Piscina wrote:Nation Name: Ceres Federation
Government Type: Federation
Government leader: Secretary-General Tephia Greyson
Capital: Briture City; one of the urban areas that was damaged the least by the Scourge. Fairly unremarkable by the standards of Ceres’ restored subterranean cities. Broken down high-technology areas covered by less sophisticated patchwork repairs, questionably sane centuries-old restored maintenance droids, and mutated gene-horrors lurking in the deep tunnels.
Ruling Ideology: Semi-technocratic egalitarianism
Main Language: Neo-Chinese
Religion: Varies depending on area, typically some form of machine worship. No state religion.
Culture: After the Scourge, the technical and scientific knowledge required to understand the decaying systems that surrounded them, and perhaps perform some semblance of maintenance, became a survival skill practically overnight. This, compounded with the fact that getting anything done, or even surviving day-to-day, required understanding and dealing with the fragmented, heavily damaged VI systems that controlled the world around them, lead to a much higher level of technological and scientific literacy than is common among post-apocalyptic societies. This made its mark on the scattered survivors, and over the centuries they gained a strong respect for the scientific method as they used it to understand and manipulate their surroundings. The word “engineer” is typically said with deep respect, and candidates for public office are usually tested for scientific literacy.
Before the Scourge, Ceres was also one of the more cosmopolitan worlds in the solar system. As the local population relied on artificial atmospheres and gravity to survive, adjusting it to fit alien residents was trivially easy. In the centuries after the Scourge, alien and human culture mixed readily, the survivors often identifying themselves more by which of the scattered enclaves they belonged to than their species. Regardless, tension between cultural groups remained, and although less frequent and severe than in many places in the solar system, xenophobia and intolerance are still present under the surface of Ceres.
Economically, Ceres is a world of contrasts. A visitor to one of the hectic markets that can be found in town centres across the dwarf planet would be justified in thinking that the local economy is structured around laissez-faire principles, while someone observing one of the many teams of collectively employed technicians maintaining publicly owned hydroponics bays would be quite right to think that the opposite was true. The reality is somewhere in between. Goods necessary for survival (air, food, water, etc) are provided free of charge by a local government or publicly owned company, funded by taxation. Most other things are traded openly, with some regulations present to ensure public wellbeing.
Map Claim: Asteroid Belt
Economy: Mixed economy, elaborated on in Culture
Imports/Exports: None. The solar system has been in a dark age for centuries, and dark ages are not exactly renowned for their abundance of spaceships. In future, likely imports are food and asteroid belt metals, and likely exports are technological goods.
Population: Approximately 1 billion. Mostly human, but large alien minorities are present. Some AI and other infolife due to higher than average technological development.
Foreign Policy: Avoid starting wars, establish economic domination over any potentially threatening nations through leveraging technological advantage and asteroid belt mineral wealth. Attempt to spread ideology. Encourage economic and technological development in friendly nations. Eventual goal of helping the solar system regain its past splendour and prosperity, with Ceres as most prominent world.
Military Doctrine:Army: Perform reconnaissance ahead of time. If possible, avoid large battles on equal or inferior terms. Attempt to damage enemy as much as possible through guerrilla, electronic, and psychological warfare. Attempt to minimise civilian casualties and collateral damage when possible.
Navy: Similar to army. Attack when odds are favourable, avoid combat otherwise. Stay at long range and snipe at enemy force, before closing in for kill. Engage in economic disruption such as intercepting enemy merchants and bombing resource extraction outposts.
Military Gear:Army tends to focus on infantry due to the fact that much of Ceres is a twisting, many-levelled post apocalyptic subterranean cityscape that is very difficult to get vehicles through. However, vehicles would be used on offworld campaigns. They do their best to maintain a technological advantage, which means they often have prototype equipment that is potent but unreliable. Infantry have, among other things, body armour, battlefield communication systems, mass driver rifles, and when possible, HUD systems.
Navy ships typically focus on speed, firepower/infotech, and hull strength in that order. Weapons and fire control systems are usually calibrated for combat at long ranges, and vary between lasers, mass drivers, and particle beams. Ships have strong energy shields that can either regenerate quickly enough to sustainably absorb damage at long ranges, or have their power cranked up to take large amounts of punishment for a short time until they overheat. The shields are fuel-intensive to operate.
Military Branches: Army and Navy. Their respective roles should be obvious.
Military Pop: Approximately 0.25% of total population
History: Over the centuries, Ceres has been called many things. Planetoid. Outpost. Resource processing centre. Colony. City-world. Jewel of the asteroid belt.
Wasteland.
Before the scourge, Ceres was a major human world. Its easy access to the nigh-limitless mineral wealth of the asteroid belt, combined with its very low gravity, made it an ideal location for humanity’s burgeoning industry. With factories and mines came workers and miners. Following them came engineers, doctors, service personnel, and prospectors. In time, they themselves were followed by pilots, nurses, accountants, and entertainers. Before humanity realised it, the first native children were born.
Ceres’ growth continued to accelerate. Vast subterranean cities were build to provide shelter from the harsh void and incessant sleet of cosmic radiation. Powerful batteries of lasers and mass drivers were commissioned to protect against asteroid impacts. Local cultures thrived and prospered. Ceres’ EM signature shone like a beacon as countless millions of people, human and alien alike, flocked to the planetoid to trade, build, and share information. Ceres was truly a living embodiment of how the power of technology and cooperation could overcome any obstacle, tame any environment.
Then the Scourge came. Millions of voices cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. The survivors grasped for scraps of Ceres’ past glory, eking out a living amongst the ruined cities and barely functioning hydroponics bays. Life was not easy. One could die at any moment from another scavenger’s knife, an infected cut, or the
things that lurked in the dark corners of Ceres. The once great city-world fell into a dark age every bit as deep as the rest of the solar system.
Yet not all were willing to accept this. Scraps of knowledge, fragments of wisdom survived, fought over by warlords and tech-shamans, but present nonetheless. Over the centuries, the people of Ceres pulled themselves out of the dark ages inch by inch, growing, building, and innovating, until finally it reached a critical mass and some of the once-ruined factories of Ceres groaned to life once more. Those few nations who rekindled the fire of advancement banded together, and swore that the days of squalor and ignorance would soon come to an end. Their innovations and knowledge spread over Ceres, and their emissaries arrived soon afterward, offering the opportunity to come together into a larger while to recapture the lost glory of civilisation. As more people joined them, their power grew, and eventually all of Ceres was a part. Together, they looked up at the stars, and prepared to bring the light of civilisation back to the Remnants of Sol.