The Mandate for Makemake

The Mandate for Makemake

“It is not true that the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party is a supreme power. The Political Bureau is only a shadow of the real supreme power that stands behind the chair of every Bureau member (...) The real power thinks, acts and dictates for all of us. The name of the power is NKVD—MVD—MGB (…) To tell that NKVD is a state secret police—means to tell nothing to the point. Intelligence Service is also a secret police, but in the eyes of the Britons its existence is as natural as the Health Ministry. To tell that NKVD is a body of mass inquisition also tells nothing to the point, because Gestapo also was a mass inquisition, although its chief Heinrich Himmler—would not be fit to serve as a sergeant of the Soviet State Security Service. To tell that NKVD is ‘a state within the state’ means to belittle the importance of NKVD because this question allows two forces: a normal state and a supernormal NKVD: whereas the only force is Chekism. A state Chekism, a party Chekism, a collective Chekism, an individual Chekism. Chekism in ideology, Chekism in practice. Chekism from the top to the bottom.”
- Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov

A Short History of Makemake

Few celestial bodies yet encountered by mankind are as bitterly inhospitable as the dwarf planet of Makemake. It is an outrider riding on the very edges of the Solar System itself, swinging through the Kuiper Belt on a 310 year orbit. The temperature drops below -240° C, so viciously cold that nitrogen and methane freeze solid on the surface in twisting, cyclopean spires of ice. The only atmosphere for this forsaken world are a thin ribbons of sublimating gasses in the decades long summer, which drift back to the ground in some cruel mockery of snow. The surface is completely exposed, and regularly scourged by cosmic radiation. Yet, it was these very hostile conditions which attracted the first human travelers to the dwarf planet.

Scientists were highly curious about the potential of a network of observatories built on Makemake. With no real atmosphere and an unusual orbit at the edge of the system, sensors built there would be in a prime position to observe much of the Solar System and the rest of the galaxy. The icy nature of much of the surface promised to be highly effective for cooling vast arrays of super-computers for managing sensors, collecting and analyzing data. While the difficulties would be formidable, the rewards would be great, and no challenge would damp the youthful energy of humanity in the time of Exodus. A multinational effort established the Hau-Maka Observatories and the Hotu Matu'a Mainframe, supported by Basecamp Akenake. From this first shoot sprang a sleepy but comfortable colony of underground cities, the greatest of which would be the city Akenake. Humanity had taken root and flourished as best it could on Makemake, sprouting leaves of silicon and digging tenaciously into the cracks with tendrils of steel. The exigencies of years to come would not uproot it.

On the literal frontline of science, Makemake would proceed to become part of its intellectual frontier as well. The University of Akenake, founded early in the colony’s development with direct access to both observatory and supercomputer, would become one of the leaders in theoretical physics.

Makemake had hitherto been paid little attention by anyone other than the scientific community, but the overweening ambition of the resurgent Terran government would change everything. As the UES developed nearby Haumea into one of the largest fleet bases in the system, a fortress sentinel in the Kuiper, the Hau-Maka observatory gained the attention of CISC, the UES intelligence and state security apparatus. The General’s Staff were also interested in adding Makemake as a waystation for the outer fleet, further securing the Kuiper Belt. Mutual interest brought about swift results. The closely-knit cities of Makemake awoke to find a squadron of UES warships in orbit and their world a Mandate of the UES.

Under the cover of the movement of administrative personnel and military materiel, CISC established a listening post on Makemake nicknamed BOLTHOLE. Tapping into the Hotu Matu’a Mainframe, BOLTHOLE allowed CISC to all but read the mail of other Solar powers. BOLTHOLE grew and metastasized through the Mandate, going from a small to a massive central complex with branches all across its surface and its artificial satellites.

During the Gaubertist War, or what the rest of the Solar System calls The Scourge, Makemake became a battleground between the UES and Gaubertist sympathetic Kuiper belt states, the SSRK in particular. CISC Internal Troops stationed there and Battlegroup Makemake were very nearly destroyed, were it not for the last minute intervention of the rest of the Outer Fleet. The ultimate result was the later utter annihilation of the Erisian colony by the reinforced Battlegroup, a cruel and senseless vengeance strike driven by revenge, just one of many in the horrors of the Gaubertist War.

As the Gaubertist War drew to a close and the very fabric of the UES began to crumble, plans were drawn to evacuate to the strongholds of Haumea and Makemake. In heated discussions amongst the Politburo, it was predicted that an evacuation would bring with it many persons of questionable loyalty or simple undesirables. The plan proposed by CISC was to not only divide the refugee population between Haumea and Makemake based on their perceived loyalty to the UES, but the primary organs of the UES itself. The movers of the Renaissance, the heart of the UES, and their followers would retreat to the secure fortress of Haumea, protected by the General’s Staff and the weight of the loyal UES battleline. Those who were not trusted would be moved to the shakily held Makemake – under the direct watch of CISC, who would remove their headquarters to BOLTHOLE. They would create a careful internal security infrastructure, carefully rooting out , until Makemake was developed into a perfectly loyal.

As with all best laid plans, things went awry.

Somewhere along the line, CISC changed. Was it during the first food riots that the shape of the metamorphasizing monster could be first guessed at? Or perhaps it was the mass executions of the Red Summer? Though it had long ago abandoned principle or morality in its determination to safeguard the state, the new form it was taking was something particularly monstrous. Its staff may have forgotten the existence of inviolate rights, of constitutions or laws, but even the politicization of the organization under the NSF never shook its self-conception as a servant to the General Assembly.

Here CISC held the naked reins of power, unlimited and totally unrestrained.

It was too much for the mere mortals of CISC to handle. What was meant to be a careful sheepdog became a devouring wolf. The organs of state security became a regime, a mind, one of malice and a lust for power. Behind the Mandatory governments stood the puppetmasters of the state security organizations, every manager reported to the internal ministries, secret policemen sat themselves at the high seats of criminal organizations like potentates. Underneath them, the Mandates trembled with turmoil. Privation, rationing, long simmered resentment of the UES boiled over into violence just as they had predicted it would.

Many in the General Assembly wonder whether the Mandates are truly even a part of the UES anymore. The General’s Staff certainly consider CISC to be a rogue entity. Makemake is a bureaucratic battleground as the military grapples with the monstrous serpent, and Battlegroup Makemake is the frontline of this battle for authority.

Amongst all these troubles, the people of Makemake continued their lives as best they could. In a twist of fate, the University of Akenake would make the breakthrough of centuries – the theory of outracing light itself. CISC promptly locked the information and researchers down to preserve the secret solely for the UES, but in a rare break of the information cordon, an anonymous paper on the principles of “Macro-Spatial Displacement” was broadcast to the rest of the Solar System with a philosophical post-script extolling the march of human progress.

Ironically, the brave self-sacrifice was unnecessary – similar breakthroughs had been made elsewhere in Sol.

Here at last the General’s Staff saw an opportunity to seize the initiative from CISC. The security organs had clearly failed at their duty, and in the most spectacular fashion. It was time for the military to retake control. The Military Out-Sol Command was established on Makemake to begin practical experimentation with the Jump Drive.

The UES made first contact with Alpha-Centauri when the UESS Santa Clara completed what was also the first interstellar FTL Jump in human history.

As the forerunner in Jump Drive technology, the two greatest disasters in the history of human faster-than-light travel occurred under the auspices of the Military Out-Sol Command. The UESS Otto von Kotzebue, whether due to a gross miscalculation or a critical failure, was lost with all hands while making a jump to Earth from Alpha Centauri. The twisted wreckage, which had ripped itself to pieces in a centrifugal pattern, arrived several AU from its expected destination point in the middle of international space, scattered across space in a light-second long trail. It was promptly salvaged by various other powers over the ferocious protest of the UES.

To this day, the UES maintains that all of Sol’s jump drives are derived from the wreck of the Otto von Kotzebue, and as such, is due reparations and royalties.

Later that same year, the crew of UESS Magellan broadcast several panicked warnings in the process of a routine jump to Alpha Centauri. It never arrived. Searches by the UES Fleet and the Fourth Polish Republic failed to find any sign of the vessel, which has been assumed destroyed in similar fashion to the Otto von Kotzebue.

These catastrophes, among others including the hushed up defection of the ambassador to the Alpha Centauran power ACCEL along with the jumpship UESS Santa Maria, spurred the dissolution of the Out-Sol Command and the creation of a new government ministry called the Strategic Superluminal Operations Office. With serene, professional efficiency, the SSOO has been loyally pursuing the mission parameters as set by the General Assembly. Each of the successive Secretaries have successfully navigated the political landmine of Makemake to accomplish clear cut policy aims. Its procurement programs and construction projects have almost universally been on time and on, or even under, budget.

Statistics

Population:
Minor State (+1 National Advantages): 32 pts

National Advantages: [Rank 1 (+1)] (-1 pts)
National Disadvantages: [Rank 3] (+3 pts)
Infrastructure: [Rank 3] (-3 pts)
Growth Potential: [Rank 0] (0 pts)
Military Size: [Rank 3] (-3 pts)
Military Support: [Rank 3] (-3 pts)
Military Quality: [Rank 3] (-5 pts)
Superweapons: [Rank 1] (1 pts)
Espionage: [Rank 4] (-6 pts)
General Advancement: [Rank 1] (-4pts)
FTL Drives: [Rank 3] (-6 pts)
Outsystem Territory: [Rank 2] (-3 pts)

Statistics:
Infrastructure: 90 Pts
Upkeep: 416/675 Military Support

Advantages: (2)
Nazi Superscience
Superior Sensors

Disadvantages: (3)
Pariah State
Social Contract Dispute
The Scourge of Space

Starting Fleet

Battlegroup Makemake, the Ericide

2x Battlecruisers (24 pts)
1x Fleet Carrier (15 pts)
1x Supercarrier (25 pts)
6x Heavy Cruisers (30 pts)
8x Light Cruiser (16 pts)
3x Light Carrier (15 pts)
7x Destroyer Squadrons (21 pts)
6x Corvette Squadrons (6 pts)

4x Naval Infantry Brigades (4 pts)

Tactical Superweapon (24)
Colonel-General Mary Elizabeth Victoria of the House of Windsor
+ Fast Thinker
+ Something to Prove

CISC

5x Internal Troops Brigades (5 pts)
36x Citizen Security (12 pts)

Tactical Superweapon
The Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Beggar
(24) “This insinuation of the interests of the self into even the most ideal enterprises and most universal objectives, envisaged in moments of highest rationality, makes hypocrisy an inevitable byproduct of all virtuous endeavor.”
- Reinhold Niebuhr, “Moral Man and Immoral Society”
+ Quantum-Entangled Facedancer Puppet Machines
+ aringa ora, Living Faces (Expert Systems)

The Strategic Superluminal Operations Office

1x System Control Ship (35 pts)
10x Heavy Jumpship (80 pts)
6x Light Jumpship (18 pts)
6x Scouts (6 pts)
6x Fuelling Stations (30 pts)

Strategic Superweapon (100)
Wrona Special Operations Ship
+ Class IV FTL Drive
+ Dirac Dive System