Surface

It's hard to be tourist sometimes.

Send us somewhere interesting.

If you're traveling in the north of the Sphere, it might pay to spend some time on Surface, especially if you're intruiged by the Precursors and the Posties. A garden world par excellence kept pristine over the course of colonisation, it's home to one of the most extensive constellations of mysterious Posthuman structures in the Sphere and caters to tourists who want a more active holiday experience. Every planet has its wilderness adventures, but I never got the opportunity to track and hunt like it was 8000BC until I went to Surface.

The Place

Technically speaking Surface is a moon, even if it is slightly bigger than the Earth. It's the fourth moon of the gas giant Sargasso, and they both orbit 51 Basis, all nestled away in that uncomfortable strip of stars between ZOCU and PACT. The contrivance of orbital mechanics give Surface one of the most spectacular night skies in the Sphere, but as a warning you might want to bring a sleep mask because it's going to be brighter than you're probably used to. Basis gives off a lot of light system and the amount of light and Surface's slightly different and thicker atmosphere refracts light around the horizon. On top of that, Sargasso's blue-violet bulk dominates the horizon and it's magnetic field sends auroral ripples from pole to pole. Other moons hang in the sky at different times of the year and what constellations can be seen in the bright night seem more precious somehow. If you ask a true believer they'll tell you that whole thing had to be set up by the Precursors and I'm not sure I disagree.

If you're swinging in via Corrigedor or Tempest, make sure to have a sweater at the bottom of your suitcase because it can get pretty cool on Surface, and a lot of the planet will get snow at some point of the year. I mean there's a decent chain of tropical islands in the south but didn't you just come from Corrigedor or Tempest? You've seen beaches. You're not on Surface for beaches. Surface has two main draws: the breathtaking examples of mysterious Posthuman architecture (the Agora in Xanadu is a personal fave) and what has been described to me as 'perfect hiking scenery'. If you're from an urbanised, high density society, Surface can be a breath of fresh air.

The Demarchy is the political face of Surface, but it's just a convenient construct for interacting with people from more traditional governments. Society on Surface is distributed, with decisions at different levels determined through consensus-based direct democracy. The system is simplicity itself: a bunch of people together in a place and talk at each other until a decision is made and they can pass their consensus up to the next level. If you've got the time it's worth peeking in at one of the larger assemblies, as it can get entertainingly messy, like one of the debates out of The Iliad. If you want to make your trip smoother attach yourself to a Aquilan land owner - Zodiac Easy Student Travel offers some great package deals that will bunk you in at an established homestead. Staying with a host not only cuts down on having to navigate a bunch of fluid rules that aren't even written down but gives you access to the authentic surface experience. Look for with the most exciting hobbies and you'll have a blast.

The People

Aquila

Chances are if you've met an Aquila your first thought was 'wow you're tall' followed closely by 'wow you're hot'. Wannabe historical transhumanists tend to assume that the Frontier Society's first proprietary transgene template was based on the original Atlas data from way back in the 21st century, but by all accounts the first Aquila was an early Ishtar variant. Funny how things turn out, seeing as the average Aquila stands over 7 feet and the average Ishtar is just really leggy. It's easy to get stuck on the size thing, but don't assume they're just scaled up humans: under the hood they've got honeycomb bones and two hearts and five times the photoreceptors of a baseline and all the other modcons. Stauss and Kaser spin in their graves.

Aquila are typically stereotyped as hyperconfident, oversexed, outdoorsy types. I've heard a lot of unfair stereotypes in my time and this isn't one of them. I guess it's just how they're socialised, but be warned that your first time meeting an Aquila might be a little intimidating. Just remember that they're fun-loving extroverts and just want to show you a good time. They're good conversationalists too given their cultural philosophy about inheriting the will of the Precursors through the Posties, but be careful because some of them will really chew your ear off. if you really want to endear yourself be ready to debate. Nothing gets an Aquila going like a challenge.

Hummingbirds

If you're from PACT or ZOCU and don't do much traveling then this is probably the face of Surface for you: five foot nothing and cute as a button. See, when the Frontier Society first arrived in-system it was still the 21st century, so they took their burgeoning Aquila template and scaled it right down to get smaller, lighter, more efficient astronauts that needed less in the way of life support. Early transgenics were a heady time, but after seven template revisions the people of Surface are in a comfortable position: Aquila are poorly suited to the confined space on-board most spacecraft, sometimes to the point of mild claustrophobia, but Hummingbirds are a different matter entirely. Hummingbirds represent 70% of Surface's population, but represent 90% of crews of spacecraft commissioned in-system.

There's some sociologically complex stuff going on in the relationships between Hummingbirds and Aquila, complex stuff which differs from tribe to tribe and even from homestead to homestead, but the wider interstellar community has decided that it all just boils down to every Aquila having three or four Hummingbird boyfriends and girlfriends. That's not inaccurate, especially among young people, but it's best to not say anything like that. Hummingbirds are much more sensitive than their cousins. In any case, most Hummingbirds have attached themselves to an established Aquila as part of a psychosocial comfort thing. Stauss-Kaserist firebrands love this because 'psychosocial comfort thing' sounds really dodgy, but every star sailor needs a solid home port.

Incidentally this need for comfort created a considerable misunderstanding during the Breakdown. With Hummingbird crews trapped far from home, they began turning to non-Aquila to fill the role. Rumours of a planet full of harems of demure submissives spread about as well as can be expected during the Breakdown, but even so as interstellar travel opened there was a wave of sex tourists who were disappointed to discover that in most cases they were distinctively second best.

Then

Formed in the early 21st century, the Frontier Society was a philosophical fraternity formed by like-minded green futurists from a variety of backgrounds: athletic, scientific, entrepreneurial. Their core belief was the idea that global society was becoming increasingly small and increasingly flat: that as the pace of our technological development increased people were becoming sedentary and disconnected from the world they lived in. Considering the world permanently damaged by industrialism and in the process of being damaged by the current political landscape, the Frontier Society attempted to foster activities that would give people 'space to breath'. This ranged from acts as simple as funding youth hiking expeditions to investing in the early waves of transhuman technology. As can be expected this was a failure. Though the Frontier Society was something of a minor international fixture, there was no way it could counter global trends and its popularity was waning in the mid-21st century. As Omoikane emerged into the world, and more Posthumans after that, fewer and fewer people were interested in the natural world, and fewer still were interested in self-actualisation. For the inner circle of the Frontier Society, the world was a ruin, gripped by hysterical commercialism and strange conservatism. Pooling their not inconsiderable personal resources, the Frontier Society bankrolled a Longshot colonisation effort in the hopes of being able to start over, as far away as possible.

Now

Surface is home to a developed transgenic civilisation, a decentralised political organisation formed by a number of direct democracies operating on a consensus building model. Though politically and sociologically fascinating, the people who live on Surface are mostly known for being extremely tall ... or extremely short. The population is split between two transgene templates: 35% are Biggulians who consider 200cm 'short', the other 65% being Tinykin who are exceptionally tall if they reach 160cm. Naturally there are more important physiological changes involved in both templates, but it's what you notice when you walk in the room. The most other prominent aspect of Surface society is the pseudo-religious belief that, as they live amongst the extensive relics of the Precursors and Posthumans (and given their origins as the Frontier Society), they have inherited a mantle to guide others within the Sphere.