Ad Astra!
A Political Roleplay
Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
16 Psyche, as seen from New New New York
A Political Roleplay
Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
16 Psyche, as seen from New New New York
The Script
A hundred years have passed since humanity on Earth was almost annihilated in the Cataclysm, when in a period of about two months the vast majority of humanity died. But the book of history is not yet closed. Human civilisation continues among the spacers, the inhabitants of colonies spread out all across the Solar System, and even for a disaster of the Cataclysm's scope a hundred years is a long time in recovery.
This is not the anarchic Mad Max post-apocalypse. From the sun-scorched craters of Mercury to the icy darkness of the Kuiper Belt, there is culture, society, an economy... and organised government. You, the players, will each represent one of these governments, a polity that controls one or more spacer settlements somewhere out in the Solar System, and steer the ship of state across a time when recovery is coming to a close and a new future is being dreamt of.
There are many things to be done. Scholars across the Solar System clamour for answers about what exactly caused the Cataclysm, and if it can happen once again. The legacy of the Dagrenning Conflict continues to haunt its survivors, especially the victims to whom justice is yet to be delivered. On Earth, almost twenty million terrans still scramble for a living among the ruins left behind by the Cataclysm, while tension rises between those that seek to pull spacer society together and those who would like nothing more than to be left alone.
The date is now 12th of April, 2461 Common Era or, as the people of this time are more likely to call it, 12th April, 504 Space Age. Spacers begin the sixth century with a century of healthy recovery behind them, determined to prove that civilisation isn't a veneer, that progress isn't an illusion, and that not even the Cataclysm can stop humanity's march towards the stars.
What story will your polity leave behind in the great book of human history?
The Stage
A Brief History of the Space Age
The history of human activity in space begins with the launch of a small satellite into low Earth orbit on the 4th of October 1957 CE, marking the year as Year Zero of today’s space age calendar. The first human being in space would follow four years later. While humanity’s initial forays first in Earth orbit, then to Luna, and finally across translunar space were all driven by considerations of national prestige by Earth’s great powers and by the scientific curiosity of Earth’s scientific establishment, as space technology matured and the cost of human activities in space declined more and more space infrastructure were built for practical economic or military purposes.
These began with communication and espionage satellites in Earth orbit, advancing to space tourism to Luna and in cislunar space by the second half of the first century, then mining for rare metals on near-Earth asteroids and helium-3 on the lunar surface in the second century of the space age. With the growth of economic activities followed support services for all the humans now living in space as well as administrators and soldiers to represent the Earth interests that were funding these ventures. Regular human traffic as far as Mars and the Asteroid Belt meant that it made sense to invest in transportation infrastructure, most notably propellant refining on Luna, beginning a virtuous circular effect of higher interplanetary traffic incentivising the creation of infrastructure to reduce costs, and lowered costs incentivising the growth of interplanetary traffic.
This technological trend, combined with rising tensions between Earth superpowers, led to a major race towards the most scientifically interesting or economically resourceful locations across much of the Solar System in the latter half of the third century, joined by colonial missions seeking to establish more self-sufficient colonies for both ideological and national-prestige reasons in the early fourth century. By the end of the fourth century, with the spacer population pushing twelve millions, it appeared that outer space was well on its way towards becoming just another frontier that humanity had tamed and turned into civilised habitats, just as humanity tamed Antarctica and the continental shelves in the previous centuries.
All this, however, would be abruptly cut short by the Cataclysm.
The Cataclysm destroyed human civilisation on Earth, suddenly leaving spacer settlements across the Solar System to fend for themselves with no more support from Earth. A scramble to develop the isolated and panicking spacers into a self-sufficient society followed; some would succeed, performing miracles of social organisation and industrial engineering to whether through crises, while some would fail, quietly removing themselves from history… or resorting to violence, culminating in multiple years of desperate resource wars later named the Dagrenning Conflict. One must, however, never underestimate the human desire not to die and their often incredible ability to resist dying. Spacers would emerge from the Dagrenning Conflict not as a shattered wreck, but as a vibrant society growing in both resilience and unity, determined to leave the past behind and forge their own path into the future. Recovery would be slow, but irresistible. The majority of spacers would join together in the United Nations under the Spacer Charter, pledged to peace, cooperation, and benevolent assistance towards their fellow humans still surviving on the hell that Earth had become. The Cataclysm has dealt humanity a crushing blow, yes, but humanity is not yet knocked out.
The history of human activity in space begins with the launch of a small satellite into low Earth orbit on the 4th of October 1957 CE, marking the year as Year Zero of today’s space age calendar. The first human being in space would follow four years later. While humanity’s initial forays first in Earth orbit, then to Luna, and finally across translunar space were all driven by considerations of national prestige by Earth’s great powers and by the scientific curiosity of Earth’s scientific establishment, as space technology matured and the cost of human activities in space declined more and more space infrastructure were built for practical economic or military purposes.
These began with communication and espionage satellites in Earth orbit, advancing to space tourism to Luna and in cislunar space by the second half of the first century, then mining for rare metals on near-Earth asteroids and helium-3 on the lunar surface in the second century of the space age. With the growth of economic activities followed support services for all the humans now living in space as well as administrators and soldiers to represent the Earth interests that were funding these ventures. Regular human traffic as far as Mars and the Asteroid Belt meant that it made sense to invest in transportation infrastructure, most notably propellant refining on Luna, beginning a virtuous circular effect of higher interplanetary traffic incentivising the creation of infrastructure to reduce costs, and lowered costs incentivising the growth of interplanetary traffic.
This technological trend, combined with rising tensions between Earth superpowers, led to a major race towards the most scientifically interesting or economically resourceful locations across much of the Solar System in the latter half of the third century, joined by colonial missions seeking to establish more self-sufficient colonies for both ideological and national-prestige reasons in the early fourth century. By the end of the fourth century, with the spacer population pushing twelve millions, it appeared that outer space was well on its way towards becoming just another frontier that humanity had tamed and turned into civilised habitats, just as humanity tamed Antarctica and the continental shelves in the previous centuries.
All this, however, would be abruptly cut short by the Cataclysm.
The Cataclysm destroyed human civilisation on Earth, suddenly leaving spacer settlements across the Solar System to fend for themselves with no more support from Earth. A scramble to develop the isolated and panicking spacers into a self-sufficient society followed; some would succeed, performing miracles of social organisation and industrial engineering to whether through crises, while some would fail, quietly removing themselves from history… or resorting to violence, culminating in multiple years of desperate resource wars later named the Dagrenning Conflict. One must, however, never underestimate the human desire not to die and their often incredible ability to resist dying. Spacers would emerge from the Dagrenning Conflict not as a shattered wreck, but as a vibrant society growing in both resilience and unity, determined to leave the past behind and forge their own path into the future. Recovery would be slow, but irresistible. The majority of spacers would join together in the United Nations under the Spacer Charter, pledged to peace, cooperation, and benevolent assistance towards their fellow humans still surviving on the hell that Earth had become. The Cataclysm has dealt humanity a crushing blow, yes, but humanity is not yet knocked out.
The Cataclysm: An Overview
The Cataclysm was a series of apocalyptic events that happened on Earth in the year 404 of the space age (2361 CE), typically dated 14th February to 26th April. While nothing is known about what caused the Cataclysm, with outlandish theories from alien interference to divine retribution still being debated to this very day, Earth at the beginning of the fifth century was an advanced technological civilisation and it is possible to reconstruct much of what happened during the Cataclysm from preserved news reports, private communications, and contemporary records stored in satellites.
Four of the largest megalopoli of Earth - the Guinean Urban Area, the Kolkata-Dhaka-Chittagong Industrial Region, the Pearl River Delta, and the Acela Northeastern Corridor - all reported a concerning wave of violent crime in late January 404. While observers in the immediate aftermath of the Cataclysm pointed to this as the beginning of the Cataclysm, today it is disputed whether these crime waves were a part of the Cataclysm at all. The timing of these events, in the weeks immediately leading up to the Cataclysm, is certainly suspicious, but historical evidence has quite conclusively confirmed that these ‘violent crimes’ were in fact actual violent crimes and not misclassified zombie attacks.
The first event that is indisputably part of the Cataclysm are the reanimation of corpses into zombies, with ‘cannibalistic murders’ that could plausibly have been zombie attacks being reported as early as the 9th of February and the first confirmed reanimation, caught on tape by Chinese media, on the 14th of February. Some governments sought to calm the public by suppressing information while others sought to calm the public by doing their best to inform them, but these contradictory approaches only ended up exacerbating the endless rumours about these events and the resultant unrest. Riots, first in areas of the world that were somewhat unstable to begin with but rapidly spreading to even the most peaceful of regions, soon wracked the globe.
A major riot in the Guinean Urban Area on the 24th of March drew in the militaries of the various states over whose territories the megalopolis ran, which ended up clashing with each other. Amidst this unrest and instability, the United Nations would finally declare a global state of emergency on the 12th of April. While some on Earth attempted to flee to space, the spacer population in Earth orbit had already come to an agreement that whatever was happening on Earth absolutely could not be allowed to infect space and the 5th and 7th Constellations of the European Space Force would receive orders to bombard all of Earth’s spacecraft launch sites the day after the global state of emergency was declared.
Dimensional rifts to alternate realities would open all around the Earth’s surface on the 17th of April, from which all sorts of strange and otherworldly creatures would emerge. Governments around the world would authorise the use of boson bombs against these rifts throughout the 17th and 18th of April. These bombs succeeded in closing the dimensional rifts, but only after all sorts of monstrous populations had already established self-sufficient populations on Earth, and at the cost of rendering most of the Earth’s surface permanently radioactive.
Against the dual threat of interdimensional creatures and the zombie pandemic, what remained of organised government on Earth would rapidly collapse in the following week, with the last government communication, a recital of a biblical poem from a minor Swiss canton official on live holovision, being issued on the 26th of April.
The Cataclysm had an effect on human civilisation that could euphemistically be described as significant. It completely destroyed human civilisation on Earth, then home to 99.9% of the human population, and rendered the planet essentially uninhabitable with only a small number of survivors clinging on between the zombies and otherworldly monsters of the Cataclysm, to say nothing of the radioactivity and the mutant beasts that would emerge from that radioactivity.
Even though the events of the Cataclysm was confined to Earth, the end of supplies from Earth meant an existential crisis for the spacers of the Solar System, who were until then not self-sufficient and depended on the imports of vital equipment and reinforcements from Earth. The resulting social and economic crisis would serve as the background to the Dagrenning Conflict a generation later.
The Cataclysm was a series of apocalyptic events that happened on Earth in the year 404 of the space age (2361 CE), typically dated 14th February to 26th April. While nothing is known about what caused the Cataclysm, with outlandish theories from alien interference to divine retribution still being debated to this very day, Earth at the beginning of the fifth century was an advanced technological civilisation and it is possible to reconstruct much of what happened during the Cataclysm from preserved news reports, private communications, and contemporary records stored in satellites.
Four of the largest megalopoli of Earth - the Guinean Urban Area, the Kolkata-Dhaka-Chittagong Industrial Region, the Pearl River Delta, and the Acela Northeastern Corridor - all reported a concerning wave of violent crime in late January 404. While observers in the immediate aftermath of the Cataclysm pointed to this as the beginning of the Cataclysm, today it is disputed whether these crime waves were a part of the Cataclysm at all. The timing of these events, in the weeks immediately leading up to the Cataclysm, is certainly suspicious, but historical evidence has quite conclusively confirmed that these ‘violent crimes’ were in fact actual violent crimes and not misclassified zombie attacks.
The first event that is indisputably part of the Cataclysm are the reanimation of corpses into zombies, with ‘cannibalistic murders’ that could plausibly have been zombie attacks being reported as early as the 9th of February and the first confirmed reanimation, caught on tape by Chinese media, on the 14th of February. Some governments sought to calm the public by suppressing information while others sought to calm the public by doing their best to inform them, but these contradictory approaches only ended up exacerbating the endless rumours about these events and the resultant unrest. Riots, first in areas of the world that were somewhat unstable to begin with but rapidly spreading to even the most peaceful of regions, soon wracked the globe.
A major riot in the Guinean Urban Area on the 24th of March drew in the militaries of the various states over whose territories the megalopolis ran, which ended up clashing with each other. Amidst this unrest and instability, the United Nations would finally declare a global state of emergency on the 12th of April. While some on Earth attempted to flee to space, the spacer population in Earth orbit had already come to an agreement that whatever was happening on Earth absolutely could not be allowed to infect space and the 5th and 7th Constellations of the European Space Force would receive orders to bombard all of Earth’s spacecraft launch sites the day after the global state of emergency was declared.
Dimensional rifts to alternate realities would open all around the Earth’s surface on the 17th of April, from which all sorts of strange and otherworldly creatures would emerge. Governments around the world would authorise the use of boson bombs against these rifts throughout the 17th and 18th of April. These bombs succeeded in closing the dimensional rifts, but only after all sorts of monstrous populations had already established self-sufficient populations on Earth, and at the cost of rendering most of the Earth’s surface permanently radioactive.
Against the dual threat of interdimensional creatures and the zombie pandemic, what remained of organised government on Earth would rapidly collapse in the following week, with the last government communication, a recital of a biblical poem from a minor Swiss canton official on live holovision, being issued on the 26th of April.
The Cataclysm had an effect on human civilisation that could euphemistically be described as significant. It completely destroyed human civilisation on Earth, then home to 99.9% of the human population, and rendered the planet essentially uninhabitable with only a small number of survivors clinging on between the zombies and otherworldly monsters of the Cataclysm, to say nothing of the radioactivity and the mutant beasts that would emerge from that radioactivity.
Even though the events of the Cataclysm was confined to Earth, the end of supplies from Earth meant an existential crisis for the spacers of the Solar System, who were until then not self-sufficient and depended on the imports of vital equipment and reinforcements from Earth. The resulting social and economic crisis would serve as the background to the Dagrenning Conflict a generation later.
The Dagrenning Conflict: An Overview
The Dagrenning Conflict is the overarching name given to the series of military conflicts caused by the spacer population’s lack of self-sufficiency, initially between the space forces of superpowers destroyed in the Cataclysm but later on between those space forces and the civilian settlements of the Solar System, between 437 and 445 Space Age.
The Cataclysm represented a serious economic shock to spacer settlements in space. While developments in previous centuries have built significant resource and basic manufacturing industries in space, spacer settlements were still dependent on Earth for high technology that they did not have the economic complexity to produce themselves and their economies were often specialised for trade between themselves and with Earth. Thus, the next few decades were characterised by spacer settlements scrambling to replace the imports that were no longer available with domestic production and trying to establish a polycentric commercial system not dependent on Earth industries. Some settlements failed and did not survive.
One key aspect of this economic crisis was energy. While solar energy was readily available on Mercury, spacer settlements everywhere else relied on antimatter produced on Earth to fill their energy and propulsion needs. But with Earth antimatter no longer available and spacer society unable to replicate the complex manufacturing process for commercially viable antimatter, spacer society was forced to revert to nuclear energy. Both fission and fusion, however, had disadvantages. Fission power relied on access to abundant heavy metals, which were not generally available everywhere in the Solar System, while fusion power required sophisticated precision equipment that only the largest and most advanced settlements could produce in those early decades.
This energy crisis and resulting economic collapse fueled political instability as the less well-off spacer factions began to look to aggression as a potential means of acquiring the resources that they needed for survival. Skirmishes drew in the space forces of Earth superpowers that were still scattered throughout the Inner System and by late 437 much of spacer society was locked in a chaotic and multifaceted war.
While the early years of the Dagrenning Conflict was characterised by fighting between the space forces of Earth superpowers together with civilian settlements of those same superpowers, the complete inability of those military remnants to support themselves in the absence of Earth logistics contrasted with the relatively higher self-sufficiency of civilian settlements and led to predatory policies by those space forces against the same civilian settlements that they were nominally responsible for protecting. Mostly by 441, and certainly by 442, the Dagrenning Conflict had resolved into a struggle between, on one hand, the remnants of superpower space forces, and on the other hand, a broad multinational coalition of scientific, mining, and settler-colonial interests.
The remnants of superpower militaries held an absolute advantage in advanced armaments, but unlike the civilian interests that could continue to replace their losses, the ability of military remnants to supply themselves was finite and their war effort rapidly dwindled over the years. No decisive battle was ever fought, but by early 445 it was clear that the superpower space forces were completely unable to maintain a war effort and the civilian coalition would declare victory with the signing of the Spacer Charter on the 26th of June 445.
Nearly four million people died over the course of the Dagrenning Conflict, at the time over one-third of the spacer population, and the Conflict reshaped spacer politics in profound ways. Until the Dagrenning Conflict, spacer politics was simply an extension of pre-Cataclysm spacer politics, with alignments and loyalties of settlements driven by the alignments and loyalties of Earth-side sponsors that had founded and supported those settlements. The Dagrenning Conflict drove home the reality that the Cataclysm had destroyed all of those Earth-side sponsors and that Earth politics was no longer in a position to dictate anything to anyone.
Consequently, many settlements and informal clusters of settlements declared formal independence and statehood during the Dagrenning Conflict and in the years immediately following it, creating a legal framework for their own existence, governance, and interactions that better reflected the realities of the post-Cataclysm Solar System.
Similarly, the trauma of the Dagrenning Conflict, the desire to never again fight such a devastating war, and the distrust of specialised military forces motivated many aspects of the Spacer Charter and is the reason why the space forces of her signatory polities are often de-professionalised organisations reliant on short-term volunteers or drafted servicemen.
The Dagrenning Conflict is the overarching name given to the series of military conflicts caused by the spacer population’s lack of self-sufficiency, initially between the space forces of superpowers destroyed in the Cataclysm but later on between those space forces and the civilian settlements of the Solar System, between 437 and 445 Space Age.
The Cataclysm represented a serious economic shock to spacer settlements in space. While developments in previous centuries have built significant resource and basic manufacturing industries in space, spacer settlements were still dependent on Earth for high technology that they did not have the economic complexity to produce themselves and their economies were often specialised for trade between themselves and with Earth. Thus, the next few decades were characterised by spacer settlements scrambling to replace the imports that were no longer available with domestic production and trying to establish a polycentric commercial system not dependent on Earth industries. Some settlements failed and did not survive.
One key aspect of this economic crisis was energy. While solar energy was readily available on Mercury, spacer settlements everywhere else relied on antimatter produced on Earth to fill their energy and propulsion needs. But with Earth antimatter no longer available and spacer society unable to replicate the complex manufacturing process for commercially viable antimatter, spacer society was forced to revert to nuclear energy. Both fission and fusion, however, had disadvantages. Fission power relied on access to abundant heavy metals, which were not generally available everywhere in the Solar System, while fusion power required sophisticated precision equipment that only the largest and most advanced settlements could produce in those early decades.
This energy crisis and resulting economic collapse fueled political instability as the less well-off spacer factions began to look to aggression as a potential means of acquiring the resources that they needed for survival. Skirmishes drew in the space forces of Earth superpowers that were still scattered throughout the Inner System and by late 437 much of spacer society was locked in a chaotic and multifaceted war.
While the early years of the Dagrenning Conflict was characterised by fighting between the space forces of Earth superpowers together with civilian settlements of those same superpowers, the complete inability of those military remnants to support themselves in the absence of Earth logistics contrasted with the relatively higher self-sufficiency of civilian settlements and led to predatory policies by those space forces against the same civilian settlements that they were nominally responsible for protecting. Mostly by 441, and certainly by 442, the Dagrenning Conflict had resolved into a struggle between, on one hand, the remnants of superpower space forces, and on the other hand, a broad multinational coalition of scientific, mining, and settler-colonial interests.
The remnants of superpower militaries held an absolute advantage in advanced armaments, but unlike the civilian interests that could continue to replace their losses, the ability of military remnants to supply themselves was finite and their war effort rapidly dwindled over the years. No decisive battle was ever fought, but by early 445 it was clear that the superpower space forces were completely unable to maintain a war effort and the civilian coalition would declare victory with the signing of the Spacer Charter on the 26th of June 445.
Nearly four million people died over the course of the Dagrenning Conflict, at the time over one-third of the spacer population, and the Conflict reshaped spacer politics in profound ways. Until the Dagrenning Conflict, spacer politics was simply an extension of pre-Cataclysm spacer politics, with alignments and loyalties of settlements driven by the alignments and loyalties of Earth-side sponsors that had founded and supported those settlements. The Dagrenning Conflict drove home the reality that the Cataclysm had destroyed all of those Earth-side sponsors and that Earth politics was no longer in a position to dictate anything to anyone.
Consequently, many settlements and informal clusters of settlements declared formal independence and statehood during the Dagrenning Conflict and in the years immediately following it, creating a legal framework for their own existence, governance, and interactions that better reflected the realities of the post-Cataclysm Solar System.
Similarly, the trauma of the Dagrenning Conflict, the desire to never again fight such a devastating war, and the distrust of specialised military forces motivated many aspects of the Spacer Charter and is the reason why the space forces of her signatory polities are often de-professionalised organisations reliant on short-term volunteers or drafted servicemen.
The Spacer Charter: An Overview
The Spacer Charter is a diplomatic agreement and military alliance between the surviving settlements of Mars, Luna, and the Jovian moons signed on 26th June 445 that ended the chaos of the Dagrenning Conflict and established a legal framework for commerce and cooperation between the various spacer settlements of the Solar System.
In the aftermath of the devastation caused by the Dagrenning Conflict, a common understanding existed between the settlements most affected by it that there was a need for greater cooperation and integration in order to avoid the sort of economic and diplomatic crises born of distrust and isolation that fueled the Dagrenning Conflict.
The document is of a partially constitutional nature, providing for a common framework for the resolution of debts, a technology sharing program for industries deemed critical for settlement survival, a framework for the provision of humanitarian aid to the suffering terran population on Earth, as well as a system of inspections to ensure that no signatory polity may develop or deploy weapons of mass destruction in secret.
The Spacer Charter also provided for the recreation of the United Nations to enforce its terms and provide a forum for the resolution of disputes. The United Nations consists of several 'chapters', each a forum specialising in a particular aspect of spacer cooperation, all headquartered in the space station New New New York in low Psyche orbit, in the asteroid belt, named after the doomed New New York settlement on Mars that was destroyed in the Dagrenning Conflict. This unusual location was chosen as a compromise between the desires of interests on Luna, Mars, and the Jovian satellites, none of which wanted the headquarters of the new organisation to be placed in one of the other two, and to better enforce the diplomatic neutrality of mining interests on 16 Psyche, by some distance the richest concentration of rare metals and heavy metals in the entire Solar System.
The Charter is, however, not just a document of constitutional nature, but also a peace treaty between the victorious powers with all the usual diplomatic bargaining involved with peace processes. It includes, for example, a provision regulating the collection of natural antimatter in Jupiter and Saturn for supposed security reasons, a measure demanded by Lunar and Martian interests to check the growing dominance of Jovian industry in the politics of the Solar System, and agreements on who owned what in terms of now-vacated mining outposts in the Asteroid Belt and the wrecks of destroyed warships from the Dagrenning Conflict.
The Spacer Charter and the United Nations have been relatively successful in keeping the peace between powerful interests on Luna, Mars, and the Jovian satellites. While polities in these core worlds run the gamut in terms of ideology, with individualists rubbing shoulders with collectivists, conservatives consorting with libertarians, and egalitarians neighbouring authoritarians, there is a broad commitment towards peace, cooperation, and collective defence, a commitment that commentators have dubbed the Postwar Consensus.
It must be observed, however, that the jurisdiction of the Spacer Charter and the United Nations is not universal. The initial signatories of the Spacer Charter were the victorious belligerents of the Dagrenning Conflict, and despite a few new members being added over the years the United Nations largely remains an organisation of those same powers. Consequently, while every notable polity in the spacer core - that is to say, Luna, Mars, and the Galilean moons of Jupiter - is a member, its writ runs lightly on Mercury and the Asteroid Belt and not at all on the moons of Saturn and the Outer Planets. In these outlying settlements, away from the authority of the United Nations, extremist ideologies leaning away from the Postwar Consensus are more commonly found and the overall degree of militarisation is much higher.
The Spacer Charter is a diplomatic agreement and military alliance between the surviving settlements of Mars, Luna, and the Jovian moons signed on 26th June 445 that ended the chaos of the Dagrenning Conflict and established a legal framework for commerce and cooperation between the various spacer settlements of the Solar System.
In the aftermath of the devastation caused by the Dagrenning Conflict, a common understanding existed between the settlements most affected by it that there was a need for greater cooperation and integration in order to avoid the sort of economic and diplomatic crises born of distrust and isolation that fueled the Dagrenning Conflict.
The document is of a partially constitutional nature, providing for a common framework for the resolution of debts, a technology sharing program for industries deemed critical for settlement survival, a framework for the provision of humanitarian aid to the suffering terran population on Earth, as well as a system of inspections to ensure that no signatory polity may develop or deploy weapons of mass destruction in secret.
The Spacer Charter also provided for the recreation of the United Nations to enforce its terms and provide a forum for the resolution of disputes. The United Nations consists of several 'chapters', each a forum specialising in a particular aspect of spacer cooperation, all headquartered in the space station New New New York in low Psyche orbit, in the asteroid belt, named after the doomed New New York settlement on Mars that was destroyed in the Dagrenning Conflict. This unusual location was chosen as a compromise between the desires of interests on Luna, Mars, and the Jovian satellites, none of which wanted the headquarters of the new organisation to be placed in one of the other two, and to better enforce the diplomatic neutrality of mining interests on 16 Psyche, by some distance the richest concentration of rare metals and heavy metals in the entire Solar System.
The Charter is, however, not just a document of constitutional nature, but also a peace treaty between the victorious powers with all the usual diplomatic bargaining involved with peace processes. It includes, for example, a provision regulating the collection of natural antimatter in Jupiter and Saturn for supposed security reasons, a measure demanded by Lunar and Martian interests to check the growing dominance of Jovian industry in the politics of the Solar System, and agreements on who owned what in terms of now-vacated mining outposts in the Asteroid Belt and the wrecks of destroyed warships from the Dagrenning Conflict.
The Spacer Charter and the United Nations have been relatively successful in keeping the peace between powerful interests on Luna, Mars, and the Jovian satellites. While polities in these core worlds run the gamut in terms of ideology, with individualists rubbing shoulders with collectivists, conservatives consorting with libertarians, and egalitarians neighbouring authoritarians, there is a broad commitment towards peace, cooperation, and collective defence, a commitment that commentators have dubbed the Postwar Consensus.
It must be observed, however, that the jurisdiction of the Spacer Charter and the United Nations is not universal. The initial signatories of the Spacer Charter were the victorious belligerents of the Dagrenning Conflict, and despite a few new members being added over the years the United Nations largely remains an organisation of those same powers. Consequently, while every notable polity in the spacer core - that is to say, Luna, Mars, and the Galilean moons of Jupiter - is a member, its writ runs lightly on Mercury and the Asteroid Belt and not at all on the moons of Saturn and the Outer Planets. In these outlying settlements, away from the authority of the United Nations, extremist ideologies leaning away from the Postwar Consensus are more commonly found and the overall degree of militarisation is much higher.
The Trusteeship Council, An Overview
The Trusteeship Council is one of the six chapters of the United Nations and is charged with regulating spacer-terran relations. Aid organised under the Trusteeship Council is important in assisting the remaining terran population survive in the hellish conditions that have prevailed on the surface of the Earth since the Cataclysm. It is estimated that as of the end of the fifth century, aid supplies organised by the Trusteeship Council regularly reach a quarter of the surviving terrans on Earth.
The Cataclysm had rendered Earth an extremely hostile place to live on. The surviving terran population after the Cataclysm continued to be culled by interdimensional invaders, mutants, and zombies, as well as the more mundane concerns of disease, exposure, and malnutrition. In the midst of this unprecedented humanitarian crisis, the idea that spacer society had a moral obligation to assist the terran survivors was discussed in some form since the earliest months immediately after the Cataclysm.
For much of the early fifth century, however, spacer society was itself in a desperate situation and was in no condition to provide meaningful material aid, although space stations in Earth orbit continued to provide what communications and intelligence services they could to the survivors on the surface. It was only after the conclusion of the Dagrenning Conflict that the major polities of the core worlds began to express a serious commitment to terran aid, with some of the surplus armaments from the Dagrenning Conflict bombarding surface threats from orbit. Material aid, beginning with emergency rations, water purification tools, and outdoors survival equipment, would soon follow.
By the 450s, however, commentators were observing that the disparate nature of spacer aid and competing, often contradictory messaging was causing no small amount of confusion and inefficiency among the recipient terrans. A single organisation for the management of spacer interactions with the terran population was proposed, and in 468 the General Assembly would resolve the Trusteeship Council into existence.
It is important to note that, like the other chapters of the United Nations, the Trusteeship Council is not an independent actor on its own and has little ability to enforce its decisions; it serves, rather, as a forum in which the disparate member polities of the United Nations can coordinate their Earth policies and organise joint ventures. It also disseminates expert knowledge about the state of terran society and Earth in general and issues guidelines on what should or should not be sent to Earth.
The Trusteeship Council is also charged with regulating trade between terran and spacer interests. While Earth no longer has any spaceflight capabilities and terran society is thus unable to export any material goods, scientific interests in spacer society hunger for information about the current state of Earth and the causes of the Cataclysm, fueling a brisk trade in knowledge for supplies.
In the beginning years of the sixth century, spacer aid dropped on Earth by the Trusteeship Council amounts to some 500 metric tons of rations, outdoors survival equipment, small arms, printed materials, and fuel every day. In addition to this material support from every core world in spacer society, spacers also provide orbital strikes against xenofungal forests and zombie hordes, as well as intelligence on regional threats and weather patterns. While not remotely enough to give the millions of terrans besieged on their home planet anything like a dignified life, this assistance has at least arrested the total destruction of humanity on Earth.
Even after the Cataclysm, that most apocalyptic of events, human civilisation remains committed to the preservation of human life.
The Trusteeship Council is one of the six chapters of the United Nations and is charged with regulating spacer-terran relations. Aid organised under the Trusteeship Council is important in assisting the remaining terran population survive in the hellish conditions that have prevailed on the surface of the Earth since the Cataclysm. It is estimated that as of the end of the fifth century, aid supplies organised by the Trusteeship Council regularly reach a quarter of the surviving terrans on Earth.
The Cataclysm had rendered Earth an extremely hostile place to live on. The surviving terran population after the Cataclysm continued to be culled by interdimensional invaders, mutants, and zombies, as well as the more mundane concerns of disease, exposure, and malnutrition. In the midst of this unprecedented humanitarian crisis, the idea that spacer society had a moral obligation to assist the terran survivors was discussed in some form since the earliest months immediately after the Cataclysm.
For much of the early fifth century, however, spacer society was itself in a desperate situation and was in no condition to provide meaningful material aid, although space stations in Earth orbit continued to provide what communications and intelligence services they could to the survivors on the surface. It was only after the conclusion of the Dagrenning Conflict that the major polities of the core worlds began to express a serious commitment to terran aid, with some of the surplus armaments from the Dagrenning Conflict bombarding surface threats from orbit. Material aid, beginning with emergency rations, water purification tools, and outdoors survival equipment, would soon follow.
By the 450s, however, commentators were observing that the disparate nature of spacer aid and competing, often contradictory messaging was causing no small amount of confusion and inefficiency among the recipient terrans. A single organisation for the management of spacer interactions with the terran population was proposed, and in 468 the General Assembly would resolve the Trusteeship Council into existence.
It is important to note that, like the other chapters of the United Nations, the Trusteeship Council is not an independent actor on its own and has little ability to enforce its decisions; it serves, rather, as a forum in which the disparate member polities of the United Nations can coordinate their Earth policies and organise joint ventures. It also disseminates expert knowledge about the state of terran society and Earth in general and issues guidelines on what should or should not be sent to Earth.
The Trusteeship Council is also charged with regulating trade between terran and spacer interests. While Earth no longer has any spaceflight capabilities and terran society is thus unable to export any material goods, scientific interests in spacer society hunger for information about the current state of Earth and the causes of the Cataclysm, fueling a brisk trade in knowledge for supplies.
In the beginning years of the sixth century, spacer aid dropped on Earth by the Trusteeship Council amounts to some 500 metric tons of rations, outdoors survival equipment, small arms, printed materials, and fuel every day. In addition to this material support from every core world in spacer society, spacers also provide orbital strikes against xenofungal forests and zombie hordes, as well as intelligence on regional threats and weather patterns. While not remotely enough to give the millions of terrans besieged on their home planet anything like a dignified life, this assistance has at least arrested the total destruction of humanity on Earth.
Even after the Cataclysm, that most apocalyptic of events, human civilisation remains committed to the preservation of human life.
Technological Developments of the Fifth Century
While little scientific knowledge was lost during the Cataclysm, deploying advanced technology is not merely a matter of scientific knowledge, but also of having a large enough industrial base to sustain the extensive manufacturing chain, practical engineering expertise, and simple division of labour that the deployment of such advanced technologies require. Consequently, in the one hundred years since the Cataclysm, spacer society has seen nearly every field of technology regress towards more primitive solutions.
Biotechnology, Ecology & Healthcare
The centuries of the space age before the Cataclysm has seen humanity gain a previously unimaginable amount of control over their own bodies and the biologies of other life. Genetic engineering not only meant that new babies could be designed with features anywhere within and sometimes even slightly beyond the full range of natural human expressions, but also genetically modified organisms serving every purpose from disease control, food production, to even companionship as pets. Advanced anti-aging techniques could eliminate the very concept of a ‘natural lifespan’ and deliver eternal youth limited only by accidents or violence, as advanced nano-surgical techniques countered both the deleterious health effects of living on increasingly-polluted Earth and new super-diseases that evolved amidst a heavily-medicated humanity. These technologies remain available to post-Cataclysm spacers, but anti-ageing treatments in particular were costly to begin with and are even more limited now, forcing settlements to make hard choices about who gets to be prioritised for continued life.
After the Cataclysm, some terran populations on Earth have mutated into creatures that push and sometimes shatter the boundaries of how much a person can change and still be considered ‘human’. These mutants sometimes came about from the intense radiation on Earth’s surface, but others originate from desperate attempts by resourceful survivors to experiment with pre-Cataclysm biotechnology salvaged from ruined cities to make themselves more resilient to the increasingly hellish conditions on Earth.
Spacers, less desperate and more in line with pre-Cataclysm ethical norms, have generally been far more reluctant to abandon their own human form or tamper with the basic fabric of life. It is, however, undeniable that they have the capacity to do so should they desire it; if terrans could mutate themselves with abandoned technology salvaged from ruins, then spacers with their large, sophisticated, and very much intact biotech industries certainly can. From Mercury to the Asteroid Belt to moons of Saturn and the Outer Planets, societies experiment with genetically modified super-soldiers and more vacuum-resistant workers, as the core worlds of the United Nations wonder if maybe they should be following suit.
Energy Technology, Spacefaring & Theoretical Physics
The large-scale production of antimatter for energy generation and spacecraft propulsion, a hallmark technology of pre-Cataclysm humanity, required incredibly specialised high technology equipment that could only be produced by a large and mature industrial base of a kind that the spacers simply do not possess, which was a major factor behind the Dagrenning Conflict. In the military sphere, while the superpowers of the pre-Cataclysm Solar System used boson armaments for its heaviest firepower, which had extensive penetrative power against shielding but rendered its target permanently radioactive, the engineering expertise required to create these weapons of mass destruction have been lost and only a couple of the most technologically sophisticated states on Luna or Titan can maintain one from the pre-Cataclysm past.
Consequently, spacer civilisation has reverted to the use of fusion power, except on Mercury where a lack of access to light elements and proximity to Sol makes solar power a far more attractive option. Humanity has long since solved the problem of proton-proton fusion and hydrogen is very common across the Solar System, so access to fuel is not usually a problem. Proton-proton fusion, however, does require fairly sophisticated machinery to initiate, so in locales where helium-3 or deuterium is readily available those tend to be used instead.
Advanced fusion engines mean that the Solar System is no longer as large as it once felt; interplanetary travel times even in the Outer System are measured in months, not years, while those in the Inner System are measured in weeks and travel times within a planetary system are measured in mere days or even hours. However, the low acceleration offered by fusion engines and the obvious problems with turning on gigawatt-class torches near an inhabited settlement mean that surface-to-orbit launches off planets and major moons tend to be done with conventional chemical rockets, which can grow very expensive very quickly.
Information, A.I. & Communication Technology
As the advancement of computing hardware hit a plateau with the commercialisation of quantum computronium technology in the early second century, early concerns that the development of computing technology might obsolete the human brain proved unfounded. However, information, AI, and communications technology nonetheless affect every aspect of spacer life.
In space, where labour costs had always been much higher than they were on Earth, the development and maturation of artificial intelligence technology in the late first and early second centuries of the space age has led to a complete elimination of information processing as a job that human beings are responsible for. While the frontiers of spacer science and engineering are still being pushed by human beings, cognitively demanding professions that involve acting on known principles have disappeared. Spacer society is a society with legal experts and medical researchers, but no lawyers or doctors.
Perhaps ironically, this has resulted in a partial reversion of the trend, dominant in the first century, of employment moving from manual labour to cognitively demanding professions. It is easy for a computer to write reports or make diagnoses; spacewalks for solar panel repair or lining up needles against patients’ veins require much more expensive robotics equipment to automate.
Chemical, Material & Construction Technology
Materials engineering is the field of engineering that has, arguably, seen the least revolutionary change throughout the space age. The ancients at the dawn of history used metal alloys for their spearheads, the industrial states at the beginning of the space age used metal alloys for their semi-automatic rifles, spacer settlements a century after the Cataclysm use metal alloys for their plasma bolters, and even if the transparent plasteel that the spacers use are far more advanced than ancient bronze, an ancient brought forwards into the modern world would have no trouble identifying metal as metal.
While the materials used in the cities of the late fifth century would be familiar to visitors from five centuries earlier - steel, concrete, glass - construction engineering using those familiar materials have advanced enormously and these advances combined escaping the heavy burden that is Earth gravity means that the Solar System is littered with some truly spectacular works of architecture, from Phobos hollowed out into a natural battlestation protecting the planet below to the beautifully artistic platinum spires of 16 Psyche.
Unlike on pre-Cataclysm Earth, where asphalt roads and glass skyscrapers created the same skyline in city after city after city, in spacer society it is often possible to identify where one is simply by the stylistic choices made in the construction of local habitats.
Industrial, Automation & Robotics Technology
Space, with its vast industrial and scientific ventures coupled with its relatively tiny population, has always been where the cutting edge in automation technology were developed and deployed. Spacer society has carried that heritage forwards in the century past the Cataclysm and at the dawn of the sixth century there is no physical labour that a human being can do that a machine cannot do better, at least among the core worlds of Luna, Mars, and the Jovian moons where precision equipment is readily available.
However, economic concerns mean that there are still human beings whose job it is to perform manual labour. Surveying a promising mining site five hundred kilometres away can be done by a prospecting rover just as well as it can be performed by a human being with a drill in a buggy, but the prospecting rover costs two orders of magnitude more than the drill and the buggy does. The question of how much automation a society employs is not merely a matter of technology, but also of labour costs; bases on sun-scorched Mercury are more likely to automate the outdoor work first and keep its labour in manufacturing, whereas those on more habitable Mars may have fewer scruples about forgoing the rover in favour of the buggy.
This economic reality, that higher productivity requires greater automation at decreasing marginal rates of return, means that although the level of prosperity varies greatly from one settlement to the next, per-capita manufacturing output is at least roughly on the same order of magnitude everywhere in the Solar System.
While little scientific knowledge was lost during the Cataclysm, deploying advanced technology is not merely a matter of scientific knowledge, but also of having a large enough industrial base to sustain the extensive manufacturing chain, practical engineering expertise, and simple division of labour that the deployment of such advanced technologies require. Consequently, in the one hundred years since the Cataclysm, spacer society has seen nearly every field of technology regress towards more primitive solutions.
Biotechnology, Ecology & Healthcare
The centuries of the space age before the Cataclysm has seen humanity gain a previously unimaginable amount of control over their own bodies and the biologies of other life. Genetic engineering not only meant that new babies could be designed with features anywhere within and sometimes even slightly beyond the full range of natural human expressions, but also genetically modified organisms serving every purpose from disease control, food production, to even companionship as pets. Advanced anti-aging techniques could eliminate the very concept of a ‘natural lifespan’ and deliver eternal youth limited only by accidents or violence, as advanced nano-surgical techniques countered both the deleterious health effects of living on increasingly-polluted Earth and new super-diseases that evolved amidst a heavily-medicated humanity. These technologies remain available to post-Cataclysm spacers, but anti-ageing treatments in particular were costly to begin with and are even more limited now, forcing settlements to make hard choices about who gets to be prioritised for continued life.
After the Cataclysm, some terran populations on Earth have mutated into creatures that push and sometimes shatter the boundaries of how much a person can change and still be considered ‘human’. These mutants sometimes came about from the intense radiation on Earth’s surface, but others originate from desperate attempts by resourceful survivors to experiment with pre-Cataclysm biotechnology salvaged from ruined cities to make themselves more resilient to the increasingly hellish conditions on Earth.
Spacers, less desperate and more in line with pre-Cataclysm ethical norms, have generally been far more reluctant to abandon their own human form or tamper with the basic fabric of life. It is, however, undeniable that they have the capacity to do so should they desire it; if terrans could mutate themselves with abandoned technology salvaged from ruins, then spacers with their large, sophisticated, and very much intact biotech industries certainly can. From Mercury to the Asteroid Belt to moons of Saturn and the Outer Planets, societies experiment with genetically modified super-soldiers and more vacuum-resistant workers, as the core worlds of the United Nations wonder if maybe they should be following suit.
Energy Technology, Spacefaring & Theoretical Physics
The large-scale production of antimatter for energy generation and spacecraft propulsion, a hallmark technology of pre-Cataclysm humanity, required incredibly specialised high technology equipment that could only be produced by a large and mature industrial base of a kind that the spacers simply do not possess, which was a major factor behind the Dagrenning Conflict. In the military sphere, while the superpowers of the pre-Cataclysm Solar System used boson armaments for its heaviest firepower, which had extensive penetrative power against shielding but rendered its target permanently radioactive, the engineering expertise required to create these weapons of mass destruction have been lost and only a couple of the most technologically sophisticated states on Luna or Titan can maintain one from the pre-Cataclysm past.
Consequently, spacer civilisation has reverted to the use of fusion power, except on Mercury where a lack of access to light elements and proximity to Sol makes solar power a far more attractive option. Humanity has long since solved the problem of proton-proton fusion and hydrogen is very common across the Solar System, so access to fuel is not usually a problem. Proton-proton fusion, however, does require fairly sophisticated machinery to initiate, so in locales where helium-3 or deuterium is readily available those tend to be used instead.
Advanced fusion engines mean that the Solar System is no longer as large as it once felt; interplanetary travel times even in the Outer System are measured in months, not years, while those in the Inner System are measured in weeks and travel times within a planetary system are measured in mere days or even hours. However, the low acceleration offered by fusion engines and the obvious problems with turning on gigawatt-class torches near an inhabited settlement mean that surface-to-orbit launches off planets and major moons tend to be done with conventional chemical rockets, which can grow very expensive very quickly.
Information, A.I. & Communication Technology
As the advancement of computing hardware hit a plateau with the commercialisation of quantum computronium technology in the early second century, early concerns that the development of computing technology might obsolete the human brain proved unfounded. However, information, AI, and communications technology nonetheless affect every aspect of spacer life.
In space, where labour costs had always been much higher than they were on Earth, the development and maturation of artificial intelligence technology in the late first and early second centuries of the space age has led to a complete elimination of information processing as a job that human beings are responsible for. While the frontiers of spacer science and engineering are still being pushed by human beings, cognitively demanding professions that involve acting on known principles have disappeared. Spacer society is a society with legal experts and medical researchers, but no lawyers or doctors.
Perhaps ironically, this has resulted in a partial reversion of the trend, dominant in the first century, of employment moving from manual labour to cognitively demanding professions. It is easy for a computer to write reports or make diagnoses; spacewalks for solar panel repair or lining up needles against patients’ veins require much more expensive robotics equipment to automate.
Chemical, Material & Construction Technology
Materials engineering is the field of engineering that has, arguably, seen the least revolutionary change throughout the space age. The ancients at the dawn of history used metal alloys for their spearheads, the industrial states at the beginning of the space age used metal alloys for their semi-automatic rifles, spacer settlements a century after the Cataclysm use metal alloys for their plasma bolters, and even if the transparent plasteel that the spacers use are far more advanced than ancient bronze, an ancient brought forwards into the modern world would have no trouble identifying metal as metal.
While the materials used in the cities of the late fifth century would be familiar to visitors from five centuries earlier - steel, concrete, glass - construction engineering using those familiar materials have advanced enormously and these advances combined escaping the heavy burden that is Earth gravity means that the Solar System is littered with some truly spectacular works of architecture, from Phobos hollowed out into a natural battlestation protecting the planet below to the beautifully artistic platinum spires of 16 Psyche.
Unlike on pre-Cataclysm Earth, where asphalt roads and glass skyscrapers created the same skyline in city after city after city, in spacer society it is often possible to identify where one is simply by the stylistic choices made in the construction of local habitats.
Industrial, Automation & Robotics Technology
Space, with its vast industrial and scientific ventures coupled with its relatively tiny population, has always been where the cutting edge in automation technology were developed and deployed. Spacer society has carried that heritage forwards in the century past the Cataclysm and at the dawn of the sixth century there is no physical labour that a human being can do that a machine cannot do better, at least among the core worlds of Luna, Mars, and the Jovian moons where precision equipment is readily available.
However, economic concerns mean that there are still human beings whose job it is to perform manual labour. Surveying a promising mining site five hundred kilometres away can be done by a prospecting rover just as well as it can be performed by a human being with a drill in a buggy, but the prospecting rover costs two orders of magnitude more than the drill and the buggy does. The question of how much automation a society employs is not merely a matter of technology, but also of labour costs; bases on sun-scorched Mercury are more likely to automate the outdoor work first and keep its labour in manufacturing, whereas those on more habitable Mars may have fewer scruples about forgoing the rover in favour of the buggy.
This economic reality, that higher productivity requires greater automation at decreasing marginal rates of return, means that although the level of prosperity varies greatly from one settlement to the next, per-capita manufacturing output is at least roughly on the same order of magnitude everywhere in the Solar System.
Human Astrography of the Solar System
One hundred years after the Cataclysm, the spacer population has stabilised at somewhat over 7 million inhabitants, scattered all over the Solar System on practically every solid object of significant size between the orbits of Mercury and Neptune.
Mercury. Despite its wealth of natural resources, Mercury's relatively high gravity - and thus the high costs of getting on and off the planet - and extreme temperature swings mean that the planet remains relatively underindustrialised, even a hundred years into the Cataclysm. Most industrial activity on this sun-scorched planet is centered around the refinement of its mineral wealth for export to the more industrialised settlements of Luna and Mars. All considered the Solar System's innermost planet has a population of perhaps 400,000, heavily concentrated towards the polar regions where daily temperature swings are less severe.
Earth and Luna. The homeworld of humanity always was and still remains the most populous celestial body in the Solar System, with a total surface population estimated at 16 to 20 millions. However, the intense radiation from boson weapons, the permanent zombie pandemic, and gigantic mutant creatures still roaming its surface has completely destroyed any semblance of an industrial civilisation on Earth. While there is society, an economy, organised governance, and academic scholarship in space, the survivors on Earth are just that, survivors. Scattered into isolated communities and, at best, the occasional warlord state, they produce nothing of value and cling on to the ruined remnants of Old Earth for subsistence.
In addition to terrans on the surface, Earth also has the most extensive orbital infrastructure of any celestial body in the Solar System, with a large number of space stations, observation and communication satellites, and military shipyards collectively home to perhaps 70,000 spacers. While only two or three hundred kilometres separate the terrans on the surface and spacers in low Earth orbit, Earth's extreme gravity, the highest of all solid bodies in the Solar System, means that these two populations are in practice completely isolated from each other.
While heavily dependent on supplies from Earth, Luna's position as Earth's gateway to deep space, with the huge spacecraft and propellant industries that came with that status, meant that the settlements on Earth's only natural satellite was in an excellent position to import necessary supplies from other surviving settlements and played an integral role in the re-establishment of commercial and diplomatic networks across the Solar System. Luna, with its population of 1,100,000, still holds a disproportionate influence on interplanetary commerce and its space forces are considered some of the finest, although not the largest, in the System.
Mars. While the Red Planet used to contain most of the Solar System's spacer population, the Cataclysm struck it hard. Mars is a large planet, with a correspondingly high gravity, which meant that it took longer for settlements on Mars to connect itself to the nascent post-Cataclysm networks of trade and support that kept non-self-sufficient settlements alive in the sudden absence of supplies from Earth. However, there were also economies of scale to be found from having so much human activity on one planet and Mars has seen a strong recovery in the last half-century. Today the planet boasts a population of 2,100,000.
Ceres and the Asteroid Belt. There is a significant human population in the Asteroid Belt, about 750,000 inhabitants all told, but it is heavily scattered across many small rocks, with only 40,000 on Ceres, the largest and most populous of the asteroids. Resourceful, well-connected, but nonetheless accustomed to working independently, the Asteroid Belt communities pulled through the difficult early years after the Cataclysm in relatively good shape. Today, they not only have a significant domestic manufacturing sector, but also export rare heavy metals to Luna, Mars, and the Jovian satellites.
The Jovian System. With the collapse of organised civilisation on Earth in the aftermath of the Cataclysm, the Galilean satellites of Jupiter have emerged as the new industrial centre of the Solar System, taking advantage of easy access to rare metals from the Asteroid Belt, cheap volatiles and abundant energy on Io, and the simple astrographical luck of having four decently-sized, populous bodies very close to each other. Ganymede, Callisto, Europa, and Io have a population of 880,000, 820,000, 520,000, and 210,000 respectively, with all the minor satellites of Jupiter adding another 60,000 and the Trojan Asteroids another 10,000.
The Saturnian System. The fascinating chemistry of Titan drew the attention of mining magnates and scientific communities alike in the decades leading up to the Cataclysm, and after the Cataclysm that mixture of interests developed the Saturnian system into a veritable hub of science and discovery, a place where risks are casually dismissed and ethical bounds occasionally stepped over in the pursuit of knowledge. This engineering and scientific tradition helped the settlements in this area survive despite their small population and relative isolation and even today, the 240,000 residents of the Saturnian system maintain a reclusive and aloof attitude towards outsiders.
The Outer Planets and the Kuiper Belt. Human activity peters out very quickly past Saturn orbit. These distant colonies were never all that heavily populated to begin with and being so far from aid and commerce hardly helped matters after the Cataclysm. With dependent colonies of Inner System or Jovian interests, isolationist extremists with strange ideologies, independent homesteaders, and research outposts all found in the mix, very little can be said about the settlements of the Outer Planets and the Kuiper Belt in general, save that they are all poor. The Uranus system holds 25,000 inhabitants, the Neptunian system 10,000, and the Kuiper Belt another 5,000.
One hundred years after the Cataclysm, the spacer population has stabilised at somewhat over 7 million inhabitants, scattered all over the Solar System on practically every solid object of significant size between the orbits of Mercury and Neptune.
Mercury. Despite its wealth of natural resources, Mercury's relatively high gravity - and thus the high costs of getting on and off the planet - and extreme temperature swings mean that the planet remains relatively underindustrialised, even a hundred years into the Cataclysm. Most industrial activity on this sun-scorched planet is centered around the refinement of its mineral wealth for export to the more industrialised settlements of Luna and Mars. All considered the Solar System's innermost planet has a population of perhaps 400,000, heavily concentrated towards the polar regions where daily temperature swings are less severe.
Earth and Luna. The homeworld of humanity always was and still remains the most populous celestial body in the Solar System, with a total surface population estimated at 16 to 20 millions. However, the intense radiation from boson weapons, the permanent zombie pandemic, and gigantic mutant creatures still roaming its surface has completely destroyed any semblance of an industrial civilisation on Earth. While there is society, an economy, organised governance, and academic scholarship in space, the survivors on Earth are just that, survivors. Scattered into isolated communities and, at best, the occasional warlord state, they produce nothing of value and cling on to the ruined remnants of Old Earth for subsistence.
In addition to terrans on the surface, Earth also has the most extensive orbital infrastructure of any celestial body in the Solar System, with a large number of space stations, observation and communication satellites, and military shipyards collectively home to perhaps 70,000 spacers. While only two or three hundred kilometres separate the terrans on the surface and spacers in low Earth orbit, Earth's extreme gravity, the highest of all solid bodies in the Solar System, means that these two populations are in practice completely isolated from each other.
While heavily dependent on supplies from Earth, Luna's position as Earth's gateway to deep space, with the huge spacecraft and propellant industries that came with that status, meant that the settlements on Earth's only natural satellite was in an excellent position to import necessary supplies from other surviving settlements and played an integral role in the re-establishment of commercial and diplomatic networks across the Solar System. Luna, with its population of 1,100,000, still holds a disproportionate influence on interplanetary commerce and its space forces are considered some of the finest, although not the largest, in the System.
Mars. While the Red Planet used to contain most of the Solar System's spacer population, the Cataclysm struck it hard. Mars is a large planet, with a correspondingly high gravity, which meant that it took longer for settlements on Mars to connect itself to the nascent post-Cataclysm networks of trade and support that kept non-self-sufficient settlements alive in the sudden absence of supplies from Earth. However, there were also economies of scale to be found from having so much human activity on one planet and Mars has seen a strong recovery in the last half-century. Today the planet boasts a population of 2,100,000.
Ceres and the Asteroid Belt. There is a significant human population in the Asteroid Belt, about 750,000 inhabitants all told, but it is heavily scattered across many small rocks, with only 40,000 on Ceres, the largest and most populous of the asteroids. Resourceful, well-connected, but nonetheless accustomed to working independently, the Asteroid Belt communities pulled through the difficult early years after the Cataclysm in relatively good shape. Today, they not only have a significant domestic manufacturing sector, but also export rare heavy metals to Luna, Mars, and the Jovian satellites.
The Jovian System. With the collapse of organised civilisation on Earth in the aftermath of the Cataclysm, the Galilean satellites of Jupiter have emerged as the new industrial centre of the Solar System, taking advantage of easy access to rare metals from the Asteroid Belt, cheap volatiles and abundant energy on Io, and the simple astrographical luck of having four decently-sized, populous bodies very close to each other. Ganymede, Callisto, Europa, and Io have a population of 880,000, 820,000, 520,000, and 210,000 respectively, with all the minor satellites of Jupiter adding another 60,000 and the Trojan Asteroids another 10,000.
The Saturnian System. The fascinating chemistry of Titan drew the attention of mining magnates and scientific communities alike in the decades leading up to the Cataclysm, and after the Cataclysm that mixture of interests developed the Saturnian system into a veritable hub of science and discovery, a place where risks are casually dismissed and ethical bounds occasionally stepped over in the pursuit of knowledge. This engineering and scientific tradition helped the settlements in this area survive despite their small population and relative isolation and even today, the 240,000 residents of the Saturnian system maintain a reclusive and aloof attitude towards outsiders.
The Outer Planets and the Kuiper Belt. Human activity peters out very quickly past Saturn orbit. These distant colonies were never all that heavily populated to begin with and being so far from aid and commerce hardly helped matters after the Cataclysm. With dependent colonies of Inner System or Jovian interests, isolationist extremists with strange ideologies, independent homesteaders, and research outposts all found in the mix, very little can be said about the settlements of the Outer Planets and the Kuiper Belt in general, save that they are all poor. The Uranus system holds 25,000 inhabitants, the Neptunian system 10,000, and the Kuiper Belt another 5,000.
The Players
Application
- Code: Select all
[b]Application[/b]
[size=150][b](the English name of your polity in all-caps)[/b][/size]
[i](the name of your polity in its primary language(s), each language on a separate line - delete this line if your polity's sole primary language is English)[/i]
[hr][/hr]
[b]BASIC INFORMATION[/b]
(your polity's population, its location including a list of major settlements, a capital if it has one, and any other basic information as you see fit)
[b]SOCIETY[/b]
(how does your polity organise itself? govern itself? what is day-to-day life like in your polity, and what sort of social norms prevail?)
[b]ECONOMY[/b]
(how does your polity provide for its own subsistence, what sort of key technologies does it lack or specialise in, and how does it fit into the broader commercial web of the Solar System?)
[b]SECURITY[/b]
(how does your polity defend itself, and how does it relate to other polities around the Solar System?)
[b]HISTORY[/b]
(a brief overview of your polity's post-Cataclysm history)
[hr][/hr]
[i]Ad Astra; an application[/i]
Accepted Players
The Joint Directorate of the Saturnian Moons
Reservations
Io, under Cybernetic Socialist Republics
