Ortelius System

Only when the masses are reassured, can the country be at peace. Only when the country is at peace, can the leaders be relieved.
- Wen Jiabao

Error creating thumbnail: File missing

Contemporary flag of the Union of Allied Nations.

Overview

The Ortelius System lies deep within the volume of space known as Solitude, a sparsely populated and desolate region of about twenty star systems lying to the rimward of Sol. It contains two habitable planets, several gas giants, and a large number of settled asteroids and artificial highdwelling colonies that are presently controlled by the Union of Allied Nations, a supranational organization largely dominated by the powerful People's Democratic Republic of Galicia-Himyar.

The Pyramid in Bernartice

Ortelius is still very removed from the nearest regular trade routes, and did not resume contact with the rest of known space until the last fifty years as most of its own long range expeditions upon the rediscovery of fold technology ended in failure. Because of this the system still remains something of a backwater to the wider interstellar community, scarcely known and of little interest out amongst the more cosmopolitan worlds despite its not inconsiderable wealth and population.

For their own part the Ortelians themselves are not particularly prone to wanderlust, a trait that has been encouraged by their authoritarian government. Neither the UAN or the People's Republic are particularly eager to face the sort of social upheaval that might accompany wider contact with the civilizations beyond the clouds of the Oolong Nebula.

The Union

UAN Armed Forces
Genre: Socialist World Government

Following its final victory over the forces of the Renaissance Movement some fifty years ago, the People's Democratic Republic of Galicia-Himyar formalized its de-facto rule over the Ortelius System with the creation of the Union of Allied Nations (UAN) to administer the lesser states and space habitats that had fallen under its control. The UAN is a technologically advanced and highly centralized government that has overseen the post-war reconstruction and brought Galician socialism to the occupied territories. Although still under the firm control of the Popular Socialist Party, it has opened a new era of prosperity for the formerly war-torn system.

Error creating thumbnail: File missing

Marzanna

The series of conflicts that eventually led to the formation of the UAN began in 1779 NE, with the Great Revolution that saw the monarchy in Galicia-Himyar, one of the two superpowers on Isbanir, overthrown by the early Popular Socialists. The revolutionaries held off a counter-revolutionary movement and then waged two global wars against a rightest coalition led by Galicia's rival superpower, Bukovina. These wars proved to be for all their ferocity inconclusive and for most of the next century an uneasy peace settled in across the planet until both powers began to slowly but surely venture out into space.

Renaissance Offensive

This status quo was broken in early 1862 NE, when an early Bukovinan space probe confirmed that the mythical Counter Isbanir, long suspected by astronomers to actually exist, did indeed orbit on the far side of Ortelius concealed from Isbanir. While only a few fragments of the Old Culture's overtechnology had survived on Isbanir, grainy photos transmitted back by later probes revealed that considerable amounts of debris and likely artifacts remained in orbit of the newly rediscovered Marzanna. Everyone suspected that more must remain concealed under its cloudy atmosphere and the race was on. The People's Republic and the Bukovinian Coalition fought the First Space War before anyone managed to leave Isbanir's orbit, and the Second Space War before the first Bukovinian Astronaut landed on Marzanna in 1902 NE, followed by a Galician expedition a year later.

The space race brought about an period of unprecedented technological advancement for both superpowers as the small number of useful artifacts recovered from Marzanna spurred a wide range of new developments. Progress in automation and developments in asteroid and He3 mining promised to deliver previously unimaginable prosperity to the People's Republic's planned economy. Across the heavily defended borders in the Bukovinian sphere of influence, a new ideology began to take root. The Renaissance Movement, founded by one of the first Bukovinians to land on Marzanna, gained considerable influence among the rightest governments. Claiming to hold a vision for the future prosperity of humanity it pushed forward with alarmingly successful experiments in human genetic modification and cybernetic augmentation, the development of ESP, and creeping eugenics programs. Everywhere the remaining neutral countries fell under the sway of one side or the other as weapons were massed for another seemingly inevitable war.

In 1956 NE, after a series of border skirmishes, the Renaissance led coalition struck with all of its strength. Psychic supersoldiers and massive war machines led the charge, inflicting massive casualties on the forces of the People's Republic and its allies both in space and on Isbanir. Though early anti-nuclear defense systems prevented an atomic cataclysm, both sides lashed out at each other's population centers with conventional strategic bombardment and then chemical weapons. Millions died in the first few months of the war. But for all the fury of their initial assault, the conflict eventually turned against the Renaissance as the People's Republic's superior numbers and strategic planning allowed them to turn the tide.

After nearly two decades of fighting Galician forces eventually breached the Coalition's heartlands and drove the Renaissance from the ruin of Isbanir. They fought on for another twenty years in space with increasingly suicidal zeal, successfully crashing two resource satellites onto Isbanir before allied troops one by one reduced their strongholds scattered around the system and stormed their final headquarters on the surface of Marzanna. The war was largely over, but at a terrible cost. Such damage had been done that things resembled nothing less than the aftermath of the legendary catastrophe that had brought down the Old Culture over two thousand years before.

Central Military Commission

Reconstruction began shortly after the elimination of the last major Renaissance holdouts, as resources could at last be turned from the war effort back toward civilian projects. Cities were built anew, refugees resettled, infrastructure repaired. The Union of Allied Nations was established to oversee it all, and to bring order back to the lawless regions that had developed with the wartime collapse of most of the smaller national governments. What little remained of Bukovinia itself was partitioned. Local partisan resistance to the new world order was no match for the military machine that had won the Third Space War, nor were the sporadic attacks carried out by the last isolated Renaissance dead-end space forces out on the frontier.

By the present date of 2046 NE, most of the visible scars of the war have at last begun to vanish. UAN propaganda claims that a new golden age is at hand, and reality doesn't really disagree. But not everything is well, as the Union's early forays into the surrounding star systems with newly developed fold technology have not ended with universal success and contact with outside powers, other survivors of the ancient catastrophe, has left the UAN's leadership wondering what other enemies might wait out in the wider universe.

Geography and Information

The Big Board

Ortelius

A fairly unremarkable yellow dwarf. Orbited by six major planets.

Isbanir (Ortelius I)

After fifty years, Isbanir has mostly shaken off the last lingering effects of the impact winter caused by the two resource satellites crashed into it by Renaissance forces. It's now once again a pleasant temperate world with a highly urbanized population, though the occasional outbreak of trouble still occurs in the more remote regions and former coalition territories. Four orbital elevators link the surface to the orbiting resource satellites and highdwelling colonies. Isbanir has a single large moon.

Error creating thumbnail: File missing

Space Colonies

Popular Socialist Party of Isbanir

Although following the end of the war, elections have been held and a number of other sanctioned opposition parties are now tolerated, there's still no question that the Popular Socialists are still the dominant political force in the Ortelius System. The current incarnation of the party is somewhat more relaxed than it was during the war years, but it continues to keep a careful eye on dissidents and malcontents.

Marzanna

The Counter Isbanir is believed by historians and archaeologists to have been Old Culture's primary world in the Ortelius System, with Isbanir being a lesser colony that was thus spared the worst of the ancient catastrophe. Nothing today remains but a mostly dead world ravaged by radiation storms. Access to and information about Marzanna is strictly controlled by the UAN, and a number of warships and strategic defense satellites are permanently stationed over it.

Henrietta

The innermost of the gas giants orbiting Ortelius. Lacking the punishing radiation belts of larger Astraeus, Henrietta proved to be an excellent site for early He3 mining operations and its large number of orbiting highdwelling colonies make it the second most populated planet in the system.

Astraeus

The second and largest of Ortelius's gas giants, Astraeus was largely ignored during the early space age due to its deep gravity well and unforgiving radiation. Although advances in technology have made it possible to mitigate those problems, there has as of yet been no real push to develop it as an alternative to the already prosperous Henrietta. Scattered debris found around several of its moons suggests that it was however utilized by the Old Culture.

Rhea and Mnemosyne

The two smaller and outermost gas giants are both home to small garrisons of UAN troops, as several of their moons were used by Renaissance forces as bases during the last phases of the Third Space War. Rumors persist that more holdouts remain, either here or out hidden in the ice of the system's Kuiper Belt.

The Great Exigency

The mysterious cataclysm that destroyed the Old Culture. Believed to have occurred sometime before -200 NE, perhaps 2,500 years ago. Information about the Old Culture is largely speculative, but rumors persist amongst dissidents that the government is suppressing knowledge recovered by the early space expeditions and from the captured archives of the Renaissance Movement.