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War for Utopia: The War on Haraway’s World

Introduction

Haraway’s World was settled by one of the first long shot missions to leave earth and one of the first attempts to set up a completely new form of society in the colonies. Its founding principles were utopian and pacifistic, seeking a peaceful world, far from the struggles and conflicts still plaguing earth in the mid twenty first century.

Less than one hundred and fifty years after the colonies founding, Haraway was the site, and major participant in, the twenty second centuries largest conflict, and the biggest space battle in human history.

In this article I will examine how Haraway both the events of the War on Haraway and the events of the war it’s self, paying particular attention to how to the transformations it caused to Harawayian Society, and then look to the future.

Prelude

Founding

Haraway was one of the first longshot missions to leave earth. Its colonists were members of the Fifth Wave feminist movement, the last hurrah of the great feminist social movement on earth before true gender equality was finally achieved. Haraway’s founders were fundamentally utopian in their beliefs, seeking to build the perfect society on a distant planet without the conflict and uncertainty that plagued mid twenty-first century earth.

Landing on Haraway they found a beautiful, lush and thoroughly poisonous world and set gamely to the task of making it theirs and them its. The Initial colonisation was entirely transhumant and they quickly adapted genetic engineering techniques to allow themselves and their children to survive in Haraway’s heavy metal rich environment. Efforts were made to reduce the colonies affect on the alien ecosystem, both for ethical and scientific reasons, and this gave birth to the system of augmented reality that still marks Haraway today, Harawayians were able to carry their civilisation with them in their implanted computers rather than plough over the wonderous alien environment that the colonists had found.

Cities were built however, and the population rapidly expanded, great works of art and culture were created, as was Haraway’s colour system of communitarian transhumanism and direct democratic government. The alien biology of Haraway was mapped and elements of it were built into future generations of Haraway’s inhabitants. Many Harawayians still remember their time of isolation as Haraway’s golden age, without military expenditure or the need for protection from a hostile universe to suck government spending away from the public good, indeed, government its self was limited, with few matters coming before the citizenry for voting, the government’s primary business was to provide necessary resources to all Harawayians and ensure a smooth transition from one job to another.

The UN’s Stargazer program and recontact shattered Haraway’s dreams of a splendid, isolated existence forever, but despite growing concerns about the universe beyond Haraway, it was not till the 2150s that Haraway really lost its innocence.

War in 2151

On March Tenth Harawayian Self Defence Force regulars and citizens miitia looked down from their fighting positions on the forested hills of Javindra as the last heavy lift vehicles carrying the last Martins Pharmaceutical personnel departing for their jump ship beyond Haraway’s orbit. The encampment was the last major corporate facility on Haraway. Slowly, word spread that the last invaders had retreated. The Harawayian self defence force had come a long way from the small, inexperienced and often poorly led force it had ben in 2149.

It was a two weeks since the airstrike that had obliterated Xenologic Resource’s primary compound on Kirsa Atoll, almost two months since Colonel Gerald ‘Jared’ Mcintyre and his famous Expanse Tactical Solutions, more commonly known as the Ravens had been slaughtered to a man in an ambush by an SDF armoured battalion on Beta Continent, now all that was left was to hunt down the last pockets of corporate dead enders, those unable or unwilling to evacuate with their parent companies.

Haraway’s political elite was less cheerful. Despite military success, the brutal nature of the fighting, which featured targeting of civilians on both sides, and shortages of Harawayian produced pharmaceuticals had drawn the attention of the EU, and with it the UN security council. Intervention by the great powers was commonly expected to be only a matter of time, and the business of steeling the population for another round of fighting after victory, not to mention military preparations for engagement against one of Earth’s super powers was a daunting prospect.

The war between Haraway’s government and the various corporate interests that sought to claim the planets natural bounty had been fierce, claiming over a million civilian lives over a three year period, and seen far more than its fair share of atrocities committed against Harawayian civilians. Now, facing the prospect of their hard one gains being overturned by great power intervention the Harawayians prepared for another, much longer and bloodier struggle against the might of the EU.

Security Council resolution 9855 passed in mid December, despite Harawayian diplomacy, and provided for the creation of an international force to stabilize Haraway, enforce the UN convention on the Laws of the Sea and ‘protect legitimate business interests’. A force led by the UK and Turkey was being assembled and had made its first jump away from earth when the breakdown hit, leaving them stranded and plunging Haraway back into isolation.

ZOCU and the Magnate War

While the Breakdown saved Haraway from invasion it caused a serious political squabble. Haraway became split between those factions who believed that they could return to the way they’d lived before recontact and sought to put the war behind them of forces and those more farsighted individuals who believed that they could no longer hide from the rest of the universe, and that one way or another the Breakdown was a temporary phenomena. The former group coalesced around the name Restorationists while their opposition called themselves the Progressives.

The Progressives received a major shot in the arm when LNS [i]Hydra[/i] in system bringing a diplomatic party from Londenium in November of 2159. The very fact that FTL travel still existed caused a brief panic on Haraway, but skilful diplomacy by the Londenium embassy was able to calm most of the immediate fears and strike a deal with the Progressives. Over the next two years the Progressives became a dominant force in Harawayian politics and Haraway became increasing involved in ZOCU.

Without theta dust deposits of its own, Haraway was reliant on Londenium for Theta dust, but never the less it’s general technology grew by leaps and bounds, with great advancements in transhumanism, bioroids and AI, and a vast improvement in space industry. The first slipways was contructed in orbit above Home Island in 2161, with its products, the destroyers [i]Athena[/i]and the [i]Isis[/i] The [i]Athena[/i] would historically make the trip to Londenium in 2162 bringing Haraway’s representatives to the Council of Londenium for the formation of ZOCU. While somewhat inferior to Londenium designs, they proved quite capable in combat.

The [i]Isis[/i] had its own historic moment of a darker kind in 2165 when it became the first Harawayian Space Warship to fire in anger as part of the Harawayian contingent sent to Vrijheid, successfully engaging several Magnate naval vessels. The Harawayian Two Hundred and Fifth Brigade also proved their metal on the ground, its members being one of the few groups capable of coming close to matching magnate super soldiers in physical ability. The Two Hundred and Fifth was engaged in many actions, culminating in the battle of New Frederiksberg, in which it held against two Magnate infantry divisions for three days with heavy allied aerospace support before being relieved by the Londenium Forty Sixth Combat Frame Division.

Harawayian officers at Vrijheid were extremely impressed by the performance of the OMF-4 [i]Peltast[/i] which they witness first hand at the battle of New-Frederiksberg, and with the liberation of Vrijheid diplomatic efforts were rapidly begun to secure both a number of frames and a licence to produce them domestically. Despite some wrangling with Londenium Metals a licence for domestic production was eventually secured, along with an initial delivery of thirty six frames from Londenium, within four years, the production line was fully established and Harawayian SDF units were deploying large numbers of [i]Peltast[/i] including their own specialist variants such as the underwater adapted [i]Peltast-Marine[/i], with design studies being conducted on the first all domestic Harawayian mecha.

Haraway’s military build up continued into the 2170s, with more star ships being produced, including the iconic [i]Concord[/i] class, and a series of military reorganisations culminating in the Harawayian Self Defence Force being split into three branches, the Army, responsible for operations on land and lower atmosphere, Aerospace Force responsible for space craft, and the Navy, responsible for sea based defence of Haraway’s vast oceans, and including a substantial marine component.

Indeed, despite their reorganisation, each of Haraway’s branches continued to include elements of the other three, with the Navy and Aerospace Force deploying Marines and Espaiter infantry and mobile suits while the army included not just gunships but interceptors and flying mobile suits.

Despite this rather hazy institutional divide, by the end of the 2170s Haraway had built up a very strong military force. It was just as well, as the end of the breakdown bought a renewal of their decades old conflict with Europe.

Aftermath: Untrusting Peace

-Dr. Joanna Hastings is Chair of Military History at Westbrook University, Londenium

Schuman

Genre: Progressive colonial experiment made good

History Paths

A1) Late National (+ Population)
A2) Dominant Baseline (+ Population)
A3) Garden World
A8) Xenomorphs (+ Military)
B1) Crisis Situation! (Raptors and Cavemen!) (+ Stockpiles)
B2) Get Help from Earth (+ logistics)
C1) Crisis Situation! (Raptors and Climate Change!)
C2) Innovate Madly (+ CIP)
D1) Catapulted (+Wealth)
D4) Trade Hub (+ wealth, + PIP)
E1) The EU Includes Us (- theta,)
I1) To Go Boldly (+ tech + military, + CIP, - wealth)
I2) Regulated Economic Market (+ CIP, ++ PIP, + Morale, - Wealth (Regulation))
I3)The Silent Service (+ stealth technology, + CIP, + dust, + ship technology)

++++ CIP
++ Population
+++ PIP
+ Stockpiles
+ Logistics
++ Wealth
+ Military
+tech
+stealth tech
+Dust
+ship technology
+military
+Naval Doctrine
++ Naval Technology
++ Warships
-Theta

PL's suggestions: Garden World makes better propaganda. Gundam Counterattack and Centre for Research better evoke its position as the 'New Europe' that dynamically creates new ideas and developments for the great European project.