User:Bossmuff

The Daedalus Republic Work in Progress

Name: The Daedalus Republic Concept: Technological Empire, built on the ruins of a former colony.

Overview: The Daedalus Republic’s formation was a long and harrowing process. Like whittling a carving out of wood, much was sheared away in its early formative years, leaving the remains of old factions and civil wars to lay about their world like fallen shavings. What was left was a harsh image, scarred and perhaps flawed, but ultimately the product of its history.

The Early Years – The Sculptor’s Stone

The initial mission began in 2089 as a private colonization effort by baseline manufacturer Fredrick Derringer, financed by a transgene faction known as the Kentwich Configuration, in order to fulfill their prodigious need for raw materials. A mining colony, composed almost entirely of baselines, was set up on the distant world Minos at the end of year. Factories were built, and production soared at the wealth of minerals. With the discovery of significant delta dust reserves in the mountainous regions, Minos’ colony expanded and grew. When the Kentwich finally sent their inspector, he found a prosperous collection of heavy-mining facilities, dust refineries, and a burgeoning economy. His report was stellar, remarking upon Derringer’s initiative and the colony’s output.

The Kentwich-Minos Conflict and the Daedalus Program

Had the colony been left to itself, it probably would have been content to construct ships and other materials for the Kentwich on Earth. However, local Earth politics, coupled with heavy anti-transhuman sentiments in the Kentwich native Europe, caused most of their earthbound resources to dwindle. The Kentwich Configuration decided that it would be more beneficial to move their operations to Minos, seeing how it was a solid production base. The colony received a heavy migration, this time of Kentwich transgenes, led by Director Antone Royhaver. New cities were built to contain the new population, and production was further expanded with in influx of new workers and innovators. Overall, it consisted of roughly 76% of Kentwich transgene and baseline personnel, with the remainder restructuring Earth assets to adapt to the changing economy back home.

But what should have been an industrial boom turned out to be an eruption of a different kind. The Kentwich, used to administration, quickly displaced many of the baseline leaders through a combination of their potent mental skills and general corporate bullying. The baseline population was used to doing things their own way; the prospect of losing their autonomy did not sit well with them.

Tensions rose with alarming speed, with stories of riots, brutal oppression, and even acts of sabotage abounding. A baseline resistance movement formed in secret, in response to the Kentwich Configuration, hoping to prevent transgene interests from dominating the entire Minos sphere, removing baselines from the equations. The Kentwich responded by tightening their grip, cracking down on activism and pushing harder laws that benefit their interests. Various anti-Kentwich groups began to form, eventually entering into communication with each other in an attempt to outmaneuver their augmented overseers.

From a modern perspective, it is unclear on who was in the right, or who pushed things too far. Kentwich interests were purely corporate; they wanted to be in charge of the organization they had formed and dispatched, and to rebuild their old power on Minos. Their tactics were mostly peaceful and legal, using their superior individual strengths to supplant baseline leaders. The baselines, however, had been given their freedom under the assumption of self-governance, and the transgenes’ forced intrusion into every echelon of society left many owners and leaders in a dangerous position, or even no position at all. Faced with manipulative tactics, they turned to subversive practice to maintain their freedom, some even involving figures of sinister disposition and unscrupulous practice, which sent ripples with every character assassination, hostile takeover, and mysterious disaster. Attempts to combat these were done with care, as to not provoke open war – a prospect neither side, with their heavy stakes in the social system, were enthused by – but in the end only served to frighten and enrage the populace more in their confusion.

The war began quiet, and remained just barely so – it became a war of corporate and industrial espionage. Information warfare became the chief weapon of both sides, and with it, the Minos commercial climate began to shift towards computers and data technology. As the colony grew, more area became contested, and the new developments fueled a war of technology – one that eventually led to the conflict’s explosive end.

Chemical 25

There isn’t any consistent account of the first deployment of Chemical 25. It is generally attributed to Dr. Hammond Blaine, a transgene biologist and chemist, though the exact team that developed the compound has been lost. The name itself is a bit of a misnomer; the chemical itself is added to a local bacterial strain, which spreads the chemical as it infects the body.

Its effects, however, are quite well known, particularly in some of the planets’ abandoned zones, where the frothing sufferers still rampage about, clawing at each other in a frenzy.

Chemical 25’s effects sprung up throughout baseline populations, dozens of people at a time driven into a chemically-provoked berserker rage. Murders tripled in the span of a year. Hospitals were overloaded both with the victims of these massacres and with the madmen themselves. The baseline leaders instigated massive quarantines and tests, attempting to isolate the spread of the affliction. This didn’t prove effective, as new outbreaks seemed to occur at random. The most tragic event was in Belgrade City, where a widespread outbreak led to frenzied rioting, property damage, and military involvement that left thousands dead.

Rumours about chemical warfare, local strains, and smuggling spread about, leading to more than one instance of violence. The baseline population, in their irritation, was more than eager to look to the Kentwich for answers, or a culprit.

More startlingly, local transgenes were quickly discovered to be largely immune to Chemical 25’s effects, barring a few isolated Kentwich variants. This aroused suspicions that the plague was transgene in origin, and this was further exacerbated by Kentwich transgenes laying claim to all victims and sites of contamination, making effort to exclude most baseline authorities. While they sited their immunity as reason they should be trusted with the clean-up, many baselines felt they were being lied to, as no conclusive data was given to them. Acts of corporate espionage increased, and true resistance forces – spies, hackers and even trained special operatives – began to blossom.

The Death of Catherine Brahms and The Breakdown:

Chemical 25 became the fulcrum of the Minos conflict. Most baseline groups suspected their transgene neighbors, while Kentwich transgenes accused the increasingly-aggressive resistance movements. The planet reeked of conspiracy, with unanswered questions about the new epidemic, how it was spread, and who created it (no-one claimed it was natural for very long). Amid the many deaths, one became the final straw, notable for being neither a Kentwich transgene nor a Minos Baseline.

Kentwich were well aware of their situation – they were faced with a wide-spread, well-established baseline population that blamed them for the attacks. They decided that trading their mineral wealth with other colonies would increase local prosperity, assuaging the wounded masses; not to mention that it would foster alliances they could turn too, should war break out. Negotiations were opened, and deals made, and fruit seemingly sprang forth from the distant world of Haraway.

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