Surface
Just a little something to get it out of my head.
Send us somewhere interesting.
A garden world in the north of the Sphere, dotted with an extensive constellation of Precursor architecture. Prior to human settlement Surface was extensively investigated by Posthuman expeditions and even since moving on their presence can still be felt amongst the yawning spires and the soaring bridges and intricate interior geometries of atria built millennia previously. Attractive reasons for colonisation even without the excellent weather and accommodating ecosystem, but located so far from Earth that it could only be found by chance ... or the providence of the Posthuman flinging your independent settlement effort across space.
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.