Member
IzurichName: Federal European Union
Government Form: Federal Parliamentary Republic
Demographics:
The FEU's population is primarily human, but includes a small minority (less than 1.0%) of sapient citizen AI, plus roughly 10% consisting of aliens originally hailing from the Roiling Horde, a highly militarized society of tungsten-based distributed-conciousness aliens, mostly inhabiting the hotter side of TRAPPIST-1d.
An adidtional population of near-insectoids native to TRAPPIST-1e exists, named 'Indigenous TRAPPISTs' by the Europeans. Although mostly integrated into European society thanks to careful programs designed to avoid unwanted disease transmission, some isolated populations of TRAPPISTs exist in nature reserve, inaccesible to the public.
Trace populations of aliens have also integrated into European society, most of whom have come to the system for the very same reasons as the humans that now dominate it.
On their 'home' planet, the Wolframites, as they are now called, are largely formless, but can visit other inhabited places using 'hardshells', suits of armor designed to replicate the conditions they fight most comfortable and to allow a humanoid form.
Even the humans in the FEU, however, are commonly heavily modified, even in religious Catholic populations and the Knights Hospitaller. As a general rule, however, most - if not all - FEU populations experience very low growth rates.
Population:
2.342bn
Planet Names and Descriptions: The TRAPPIST-1 system, due to its enormous stellar longevity of approximately twelve trillion years, was considered by the European Union to be an optimal place to "restart" human civilization. While the FEU did face substantial difficulties in initial colonization, for the most part, TRAPPIST-1 met expectations.
TRAPPIST-1d/Vulcan: Blisteringly hot on one side and relatively warm on the other, Vulcan is mostly inhabited by Wolframites, accompanied by a handful of robotic workers in gas and mineral-harvesting plants. In is, however, mostly generally uninhabitable, and few efforts have been made to render it habitable for humans in lieu of maintaining it as a comfortable environment in which Wolframites can live without their hardshells.
TRAPPIST-1e/New Europe: The most heavily inhabited planet in the system, New Europe is a tropical, habitable planet, filled to the brim with native life - and diseases, which the Europeans have adapted to largely thanks to the information provided by native TRAPPISTs and European medical technology. Additionally, despite being tidally locked, both sides of New Europe are habitable thanks to the way its relatively earthlike atmosphere distributing heat evenly between both sides of the planet. The dark side of New Europe is nonetheless dominated by forms of light not reliant on sunlight, particularly fungi, various eyeless animals, and various types of ocean life.
TRAPPIST-1f/New Doggerland: so named for the fact that its entire habitable zone (a very large band centered around the equator) is mostly underwater (significantly moreso than Earth), New Doggerland is functionally an ocean planet; dominated by hot steam geysers, searing steam-fogs, and boiling lakes on one side of the band, and by ice on the other. A handful of resorts exist on the few islands in the central band, plus some underwater communities, however the planet's primary utility is as a hydrogen harvesting area.
The remaining planets, lacking substantial habitation, are mostly utilized for industrial and research applications, or, in several cases, the harvesting of hydrogen for fusion fuel.
History: While concrete information about the FEU prior to the Apokalipso-Okazaĵo is far from concrete, there are a few crucial pieces the FEU itself maintains.
Earth was poisoned and rendered uninhabitable by constant warfare and a worldwide climate emergency that was, unfortunately, ignored by most. The planet's resources were sucked dry, and while some things MIGHT survive on the surface, mass habitation by humans was impossible, and colonies on Mars and other bodies in the solar system were not capable of sustaining the large populations that were to be evacuated. The FEU maintains, then, that seeing the writing on the wall, they were one of the first groups to begin preparations for a mass evacuation, intending to fit as many people as possible onto their ships. Additionally, they claim to represent the federal government of the European Union, and although most federal agencies of the EU are believed to be represented in the FEU, it is equally true, however, that not every European wished to flee with them.
Nonetheless, thanks to preparations supposedly well in advance of zero-day, the FEU was able to evacuate a large population mostly on-schedule, laying early claim to one of the most habitable systems known to be available - TRAPPIST. While several planets in the system were viable for immediate habitation, many people remained stuck on colony ships in orbit waiting for survey teams to confirm the safety of their chosen worlds and to establish contact with natives, in an effort to avoid repeating the same environmental destruction that forced them to leave Earth in the first place. Suitable locations were eventually selected, and contact was established. One by one, the colony ships began to filter in.
For the first two hundred years of its existence, the FEU thrived in relative peace - TRAPPIST proved even more habitable than initially assumed, and the insectoid natives were friendly, allowing the human colonies to survive. Trepidation, however, remained - gateway technology was lost during the evacuations, and little was known about when, if ever, they'd reopen, and what they'd connect to. As such, despite living in near-complete peace, the FEU maintained a highly professional army of relatively moderate, along with outlying networks of defensive outposts. What would happen, after all, if something hostile had detected the gateway opening?
Their fears, as it turned out, were warranted, but not in the way they expected. Approximately 200yrs after colonization, the FEU was abruptly invaded by a species of tungsten-based organisms they called Wolframites. Their strange, alien technology - and the fact of how extremely difficult it was to harm them with explosives and kinetics - forced the FEU to adapt to more modular weapons platforms, allowing them to defeat the Wolframites after a brief, but deadly war. After long negotiations, the Wolframites, having nowhere else to go, were allowed to stay on TRAPPIST-1d, an ideal habitat for them that was uninhabitable for nearly everyone else.
Over the next hundred years, more aliens came to TRAPPIST, most friendly, merely refugees seeking the same sort of new home the FEU did in small, scattered groups. The FEU was, of course, happy to oblige, entering a second golden age that has only been disrupted in the past few months, with a sudden surge of rift activity. In anticipation of a potential opening, the Rock of Gibraltar has been placed on maximum alert status, and the Eurocorps is mobilizing...
Culture and Society: In many ways, FEU society closely mimics the pre-apocalypse European governments the largest parts of its population descend from: it is a relatively free republic, with robust political and personal freedoms (even is prison system is almost exclusively rehabilatative), ranging from heavily entrenched LGBTQ+ rights to freedom of expression. Media is largely independent from the state (though state-run press organizations do exist) and is allowed free reign to criticize it, barring certain restrictions relating to divulging military plans.
Three hundred years of cultural progress, and a comprehensive system of secular education, have effectively eradicated facism and systemic racism (including fairly relaxed refugee policies); though isolated incidents of racism amd hate crime against alien populations do rarely occur, they are almost always effectively prosecuted by the government. Oversight agencies mostly prevent workplace discrimination (or at least effectively put a halt to them), and a socialized economy, plus well-funded and administered social safety nets, have eradicated houselessness and ensure access to high-quality healthcare to all. The extremely rare new arrival will almost always have to suffer with a lack of familiarity with their anatomy, however, at least for a time.
Perhaps its most restrictive feature is a relatively practical one - mandatory periods of quarantine and decontamination before entry into inhabited planets or habitat stations.
Advanced medical technology and culturally liberal attitudes, including in the Catholic Church, result in wide societal proliferation of cybernetics and preventative biological modifications. Few FEU citizens are not equipped with the following basic safety measures: basic-model "Kaduceusz" medical nanosuites, nasal and oral filters, automatic cardiac defibrillators/backup pumps, bone reinforcements, and anti-clotting systems. Neural backups, however, remain relatively fringe (and are widely opposed in religious communities) usually traded in favour of repair and upkeep systems that eliminate or reduce aging.
Governance and Politics: The FEU's government is perhaps its most Earthlike feature, effectively just an expansion of European federal parliamentary republics to an international scale. Both the states that make it up and the federal government derive their power from plurality-elected legislative assembles, all the way from the interplanetary Federal level, to the planetary, to regions on those planets, all the way down to municipalities
Technology Overview: Although far from being able to recreate the gateways, the FEU is, nonetheless, broadly technologically "advanced". The most obvious way this manifests is in terms of medical technology. FEU citizens effectively have the choice to die of old age, and, in most cases, the same is true of disease. Antiviral and antiobiotic therapies, among others, are employed as usual, but incredibly precise time-sensitive nanotechnology allow for the targeting and destruction of most any microorganism, making nanotechnology the preferred solution to infection and disease; this, of course, carries the additional benefit of preventing the proliferation of so-called superbugs.
Related but distinct is the extensive library of cybernetic technologies the FEU utilizes, the vast majority of which are so old and well-understood that they are nearly ubiquitous within the human population, but much less common among alien immigrants with anatomies most of the FEU's scientists still lack experience with.
Perhaps the most important technologies utilized by the FEU, however, are those relating to its mastery of fusion power, including Cold Fusion, the primary method for power generation in the FEU, largely thanks to its enormous available reserves for Hydrogen as fusion fuel. Cold fusion is common even on most spacecraft, even relatively small fighters, providing power to everything from life support all the way to Magnetoplasmadynamic propulsionless drives and maneuvering thrusters. Orbital spacecraft, on the other hand (generally, satellites and habitats) are propelled by electrodynamic tethers, at least in civilian application.
Military Overview: despite what might typically be expected of an extremely socially liberal nation, the FEU maintains a relatively large, well-equipped military, necessary for the defense of their society against threats both theoretical and practical; so far, that has primarily meant regularly fending off hostile aliens seeking to take the TRAPPIST-1 system by force. It is nonetheless entirely a professional volunteer army, however, and conscription has not yet been made necessary, large thanks to the FEU's robust defenses and extensive use of highly secure networked drone warfare. So well-prepared is the FEU, in fact, that their gateway is is protected by what amounts to a small dyson shell, a massive network of armed drone satellites and AI-manned (a technology the FEU employs extensively) gun stations pointed inward in the event that anything hostile comes through. The system is named the "Rock of Gibraltar".
Likewise, the entire system is protected by a larger network dubbed "Pražský Hrad", in contrast designed to protect the system against attacks from the outside, which, combined with the FEU's large carrier-focused fleets, has defended the system from all comers since the first major invasion, under the suspicion that something, somewhere, is pushing all these alien refugees toward them.
European weapons consist primarily of plasma-based systems - Pulsed Explosive Projectiles - and Particle Beams, supplemented by lasers and microwave weapons when appropriate, while highly renewable anti-electron and antiproton weapons remain in a late stage of active development. Ammunition for these particle systems consists mostly of ultra-compressed gasses, typically helium, allowing inordinately large, effectively inert ammunition stores. Additionally, development of gravity-manipulating weapons is underway.
Unlike many earthborn nations, the FEU does not employ any mecha-type platforms beyond the universal infantry exoskeleton, instead relying upon power-hungry but more stable hovertanks for its main armored forces, equipped with extensive active defense systems and occasionally magnetic or plasma window shielding for protection, plus composite armor. FEU tanks are generally capable of equipping large particle guns, while smaller AFVs generally equip combinations of plasma launchers and lower-yield particle pulse cannons, with an intended use similar to old-earth autocannons. FEU vehicles, as a result, are almost universally extremely power-hungry, requiring extensive logisitical support to operate at peak capacity.
Cybernetics, also, are extremely common, even universal in the FEU military, allowing its soldiers to survive extremely harsh environments and quite literally punch well above their weight-classes. The most elite FEU special forces unit, the highly secretive Strzyga, employ extremely expensive, limited quantity cybernetics, including nanohives beyond even the basic medical types used by the common soldier, secretly capable of incredible feats such as reconstructing the body of one of their number from a singular fleck of blood. Most of the FEU's personal equipment revolves around these ideas of extreme survivability, including the Jahrtausend Drei CIWS system, consisting of networked railguns, lasers, and, as a last resort, a kinetic gun system that unleashes what is effectively a gigantic shotgun shell full of tens of thousands of metal darts.
Government Form: Federal Parliamentary Republic
Demographics:
The FEU's population is primarily human, but includes a small minority (less than 1.0%) of sapient citizen AI, plus roughly 10% consisting of aliens originally hailing from the Roiling Horde, a highly militarized society of tungsten-based distributed-conciousness aliens, mostly inhabiting the hotter side of TRAPPIST-1d.
An adidtional population of near-insectoids native to TRAPPIST-1e exists, named 'Indigenous TRAPPISTs' by the Europeans. Although mostly integrated into European society thanks to careful programs designed to avoid unwanted disease transmission, some isolated populations of TRAPPISTs exist in nature reserve, inaccesible to the public.
Trace populations of aliens have also integrated into European society, most of whom have come to the system for the very same reasons as the humans that now dominate it.
On their 'home' planet, the Wolframites, as they are now called, are largely formless, but can visit other inhabited places using 'hardshells', suits of armor designed to replicate the conditions they fight most comfortable and to allow a humanoid form.
Even the humans in the FEU, however, are commonly heavily modified, even in religious Catholic populations and the Knights Hospitaller. As a general rule, however, most - if not all - FEU populations experience very low growth rates.
Population:
2.342bn
Planet Names and Descriptions: The TRAPPIST-1 system, due to its enormous stellar longevity of approximately twelve trillion years, was considered by the European Union to be an optimal place to "restart" human civilization. While the FEU did face substantial difficulties in initial colonization, for the most part, TRAPPIST-1 met expectations.
TRAPPIST-1d/Vulcan: Blisteringly hot on one side and relatively warm on the other, Vulcan is mostly inhabited by Wolframites, accompanied by a handful of robotic workers in gas and mineral-harvesting plants. In is, however, mostly generally uninhabitable, and few efforts have been made to render it habitable for humans in lieu of maintaining it as a comfortable environment in which Wolframites can live without their hardshells.
TRAPPIST-1e/New Europe: The most heavily inhabited planet in the system, New Europe is a tropical, habitable planet, filled to the brim with native life - and diseases, which the Europeans have adapted to largely thanks to the information provided by native TRAPPISTs and European medical technology. Additionally, despite being tidally locked, both sides of New Europe are habitable thanks to the way its relatively earthlike atmosphere distributing heat evenly between both sides of the planet. The dark side of New Europe is nonetheless dominated by forms of light not reliant on sunlight, particularly fungi, various eyeless animals, and various types of ocean life.
TRAPPIST-1f/New Doggerland: so named for the fact that its entire habitable zone (a very large band centered around the equator) is mostly underwater (significantly moreso than Earth), New Doggerland is functionally an ocean planet; dominated by hot steam geysers, searing steam-fogs, and boiling lakes on one side of the band, and by ice on the other. A handful of resorts exist on the few islands in the central band, plus some underwater communities, however the planet's primary utility is as a hydrogen harvesting area.
The remaining planets, lacking substantial habitation, are mostly utilized for industrial and research applications, or, in several cases, the harvesting of hydrogen for fusion fuel.
History: While concrete information about the FEU prior to the Apokalipso-Okazaĵo is far from concrete, there are a few crucial pieces the FEU itself maintains.
Earth was poisoned and rendered uninhabitable by constant warfare and a worldwide climate emergency that was, unfortunately, ignored by most. The planet's resources were sucked dry, and while some things MIGHT survive on the surface, mass habitation by humans was impossible, and colonies on Mars and other bodies in the solar system were not capable of sustaining the large populations that were to be evacuated. The FEU maintains, then, that seeing the writing on the wall, they were one of the first groups to begin preparations for a mass evacuation, intending to fit as many people as possible onto their ships. Additionally, they claim to represent the federal government of the European Union, and although most federal agencies of the EU are believed to be represented in the FEU, it is equally true, however, that not every European wished to flee with them.
Nonetheless, thanks to preparations supposedly well in advance of zero-day, the FEU was able to evacuate a large population mostly on-schedule, laying early claim to one of the most habitable systems known to be available - TRAPPIST. While several planets in the system were viable for immediate habitation, many people remained stuck on colony ships in orbit waiting for survey teams to confirm the safety of their chosen worlds and to establish contact with natives, in an effort to avoid repeating the same environmental destruction that forced them to leave Earth in the first place. Suitable locations were eventually selected, and contact was established. One by one, the colony ships began to filter in.
For the first two hundred years of its existence, the FEU thrived in relative peace - TRAPPIST proved even more habitable than initially assumed, and the insectoid natives were friendly, allowing the human colonies to survive. Trepidation, however, remained - gateway technology was lost during the evacuations, and little was known about when, if ever, they'd reopen, and what they'd connect to. As such, despite living in near-complete peace, the FEU maintained a highly professional army of relatively moderate, along with outlying networks of defensive outposts. What would happen, after all, if something hostile had detected the gateway opening?
Their fears, as it turned out, were warranted, but not in the way they expected. Approximately 200yrs after colonization, the FEU was abruptly invaded by a species of tungsten-based organisms they called Wolframites. Their strange, alien technology - and the fact of how extremely difficult it was to harm them with explosives and kinetics - forced the FEU to adapt to more modular weapons platforms, allowing them to defeat the Wolframites after a brief, but deadly war. After long negotiations, the Wolframites, having nowhere else to go, were allowed to stay on TRAPPIST-1d, an ideal habitat for them that was uninhabitable for nearly everyone else.
Over the next hundred years, more aliens came to TRAPPIST, most friendly, merely refugees seeking the same sort of new home the FEU did in small, scattered groups. The FEU was, of course, happy to oblige, entering a second golden age that has only been disrupted in the past few months, with a sudden surge of rift activity. In anticipation of a potential opening, the Rock of Gibraltar has been placed on maximum alert status, and the Eurocorps is mobilizing...
Culture and Society: In many ways, FEU society closely mimics the pre-apocalypse European governments the largest parts of its population descend from: it is a relatively free republic, with robust political and personal freedoms (even is prison system is almost exclusively rehabilatative), ranging from heavily entrenched LGBTQ+ rights to freedom of expression. Media is largely independent from the state (though state-run press organizations do exist) and is allowed free reign to criticize it, barring certain restrictions relating to divulging military plans.
Three hundred years of cultural progress, and a comprehensive system of secular education, have effectively eradicated facism and systemic racism (including fairly relaxed refugee policies); though isolated incidents of racism amd hate crime against alien populations do rarely occur, they are almost always effectively prosecuted by the government. Oversight agencies mostly prevent workplace discrimination (or at least effectively put a halt to them), and a socialized economy, plus well-funded and administered social safety nets, have eradicated houselessness and ensure access to high-quality healthcare to all. The extremely rare new arrival will almost always have to suffer with a lack of familiarity with their anatomy, however, at least for a time.
Perhaps its most restrictive feature is a relatively practical one - mandatory periods of quarantine and decontamination before entry into inhabited planets or habitat stations.
Advanced medical technology and culturally liberal attitudes, including in the Catholic Church, result in wide societal proliferation of cybernetics and preventative biological modifications. Few FEU citizens are not equipped with the following basic safety measures: basic-model "Kaduceusz" medical nanosuites, nasal and oral filters, automatic cardiac defibrillators/backup pumps, bone reinforcements, and anti-clotting systems. Neural backups, however, remain relatively fringe (and are widely opposed in religious communities) usually traded in favour of repair and upkeep systems that eliminate or reduce aging.
Governance and Politics: The FEU's government is perhaps its most Earthlike feature, effectively just an expansion of European federal parliamentary republics to an international scale. Both the states that make it up and the federal government derive their power from plurality-elected legislative assembles, all the way from the interplanetary Federal level, to the planetary, to regions on those planets, all the way down to municipalities
Technology Overview: Although far from being able to recreate the gateways, the FEU is, nonetheless, broadly technologically "advanced". The most obvious way this manifests is in terms of medical technology. FEU citizens effectively have the choice to die of old age, and, in most cases, the same is true of disease. Antiviral and antiobiotic therapies, among others, are employed as usual, but incredibly precise time-sensitive nanotechnology allow for the targeting and destruction of most any microorganism, making nanotechnology the preferred solution to infection and disease; this, of course, carries the additional benefit of preventing the proliferation of so-called superbugs.
Related but distinct is the extensive library of cybernetic technologies the FEU utilizes, the vast majority of which are so old and well-understood that they are nearly ubiquitous within the human population, but much less common among alien immigrants with anatomies most of the FEU's scientists still lack experience with.
Perhaps the most important technologies utilized by the FEU, however, are those relating to its mastery of fusion power, including Cold Fusion, the primary method for power generation in the FEU, largely thanks to its enormous available reserves for Hydrogen as fusion fuel. Cold fusion is common even on most spacecraft, even relatively small fighters, providing power to everything from life support all the way to Magnetoplasmadynamic propulsionless drives and maneuvering thrusters. Orbital spacecraft, on the other hand (generally, satellites and habitats) are propelled by electrodynamic tethers, at least in civilian application.
Military Overview: despite what might typically be expected of an extremely socially liberal nation, the FEU maintains a relatively large, well-equipped military, necessary for the defense of their society against threats both theoretical and practical; so far, that has primarily meant regularly fending off hostile aliens seeking to take the TRAPPIST-1 system by force. It is nonetheless entirely a professional volunteer army, however, and conscription has not yet been made necessary, large thanks to the FEU's robust defenses and extensive use of highly secure networked drone warfare. So well-prepared is the FEU, in fact, that their gateway is is protected by what amounts to a small dyson shell, a massive network of armed drone satellites and AI-manned (a technology the FEU employs extensively) gun stations pointed inward in the event that anything hostile comes through. The system is named the "Rock of Gibraltar".
Likewise, the entire system is protected by a larger network dubbed "Pražský Hrad", in contrast designed to protect the system against attacks from the outside, which, combined with the FEU's large carrier-focused fleets, has defended the system from all comers since the first major invasion, under the suspicion that something, somewhere, is pushing all these alien refugees toward them.
European weapons consist primarily of plasma-based systems - Pulsed Explosive Projectiles - and Particle Beams, supplemented by lasers and microwave weapons when appropriate, while highly renewable anti-electron and antiproton weapons remain in a late stage of active development. Ammunition for these particle systems consists mostly of ultra-compressed gasses, typically helium, allowing inordinately large, effectively inert ammunition stores. Additionally, development of gravity-manipulating weapons is underway.
Unlike many earthborn nations, the FEU does not employ any mecha-type platforms beyond the universal infantry exoskeleton, instead relying upon power-hungry but more stable hovertanks for its main armored forces, equipped with extensive active defense systems and occasionally magnetic or plasma window shielding for protection, plus composite armor. FEU tanks are generally capable of equipping large particle guns, while smaller AFVs generally equip combinations of plasma launchers and lower-yield particle pulse cannons, with an intended use similar to old-earth autocannons. FEU vehicles, as a result, are almost universally extremely power-hungry, requiring extensive logisitical support to operate at peak capacity.
Cybernetics, also, are extremely common, even universal in the FEU military, allowing its soldiers to survive extremely harsh environments and quite literally punch well above their weight-classes. The most elite FEU special forces unit, the highly secretive Strzyga, employ extremely expensive, limited quantity cybernetics, including nanohives beyond even the basic medical types used by the common soldier, secretly capable of incredible feats such as reconstructing the body of one of their number from a singular fleck of blood. Most of the FEU's personal equipment revolves around these ideas of extreme survivability, including the Jahrtausend Drei CIWS system, consisting of networked railguns, lasers, and, as a last resort, a kinetic gun system that unleashes what is effectively a gigantic shotgun shell full of tens of thousands of metal darts.
