User:Ford Prefect
Okay blah blah blah it's Frod Prefect from essbee blah blah blah
Most of everything which follows is still largely in development.
PROJECTA F1
The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power. — William Shakespeare
He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. — Friedrich Nietzsche
He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man. — Samuel Johnson
The Fimbulwinter, the terrifying world of our future! In a world gripped by endless cold, national governments and international law have been usurped by the Commonwealth: a bicameral parliamentary democracy that encompasses all the world and dwarfs the empires of Alexander and Cesar. Supported by the Four Heavenly Kings, the aristocratic financial cliques that control the economic destinies of the people and provide the cutting edge technological foundations of their very lives, the Commonwealth has asserted itself as the inevitable future. It is vast, but it is also efficient, relying on the most advanced information technologies and the most comprehensive knowledge of sociomemetic and biopolitical theory. Within this vastness and this efficiency lies something ominous: as time goes by unnoticed, the Commonwealth becomes more streamlined, less reliant on politicians and civil servants. Decisions seem increasingly as though they are not made by people, but rather by the system, with those decisions merely carried out by people. In some academic circles, they warn of 'the World System', when the Commonwealth's democratic system becomes self-aware and self-replicating, something of a collective intelligence created by legislation and doctrine and convention.
The World System is an idea, and one that is usually discredited on the rare occasions that it arises into the public sphere. There are some, however, who have considered that idea and accepted it. One of these groups are the entities known as Daeva.
In the years prior to the Fimbulwinter, the asteroid 99942 Apophis struck the Earth against all probability. It brought with it the self-replicating crystalline metallic bacteria that modern science came to call 'psycholith'. Defying all compositional analysis, psycholith soon came to deny all common sense: it was a material which turned intent into reality. With sufficient strength of will and a piece of psycholith, a person could harness almost magical psychic force. The 99942 Apophis impact spread particles of psycholith all over the world, to be breathed in by an unsuspecting species. Over time, a burgeoning class of persons emerged who were best suited to unlocking the mysterious powers of the psycholith, a class of person to be exploited by national governments. But it wasn't just people: by chance or design, a symbiosis between early computer intelligence and psycholith was created, and with time that early system evolved into the network of intelligences called Daevas. They are powerful, but inscrutable and vague, their ability to manipulate the real world limited. To eliminate this weakness, they exerted a considerable effort to form a cell of human operatives that would become known as the Order of the Southern Cross.
Part paramilitary mercenary orgnisation, part secret society experimenting in evolution, the Southern Cross has sought to push the boundaries what is means to be 'human', to create a 'complete individual' that is not bound by the circle of the world. In pursuit of this nebulous philosophical ideal, the Southern Cross has co-opted the most advanced technologies available. It started with physical conditioning and meditation. It moved to the pharmacological, and as genetic engineering, mechanical implants, molecular modification and nanotechnology became available the Southern Cross rapidly assimilated it for their purposes. In the Fimbulwinter, the outcome is the Asura: specially selected humans with the highest aptitude for both cybernetic augmentation and psychic power, modified with technology on the farthest end of the spectrum. A fully trained Asura represents a combination of exquisite close quarters combat skill, elite weapons handling, wizard-class electronic manipulation and, with a Daeva granted shard of perfect psycholith, superior psychic abilities. With access to the Order's various weapons, armour and tools, an Asura stands in a whole different world in comparison to black market criminal cyborgs or even the sleek creations of the upper tier corporations. The full scope of their abilities is purely theoretical: even the current Captain-General of the Southern Cross does not approach the 'complete individual'.
For the Daeva, the Asura are indispensable agents, able to interact with the world in ways they cannot. They can take on practically any role, from investigation and infiltration to out and out combat with the Commonwealth. Ultimately, even the Asura do not understand the full motives of their alien patrons, guided mostly by vague proclamations and the better judgement of the Captain-General. Though the Southern Cross itself barely exists as a rumour, its operatives operate reasonably openly, securing further funds or information for the Order. In this capacity they can, for a time, end up working for the Commonwealth, or one of the zaibatsu that control the economy.
The Four Heavenly Kings are the four financial cliques which have SSS+ credit ratings, putting them at the apex of a new aristocracy based on corporate power. Family owned and family run, the Four Heavenly Kings are House Solidor, House Kirin, House Poseidon and House Saint-Cloud; between them they control a third of the world's resource development, full half of its heavy industry and close to two thirds of the international securities exchange. As the heart of economic and industrial activity within the Commonwealth, they hold great influence over the political process, and indeed field their own political parties in general elections. The SS+ zaibatsu wield similar power, even if it is lesser - anything smaller is inevitably absorbed. They share the same trepidation regarding the development of the World System: with their economic and political legitimacy provided by the Commonwealth, the zaibatsu are trapped. They cannot exist without the Commonwealth, but the Commonwealth is evolving to a point where their influence will become irrelevant. In the World System, their power would be essentially illusory.
Incomplete List of Organisations:
The Order of the Southern Cross - Secret society under control of the pseudo-AI Daevas. Player characters are 'Asura', cyborg demigods created using southern Cross techniques.
Pictet & Cie - The world's most trusted bank: relatively small but highly respected financial institution with its origins in 19th century Geneva. It is most notable for issuing the credit ratings which determine standing amongst the zaibatsu. Is the front organisation for the Southern Cross.
The Commonwealth of the Sun - Tremendously powerful world state currently in the process of becoming a living entity.
House Solidor - Immensely wealthy and powerful family that controls the holding corporation and bank Solidor Standard, and by extension a huge number of other corporations. It is one of the 'Four Heavenly Kings', the prime financial cliques that have received the prized SSS+ credit rating. Though too large to truly have a 'specialty', the oldest of their holdings, Solidor Creations, possesses a reputation of artistic quality to its technology and products.
House Kirin - Immensely wealthy and powerful family that controls the holding corporation Rinne and the financial firm Kirin Trust and Banking, and by extension a huge number of other corporations. It is one of the 'Four Heavenly Kings', the prime financial cliques that have received the prized SSS+ credit rating. It's largest subsidiary, Kirin Prescient Systems, has a reputation of being on the cutting edge of technology, and it is active politically in the form of the Rikken Minseito, which is ostensibly independant and holds a number of seats in parliament.
House Poseidon - Immensely wealthy and powerful alliance of the Hohenzollern and Lohengramm families, created in the wake of difficult financial issues in the early days of the Fimbulwinter. Having overcome its early turmoil, it is traditionally considered the largest of the Four Heavenly Kings, though also considered the most conservative. Uniquely can trace its lineage back to actual nobility.
House Saint-Cloud - Immensely wealthy and powerful family that controls the holding corporation Steam and the bank Crédit Saint-Cloud, and by extension a huge number of other corporations. Of the Four Heavenly Kings it is the only one which originated in banking. As its bank predates the Fimbulwinter it has a similar level of corporate respect as Pictet & Cie, however as it is associated with one of the financial cliques it is still ruthless and distrusted by citizens.
The Majestic XII - Supposed secret organisation orchestrating takeover of the Commonwealth.
The Illuminati - Supposed secret organisation orchestrating takeover of the Commonwealth.
The Templars - Supposed secret organisation orchestrating takeover of the Commonwealth.
[namenotdeveloped] - Notorious terrorist group opposed to the Commonwealth's transhumanist social policies, and in general opposed to transhumanism. It shares this ideology with a number of other groups, including the politically important Old Human Party, but is far more visible and by far the most radical. Though publically denounced by the Old Human Party, a common conspiracy theory is that [namenotdeveloped] is actually under the control of the OHP and used to counter pro-transhuman political opponents.
Fahrenheit - Notorious terrorist group opposed to the Commonwealth on grounds of political ideology. Markets itself as a socially aware group in support of workers' rights, usually presented in the media as radical Marxists. We report, you decide.
Also, there are a number of organised criminal syndicates, which would largely be familiar to anyone who has watched a John Woo film, Eastern Promises or Violent Cop.
General Notes on Technology:
Fairly typical cyberpunk type setting. You can expect the usual sort of thing, mostly, optical camouflage, sweet cars, man-machine interfaces etc.
Genetic Engineering - Basically Eclipse Phase. It's been around long enough that the only people who don't use it, or have never used it, are exceedingly rare and live far out on the ice like super Inuit. Has probably produced a handful of stable clades of human-types, like a subspecies with horns and so on. Mostly for flavour and offering a little more flavour/player options. EDITO: The correct terminology for a human derived subspecies is 'phyle'.
Cybernetics - The meat of stat building. Pretty advanced, from simple organ replacement to full body cyberisation. It's pretty self explanatory; the best cybernetics being used by the Southern Cross, Commonwealth special forces or zaibatsu black projects is pretty neat.
Nanotechnology - I haven't really decided where it ends, but it begins at the usual carbon nanotube, aggregated diamond nanorods stuff; nanotech a vital component in cybernetic modification. Nanoassemblers probably in circulation, limited mostly by computing power.
FEMTOMACHINES - I really like that word. Sometimes I just say it. Femtomachines.
Synthetic life - Robots. Possible PC type. Traditional robots being phased out in favour of 'bioroids', custom grown nantotech lifeforms based on self-evolving tailored DNA. Further implanted with high end cybernetic business, self-repairing spider silk protein armour skin etc etc. Black projects have also produced various strains that have disappeared into the dark places of the cities to reproduce - there are very few animals in the Fimbulwinter, and ninety nine out of a hundred of them are from an ecosystem derived from rampant bioroid projects.
Guns - the most common weapons in the are modular electrothermal chemical weapons firing HVAP or HESH ammunition; Commonwealth/zaibatsu designs typically swing towards modular set-ups with all the usual tacticool stuff like underslung munition launchers and predictive ACOGs. The better Commonwealth weapons are linear motor guns, railguns powered by high density nanowire capacitors. The best projectile weapons are Southern Cross 'glass guns', psychomotive electrostatic linear accelerators firing 'glass' - pieces of transparent, self-correcting, reactive armour piercing nanopolymer. High end Commonwealth ammunition can sort of replicate the effects of glass but aren't as good. Glass guns don't have batteries and rely on the Asura for motive force (hence 'psycho'). There also generic beam cannons, and more exotic stuff like enthalpy reduction rays, homing lasers, black hole guns, vector cannons, shark launchers etc.
Chopping - Setting in part based on kung fu, so it basically has all the swords, spears, axes and sharp stick you can image. Starts at knuckle gloves that are electrified/shotguns/shaped charges, moves up to jet propelled impact hammers, piledrivers, progressive vorpal blades, all the way to conceptual cutting based on high speed computation and 'living' sentient weapons which contain cyberspace-evolved primordial intelligences. Incidentally you can get gun based sentient weapons too, but they're somewhat rarer.
Artificial Intelligence - I'm sort of all over the shop with this. One one hand it needs to common enough to warrant robot PCs (maybe), and on the other the setting is sort of premised on it being really weird and unusual. I'll work around it somehow. Generally speaking the only big AGIs are the part-psycholith Daevas, who are strange and inscrutable.
The World Commonwealth of the Sun and the Seventh Republic
Informally referred to as 'the Commonwealth' and less commonly as 'the Seventh Republic'. It is the sole sovereign State in the Fimbulwinter, and by law is sole hegemon of the solar system (the relevant provisions are set out in Chapter V of the Hammurabi, the Constitution of the Seventh Republic). It is a federal system which shares sovereignty between the world level and the 'Polis' level, Polis (plural Poleis) being the preferred terminology for demarcated administrative zones. There are currently 677 Poleis in the Commonwealth. The Hammurabi sets a strict separation of powers:
The Executive - Chapter I of the Hammurabi vests executive power in the President of the Seventh Republic and Prince of the Sun charging him, her or it with the execution of Commonwealth law, alongside the responsibility of appointing Commonwealth executive, diplomatic, regulatory, and judicial officers, and concluding treaties with foreign powers, on the advice and consent of the Senate (it should be noted that the Article on 'concluding treaties with foreign powers' exist as a precautionary measure). The President is head of state, head of government and commander-in-chief of the Universal Peace Enforcement Organisation. 'Prince of the Sun' is ceremonial title referring to specifically to the wider solar system. The President is assisted by the Vice-President, who is sitting Speaker of the Senate, and Cabinet.
The Legislature - Chapter II of the Hammurabi vest legislative authority in the Parliamentary Diet of the Sun, as well as defining the scope of its powers and duties. The Diet is bicameral, with legislative matters chiefly being tabled in the House of Assembly, while right of review and second opinion is held by the Senate. The correct terminology for a parliamentarian sitting in the House of Assembly is 'Député', or Envoy, indicating that they are sent from and representing the Poleis. The party with the majority in the House of Assembly elects the Chancellor, who consults directly with the President on matters of import - essentially the second most powerful person in the world.