Difference between revisions of "New Mercia"
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While New Mercia is tidally locked to Deria, and thus warmed by infra red radiation from the gas giant, less than a third of the ice-free land area is directly exposed. Known now as 'planetside,' this is an area of permanent tundra and taiga throughout the year with minor shifts in climactic conditions depending on the season, excluding the massive storms that occur throught the equatorial areas of the entire moon in the summer. The rest of the plant shows an extreme variance in weather patterns depending on the season; in the warmer months, large areas of land - most notably the Fuller Plateau - are almost tropical in termperature and experiance massive rainfall. In the winter, the majority of these areas freeze solid, leading to the creation of 'ice jungles' and other unique features as the local flora freezes and enters a hibernation phase. As a result of Deria's orbit, a single planetary year is almost 28 Earth years in length. Without altering the orbit of Deria itself, something not fesable, terraforming would have been impossible. | While New Mercia is tidally locked to Deria, and thus warmed by infra red radiation from the gas giant, less than a third of the ice-free land area is directly exposed. Known now as 'planetside,' this is an area of permanent tundra and taiga throughout the year with minor shifts in climactic conditions depending on the season, excluding the massive storms that occur throught the equatorial areas of the entire moon in the summer. The rest of the plant shows an extreme variance in weather patterns depending on the season; in the warmer months, large areas of land - most notably the Fuller Plateau - are almost tropical in termperature and experiance massive rainfall. In the winter, the majority of these areas freeze solid, leading to the creation of 'ice jungles' and other unique features as the local flora freezes and enters a hibernation phase. As a result of Deria's orbit, a single planetary year is almost 28 Earth years in length. Without altering the orbit of Deria itself, something not fesable, terraforming would have been impossible. | ||
| − | Nevertheless, in the late | + | Nevertheless, in the late 2090s, interest in settling the moon grew as speculative mineral surveys has revealed a geologically rich world ripe for exploitation. A colony expedition was eventually assembled and dispatched, but the nature of the original colonists would emerge as a permanent problem and the source of much of the trouble that followed over the next century. At the time, it was obivous that the colonisation drive was starting to lose steam if one knew where to look. As a result, many of those who wished to escape the grasp of the EU were joining any expedition they could find a place on. As a result, the expedition was considerably larger than expected, and the majority of the original colonists were leaving Earth specifically to escape the authority of the EU. |
At the time, this was not a large problem; the business of setting up a colony occupied the attention of all the settlers. The wild climate and weather of New Mercia had been well plotted before the colony left Earth, and many architects and designers had taken the opportunity to put their own pet theories and ideas as to how cities and colonies ''should'' be built into practice. The result was eventually a world of scattered arcologies linked with high speed maglev lines, but in the early years of the colony, the majority of the population lived inside prefab undergound shelters that had been prepared by automated drones despatched beforehand. | At the time, this was not a large problem; the business of setting up a colony occupied the attention of all the settlers. The wild climate and weather of New Mercia had been well plotted before the colony left Earth, and many architects and designers had taken the opportunity to put their own pet theories and ideas as to how cities and colonies ''should'' be built into practice. The result was eventually a world of scattered arcologies linked with high speed maglev lines, but in the early years of the colony, the majority of the population lived inside prefab undergound shelters that had been prepared by automated drones despatched beforehand. | ||
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Then came the Breakdown. | Then came the Breakdown. | ||
| − | |||
| + | Initial hopes that the cause would quickly be found and rectified faded within the first several months, leaving the EU administration and security forces isolated and spread thin. At the same time, New Mercians who has privately been sympathetic to the insurgents but unwilling to take direct action under the threat of an EU response started to participate openly. In early 2153, an open revolt siezed Whelworth arcology, subduing the EU security troops through sher wieght of numbers and sanding off a hastily organised attempt at recapture from teh authorities in Landing. A similar revolt in Highfoss failed, but only just, and it was increasingly clear that the colonial administration would be unable to maintain order. With attacks on EU troops increasing in intensity and number, and casualties mounting, the governor could see the writing on the wall. | ||
| + | |||
| + | There was no telling how long the Breakdown would last, and New Mercia would have been in a precarious situation in the best possible scenario; the outbreak of a civil war would have been disastrous. Three months aftr the Whelworth Revolt, Governor Galtierei summoned the Coloial Assembly to a constitutional convention intended to provide an interim, stable governmental structure until contact could be reestablished with the EU. The ultimate form that said constitution took was rather more extreme than Galtierei had expected, establishing a ceremonial monarchy and appointed aristocracy, as well as a bicameral parliament divided into Lords and Commons. Commentators at the time joked that the framers of the constitution had deliberately set out to re-create the British political structure of the early 21st century. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Whatever the case, the new government, free of the taint of association wtih the EU, was able to take the drastic actions required to prevent complete economic collapse. Widespread application of keynsian economics and inventic tax legislation went some distance to converting the economy from a nearly pure primary industrial resource base and an industrialised economy. While nobody was rich, nobody starved, and some areas of growth became self sustaining. | ||
| + | |||
| + | by 2162, however, the policy of robbing Peter to pay Paul was becoming unsustainable. New Mercia had demonstrated impressive growth figures, but large sectors of the economy had been created out of whole cloth over teh preceeding decade; compared to nothing, any growth would have been impressive. The tax base had expanded, but not enough to plug a massive hole in government finances, and internal credit markets were scraping the bottom of the barrel. The previous colonial administration had not held any foriegn currency reserves - and they would have been worthless in isolation in any case - and the whole house of cards was creaking alarmingly. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Thus, when the ZOCU diplomatic boat ''Kepler'' made the jump to the New Mercia system in 2163, ZOCU became the obvious solution to the problem. At the time, concern was already growing ovr the Magnates, and ZOCU had taken the decision to assemble a dedicated military command beyond the purely local units needed to deal with feral drones. New Mercia had not had even that problem, and was compeltely de-militarised, but the prospect of being even tangenitally involved in a war prompted the creating of a national military, initially based heavily on those EU troops that had been stranded on the planet a decade before. More importantly, Mercian economic policies had created a large pool of industry that had been underutilised, and was available to supply the Combined Militia and ZOCU in general. Limited shipping was a problem, but with ZOCU technical help, New Mercia dedicated the majority of it's theta dust production to interstellar transportation. Although still not exactly healthy, this shot in the arm revivified the nearly moribund New Mercian economy until recontact with the EU. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ====Recontact==== | ||
| + | |||
===Fiction=== | ===Fiction=== | ||
[[Voodoo Patrol]] | [[Voodoo Patrol]] | ||
Revision as of 04:40, 26 July 2010
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Sphere 2
Paths
Exp-1): Terraformable World
Exp-4): Artifact Rush (+100 CIP, +50 Wealth, +100 Dust, +30 Pop)
Exp-6): Extensive (+250 Dust, -50 PIP)
Exp-7): None (+60 Pop, +100 Wealth)
Exp-8): Datacore (+150 Applications, +1 Global Techlevel)
Exp-9): Routed (+10 SP)
Col-1): EU Arm (+5,000 military, +100 CIP, +100 PIP, +100 Dust)
Col-3): Outer Expanse (+120 Pop, +150 PIP, +100 CIP, +100 Wealth, +10 SP, +10 Transgene)
Col-3B): Headcount Increase Exercise (+60 Pop)
Col-3C): Primarily Primary Industry (+300 PIP, +200 Wealth, +120 Pop)
Col-3D): Stayed Home (+60 Pop, +100 CIP, +100 Wealth)
Col-7A): Warfare! (+2,500 military)
Col-7C): Full Scale War (+5,000 military, +Doctrines)
Break-1): Industrial Progression (+100 CIP, -100 PIP)
Break-3): Cut Off
Break-3C): Stand Alone Complex (+100 PIP, +100 CIP, +100 Wealth, +4 Logistics, +10,000 Military)
War-1): ZOCU Solidarity! (+7,500 Military, +100 Wealth, +200 Dust, +100 Theta)
War-6A): Never Forget (+100 PIP, +2,500 military, +Logistics, +Doctrines)
War-6B): Postwar Depression (+Logistics, +2,500 Military, +100 CIP, +200 PIP, -200 Wealth)
War-6C): Fight in the Jungle Near-Forests (++Morale, ++Ground Doctrines, ++Ground Application, -60 Pop)
Cur-1): Space Monarchy (+2,500 Military, +100 PIP, +20 Transgene, +1SP)
Population: +330
PIP: +900
CIP: +700
Wealth: +550
Delta Dust: +650
Theta Dust: +100
Applications: +150
Military: +37,500
Logistics:+6
Global Techlevel: +1
Morale: ++
Doctrines: ++
Ground Doctrines: ++
Ground Application: ++
Transgenics: +30
SP: +21
Tech Indexes
Global Technology Level: 19
Transgenics
General Information
New Mercia is one of several moons of the gas giant Deria in the Mintaka system. It is well known as a source of delta dust, owing to significant precursor deposits all over the planet, and for an extremely erratic climate with variations from extreme cold to tropical heat owing to the elliptical orbit of Deria and the tidally locked nature of New Mercia and it's planet. More recently a civil war, running concurrently with the larger ZOCU war, has made New Mercia infamous for extremely high civilian and military casualties, use of WMDs (particularly what has become known as the Mercian Zombie Plague), political extremism and disastrous overreaction.
Politically, the moon is divided between the Kingdom of New Mercia, the government that arose from the original UN/EU chartered colony, and the Federal Republic of Albion, the breakaway polity that is the result of the New Mercian Civil War. The Kingdom is a ZOCU member state, while the FRA is an EU affiliate. Also present is an ARROWs peacekeeping force, intended to enforce compliance with the ceasefire that brought an end to the Civil War. As both sides are well supplied with advanced weapons and the UN force small and under-equipped in comparison, the effectiveness of this attempt is low; raids by both sides are commonplace, although the forbidding mountain chains that for the boundary between the two polities make any large scale attempt at military action difficult and the well developed aerospace defence infrastructure of both nations makes leapfrogging their natural boundaries difficult, at best.
Geography
Arcologies
Landing Arcology
New Anglia Arcology
Highfoss Arcology
Tamwold Arcology
Whelworth Arcology
Windermere Arcology
History
Early History
New Mercia is one of the youngest colonies in the expanse, settled at the tail end of the last gasp of the EU's colonial expansion policy. Initially, the moon that would become New Mercia was passed over for colonisation due to it's extreme and variable climate; the gas giant Deria has an elliptic orbit, with two summers and two winters per year at perihelion and apehelion respectively.
While New Mercia is tidally locked to Deria, and thus warmed by infra red radiation from the gas giant, less than a third of the ice-free land area is directly exposed. Known now as 'planetside,' this is an area of permanent tundra and taiga throughout the year with minor shifts in climactic conditions depending on the season, excluding the massive storms that occur throught the equatorial areas of the entire moon in the summer. The rest of the plant shows an extreme variance in weather patterns depending on the season; in the warmer months, large areas of land - most notably the Fuller Plateau - are almost tropical in termperature and experiance massive rainfall. In the winter, the majority of these areas freeze solid, leading to the creation of 'ice jungles' and other unique features as the local flora freezes and enters a hibernation phase. As a result of Deria's orbit, a single planetary year is almost 28 Earth years in length. Without altering the orbit of Deria itself, something not fesable, terraforming would have been impossible.
Nevertheless, in the late 2090s, interest in settling the moon grew as speculative mineral surveys has revealed a geologically rich world ripe for exploitation. A colony expedition was eventually assembled and dispatched, but the nature of the original colonists would emerge as a permanent problem and the source of much of the trouble that followed over the next century. At the time, it was obivous that the colonisation drive was starting to lose steam if one knew where to look. As a result, many of those who wished to escape the grasp of the EU were joining any expedition they could find a place on. As a result, the expedition was considerably larger than expected, and the majority of the original colonists were leaving Earth specifically to escape the authority of the EU.
At the time, this was not a large problem; the business of setting up a colony occupied the attention of all the settlers. The wild climate and weather of New Mercia had been well plotted before the colony left Earth, and many architects and designers had taken the opportunity to put their own pet theories and ideas as to how cities and colonies should be built into practice. The result was eventually a world of scattered arcologies linked with high speed maglev lines, but in the early years of the colony, the majority of the population lived inside prefab undergound shelters that had been prepared by automated drones despatched beforehand.
The discovery of delta dust deposits was initially not of great import; many worlds possessed some seams of the precoursor nanocomputers. As more and more was discovered, however, it was clear that there were major deposits on New Mercia, and this was compounded by te discovery of a working posthuman data core in an otherwise dead spire. Interstellar companies and government agencies descended on the moon in droves, and the result was ultimately catastophic.
EU Administrative Period
Although theoretically the EU had always been the legal authority on the colony, they had been content to allow New Mercia to be relatively autonomous - the Colonial Assembly effectively appointed the Governor through 'reccomendations' to the EU, native concerns were mostly responsible for expanding resource exploitation and most Transtellars were involved as partners to local firms rather than in their own right. When the large corporations moved in proper after the dust find, they rapidly diversified their operations into more mundane mineral extraction and quite apart from denying local industries access to the new resource, actually drove many of them out of business. At the same time, the EU, having decided that such an important resource base required more scrutiny, began asserting it's legal authorities more strongly. The colonial Assembly was greatly reduced in power, and the Governor position filled with men and women more suited to creating a favourable environment for businesses, and less willing to listen to the requests of the colonists themselves.
As a result, New Mercians saw little benefit from the dust discovery, and many of them were actually worse off as the 'natural' local economy was crushed beneath the EU and it's corporate juggernaughts. The outcome was a vicious guerilla war, as the impoverished, disaffected and radical, finding that doing things the 'right way' simply resulted in them being ignored, decided to take matters into their own hands. Despite the enthusiasm of the 'freedom fighters,' they lacked skill and modern weapons. While the conflict was loud, very visible and attention grabbing, it was contained with relatively few troops, and public order was never threatened, despite the private sympathies many New Mercians held with the revolters.
Then came the Breakdown.
Initial hopes that the cause would quickly be found and rectified faded within the first several months, leaving the EU administration and security forces isolated and spread thin. At the same time, New Mercians who has privately been sympathetic to the insurgents but unwilling to take direct action under the threat of an EU response started to participate openly. In early 2153, an open revolt siezed Whelworth arcology, subduing the EU security troops through sher wieght of numbers and sanding off a hastily organised attempt at recapture from teh authorities in Landing. A similar revolt in Highfoss failed, but only just, and it was increasingly clear that the colonial administration would be unable to maintain order. With attacks on EU troops increasing in intensity and number, and casualties mounting, the governor could see the writing on the wall.
There was no telling how long the Breakdown would last, and New Mercia would have been in a precarious situation in the best possible scenario; the outbreak of a civil war would have been disastrous. Three months aftr the Whelworth Revolt, Governor Galtierei summoned the Coloial Assembly to a constitutional convention intended to provide an interim, stable governmental structure until contact could be reestablished with the EU. The ultimate form that said constitution took was rather more extreme than Galtierei had expected, establishing a ceremonial monarchy and appointed aristocracy, as well as a bicameral parliament divided into Lords and Commons. Commentators at the time joked that the framers of the constitution had deliberately set out to re-create the British political structure of the early 21st century.
Whatever the case, the new government, free of the taint of association wtih the EU, was able to take the drastic actions required to prevent complete economic collapse. Widespread application of keynsian economics and inventic tax legislation went some distance to converting the economy from a nearly pure primary industrial resource base and an industrialised economy. While nobody was rich, nobody starved, and some areas of growth became self sustaining.
by 2162, however, the policy of robbing Peter to pay Paul was becoming unsustainable. New Mercia had demonstrated impressive growth figures, but large sectors of the economy had been created out of whole cloth over teh preceeding decade; compared to nothing, any growth would have been impressive. The tax base had expanded, but not enough to plug a massive hole in government finances, and internal credit markets were scraping the bottom of the barrel. The previous colonial administration had not held any foriegn currency reserves - and they would have been worthless in isolation in any case - and the whole house of cards was creaking alarmingly.
Thus, when the ZOCU diplomatic boat Kepler made the jump to the New Mercia system in 2163, ZOCU became the obvious solution to the problem. At the time, concern was already growing ovr the Magnates, and ZOCU had taken the decision to assemble a dedicated military command beyond the purely local units needed to deal with feral drones. New Mercia had not had even that problem, and was compeltely de-militarised, but the prospect of being even tangenitally involved in a war prompted the creating of a national military, initially based heavily on those EU troops that had been stranded on the planet a decade before. More importantly, Mercian economic policies had created a large pool of industry that had been underutilised, and was available to supply the Combined Militia and ZOCU in general. Limited shipping was a problem, but with ZOCU technical help, New Mercia dedicated the majority of it's theta dust production to interstellar transportation. Although still not exactly healthy, this shot in the arm revivified the nearly moribund New Mercian economy until recontact with the EU.