Maybe something to do with Egypt? British occupation probably went differently and you could easily get Egypt becoming independent sooner with the right twists and turns. The Seuz Canal and Gaza strip might still be in british hands though.
Issue is there's no one playing britain yet so what Britain is like is unknown. I know they ate shit in the earlier versions though.
UPDATE: Shit, bing's already got egypt on reserve.
History: The Titan Industrial Complex was at first a humble relay point founded in 2124 by twins Vin and Tess who sought the oil riches of titan on an arcane notion that the oils of titan would fuel rockets to the rest of the kuiper belt. Vin and Tess came from wealth and so while the bulk of the work was done by hundreds of engineers, scientists and thousands of machines after decades of development. Vin and Tess were not the only oligarchs who sought the riches of other worlds, but they were certainly the first to get a foothold on Titan in the mad dash to extract resources from the solar system for wealth unseen in any other point in human history. The Titan Industrial Complex had nothing to do with manufacture of machines, space craft or any super computer, but mere resource extraction hub like so many other entities.
And this stayed the case for some time, even as generations of people born in orbit of Titan instead of Earth came and went, much of Titan was privately ran by the descendants of Vin and Tess for nearly a century, with operations shifting towards the extraction of minerals from Enceladus and most controversially, Saturn’s Rings. The attempt to mine Saturn’s rings would be the down fall of this early period of material extraction oriented industry on Titan for the public outrage from Earth led to the formation of the Outer System’s Compact (OSC) in the year 2280.
By this time the development of orbital cities around Saturn came to be where the children of company employees and tourists came to live, be it to ski on Enceladus, fly on Titan or gaze at Saturn’s rings. These orbital cities were made using local resources from the legal worlds in the OSC and were technically property of V&T Industries. V&T Industries would not survive the OSC however, due to numerous later violations by V&T industries who had no respect for that, as once paraphrased by the great grandson of Vin, ‘shit scrap’. Said shit scrap would lead to the V&T Industries being shut down and legally dismantled as a toxic asset. The inhabitants were for a year or so in a state of de facto anarchy while still being obligated to Terran resource taxes and incident rapidly piled up with terrorist attacks breaking out by extremists who sought separatism and neo-marxist thought.
It was at this point that the former assets of V&T Industries would be by the local administrators of the Orbital Cities converted into a formal colony by former housing officers who became politicians and bureaucrats. With provisional rule from Terran bureaucrats came a shifted emphasis on making use of Titan’s unique natural characteristics itself to build something that could only exist on Titan A sprawling super computer project was initiated by the Administrators as was a range of virtual network construction projects that accumulated in the Titan Industrial Complex itself, which in the century since its early formation would become one of the premier manufacturing hubs of the outer solar system and be known for its sprawling computational complex which would slowly, than rapidly come to house billions upon billions of uploaded minds immigrating from the inner solar system. The Industrial Complex would become such a prominent feature that the TIC and the administration which initially ran it would become known as the Titanian Industrial Complex, despite many people associated with the TIC living in orbit of Saturn or on space elevator connected orbital transport hubs linked to Titan’s surface.
In time, the population of Saturn’s moon system grew drastically, with the virtual population on titan being and the pressures of an increasingly stagnate, highly conservative Terran administration led to lots of tension between the outer system and the inner system in general, the TIC being of no exception to this. Such tensions simmered for a while, with outer worlds acting on some autonomy on a regular basis even under pressure of the interplanetary network which increasingly put more demand on the outer system for resources. Revolt was unthinkable- for what military the TIC had was just a local defense force meant to deal with space pirates or rogue drones at the time while the Inner System was a deeply, deeply militarized place and the center of civilization as far as anyone would be concerned even with the large populations of virtual minds that had progressively migrated outwards from the inner solar system.
The Outer Systems were simply the resource bay for the activities of the inner system, and that was the way people saw things even as the gap decreased and the outer systems diversified in their industries and more people began living everywhere in the solar system, be it the outer worlds, asteroid belts and even as far afield as the Kuiper belt.
This inferiority complex was common in the Titanian psyche, especially among the younger generations of people who have never set foot on Earth and had gained a deeply insular, sedated culture in living around the various moons of Saturn. Where skiing on Enceladus or surfing the winds of Saturn mattered more than whatever drama was happening back on Earth. There would be much resentment and contempt for the inner systems fueling all matter of civil disorder in the late 24th century century as virtual realms grew in power and idealism overtook reality, with a state of collective solipsism beginning to emerge among the self-proclaimed Titanians whose main characteristic was that they lived in orbital cities under deep influence from the Titanian Industrial Complex itself, which at this point was its own self-aware entity in many regards, even as it continued to do industrial work for vehicle and modular spacecraft manufacture in its distinctive environment, with titan made spacecraft being commonly used in civilian and military tech. This was not helped by the advanced AI systems which came to dominate the TIC through what was effectively a coup in the year 2405.
It would only be when the Inner System’s War broke out that the TIC broke away from the Inner Systems under the fear that after the war they’d be stripped dry by the victors for their rebuilding efforts. Such fear wasn’t completely rational (given that there were still plentiful resources in mercury and the asteroid belt to rebuild), but it took hold regardless. The production of a fleet of spacecraft would be illegally taken by the Titanian Industrial Complex under the pretense of bringing Stability to the Saturnian System where a raft of rioting and subversive warfare had created a climate of chaos to which the Core Ones came to dominance. The Titanians were preparing for an military invasion from the Inner Systems that astoundingly enough two decades later has yet to come after a several cyber raids through the virtual networks were rebuffed by the denizens of Titan’s highly developed virtual multiverse.
In the current age, the Titan Question goes unanswered as other worlds around the solar system have also fallen into political fragmentation and internal volatility which has sapped much desire for now for larger hegemonic forces to reassert their control over other parts of Sol. Still, the TIC’s presence is sharply felt.
Organization: The TIC is managed primarily by a group of AI administrators who came about as an emergent force within Titan’s virtual universe known as the Core Ones. They usually will manifest as an orange, hazy animal-like form in virtual space and in real space tend to simply prefer using holographic projections mixed with numerous ‘hand’ and ‘face’ drones to physically interact with other people. These Core Ones have managed to entrench themselves into the collective minds of people in the TIC as the factory itself speaking to them and knowing what is best for Titan itself and they have managed to ensure a hegemonic influence among hundreds of saturn’s habitats and orbital cities. They do not control all of Saturn.
These AI administrators make up the overall cybercracy that handles day-day tasks while political participation in general is carried out through numerous referendums and local mayors who act as the face of a local orbital polity even if much of their policy is informed by the Core One’s advice which the mayors in theory do not need to pay attention to, but in practice usually do simply because of how popular the Core Ones are in Saturnian media being viewed basically like sages. The Core Ones are not ones to hide in the shadows- they make no secret about their role in society and their views often are adapted by the younger generations of people in the orbital cities even if the older generations of mind uplifts tend to not like them much.
The Factory on Titan itself is where the Core Ones are based and they run the local virtual network housed on Titan primarily while elected mayors run the orbital cities with influence from the Core Ones. The Core Ones truth be told are not a true AI, instead they have their consciousness derived from the citizens, their whole intelligence being based upon data collection systems within the accessible multi-versal layers of the virtual megacomplex underneath Titan’s surface.
Technology: (TBA)
Infrastructure:
The Industrial Complex itself
A grand, continent sized industrial hub built up over the decades since the transition of V&T Industries incorporated assets into a former colonial administration and later drive towards autonomous governance under the guidance of the Core Ones. The Construction of the Industrial Complex is the product of a desire to build a fast computational engine in a massive space, to which comets wouldn't do (for that would be the venture of someone else) and Pluto had at the time seemed to far off.
The Industrial Complex is in effect a hybrid faculty where manufacture of products both physical and virtual are widespread, acting both as a massive housing mainframe for a super computer that holds billions upon billions of migratory virtual minds and being a sprawling complex of spaceship manufacture used by multiple corporations around the solar system, and even with the autonomy movement and nationalization still is, though with increased cost.
Transfer of material from the surface to orbit is made easy by the combination of Titan's low gravity and thick atmosphere, which makes airships and flight based transit a highly viable prospect and the low gravity means reaching Titan's Orbit is very easy compared to say, Venus or Earth. The Industrial Complex has multiple defensive layers as well, built up during the autonomy movement's prominence and the fears of retribution from the inner system. This factory has come to dominate its makers culturally, its inhabitants holding deep sway over a large share of Saturn's orbital faculties and settlements.
Orbital Infrastructure
There is dozens of orbital cities around Saturn with strong affiliations with the TIC, including two which have been situated in Saturn's Lagrange points to much contention of other local associations.
Military: (elaborate on the military systems your society employs be it drone swarms, spacecraft, augmented super soldiers, avatars (for your uploaded soldiers) and so on)
This is a compendium of active policies, pacts and treaties that apply to IC. Use them against your rivals!
Or the OSC is an agreement between all colonizers of the outer systems on many things, mainly quality of life standards and regulations for living spaces along with mining agreements to what worlds can be mined and which ones are off limits. Lots of drama is to be expected here- for in practice there has been no shortage of violations or loop holes which have been exploited by those who claim to uphold it. It started off as a simple frame work and the committees are notorious for their infighting. So this isn't some hard OOC rule, just an IC agreement.
Dating back to the time when rockets were first being created, this centuries old clause has seen multiple provisions that had for some time dictated the way companies and organizations may interact with regards to interplanetary colonization. The fundamental tenet of the clause is that you cannot claim territory on worlds outside of earth. This clause however, did see the revision that you may still develop and mine resources on other celestial bodies but only have claim over your company owned assets. In practice this meant that planets were treated as a commons of sort, with multiple companies developing assets to which they had control over. Paraterraforming efforts complicated this provision, for it meant anywhere domed off began to be seen as a company asset. This clause has been viewed as deeply arcane and in recent times has seen some extraterrestrial colonies completely disregard it at times, especially in the wake of the inner system's war
Colonizing the solar system was unlike colonization back when life lived only on Earth. Far less it was a venture of pioneers and far more one of professionals and wealthy corporations. Under the guidance of the global oligarchy in the late 21st century, the solar system would be viewed a massive mineral depot. However, as time progressed and powerful figures came and went the solar system as a whole began to be viewed as far more than a mining depot- it began to viewed as home.
Colonizing the solar system was much more akin to a centuries long building project than a series of conquests and expeditions. Still, one fraught with centuries of setbacks and troubles from our own failings as a species. The construction of a greater domain to where life could exist in the solar system continued in the background even as the day to day troubles occupied the minds of many. These dramas proved disruptive at times, especially as humans lost their special place in the universe as the sole intelligent life form. Unseated not by some alien being from the infinite abyss, but instead from their own inventiveness. Biotechnology had opened a whole new world of what was and wasn’t possible, as had the development of the virtual networks where people could achieve, in theory, anyhow, digital immortality.
In the past century, the time of interest to all of us, billions of were not born on Earth, but in orbit of other worlds or even on other worlds. Even more recently, the Inner System’s War had broken out. In the wake of this war, a surprising new power to rose in the outer solar system - the Titanian Industrial Complex. In the inner solar system where the war broke out and elsewhere, tensions remain high in the unstable climate which has permeated throughout the solar system with devastation not seen for centuries scarring and altering entire worlds and billions of psyches. For the survivors of the war had witnessed themselves dying thousands of times over and having all too lucid memories of the seemingly endless slaughter and atrocity to which the Inner Systems spuriously ignited.
And worse still, the likelihood of another war breaking out increases by the year as tensions between clades erupt and living standards drop in the inner solar system from the trade collapse following the war. To many, the Inner System’s War had yet to end, simply enter a new phase. Perhaps not.
Perhaps it is possible, that rationality may prevail in the face of collective madness, even as things continue to descend into the abyss.
All of which is dependent on you, yes, you. For you are to make a space age society and lead it to either a better future or a new dark age.
Politically, this world is in a place comparable to the interwar period with the Inner System’s War being a world war one analog.
Try to avoid being completely analogous- the interest is not in the prospects of space WW2 complete with space hitler, but more in creating a deeply unstable, unpredictable political climate in a multi-polar solar system. Making up techno-dystopic ideologies is perfectly fine though, but please keep in mind that your ideology will be built in the context of a world where genetic modification, mind uploading and interplanetary living are regular realities and have been for at least a century if not more.
You do not need to be world oriented, instead you can have multiple factions share multiple planets via orbital habitat complexes and such as most people live in orbital cities or on Earth still in this setting. You still have populations on-world, millions in fact, it’s just that the overall population in the solar system is just orders of magnitude more populous.
Warfare and technology here will be advanced. This is a time where AI systems, other species of humans made from genetic engineering, neural networking and animal uplifting have been reality for centuries as has regular space travel between planets. It’s to the point where even ‘poor’ people can make use of a public spaceship to get to another planet. It is still a minority of human history that these realities have existed, with uplifting only becoming common place around the 24th century and advancements in materials in megastructure engineering being a perpetually iterative force. It's the year 2457, so there's been lots of time between the first man on the moon and super computers on Titan.
A dyson swarm does exist around the sun, but it isn't huge. It is more just a network of thousands of orbital habitats and solar collection arrays beaming energy to the other worlds. Nothing too fancy.
As to the overall political situation, I am leaving that to some ambiguity so that you may have creative freedom beyond the following realities:
1. A major, pointlessly destructive war devastated the inner solar system just a couple decades ago.
2. In terms of weapons development, anti-matter production is on the cutting edge.
3. Life outside Earth only naturally evolved as bacterial colonies in some of the icy moons, there's fossilized bacteria on mars. However, all this life shares a common origin with Earth so they're not aliens technically.
4. No one's responded to any signals we have sent out yet. It's lonely.
5. Interstellar colonization has happened, but it's still very recent. Only in the past fifty years has any colony ship reached its destination. Relaying minds digitally between star systems and even colony ships in transit is possible at the speed of light at most.
6. No stealth in space in enforced here, no stealth tech exists for space based faculties. Identification of individual components or people within a structure or spacecraft is a different story even if the class of spacecraft can be gleamed.
Application Sheet
Here is the application sheet. You don’t need it filled out to start playing in the IC, nor thick descriptions. In tech and military, just place one-line notes on any tech worth mentioning as placeholders if you want to just go straight to the IC.
Culture isn’t a section because I expect your society’s culture and social quirks to be expressed throughout your app sheet and in the IC. Same with many military doctrine or political figures / characters of note (you still can mention them and make a roster for them in the other section, however.)
The app sheet is meant just to be the more mechanical lore aspects used so people have a reference on how your society impacts the setting (hence the need for an infrastructure section) and to define the extent of your society’s technological and military capabilities.
However, to play you only really need to fill out the history and organization sections. The other three you can detail out even after starting the IC. This is because it'd take too long to get things off the ground if you had to fill out every section!
Name:
[optional graphics, be it a faction logo or map here]
History: (history of your society/faction, is revisable at any time so expect collaborations)
Organization: (The socio-political system which dominates your society and how they organize as a political unit)
//-The following three below are optional! I will accept your app if you just have the above two filled out well.
Technology: (What are the technologies your society uses? While there are generic tech assumptions (you probably have spaceships, genetic engineering and mind uploading unless noted otherwise), you can work out the specifics for your own faction here.)
Infrastructure: (Elaborate on any notable controlled structures or spacecraft you have)
Military: (Elaborate on your military tech.)
Other: (Anything the above does not cover)
Isaac Arthur - Heavy, heavy inspiration for this RP and its premise of having a rising Titan threaten the inner solar system. I highly recommend watching his Interplanetary Colonization video, Interplanetary Warfare video and Colonizing Series for some idea of the motifs this RP has and some inspiration you could use for your own factions.
In regards to Earth, it is an active place still (despite Terran based societies blowing each other up and all), but highly, highly fragmented with people who colonized the ice caps, oceans and caves as well as land. Earth in terms of player factions can have basically as many players it wants. Just stuff people into the oceans if needed.
