@Irredeemable Approved, especially the theme song. I wonder if it'd be possible for a hostile power to "hack" the artificial parts of Zetan brains, or if the programming is too arcane.
I'm not sure how you'd even begin to do that beyond the crudest attempts at shutting down or puppeting any fully mechanical parts. The Collective itself is basically a black box after hundreds of years of constant change.
Finally done, woo! I may add in pictures of stuff later, like robots used for mining and such. Main focus of this nation is materials / construction, including of ships.
Nation Name: Zelrio Corporation
Government Form: Corporate Monarchy
Demographics: 99.96% Space-living, 0.04% Oria-living. A demographic that doesn't matter much, however within the Zelrio Corporation, it is known that anyone working on the planet that moves to space is destined to become at least a middle-class member of society if they put sufficient time in, due to the high pay awarded as a result of the high danger of working and living on the planet.
Population: 276 Million
--- ---
Planet Name and Description: Oria
It was a name picked by the astronomer that found the planet, a combination of his daughter's name, Aria, and the word Ore, of which the planet had plentiful. The planet was joked by some astronomers to be a giant ball of gold just floating in space, however the truth was that it was incredibly rich in ores and minerals of varying kinds, and a fortune for whoever landed upon it and took up the responsibility of mining it out. Today, those materials are mined out in plentiful numbers by the colonists (though, primarily by automated equipment).
Oria, however, was not uninhabited before the arrival of Humans. A species known as the Vacuarians were it's previous ruling inhabitants. Governed by hive minds, the Vacuarians are akin to man-sized insects, almost like ants. Brutally hostile to Humanity arriving on their planet, they wildly attack anyone that they take notice of, and are the primary threat that Humanity faces on Oria. However, they are not the only threat. The atmosphere is toxic to be breathed by itself, requiring a filtering process to be made breathable. The Vacuarians, and other native fauna, are capable of living within Oria's atmosphere.
History: Upon arriving at Oria, a test of the atmosphere confirmed that it was not breathable. Whilst people originally began to panic, soon they had a small colony started on the planet, however still mostly lived out of the colony ship. Research was put into filtering out the bad bits of the atmosphere and making it breathable, and in the meanwhile, life support from the ship was pumped into the colony's buildings. It was a haphazard setup, but it worked, and the most that they had to worry about was the local fauna getting riled up, to which security cut down quickly. A local species was identified as the Vacuarians, and was labelled as not friendly to Humans, and not friendly to eat. The first settlement was named Hellgorth, a fitting name for the hell that many believed that they had landed themselves in.
Four years down the line, there had been problem after problem. The planet was becoming unbearable to live on, and with the Gateway closed, the colonists could not retreat and call the landing a failure. The newly formed Zelrio Corporation was using what shuttles the company owned to build itself a small facility in space in order to cut down on costs planetside, and to get itself a head-start for the space stage of the colony. However, the space stage, rather than coming when the planet had multiple settlements in place, came a lot earlier than expected. With all the problems occurring, none could compare to the colony coming under unexpected attack.
On the fifth year of the colony, the Vacuarians revealed themselves to be more than just mindless fauna. The first attack was small, albeit unexpected, however soon enough more attacks came, sometimes days apart, sometimes weeks apart. Large, insect-like creatures were storming into Hellgorth and attacking whoever they saw until being repelled, and then doing it again when the next attack came. This was the last straw for the colonists, and they began looking for other planets on the system to move their colony to. However, with so many supplies already on Oria, the effort to pick up and leave would likely lose a lot of those supplies, and the people to go with them. A full year was spent searching for solutions, only to come up with nothing. So, instead, the people of Oria looked to the Zelrio Corporation, who had began further expanding their operations into space after the attacks on Hellgorth. Soon, the population began to transition into life in space.
Many years later, Hellgorth remains the primary settlement of Oria, with a population of 120,000. In place of homes, it has gigantic smeltery plants, which processes everything that is mined on the planet before it is sent up the Tristam Space Elevator for further processing and usage in space. The Zelrio Corporation no longer is overseen by the government, as it is the government after widespread praise for it's work in pulling everyone off of Hellgorth. Space around Oria is peppered with many stations of varying kinds, from habitat stations to gigantic spacedocks and assembly areas.
Culture and Society: With the majority of the population living in space, there is often the worry of food. Most grown food comes from gigantic hydroponics farms, however the vast majority of meat is synthetic. Real meat is a luxury that is often only affordable to the upper class, as there is little space to host large amounts of livestock. On the other hand, water comes from ice asteroids within the system as well as being sent up from the surface (the latter of which often needs to be filtered to make safe to drink), and is recycled constantly, enabling a supply good enough to keep the population going.
The population often has to undergo training in order to survive in emergency situations. As well as having spacecraft licences and firearms licences, they also have emergency procedure trainings that have to periodically renew, with risk of arrest for those who do not renew their training, therefore putting habitats at risk. Due to the entire colony being run by the Zelrio Corporation, they often use punishments that benefit them, such as indentured servitude.
---
Governance and Politics: At a normal citizen's level, things are almost equivalent to a democracy. Citizens elect officials to help make decisions about the sectors that they live in, and where the funding that they are given is delegated. Habitat Councilmen, the head of each habitat (and the one who decides what sector each sector receives in finances) is also elected by the citizens of that habitat. Above that, decisions are handed directly to the Zelrio Corporation's directors, who are promoted from various places, such as of long-standing councilmen to employees hired directly by the corporation. Many director positions exist; The Habitat Director is the individual responsible for the management of all habitats, for example, just as the Financial Director controls finances all throughout Zelrio territory. At the top of the chain is the Zelrio National Director, who serves as the nation's top executive. When the National Direction passes away, or steps down, the position is then taken by their chosen Deputy National Director.
Technology Overview: The Zelrio Corporation has made significant strides in automated technology. Due to a lack of manpower at the beginning, robotics were introduced to fill in gaps, and that soon moved onto drone technology, using automated drones to search for the best deposits to mine from, and in many cases, to do the mining itself. Over time, growing trust in their advancements, the technology was moved to the military, and soon, drone carriers and other drone-related technologies were born and utilised, as well as the introduction of Artificial Intelligences. Command and Control technologies also advanced as a result of this, in order to be able to properly manage and control automations.
In addition to automated technology, cyber-defence and in turn cyber-offence became a large point of research, primarily for defending all of the technological advances that had been created. Whilst cyber-defence research was spread all throughout Zelrio territory, all cyber-offense technologies are given to Zerlio's military divisions and banned for anyone else to have or make use of; Those who manage to break cyberdefence test servers are rewarded for showing and reporting the exploit, providing incentive for others to help create an impenetrable system.
To defend their orbital habitats, the Zelrio Corporation has also put significant research into defence technologies, primarily in point defence in order to defend against asteroids and microasteroids, but additionally into shield technologies and other methods of defending themselves.
Due to mostly having to live in space, significant research has been put into Zero-G construction. As a result, construction of space structures and spacecraft has advanced to high levels, with new methods in place to both improve construction, and increase it's speed. New technologies and large orbital construction yards help to facilitate these advances.
Finally, and perhaps the most criminal of their technological advances, Space-To-Ground ordinance has also received a some research. Safe ways of bombing planets from orbit have been developed in order to counter outbreaks of Vacuarians on Oria with both precision and efficiency, without damaging the planet itself.
Military Overview: The Zelrio Corporation's military efforts are primarily focused on space domination. Despite living as a lonely colony for many years after the Gateways closed, the Corporation still holds a small navy due to the need to protect their stations from any threat that occurs. Most of these ships are small ships, along the lines of corvettes and frigates, however the proudest ships of the fleet would be the Drone Carriers. Because drones don't require air to breathe nor rations to feed, the carriers do not have internal hangars. Drone Fighters are stored on external racks, squeezed together with just enough room for the rearmament equipment to slip between every drone. A full compliment of drones costs about half as much as the carrier itself, however the ability to field that much ordinance with numerous fighters ensures it's an efficient payoff, and allows them to patrol their areas of space diligently, arresting (or eliminating) criminal ships.
Every ship and station holds a compliment of Zelrio marines, who take up the role of the police on board every ship, as well as the boarding force for any ship or station in space that requires boarding action. The marines are supported by infantry drones on larger operations in order to bulk up their numbers. The marines are rarely deployed groundside. Instead, that role is taken up by the Combat Controllers, which are Zelrio's Special Forces. These highly trained troops are deployed in very small numbers with their primary objective being to find and eradicate Vacuarian nests. They can often be in the field for weeks or even months, locating nests and calling in strikes from orbit. More often than not, they are supported by infantry drones, though many Combat Controllers opt to deploy on their own or with a few buddies to avoid detection. In addition to ground operations on Orea, Combat Controllers often deploy on other celestial bodies both for training, and to root out anyone that may be living on them, such as criminal gangs. Combat Controllers are among the most respected people in all of Zelrio, and it's commonly joked that one could take over a government with just a satellite communications kit.
Apart from the Combat Controllers, the other groundside element is the Zelrio Security Force. These troops aren't large in number, and aren't as experienced as even the Zelrio marines. The security forces are used to defend the groundside facilities of Oria and primarily the space elevator. They are additionally used to escort any ground convoys that require human support, though a lot of their role is facilitated by automated technology such as defence drones.
---
Additional Info:
None right now, but soon will be a list of names to remember.
When Trifera was cut off from Mother Earth, chaos soon followed. As riots and panic protests broke out, opportunistic radicals with the help of fringe elements of the military took power.
And then shortly after:
They had already mastered their own planet, so their egos told them it was nothing to dissect some dead giant monster.
See, these quotes make it sound like Trifera was colonized for a very long time before Earth collapsed. But as I tried to describe it in the OP, the colony ships were sent out right as Earth was already falling:
A desperate government, equipped with technology that still outstrips anything seen in the galaxy today, threw the last of its resources into the making of the Gateways. Massive artificial wormholes, each one set to lead to a different location. Colonists were sent haphazardly through them. Humanity was scattered across the entire Milky Way: separated from eachother, lost, but determined to survive.
I understand that there could be some ambiguity, of course. But basically, the History section's phrasing makes the Trifera colony sound older than the rest of our nations. I wouldn't have mentioned it, except that most of the other Nation Sheets I've received all phrase their colonies as being established basically to replace Earth, and so I feel like it causes consistency issues. If you can rephrase that a bit, I'll be glad to accept it. :)
@datadogie Accepted! I've honestly always loved the idea of living in space, as much as it would probably be a nightmare in reality.
And at that, my dudes, my NS is completed too. Well, minus the fact that I still have to make a flag, but by my authority as GM I order you all to ignore that.
Nation Name: Earth Cultural Union
Government Form: Noocracy ("Aristocracy of the Wise")
Demographics: While all human, most of the ECU population has been exposed to radiation throughout their life, and the potential damage to DNA has been a source of great fear and concern.
Population: 1.5 Billion. Colony founded with 150,000.
--- ---
Planet Name and Description: New Hollywood. A world of dust, rust and ruins.
Humans are not the first people to live on this planet. The predecessors (named Bezians, after the planet's original name: Bezia-72b) were a sentient race who, like humans, built cities, paved roads, and discovered the world around them. Then they blew it up.
Nuclear war seems to have been the likely cause of the Bezian's extinction. Radiation levels have faded in the eons since it happened, but remain a hazard today. Along with the intense clutter of ruined cities, and the uncomfortable alien-ness of the environment, the ECU has been prompted to invest heavily in terraforming. To date, New Hollywood is five years into a complex process of being terraformed into an Earth-like paradise.
Only time will tell if it succeeds.
History: The history of New Hollywood is bloody. The first occupants, the Bezians, destroyed themselves. And the Noocracy has put down many potential uprisings and "Anti-Earth activities" in the time since. A rough timeline follows.
Year 0: The Champion, a small colony ship staffed largely by scientists and experts in STEM fields, lands on Bezia-72b. The Champion's captain, Cpt. Julia Oppenheimer, assumes command of the colony. Year 6: While gathering metals from a Bezian ruin, Oppenheimer and her team are killed by a collapsing building. Year 6-9: Debate rages regarding Oppenheimer's replacement. Being a society founded largely by academics, the residents of Bezia-72b push for a system governed by the rules of science and logic, facilitated by a council of proven intellectuals. Taking a page from Plato, this council is named the Noocracy. Year 10: The first Savant is elected: Chun Zhang. He attempts to lead the colony in a path "of respect for Earth's traditions and cultures," but faces much resistance from this group of forward-thinkers.
Year 14: A large segment of Chun Zhang's rivals are assigned to a scouting expedition into an unstable ruin, and never return. Year 15: Zhang is reelected as Savant. Year 21: As the first Bezian ruin is cleared and used for the building of a permanent human habitation, a sense of intense patriotism and accomplishment sweeps the population. Year 22: Framing himself as the hero of this achievement, Zhang is finally able to consolidate power under himself, and push the populace into fully accepting his agenda. Year 22-25: Bezia-72b is renamed New Hollywood, and the Earth Cultural Union is officially formed. Year 26: Thus follows the only period of relative peace in New Hollywood history.
Year 98: A scientist in the employ of the Noocracy, Dr. Amanda Yung, proposes a revolutionary new gene treatment that could combat the impact of New Hollywood's latent radiation. Year 105: Long-term trials of Yung's Treatment conclude, showing a small but permanent altering of the recipient's genetic structure. Year 106-108: Controversy ensues. Year 109: Savant Fredrick Byrne outlaws Yung's proposal. In a rare official speech, it is made clear that no alterations to the human genome, no matter how small, will ever be tolerated. Year 110: Dr. Amanda Yung is found dead. Despite being shot in the back, it is officially ruled a suicide.
Year 140-145: Agitated by increased repressiveness from the Noocracy, protests break out across every city on New Hollywood. Year 141-143: The Noocracy attempts to combat these protests peacefully. Year 144: Violence occurs for the first time when a drunken protestor beats a policemen to death. Year 145: The Protectors, a dedicated new policing force unafraid to use violence, is formed. Uprisings are violently suppressed. Rebellion gradually dies down in all cities, with the exception of New Beijing. Year 146: New Beijing remains a hotspot for anti-government discourse for decades.
Year 210: The first Holographic Suite is invented. Year 211-214: As a testing ground, Holographic Suites are used to indoctrinate Protectors in Noocratic thinking. Year 215: The Holgraphic Suite is released to the general public, to ecstatic reception. Year 216-220: Savant Kungawo Johannes encourages the construction of Holgraphic Suites in New Beijing, with an intense focus on patriotic messaging. Year 221: Tensions gradually die down in New Beijing.
Year 270: A new religious movement begins, based on the great religions of Earth's past. Year 271-273: The Noocracy tolerates this movement so long as it stays focused on traditional human beliefs. Year 272-280: "Mixtism" becomes an unofficial name for the spiritualist gathering, as views have mingled to a point where it is now something new, unique completely to New Hollywood. Year 280: Mixtism is declared a dangerous cult. Year 281: Religious individuals are forced into hiding. Thousands are believed to still be living in Bezian ruins.
Year 290: A famous Oligarch writes an anti-Noocratic manifesto. By her command, it is broadcasted across much of the planet. Before authorities can apprehend her, she commits suicide. Year 295: The terraforming of New Hollywood begins. Year 300: Current day.
Culture and Society: Socially, the Earth Cultural Union is both incredibly diverse and incredibly traditional.
The focus of the ECU, as always, is to preserve the cultures of Old Earth as they were before the Fall. With this in mind, the Noocracy has pushed "Earth Culture Parties" as a craze among the youth. These are large and intense gatherings where participants take on new names for an evening, speak in Old Earth slang, and eat New Hollywood's best approximations of Earth food.
Not that the rest of New Hollywood doesn't "keep to the Culture." Even outside the parties, you could walk down any street in Neo London and see dozens wearing their sacred folk costumes of blue jeans and hoodies, Japanese kimonos, or lederhosen. If it's Earth, it's valid.
And then, naturally, some of those street-walkers are probably headed towards a Holograph Suite, where they'll be given a list of options for a night of entertainment. They can watch Shakespeare premiere at the Globe Theatre, for example. Or they can have an intimate (pre-scripted) chat with Marilyn Monroe.
These programs, as with everything in New Hollywood, come pre-approved by the Noocracy and represent Earth in only the best possibly light. A paradise. A place we should want to go back to. Home.
---
Governance and Politics: "Noocracy," as defined by Plato, is rule by philosophers. As defined by the ECU, it is rule by the intelligent. A subtle difference, but vitally important.
The Earth Cultural Union ruling class, sometimes called the Oligarchy, maintains that its members represent the most intelligent and educated members of society. Early on in New Hollywood's history, entry into the Oligarchy required passing a rigorous technical exam, a certain level of required reading, and an I.Q. test rumored to break men's minds.
Today, it requires you to be born the child of an Oligarch.
Over the centuries, the standards of the Noocracy have gradually been corrupted. Whereas once one had to be an almost savant-like genius to gain real political power, now the Oligarchy is mostly an insular group of families and dedicated social climbers. But in order to maintain appearances, the Oligarchy still presents itself as representing intellectual refinement.
Therefore, young Oligarchs often increase their social standing by walking around in public with books, or paying more genuine scientists to do research on their behalf. (In fact, most scientists on New Hollywood work for Oligarchs. They publish no finds the Noocracy doesn't approve.) If you ask an Oligarch if they have any hobbies, they'll sigh dramatically and confess "Tragically, my uncomplicated companion, I have not the freedom to engage in fanciful recreations. But I digress- my studies, the foul mistress, call me again." They spend most of their time at Earth Culture Parties.
At least, that is the case for most Rulers of today. Lately, there seems to be one dangerous exception: James Heralds is a middle-aged Oligarch who is best described as "gray." His voice is gray, his thinking is gray, and his hair is gray. And he's terribly clever. He's managed to build up a power base among more weak-minded Oligarchs, and was just elected Savant (the formal head of the Noocracy) by a razor-thin margin.
Technology Overview: With the Earth Cultural Union's obsession with preserving the past, no scrap of knowledge- no matter how trivial- has been allowed to go forgotten. Since reconstructing a damaged database carried on their Colony Ship, the ECU has been able to tell you everything from the lifespan of Hericium Erinaceus (40 years) to the color of Johnny Depp's eyes (chocolate brown).
And with the Noocracy's determination to prove their intellectual might, Oligarchs will often fund any number of scientific pet projects.
Terraforming in particular is a specialty- the ECU has managed to transform sections of New Hollywood into Earth-like paradises, and they've gotten to be very good at it. There have been some rumors that, if New Hollywood can be brought back to life, perhaps Earth can as well. But it remains only speculation.
Another field that has flourished in the Earth Cultural Union is the use of holographic simulations. The invention of Holographic Suites has allowed touchable holograms to bring any fiction to life, creating an entire world before the user's eyes. This is popularly used to both distract and indoctrinate the populace. (On the more practical side of things, scientists also use holograms for visualizing complex simulations. Before a new terraforming project gets underway, it's always run through the Holographic Suite a couple of hundred times, mapping out any potential side-effects.)
New Hollywood does, however, remain "behind the curve" when it comes to two fields: robotic automation, and gene modification. This is primarily because their research is banned on New Hollywood, due to a fear that such inventions would lead to a new humanity- contrary to the ECU's mission to preserve humans as they are.
Military Overview: The ECU has not needed an army for some time. There was a violent period, roughly 150 years ago, where a large policing force was developed to put down rebellions, but that time has passed. Today, the people are easily occupied with holographic fantasies and revelry, and rarely think of politics long enough to oppose the government in anything.
The only exception remains the Protectors. Originally formed during the rebellions, the Protectors are a combination of soldiers and police. They are trained and indoctrinated by Holograph Suite programs which have been designed to teach them to love Earth, fear anything foreign, and practice violence without hesitation. Recently, these men have been placed formally under the control of Savant James Heralds.
@Tortoise Ahh I misread that part. The idea was that Trifera was reliant on Earth to a greater degree than most. The part about "mastering their planet" is the Party driving their own ego; its hyperbole. It was more than instant and it took nearly 100 years but they thought they'd created a system of government where they would always be in power and had perfected what Ingsoc did in 1984 more or less. I'll edit the start to clarify it.
@TortoiseProbably helps that the vampires were originally just scientists and researchers who didn't like the Party too much. Imagine if the Party actually had some patience and they were the ones to get their hands on the Blood.
Of course, the vampires aren't entirely blameless either. They've kept a lot of the repressive structures and institutions that the Party made, only softening them and making sure that people live comfortable lives so they don't ask questions. Propaganda is also widespread but more subtle, usually in the form of how enlightened technocracies are and the wisdom of age along with hamming up how terrible the Party and live under them was. Vampires also live in greater comfort than the living but that's totally just because they live longer and thus can gather more wealth and control zombies to do stuff for them and totally not because they have ways of siphoning off wealth like blood.
I'm starting to wonder if the Consciousness might look at all these inefficient, authoritarian types and decide to liberate some folks into their group mind.
Nobody needs to resist when they're being peacefully incorporated into over a billion people's peer pressure!
And have a billion, short lived uneducated people make decisions on things they don't know about? Sounds like a good way to have bad government instead of letting a group of near-immortal hypereducate make the best decisions for everyone.
@rezay Just an fyi, but 40 million is a really small number. Most of us have upwards of a billion people.
Good to note, I haven't gone through the other NS's yet, *nor the backlog of OOC posts. I was just extrapolating from the original 1 million per ship figure, then Googling how to do a basic exponential growth calculation thing, maybe that's changed
That's what I get for not subscribing to the OOC :P
*Really, I guess I didn't have to assume that we each got just one colony ship either...
Huh well shit, I might change my pop then as well. Still probably going to be higher than most on account of the fact dead zombies don't exactly require a lot of resources to sustain themselves.
I feel like this RP needs a "Warning: Pops May Vary" disclaimer
Don't stress it too much, @rezay. 1 Billion seems to be about our average. One guy has 6 billion (with his people being genetically modified) and datadogie is our smallest at 250 mil. I'll accept pretty much any amount that seems to work for your empire.
I feel like this RP needs a "Warning: Pops May Vary" disclaimer
Don't stress it too much, @rezay. 1 Billion seems to be about our average. One guy has 6 billion (with his people being genetically modified) and datadogie is our smallest at 250 mil. I'll accept pretty much any amount that seems to work for your empire.
Yeah, I'm beginning to realize my WIP is out of its depth here, I was going for something much smaller-scale
1x Thank
