Geography

Sol and the Core

Solar Federation

From its capital in Geneva on earth, the Solar Federation rules the entirety of the Sol system and many of the near-Sol colonies. The Federation is hailed by its proponents as the best society earth has ever seen, fighting poverty, oppression and war like no previous political system has and, in the view of some, the last government Humanity will ever need.

Its critics however regard it as a device by which Earth and Mars transhuman elites rule humanity. This is due to the system of exams and tests that control appointment to the higher levels of Sol Fed Bureaucracies, the military and other civil service (and most business) positions. These tests are almost impossible for most “normal” humans to pass, but are much easier for the increasingly common transhumans.

While the civilian government remains democratic, the civil service, military and upper echelons of business are now dominated by transhumans. Humans and transhumans are rated into an ability letter, drawn from the exam system, from F (usually normal humans) to S (the highest grade of transhuman) with S Class being given positions of extreme power and responsibility; this has led to accusations of the development of a new nobility in Sol that bypasses the old democratic system with back-channel dealmaking between the new lords of creation.

Despite this, most people are happier, richer and less likely to be a victim of violence than they were before, and the Sol Fed remains very popular even among its lowest-ranked citizens.

INTACT

The Independent Tactical Armoured Counter Terrorism unit. The Solar Federation's mecha-SS, FBI and Homeland Security all rolled into one.

Solar Federation Space Force

The 'big stick' of the Solar Federation. While they lack the individual expertise and effectiveness of INTACT ships and pilots, the Solar Fleet has a lot of battleships.

Solar Federation Army and Air Force

Mostly deployed in Sol, but also has substantial garrisons in certain areas of the verge. The Federation army and airforce are heavily equipped, but often make use of large numbers of older designs, especially in the verge.

Solar Federation Navy and Marines

Mostly deployed in Sol, but have small presences in the verge on worlds where oceans are important.

Tenshi Corp

A newcomer to the economic landscape of the Solar Federation, Tenshi corp has gone from an obscure think tank to a techno-industrial juggernaut in a single generation. Supplying cutting-edge equipment to various arms of the SolFed they have won contract after contract and swiftly became a fundamental component of the SolFed's military-industrial complex. This has spawned incessant speculation ranging from the plausible (bribery on a vast scale to various Senate members) to the outlandish (the Seraphim are secretly mind-controlling the Senate and various important military figures with alien technology).

The Engo

The earliest of what are today considered 'high transhumans', the Engo are some of the most influential and rich individuals in the Solar Federation. Which is fortuitous, because they are small in numbers - less than 10,000 exist, mostly in their floating city of Glakurant. The Engo are organized into about two dozen families - styled as Houses - each of which takes their name after a heraldic animal with examples like House Wolf, House Eagle, House Falcon, House Mustang, etc.

Verge

States

White Rose Kingdom

A political dynasty stretching over several star systems with its capital on the ocean world of Godford. As the name implies, the White Rose is a monarchy, with an elected lower house and has existed for decades as an oligarchical ruler of many millions of colonists. Now equipped with large numbers of second-line mecha and substantial political support from the Solar Federation, the White Rose is a rising contender amongst the multitude of distant colonies at the edges of SolFed space. In truth, the White Rose is little more than a client state of the Federation. The recent assassination of the crown prince by assailents unknown has thrown the Kingdom into a panic however, and witch hunts have begun to root out the regicides.

Bharat Commonwealth

One of the most populous extra-solar polities, Bharat is the result of a major Indian colonization effort. Facing substantial environmental degradation and continual overpopulation in the late 21st century the Indian government seized on the opportunity to ship people offworld into virgin territory. Unfortunately old, old cultural norms die hard and, isolated between the closure of the first-generation wormholes and the arrival of the slowboats with second-generation wormhole termini, transhuman technology reshaped Bharat's culture. By the middle of the 22nd century Bharat had solidified into a transgenic caste-based society, with higher castes having superior augmentations.

The Solar Federation's adoption of the placement tests and the resulting classification of its citizens into various grades of transhumanism was portrayed by its detractors as a partial step towards the caste system of Bharat, to the consternation of many Solar politicians. Many will indignantly claim that they place people based on ability, not give people abilities based on placement. Overtly negative comparisons were often hallmarks of the late 22nd century, though as the populace became used to the policy and Bharat officially aligned itself with the Solar Federation the practice faded.

Republic of Cygnus

The Republic of Cynus is named after the binary star system 16 Cygnus where its first wormhole and capital was placed. Colonized predominantly by the ASEAN block was fairly prosperous and a stable ally of the Solar Federation. Transgenic technology flowed freely and many parents took the opportunity to augment their children. Unfortunately, sectarian disputes and inefficiently applied genetic-economic incentives marred this stability. These would have been the simple colonial growing pains that all new nations went through had their peak not coincided with the System War. Attacks by Jovian raiders on the helium scoops in 16 Cygni and the subsequent destruction of the graviton condensory in Theta Cygni plunged the Republic of Cynus into an energy crisis. While at first the citizens drew together, social and ethnic faultlines soon began to fissure. Uprisings began as lower classes with inferior or no augmentation marched for better programs. Sectarian disputes blossomed into sectarian violence. Forgotten grievances were dusted off and trotted out. The military had to step in to restore order.

Thirty years later, it still is. Rabble-rousers and militants vanished into the poorly mapped wilds and heavy-handed attempts to control the situation failed to make a lasting impression. The vicious infighting that nearly tore the Republic apart was eventually contained but at the cost of many civil liberties. Today the Republic of Cygnus is a distorted mirror of the Solar Federation, with transhumans in all key positions in both the civil and military spheres and a government dominated not by civilian officials, but military ones. A focus on the capital and other important systems has let insurgents dig themselves in on several outlying systems which has not endeared the central government to the locals. The Solar Federation maintains ties with the Republic of Cygnus, though pundits question the benefits these bring to the Federation.

League of Outer Stars

The largest Verg bloc, the League of Outer Stars is a dominantly baseline polity that existed as a loose trading group in the 22nd century. It was the System War that really caused the development of the League of Outer Stars however, as various independent colonists who traded with one side or the other faced punitive raids, unrestricted warfare on commerce and other malaises. This caused several of the stronger independent colonies to band together into the League of Outer Stars, a diverse group committed to the goal of keeping the colonies free of Sol’s interference or control.

In the post war world, the League watches the new Solar Federation with suspicion and continues to build up its military forces, ready for a possible confrontation. Many of these military forces are based around mobile dolls, automated mobile suits operating independent of human guidance, which the League’s Space Armada plans to use in vast numbers to counter Earth’s high end transhuman pilots.

Sagittan Union

The Sagittan Union is a multi-national organization that has its roots mostly in the 21st century northern hemisphere long-range colonization missions, centered around one of the Jovian first-generation wormholes and the subsequent radiation outwards from that. While having a strong transgenic population like the Solar Federation, the Union differs in having a much stronger socialist slant, the policy of subsidizing upgrades dating back to the isolation period. Some outside observers would expect the Federation and the Union to be natural allies, however the latter's tacit support and cooperation with the Jovian faction, including the sheltering of various refugees and former soldiers has led to a de facto state of cold war between the two.

The Union has a well-developed technology sector, thanks to both the large fraction of transhumans in the population and the work of a number of prominent Jovian scientists relocated in the aftermath of the System War. No amount of technical development could bridge the immense gap in material resources though, and like most Verge polities the Sagittan worlds range from populated and advanced first-stage colonies dating to the turn of the 22nd century to frontier worlds of less than a million people.

Outremonde Republic

Outremonde was a dissapointment of a world and a stark demonstration of the limits of remote sensing in the late 21st century. While 'habitable' with a reasonably breathable oxy-nitro atmosphere, Outremonde had a climate far more disagreeable than anticipated. Nonetheless a wormhole was a substantial investment and its European backers laboured to make the most of it. Tailored bacteria was cultured and fired into the oceans and lakes by the kiloton and workers braved the blizzards to construct the fortress-cities that would become the halmark of Outremonde. Enticed by the promise of full employment and generous settlement credits tens of millions braved the interstellar gulfs to settle on Outremonde. Additional wormholes were sent out towards promising nearby worlds for secondary colonization efforts - this time with proper FTL surveying beforehand.

Unavoidably cut off when the direct wormhole to Sol was closed, like the rest of the Verge Outremonde had its own period of 'glorious isolation' cut cruelly short by the unforeseen collapse of part of the orbital soletta network tempering Outremonde's climate. This and later crisises against exhuman raiders solidified the strong central Outremondian government and led to the commissioning of the first warships for the Outremendian Fleet and the formalization of military and political ties with its daughter colonies. Seeing itself as something of the heir to the ideals of the 21st century European Union, over the past half-century the Republic has watched the developments surrounding the Solar Federation with something approaching alarm, concerned with both the hierarchal transgenics and the militarism. To this end they have taken steps to protect themselves, commissioning via the One Man Army program a series of overtechnology-powered mecha; the Doppelsöldners, vastly oversized machines with incredible firepower.

Ignis

One of the outer most slowboat colonies, Ignis was recently rediscovered by Federation explorers. What they found was a shock. Despite technology on the whole far less advanced than the Federation, Ignis possessed a series of unique energy sources based on elements found in the planets crust. Unfortunately for those looking for easy exploitation of the planet, Ignis's various coalitions are currently (and perpetually) locked in a series of bitter rivalries, cold and hot wars, which makes exploitation of the planet hazardous to say the least. The Federation is considering deploying a large peace enforcement army to Ignis to settle things but as of yet do not feel themselves ready for the major war this would entail.

Lizport

A space colony established in orbit of a brown dwarf as a technical evasion of various gambling, vice and prostitution laws of the nearby Republic of New Abkazia which has since turned into a failed planetary state. Lizport on the other hand has grown into a notorious den of scum and villainy.

Groups

The Red Dogs

Transgenic mercenaries for hire. Possibly with an all-girl fanservice brigade.

Tensor Corp

Shady technology and shipbuilding conglomerate. Probably has a pyramidal HQ.

Neo-Jovian Factions

The Gotto Faction

The surviving faction of the second Neo-Jovian War, the Gotto faction is equipped with high technology but right now, most of its cells are in hiding and ill equipped. It is known to control one of the few full sized mobile suit production facilities still in Neo-Jovian hands. This doesn't seem to

The Washington Faction/Interstellar Army of Freedom

Based on Alpha Centauri Freedom Fighters. Has a large mobile suit corps but few combat ships

The Yoshimoto Faction/Combined Extra-Solar Fleet

Based around the old extra-Solar Fleets. Large numbers of ships (though mostly obsolete) and several of its own mecha designs.

The Raskanos Fleet

Survivors of the mostly gutted Raskanos Fleet. They have numerous strange weapons collected on the verge, and quite a few weapons bought from the League. Most of them however are very dead and the fleet is a shadow of its former self and in need of leadership.

Others

The Seraphim

A pro-trangenic organization shrouded in mystery, the Seraphim were originally part of the Space Independence Alliance until their defection from the Jovian cause, bringing vital military plans and codes that ultimately lead to the decisive defeat of their earstwhile allies by the Solar Federation. Today the Seraphim have been accepted by the inhabitants of Sol and now reach through every aspect of the Solar Federation. Their influence is felt from the very tip of the spear, in INTACT field units, to every aspect of the defense industry. Seraphim personnel comprise a larger percentage of the SolFed military every year, and their presence in the defense industry through Tenshi Corp, unknown a generation ago, has ballooned enormously, rendering them by many estimates the single largest defense contractor in known space. Their overt assets range from core worlds, to Sol itself, to hundreds of distant outposts bent on research and discovery in the name of their insular leaders.

Rifters

'Going beyond the Aquila Rift' has become slang for baselines departing the Solar Federation's power pyramid where many feel disenfranchised by a system based in part on genetic valuation. While the early Federation was quite happy to see the backs of malcontents and nonconformists, in modern times there is the opinion that letting so many groups with real or imagined grudges against the Federation depart has proven to be a manifestly poor idea. The addition of various ex-Jovian forces, up to and including main-line (if obselescent) warships has brought an extra urgency to those voices clamoring to 'deal with the Rifter problem'.

Exhumans

The Exhumans are, like Rifters, primarily made up of individuals or small groups that left the constraints of 'civilized' space. However, unlike Rifters which primarily left to escape the Solar Federation's pyramidal power structure, Exhumans instead sought to augment themselves beyond human limits via both transgenic and cybernetic technologies outside of the Solar Federation's monopoly on the techniques. Espousing any number of personal philosophies ranging from the Will to Power to radical libertarianism to violent revolution to simple greed they are thankfully mostly found in the outer rim.

History

Timeline

2050s: New gravitational and structural physical theories point to the possibility of traversable wormholes and gravity control.
2060s: Human augmentation and transgenics become common, early rejuvenation therapies introduced. Countergravity introduced, which while bulky and crude, bring the cost of spacelift down to that of air travel. Start of the second space age and Mars Colonization.
2080s: Development of wormhole technologies, resulting in static traversable wormholes and continuous-wormhole drives. Due to the limitations of the latter, ships with CWDs are used to seed static wormhole mouths for conventional passage.
2090s: Interstellar colonization begins, and is the main release for the various social forces remaking the nations and institutions of the Earth. The Great Diaspora.
2060s-2100s: Various local conflicts, ideological shifts and disruptions due to unfettered use of emergent technologies chaotically reshape the Earth.
2120s: Long-term stability issues with first generation wormholes become apparent and second generation wormholes are sent out at sublight speeds. All first generation wormholes destabilized and closed to physical traffic by the end of the decade, politically isolating more distant colonies.
2130s: First recorded instance of an iteratively improving human-AI hybrid (a 'posthuman'), outside of Solar-policed space. Machine Scare.
2150s: Development of the 'Tunnel drive'. While still cumbersome it nonetheless allows a certain freedom from the use of wormhole transit for bulk transports and colony ships. Second Diaspora, primarily by small groups, sometimes little more than family-sized.
2160s: Off-Earth colonies in the Solar system struggle for sovereign recognition, start of long-simmering disputes between Earth and the Jovians (so named because the Jovian environs was the primary wormhole nexus).
2120s-2180s: 'Isolation Era' in the Verge and Rim; growth of strong national identities in extrasolar colonies.
2180s: Seraphim Organization founded around Saturn, at the time a research group for Nephilim techologies and artifacts. Neuroquantum Aleph Effect discovered and reverse-engineered, is seeded into the Solar gene pool.
1 TE (2201): Charter of the Solar Federation signed, covering all worlds connected to Sol by wormholes as of 2185; Founding of the Solar Federation. UN dissolved.
4 TE (2204): Algendi War; Solar Fleet officially formed from the merger of pre-Federation national fleets.
9 TE (2209): Transgenic Tests standardized; seen as the start of de facto control of the Federation by Terran transhuman elites.
19 TE (2219): Disputes between the Terrans and Jovians finally spill over into a proclamation of succession by the Jovians, resulting in the System War. The Jovians are eventually defeated and re-absorbed into the Solar Federation.
29 TE (2229): Martian Insurrection
30 TE (2230): First Neo-Jove War (Second Solar War)
2220s: Solidification of various mutual defense alliances among outer rim worlds as security bulwarks against the Solar Federation. Mop-up operations in several Jovian-aligned worlds to root out holdouts. Adoption of 'imperial' policy by Solar Federation.
38 TE (2238): Alpha Centauri War
41 TE (2241): White Rose Succession Conflict begins
42 TE (2242): Second Neo-Jove War
47 TE (2247): White Rose Succession Conflict ends
48 TE (2248): Current Day.

The Solar Wars

The Federation was established peacefully, but it was not maintained through peace. Thirty years ago, in the year nineteen of the newly declared Transtellar Era the Space Independence Alliance formed primarily of the stations around Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune, rebelled and attempted to gain their independence from the Federation. The first phase of the war saw intense use of WMD by both sides, including large numbers of flung asteroids. However the level of destruction caused were so vast that both sides agreed to cease such attacks, and the remains of the war was waged in conventional fashion. This has led to a lasting disgust of further WMD use by both Federation and even Neo-jovian forces that has persisted to this day, and caused large scale environmental damage to Earth and Mars, which is still being corrected.

The war was eventually settled after Saturn, led by the Seraphim organization, defected to the Federation cause in exchange for various concessions. Following this defection, the Federation fleets pushed to Jupiter, and forced an end to the rebellion.

Numerous raids and battles took place beyond Sol, and many colonies were attacked by one side or the other. In general the Solar War marked not just the beginning of the outer system's struggle for independence from the inner, but the struggle for Colonial Independence from Sol.

The Martian Insurrection

Mars was heavily affected by the Solar Wars, and suffered extensive damage to it's terraforming project. In the wake of the Solar War, the martian leadership became increasingly extreme, and gave rise to various military cliques and social movements determined to prevent any weakness from growing in the federation. In TE 29, units formed of officers from these cliques attempted a coup against the Federation government, taking control of Geneva and various orbital platforms. Opposition came from the newly formed INTACT and Seraph controlled Saturnian Defense Force, which was the coup d'etat forces primary target.

Heavy fighting gripped Sol for six months before the Insurrectionists were finally suppressed. Unfortunately for the Federation however, the resulting purge of disloyal elements from the military significantly weakened its power. Beyond the system, this was what other groups had been waiting for.

The First Neo-Jovian War

Those forces still loyal to the ideals of the Outer System Alliance, together with movements dissatisfied with Federation control of the inner colonies had been waiting for just such an opportunity as the Martian Insurrection, and now they moved against the Federation both in Sol and elsewhere. Under the control of the charismatic Jovian Admiral Alicia Malvin, large numbers of Neo-Jovian ships entered Sol and for the first time, manged to land combat forces on Earth. Despite their initial success however, the Neo-Jovian forces were unable to cope with the Federation's vast industrial base, and, unable to fully secure the Solar System's main planets, were eventually forced to retreat. The Federation pursued them with full force, and the Neo-Jovian main fleet was eventually destroyed at the battle of Point Zeta Five.

The Alpha-Centauri War

The Federation did not forget Alpha-Centauri's role in the First Neo-Jovian War. For a long time the independent minded Alpha-Centauri colonists had supported secession movements within Sol as a means of ensuring their own Independence. In supporting the Neo-Jovians who had hurt the Federation so sorely however, they had gone a step too far. In the year Thirty Eight of the Transtellar Era, its losses from the Martian Insurrection and the Neo-Jovian War made good, the Federation turned its full weight upon them. In the brief Alpha-Centauri War,the entire Alpha-Centauri system bought into the Federation as a protectorate. Remaining Centaurian units fled into the verge to join up with the Neo-Jovian resistance.

Second Neo-Jove War

The Alpha-Centauri war was by no means the end of the Federation's push beyond Sol. While the first Neo-Jove War was one of aggression against Sol, the Second Neo-Jove war saw the Federation move aggressively to hunt down remaining Neo-Jovian units and bases. One base and colony fell after another, and despite several local offensives any prospect of resisting the Federation short of Sagittan or League intervention seemed doomed.

Two people would change that: Alexandra Raskanos and Maximilian Goto. In Fourty-Two TE, these two war era aces and the rebuilt Jovian flagship Entebbe united the remaining Jovian forces and led a series of daring raids and counter offensives against the Federation's forces, taking advantage of the political distraction of the White Rose falling upon itself. Again and again they managed to elude Federation pursuit and strike one blow after another against the Federation's war making capacity. The Federation's offensive began to run down.

Finally however, their luck ran out. The Entebbe was lost in an ambush by an INTACT flotilla led by the Cruiser Calais at the battle of Juniper Point and Goto's forces were forced to retreat to a secret fortress somewhere on the Rim.

The Neo-Jove movement approaches its lowest point.

The White Rose Succession War

Salvation came from an unlikely place. The White Rose Kingdom, long the Federation's most loyal and prosperous out system territory suffered a sudden and violent power struggle. In Foury One TE, the old King, Siegfried II died unexpectedly, stabbed to death by one of his lovers in a fit of jealousy. This left his two children, his daughter by his first wife, Lilian, and Rudolf his son by his second wife, struggling for the crown. While Lilian was the older, Rudolf was known to have been the old king's favorite, and produced documents that he claimed proved that Siegfried had named him as successor.

Soon the clash between royal children escalated to all out war as militias and army units loyal to each branch of the family clashed for control. The Federation was flat footed by these events, soon found itself drawn into a major crisis. Federation officials hummed about which of the two claimants they supported, and by the time action was taken to support Lilian, the White Rose's magnificent army had thoroughly turned on itself. The Federation found itself with one of the toughest fights yet, trying both to stem the tide of Rudolf's forces, but also avoid massive damage to a major ally.

It took the Federation till TE 47 to finally bring the situation under control, and install Lilian on the throne. After his defeat, Rudolf was exiled and drunk himself to death. However rumors say his eldest daughter still lives.

For now, hunting the Neo-Jovians would take a back seat to rebuilding their shattered ally, and retrenching across the Verge. The heart had been torn from the Neo-Jovian movement at Juniper Point, and now there was all the time in the world to rebuild.

Or so the Federation thought.

Technical Briefing

Wormholes
Static wormholes are the arteries of interstellar commerce. With their individual termini moved between stars at slower-than-light speeds - an arduously expensive decades-long process - and then inflated on arrival they are the superhighways of space. Internal distance of a wormhole can be greatly reduced, compressing the distance from light-years to light-seconds and making convenient travel possible.

A typical wormhole has a throat ~200 meters in diameter through which all things - physical and energy - must pass. Internal gravity gradients will push anything passing along into the middle of the channel, conveniently keeping them from (dangerously) hitting the stressed space-time that makes up the inner walls. All wormhole mouths will be surrounded by a ring of hardware to anchor them. As wormholes are only metastable, energy must be added to them on a semi-regular basis to keep them stable and traversable, generally directly relative to how long they are and their compression factor (ie, the relative difference between internal and external length).

As ships cannot easily pass one another in a wormhole, most cycle directionality every 24 hours, allowing ships to pass through from one side and then the other. Thus wormholes are a natural chokepoint and most will have dozens of cargo ships large and small waiting by each terminus for the next opportunity to fly through.

Phase Compression Motors
The so-called 'Mercurion Drive' was originally a Jovian black project to improve on the tried and tested fusion motors in used at the time. Luckily for the Solar Federation only a few test articles were complete before the war's end; unfortunately for the Solar Federation, these and the scientific team responsible fled via the last Jovian-controlled wormholes into friendly Verge states. The major Verge states sitting in opposition to the Solar Federation were fertile ground for advanced technology and eventually they stole a march on the Federation and introduced the technology into regular military service ahead of the larger but more conservative Solar power.

Nicknammed 'glitterblowers' due to the spacetime transients generated as a side-effect of their operation, phase compression motors are the first effective reactionless propulsion system. Earlier technologies such as vaccum-plasma thrusters were interesting cases but had hugely inferior propulsive efficiency to fusion rockets.

Now

News Items

-Foreign Minister Wo continues his tour of the verge

-Major Federation involvement confirmed in the ongoing fighting in the Cygnus Worlds

-Pirate Group employees advanced "Shield Maiden" mobile weapons in the verge, Sagitarian Combined Militaries vow a strong response.

-War Criminal Major Morgana LaCroix reappears on the verge. Admiral de-Gemein says that this time she will not escape.

-Major Terrorist Attack on Oddventure claims the lives of several Federation officials.

-Heavy fighting on Yalan's Drift, the Cygnus Federation's most economically important planet

-White Rose Kingdom announces the deployment of forces to assist the Federation in the Cygnus Worlds.

Intelligence

-There's a graveyard with a bunch of old mobile weapons around the Federation outpost near the Gas giant Tangerine.

-Minister Wo is visiting Port Glory

-Captured Neo-Jovians are being held in a large black site on Ubrex.

-A large amount of valuables from Cygnus's upper classes are being shipped out of the war zone in a convoy running near the world of Thulus

-A large blackmarket auction of mobile suits is taking place on Pelpes.

-The Federation is shipping large amounts of advanced weapons to the White Rose Kingdom via Gilman

Jobs needed

-A bounty of (5 credit units) is posted on the head of Foreign Minister Wo.

-Cygnus rebels need mobile suits (any that can be found)

-General bounty on advanced Federation models to be delivered to Neo-Jovian high command.

-Won Foundation offers bounty for any mobile suits delivered to it for new operations

-No give them to us you jerks! Cygnus Free Army

-Cygnus Free Army requests aid from all freedom loving people on Yalan's Drift.

-CESF need independent group to facilitate acquiring necessary resources.

Rise of Neo-Jove Background and Politics

Contents