Sol 2200: The Space Age
a faction-based role-play, OOC
Image Credit: The Telegraph
IC thread found here
a faction-based role-play, OOC
Image Credit: The Telegraph
IC thread found here
The year is 2200, and the human race now has almost a quarter millennia of spacefaring behind it. Much has happened in this time, since the first man ventured outside of the Earth’s comforting and habitable atmosphere in 1961.
In a quarter millennia of spacefaring, Earth has in many ways changed drastically, and in many other ways not changed at all. A time traveller from 1961 would not recognise the great cities of Earth, now dominated by towering skyscrapers and active spaceports, but they are more or less still the same great cities of 1961. A glance at the world map would show countries of unfamiliar name in unfamiliar borders, but they are still indisputably nation-states. The workplace may have been transformed by automation and artificial intelligence, but the lives of Earth’s eleven billion people are still structured around the necessity of work. New parties stand for new ideologies, but they compete in the same elections in the same capital cities.
The truly drastic changes to humanity, rather, came not on Earth, but in the void of outer space. Where there used to be nothing at all before 1961, at least as far as civilisation was concerned, there are now teeming colonies where billions of people have made their home.
Progress was, at first, painfully slow. After a person stepped on the Moon in 1969, it was another fifty-seven years before a person stepped on Mars, and another twenty-one before the NASA founded the first permanently populated Moon base. As of 2050, with almost a century of spacefaring behind it, human civilisation still only had a handful of people who called space their home - a dozen on the Moon and another dozen in Earth orbit. But it was a start. They may have been only a couple dozen, but whereas earlier travellers viewed space simply as an unknown to explore, to these first scientists and engineers, space was a residence and a workplace.
Once the first foothold was down, the rest came easily. The dozen scientists and engineers on the moon base became hundreds, and then thousands. The research base slowly adopted the characteristics of a town. The canteen was replaced with restaurants, the dormitory was replaced with apartments, and at some point it just became easier to build a school on the Moon rather than keep sending children down to Earth. The United States’ fledging colony on the Moon soon found itself with competitors, as myriads of sponsors both public and private built their own colonies. So began the second space race.
The second space race was driven, fundamentally, by growth. Rapid technological advancement fuelled stunning global economic growth. Sometime in the mid-21st century, world economic output stopped being measured in trillions of dollars and started being measured in quadrillions of dollars. Combined with decreasing costs from economies of scale, this meant that space travel - and colonisation - was just so much more affordable even to the less developed nations of the globe.
When corporations and nations alike were sending billions of dollars’ worth of equipment up into space for research and, increasingly, mining, it made sense to send a few engineers up there to made sure the equipment didn’t break down. If there was going to be life support up there, why not send some tourists as well? Then the presence of rich engineers and tourists justified supplying entertainment and comforts, which then meant chefs and maintenance staff. Once you have hundreds of people in space on a regular basis, it made economic sense to start making stuff in space instead of paying a thousand dollars for every brick, solar panel, and watermelon from Earth. Production implies industrial workers, which then have their own needs and desires. Through this convoluted process and many others like it, the first true colonies in space were born.
Increasingly, Mars became a centre of industry. Cheap access to abundant mineral resources, a total lack of environmental regulation, and virtually infinite building space all encouraged the development of light and heavy industry on this red planet. Mars grew increasingly less dependent on Earth and, in the twenty-second century, several of the larger Martian colonies campaigned for and received independence.
Now, a century and a half after the founding of the first lunar base, neither Luna nor Mars are frontier worlds. Luna, with some seven hundred million people, is no longer a simple research platform while Mars, with a population of almost two billion people, is humanity’s second most populous world. The industrial strength of the independent Martian colonies have allowed these colonies to establish powerful militaries which they are increasingly using to assert their own position against that of Earth. Co-operation is extensive among Martian colonies, in stark contrast to Earth’s squabbling and war-torn nations.
Despite that, the early frontier years have left their mark on Lunar and Martian cultures. The earliest colonies built with the most primitive technology were fragile in a way that cities on Earth was not. If a person on Earth noticed a leaking water pipe and refused to do anything about it, it would cost the city some water. If a person on an early Lunar Base noticed a leaking water pipe and refused to do anything about it, potentially the whole colony could die. Space in the early days demanded the absolute co-operation of absolutely everybody in a way that Earth did not and as a result, even after these worlds stopped being frontier worlds, conformity and collectivism are still key aspects of culture on Luna and Mars.
A powerful twist on this colonisation of space arose from the invention and development of the nano-factory, the first of which was released in 2098. A refinery, chemical processing plant, and 3-D printer all in one, the nano-factory made up in versatility and compactness what it lacked in material and energy efficiency. Although the nano-factory did not seriously affect industry in the populous core worlds of Earth, Luna, and Mars due to its poor efficiency, in the frontier, it revolutionised everything. Suddenly, tiny colonies of just a few thousand or even a few hundred people found themselves capable of satisfying their own needs instead of importing everything from Earth.
One effect of the nano-factory was a powerful push of population away from Earth. Religious sects, conspiracy theorists, and any other group of people that wanted to isolate themselves from society now could. All it took was a nano-factory or two, which were getting steady cheaper every year, and an unclaimed asteroid to call their new home, of which there were plenty. National and corporate interests, which so far dominated outer space, suddenly found themselves joined by all sorts of other settlers. It was this second wave of settlement that pushed the frontier from Mercury and Venus, which now as of 2200 boast a population of three hundred fifty million and one hundred fifty million respectively, into the Asteroid Belt and the Outer System.
Another effect of the nano-factory was the rise of piracy. Colonies sponsored by nations or corporations tended to have powerful security forces, courtesy of those very same nations and corporations. But the second wave of colonists, coming with little support from Earth, had to defend themselves. Easy targets, in short, for enterprising groups of criminals. At the same time, the nano-factory made it easier for groups of pirates to maintain their own life support and ship without having to set foot at a spaceport.
Although the regular security of the larger worlds and, to some extent, Ceres was able to keep their piracy problem somewhat contained, the vast expanse of the asteroid belt, which was impossible to patrol properly, became a haven for these criminals. When the population density was on the order of one suspicious household every billion cubic kilometres and the nearest police station a week’s travel away, there could be no law except what is enforced with a pulse rifle. Here, pirate clans grew to the point of threatening even the best defended colonies of the most powerful nations in the Asteroid Belt. Some clans even adopted leadership structures as well defined as that of regular governments, at which point they ran into the same problem of trying to hold their own clan together. The Asteroid Belt’s estimated six hundred millions are divided into two: those who live in fear of pirates, and those who are pirates.
The United Nations, which remains a relatively ineffective prestige organisation that it always was, has repeatedly stressed the need to restore peace and stability into the Asteroid Belt, but nobody has volunteered for this task. Everyone is keenly aware that the expense of trying to police a region this large would bankrupt even the strongest economies.
A final effect of the nano-factory was the rise of independence movements everywhere. When colonies were not dependent on Earth for all of their necessities, suddenly they found arguments in favour of severing their ties with Earth much more convincing.
By and large, Earth found itself almost unable to deal with this large wave of independence movements. Much of Earth’s efforts were tied in environmental restoration, with nations struggling to cope with and reverse the environmental effects of several centuries of industrial pollution. In addition, the development of the shield-deflector presented a powerful defence against nuclear missiles and kinetic weapons. The resulting end to the principle of mutually assured destruction served to spark a series of effectively pointless little wars across Earth, which demanded the immediate and full attention of Earth’s militaries.
The colonies of Mars, with its powerful militaries, even became rivals of Earth nations and corporations. On Mercury, powerful corporate interests encouraged local civil leaders to declare independence from Earth, slowly turning Mercury into the most free - and also the most unequal - economy on the Solar System. Independence came also for the cloud cities of Venus and some of the more stable colonies on Ceres and Vesta. The vast colonial empires of Earth nations and corporations shattered, leaving behind a complex network of spaceports, outposts, military bases, small colonies, and research stations that were either unable or unwilling to make their independence stick.
Even after a quarter millennia of human spacefaring, the Outer System remains almost untouched by human civilisation. Jupiter’s moons and Jupiter’s few cloud cities host half a billion people divided into many small colonies, some of which insist on their independence. Unlike the Inner System where every inch of every planet and moon is claimed by somebody or another, on some of Jupiter’s smaller moons there exists genuinely undeveloped territory, controlled by whoever has the largest military on it at any given moment.
The population density thins out even further out into the fringes of the Solar System. Saturn’s moons are home to about a hundred million people, the moons of Uranus about ten million, and the moons of Neptune a couple million. With economies supported by manufacturing, mining, and sponsorship from the more developed Inner System, the Outer System supports only a small smattering of piracy, but the weak militaries of this region are unable to suppress even that.
The weak militaries of the region and the lack of cohesive social structures leaves the Outer System a fairly unstable region. Brush wars, coups, and raids on rival colonies are pretty much daily news, although paradoxically, serious and large-scale warfare is extremely rare due to the general lack of large and stable colonies, independent or otherwise, that are able to conduct that kind of warfare.
Stretching past that is the vast, unclaimed, and undeveloped expanse of the Kuiper Belt, inhabited only by a few hundred of the bravest engineers and scientists of the same sort that founded the first Lunar Base in the twenty-first century and a few thousand of the craziest survivalists. These colonies, lacking the technological and industrial basis required to maintain complex machinery, subsist on the thin gruel of sunlight that deign to reach this far out into the fringes of the Solar System. A few lucky colonies that have fusion reactors must constantly be on guard against everyone else that seeks to steal it. No doubt in time, these few thousand residents will turn into a few million and then a few billion, but now, as of 2200, the Kuiper Belt is effectively empty.
All this on a backdrop of a human civilisation that continues to gain strength, in terms of population, technology, and economy, each year. Humanity now numbers at almost fifteen and a half billion people, and each passing year adds thirty million more to that number.
The Space Age has truly begun.
Bookkeeping
Your OP is glorious Plzen. Feel absolutely free to telegram me about any questions you may have about this RP, or simply leave a post in this thread.
This RP currently has no Co-OPs! Telegram the OP if interested.
Rules
The usual Portal to the Multiverse rules and conventions apply.
Each player may apply for no more than one faction.
In the application, remove everything in parenthesis.
Do not quote entire applications. Those clutter up the OOC thread very quickly. Quote specific paragraphs and sentences if you wish to respond to something in someone else's application.
If you are claiming a part of a celestial body other than Earth, then note the name of the region(s) that you are claiming (real or fictional), and note what proportion of the celestial body's surface area it represents. If there are multiple pieces, individually name them. There is no need to individually name asteroids less than 100m in diameter: just a statement to the effect that your faction holds asteroids is fine.
Any act that destroys a habitat will be severely frowned upon by everyone in the Solar System. The severity of the action you wish to undertake IC should correspond to the consideration your characters give the action.
If you wish to apply as a large and strong faction, I will expect you to produce a long and well-written application.
Application
If you wish to make a reservation, make a reasonably detailed description of the territory you wish to claim. The duration of reservations is 24 hours, extendable to 36 with the submission of a reasonably complete draft.
- Code: Select all
[b][u]~Application~[/u][/b]
[b]-Basic Information-[/b]
[b]Name of Organisation[/b]:
[b]Headquarters[/b] (the name of the location, and the status of the location):
[b]Type of Organisation[/b] (is it legally a state? company? rebel group? terrorists?):
[b]Number of Members[/b] (or employees, citizens, et cetera):
[b]Territory Controlled[/b] (regions effectively controlled by your faction):
[b]Territory Claimed[/b] (regions which your faction believes legally belongs to them):
[b]Sphere of Influence[/b] (regions in which your faction exerts great influence; corporations have a lot of these):
[b]-Administrative Affairs-[/b]
[b]Head of Organisation[/b] (include title):
[b]Ruling Ideology[/b]:
[b]Primary Language of Leadership[/b] (you are permitted to use but discouraged from using fictional future languages):
[b]Internal Stability[/b] (how much power is actually held by the people who are supposed to hold power?):
[b]-Economic Affairs-[/b]
[b]Source of Revenue[/b] (taxes? nationalised industries? piracy? trade profit?):
[b]Economic Complexity[/b] (how wide a range of goods and services does your faction produce?):
[b]Gross Domestic Product[/b] (the total income of your members in 1990 int'l$; on average, humanity is about a hundred times richer than 2017):
[b]Currency[/b] (does your faction have its own currency? if so, what is its name, form, and value? if not, why not?):
[b]-Military/Security Affairs-[/b]
[b]Total Civilian Spacecraft Tonnage[/b] (0.03 to 0.12 tons per person, with less developed colonies having more):
[b]Total Military Spacecraft Tonnage[/b] (some fraction of the above):
[b]Security Personnel[/b] (the military is largely automated; more than 0.1% of your population in security implies extensive militarisation):
[b]Level of Equipment[/b] (civilian, paramilitary, guerilla-level, regular military, or specialised):
[b]Level of Training and/or AI[/b] (as above):
[b]-Technology-[/b] (for each category, answer antiquated, poor, mediocre, decent, good, advanced, or cutting-edge)
[b]Biotechnology, Ecology & Healthcare[/b]:
[b]Energy Technology, Spacefaring & Theoretical Physics[/b]:
[b]Information, A.I. & Communication Technology[/b]:
[b]Chemical, Material & Construction Technology[/b]:
[b]Industrial, Automation & Robotics Technology[/b]:
[b]-History-[/b]
(What happened in your organisation from 2050 to 2250. Consider this your RP sample. 40 words minimum.)
[b]-Description of Society-[/b]
(Anything that you wish to convey about the theme of your organisation that the application doesn't adequately address. 20 words minimum)
(put an X in the boxes below)
[ ] I have read the original post in its entirety, and understand the premise of this RP.
[ ] I acknowledge that by joining this RP, I am committing to following the rules and remaining active.
Reservations and Accepted Applications
The Federation of East Asian States - Khasinkonia - population 2,300 millions
The Federation of the Americas - Democratic East-Asia - population 1,612 millions
The Federal Martian Republic - The VOID - population 900 millions
Corporate State of Mariner - The Orson Empire - population 405 millions
The New United Republic of Europe - Swedish Allied States - population 364 millions
Krizina Union - Rodez - population 250 millions
Space Exploration Technologies Corporation - Fesconia - population 113 millions
Cerberus Universal Company - New Minahasa - population 100 millions
The Confederation of Nordic States - Plzen - population 64 millions
The Republic of Titan - Ruskland-Preuben - population 58 millions
Tsukiyomiko Development Cooperative - Lunas Legion - population 39 millions
Net total accepted population - 6,205 millions (40% of total System population)
Mercury
Most of it accepted as the Corporate State of Mariner for The Orson Empire.
Large base reserved for Cerberus Universal Company, by New Minahasa.
A base accepted as SpaceX for Fesconia.
Venus
Large base accepted with Cerberus Universal Company, by New Minahasa.
About a quarter accepted as The Federation of East Asian States by Khasinkonia.
About a tenth accepted as SpaceX for Fesconia.
Earth
Southern California and a base on Luna accepted as SpaceX for Fesconia.
Rest of the Americas and a significant portion of Luna accepted as The Federation of the Americas by Democratic East-Asia.
Large base in US East Coast reserved by Cerberus Universal Company, by New Minahasa.
The Nordic Region and small moon base accepted with the Confederation of Nordic States for Plzen.
Marius crater on Luna accepted with the Corporate State of Mariner for The Orson Empire.
The rest of Western Europe accepted as the New United Republic of Europe for Swedish Allied States.
East Asia accepted as The Federation of East Asian States by Khasinkonia.
Mare Orientale on Luna accepted with Tsukiyomiko Development Cooperative, for Lunas Legion.
Mars
Plurality of the planet accepted as Federal Martian Republic by The VOID.
Small colony reserved for Cerberus Universal Company, by New Minahasa.
Phobos and about a fiftieth of Mars accepted with SpaceX for Fesconia.
Asteroid Belt
A few mining outposts accepted with The Federation of the Americas by Democratic East-Asia.
Hygiea and a few mining centres reserved by Cerberus Universal Company, by New Minahasa.
1/4 of Vesta and assorted mining outposts accepted with Tsukiyomiko Development Cooperative, for Lunas Legion.
Rest of Vesta along with Ceres, Euphrosyne, Interamnia, and Egeria accepted as Krizina Union for Rodez.
Large colony on Pallas and assorted mining bases accepted with the Corporate State of Mariner for The Orson Empire.
Assorted mining outposts accepted with SpaceX for Fesconia.
Jovian System
Small base (cloud city) reserved for Cerberus Universal Company, by New Minahasa.
Small colony on Io accepted with Tsukiyomiko Development Cooperative, for Lunas Legion.
The Callisto Settlement (~1/4) accepted with the Confederation of Nordic States for Plzen.
Europa accepted as The Federation of East Asian States by Khasinkonia.
Slightly under half of Ganymede and some outposts accepted with SpaceX for Fesconia.
Outer System
5/6 of Titan accepted with the Republic of Titan for Ruskland-Preuben.
Mimas and small colonies on Titania, Oberon, Triton, Pluto, and two bases in the Kuiper Belt accepted with Tsukiyomiko Development Cooperative, for Lunas Legion.
Small bases on Titan, Titania, and Eris accepted with SpaceX for Fesconia.
