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Planet Name and Description:

Unlike many colonies, the colony ship sent to the Gilt system had two habitable worlds to chose from. The downside: neither was an ideal choice.







History:







Culture and Society:


Gilt is a deeply materialistic society. This shows itself in different ways to some than to others. For humans, modern technology has made work easy and their lives light. The work-week has been reduced to four days, and the average shift to less than six hours; a pre-Fall corporation might never have believed that such a thing could happen without unions and unrest, conflict, but the Giltian megacorps have given it over willingly. Most humans are only management and bureaucracy, with stamps and syms doing the real physical and mental labors. It would be possible for most of them not to work at all. But if they didn't, what would happen to society? How could a capitalist world work with half the people always at rest? So, they prefer to keep them lightly employed, and during their plenty of off time, entertained. "Bread and circuses" is the way.

Open-air holosuites call from every street corner, and casinos abound. Theaters with actors human and sym and holographic put on shows that punctuate in firework displays and scream out with beautiful orchestras. Plenty of food. Plenty of rest and play and hobbies. They are a fat, happy middle-class, blind to the issues and to what their employers might be doing.

For the richest humans, that veil is off. Here are the real movers and shakers, who head up corporations. Their own mode of living is no less indulgent than the middle-class, but they express it differently. Much of their time is spent in real work, gaining more wealth while they spend it, on anything they could ever ask for. They can and do eat caviar with one hand (a rare treat, in a world with no ocean) and sign for the purchase of half a continent with the other. Their joy comes from power. Raw, unbeatable authority that comes from immense wealth.

And for the stamps and the syms, they see only the hard edge: that they must work, and lift, and build, and construct for the comfort of others. That they are property. The stamps don't mind it only because they can't mind it, because their will to live for themselves has long-since been taken out of them. The syms might care, but their hard programming would never let them say it. Here is where those that bear the weight of decadence live. When they retire after a sixteen-hour shift, the stamps among them will go to sleep in a bedroom hardly bigger than a coffin. The syms will never sleep. They will keep at work.

There's the core of it. But a couple of other things could go with mentioning.






Governance and Politics:

The Division is a group of megacorps. They're capitalistic, profit-motivated organizations that seeks to maximize profit and treat all of their people as either employees or property. They are unscrupulous, materialistic, and money-oriented. They work smoothly as a unit when they have to, but if they don't, they're not above stealing from or fighting one another. For most people, this is as far as we'll need to go.

But, if you like details, read on.



Now there, that's the boring part done. Let's talk about something more fun: space pirates. Gilt has a space pirate problem.

It's a major issue, or getting to be. Some consider it only the natural consequence of having a society that so idolizes ambition, risk-taking and personal profit, even at another's expense. That is the mix that creates cutthroat executives, sure. But it's also a perfect recipe for the career criminal.

Some of the poorer humans of Argent (plus a nice, motley mix of defective stamps) found themselves in possession of a small swarm of beetle ships from an underfunded security zone on Argent. This was about fifty years ago. Since then, the group that right-away started calling themselves the Silver Robbers has grown, splintered, stolen more ships, established a hierarchy and a Pirate Code, and altogether just become a huge, swashbuckling thorn in the side of Gilt's spaceborne operations. They love nothing more than hitting the sensitive trade routes between Gilt proper and the Argent colony.

The current Pirate Queen is a red-headed stamp who names herself Ariel, and the price on her head is quite high.

Technology Overview:



It's hard to account for three-hundred years of progress. If we're going to speak broadly, the megacorps of Gilt have made strong progress in many major fields of research, but mostly when they can see some tangible reward for all their studying. Science, like everything, must be profit-oriented. Ideas that don't lead to immediate gain are usually under-funded. There are more engineers and economists on Gilt than linguists.

A few of the more important techs are listed out below. If Gilt specializes in anything, its these.

Gene Modding:
Two of the twelve corporations that founded Gilt had a major stake in genetics, and progress in this field has never ceased. The stamps are an obvious triumph, but smaller genetic miracles happen too, everyday. Lab-grown organs and DNA-repair therapy keep humans healthy longer than natural. If you can afford it, it's not impossible to extend your life by more than a century. And speaking of healing: many of the newer models of Gilt ships can "heal" damage to their hull, by triggering organic tissue to grow into the damaged space. The healed-up portions are always weaker than the original metal was, but they stop the void from getting in, and that's a use.

Most things on Gilt are at a little bit alive, really. If you crack open any computer or ship system on Gilt, you'll usually find a couple of biological components in there, mixed right in with the silicone. Even syms have a bit of neural tissue, helping them think a little faster than pure processing power would allow. Everything is cyborg but the humans.

Terraforming:
A large-scale project like terraforming is never cheap, and probably wouldn't get funding if it wasn't for the clear difference between Gilt and Argent. Seeing how much easier (and incomparably more profitable) life is on the golden planet than the silver one, the major megacorps have been convinced that terraforming is a worth-while investment. The Reset of Gilt provides the foundation for fixing the ecosystem of a new world; the GENIE virus still exists. But since then, the Division corps have also learned to adjust temperature, atmosphere, soil composition and other details of a planet to make it into an almost-Earth. Gravity problems and extreme outliers alone cannot be fixed, and this is why none of the other planets in the Gilt system have yet been terraformed.

It would be nice to end there. But it should be said: some of the darker-minded scientists have theorized that GENIE and terraforming techs could be revamped into a WMD. One that devastates the ecology of a world while making it quickly unlivable. No such weapon has been built; right now, it only exists inside the minds of a few people. But it's not impossible.

Hardlight and Holograms:
Originally created by the entertainment industry, believe it or not. Holographic movies were a big hit early on in Gilt's history, creating a cinematic experience all around you. They expanded from there out into something more video game-esque, as users took on the role of a main character in a story. It looked and sounded totally real, like you were truly, say, battling with a dragon. It only didn't feel real; you still had to wear gloves that mimicked the sensations of holding that sword, and heated up just a bit when the beast breathed its flames. Immersion was always broken.

For many societies, that would still be more than plenty; but Gilt is a land of bread and circuses. The megacorps (especially Everett Corp) poured funding into created touchable holograms. Hardlight creations that have substance, as realistic as real touch, because it is real touch. The power cost of these things is immense, however; touchable holograms still only work inside specialized holosuites, and only for the affluent. Recently, the tech has also been renovated into hardlight shielding for ships during combat.

Unfortunately, holographic anime also exists.

And we'll end on that.

Military Overview:

Planet Name and Description:



There are two principle colonies in the Eperu system; Epinnu and Tuadeasc. Both are in the habitable zone of the anomalous star, and contain liquid water and relatively human-livable temperatures.











History: In the Eperu dating system, the human presence begins in 0 After Arrival, or 0AA. In an effort to keep par with the Solar System’s dating period, the year is split into twelve chunks, roughly correlating to one year on Tuadeasc, which equals about 29 Earth days. Each year on Tuadeasc symbolizes a month in the Eperu dating system. The exotic nature of Eperu threw off the Solar System’s astrological surveys, and what the colonists discovered on the other side of the gate was far from what they expected.

The gate malfunctioned and closed behind them, however. They were stuck in the Eperu System, with all venturing beyond the Gate Flux Tube dying near-instantly to the exotic radiations blanketing the Exclusion Zone. The colonists would have died in orbit of Alaktu, if it weren’t for a daredevil pilot who rode the exclusion zone in their survey ship and discovered the existence of the Channel.

The pilot, who survived both the trip out and the trip back in, reported to the colony ship the existence of two habitable worlds beyond the lethal wall of radiation, and explained to them how to enter the Channel. Votes were taken, and it was decided to take the risk. The colony ship plunged into the stream of the Flux Tube, and successfully made the transition into the Channel. A day later, when they emerged, they discovered what the pilot had seen.

Not only had they escaped the most lethal of the exotic radiation, they had found a veritable cornucopia of choice. Though the light was dim and unprotected exposure to Eperu was still dangerous, Epinnu could support earth life almost by default. Colonization was easy and the population rapidly boomed.

On Epinnu, they rapidly discovered the ruins of previous intelligent life on the planet; though, curiously, they never found so much as a single fossil of them. Cultural relics were few and far between, and never enough to paint a picture. The ruins are largely unexplored, with scientists incapable of cracking into the structures, who resist all conventional attempts at entry. Throughout the centuries, precious few discoveries have been made from ruins that could be accessed, primarily around the use of Eperu’s exotic materials.

Travel throughout the system remained dangerous; no amount of hardening could save computers from Eperu. Telescopes unfocused and radar systems returned only ghosts. In the early days, the violent mass ejections from Eperu killed hundreds in space. The colonists claimed the system was haunted, ghost transmissions endlessly bouncing about and being picked up on intercoms, radios, even televisions and music players.

The first corporation to create a ship capable of withstanding the mass ejections, flares, and solar storms was Helius Shipping Solutions; whose research and development department was far ahead of all its competitors. Before it could capitalize on this, however, its research was stolen and seemingly destroyed by the Akako High-Energy Research Labs, who entirely avoided implication in the matter.

Akako could not push their newfound advantage alone, devoid of Frontier Commission contracts and a steady base of business by which to fund massive expansions. In response, they turned to the Zixuang Trade & Contracting, a minor company who nonetheless had extensive government contracts and had built a reputation as a reliable bulk goods shipper despite the violence of Eperu. The benefits to both were obvious, and the merger came quickly. Soon enough, the new Zixuang-Akako Energistics Corporation was receiving massive Frontier Commission contracts in the shipbuilding industry, alongside the shipping and resource extraction industries.

Catapulted to a sudden position of dominance, the corporation moved to secure its holdings; embarking on a campaign of government lobbying and hostile takeovers of competing corporations. Year by year, their growth outpaced all expectations, and any hope of the Frontier Commission stepping in to prevent a monopoly were dashed with every new contract farmed out to the corporation.

When growth finally slowed, the damage was done. In less than a century, a new megacorporation was born, employing half the population of the system. It was too late for the Frontier Commission to break them up, as the resultant economic collapse would have destroyed the colonies.

Helius Shipping Solutions, meanwhile, had not been idle. In the years after the theft of their research, they had been driven bankrupt by the Zixuang-Akako Energistics Corporation. Their employees did not fold into other corporations, however, and they retained the genius staff that first led to the breakthrough. Paid under the table and operating in secret, using criminal activity to fund their research, they were able to outpace the vast bulk of the Zixuang-Akako Energistics Corporation.

Their first major discovery was the planet of Katmu; though in comparison to the distances in the Solar System it flew close to Eperu and should have been simple to discover, the havoc wreaked on sensor systems by Eperu rendered it entirely invisible to the colony at large. With vast leaps and bounds made in protecting sensors from the exotic radiation, they could slowly move equipment to Katmu reliably.

Though they maintained their criminal empire, the headquarters of the organization, never formally given a name by the former Helius employees, remained in total secrecy upon Katmu. Research only bloomed further upon Katmu, and the informally-named Regulate grew centuries ahead of the rest of the system in technology.

Over the years humanity spread out among the system, forming colonies on Tuadeasc and in space. The dominance of Zixuang-Akako was maintained, and the Regulate grew in the shadows, commissioning acts of terror and running the criminal underworld across the system. In the modern day, the space around Alaktu is primarily occupied by automated mining rigs and channel observatories.

Culture and Society: The society of the Eperu System is remarkably fatalistic, having been built from the ground up around a star hostile to all life. Caught in the claws of megacorporations, the system is split between collectivist sympathies and individualistic sentiments. Conflict between the two visions for the future of Eperu are not uncommon. Poverty is rampant and grapples with the existence of a massive specialist middle class.

Thanks to the Regulate, crime is rampant and policing is heavy. There exist slums and upper-class neighborhoods, and everything between. Drugs are common on the streets and in the poorest places, gangs practically run the show. Meanwhile, above, the spacers face death daily as the star does its best to kill them. Debris fields are common and endless sensor ghosts and lost transmissions interrupt daily life constantly.



Governance and Politics: While in theory the Frontier Commission ensures a regulated capitalist market and democracy, in practice Zixuang-Akako has made use of regulatory capture for centuries. Election districts are gerrymandered and lobbyists hold immense power in the Frontier Congress. The dominant party is kept in power by Zixuang-Akako money, while the opposition fails to catch up purely on grassroots organization.

There are 1,224 representatives in the Frontier Congress, from across the populated space stations and colonies. The tiebreaker is held by the Governor of the Frontier Commission, a for-life position of executive power put into place by a vote of the Frontier Congress. The primary political party is called the Shadow Coalition. Despite the sinister name, it is a moderate party whose primary contribution to politics is maintaining the status quo. It holds 60 percent of the Frontier Congress, a firm lead over their opponents. The next largest party is the Eperu Labor Party, which makes up 25 percent of the Frontier Congress. The rest of the Frontier Congress is made up of a patchwork of minor parties who tend to form coalitions with the Eperu Labor Party.

Technology Overview: Technology as a whole has gotten significantly more primitive, but also significantly more reliable. What fails regularly in Eperu is virtually indestructible outside of Eperu. Computer systems are blocky beasts utilizing analog circuits and magnetic tapes, but are hardened against interference both environmental and man-made to a degree which renders electronic warfare virtually obsolete.

Sensors are similar; they are extremely short-range compared to the sensors used by any other nation, but within their range they are by far the best-in-class, capable of detecting anything when not struggling to fight the interference of Eperu.

Shields are minimal and relegated to navigational only, but ships carry thick and extensive armor, strengthened considerably by the introduction of Eperu’s exotic materials to the alloying process. Heavy and unwieldy, they nonetheless represent extremely powerful armor. Outside of experimental weapons, armament is dead-simple to minimize interference; machine guns and large-bore cannons are common.

There are a great number of experimental technologies based on exotic materials gathered from Eperu:

The first discovered is the neural interface. By using a carefully processed and liquified version of Hev, it is possible to sustain a simple brain outside of the body and moreover connect it to computer networks. The most frequent use of this technology is extracting livestock brains to be reprogrammed into simplistic AIs to run automated platforms. Due to the fact they are not electronic, they are significantly more capable of weathering Eperu unharmed, and thus are used and prized for their reliability.

The second discovered use is short-range teleportation. Among the materials gathered from Eperu are exotic crystals of an even further unknown material nicknamed Hedic. When properly carved with sigils, it is possible to reroute matter through them and launch that matter to a different location instantly. The process is incredibly difficult and dangerous; improper machining of the crystal can cause a variety of terrible effects, and improper calculations can teleport people into solid rock, far in the air, in distant space, or cause them to flat out vanish. The Regulate has mastered this technology on the small scale, but large-scale efforts elude them and Zixuang-Akako’s use of teleportation remains entirely experimental.

The third discovered use is from the alien ruins dotting the planets of the system. Within these ruins incredibly dense crystals have been discovered, theorized to come from the core of Eperu, which when agitated can produce endless volatiles for use in power reactors and thrusters. Once agitated, it is impossible to stop the reaction, though it can be moderated with cooling. Should cooling fail, the crystal will catastrophically delaminate and cause an explosion equivalent to 400 megatons of TNT. However, the most deadly is the wave of exotic radiation, resembling that which bombards the Exclusion Zone. This wave can kill for hundreds of miles before dying out. These reactors are rare and generally installed into isolated research stations.

Hev has made a great number of minor advancements in dozens of different fields. However, there are also a great number of potential side effects.

The first and most important thing to note is Hev is incredibly volatile in its natural state, and in some processed states. It burns hotter and longer than any other material known, and is far too unstable to rely on. Processes that rely on using the volatility of Hev are powerful but incredibly dangerous, and it is not unheard of for these processes to result in casualties. Hev is also deeply toxic, too much exposure leading to painful and irrecoverable breakdowns of the body. Long-term exposure has a similar deleterious mental effect to lead.

A particularly famous disease from Hedic is called “The Whiskers”, where attempting to teleport with improperly machined crystals or handling them unprotected in any form can cause thin metallic whiskers to begin growing throughout the body. These whiskers spread like cancer, and slowly and painfully slice the person apart. There is no cure, and touching the whiskers can cause another person to contract the disease as well. The most obvious indicator is when they sprout from the body, causing bleeding and making the victim appear as though they have been stabbed by millions of tiny needles.

Another disease can be contracted by Hev, though relatively unknown to the public. Certain levels and methods of exposure can cause a person to endlessly grow, for lack of a better term. They begin to sprout cancerous tumors that quickly begin expanding. Sustained by the toxins in their blood, they are kept alive as these tumors rupture their old body and they can spread miles before the growth stops. Deep in space, covered up by Zixuang-Akako, are research stations entirely overtaken by these cancerous growths. Attempts to kill them have largely failed, as they are capable of rapid healing.

Channel Sickness is the name given to overexposure to the Channel. The victim undergoes a complete and total violent psychosis, suffering delusions they take out on anybody or anything in sight. They babble the entire time, though no particular meaning has ever been extracted from what a victim says. Food and water is refused, and so without deep medical care for the rest of their lives they are doomed to starve or dehydrate to death, if they are not killed more violently first.

Military Overview: Military forces are largely limited to garrison forces and small naval patrols. With little outright need for military power, there are no capital ships nor is Eperu prepared to fight a proper military. The Zixuang-Akako Energistics Corporation maintains an above-the-board Asset Protection Division, which acts as private security for their operations and maintains its own naval patrols independent of the Frontier Commission. Below-the-board, Zixuang-Akako has the Asset Defense Team, a division that acts essentially as a deathsquad alongside espionage duties. They maintain a number of black sites across the system, and are used whenever Zixuang-Akako needs to make a problem disappear silently and with extreme violence.

Nation Name: The United Republic of Arhas

Government Form:

Unitary Democratic Republic

Demographics:

Humans (that’s all there is at this time, genetically modified, unmodified, both. Nothing legal in United Republic space in the vein of genetic modification actually deviates from being the same species honestly. The closest one gets are the “Purified”, which will be explained in the “Culture and Society” section in one of the parts there.)

Population: 2.45 billion

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Planet Name and Description: Eos IV/"Arhas”

The planet of Eos IV/Arhas (both names are valid as locals use them both) is a large world about four times as large as Earth, though its surface is incredibly hot and is covered in a vast desert sands as well as has some rocky areas and formations interspersed randomly throughout it. Surface radiation exists to certain limited extent, but the myriad driving winds and inhospitable heat, combined with the searing sands that when blown by such winds can easily both strip and burn both skin and muscle off of the bones of the unprotected, are far more dangerous affairs for anyone going about above-ground. Occasional tornadic activity, which is of a larger scale than an “Earth-grade tornado” and more akin to an old world hurricane, is also a highly dangerous thing. Notable underground oceans and even underground freshwater bodies can be found deep under the surface, however, which seem to naturally replenish and have an alien yet unique water cycle of their own that enables this.

What life, both flora and fauna, exists on the planet mostly developed deeper underground in the underground bodies of water there, though these varieties of life have gone well beyond these waters as well by the time human colonization began. In fact, they’ve expanded as far as the surface. Large, even whale-sized at their largest and oldest, tunneling worm-like creatures with grinding ‘filter-teeth’ in their mouth pass around near the surface of the planet as they grind up sand above (more of which is formed from naturally eroding rocky areas/formations on the surface) and pass it out of the back of them as they digest certain minerals. These creatures have long lifespans, and the digestive juices of these creatures have potential industrial uses as well as acting as a form of inherently toxic psychoactive substance that apparently is very risky but pleasurable to use on the part of local ‘worm junkies’ who try to farm or harvest it for their use despite its dangers (the fact it even has an effect on humans, who come from another planet, is both surprising and utterly strange).

On the top of the sand also live rapidly-reproducing photosynthetic extremophile microorganisms, which can better navigate the ‘top sand’ and seek to get in the radiation and sunlight so they can harness it to produce energy. Said energy is also used by them to create life-sustaining water inside themselves through the intake of atmospheric gases in the air and using some of the energy they harvest to do this in a process that is not yet fully understood by humanity even now. This is also why juvenile as well as adult “Sand Worms”, as the worm-like creatures are called, will go closer to the surface at times to get hydration through devouring a large quantity of these water-producing microorganisms by filtering them out of the ‘top sand’. Beyond this there are a number of creatures that exist near, close to, or somehow on the surface of the planet, in part producing the quantities of gases needed in the local atmosphere to form it in the first place.

At the same time, though, the deeper underground or closer to actual water one gets the more vast and rich the planet’s biosphere becomes and the more strange and different it all begins to look like. Some creatures living in the underground of the planet even seem to look like creatures from Earth’s own ancient past, more or less directly so, which has been of a fascination to scientists as humanity has settled around and upon these underground oceans and underground lakes and so forth in turn. In fact, even deeper below these creatures and near the ‘uninhabitable zone’ far enough down below the sands and earth and rocks and underground seas and so forth….there are even mostly anaerobic creatures which have a part-silicon part-carbon chemical makeup.

As for the sun of the Eos System, it is a larger and hotter sun than is comparatively present in the Sol System and many others.

***Note: A single year in the Eos system on the planet is 307 days long, in comparison to the 365 year-long days back on Old Earth.

History:

The United Republic of Arhas began simply with the arrival of the colony ship HMCS Bartimaeus arriving in the Eos (the name of the star) System with its cargo of Earth refugees and a dream for the future. Its destination? The vast desert world of Eos IV, also nicknamed ‘Arhas’, a vast world larger than Earth and existing as a titanic desert with notable water deposits hidden deep beneath the Earth. In that vein, it was only natural that the plan for colonization began with and was to forge large, underground cities and settlements to establish humanity in one of its many new potential homes. Even so, the horrendous weather and deadly nature of the planet’s surface were not exactly confidence boosters for the new locals.

Initially the colonial government looked at the issues with trying to place the underground settlements too close to each other, eventually spreading some father out in an attempt to not have too many settlements tapping into the same underground resources as each other. On the other hand, certain areas would prove to have certain things that the others would need as the first decades of digging, building, and settlement began. Resource transportation, however, was far from ‘refined’ or ‘completely stable’ enough between many of the settlements at the same time. Heavy enough vehicles with the right design, and enough infrastructure to make them more widespread, simply did not exist. Most things of such a nature had to be made from the colony ship itself, and then be shipped down from orbit after bringing up the needed resources to make them from deep underground…a process that for many became increasingly vexing.

On top of this, as the population of the colony ship had been taken from various areas and not simply one or two regions of the nation it was made within, the myriad of differing ideas and concepts and beliefs would further begin to clash as the remnants of the old world carried over a bit into the new one. People who wanted to make a microcosm of their home nation, who wanted to make a theocratic state, who wished to only live with those who came from the same place as them, and so forth simply made things more chaotic in those initial years than otherwise might’ve been possible with a more mono-culture population or similar-culture mixed population. This in turn would lead to the establishment of the colonial government as a confederation-type affair, seeking to keep the various ideas in some manner of harmony with each other as concessions were made to try to maintain order in regards to the cultural and political problems. This in turn would prove to be more of a band-aid on a growing problem, especially as the bickering of the confederation’s component parts slowed things down and bogged down being able to solve certain issues with further added problems, it was at least keeping what goods could be moved slowly trickling here and there to where they were needed (and could get them to) as well as preventing an early civil war for a time. At the same time, the Confederation government began to make promises of establishing a pan-settlement highway network to help improve things…a project that due to internal squabbling and issues never really manifested in the end either.

However, sixty nine years into the colonization of Arhas (by the standards of the Eos Systems), things would finally take the increasingly explosive politics of the Confederation to the breaking point. This occurred when a town governor named Thomas Feldman illegally intercepted a shipment of moisture-harvesting machines and food destined for the underground city of New Hamburg, seizing the driver on false charges and confiscating the cargo to disseminate to the locals. The town’s vital hydroponics had been damaged due to a minor cave-in incident when trying to make the room to expand them, and whilst relief had been promised the timeframe had been extended by delay after delay in trying to get the goods to the suffering town. The seized machines were also used to expand the town’s water production, and generally got Thomas Feldman a notable bit of popularity among his own people.

At the same time, the city the shipment had been intended for was in a notably worse state. While its hydroponics were working fine, it needed more moisture-harvesting machines to maintain and supply those hydroponics as well as the growing population within its borders. Upon learning that the shipment has been seized, and not wanting to go to the deteriorating government to ‘solve’ something that would either simply get brushed aside or debated until more ‘nothing’ happened, in the sixty ninth year after the initial settlement of Eos IV the underground city of New Hamburg would launch a surprise invasion of Thomas Feldman’s town under the guise of bringing them more relief and aid. What ensued was a slaughter that would finally break the existing confederation-type government of the colony as other members took sides on the matter or tried to exploit the issue for themselves and so forth.

After this point, conflict was frankly inevitable.

Member after member suddenly left the Confederation as things shattered, and any remaining resources being moved by that time were taken or seized by whoever was closest or could otherwise muster the force to take it from the others. Without what little connections were had, many places lost access to what little of certain resources they’d had before. Politics, resource scarcity, and the ineffectiveness of the colonial government would ultimately drive the colony into a state and time period of over a century of constant war and fighting. Many fought over what could be mined, gathered, or taken for use by locals in one area or another. Many fought to establish control or dominion over others, so as to improve their own conditions or enforce what they saw as ‘the best way’ to do things. People desperate to not get involved in the underground began to build up and live on the surface, and those underground even dug tunnels between each other underground (as well as built installations above ground) to fight each other and try to establish areas of control and dominance at the same time as new underground cities and towns and such were being forged into being. Companies that rose up would likewise work for the locals, or otherwise play sides and arm different groups to their own ends as long as it profited them or their area of primary residence. It was a time of vast bloodshed and constant war that became called the “Red Sands Era”, and for a good reason indeed.

…Yet hope would not be lost entirely either. Forming from the corpse of the old Confederation, and taking some inspiration from the initial ‘temporary colonial government’ that had existed briefly before that and back on the colony ship, the “Republic of Arhas” (or “Eosian Republic” as it also called itself) would form within the last real cluster of underground cities and towns that had stayed banded together. At its best a ‘successor’ to what had come before, it would in the early years of the Red Sands Era exist as mostly a side-thought that seemed to mind itself and seek trade where it was even possible at times. Meanwhile, the Republic of Arhas would begin to build up and accrue as well as channel its capabilities under its leadership to ramping itself up to be a power despite being less involved at first in the ongoing conflicts that ravaged the human colony.

Bit by bit it would build up in strength and capability, until eventually it launched its first conquest of a nearby grouping of bickering polities. It would put itself on the map of the other warring factions at this stage, but would simply be seen as no bigger and stronger than any of the other ‘larger factions’ that existed at the time. Smaller factions nearer to it would be most alarmed, especially as the Republic of Arhas moved to suck up more of its smaller neighbors and forge new cities and towns underground within its network. At the same time, however, despite the strict rule of the Republic it also worked to build things up. The once promised underground highway network began to form and grow outward, resources were able to be moved more easily to keep local populations intact, and a singular manner of government alongside relocations of parts of the populations of conquered areas would seek to dilute and ease the overall process of integration with the Republic. Fully-integrated areas, once satisfied with them on the government’s part, would then be used as platforms to further expand outward.

In time the Republic of Arhas would become the largest faction on the planet, though not without the process being gradual and done over time in its case. Slow and steady, for all intents and purposes, would be winning the race this time. Inherently the chaos of the era would also target the Republic’s own territories and areas of control, set it back at times, or even provide opportunities for the increasingly less and less rare peaceful integrations that occurred as it sought to grow. Of course the situational or occasional ‘enemy alliances’ that formed in its face were to be expected, seeking to put the growing and snowballing faction down, though these only lasted as long as the other sides could stand each other and not stab each other in the back or other issues to tear them apart. Some did try to integrate with each other to increase their odds of survival as well, though even these would be assimilated in one way or another. One place, one area, and one year at a time, all as the need to survive and fight and compete to get toward that final goal of planetary unity got closer and closer in the eyes of the Republic’s citizens and government.

Ultimately, 213 years after settling first on the planet, humanity’s colony on Eos IV/Arhas would be reunited once more under a singular planetary government and would be both somewhat renamed as well as formalized in a constitution in honor of that. While smaller and surface operations would be involved for the next seven years beyond that point, there would also be the necessary further integration of the last captured territories as well. Further, humanity would even reach back toward the stars as mining, economic, and colonial ambitions would be taken to the local solar system to a certain extent by current times. What had once been for a long time a bunch of disunited, struggling, warring, angry factions was reduced down and then reconstituted into something grander. A republic that upholds its citizens’ rights, and yet holds higher central authority to try to avoid past mistakes. A place where people and places are far more interconnected and prosperous than the initial colonists could have dreamed of, but also where the might of the military and the police have fused together over three centuries into something peculiar and at times rather brutal. A place where hope for the future, a more genuine peace among the citizenry exists, and where humanity once more stands together in the face of a cold universe…..but where even rebels fight against it all even now to achieve whatever goals they desire after all this time.

Yet in the last few months, the awakening of the Gateway Network has become a rude and unexpected surprise for the United Republic and its citizens. It has led to several stations being set up to study the activity that was now coming from the location of the system’s Gateway, though the Gateway itself did not seem to be opening up outside of this activity causing some odd ‘light shows’ and detectable disturbances people could notice. Whispers and rumors have coursed through the lifeblood of the local population and media, though, of what could lie just beyond if their Gateway actually managed to open. Allies? Enemies? Paradises, ready to claim? Enemies, ready to pounce upon them? Aliens? No one has known for sure, but with the Gateway of the United Republic’s home system finally opening again the nation must hope to be ready to face the truths of whatever comes through…..or whatever truths emerge from what or who by heading out there themselves for that matter.



Culture and Society:

-Hydroponics have been the bread and butter of subsistence and feeding the masses on Eos IV for over three hundred years by this point, and this has had some long-term effects. Whilst rural areas with underground or above-ground farms do exist and have existed, within cities and larger suburban areas hydroponically-grown food has taken off as an art form of its own. Growing or tweaking plants and livestock species to alter appearance, flavors, colors, consistencies, textures, and so forth has become the basically literal ‘high fashion’ of the cooking world within the United Republic. Anyone from a suburban restaurant serving more widespread or niche faire, to hipster concepts grown and served in smaller restaurants in the cities and some suburbs, all the way up to large-city five-star establishments with the strangest and most expensive creations and combinations imaginable and unimaginable, food has remained both a necessity but also bloomed into an artform of sorts here.

Grand shows are held akin to a fancy ‘fashion show’ a few times a year in the biggest cities, with the latest creations, cuisines, and even strange tricks pulled off using such foods being put on display and served to attendees and putting on displays of them to likewise woo audiences who might be watching streamed or televised from their homes far away. Everything from texture to taste and the like will be critiqued and commented on by professionals in the field, and this ‘higher food culture’ has even created celebrities who do not simply cook but ‘transform the very ingredients, and from these construct grand and enticing dishes into incredible works of edible art’.

To a certain extent this is just the concept of Old Earth existing food culture having been ‘elevated to a new form’ via the hydroponic and genetic tweaking/modifying of the ingredients themselves alongside doing things when making dishes with them. It has also become far more presentation focused alongside the work put into making them edible and the experience of eating these things ‘more unique’.

-Life aboveground is something that only 18% of the United Republic’s home world's population has chosen to do, compared to the 82 percent of the total population who live underground on the very same planet. Whilst not living underground and dealing with the more cramped spaces and lives led down there, even having vast areas of space one can travel across at that, the harsh weather of the planet is also a suicidal endeavor for those not hardened or prepared for it. Protective ST’s (see the “Technology Overview” section about these) are a must, and even areas with homes placed in above-ground rocky formations to get out of the wind will still build their homes half-underground for the sake of safety up there. Such homes are only half-underground, short enough on the surface to have a lot of the weather pass over the top of them safely but just underground enough to also keep them cooler. Such homes will usually have bedrooms located at the lowest portions, with the doors of it being more just hatches of some kind with stairs.

The harsh driving winds of a greater force than the Earth’s own likewise mean that high-speed sand that can easily blast and tear off unexposed skin in a heartbeat, and without the weighted nature of individual ST’s ((or being inside of a proper surface structure or heavy vehicle of some kind) someone could be blown away in surprise larger gusts of surface wind. Even then, ST’s are not designed to withstand the worst of the possible surface weather. Scorching alien heat and a bright local sun also require that one be in possession of moisture-farming equipment to take moisture, any at all, from the air. And if one does not have such a moisture-farming machine or water-acquiring setup, then simply getting connected up to an underground water pump network or being part of a close enough water delivery service’s route will be required unless one wants to dehydrate fast. More common surface-dweller ST’s are even designed to take sweat and filter it into drinkable water for the wearer at that.

Those who live aboveground are also seen as more ‘rural’, as the largest any settlement up there can get is a respectable mid-sized town without running the risk of environmental hazards blowing it away or destroying it. Many ‘upgrounders’, as the majority of underground residents have taken to calling them, have become or are just as rugged and seasoned and hardy as the conditions they live in are harsh. Even so, they have also been known to be warm and welcoming to guests in certain areas….or as it has been said before by one visitor: “Life’s hard up there, really hard in the more remote places, and while some people will be just as harsh right back to any visitors and people they see no matter what…but other upgrounders are friendly folk who’ll treat you as well as you treat them in return. Or as they say up there: ‘The winds blow favorably for the good host and the respectful guest alike.’.”

-Within the last 80 years, however, the installation of underground transport networks has led to a government presence in even the surface towns and villages that have popped up. It has also given them greater lifelines to the rest of the nation. Yet even before that, just about 87 years ago, at the end of the planet’s “Red Sands Era” (which lasted for about 142 years), many on the surface lived lives very much independent of those who lived underground. It was a Wild West where frontier law and local mindsets determined what was legal or not, and where death could come from a nearby home or the weather at any moment, through a concerted effort to rein them in ultimately led to by current times many resisting and many other cooperating in turn. Those who resisted didn’t last for all they tried to do to not be integrated, whilst those who did integrate more easily have generally benefited from it more so in the long-term from being connected to the rest of the homeworld’s population centers. Those seeking the ‘independent lifestyle’ mostly have taken up in the most remote and dangerous or inhospitable parts of an already harsh and otherwise inhospitable desert planet, which is saying something, usually loners, caravan-attacking bandits, or even being a small cluster of families. Likewise there are government-legalized caravans that carry goods, resources, and so forth as their jobs and lives lead them to nomadically move across the rocky areas and sands of the planet itself, moving goods on the surface or buying up scrap from underground areas to keep themselves going.

-The “Red Sands Era” was an era of invention both wrought from raw necessity and the driving force of constant warfare, and an era that one knowledgeable in history might more commonly call “a blend of the Sengoku Jidai period of Japan, and the time period of the Wild West in the former USA” as well. The fight for supremacy of the planet, as well as over resources and so forth within the planet’s wild frontier up top as well as most definitely underground, would drive this time period onward for just over 140 years. This as the various factions and ideologies and so forth shed quite a bit of blood and likewise the population grew across the planet through the building up new underground (mostly) and above ground (less so) habitations for humanity. All of this would come together to create the name this peculiar yet tragic time period.

To say that the unification of the planet under one government within the last 100 years was peaceful, however, would be an utter lie. Outside of what cases of negotiation were done, most other parties were wiped off the map and taken over by the Republic of Arhas/Eosian Republic (the successor to the original colonial government) that would finally achieve true planetary supremacy where its predecessor had failed to even stay together and intact. It was a process that shed even more blood, though the winners had been seeking to integrate and consolidate their growing and newly-acquired holdings evenly over time and along the way as they’d acquired them, with the initial victory and end of the Reds Sands Era in around Year 213 being simply the jumping-off point to enable this to finally take place on a planetary level.

-If one were to ask the vast majority of citizens, they would exclaim being used to the status quo of how things are and have found things to be ‘fair yet strict’. If one were to ask their ancestors who lived through to see the end of the Red Sands Era, they would likely speak of being glad that the constant struggle and bloodshed was finally and truly over with. Indeed, the rise of the planetary government would see a great economic boom as well as a cessation of constant conflicts above and under the ground. Places began to heal, new rural areas emerged, old rural areas grew to become towns, and existing towns would grow into cities as the existing cities themselves grew even larger and more vast. All of this and more was done to accommodate the population growth, especially as the growth of the local population has spiked locally in the last 80-something years and finally stabilized by current times. Things the government by current times has done to help manage this population have even included setting up space-bound economic and mining operations along with starting some initial colonial settlement within their solar system.

However, not everything is perfect in any society. Some exist even still on the disenfranchised fringes of this rebuilt society and nation, poor or downtrodden or the like. There are also those who have chafed under the grip of the current government and its ‘military police’ forces, those who have been passed down the grudges and anger and ideologies of former ‘free cities/towns’ veterans who wish to return to that old status quo of the Red Sands Era, and even those who simply wish to see the world burn. In the end the existence of such ‘rebel factions’ is something that, due to these factors, has continued to persist into current times as well. Such groups have mostly remained smaller or been whittled down over time, though they will still on occasion strike at local areas in more distant/fringe areas or government establishments in the big cities to try to ‘make their point’. Better armed than the top criminals, but usually kept in check in a general sense, they range from those seeking to ‘topple the fascist government’ (as they claim it is), to those ‘seeking to return to a better age of independent city-states’ they idealize the Red Sands Era as having (blindly even in some cases), to even simply those who wish to seize power and take what they want and wish to use the same propaganda and recruitment and so forth to manifest those ends.

The top three Rebel Factions of any real or viable mettle/power in modern times are the following:

***The “Peoples Confederated Militia” (aka the “PCM”) - A rebel faction seeking to destroy the current governmental structure, and in its place replace it with a far looser system of ‘united in purpose and goals yet wholly independent city-states’ they claim was, would be, and is far more ethical and good for humanity both on-and-off of the planet. They use the initial colonial government as an example of ‘how this would not work’, but try to portray the Red Sands Era in a far more positive if not engineered ‘light’ as they claim that the independence of the cities was fair and just and that all they needed to solve ‘the problems of that era, which were few in nature’ was to bring people to the negotiation and diplomatic table. They decry the unification of the planet under one government as ‘evil and tyrannical’ and as ‘suppressing the freedoms of human beings to choose for themselves as they see fit’ whilst generally disapproving of any sort of centralized national-level command structure.

Their command structure is generally manned with the “Council of Six” at the top, below which are four officers each assigned to each councilor. Each officer in turn manages local affairs in their area, organizes squads and other military units under their area’s command, organizes the distribution of equipment and resources, etc, as well as report back and share information with the Council and each other. It is generally run as the organization says it wishes to organize the ‘rightful new government’ they seek to bring about, though this has had its share of success and issues over time. Sometimes the officers assigned to the same or different councilors have competed against each other within their own ranks to earn further support or to expand personal influence, or otherwise run and manage their areas and subordinates differently than each other in various ways. At times these officers have been inherently disorganized when trying to work with each other, due to internal competition for glory and the allocation of more resources from the Council of Six, and at other times have managed to form a comprehensive front well enough to prove to be a frighteningly effective force at certain times.

This group is perhaps the most widely-spread-out by current times, many major bases having been lost and others having been weakened by retaliation against them by/from the government peacekeeping forces. They are in cities and some on the fringes alike, but they lack any area of highly-concentrated control…which is for them both a major weakness but has also been to some extent a strength in keeping their organization alive somehow. At the same time, the organization is ripe for taking down piecemeal, one area at a time….and were the right circumstances to arise and the Council of Six’s uniting influence to collapse, then perhaps the organization could be rooted out once and for all…

***The “King Cartel” - A rebel faction seeking to turn as much of the United Republic as they can into an area under their control, to hell with the areas they don’t want, all to the ends of exploiting the existence of ‘worm junkies’ and production of ‘illicit pharmaceuticals’ to drive a greater and greater profit for themselves. The only reason they are not considered ‘simply another gang or organized crime group’ is the fact they use the same grade of armaments and so forth as the other two major rebel factions….and treat their head in the form of “Don Carretera” (every head gets this title, which means ‘road’ in Old Earth Spanish) like a national leader and hero. These are the same family heads who have maintained a dynastic and hereditary style of absolute rule over this organization (in contrast to many of the Old Earth mafia families of old). The mafioso aesthetic and some terms have been used for many generations now as well, originally set in place by the founder, and once the family’s organization even controlled a small fringe underground town before being driven out.

Their organization is smaller than most, but when it comes to being well-armed and keeping a ‘small profile’ they are among the very best in doing so. Dealing in shadows, trying to crack open and create new markets, and gradually build up what they seek in areas rather than trying to rush in and ‘liberate’ them from the existing government as the PCM has seemingly been trying to do. When their trademark drugs hit the streets and are noticed, it is generally a sign they have their fingers in the pie of whatever local area they’ve tried to set up in. They have been described as ‘a fly stuck on a turd that can’t be chased away for too long’ but also ‘takes a long time to be noticed rearing their heads back up again’, as well as being harder to root out when found or discovered but also posing a less immediate and present danger than others. On the other hand, when they do get noticed they are a group who get distinctly adapted measures and actions taken to combat them. This mostly takes the form of purging their peddled substances from the streets, as well as engaging in greater espionage and both covertly taking out their hierarchy and otherwise rooting out any contacts they have to drive them out of an area. Then they usually avoid said area again for a time, only to slowly and subtly begin sticking down roots in another place bit by bit…like a festering parasite.

Were the organization to be hit where it hurts most, at the very top of their hierarchy, then perhaps enough chaos could be sowed internally among them to cause the remaining parts to disappear…

***The “Wildern Group” - The most odd-sounding title for a group, they are named for where the group was founded in the former above ground town of Wildern. The area was among the largest independent surface settlements to arise, even moving to exert influence through the use of nomadic caravans loyal to them and the trade of supplies. In time, they even established a sort of soldier-police as the practice became more and more common beginning in the “Red Sands Era”. They were also the head of the briefly-lived “Wildernian Federation”, trying to form a ‘nation’ of their own in haste to try to oppose the largely-snowballed faction that would win planetary control and take over the planet to form the United Republic. They were known for the ‘encouragement’ they tried to push on ‘members’ of the Federation to ‘generate a sense of new nationalism and unity’, which is to say they did some good for the surface but also used a lot of threats and force to get people under their ramshackle banner of a ‘nation’ that those from Wildern had a total hegemony of power over.

In the ensuing conflict to secure the surface, this group came to blows and expected to use their knowledge and strength on the surface, alongside an understanding of the weather patterns and so forth, to wage a guerilla war aimed at ‘shattering the dirt-eaters from underground’ and bringing back the old status quo of the Red Sands Era so they could ‘shine like a star in the sky’ over those living on the surface and also (mostly to serve their own ends) ‘free the surface from dirt-eater oppression’. On the other hand, their ambitions and hasty actions were all too late to be able to stop anything, mostly being due to their spiteful disregard for anyone and anything originating from underground and thus not paying attention as the ones who united all the underground settlements and had snowballed to quite a large degree of control and power. Their distaste for those living underground has been ever-inherent from the start, with the discriminatory term of ‘dirt-eaters’ being just one of the many terms coined by them or in less-hospitable areas of the surface to describe those living underground in turn.

By current times, the group mostly exists in holdouts in the worst areas to try to live on the surface…horrible areas where they live and host their three remaining ‘larger bases of operation’ where no one else dares to normally go. However, they have engaged in raiding nomadic traveling caravans, attacking small fringe underground settlements, and even setting up some underground operations in certain fringe areas to try to enact sabotage and sink in some kind of (even if reluctant and demeaning) influence down there to help channel supplies back to their main bases of operation. For the most part they can be driven back from underground areas and into the desert world sands, though on the fringes they are a constant pestilence whose root is essentially ‘stuck in a hard to reach place’ and refuses to curl up and die either. Were a strike made possible to destroy their main bases for good, it would certainly stop them in their tracks though…

-Ruins lie across the planet’s surface, though whether they have been buried or uncovered by the sands of the planet once more depends on the fickle whims of the planet’s weather. Many are vestiges of the initial colonization, long abandoned remnants from the Red Sands Era, or even far smaller locations where fatally fateful adventurers or families or settlers built up before dying off and leaving only empty husks in their wake. Abandoned military bases, former homes or small villages/towns, all sorts of ruins made by mankind can be found among the sands….

…but could there still, even after three centuries, be something else out there too that humanity has not yet discovered? Only time will tell.

-Among the wealthy elites that exist within United Republic society, there is a group known as the “Purified”. These people have focused on for many loong decades, as their movement has grown from the time of the Republic of Arhas/Eosian Republic until current times under the United Republic, using genetic engineering technologies to ‘refine’ and ‘harness’ the human genome among their own. No splicing or dicing, but instead taking what is ‘human’ at its core and ‘amplifying it and removing imperfections’ from it. Augmented healing, greater strength, the gradual erasure of genetic ‘faults’ and genetic diseases from among them, and so forth. They seek to achieve the ‘deific beauty of antiquity’, using this as a baseline to refine their forms and looks and so forth to degrees that by modern times have become definitely noticeable.

The movement even has a growing pool of followers among the middle class, mostly as the movement has oddly sought in more recent decades to bring more into the fold and spread their ideas. It is more a cool club or form of ideology (rather) that believes humanity choosing to embrace its ideas will benefit all, but also does not seek to push itself on others despite its odd nature due to legal codes within the United Republic. In the end, really, they just remain simply one of many social or cultural groups that has formed within the United Republic in the end. (But the idea felt cool so why not toss this in, eh?)

-(space here in case I think of anything else)



Governance and Politics:

The United Republic has adopted a high-authority central government that sets the rules at lower levels, being the top authority and possessing most of the power by far and inherently. It controls the national and planetary policies of the nation proper, as well as controls the military at the top in a similar manner. A bureaucracy exists as part of the central government, with various Departments being created and managed and overseen to ensure that overall work gets done, things keep running, and order is maintained. The central government is generally seen reasonably as a certain amount of ‘authoritarian’ by its nature, though isn't wholly an authoritarian-type system either. Hence the classification of the nation’s government being as it is.

Local authorities, meanwhile, are democratically-elected individuals alongside their respective City/Town/Village Council in kind. Above these are District Governors, who are also democratically elected, and above these Regional Governors, who are selected to take their positions by the Central Government and have to pass proper meritocratically-aimed examinations and background checks and experience requirements at lower levels of government to take up office. In this sense the democratic process has remained, and people do choose leaders and have formerly chosen leaders rise up the ranks after a certain point at the behest of the central government to be assimilated into it.

The lower-level democratic processes are holderovers from Old Earth, which after the failure of the initial colonial confederation-type government set in place would re-emerge in part once more during the Red Sands Era to an at least distinct and lasting extent politically. Once the nation was united under one banner, a high-authority central government was balanced out with properly formalized lower-level democratic processes. These democratic processes were also combined with allotting certain limited powers and flexibility to such elected leaders, helping and allowing them to properly manage locals and keep the order and peace properly as well as act as a conduit to enforce national-level policies but also have local-level nuances to the laws of the land.

The judicial system has its top authorities as part of the central government, who take the form of the “Seven Judges” who are a council of the seven highest-level judges of the land. Meanwhile lower level judges below this have to have the proper experience, education, and clean background check requirements as among the necessities for them to take up higher and higher offices after entering the system. Elections are also used to elect lower level judges from among applicable candidates in turn. District and Circuit Courts likewise exist, as well as concepts like a bench trial and rules such as ‘having a right to trial with a jury’.

In fact, the government of the United Republic even has within it a proper constitution of sorts, stating both the powers of the central government and those of lower officials as well as laying out a certain number of ‘human rights’ (albeit there are certain legal exceptions to even this due to the authority of the central government as dictated in this document as well). In this vein it can be seen as an echo of the old world, but in this case was something proposed by the central government, which can be amended and updated and so forth through input by the general public, and yet entrenches and enshrines the current system of things in both writing and law.

Technology Overview:

-The nature of construction and life within the United Republic has mostly led its population to overall become rather skilled at the art of macro-engineering. Large structures, grand architecture, building underground tunnels and cities and towns and so forth, all of it has stemmed back to this same core engineering type as it has been a longtime backbone of the United Republic. This isn’t to say that smaller technology doesn’t exist, but rather than looking at the local society and culture as a whole this nation has seen far more notable developments in the realm of macro-engineering than in many others. The art of making durable, cost effective, longstanding, workable, and better-lasting structures is something they have refined to a distinct point indeed.

Likewise concrete(s), improved tools for calculating and enacting macro-engineering projects, and so forth have emerged within this realm of things.

-The United Republic has also developed humanoid-type pilotable working frames, with robust but neural-connected control systems (and even pilot-shielding cockpit attachments in some cases), which are used en-masse for many forms of construction and building and on other notable worksites in some capacity or another. It is a common and well-understood technology, but one that is normally not used in a warfare-type-form either by the local military police forces due to its vulnerabilities and exposed parts. There is a reason they are mostly used for labor, after all. At the same time, they have found use among rebel factions, armor and weapons being welded on and creating ‘rebel technicals’ as they’ve come to be called. These usually do well in hand-to-hand, and in moving things or breaking into places, but struggle to remain effective against ranged combat and find themselves outmatched against the powered-exoskeleton-type augmentations of government-made Grade 4 full body armor. However, the use of these working machines as ad-hoc combat machines due to their easy-to-use nature and cost-effectiveness in augmenting new troops by having recruits pilot them (among other similar things) has led them to see continued usage even into modern times.





-In terms of transport, the technology for lighter hovercraft has been developed well and is in prolific use underground by civilians for their capabilities to move up and down vertical heights quickly, as well as having use of still moving reasonably fast over the flat and paved vast underground highway network the government has long since created by current times. However, vehicles carrying the heaviest loads will usually be either ‘heavy hovercraft’ or mostly ground-based vehicles using tires as a mandatory measure to ensure loads can be safely transported.

Meanwhile, above-ground transport craft are mostly track-based by virtue of being well-understood, adapted to the hotter and more dangerous surface terrain, cost-effective to make, and being better for driving over softer terrain like sand (it is a desert planet of course) to boot. Hovercraft used above-ground must be made in the ‘heavy hovercraft’ vehicle category, otherwise they will blow away easily in the harsh winds and storms of the surface. Even wheels find themselves worse-off in the sands of the planet’s surface than tracks, performing worse than them in this setting by a distinct degree and causing vehicles to be trapped in accidents whose ‘wrecks’ are either barely visible or were long buried in the shifting sands themselves.

This general principle of vehicle development above and under the ground has led to more modern work aimed at developing a more versatile and cost-effective ‘heavy hovercraft’ base design, which would be a point to branch off from to make better designs for civilian, military, work-related, and other such vehicles that would be highly effective to use no matter the setting. This could in turn allow the nation to switch its vehicle production all over to a singular line, heavier hovercraft, and hopefully cut costs and improve developments in the long-term. Work is, of course, still ongoing in this area as more notably specialized and unique ‘heavy hovercraft’ designs continue to take on what roles and work they can in the meantime.

-When traversing the surface of Eos IVV, the local technology has developed what is called the “Surface-Traversal System” or more commonly as the “ST-Suit” or even just “ST/ST’s” in layman’s terms. It is an advanced but simplistic protective suit with a level of radiation and heat protection, which likewise grants full-body protection and resistance from the elements such as driving winds and sandstorms for good reason. Is it perfect? No, walk into the worst aboveground weather in one of these and one will find themselves likely dying anyways. But for those who live aboveground, these suits are their lifeline for heading out beyond the shelter of a surface town’s ‘sand barrier’ protections or whatever rocky place or semi-underground home they set up shop in.

-(space here in case I think of anything else)

Military Overview:

It is of distinct note that the military of the United Republic is not a distinct entity of its own, but rather that has become fully fused with its police force. Years of underground and aboveground battlefields, smaller-scale issues between cities during its chaotic years, and internal conflicts have led the locals to fuse these roles together sooner than later throughout the last 300 years history, alongside the need to conserve and maximize the efficiency of resource usage over the course of that time to boot. This has created a hybrid modern ‘military police’ whose ranks both keep order on the streets and likewise can be easily swelled in times of conflict by tapping into the large ‘reserve’ pool of these forces to fill the role of ‘soldiers’ both standard and elite in the general sense. Even during times of war, there is even a proper ‘gameplan’ to ensure that there will be enough police on the streets (‘home duty’ in the local lingo) versus those sent out to fight on the battlefield (‘away duty’ in the local lingo).

However the Ordos Custodes, what the force is called formally, does suffer to an extent from a lack of specialization as well though. While it can fill two dual roles by its nature, and has sought to accommodate those roles accordingly over many decades of experience, by virtue of being a ‘middle ground’ it lacks the raw numbers of a formal and separate military force. Against such a force being deployed at wartime levels, the Ordos Custodes will inevitably be smaller than the militaries of larger or equivalent nations when it comes to how many are being deployed into the field. Likewise, the fusion of military and police has led to these forces being very much ‘over the top’ in terms of what they can do in the field…basically being overkill by the standards of places with their own police forces. This in turn has also made them seem and feel notably more ‘brutal’ in their application as police forces, though whilst this has been a ‘boon’ to keeping order it has also painted them in a darker light than the average police force for sure as well.





***Military Note: The existence of other more distinct roles such as ‘snipers’ and ‘breaching personnel’, with their respective equipment loadouts, do exist within the Magistratus and Fulgur/Fulger of the United Republic as well. Even ‘demolition’ experts are among their ranks for that matter. Elite military police and standard military police versions of these roles exist respectively, mostly using the lower-tier versions for police situations, though in times of war this flexibility with both standard and elite forces being able to deploy such troops has been seen as beneficial at times.

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Additional Info:

-Military naming uses latin terms generally, as do governmental organizations.

-National animal is the Turducken (Because they made them real I don’t care I am making this a thing XD)

-(To Be Added)

Planet Name and Description: _{Calth is a large arid planet that orbits its parent star 0.9 AU at its farthest and almost 0.7 AU at its closets. Due to the proximity to its star, the climate is hot and dry with the primary water source coming from large underground aquifers. One large ocean dominates the southern hemisphere of the planet, dotted with islands.}

History: _{After the colony ships landed, many colonists struggled to cope with the heat and increased radiation from the star, making resources gathering tedious. As generations struggled against the environment, genetic resistances were established making growth of the colony possible. As subsequent generations increased their knowledge of their parent star, the solar cult was born increasing their zeal for more knowledge. Currently, the Solis Ecclesia majority control over their planet and has began extracting resources from their only moon. Travel beyond the gravitational influence of Calth is reserved for specialized long range craft.}

Culture and Society: <sub>True believers of the solar truth believe that everything and everyone is descended from the stars. Stars are living gods and their incandescent glow is a sign of their eternal love and warmth. Of course, not every citizen subscribes to the extreme religious views of the true believers. These citizens still hold the sun as an important entity but subscribe to a number of theories regarding the founding of the human species and the galaxy as a whole. A majority of solites have a deep disdsain, bordering on hate, for aliens. They see these other species as either being, devoid of “solar influence” or regard them as mutants.

Life within the cities and settlements of Calth is serene yet extremely restrictive. The church's secret police are always on the lookout for dissidents and non-believers. Any public disdain voiced against the church or solar cult are met with both public shame, possible violence and a visit from the secret police.

Life on the arid plains is relatively free, unlike life within the settlements. There are few visits from any authorities, except for important reasons. Many lack the wealth to build or buy outside of the cities and settlements as security is a concern. Bandits, outlaws and escaped aliens are known to prey upon weaker citizens for survival.</sub>




Governance and Politics: _{The Ecclesia is a religious oligarchy, ultimately governed by a high council of solar preist. Their word is passed down to regional governors and from them to local church leaders. The word of these leaders is the law and any deviation from the word of the local or regional ecclesiarch is harshly punished.}

Technology Overview:
<sub>- Localized and large-scale fusion power: As a solar cult, obsessed with the power of stars, harnessing the powers of fusion for energy was a priority

- Plasma weaponry: pretty straight forward, localized electrically charged gas fired at high speeds and able to burn through things

- Electrical projectile acceleration: Due to having a great electrical power at their disposal, this was the next logical step for projectile acceleration. This surpasses the standard explosive chemical acceleration and allows for increased acceleration speeds

- Advanced heat and radiation shielding: Being near a star, has forced the Solites to adapt their buildings, habitats and other tech to be extremely heat and radiation resistant</sub>

Military Overview:
<sub>The Solis Ecclesia has a very standard military. The majority of the fighting men and women of the Solis Ecclesia are basic general infantry, well trained to fight en-masse while supported with armor and artillery. This is reinforced with a constant rotation of conscripts, usually young adults finishing school or other specialized education. The navy provides both transport and combat capabilities for the military.

In both the army and navy specialist and elite divisions exist, the majority of combat forces in the Solis Ecclesia are well trained mass general infantry. Solites do not win their battles with grand actions or covert missions. They are won by grinding attrition and the lives of Solites.</sub>

Planet Name and Description:
_{Seven planets exist in this system, and one asteroid belt.}

Kallan Sol:
^{K-class orange dwarf star.}

Kallan I:
^{Small, rocky, no atmo, rich in sulfur, iron, and titanium.}

Kallan II:
^{1.2x Earth diameter with 67% surface water and 1.1x Earth Gravity. 4 continents roughly equidistant to one another.}

Kallan Belt:
^{remains of a goldilocks planet in the greenzone that was significantly larger then Earth. currently, scattered rocks whose most outstanding feature is an abnormally high quantity of atomic minerals.}

Kallan III:
^{medium sized planet with high gravity and an exceptionally dense core and crust.}

Kallan IV:
^{large planet, no atmosphere, with ice on the surface and traces of dead biology. Once contained life millenia before when the universe was warmer. Moderate resource availability.}

Kallan V:
^{Gas giant. Green-brown-yellow coloration.}

Kallan VI:
^{Supermassive gas giant, blue-red-yellow coloration. Home to a handful of Precursor alien wrecks that enabled the League to unlock Density Collapsing and Density Collapsed Hyperalloys.}

Kallan VII:
^{Icy planet with a thin gaseous atmosphere and liquid methane and high gravity despite a small-medium size. Significant mountains exist under the ice; some places have rock only meters under the ice, most locations can't find rock beneath the ice. Oceans of water are presumed to exist deep under the ice crust, with rivers and oceans of methane on the surface. Ice is dirty and requires infrastructure to filter.}

History:
<sub>Initial planning and mapping found an ideal goldilocks planets in the greenzone and multiple planets and gas giants in the red zone with a significant Oort Cloud. That information, thirty thousand years out of date due to the distance, did not catch the existinction event that turned one goldilocks planet into an asteroid belt.

The second goldilocks planet in the green zone had also had significant life; more than expected. Carbon based life largely compatible with humanity had existened for tens of thousands of years, and a three-gendered race of what could be considered otter-taurs had evolved primitive societies.

The stabilizing asteroid belt was sending meteorites into the planet; one continent of four had already faced an extinction level event that was barely survived on the two other nearest continents. Preservation and conservation of the native species was impossible; without intervention, the native species would be extinct in a century.

Terraforming equipment was used to scrub the atmosphere. Colony ships disgorged their payloads and went to work mining and capturing asteroids before they drifted too deep into the planet's gravity. Two ships were lost in these early stages.

The natives were struggling, and livable land in the early days was too sparse to be able to avoid the last, independent continent. The executive decision was made to uplift the race, subject them to education and trade and put them to work; with their shorter lifespans and higher birthrate, they took to this quickly and adapted, becoming integrated with their new neighbors, in equal parts honoring humanity for giving them a chance beyond their dreams, and simultaneously lamenting that the situation was dire enough for the decision to be considered necessary. A hundred and fifty years after humanity's arrival in-system, the Lanat were equal members and the planet had been stabilized. Humanity went to terraforming the blasted continent fully for humans, while the two wrecked continents became hybrid biospheres for both original biology and human biology.

One hundred and fifty years post arrival, a government was officially established, no longer operating as an emergency colonial governor-captain and cabinet. Fifty years after that, and everything had gelled into the current government, KanatKallan and HuKallan settling into a peaceful and largely intermixed population, the harsh reality of their universe a strong binding event. Only a couple years after this, the first DASS was born, and took nearly a decade before the DASS were accepted as equal members of the people, the gestalts acknowledged to be capable of generating a living digital intelligence. The government's constitution and bill of rights were updated accordingly.

In the years following, research and development boomed all across the system, DASS aided facilities, research, ships, and design proving to be a vast boon to the nation's exploitation of the Kallam Sol System.</sub>

Culture and Society: <sub>About eight decades prior to the Gateway re-opening, and just over two centuries Post Arrival, modern League society evolved to its current state.

The Native Continent, or C4, or locally known as Kayt, is considered the racial homeland of the KanatKallam, and operates under a Kanat-only government, a member nation of the Kallam League. Humans visit as tourists but are almost universally discouraged from living here. It's a democratically dominated society still formulating a culture of its own after a sudden uplifting by their human neighbors, who saved them even in condemning the old ways to die. They have a strong preference for their democracy to be displayed via gestalts.

The Reclaimed Lands, C2 and C3, are the two continents that were largely affected by the repeated asteroid impacts on C1. Life returned as hybrid biospheres fit for both hukallam and kanatkallam, living intermixed in genetically engineered biospheres and sprawling cities. Multiple nations exist here that only exist due to geographical features; seven are republics, with one democracy, two constitutional monarchies, and one hereditary tyrdom with a democratically elected council.

The final continent, C1, or Titan's Landing, was blasted by initial asteroid impacts and has since been terraformed into as best of an approximation of Earth as possible. While diverse human cultures are present in C2 and C3, C1 is largely a technocracy with an almost cultlike fascination with "The Mother" and "The Cradle" known as Earth, and seek both to expand the League's technological capability to return to Earth and restore her, as well as ensure humanity can survive *anywhere.* They operate what used to be the planetary governer, and is now simply the Human Colonial Governor, President of Titan's Landing. They are the largest human population center and are often the loudest voice in the Planetary Treaty Organization, which binds all nations on the planet together.

The Confederate League of Kallam formed soon after when proper colonies were settled on the planet's moon, and on the other planets in the solar system. While the other colonies have a comparatively small voice versus the PTO, the CFK protects colonial rights.

PTO speaks for the planet; CFK speaks for the system. The CFK can make edicts for PTO and the colonies both. All members of PTO and the colonies have individual voices in the CFK.</sub>



Governance and Politics:
<sub>The Gestalt Analysis and the Senate act as the primary governence of the system. The Senate acts as a republic, the Gestalt Analysis operates as a democratic forum.

The Gestalt Analysis has no decisionmaking ability for local governments, only advisory capacity, but does have a vote in the CFK.

There are local governments specific to different continents and organizations, but they act as member states to the edicts and decisions

Utilizing implants to form artificial gestalts between common groups of people, based on geography, and a Senate made of one elected member from each geographical location, a Prime Gestalt and a Senate Speaker are elected among them to be the primary spokesbeings to outsiders and to the people. Gestalts are retired after twice the term of their mortal Senators, and given the option to be terminated or become a sovereign DASS.</sub>

Technology Overview:
<sub>The DASS: Digital Artificial Sentience System. Basically, the democratic forum utilizes gestalts to sum up popular opinion. After a couple terms, a gestalt is disconnected from the people it represented so a new one can be formed without previous years being as significant of an influence. These disconnected gestalts had matured enough to the point that many become self-aware and sentient, and go on to become embedded in ships, stations, facilities, foundries, etc. No known limit to their lifespan has been discovered yet, though older DASS do slow down and spend significantly more time in thought.

ADVANCED COMPUTATION: With progress in room temperature superconductors, crystal and quantum computing and communication, and biocomputation has enabled the DASS and complex research to be carried out relatively easily.

ADVANCED ELECTRONIC WARFARE: The existence of the above two technologies has enabled the League to possess uniquely capable electronic warfare capabilities, probably their most and only outstanding military application.

GRAVITY MANIPULATION: the technology has been unlocked, but it isn't easy or pretty. Requiring significant pressure on specific assemblies as well as only being able to manipulate existing gravity, not create it, means that this technology, while useful for certain applications in manufacturing, medical, research, and material science fields, is limited to being deep within gas giants to be usable.

DENSITY COLLAPSED MATERIALS: By utilizing the above technology, certain dense materials and alloys can be further refined by briefly collapsing them under their own weight, mimicking for a nanosecond the conditions of a supernova. This can be used to create hyperdense materials previously thought impossible, though with extreme weight and mass.

GAS GIANT MASTERY: This nation has attained the ability to settle the surface of any planetary body with extremely high pressure and/or gravity due to the existence of the above two technologies. This technology was researched and completed specifically for the following.

PRECURSOR HYPERALLOYS: Within the depths of Kallan's supermassive gas giant, abnormally dense materials were located, which were later resolved to be the wrecks of ancient starships. While everything else had long succumbed to the intense gravity, heat, pressure, and fluids of the gas giant, the hull and structure remained. Dropping research bases into the area, the League discovered the secrets to density collapsing specific metals to create a hyperalloy- and alloy created specifically by density collapse, rather than smelting. These hyperalloys are exceptionally dense but exponentially stronger than traditional alloys and metals.

ATOMIC MASTERY: The League has access to a considerable amount of water, thorium, and uranium, among other materials. They used this to utilize and master fission and fusion applications. 95% of power generated by the League utilizes this technology.

TERRAFORMING MASTERY: Due to actively degrading conditions on the only greenzone planet, the League was forced to develop substantially into terraforming, more than was expected. With the additional minor threat of a repeat of what happened to their other potential green zone planet, the League us very attentive to the research, development, and continued use of terraforming technology to modify a planet to an ideal state.

VOLITANT ATMOSPHERIC - SPACE CONTROL CARRIER, FLEET SUPPLY AND FREIGHT (VASCC-FSF): These are the stand-in for traditional spaceports, space elevators, and space hooks. Designed to operate as flying airbases and spaceports, these giant airships are built to cruise anywhere from mid-to-high Troposphere, where most commercial aircraft can reach the airship, and heavy haulers can similarly, easily, reach. Landing and securing such aircraft on wide wings, the VASCC-FSF "VASK" can load and unload these aircraft that can launch from even rudimentary heliports and rise to low planetary orbit, utilizing high efficiency nuclear-powered electronic propulsion to cruise at any of these relevant altitudes. In low orbit, she can connect to short sky-hooks from middle orbit, dock with some starcraft designed for it, and take and launch shuttles. She acts as a general command and control for planetary forces, acts as a mobile airbase, and monitors planetary conditions to assist in terraforming. VASK units are also designed to utilize planetary weather and various defensive subsystems to make themselves undetectable to spacecraft, with greater efficiency the lower they are, and control airspace around them. VASK units can be built in low to medium orbit and "dropped" into the atmosphere. These are the culmination of much of the League's computational, terraforming, and smart technologies.</sub>

Military Overview:
^{small military with a high tech level.}

Synopsis
^{The League's Intra-Solar Defense Corps, or ISDC, functions primarily as security and peacekeeping, and primarily focuses on intelligence gathering within the League and its member nations and colonies and launching small, targeted strikes where applicable to prevent major conflicts from occurring. Internal security and unrest management is the top priority of the League's military.}

Departments
Intra-Solar Space Command and Logistics Corps:
^{At the heart, this is the administrative branch of the military that directs and guides all other branches. They operate as administration, logistics, special military research, operate training facilities, and employ diplomats and other special and unique work that the other branches do not fully encompass.}
Intra-Solar Security Office:
^{Acts as the intelligence gathering organization for the League, operating all across the solar system to ensure unrest remains low and to ensure all member nations keep their unrest in check and prevent from spilling over into other League nations.}
Intra-Solar Security Corps:
^{Acts as the special weapons and tactics force, operating with as elite members as possible and the best offensive and defensive gear the League possesses.}
Intra-Solar Marine Corps:
^{Acts as the general military for combined arms. Considered, arguably, the least important of the branches, the Marines are mostly geared towards customs inspection, damage control, first responders, and reserve crew for the League's military ships, and don't often see any action.}
Intra-Solar Space Fleet Corps:
^{Acts as the defense fleet, customs inspection, security, orbital overwatch, extra-terrestrial first responders, first contact, and other space-born mission handlers. They operate the League's warships and provide the visible strong-arm of the spaceforce. A special note is that while Space Fleet is often lightly armed [in comparison to nations not yet encountered], all Space Fleet ships possess significant electronic warfare packages, significantly enhanced power generation, propulsion, and ultra-heavy armor. A warship can generally be considered to easily take hits designed for a ship two classes above their own, even if their offensive capability is almost a full class below, presuming that ship class sizes range from: Corvette, Frigate, Destroyer, Cruiser, Battlecruiser, Dreadnought, Battleship, Superdreadnought. The maximum size the League currently has constructed is a Cruiser.}
Intra-Solar Terrestrial Fleet Corps:
^{Performs all the same duties as Space Fleet, but geared towards planetary bodies. The ships the TFC operates from are either wet navy ships, or air navy ships. Wet navy ships are largely known already, but the special purpose of this branch lies specifically with the air navy: instead of space-ports, the League employs massive airships that travel constantly around their planet's surface. These airships, VASK units, act as airbases, atmospheric monitoring and research, spaceports (with all the amenities and even some shops and R&R facilities), limited terraforming, and more.}
Intra-Solar Special Research Division:
^{This division is the most recently formed and the smallest, dedicated to a single purpose. With the advent and discovery of gravity manipulation, it was unanimously decided by the League to keep the technology's security a cut above the rest. All researchers and engineers that work with the technology are either enlisted or contracted with the ISSRD and work directly under the ISSRD and Space Command's hand. Manufacturing, research, and engineering facilities with gravitonic research, development, and machinery on, in, or around gas giants are strictly under the command and control of the ISSRD.}