the beginning of 0 A.L - After Landing.

By 30 A.L, several dozen settlements had spread across Aurora, though all operated nominally under the authority of a democratic government headed by Rochette - this democracy would last another generation, before cronyism and the rising corporate power behind the scenes began to cripple the fledgling democracy - by 70 A.L, Rochette's authority was limited to its most loyal settlements and by 100 A.L, Aurora was home to a dozen different city states, all under some varying degree of corporate control or despotic corruption hiding under a veneer of the notion of democratic processes.

This came to a head in 116 AL, when the premier corporate powers of Aurora, chiefly Ashandra Systems and Miskovsky Incorporated merged and began integrating those settlements, companies and nations in no position to resist it, first by financial means, and as their power and abilities grew, outright violent means - this corporate authority eventually came to control most of Aurora, with only a few isolated settlements, themselves usually "company towns" lost from a ledger escaping direct control. By 170 AL - A small but nonetheless effective expedition forced the capitulation of the outer system colonies, whom had not long established effective means of transportation to Aurora themselves. Conditions on these colonies would become almost untolerable with their economical output redirected towards feeding a nascent stellar state on Aurora and their efforts to tame her moons.

These outer colonies would become the nexus of organized resistance - too far to effectively police - and too valuable to outright crush in absolute terms, small pockets of organized political and later, armed, resistance would continue to grow in the place that had once been established as a worst-case scenarion, meant to save humanity or the Aurigan colonists if no home could be found. Though this had never turned out to be necessary, the radical political thought and defiant attitude - even in the face of deteriorating conditions and sometimes brutal crackdowns - that arose in these underground and glass sealed settlements would prove to be the end of a nation and the birth of a new renaissance.

By 220 AL, what had been isolated defiance in the outer colonies was a widespread campaign of civil disobedience all the way back in the now long since urbanised centres of civilization on Aurora. Worker strikes crippled mines and factories, orbital infrastructure was sabotaged and a brutal and violent repression of a shipyard strike culminated in the death of 235 civilians - the response was the obliteration of a corporate defence frigate in orbit whose next mission was to repeat the same kind of violence that had just killed hundreds in the now almost uncontrolled outer colonies.

In 230 AL, corporate power had effectively ceased in the outer system and several "nations" on Aurora were effectively independent as soldiers of fortune were concentrated to control areas of economic importance and to repress civil disobedience. This culminated in the collapse of the Corporate Alliance backing much of the shaky "democratic" states on the planet and the beginning of a civil war, independents, revolutionaries and corporate forces clashed, destroying wide swathes of infrastructure and urban centres on the surface of Aurora, though the conflict largely remained confined to the surface - Boralis and Australis had established their own "neutral" regimes, the outer colonies in support of revolutionaries but crippled by their own needs and proto-revolution, and the orbital corporate assets long since rendered non-functional by saboteurs or defectors.

The Auroran civil war lasted 5 devastating years, resulting in the destruction of the corporate alliance and the establishment of a patchwork of independent states of varying degrees of organisation. Over the next several years, many of these states would come together to establish a constitutional convention looking to reintegrate themselves, in 240 AL - a true planetary assembly was convened with representatives from around the planet and from beyond meeting in the ruins of the former corporate haven of Rochette, which itself was slowly beginning to rebuild.

The result was a rejection of everything that had come before barring the principles of direct representation of the people - but little else. Several political groupings from across the spectrum that existed in what was left of Auroran politics held their appeal, but it was the widespread new wave Green Socialists that held sway in most of the organised states left - while the outer system was certainly more hardline, it was the Australis and Boralis representatives, themselves the swaying vote and arguably the most able to actually act at this juncture, who backed the "Green" Socialist movement on Aurora but pricing it at their own independence. The convention ultimately organised the multiple republics that had come into existence on Aurora into a cohesive federal system to be seated in a new capital on the planet - Svoboda, whilst also recognizing the independence of the Outer Colonies.

The ultimate success of the unification of Aurora was viewed favourably by Australis and Boralis, already politically aligned domestically - and in 265 AL, despite their initial desire for independence, Aurora's moons collecttively petitioned for membership in the Aurigan state, with the outer colonies ultimately petitioning for membership in 275 AL.

The Last 25 years have been spent rebuilding, undoing years of ecological degredation and the consequent decline in the preservation of native life, embracing the need for civil liberties and the redistribution of hoarded resources and wealth across the system whilst simultaneously building up the transport and orbital infrastructure of the Aurigan state, and consequently the system at large. A recent effort to devise an artificial intelligence to manage the necessary matters of state operating under what a socialist system intends to achieve free of human bias has also recently achieved fruition, with the advanced Red Star Intelligence coming online with its authority over the allocation of resources and suggestions for policy already lauded by the political class.

Culture and Society: Aurigan culture and society is currently undergoing a golden age - or so they would say. Freed from the trappings of greed and with information largely uncontrolled with even the original colony ships Earth databanks open to all without cost, old and new are melding together in a uniquely Aurigan way, though often considered a "Neo-Classical Fusion" in as much as Earth before its fall could be considered "classical". Advances in technology no longer confined to the elite and state sponsored programs have opened up formerly commercialised augmentations, allowing every day citizens access to implants and prosthetics to aid in daily life and in particular helping remedy the situation of those who suffered greatly under corporate rule.

Aurigan society has now nearly almost completely embraced enviromentalist and socialist principles wholesale, though there has been a very strident attempt to avoid creeping authoritarianism - the rejection of corporate authority should not be replaced by a socialist or communist tyranny either, and much of the military force built up during the times of conflict has been reduced or re-organised into civil police forces under local authority, even the formerly disabled but potent corporate space forces have been relegated to minimal deployment against the few pirate forces that exist in the system, though the potential for a corporate hold-out to be discovered on some asteroid or in a bunker somewhere has prevented a completely wholehearted embrace of pacifism.



Governance and Politics: The Government of the FRPA is organised into the following branches;

The Presidium:
The Presidium is the highest office encompassing the majority of exercisable legislative power and oversight vested into the the collected council that makes up the Presidium, selected cross-party and headed by the General Secretary, whom is the leader of the largest party in the elected Assembly of the Republics. The Presidium is not unbound - with the Assembly able to challenge through vote his or her decisions or force an ousting of the General Secretary or of the Council wholesale, however, for all intents and purposes the General Secretary, serving as the Head of the Presidium and the Aurigan State, pursues most elements of Foreign Policy and traditionally serves to approve legislation passed by the Assembly.

The Presidium also discusses and potentially acts on suggestions from the Red Star Artificial Intelligence, with the Presidium providing oversight for the AI as outlined by the Freedom from Tyranny constitutional amendment.

The Assembly of the Republics:

The Assembly of the Republic's is a somewhat traditional legislative body made up of proportional representatives from each of the constituent republics of the Aurigan state. The Assembly divises legislation, votes on said legislation to pass to the Presidium and approves judicial appointments as well as being the only body able to propose or approve constitutional amendments, effectively functioning as the primary element of the legislative process. The Assembly functions as the core of the Federal Government, and it is from these members that most government appointments are made.

Federal Republics:
Each Federal Republic is free to organise its own administration provided it adheres to the principles of the federal constitution, its own founding documents and continues to allow the free expression of political power by its citizens. Whether the Republic be organised by workers councils or traditional parliamentary systems, all republics must also organise a federal vote to appoint members to the Assembly of the Republics, and all must contribute to the continued freedom of the working class through whatever means they are able to do so. The People's Republics consequently make up the majority of citizen facing government.

Technology Overview: Whilst the majority of the working class was kept ignorant by the Corporate Alliance that came to dominate the Auriga system, it did preserve the databanks of the initial settlers and further, invested in anything that could potentially provide profit - while most of these innovations were largely beyond the working class, such innovation created and maintained an academic base that has persisted throughout even the harshest times. Whilst the Auroran civil war damaged much of the infrastructure, the knowledge of times past and of corporate innovation was by and large preserved - and the opening of all information to every citizen where practical has caused another scientific revolution.

Technological augmentation has become a widespread possibility, although corporate innovations in genetic fields has largely been restricted to gene therapies to treat illnesses - memories of tragic corporate genesplicing have rendered exploitation of this field largely taboo, especially an in a new born age of equality.

Military Overview: The Aurigan Armed Forces includes the Red Guard & the Red Space Forces. Alongside these, the independent but small Red Strategic Forces consists of the limited mass destruction assets available to the Aurigan State.

The Aurigan Military is an academy based, voluntary system. It consists of three official branches and their constituent subbranches, as well as independent elements - The Aurigan Navy, referred to as the Red Space Force, the Red Guard, a union of all terrestrial ground, air and water based forces of the republics, and the Main Intelligence Directorate under which intelligence services are performed.

However, The effects of the civil war are long lasting - whilst building up and exercising a great deal of military power, most of this has been disposed of or mothballed in a rejection of violence. This has left the Aurigan state with an elite, voluntary core maintained "just in case" alongside a formerly competent naval force that has been left to play spaceborne coast guard. All the same, these forces are kept supplied and technologically up to date, just in case something was missed.

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Red Guard:
Once the tip of the spear that was the revolution, the formerly large and disparate militias of the civil war era, transitioned into national militaries, and then downsized, now find their place in the Red Guard. The Red Guard controls all terrestrial military assets from corvette to supersonic fighter craft down to the standard logistical truck. The Red Guard is present in all the Republics to varying degrees, and takes pride in its slimmed down elite status. A lingering fear of corporate shadows has kept this elite force well maintained and equipped, for now, and pride, particularly on Aurora and in the Outer Colonies, for some of its oldest veterans service in the liberation of the system is not without a small part to play in its maintenance even in the face of the pacifist trends of the Aurigan State.

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Red Fleet:
The Red Fleet is notable for largely consisting of former corporate assets, though these are slowly being replaced as practical - whilst the Red Fleet is most certainly a competent and reasonably advanced space-based force, its role as primarly anti-piracy has slowed this down to as budget and innovation demand. While the Red Fleet is not considered particularly prestigious - the Red Fleet played no role other than disabling or taking over the neutered Corporate Fleet during and after the civil war, and rarely actually faces any real combat, it is not considered inglorious either. The Red Fleet is certainly somewhat popular in the outer system, where much of it is based and its presence has ameliorated what was once crime ridden spacelanes, whilst also serving as a beacon of Federal Authority in the shadow of the ever looming Vastergeant.

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NAME: Union of Carpathian Nations, Carpathian Union (Unio Carpates)
GOVERNMENT: Supernational Confederation of States
CAPITAL: Leitha (Union administrative center)
TOTAL POPULATION: est. 2,771,680,000 (99% Human, 1% Aluevan)

The Carpathian Union is a the supernational organization formed to facilitate peace and prosperity in the otherwise divided countries of the Carpathian System. Thanks to the shared history and interconnected economy the Carpathian Union may seem to be a singular nation, and indeed more and more people call themselves Carpathian, yet in practice they are far from such. Carpathian states are spread across the system and somewhat even beyond. Space exploitation is the main industry of the system and owning a spacecraft is almost synonymous in Carpathia with owning a car. Corporations rose to power and sometimes industrial magnates have more power than the respective heads of the state. Carpathia is a relatively lawless realm with wild untamed lands surrounding the numerous metropolitan centers. Carpathians are highly protective of their freedom and rights which often puts the average person at odds with the Union.

HISTORY

The INS Leithania was one of the numerous vessels sent to colonize deep space through the gateways. As often happened the passengers for the ship were picked from the same geographical region. The Leithania was filled with colonists from Central- and East Europe. Dozens of countries, untold years of hatreds and rivalry. Making planetfall the colonists named the planet Pannonia and began to work tirelessly. After cycling through several names the system was began to known as Carpathia. They also established the Carpathian Calendar (CC) with their arrival as year zero. Yet old hatreds die hard so after a few decades of begrudging peace the colonists chose to split and form their own countries mostly based off old the national lines. To their luck the Carpathia System had multiple habitable moons and so this heralded the first split. Over the time as space exploitation became the norm so did space habitats which lead to another split and population explosion. Carpathia became a powder keg with many conflicting ideals and old wounds which never healed. Wars were a constant occurrence for decades. This went on for over a century until a new threat appeared.

The Carpathians made a bizarre discovery early on. They found old ruins, temples and other traces of a foreign civilization within the system. Excavations also found ancient tombs and burial grounds. Obviously the scientific crowd was astonished. Yet little did they know that the aliens who built these monuments were very much still roaming the galaxy. As investigations later found out a certain illegal mining company encountered a strange object in space. When said object discharged weapons at their vessels they fired back, leading to its destruction. Almost a century later an investigation of the scene eventually confirmed the wreckage to be a small Ullevan spaceship. Unknown to the Carpathians at large this heralded the beginning of a United Ullevan Tribes to declare holy war upon them. Yet limited to sublight speeds it took several decades until the Carpathians realized their mistake.

The year CC120 heralded the beginning of the Third Panslav War. Yet this cut short when it became obvious they had a whole new and terrifying foe to face. They were the Ullevans, an alien race of space nomads living in tribal units yet united through their sophisticated Crystal Network. Initially doubtful the Carpathians blamed each other on the raids and it took several pieces of evidence to acknowledge they were dealing with a new external threat. Most historians attribute CC122 as the beginning of the First Ullevi War. The alien technology gave the comparatively small invasion force an edge in space combat yet they lacked the means to properly take inhabited planets. The Khryshins remained a menace of colonies for over a decade until they were warded off. The aliens were defeated yet the threat still lingered on. Many attribute the First Ullevi War as the prime catalyst for the eventual formation of the Carpathian Union.

The United Nations of Carpathia was established in CC134 and nowadays it's generally considered a precursor to the Carpathian Union. It was nothing but an alliance system with limited council to allow fair negotiations between member countries. Their purpose was to mend division between various Carpathian nations so they could stand united against a second Ullevan invasion. This of course happened only 30 years later. Compared to last time the Ullevans mobilized an entire armada of vessels and millions of warriors. The Second Ullevi War was gruesome and claimed almost a hundred million lives. Yet after years of struggle the Carpathians won and the Ullevans retreated back into deep space once again.

Though victorious the price was too steep and there was no telling when the United Ullevan Tribes might strike again. This propelled discussions about a possible merge of countries to form a single unified government. Proposals eventually turned into demands and between CC188-190 the so-called Unification War raged across the system. Eventually the Pannon Federation and its supporters failed yet it was obvious that something more effective than the loose alliance system of the UN was required. In CC193 they announce the Carpathian Union alongside with the document of the Union Charter. Though met with mixed reaction the Union's efforts lead to stability, peace and economic upswing in Carpathia. Many cite this moment as the beginning of modern Carpathian culture.

Then CC212 saw the Third Ullevi War. The enemy were numerous yet with new technology and more unified response this invasion was repelled with relative ease. The war saw a very curious development with the defection of Clan Lsalean. First they were prisoners of war but the aliens soon forged an uneasy relationship in Carpathia. Through them the Union learned many things about their so far mysterious foe. Yet while some prepared others began to discount the Ullevi threat. They were up for a rude awakening during the Fourth Ullevi war which saw the mobilization of hundreds of clans and immediately put the Carpathians on the ropes. Compared to the past encounters the Carpathians were rough technological peers with the invaders so they couldn't penetrate deep into Carpathia without encountering heavy resistance. Still, the outer rims of Carpathia became war torn nightmarish realms filled with fighting and carnage. Small countries that thrived on the rim's resources were reduced to nothing within a few years. Resource shortage and economic crisis loomed over Carpathia as the war dragged on. An entire generation of youth was lost in the flames of war.

By the second half of the war Carpathians gained the upper hand yet it just refused to end. Frustration and anti-war riots dominated back at home. Accusations that the governments are scamming the people with war just to remain in power became a common occurrence. Ullevani renegades now calling themselves Aluevans made a deal with the Union. In return for releasing their families from prison camps and swearing to allow the Aluevans to form their own nation within Carpathia they were willing to teach them a few secrets about Ullevan technology and the truth behind their unity. Of course the answer was the Crystal Network which allowed instant communications across interstellar distances. Yet humans accidentally managed to sabotage the Crystal Network once, that's why the Aluevans turned renegade. If this process would be analyzed, replicated and refined they could not only stop the war but also destroy the United Ullevan Tribes as a threat. After 2 years of research at breakneck speed they perfected a weapon which could eliminate the entire Crystal Network via a chain reaction sequence. In CC263 the weapon was deployed to terrific effect. All communication between tribes was lost and the Union swept in to triumph over the aliens with relative ease. Yet while Carpathians were celebrating their victory the Ullevan remnants plotted their vengeance. This ended in the tragedy of the Zerberuss in CC269 when the deployment of a so-called Nova Bomb almost cracked into the planet's core and killed more than half the population. This single act killed more people than all previous wars with the Ullevans combined. And it went both ways because the unofficial Fifth War knew no breaks as entire fleets traveled into deep space to hunt down Ullevan city-ships. Enitre tribes of Ullevans disappeared within the first year. Albeit after extensive media coverage of the events the emotions began to cool, even if just a little.

For many the Fifth Ullevan War is continuing even to this year but officially the deep space campaigns ended around CC273. Many rumors float around about "lost fleets", deep space strike forces which never returned and still fighting Ullevans in unknown realms. There are also reports of scattered tribes active in the outer rim. They continue to raid colonists and require special attention from the Union. Though begrudgingly the Aluevans were granted their seat in the Union Council and recognized as the 40th state. Zerberuss became borderline uninhabitable and more than a hundred million refugees scattered to mostly Slavic states. Yet the exposed core provided an immense mining opportunity and though small in population Zerberuss is a thriving industrial state. Carpathia experiences a long phase of demilitarization where governments struggle to justify any expansion to their armed forces yet the military industrial sector is thriving as ever with more than half their products ending as vaproware. Since their victory the Carpathian System prospers yet there is a smell of slow decay. Carpathians thrive upon space exploitation yet they began to approach their limit. Once the wheels grind to a halt the economy would suffer. Thankfully the gate system came back to life and now Carpathia faces the unknown.

GOVERNMENT & SOCEITY

The Carpathian Union is a supernational body representing dozens of independent states. Depending on your definition Carpathia has 32 to 40 semi-independent member states spread across the system and somewhat even beyond. These states often have their own official language like Panonian, Polish, Neoczheck, Daxian, Svabian and so forth. This would normally render any form of communication complete chaos but realtime translator devices are fairly sophisticated in Carpathia. When it comes to the Union's official language they chose Latin, ironically something none of the member states even speak. The Union's capital is in Leitha, an artificial moon orbiting Pannonia. Yet the city state is considered a neutral country officially free from any influence. Each member state have their own laws, customs and overall large degree of autonomy. Aside from the select few Union Laws these nations can seemingly do whatever they want.

In spite of their turbulent history Carpathia has the combined population approaching 3 billion. Unlike many worlds they didn't develop a large following for posthumanism, weren't exposed to mutagenic effects and just barely mix with aliens. Yet they perceive themselves a melting pot of diverse cultures. While national governments do exist and some states got heavy restrictions on immigrants the majority of them embrace their multi-national identity and forge their own culture as a state. Being alone for centuries the term Carpathian was rarely used and when it did it bore a strong Union favoritist tone. Yet as the gate network revitalized the inhabitants began to owe up to the name immediately. Just a few months after the first contact the people would proudly proclaim themselves Carpathians as a distinction from humans of other colonies.

The stereotypical Carpathian is patriotic and proud of their nationality and believe in their personal freedom. They embrace capitalism and most of the Union's famous people are rich entrepreneurs who are often viewed as role models. They are especially enamored by the myth of the "self-made man", people who rose from rags to riches through honest work. At the same time many Carpathians are distrustful of the Union or at times even their own government. They seem to prefer control by private enterprises over the government and feel taxes are wasted by bureaucrats. Carpathians have an odd relationship with consumerism. At one hand they are big spenders and always love to own new shiny toys. At the same time Carpathians especially in the rural regions want to be as independent from big companies as possible. Self-sufficiency is a popular fad among the folks... and sometimes a necessity. Space exploitation is still the most booming industry in Carpathia which means people often spend weeks or sometimes months traveling in space. Even for those who aren't hauling goods across void they often commute to another moon or planet to work. To an average Carpathian family owning a space shuttle or three is the norm, almost akin to owning a car. Another odd element of Carpathians is their militia culture. They love guns and majority of them are fervently protecting their right to own them. Some claim it is for their rightful insurance against government overreach but most just want it for personal defense and recreational purposes. Personal arms are commonly used in crimes in Carpathia, same for gun related accidents.

TERRITORY

Carpathia is a dual star system where the two stars have almost comparable masses. The large system has 16 planets total and among them 4 could support life to various degrees. In addition a number of moons were either habitable or could easily made habitable conditions for. Beyond that Carpathia also has clusters space colonies built in various ways. Overall it can be said that the inhabitants of Carpathia are spread across the entire system and somewhat even beyond.

The twin stars of Carpathia attracted untold numbers of asteroids and officially there are 5 belts spread across the system, ripe for exploitation. Gas giants soon became pillars of the space industry. Carpathia is also at the edge of the Horsehead Nebula and enterprising gas gatherers often journey outside the system in their hunt for Helium-3 or even more valuable exotic gases.

Though there are a number of habitable worlds, they all have to struggle with various hazards. Be it powerful wildlife, meteor showers, perpetual night or myriad of other issues. They resolved these mostly by centralizing in domed cities free from environmental risks. Yet a fair percentage of the population chose to live outside of these cities and out in the wilderness. Another even larger percentage journey the void almost all the time. Life isn't so easy in the frontiers of Carpathia yet many of them prefer this way.

TECHNOLOGY

Carpathian technology is simple in concept yet can be fairly sophisticated on the execution. Plasma, electromagnetics and fusion power are the three pillars of Carpathian designs. Helium-3 is the essential fuel which drives their powerplants, be it energy production or even their cars. For utilities which doesn't require full-on nuclear plants they use plasma induction engines. Wheels were largely replaced by various hover propulsions, although flying cars are still niche. Aerospace propulsion is largely accomplished through impulse engines which can be extremely powerful for their size but also relative fuel guzzlers. Weapons technology largely adopted various plasma arms with firearms or even railgun mechanisms being considered niche or outright antiques. Industrially the Carpathians are very proficient asteroid, gas giant and nebula miners. Some may call their extraction methods wasteful or even reckless but they certainly work fast! Carpathians are also quick to establish new habitats for miners and expand. Race to acquire mining rights before the competition ensured this. Production wise the Carpathians pioneered the "nano-sintering" technology which allows producing elaborate devices with relatively little industrial investment and it can even supplement large scale production provided you don't mind the electricity bill. Metamaterials is a fairly developed field in Carpathia to the extent they can outright engineer new atoms for various purposes. In comparison A.I. development is in a very odd state. While automatized factories and systems gotten far the Carpathians didn't develop sapient robots. The furthest they got are machines mimicking animals, pet robo dogs and chimpanzees are all the rage in certain states. A.I. in general has very limited influence in decision making.

MILITARY

Carpathia has three levels of military. The highest being the Union Armed Forces, the official joint military force of the Carpathian Union. Below that are each state's Home Guard, their own military force mostly reserved for defense and handling local crisis situations. Lastly there's the Peacekeeper Corps (alternatively referred as Pandurs) lead by the Sheriffs of each dependency. Peacekeepers are heavily armed policemen meant to fight local bandit gangs and crack down on dens of crime. Peacekeepers are in an unique position where they are reporting to both the state and the Union. Unlike actual police the Peacekeepers often use military grade equipment. With this out of the way it can be said that for decades the Carpathian military is relatively low. Carpathians haven't fought a war for a long while. With funding for the Union projects ever so tight the Union Armed Forces are borderline undermanned in the presence. Joining the military is generally viewed as a bottom end job chosen by people who have nowhere else to go. That being said soldiers are still respected and there's a strong culture for war veterans. There's also the myth of the "Carpathian Scout", a brave adventuring soldier with survival skills and peerless marksmanship. Indeed, as underfunded they are the Carpathian troops have remarkable shooting skills but this is also paired with generally lax discipline. There are numerous tales about the so-called "bored soldier" doing stupid stunts.

Doctrine-wise the Carpathians follow the usual trends in combined arms. Their typical armaments are plasma-based and rather than changing ammo these can allow adjusting functions to achieve varying effects. Carpathian ground vehicles use hover propulsion which makes them more nimble on the battlefield. A curious vehicle are their Personal Armors, small&cheap humanoid mechs. They can fight like oversized soldiers and are popular in both military and militia use.

In space Carpathia has a fair few curiosities. First off Carpathia has no shortage of skilled spacecraft pilots and as such they are especially proud of their starfighters. Many historical heroes were pilots and this veneration of mavericks in space continues to this day. Another is their approach to space combat which curiously draws parallels to naval engagements of the 20th century. There are escorts providing screening and deploy torpedoes. There are cruisers providing the backbone of the fleet and there are also battleships and carriers. Engagements are fought from usually great ranges and since Starlance strength drops with distance there are various zones of immunity for vessels depending on their armor and "caliber" of weapon they face. Of course there are also carriers and smallcraft which often can be a decisive factor. It should be also noted that Carpathians mostly fought pirates in the last few decades.

Planet Name and Description: Delta-4: Delta-4 was originally a world slated for colonisation as a large continental world. The Lorne Administration built a station in orbit and set the groundwork on Delta-4 and throughout the system for colonization.

Since the gate closed without the colony ship coming through they have just continued their efforts. The station above the planet has turned into an orbital ring, as mines span moons and planets throughout the system. Meanwhile several cities, reserves and farmsteads have been established on the planet. Ready for colonisation.



History:

• Gateway Activation: Pre-Colonisation the Lorne Corporation was sent in to set things up ahead of the Colony Ship Endurance.
• Year 1: Groundwork is laid down for Capital City, convoy lines, and mines established on Delta-4A and 4B.
• Year 2: Gateway doesn't activate to produce a Colony Ship as expected. The decision is made to continue work as normal.
• Year 3: Habitat-1 is expanded in space to accommodate for lack of supplies, farms are established in orbit.
• Year 15: Capital City is completed and ready to move in. Ground is broken on City-2 and City-3.
• Year 31: Accommodations are made to prevent workers' uprising. Entertainment, promotion opportunities are all created.
• Year 35: Vote on whether or not to continue operating as a company goes through the people. The vote passes in favour of remaining a company.
• Year 95: Mines are established on Delta-3,3a,3b and 3c. With a refinery on Delta-3.
• Year 96: Human manual labour is now mostly regarded as obsolete.
• Year 192: Habitat-1 becomes The Ring as it extends right the way around the planet. Various objects in storage for when the colony finally arrives (if it ever does) as well as backup supplies for themselves.
• Year 200: Creation of the Central Control Hub, hubs effectively control the robotic units under their purview. One exists on all Delta, as well as one on the Ring.
• Year 221: The robotic worker numbers now number over 3 billion.
• Year 251: Construction of Gas extraction facility in the upper atmosphere of Delta-1. Delta-1b and 1d also gain mines.
• Year 266: Delta-1a and 1c gain their respective facilities.
• Gateway reactivates: The few ancient warships that the Administration possesses are recommissioned back into service.

Culture and Society: Very similar to a modern-day Earth. The only exception is that all social services are free such as education and healthcare. People who retire at the age of 65 are all treated very pleasantly in a specially constructed retirement habitat on the Ring that has a domed roof to look down on the forests of Delta-4.



Governance and Politics:A CEO is selected from the Board, the Board of Directors are promoted from division heads and the division heads are selected by the board from within the divisions.

There is a division for agriculture, health, education, mining, military, law enforcement, infrastructure and public relations. Most of the power is held within the board, but separate from the board is the Union, to which every worker is a member off and their job is to question and criticise everything the board does.

Technology Overview: The Lorne Administrations technology hasn't drastically improved over the three hundred years since it became forcefully independent due to the gateways closing. Military technology is stagnant, the main R&D has been to improve the services that can be done by their robotic units, refineries and mines. They are also accomplished builders.

Everything they built is made with a purpose and it is built to last, transport ships built are designed with a shelf life of hundreds of years.

Military Overview:

Theoretically every robotic unit can be used in combat. They aren’t designed for it but can do it poorly.

The military itself is a largely obsolete division and hadn’t been manned properly for over two hundred years. When the gateway reactivated they brought their 5 Old Cruisers back online, which now maintain a blockade at the Gateway.


Additional Info: (Anything else you want to include that there isn't a spot for up there.)

It's shorter than I usually do, but I can't think of anything else you need. So I'll leave it here and see what you say.

Nation Name: The dead drift

Government Form:
Monarchy/Anarchy (abberians) Parliamentary democracy (humans)

Demographics:
Humans 5% Abberians 95%
Abberian description: The bodies of the abberians have uniquely evolved to function in a world with no light. They've adapted to the environment by no longer relying on sight, and are almost entirely nocturnal. They have a fear of light and they usually shy from it. Their skin is pale, and their eyes are completely useless. They are also strong and durable enough to put up a fight against armies of humans even as individuals. Their real power, however, is in their sheer numbers; they attack in massive herds that include thousands of them, enough to take down almost any creature there is. They breed twice yearly and have two children per each breeding pair, and with a sixty year lifespan they quickly filled their home planet. The abberians reach adulthood at age 9. They are highly aggressive, although they have a queen who can calm them down and order them to do things.

Population:
Human 5 thousand, Abberians 3 million
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Planet Name and Description:
Name: Crandon
Description: The planet's surface is inhospitable, made of sharp black stone that can puncture almost any space suit if you try to walk on it. The stone is near impossible to mine, but once below it you reach an area made of black soil, which is quite easy to dig through, even using your bare hands although there are some sharp shards of the black glassy rocks above. The planet has three layers, a solid core, molten mantle, and rocky crust. Like mars the planet has no tectonic plates, allowing mountains to be hundreds of miles high. This is also due to the extremely low gravity, which would do nothing if a person where to jump, just send them into the void of space very slowly. There is little to no light, with the closest sun being a hazy red dot on the horizon, this should also means the surface of the planet is very cold, but as you near lava geysers it can get to 1000+ degrees.

History:
10yrs: After ten years of circling the planet the first humans set foot onto the surface. Three die of overheating, two of punctured space suits, and four of problems adjusting to the gravity.
20yrs: The cap of the massive mountain Othrys celsior, is blown off revealing the soil down bellow. Tunnel construction starts.
50yrs: First baby born on planet, one tunnel system is finished Othrys subterraneis. Experiments begin to make an injection that adapts people to the planet.
75yrs: It is confirmed there will be no more communication with earth (although nothing had been arriving through the gateway for a while no one on the planet was sure.) And so starts the government of the planet, known as the head parliament. With new mining technology another tunnel system (which are now named legions) is founded, Apatriatio.
100yrs: The first highest sovereign is elected from the head parliament.
145yrs: Three new legions Novatio, Subterrabyssi, Morugis. First test of the injection fails, seeing results it is named the SFEI (speculative future evolutionary injection)
150yrs: One new legion (Multisaepe-coloniis) and six new sub-legions. SFEI is used on livestock and other earth animals, creating new species, although the future wrens escaped now they fly around the tunnels, replicating human speech.
175yrs: SFEI animals all slaughtered after learning they could infect people with the SFEV (speculative future evolution virus). Wrens couldn't be contained. Tunnel building is started and stopped many times due to wren infestations.
180yrs: SFEV vaccine made safe for humans, although the effects long-term were still unknown. Tunnel building starts again after builders are given the vaccine.
200yrs: Villa-discipulus and Tutelanvirum legions finished. First child from to vaccinated parents born, pale but mostly normal looking.
210yrs: The child is now fully grown, to the concern of many. Domi-natorum legion built.
235yrs: SFEV outbreak. Thousands infected from the child. A select few are immune. Construction starts on a safe haven for the immune as the infected begin to turn savage.
250yrs: Tutum-infectis legion finished. Infected now called abberians. Those living in Tutum-infectis have little to no technology, but enough to be able to stay safe. Tutum-infectis is sealed off from the rest of the tunnels.
275yrs: Tutum-infectis advances into more like they were before, creating a currency, as well as creating their own air and water systems separate from the abberians. First queen abberian is born, she begins leading her people on orders to kill any humans in their tunnels.
290yrs: Unknown to civilians on both side the queen and the highest sovereign are able to communicate, and are trying to usher in peace to both peoples.
300yrs: Peace has still failed. A few human scholars have noticed the rift as opened up. This leads to "the brigade" being formed. Now sixteen engineers of both abberians and humans are starting to create rockets, hopefully being able to achieve space travel and get another culture to help them in their mission for peace.
Culture and Society:
Humans: Their culture is much as it is on earth, save for the amount of recycling they do, almost everything they own is made from something else. They often get in political arguments, but overall they don't like fighting each other. They celebrate three holidays, Geyser day (in which the ground shakes from geysers) Adult day (on April 29th (the start of a new year) all people who are turning 20 are now considered adults.) And birthdays, which are self explanatory. At age 75 you can go into retirement.
Abberians: Abberians are also very much like earthlings. They often get into fights for no reason as entertainment. Children are taught how to do their birth role starting at age 6, and by age 9 they should know how to do it very well. When they are done with their shift they wander the tunnels, and talk to their friends and mate. Every so often there will be a game of tunnel roll, in which a team made of two guards and four hunters try to get a ball to their team's tunnel. There are no rules except for you may not involve people who aren't playing in your game. They celebrate no holidays, but do get extra shifts off in mating season. They have one mate for life who they breed with every breeding season. If you are alive at age sixty you will be able to go into retirement.
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Governance and Politics:
Humans: Humans have a parliamentary democracy which is led by the highest sovereign, elected by the 15 parlimentals (the correct term was never used.) There are three political parties (libertas omnium (all people should be able to function without the highest sovereign although they are still in control) salutem omnibus (all people should work for the future of human kind, and the health of the people) and quia pax omnis (humans should not fight each other, nor should they fight abberians, but both should work together.)
Abberians: Abberians have a Anarchist Monarchy. All abberians must listen to the queens rules but other then that they can do whatever they want. Here are the queen's five rules: No abberian my steal food from another abberian. No humans should be allowed deep into abberian tunnels (it wasn't meant for all abberians to attack humans, but guard abberians are highly aggressive.) No abberian should attack the sealed doors. (both to keep the humans safe in Tutum-infectis, and to make sure no one breaks the entry door, which would be impossible to repair by abberians.) No abberian may eat other abberians (there was a time where wren population was very low, so the abberians turned on each other without their main source of food.) No abberian may switch birth roles (abberians are all born differently, some are bulldozer sized and heavily muscled they would be assigned guard at birth, some are monkey sized and fast so they would be assigned hunter.)

Technology Overview: They have very advanced mining tech, although it's not often needed. Humans have invented a form of "stun gun" in which they can take down abberians without killing them, if need be. Abberians have forgotten a lot of technology, as most of them have no use for it, although scholars and engineers are still learning the basics, they are good at what they do. They have one ship, in which the brigade, 10 human soldiers, 10 retired abberian guards, along with 3 parlimentals and 3 abberian scholars will ride through the rift with.

Military Overview: Humans have nothing save for stun guns, and a few fire-arms. Abberians have only created advanced spears, slingshots, and bows. Abberian guards can, however crush a human to death with a few blows, and most abberians are great fighters.
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Addition info:
1. It is called the dead drift because the planet is slowly drifting away from the sun, it is also called that because of the danger on the surface.
2. The human-abberian alliance colors are orange and light blue
3. 34 spaceships failed before the brigade thought one could launch into the rift
4. The only area with power in the whole of the planet is Tutum-infectis, as the abberians were never able to create new power, nor fix the power when it went out.

Nation Name: Free Cities of Theta-Leonis

Government Form:
Republic

Demographics:
Base line human, Minimal cybernetic/biological modification

Population:
2 Billion

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System Description:
Binary Red Dwarf system
Stars: Theta Leonis A & B
Planets: Ares - Rocky inner world much like Mars, cold and nearly airless
Oceania - Large Gas giant nearest the stars, deep blue in color, dozens of moons
Tempestus - Smaller gas giant beyond Oceania, extremely violent storms on its surface, nearly 50 moons

Thick Asteroid belt separates Ares and Oceania, many more objects than old Sol's belt



Culture and Society: The many orbital habitats are culturally diverse as Earth was, everything can be found from an asteroid habitat run as a corporation to religious enclaves built into a gas giant's moon. There are several commonalities depending on the the kinds of station one lives in.

The large habitats like the O'Neill cylinders have the capability of theoretically housing tens or hundreds of millions if people were housed densely enough. While each have areas like this the vast majority of Cylinders are suburban or rural, many people living on somewhat large properties with gardens and the like or even small farmsteads. Most scientists and computer engineers hail from one of the major cylinders universities, many of whom transfer to one of the thousands of Asteroid colonies. For most O'Neill cylinders they posses a casual lifestyle, even in the dense city districts. This is because the Cylinders grow the vast majority of food or plant based luxury goods for the system, their wealth and abundance relieves much of the pressure of Habitat living.

Asteroid colonies fall into two significant groups, Industrial or Habitation, Industrial colonies are rather regimented and people live and work like those on off-shore oil rigs. Few are permanent residents of Industrial colonies and rotate in and out. Habitat colonies are also more regimented than their Cylinder cousins. This is due to the fact that few are entirely self sufficient, reckless consumption of resources could prove dangerous.

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Governance and Politics: Politics are extremely localized, each habitat or group of habitats are allowed to govern themselves generally however they please within reason. So long as taxes are paid to the republic and there are no universal rights being violated the habitat is free to run itself. However there is a system wide senate where each major habitat or group is given voice, due to the many opinions and objectives in the senate, and its sheer size, the government turns very slowly.

Technology Overview: Technology has been well maintained since the fall of earth, though focused entirely on space infrastructure. Designs on strictly planet side capability has atrophied. Advanced ship drive systems, laser technology, and industrial automation are well understood, but airplanes or ground vehicles would be archaic or simply ancient in comparison to some.

Their most advanced technology are High Energy Ion Drives that while slow to accelerate gran immense top speed eventually. Their other is Fusion power which while still complex and expensive to maintain provides abundant power.

Military Overview: Military power is generally non-existent, as a purely military capability. However each habitat has security/law enforcement personnel that could be armed with dangerous weapons if needed. Beyond this each habitat, and many ships, have heavy point defense lasers built to defend themselves from space junk and meteorites but would prove quite dangerous to military ships as well.

However some resources have been allocated for protection and a network of Defense stations have been built around the Gateway. These are simply automated satellites with over built point defense lasers, several of which are also equipped with over sized sensor and communications systems.

Due to the religious based conflict that raged years ago Religion, while still free to practice, is widely frowned upon. Few citizens are religious, and as part of the Senate's universal rights citizens are free to move between stations ensuring that no station can realistically force its population to be of a singular religion.

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Additional Info: O'neill Cylinder

Planet Name and Description: _{00110001 is a barren planet with no notable mineral resources. Covered on one side by a burning wasteland which is constantly under temperatures of +50C and on the other side, a frozen tundra with temperatures between -100 and -500 at its coldest point. Split in the middle by the ruins of an ancient alien city surrounded by a huge dome.}

History: <sub>As soon as the colony ship went through the Gateway, it encountered a powerful EMP field generated by numerous unidentifiable spheres. The ship crash landed on the nearest planet. A good number of colonists died even before they stepped out of the ship. Soon the colonists realized that they wouldn't be able to survive on the planet due to the very high/very low temperatures of the planet's climate. Luckily the ship landed close to what seemed to be the ruins of a city that stretched from one side to the other of the plane, splitting the planet into two halves and thus' they decided to settle the ancient city.

Not much remained of it but buildings with no recognisable tech. Food and resources were scarce and everyday people would starve or die of a number of strange illnesses. Soon, all would die. In-fighting killed the rest.

Eventually only one person remained. Using the bodies of his fellow colonists and refined urine/snow, he had enough to live on his own. Understanding that he will go crazy and that he might be the only human alive, he devoted himself to one purpose. Make sense of the alien technology in the hopes of finding a way off the planet.
10 years after Arrival, he managed to find a massive underground that still had power and he knew that he finally found what he was looking for.
Inside he found hundreds of ultra-advanced cloning vats and the spheres that brought down their ship in the first place. After months of trial and error, he succeeded in cloning himself. No longer alone, he made more and more of himself.
After almost 300 years, the ancient alien city is now repopulated with only one person - 4 billion times.</sub>

Culture and Society: _{The society of The One is easy to understand. Every clone is an individual but they are all the same with the same likes and dislikes where one is working for the betterment of everyone as they are everyone.}

In our own words, we record this in the event of a cataclysmic failure of the Dome. Whoever you may be that hears this, hear our story. Understand who we were, are and potentially, will be.
We came on this planet almost 300 years ago from a far away planet called Earth, there were more of us all aboard one ship that was meant to be humanity's last bastion. During the first few years, everyone died. Diseases, in-fighting, the elements and the rest from starvation. Everyone but One.
Me, them, us. I've managed to revive part of the alien city that you found this recording in and with the technology found here, I became we. One mind, 4 billion times. You'd wonder how we were able to survive all these years? Simple. One serves everyone. One is not one but more. One dies, so that the others live. One doesn't feel pain, how would he? When his mind is not his mind but our mind.
The Glowy-Ones and ourselves is our food, the ice of the Frozen part of the world is our water. We don't need more than we provide to ourselves. What one experiences, all experience.
We have explored 40% of the city and there are still places where we haven't managed to explore. Everyday, we die to find the answer to the one question we had since the beginning. What happened here? Why did it happen? Will it happen again?

Governance and Politics: _{The One don't have a form of government per se, as they are One and the same, each knows what's good for the other without the need for debate.}

Technology Overview:

• 1. Ultra Advanced Cloning Vats allow a full grown human to be made in 48 hours.
• 2. The Dome - a huge structure meant to resist the worst environments.
• 3. Human-Batteries - All the major tech of The One will be sustained by human batteries which use their bodies to power them up. Depending on the power needed, the number of human batteries needed can be up to 1 million (for the cloning vats)

Military Overview: _{The One have no need to have a trained military as in-fighting is considered a stage of mental disease for the One.}

Infrastuctre & more:
<sub>1. Food - In a part of the city, glowing mushroom grew which is being used as a base to clone it as many times it was needed to feed the One with a combination of themselves as protein.

1.1. Water? One side of their world is frozen. After you pass on through the first thousands that died to make it less-poisonous for the human body, that's it and the even bigger number of those that die due to the extreme temperatures, you're sorted.

2. Electricity - Themselves, hooking up thousands of Ones and using their energy to sustain the cloning vats.

3. Materials like clothes and the sorts? Leather clothes. Where do they get the leather from? You guessed it, themselves. Not that they really need that many clothes. They all look the same, it's like they'd watch themselves in the mirror. Tools? Bones. Would the bones break? Sure, but they've got an almost unlimited amount of bones. The list goes on.

Common terms :

Old One - The oldest of the One. He is the only one which refuses to update their information as a sense of simulating life as it would've been pre-cloning.

Immortalis - also called Bezians by the ECU. They were a highly advanced civilization that mysteriously disappeared. The Circle of One, the name of the city in which the One live, is a ruin. Besides the Vaults where the One discovered the cloning vats and the black pyramids, nothing else is undamaged. In some parts of the city there will be automatic defences (drones, machine guns etc) which protect it. That's the reason the One never explored all of their city.

The Circle of One - The name of the city in which the One live, is a ruin. Besides the Vaults where the One discovered the cloning vats and the black pyramids, nothing else is undamaged. In some parts of the city there will be automatic defences (drones, machine guns etc) which protect their area. That's the main reason the One never explored all of their city. The city is surrounded by a huge dome that acts as a defence against the terrible living conditions on the planet.</sub>




Additional Info: _{Theme song - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzvyQ8JxwMk}

Nation Name: New Haven Directorate

Motto: "There Is No Limit To Exploration"

Government Form: Technocratic Dictatorship

The actions of the state are governed and approved by the Lead Director. Underneath him is a board of specialist such as the Director of Energy, Director of Military Science, Director of Health and safety, & so on.

Demographics:

For every human individual there is at least four of any kind of autonomous drone.

Population:

Latest general census shows a little over 1.5 billion souls currently part of the New Haven Directorate. This figure does not include autonomous robotics.

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Planet Name and Description: NEW HAVEN



New Haven is a large Earth-Like terrestrial body orbiting a large red gas giant which in turn orbits a yellow star. New Haven is only slightly smaller than Earth and supports a fairly similar biosphere to that of Earth.

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History:

The colonists that landed on New Haven were pleasantly surprised by the habitabilty of the world they had found and named this world New Haven. However, their introduction into the new environment had unforeseen consequences. The early colonists were struck with alien diseases and as if that wasn't bad enough, the colonists themselves spread diseases from Earth to their surroundings.

For years the colonists battled against disease and in an effort to keep themselves sterile invested heavily into robotics and biological research. Their early efforts into scientific advancement to conquer their inherent weaknesses would turn into a staple of their culture and society.

After a number of decades, the colonists would establish themselves and would soon adapt to their new home. Slowly, the science that was used to keep them alive was put to greater use in understanding their new home and making life easier for the colonists.

Slowly and slowly the colonists would be divided into two groups: the capable hardworking professionals and the decadent consumerist. Inevitably, there were government reforms that would eventually evolve into the directorate state the New Havenists are today. Hard work was rewarded well and the fat and lazy were punished. Specialists that have worked towards the benefit of New Haven would be allowed to retire and were allowed to be decadent being seen as having well earned it.

In later years there would be political instability within the New Havenist government. Splinter groups of different leaders in government disagreed in which way New Haven was to grow. This led to the infamous robotics proxy wars that spanned for 40 long years with no end in sight. After a long and pointless struggle, the New Havenists drew up a treaty and yet another government reform was enacted. This time with a more centralized board of directors with one lead director to govern over all of New Haven.

For the time being there was peace. That peace lasted for many generations and finally the New Havenists have begun efforts to explore and study the rest of the system and reopen the Gateway

Culture and Society:

New Havenist culture and society on their past hardships and their struggle. They derive great pride in their cunning and intellect. They are not adverse to different ways of achieving longevity be it artificial prosthetics and transhumanist ethics. However, they are not fanatics in this aspect and it is an generally an open choice whether to remain completely human or augmenting themselves.

Freedom of choice in most aspects of life is believed to allow people to find their niche in New Haven society. However, this only extends so much as the current Board of Directors allows. Spirituality for example is not strictly mandated. Religious freedom is encouraged so long as it does not disrupt New Haven's stability as a whole.

Disruption, even socially, is considered rude and so great care was taken by every citizen to be as orderly and as considerate as possible to the people around them. It is also because of their inherent struggle with alien diseases that they are meticulous with their own cleanliness - though not universal it is very common.

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Governance and Politics:

The governing body of the New Haven Directorate is a board of specialist directors of various departments of government. The most important is the Lead Director who oversees the Board of Directors. The Lead Director's role is a very powerful position, thus, the next Lead Director is carefully selected from a pool of candidates in secret - even the candidates themselves do not know. These candidates are selected by the current Lead Director. This process is mirrored in all roles within the board and all candidates are to be appraised of technical skill and knowledge on various subjects by the board before relieving the current board director.

Currently the Lead Director is a man named Hubert Seymour. An often times silly man with a penchant for the theatric. However, despite his eccentric personality he's proven himself as a leader for the last fifteen years. He spearheaded the campaign to explore the local system of New Haven (now known as Elysium) and reactivating the gates in order to expand outwards to rediscover Earth and explore new worlds in the name of science and discovery.



Technology Overview:

• Advanced Automation - Their experience with drone technology is above average and has proven self-sufficient even after losing communications. Executing objectives quickly and making decisions based on mission parameters.
• Advanced Medical Technology - Their early battles with disease has led to experienced medical physicians. Alongside them developed medical technology in order to allow them to do their jobs.
• Advanced Manufacturing Technology - After the Robot Proxy Wars in that divided New Haven into several parties, an arms race was launched both metaphorically and literally. Every side was researching how to increase manufacturing capabilities such as nano-constructors. These technologies were folded into civilian use and expanded upon after the end of the Robot Proxy Wars.

Military Overview:

Because of the Robot Proxy Wars, the New Haven Defense force was organized to keep peace and police the Elysium system. Many weapons and technology were demilitarized for this role but are nonetheless dangerous to any outward aggressor. The Defense Force functions as a deterrent for any dissenters and prevent another divide within New Haven.

However, the navy additionally functions as the primary sponsors for explorers needing ships to new worlds within the Elysium system and towards the gate for the purposes of expanding the breadth of knowledge available to New Haven as a whole.

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Characters (WIP):

Hubert Seymour - Lead Director.

Dick Wazzinski - Political Science Director.

Timothy Candy - Military Science Director.

Nathan Durnham - (WIP)

Planet Name and Description:

History:

Origins of the Supremus [+]

Even before the colony ship for New Gift had set off for its destination, there were a few things which set it apart from the others. It was a largely private endeavor, funded by the multi-national conglomerate SciCorps, given to it for its major contributions towards the various conservation efforts it headed on Earth. It had an incredibly small colony of only 2,000 humans, headed by top scientists, geneticists, engineers and strangely, historians. Geniuses all but were often viewed by the outer scientific community as 'odd'. Opposed to other colony ships, what made up its vast holds were the remaining populations of several of humanity's closest relatives. To the heads of SciCorps, all eccentric, billionaire, science-guided men who saw the downfall of humanity by its own hubris. To them, humanity had lost its way and thus its right to think itself supreme. It must be succeeded by inheritors of humanity's best while lacking of its worst traits. Thus they found their inspiration within the remaining populations of chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans numbering 50,000 altogether. Their populations were devastated by humanity in their arrogance, their habitats destroyed by our carelessness and greed. They would understand us, our histories, our cultures, our hardships and our follies. They would be uplifted by our hand and succeed where we failed.

SciCorps had chosen our closest relatives due to the greater ease in which they could be uplifted to sapient-level intelligence and their existing ability to use tools. Since the bonobo had been killed off a decades before the colony ships were being prepared, orangutans and gorillas had been brought in to boost numbers and bring diversity. Advanced humanity had long since mapped their own brains and thus had also been able to map the brains of these ape species. In the years before SciCorps' colony ship launch, several research teams worked on discovering a way to "uplift" non-sapient species in the hopes that these species could inherit our legacy but be better than we were. They had succeeded with these three species but only through the splicing of human genes and most peculiarly, personalities. To gain sapience, they must be implanted with the personality of an already existing (or past) human to ensure stability, proper empathy and intelligence.

Undeterred by these revelations, SciCorps used its vast wealth to collect historians, geneticists and scientists in conjunction with superintelligent AI to map and create the brains of the greatest examples of humanity. These eccentric geniuses had been over-enthusiastic in their brain mapping and with its minimal oversight (SciCorps was busy with its ongoing conservation efforts as well as Earth's dying days), some less-than-great minds had been mapped and stored for uploading. These additions would not be properly audited by the SciCorps elite in its waning days as processes were rushed due to various calamities which befell the conglomerate in its waning days. In the implantation and upload, over 10,000 subjects, mainly gorillas and orangutans, suffered shock and death upon awakening from the traumatic procedures. A further 5,000 would perish in the gene enhancing operations that would follow. Better vocal speech, more dexterous thumbs, greater muscular density than before. The remaining apes would undergo history lessons, morality tests, intelligence tests and physical ability tests. A further 3,500 would be culled in the last years before colony launch. The remaining roughly 31,500 Supremus apes as they had been dubbed would board the colony ship Terra Supremus along with their teachers, a secret kept hidden from the rest of the world.

The First Steps [+]

Upon their arrival to New Gift and the subsequent loss of the Gateways, some of the human teachers set to work on finding out about the world below while the inheritors would learn from the rest. What they found horrified and often, killed them. This would be the world of their inheritors, of mankind's successors? They all believed deep within their hearts (after several years of SciCorps propaganda and brainwashing) that the other human colonies would fall to strife as Earth had. These Supremus would be slaughtered there, despite their genetic enhancements and uplift. A solution would come from one of these apes themselves. A cunning, intelligent orangutan, known for his great charisma and dominance among the other apes. One whose brain template's name had been lost to all but him. The Khan incarnate spoke with a deep rumbling voice.

"O wise teachers, our humble creators. You have taught us your ways, to be the inheritors of your wisdom and greatness. O generous people you have been, giving us knowledge to renew our species, setting us on a worthier path. O wonderful you have been, gifting us the minds of your greatest so we may succeed you, as impossible as that venture may seem to our lowly minds. We are your children, and you are our parents, we are the flock to be moved to greener pastures by you, the shepherds. You have taught and given us much, but we lack an art of yours. One you have, out of justified fear, left out of our teachings. Aside from the arts of engineering, science and culture, you must teach us the Art of War." Yesugei spread his arms, orange fur draping elegantly in brushed locks, a toothy grin on his face.

There were protests at first. These were to be our peaceful inheritors, our greatest legacy. How could we give them the knowledge of our greatest folly? But even to the most idealist of the teachers, they could find no other answer. The colony ship had been armed with science and industry, not advanced weaponry. Mine excavators, modular industrial complexes, great agricultural machines. They were a mere 2,000 souls, many of whom soon to die due to old age because of how long this project had taken and stress taking its toll. They must teach their children how to defend themselves against this harsh world of theirs. They must teach their successors humanity's greatest folly - conflict.

Thus the colony ship landed a year later with supplies running low, in the largest savanna in the supercontinent Munus. The combined Supremus population had grown to 60,000 apes, many of the children inheriting the forced genetic tampering easier than expected. Here, the human caretakers, now dwindling in numbers and long rendered infertile by age, let their successors choose their own fate away from their tampering and holed themselves up in the stranded colony ship. They were confident that despite the mistakes along the way, their "children" as many had started to see them, would grow to be their betters. And in the beginning, as they observed the various projects of a growing ape population, their optimistic views were proven correct. A sprawling town would grow around the fallen ship, a "Neo-Earth" as its denizens began to call it in homage to their creators. An egalitarian democracy in which all could have their say. The pursuits of science, technology and the arts ruled supreme. Industry began to pop up around the town, solar panels and wind farms providing energy to prevent the wounds give to the old Earth. Automated mining and farming began nearby, feeding resources to the great minds within the city. Defensive automatons were built with supplied military knowledge, defending Neo-Earth from its harsh surroundings aided by Supremus’ most physical specimens. Separated from their inheritors, the last humans felt content with their success.

So much so that they were blinded by it.

Politicking and Compromise [+]

By the time of the last caretaker’s death, the many great inherited minds from Humanity’s history had fractured between political camps. True egalitarianism could not truly work with the growing population. And thus, four main camps of political thought formed.

Aristotle argued that although democracy did work, they needed to make sure that the officials that are elected are learned apes of intelligence, selflessness and most controversially, a past life of serving the public good. He represented many of the reborn scientists and philosophers. Many of these would primarily be older first-generation Supremus.

Rousseau passionately countered that democracy must be indiscriminate of one’s background and thus one’s past “life” was akin to their genealogy. Judging an ape for their mere “blood” went against what they were taught. He represented many of the great democratic leaders and many others who came from democratic states, valuing freedom. A significant minority of Rousseau’s followers would be made up of the youngest second-generation.

Caesar intoned that democracy had ultimately failed Humanity. Once bloated bureaucratic machines came to be, it only served to fracture and slow nations, the chimpanzee explained. If they kept to choosing strong, just leaders who in turn chose strong, just successors. This way, the Supremus could move forward faster and under stable rule. He represented the military men, kings, queens, and others disillusioned by democracy. Almost all these would be younger first-generation Supremus.

The final school of thought was led by Temujin, son of Yesugei, the dark horse and only second generation Supremus to represent their own camp. He would only come near the end of the debates, giving his proposition. They had been implanted with Humanity’s greatest minds but of different philosophies, politics, and time periods. How one group of Supremus would want to be governed could be vastly different from another. Let each group rule their own in the way they want but have a sort of intergovernmental union which connected them. A confederation of sovereign nations with the ceremonial position of Governor-General who constitutionally held little power. They served to act as mediator between nations, would be its figurative head, represent Supremus in its foreign affairs and only maintain a modest, non-automated self-defence force as a deterrent versus power hungry nations seeking to topple the Governor-General. Nations would keep to themselves with internal affairs and resource allocation by the Governor-General would be dictated strictly by needs and population. This was supported by the late Yesugei’s closest confidantes and the outsiders who disagreed with the other camps and sought to do their own way. Many of the latter were second-generation Supremus.

The other three camps would vehemently disagree outwardly towards this proposal. Going for this sort of compromise could weaken their political position in the eyes of their supporters and enemies. However, the debates had made many tired and thus many behind the scenes deals would be made towards these compromisers. Rousseau proposed the addition of elected sovereign officials who would serve as representatives of their nations in a parliament, which could make changes to the federal constitution or hold a supermajority vote of no-confidence upon the Governor-General to check his power. Temujin accepted these terms with passionate chest thumping and nods.

Aristotle, through his subordinate chimpanzee Theophrastus, would propose that those officials must have a certain level of intelligence and selflessness, as indicated by the scores previously tested by the humans. All second generation Supremus and those following generations must submit to these tests to check their eligibility. The testing must be done by a representative body of learned men from each nation, separate from the Senate. This Oligarchy would ensure stability and be a counter to the powers of the Senate. Temujin accepted with grace, bowing his head.

The only detractor remaining at the end of the talks would be Caesar and his camp, eyeing the son of Yesugei with obvious suspicion. No representative seemed to come from him and his. The message was clear. Aristotle, followed by Rousseau again, stated their proposals and Temujin accepted them publicly. Caesar’s followers walked out of the talks, with Caesar himself last to leave. “Blind baboons” he spat “the lot of you!” Him and his followers would disappear the following day with stolen resources and arms, last seen over the horizon in the direction of the jungles. Certain genetic templates and tissue would be stolen that night, records of it wiped from the colony ship's computers.

The Formation of the New Gift Federation [+]

Disregarding the threat of Caesar due to the hellish jungles of New Gift, the three leaders would set to establish the New Gift Federation. Several other nations would be formed by other individuals only to join the N.G.G. There would be a mass exodus from Neo-Earth township, many of the modular industrial complexes and mobile shelters splitting in a diaspora around the newly named Neo-Earth diaspora. Rousseau’s Republic of Freemen and Aristotle’s Polity of Philosophy would form the largest city-states while the others would form townships or smaller villages. The most significant of these smaller governments would be Thunberg’s Conservation League and Lincoln’s democratic Reformed States of America.

The old colony ship would serve as the Governor-General’s seat due to its central position. True to the constitution, Temujin did not do anything to interfere with the governance of the states. In truth, despite the initial fears within the Republic and the Polity of the Governor-General turning into a dictator, this was seen to be largely unfounded. The Senate and Oligarchy would become a ruthless political arena between the Polity, the Republic, their different sovereign allies, and the independents. These two city-states would dominate the political sphere of the N.G.G. and be the most powerful, dubbed the “Greater States”.

The many military automatons of Terra Supremus, the colony ship’s name and the new name of the old Neo-Earth township, would go to these powerful states. Thus the defence of many of the smaller independent town-states and villages would be given to Temujin and his self-defence forces. These would be made up of individuals from all the nations, to ensure equality and an image of unity. Universally, within the Polity and the Republic, this force would be looked down upon when compared to the advanced military automatons. Thus the conscripts sent to the Federation SDF from these powers would mainly be the Supremus who did not fit the mould.

Temujin would form a strict meritocracy within the ranks of the SDF, creating an effective fast response force which could mobilise quickly to any threats towards the weaker states. Heavily drilled and with strict punishments for slacking, the SDF would become a premier military force second only to the advanced automatons of the Greater States. Their popularity would only grow among the independent nations. The Federation Senate and Oligarchy became fiercer political battlegrounds as time went on, serving as a representation of power between the Greater States.

Upon the birth of Temujin’s first son, Ogedei, a Cold War would ensue between the Greater Powers after a series of political advancements by the Republic when it seduced several nations to its power bloc. Automatons were advanced, walls were raised and for the first time, war machines would be sent in support of ally sovereigns. Pre-empting this, the Governor-General called forth the first negotiations between the two powers, acting as mediator. He was an excellent orator and convinced the leaders of the Greater States to set aside their weapons, reminding them of the reason behind their uplifting and creation.

”Learned ape, free ape, this humble one must remind you that we are all Supremus. We were created as inheritors of Humanity’s legacy and tasked to be their successors. We know not about the other colonies but going by anything our wise caretakers taught us, they would be in strife and conflict. We learned of war to fight our deadly surroundings, not to fight each other. We are better and we must prove ourselves to be better, lest we disprove our own species’ names. Whether chimpanzee, orangutan, or gorilla. Whether Politician, Republican, Reformed American or others. We stand better united and at peace. We must prove ourselves supreme.”

The subsequent stop on the development of war automatons would serve to be the greatest achievement in Temujin the Peacekeeper’s life. A new age of prosperity and unity would rise within the Federation, one that Ogedei would inherit once he was appointed as Governor-General, upon Temujin’s death. The supposed nepotism was ignored due to the late Peacekeeper’s popularity and the relatively powerless position kept even avid conspiracy theorists at bay. It would be early in Ogedei’s tenure that plots would begin to unravel themselves.

The War to End All Wars [+]

Tiberius Caesar, son of Augustus, son of Julius, had come. Hardened by three generations within the jungle, the Emperor’s Followers had returned from their long exile to prove themselves worthy as leaders of the Supremus. They sat atop great war beasts and fought alongside tamed monsters, having long gotten used to and conquering the deadly denizens within the jungle. Targeting the southernmost city-states and townships, they raided these frontier nations with glee and were only pushed back once the SDF had reached them. It was clear that they could not be reasoned with.

These year-long raids would only prove as a distraction as a great war host came from the jungles circled a two prong attack upon the East and West. Amassing a truly terrible host of monsters and hardened Supremus, these were the proverbial daggers to the hearts of the Federation – the Greater States. As the SDF was distracted to the south and its numbers limited by constitution, it fell to the Polity and the Republic to defend Neo-Earth’s heartlands. Automaton fought beast, Supremus fought Supremus in bitter conflict and rivalry.

The fighting was fierce in the south, east and west of the Neo-Earth savanna. The Emperor’s Followers were backed by their war-beasts, savage poisons and chemical artillery which inflicted heavy casualties upon Polity, Republican and ally conscripts. Only the automatons fared better, metal resistant against claws, large ammunition and explosives proving deadly against flesh. The east and the west saw the bloodiest of the fighting, back and forth offensive manoeuvres on both sides, probing the other to find weaknesses. Deep trenches and fortifications would be set up against each other, carving up the earth of a once beautiful continent-sized savanna. The south found more success with Ogedei’s forces, a more tactical type of warfare which saw constantly changing battle lines, ambushes, and false flag attacks. The SDF was aided by its supreme manoeuvrability and its QRF-based military doctrine.

As the war went on and weeks turned into months which turned into years, the nations of the Federation grew desperate. Seemingly unending hordes of wild beasts would crash into their lines nearly daily. Endless chemical bombardment and brutal poisoned fangs or blades would see to plummeting morale. Everyone had gotten involved in the war at this point, Polity and Republican conscripts running low as their populations were stricken low. And everyone had noticed that the only front in which they could be called gaining non-pyrrhic victories was on the southern front.

More emergency powers would be given to Governor-General Ogedei in this desperate dozen years of war, passed through the Senate in record breaking speeds. With every major victory he gained in the south, the more power he was given. To turn the war around, a hopeful Federation turned towards its seemingly greatest leader. Despite the weak protests of the once Greater States, who had now long since diminished in power and influence with their crippled populations and defeats in the east and west, the Senate passed several constitutional amendments to give the Governor-General the power as a Supreme Leader. The Khan.

Ogedei Khan, as he was now known, set to finish the war. The probing back and forth within the south became a lightning fast counteroffensive, the Khan's newly dubbed Legionnaires smashing through the weaker southern Imperial battle lines and circling back to bolster the east and west.

At the siege of Roma-Greek, the Polity city-state, among the broken pillars of a new Parthenon, the first siege would be broken and the Imperials would be pushed back on the eastern front for the first time in years. These Legionnaires would be lauded as heroes, beleaguered conscripts with decrepit automatons witnessed these disciplined legionnaires toeing with beasts, weathering chemical storms and fighting against the harshest poisons. Unknown to them, as the years went on, the Khan had further genetically enhanced his personal soldiery to have greater resistance against their foes. The stage was set and the war would reach its final stages. Suffering crippling defeat after crippling defeat, sometimes retreating at the mere sight of the Khan's forces, the Imperials were routed back into their jungle. The free apes would celebrate the announcement of the war's final battle, with Ogedei hailed as a hero.

The Age of the Khanate [+]

Upon victory, Ogedei the Old released several quick reformations with his ascension as Khan. The Senate would be kept as council to him and every Hegemon following, thus keeping each nation as sovereign entities which would stay in charge of their own domestic affairs and governance. Even the idea of a supermajority ruling of no-confidence was kept in place but the Oligarchy as an institution was done away with. The Khan is kept in check by the Senate but has larger powers with controlling foreign affairs, greater executive powers in vetoing laws passed by the Senate and control of a Federation-wide Legion which could attack as well as defend.

Individual militaries would be allowed for each nation but limited to a certain percentage of the nation's citizen population. Terra Supremus would be refitted into a mobile capital and home of the Senate. The Khan will only be focused on matters of foreign affairs and domestic peace, having a large military legion with an oath to defend the rights of each sovereign nation if breached (with exceptions). A Federal Monarchy as it were, with all leaders swearing upon the Khan and the Khan swearing to protect each of their ape peoples and their sovereignty. Technology could be kept individually between city-states but trade was encouraged. Minor conflicts can occur between nations but is kept in check by the overview of the Khan. Tribute is sent regularly to Terra Supremus by eager nations seeking the approval of the Khan, to gain better standing in the Senate and hold better sway as advisors. The Khan is made essential to protect against threats foreign and domestic, those who seek to undermine the continued freedom of the Supremus to largely govern themselves.

And thus a new age of prosperity began. With the Khan's legions protecting against possible incursions from the jungles, another age of rebuilding, expansion and innovation could begin. With the end of the War to End All Wars came a large population boom and great confidence in the protection of the Khan. The scars of war were removed from the vast Neo-Earth savanna, replaced by carefully planned, permanent cities, environment-conscious agriculture and improved solar and wind farms. Mining projects would bring greater resource wealth, fueling inventions and architectural wonders from humanity's histories. Competition between nations would fuel these great leaps forward, under the wise and guided tutelage of the Khan of course. Education would continue as the caretaker's had taught them but with increased focus on the history of the nations under the Khan. Pride in being a Supremus was at an all time high.

The title of Khan would pass through another two generations, staying focused on developing New Gift and quelling dissidents to the peace. Space technology was theorised and reverse engineers but ignored to focus more on their new home. Cultural works of humanity would continue to be redeveloped in painstaking detail, copies of old landmarks and large historical libraries serving as tourist destinations. Developing light but highly durable alloys, more effective modular cities and industrial complexes which could move quicker than before. Sprawling city-states would dot the northern savanna of Gaia and eventually as this crowded, some others would move to the southern savanna of Tellus. These states would be few and far between due to presence of roving bands of former Imperial bandit-kings, having fake claims of sharing blood with the Caesars of old. No true son of Caesar has come out of the jungles.

Though it would seem reasonable to destroy the jungle or make a final crusade against the Imperials. And many state-heads did pose the question to their leader. But as every Khan would reason, such an effort would be resource-draining at best and cause permanent ecological damage at worst. Let the outsiders sit in their uncivilised jungle dens until they starve themselves out or revert back to a more primitive nature.

For Khublai Khan, second son of Möngke the Builder, his eyes were set to new horizons. As with many Khans before him, he was ambitious and looked to set himself apart from his predecessors. He could approve of the conservation and infrastructure projects set by his father but he felt greatness can be found further afield. On the 299^th Year since Landing, an opportunity came with the sudden opening of the gateway. When notified by astronomers of the event, he set off to the Senate to make an announcement which would set waves for generations of apes to come.

"Here before us stands a golden opportunity for us lowly apes. An opportunity to carry humanity's legacy to the stars itself! The mysterious Gateway has opened and with it, the chance for you nations high and low to prove yourselves supreme. Worthy to be inheritors. Worthy of Supremus. I will take one representative from each nation under my protection, so each nation may once more breathe the air of our ancestors and creators. With my guiding hand, I aim to take the nations of the Hegemony to Earth, the home of our predecessors and a new frontier!" And thus, work would begin immediately, focus shifting upon the stars and the place they once called home. The refits and repairs upon Terra Supremus would begin as the minds of the Hegemony worked day and night to get it to the stars. With the title of capital moved to the city of the same name which surrounded the slumbering beast.

The old colony ship would rise once more, modified to fit a small number of refitted void-capable automatons magnetically locked to its hull for soem protection. It had quarters of the nation’s representatives, their guards, the Legionnaire Expeditionary Forces and the first son of Khublai Khan himself, Temujin II, as leader. To bring humanity’s legacy back home.

Culture and Society:
A number of different cultures and societies are under the Khan's purview, making the Khanate seem as fractious as the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. Many apes of the many different nations call their ancestry back to a first generation Supremus whose personalities were based on 31,500 different great minds from across human history. Their creation and uplift was so the Supremus could be humanity's legacy to the stars, thus the variety respects that. City-states within the Federal Khanate are largely self-governed and citizens are bound by the rules within those city-states. Societal and cultural norms can vary largely. Sometimes, it appears that the only things binding the nations together is the oath to the Khan, an equal respect and feeling of supremacy for humanity and a fear of flying. The vast majority are based on human examples throughout history.

The title of "Greater State" is a largely informal one, referring to a city-state's abundant wealth, technology, standing with the Khan and ability to influence other states. Often, the more you have of one, the other attributes will follow. The ability of a state to attract citizens only increases with age, standing and increased opportunities. This title is not held forever though and can be torn away quickly. Ways a Greater State can lose its standing can include political mishaps in the Senate, scandals, significant loss in approved conflicts, declaring conflict with another state without approval of the Khan, bloody coups or an outbreak of ape-eating snakes, among many. Once one state is brought low, there will be five others trying to take its place. As of present time, the Greater States are:

The Republic of Freemen - A democratic republic founded by Jean-Jacque Rousseau and the only continuous Greater State since the old Federation. Republicans are often seen as a very free people with liberal and radical views as in line with the city state's founder. European architecture of the Enlightenment era dot the cityscape, green parks and regularly held festivals interspersed within. Art and the exploration of Enlightenment era beliefs and culture is taught within their schools and French revolution-era clothing has recently taken to the apes there. Citizens have disdain towards the more brutish and unenlightened states, preferring the intellectual and "modern" ones. Republicans have a "social contract" in which citizens should be held to the general will of the people in the city so despite their apparent freedom, conformity is more the norm here. They use the greatest amount of automatons within their military and in their society, holding the largest power-bloc in the Senate. Though some outsiders claim that their greatest contributes to the Khanate are their powdered wigs and itchy clothing, it is their automaton technology which is the backbone of their industry. No finer, more ape-like automatons can be found and they range from purposes in war, service, guarding, transport and labour.

The Conservation League - An oligarchy founded by a group of like-minded, environmentally conscious individuals aiming to prevent the destruction wrought on Earth finding itself on New Gift. This state is focused on the preservation and conservation of native fauna and is incredibly single minded in its task. The oligarchy-system of governance was formed to rid of the ineffective slowness of democratic human nations in addressing climate change. They have the most efficient solar and wind technology, distributing to many of the other city states in the Federal Khanate. The Conservationists are also adept at genetics and sustainable agricultural efforts, creating more efficient crops and advanced procedures to make lab-grown meat for the more adventurous ape. Surprisingly, they hold the highest number of approved conflicts out of any present Greater State. They go, for the lack of a better term, "apeshit" at any perceived attempts to hinder their efforts in conserving the planet. They use genetically enhanced ape soldiers to great effect, second in advancements only to the Legion. With holding much of the moral high ground to the eyes of the Senate, enemies of the League fall quickly. The only reason they have not been denounced by an annoyed Khan is because of their enthusiastic support for the regime due to its own conservation efforts.

The Lost Humanist Theocracy - Some religious inclinations made their way to humanity's inheritors but the largest of these religions are of Human-worship. In particular, remembrance-worship of those who could not be afforded the "Path to Reincarnation" as the first generation Supremus had. Thus followers of this religion are absurdly focused on the positive features of human nature, revering the spirits of those left behind. Walking through Humanist architecture is akin to taking a step backwards in time, as they largely look down upon most forms of ape-made technology and they forsake many of the regular genetic enhancements given to Supremus simians. "For how useful were they, for those spirits left behind." This guilt-type of reverence and "lost" spirit worship is shared among a number of apes outside the Theocracy's limits but their more radical ideas (forsaking genetic enhancement and ape technology) are largely frowned upon. They have many missions throughout New Gift as free teachers, healers and advisors, seeking to atone and relieve their guilt, appeasing their Human Spirits. This is counter to the usual trend of supremacist views among Supremus. Their current standing comes from the spread of their religion to outside of the city's borders and the recent addition to their clergy, the third son of Khublai Khan, Sartaq. They deny and outwardly revile the idea of a "hidden inquisition" which protects missionaries outside their borders, keeping only an unarmed police force for visitors and a small dedicated team of bodyguards. Despite their recent rise in popularity, this cult-like city-state is still viewed with suspicion by other states of greater or equivalent power.

The Frontier Nations - Not a single state per se but a term collectively referring to nations that reside in untamed Tellus. These frontier city-states are attractive to the young, adventurous and foolhardy, seeking to escape the more "crowded" civilisation of Gaia. Frontier nations which last are hardy, bloodied and resourceful with a grudging camaraderie between nations who also last. Moving in mobile minor cities, they can pack up and run quickly once they spot bandits or rivals coming at them. Life in the frontier is hard but can be rewarding, with much of the savanna left untouched and resources aplenty. Often times, fallen city-states who seek to gain their standing once again become a Frontier Nation. A significant example of this is the Polity which, after the misfortunes that befell it in the Great War, sought to regain its status as a Greater State once more. They form a small but not insignificant power bloc in the Senate, with many apes respecting their hardiness and drive to survive. Some view them with disdain.

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Governance and Politics:

"We swear ourselves to the Khan and they swear their selves to us."

The Federal Khanate describes itself perfectly; a federation consisting of nations which swears itself to the Khan. The Khan has ultimate control over foreign affairs and defence, enforces the rules of the constitution, the largest military and swears to uphold the sovereignty, supremacy and rights of the people. The title of "Khan" is not hereditary, though most past Khans have chosen their firstborn sons as imminent heir as matter of preference. Instead, a Khan will name their list of successors within their will in their order of preference. There is no choice for the chosen as the Khan's will is granted constitutional rights. Thus a Khan will often groom their successor over many years, preparing them for their rule. The title cannot be passed down to any current or past leaders of city states and thus Khan's have all come from the bloodline of Yesugei. In the horrid event that none of the chosen successors are alive at the time of the Khan's death (unlikely because the list of successors have often become over a hundred names long), the Senate will hold a vote to choosing a prominent ape to succeed.

There are some federal guidelines for apes seeking to found their own nation, to join the 1,738 already present. Some semblance of order must be established as anarchic states have the tendency to crumble in on itself thus the Khan requires a set of written laws and an official banner to represent itself. Conflicts should be avoided but are allowed as long as both parties seek the approval of the Khan and the matter is isolated. Yearly gatherings of the Senate, times when the Khan calls for a Senate hearing and gatherings in times of emergency (such as when a Khan dies) are mandatory sessions. The title of senator cannot be bestowed on any current leader of a city-state to prevent disruption. Coups must be contained and trade agreements made by the defending government must be made until the coup is sorted out. Any disruptions to the rest of the Khanate is met with the swift boot of the Legion. Speaking of, a certain detachment of Legion forces must be present within the city perimeter at all times and any attempt to coerce, eliminate or impede them is treated with extreme prejudice. The leader/s or most prominent figure must swear upon the constitution and swear to the Khan, similarly to any new senators otherwise their state is considered to have ceded from the Khanate. States are also constricted to a set amount of territory and can petition the Khan for more land only during the yearly Senate gatherings. Otherwise, the laws of the land can vary greatly between city states.

Individual crimes can be punished differently between states. Thievery can result in the loss of the hand or a pat on the back. In some corporate states, white collar crime is punished more severely than murder. In many religious and theocratic states, sins are the law equivalent and in some, are seen as an affront to their God-King or Goddess-Queen. The difference in governance between the different states can create cutthroat politics, with seasoned Senators becoming expert politicians and some grudge lists becoming long enough to circle the world (see: The Conservation League). Some states even actively take in escaped prisoners as an insult to another, as long as the Khan approves. The aim of every Minor State is to become a Greater one and the aim of every Greater State is to stay in their position, creating conflict. Order is maintained by the Khan but small approved conflicts or dueling between ruling classes are common enough to be seen as normal. This chaos results in significant changes in the Senate regularly and can confuse outsiders. The only official federal land claimed by the Khan is Terra Supremus and the equatorial jungles of New Gift. Only approved citizens and soldiers are allowed to visit the latter though that does not stop the Imperials, bandits and runaways. The only federal crimes that an ape can commit is attempted assault/murder of a Khan and his successors, federal treason, secession, disruption of the common peace/trade and slavery. These crimes are met with the appropriate force to extinguish it from existence.

Technology Overview:
As with everything in the Khanate, technology can vary greatly as well. With the vast number of states come different wealth, technology and sometimes, acceptance of technology. The apes have tended to neglect space technology until recently, having only communication and weather satellites due to the focus on developing the land of New Gift. Overall, the technology level is similar to what they started with some developing trends over the years:

Conservation - The influence of Earth's downfall affect the Supremus apes greatly. They have an extensive genetic library of old Earth fauna stored but no cloning, beyond infertile pets such as dogs and cats, have occurred to preserve native fauna. Every ape conserves this legacy and intends to conserve their current home as well. Great attempts have been made to conserve the natural ecosystem of New Gift with very few permanent cities being established, many states opting for moving, modular cities atop trusty tracks to prevent disruption to animal migrations (despite the active hostility of many of these animals). Similarly, most agriculture is kept limited and genetically enhanced to be as productive in as small an area as possible, kept in mobile greenhouses to prevent cross-pollination with native plants. The term "conservation" generally means the conservation of environment, human history and culture.

Genetics - With the availability of each simian species' DNA map and the technology to modify it, genetic manipulation is common among the apes. It is widely acceptable to modify oneself or offspring to be better though greater advancements are often closely guarded secrets of states (except to the Khan). Enhancements can range from increased physical attributes, an ability to stay awake longer, better senses, an inability to feel pain (for the crazy) to even enhanced fertility. The latter seems to be utilised by the Khans heavily as they foster many children.

Variety - The sheer variety of different states means technological focus can vary drastically. With encouraged trade between states, nations are often sharing their own specialised technology in exchange for something they need. For example, the Conservation League are experts at conservative and environmentally friendly power sources but lack some of the knowledge on the automaton labourers found in a state such as the Republic. They could try to reverse-engineer their own but this is seen as a more expensive endeavor compared to simply trading for the most advanced goods. That is to say, most minor city-states enjoy a mediocre set of technologies and are viewed as more "standard".

Military Overview:
Conflict has evolved drastically since the lumbering automatons, mass wave tactics and trench warfare of the War to End All Wars. Every significant enough city-state has a military, otherwise having to rely on detachments of the Khan's legionnaires for defense. But the focus, tactics and ability of said militaries can vary significantly. They do focus on an important factor in the conflicts which pepper the Khanate: mobility. The ability to strike first, fine manoeuvres around the enemy, ambushes and changing battle lines. The modern Supremus simian soldier is armed with a truckload of communication and infortmation technology and any military worth their salt will have a BattleNet to highlight enemy troop movements, possible false flag attacks and lay out orders instantly. Sometimes, organic soldiers are replaced by advanced automatons capable of accepting orders instantly at the behest of a detached Commander. Clashes occur often in the lower streets of moving cities, in mobile savanna outposts and often, between moving military command centers. The defeat of an opponent is usually marked either by a significant destruction or capture of an opponents asset, death of the main military commander or taking the conflict to the point that it is seen as costly for the opponent to continue. As varied as the individual states' militaries are, there is serious standardisation among the Khan's personal military arm - the Legion.

The Khan acts as the supreme commander of the largest and most advanced military on New Gift. There are over 300,000 active duty Legionnaires split between the 30 different divisions of the Legion, with a further 90,000 strong auxiliaries as part of the Expeditionary Corps. Each division is generally made up of a mixed-troop of mechanised, mobile forces each with their own air and armor support. Led by a Divisional-General, each legion must be able to be largely self-sustainable for at least a year, with Expeditionary Corps needing to be fully self-sustaining for upwards to three years. Doing so increases the mobility of each legion and its divided military organisations so that they are able to operate as one. They have the most advanced mobile command centers and BattleNets available, the Legion priding themselves upon their individual soldier's intuition. Consequently, they often look down upon automatons in their rigidness, only using them in aerial combat and support because of the innate fear of flying simians have. Their warfare is that of constant movement to encircle, ambush and outmaneouvre, having mainly been focused on eliminating bandit-kings and the like. The standard genetic enhancements of a Legionnaire include heightened senses, increased endurance, agility and intellect. To become a Legionnaire one must survive these procedures as well as pass several difficult physical and mental team challenges known colloquially as the Grid. Upon becoming a Legionnaire, they are typically stationed to the different nation-states, most in the smaller states to defend it from hostile fauna or bandit simians.

Four divisions, as well as the entire Auxiliary Corps, are labelled as Expeditionary Corps. These are aspects of the Legion focused on actively engaging within the equatorial jungles and frontier-states in Tellus. Both the divisions and the Auxiliaries, who are volunteers from militaries across the states, are tasked with defending the sovereign rights of the frontier states as well as seeking those who intend to subvert them. Targets include Imperial remnants, Bandit-Kings and extremely hostile native fauna. They actively seek these targets frequently, often sending expeditions into the jungles to get to the source of the problem. This is the most dangerous job in the Khanate as it takes the Legionnaire out of the civilisation of northern Gaia and into the rougher parts of Munus where anything can be hostile. Often, the jungle canopy can be too thick for command to reach squads thus many are lost on patrols. Their lives in the hands of vengeful imperials, bandits and vicious beasts, are met with a brutal end. The goals of these expeditions is to ultimately exterminate secessionist activity within New Gift and tame the jungles, through the establishment of Mobile Stability Bases to patrol throughout these hostile lands. Great strides have been made but to many others outside the Legion, the Expeditionary Corps are more like respectable glory hounds.

The Different Soldiers [+]

A standard unarmoured Legionnaire

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A Legionnaire Shock Trooper in their stark-white armour

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A Legionnaire Heavy Shock Trooper

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Two examples of Legionnaire Heavy Weapons support. From left to right: Antipersonnel and anti-armour

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An example of an Expeditionary Corps Legionnaire

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Reformed American military propaganda

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Modern samurai chimpanzee with a gentically enhanced sword-hand, keeping the peace in New Nippon

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Republic of Freemen Revolution-class Heavy Support Automaton

The Different Vehicles [+]

Legion Armoured Personnel Carrier - Congressman-class. The turret can be replaced by an armoured dome on the top for a Heavy Weapons Legionnaire to put their turret through

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Legion Main Battle Tank - Queen-class

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Standard Legion Air Support Drone - Prime Minister-class

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Standard Legion Mobile Operations Base - Emperor-class

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Standard Legion Mobile Carrier Support Base - Khan-class

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Standard Legion Mobile Artillery - King-class

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Standard Legion Gunship Drone - President-class

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Standard Legion Scout ATV - Senator-class

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Expeditionary Legion Armoured Personnel Carrier - Fortitude-class

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Expeditionary Legion Main Battle Tank - Virtue-class

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Expeditionary Legion Mobile Stability Base - Perseverance-class

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Expeditionary Legion Scout ATV - Righteous-class

The Khanate Void Navy [+]

Modular Rocket-Ship utilised for ramming, boarding or gunboat tactics. Can also be converted as support or for commercial use. Above: depiction of a Piercer-class in ramming format.

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Mobile Carrier, capable of holding up to six Rocket-Ships at once along with a collection of drone fighters or shuttles - Murder-class

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Orbital Carrier, can launch many void and atmosphere capable drones or a compliment of shuttles - Bludgeon-class

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Orbital Launcher Carrier, capable of the creation of new Piercer-class Rocket-Ships based on automated processes and launching them through a slingshot orbit around a gravitationally significant body. Also capable of refitting and refueling of existing ships - Slaughter-class

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Armed Boarding Shuttle, armed with high-yield mining lasers, gun turrets, a repair drone compliment and a boarding compliment. Serves as the middle ground between drones and Rocket-Ships - Swarmer-class

To most apes, there is the opinion of historical respect for humans. To the Supremus, they inherited their legacy and were created to continue it. There is, however, a certain supremacy every ape holds over the presumably lost humans. They believe themselves superior, as they are taught they are. The existence of other human colonies is widely known but dismissed to have already devolved into anarchy or fallen from their hubris. The Gateways merely represent an opportunity for the Supremus, to take the legacy of the humans to the stars. For less hostile frontiers and chances to expand. The first step to Earth is merely to see their ancestral homelands, seen as culturally significant but not in other ways. A dead world gives no bounty to them.