Five Additional Ideas for Sponsors in Beyond Earth

75 Years before the advent of the advent of the Great Mistake, the top scientific and political minds concluded that if the current pathway that humanity was taking was not diverted, utter catastrophe would occur. The warnings were to fall upon deaf ears as the leaders of the world were not going to heed their advice. Knowing of the forthcoming doom, and with the additional knowledge that both land and food were to become a precious commodity - great minds from all around the world fled to Greenland to set up something of a technocratic alliance founded upon the basis that humanity must endure at all costs.

Under the leadership of charismatic the Ngangkali Punari, a philosopher and political scientist of Aboriginal Australian descent - scientists, historians, artists and academics alike abandoned their respective homelands and fled with their families to the coastal city of Nuuk. It was in this frost writhed port, where the snow blanketed down - That The Athena Society was born. Named after the Greek goddess of knowledge and wisdom - the Society were to be the beacon of hope for all of humanity. Under pressure from the rest of the World, the Danish government handed over the entirety of Greenland to the Society. Further inland, the settlers established outposts, immune from the frost, which later blossomed into thriving scientific and artistic hubs.
Using funding from World Governments under the guise of using it for scientific research for the betterment of humanity, Ngangkali Punari or 'Cloud Father' and his colleagues were actually training their prodigies to use new, highly developed weaponry systems - so as to protect the Collective from outside interests in addition to their groundbreaking research.
For the next 20 years, Scientists scoured the globe with great haste - preserving as much of the natural world that they could find. They built a vast library of DNA and Seeds alongside deep bunkers filled to the brim with all the knowledge of mankind. All in preparation for what was to come - the Great Mistake.

Political tensions were strained the world over... Land was now scarce and food supply was running horrendously low. The Food Banks and Seed Vaults in Svalbard were raided, however the Athena Society were protected, and the Athena Society were prosperous.

For in the 40 years leading up to the Great Mistake - they new what was coming where everyone else were blind. They had built something of an empire. Like Polystralia, using their vast supplies of food, they traded with the world governments to build immense wealth. This wealth would essentially fund scientific advancement and weapons development, much to the chagrin of other world factions. They began to fear the Athena Society - especially for what they knew. Knowledge is power, and the Collective built an empire based on just that.

They, as a peoples were essentially unaffected by the Great Mistake, but they saw the destruction that it had caused and left in it's wake. It was only going to get worse than this from here.
It was then that Ngangkali Punari looked to the clouds and said to his people "humanity must endure at all costs".
The Athena Society knew that it was time. Time to go Beyond Earth...

Devon Crow is insane. At least, that's what every other faction leader will tell you, and Crow helps the image along whenever he can. "The biggest problem I've ever faced," he said on his sole international TV interview, "was the day I had to decide whether to be Alexander, Castro, or Jesus. I chose all I three." Crow's like a Robin Hood, if Robin Hood had tanks. An outlaw, a conquer, and a revolutionary. To to the people he leads, he's nothing short of a messiah. He's the ultimate wildcard of leaders.

In his younger years Crow was an actor, a movie star, world famous and filthy rich at the age of 23. The next year he turned terrorist, using his fortune to build his own rebel army out of the world's dissatisfied minorities: Native Americans, Migrant Workers, Muslim Americans, Christian Arabs; people everywhere who didn't fit into the new world flocked to the charismatic ex-actor, and to his promise of a world built just for them. Through guerrilla wars and terrorism Crow and his followers have built their own little nation--and now have pulled off the ultimate heist, a spaceship. It seems they might get their own world after all...

Their name, the Eighth Fire, refers to a prophecy of the Anishinabwe (a group of native american tribes): according to the prophecy, there are 8 eras of the world (the fires), with the final one being (after a couple ages of hate and evil) an age of joy, peace, and paradise. Crow's followers are people who have been denied their paradise, but are prepared to make their own.

Many events prior to the Great Mistake helped make room for the confederacy of Canada to brush aside her former masters and emerge a truly independent regional power. The first opportunity came from the weakening of the USA. As time went on in the 21st century, the once mighty USA had lost much of its imperial authority over the world; China in Asia, Brazil in South America, the African Union, and the Arab nations all began rejecting American imperialism. This loss of influence sent America on a downward spiral into its first ever dark-age as the imperial USA had become excessively dependent on foreign imports to sustain both its military and its people. The dark age of America left the population fighting over what little resources were available, things like food, fuel, electricity, and clean water became scarce and the entire nation erupted in civil war. With their neighbor in disarray, the stable confederacy of Canada began a long, peaceful, campaign of solidifying its hold over the North of the Americas. Because of its distance from the rest of the states, Alaska was easily annexed peacefully into the confederacy, and the North West Passage was declared Canadian Territory; with rising climate temperatures the northern sea lanes became lucrative trade lanes to own. Seeking a new image, Canada adopted the name "Vesperia", meaning "Land of the the Evening Star".

The second major opportunity came from the great migration that had begun to occur from the south to the north. A combination of climate change creating desertification in the south, and the civil unrest throughout the former United States caused many refugees to migrate to the US/Vesperian borders. This influx in population brought a lot of people from all walks of life into the Great White North; many of these people fleeing the south were of the intelligent caste – doctors, engineers, scientists, skilled labor, etc. – all looking for peace and security. The final great opportunity that came, was the Great Mistake itself.

Not much can be said about this period except that all the great powers that now found themselves free from American Imperialism all began acting in reckless ways eventually leading to their own destruction in the Great Mistake. Of particular interest to the Confederacy in this period was Russia; the other great empire from the 20th century which emerged in the fiercest way after America’s decline. To keep it brief – Russian expansionists sought out to regain former USSR territories and began aggressively annexing eastern European and central Asian territories. For decades this happened up until the Great Mistake tore Russia apart from the inside out. The wide spread nation was unable to maintain itself after the Great Mistake happened, civil unrest from all corners literally tore the country up leaving the once glorious Mother Russia into a decentralized mess of small states.

After the events of the Great Mistake a few regional powers managed to maintain stability, The Vesperian Confederacy being one of them.

As the world stabilized once again, former empires change, while new ones emerge. Canada having already annexed Alaska now seeks to control the entire Arctic circle and the shipping lanes that go with it. The former Russian empire that had been torn asunder during the Great Mistake was slowly gobbled up by her neighbours. In the east, the Pan-Asian Cooperative integrates parts of eastern Russia, while in the west the Slavic Federation move into the Crimean region and up to Moscow, leaving the northern regions vulnerable, and open to Canadian interests. Being vulnerable to invasion from PAC and the Slavic Fed, the various independent Northern Russian states met with a Canadian delegation and joined the confederation (the Russian nationalists were not interested in being persecuted by their Slavic enemies, or enslaved into PAC, thus they accepted integration and relative autonomy within the Arctic Circle). This amalgamation of northern nations caught the attention of the remaining Northerners - Norway, Sweden, Finland, Greenland, and Iceland. It didn't take much for the Scandinavia, Greenland or Iceland to join - seeing the economic and strategic benefits of monopolizing the Arctic circle they all agreed to create one confederated nation under the banner of the Vesperian Confederacy.

Deep within the heart South Asia, it was a young Pakistani revolutionary that set the Great Mistake in motion. Following a suitcase nuke attack in Chengdu, a torturous war broke out between China and Pakistan. As such the Near East was amongst the most affected by the Great Mistake.

Furthermore, the exhaustion of oil devastated the economies of this region. The modern expansive Islam was annhilated during these nuclear flames of war, including the most loyal armies and the most charismatic of prophets. The Islamic Peoples began to seek for their new beginning, new hope. Through this process was difficult, arduous and testing, from the ashes destruction rose The Crescent Company - a conglomerate of corporations, not held down by the bickering polities that inhabit the region. The Crescent Company was founded upon the ideals that the only time that one should look in their neighbours bowls, is to see if they have enough. The Company stepped in where the UN had failed the region.

Through the Crescent Company, the Islamic Renaissance has come once more, and along with the Muslim Enlightenment, the peoples of this region have returned to its true roots - the roots of medieval Islam as the centre of science, culture and commerce, roots of ancient Arabian literature and trade.

The Crescent Company, sometimes called 'The Second Caliphate', is the main economic and political powerhouse of Near East and is additionally the world's premier solar and wind energy superpower. Religion and science, adaptivity, determination, ability to survive in harsh environments - these are trademarks of CC.

Countless crazy conspiracy theories around infamous Third Reich have gain popularity, but not even one of them was close to insane truth. The megalomania of Nazi regime... allowed this superpower to travel beyond Earth.

Third Reich was the most advanced country in terms of rocket technology - and there were two insane men required for this plan to success: Adolf Hitler and Ernest Zimmerman. Zimmerman, the genius whose intellect was surpassed only by his arrogance, promised his Fuhrer that the Aryan will be the first nation in space - and he has been already spending his entire life on the Valkyria Project. Hitler, fascinated by the vision of Nazi Sonnmarine, sacrificed billions of dollars and giant effort on this true Wunderwaffe.

The Valkyria was the world's first spaceship, created in the era when constructing such things was beyond impossibility, the spaceship created via infinite hubris and true genius. However since 1943 when the end seemed to be inevitable, Hitler decided that German Gods sent him Zimmerman to save the Aryan race via Space Exodus. The true reason of German failure in Second World War was the immense effort required to create Valkyria, but it has arisen. The crew of thousands loyal servants of Fuhrer, the best Nazi scientists, officers of Waffen SS and 'perfect Aryan' colonists. Fully autonomous and designed to reach the stars, the Valkyria flew in 1945, while the death of Hitler was fabricated using his doppelganger.

However, obvious limitations of 20th century technology exaggerated by Nazi arrogance eventually lead to the mysterious but inevitable "Breakdown". This, alongside a lack of space training and a decline in health - caused both Hitler and Zimmerman to perish, along with most population of Valkyria. This event essentially caused a civil war of sort to take place upon the ship:

- The Legion, consisting of the remaining fanatical followers of Nazi ideology and Waffen SS and
- The Old Guard, consisting of the remaining conservatists, followers of Prussian traditions, Christian soldiers and people who fought in WWII for Deutschland, not the Fuhrer.

The ensuing battle in the extreme conditions decimated the remaining population, until finally they were forced to coexist in order to survive in the cold vacuum of space. Many souls were lost due to suicides of people terrified by the isolation of space. However, the following post-Breakdown battle also killed the most passionate soldiers from both sides.

What was left?

The strongest people forced to cooperate in order to survive.

And thus, the Eternal Reich was born. The Breakdown didn't annihilate most of vital systems of primitive starship, thus feeding the remaining population. Only the strongest people survived and started organizing the life of their space society. Without their leaders they soon abandoned most of the fanatical visions of their Fuhrer, and without any communication with Earth they developed their own culture. The surviving scientific elite managed to conserve and develop technology in entirely different way...

Over the next three hundred years, generations of people were born and dying on board of Valkyria, becoming less and less similar to people on Earth. The people of Valkyria didn't develop Internet but their knowledge on space travel, human body and subconsiousness, genetics and social engineering was far bigger than knowledge of Earth civilizations in these areas. Eventually the progress of Valkyrian genetics allowed Valkyrians on discovering shocking truth... The Jewish blood was in veins of all Valkyrians.

Finally, the Valkyria led by young Captain Werner Stauffenberg arrived on the new planet. Valkyrian Reich doesn't know about Earth Space Colonization, and Earth doesn't know about forgotten descendants of Nazi insanity. These people who became experts of space survival but don't know anything about building true society, who know so much about human body and so little about humanity...

Are they going to attempt building next totalitarian, militaristic empire? Achieve the pinnacle of human evolution and expiate? Discoveir their humanity again? Or maybe even, paradoxically, build utopia?

The future awaits.