Beyond the Veil

Introduction

Four decades ago, a posthuman infoweapon was released into the human infosphere, shutting down interstellar travel all across the core worlds. For four decades the worlds beyond have existed in splending isolation from Earth. Only the occasional ship manages to brave the empty systems of the Firewall and bring rumors of war and tectonic shifts in politics from behind the veil. Isolated by distance even before the veil was raised, the inhabited worlds of the Rim have created their own societies and politics.

Places of Note

Old Nibiru

Nibiru was colonized by a UN seedship in the late 2070s, a bigger sibling to the longshots that were fired off in the hundreds. With 700,000 colonists the 0.9-rated world of Nibiru, 160 light years from Earth soon became a key port and stepping stone between the core and the true deep rim. The population grew rapidly between 2090 and 2150 and Nibiru was a shining success story in the Rim.

Then the veil was raised and Nibiru was cut off, like so many other worlds. Life was chaotic, for a bit, but people adapt. There are however only so many shocks a world can take, and one casualty of the loss of connection with the core was failure of further military aid to suppress and eventually destroy the feral velan drones that plagued many systems and routes. Several years after FTL travel with the core was shut off, it became clear that the ferals were increasing in power at a seemingly exponential rate. Their target: Nibiru.

Even with overclocked fabricators, yards running 24/7 shifts and all the accumulated warships already in place, the hordes of machines were wearing down the defenders. No amount of cunning or valour or self-sacrifice could stem the flood. The only option was flight; a herculanean task at the best of times. But with cunning, and valour, and self-sacrifice, it was done. Twenty million people fled Nibiru, leaving behind everything they'd built.

Second Nibiru

A world heir to a catastrophe, Second Nibiru is the home of those men and women who fled Old Nibiru. Lightly settled during the early 22nd century, it was flooded by refugees and construction machinery in the early 2160s. Hurried attempts to erect shelter led to vast sprawls of homogeneous housing, sprawls that are only now being demolished three decades later to make way for more civilized domiciles.

A poorer but more populous world, Second Nibiru is built on the ashes of the first - not just people, but industry and technology. Those fabricators that had not failed from overwork were dragged into space and formed the nucleus of the new world's industry, soon surrounded by more conventional factories and commerce. Reconstructing from scratch was long and difficult but now, three decades later, Second Nibiru is once again a world of importance. Its spacefleets are full of newly built craft, reinforcing those few survivors from the war against the drones three decades ago and its freighters bring goods far and wide. Forged in fire, some say that Nibiru is stronger than ever before.

GARField-1143

GARField-1143 (General Astronometric Range and Field survey) is a deep rim system. While lacking any terraformable worlds, its three gas giants are rich in helium and as such it ended up as the final port of call for the General Secretary exploration ship Ban Kim Moon in 2133. Having suffered a creeping breakdown to its FTL jump drive that could not be repaired without a major shipyard, the BKM was instructed to find a suitable system and then 'beach' itself, making the transition from a mobile factory to the start of a new colony.

The chaos of the Breakdown saw many refugees flood to Garfield-1143 from half a dozen colony worlds as critical systems failed and today the space-city of Ban Kim Moon has a varied and polyglot population.

Raël

Another seedship colony, Raël was founded by the Raëlians. Originally something of a 'kooky cult' on Earth, reformations and philosophical shifts in the middle of the 21st century saw them increase in size and influence, eventually acquiring an entire seedship to head for the Rim. Today Raël is a prosperous, populous world that is the center of the Raël Interconnect. The Interconnect connects five inhabited systems with catapults, making it the only true multinational economic bloc in the Rim.

Distance is all that keeps Raël and Second Nibiru from coming to blows; even widely seperated they have strongly divergent views of what is right and wrong, particularly when it comes to Posthuman technology. Raëlians are strict regarding the technologies of those who had 'ascended', only using what is necessary. By contract, Nibirans have the attitude that anything they can acquire is fair game. It is quite common for agents of either to attempt to interfere with actions of the other.