One Big Happy Family (A No Planetfall crossover)

[MysticWind]

An expanded version of the A House United scenario where the UNS Unity narrowly avoids disaster and arrives at Planet undivided. Since I like melding SMAC with C:BE and other similar continuities, this is similar to my Civilizations Beyond Chiron merged continuity, but with somewhat reimagined characters.

SMAC: One Big Happy Family

United Landing

No one’s entirely sure how it all went down: the blackbox fragments sifted from the central datacore indicated anomalous network activity shortly before a micrometeorite struck the Bussard ramjet scoop, grievously damaging the great ship and sending shockwaves rattling through its immense superstructure. Mere moments prior to impact, this unexpected data burst accompanied mysterious, minute adjustments to the Unity’s bearing and course.

Had the cosmic pebble, nicknamed “Hydra”, hit the ship at its original location, an entire cryobay might have been lost, as well as untold damage to the fusion drive. It is unknown what person or entity made this change; the captain and the astrogator were both in cryosleep, and the master computer itself did not seem to have detected Hydra until impact.

Officers and critical crew automatically awoke as per protocol. The Chief Science Officer quickly surmised that while the exterior damage was extensive, it was repairable, failing to jeopardize the ship’s deceleration towards Chiron. But time was of the essence while the ship bled at 11% c, threatening further deterioration as electrical systems shorted and hull was on the verge of breaking. This war room was interrupted by the arrival of a U.N. Security Force lieutenant and over four dozen security personnel, escorted by a platoon of peacekeepers.

When asked why this large assortment of fighting men and women had been roused for a noncombat emergency, the Force Commander was at a loss for words, but replied that his immediate team had awoken shortly after the emergency. Perhaps it was yet another glitch burned from the micrometeor collision. They had only finished arming and armoring themselves when they had detected the horde of security heading for the command center, and had decided to intervene. Nodding, the captain next turned to this seemingly random detachment of security officers and asked what their business was at the bridge, never mind why they had also been awoken out of turn.

Thinking quickly, the lieutenant offered her officers as a labour battalion to assist with the repairs. Along with the blue berets, they dashed across the vessel, sealing breaches and fixing broken wiring under close supervision by the science team and the engineers. Thus was born the legacy of the Spartan Work Corps, whose exploits during Landing would make their leader a hero throughout the colonies.

The long sleep

It has been seven decades since mankind has arrived at Planet. The original 108,000 passengers have disembarked the Unity in staggered batches, gradually awakening from cryo to avoid overwhelming the mission’s meager supplies. Some hibernated aboard the ship in orbit, watched over by the same “shippies” who performed orbital scans to support those settling groundside. Semi-decadal rotations ensured that no one slept through too many events. But refreezing always came with its share of medical risks, potentially producing profound damage to body and mind. And there was always rumor of corruption that expedited the passage of some to Chiron ahead of others, allowing them to stake out a greater claim of the new society earlier than others.

Such gossip obscures how truly difficult life on Planet is. Unbreathable air, nitrate-poisoned water, poor alumina-rich soil, and dangerously hostile wildlife all make settlement an unenviable affair. Awakened colonists struggled to assemble rudimentary shelter and to scratch subsistence agriculture amidst frequent mindworm incursions. While the Chief Botanist’s relocated hydroponics bays provided a source of fresh produce, many of the Earth exiles yearned for the common foodstuffs and confectionaries of their lost planet. They often went back to the landing pods and jostled awake those who had been brought down to Chiron still sleeping, forcing them to tame the land while they returned to blissful hibernation, despite the risks.

But the years started coming and they didn’t stop coming, and under the watchful eyes of their venerable leader, the settlements grew. From the initial landfall at Unity City, more and more bases sprouted like xenofungus fields across Planet. After the first mission decades of simple survival, research in bio-engineering have paved the road to genetic treatments extending the lifespan of the colonists to greater and greater lengths. If they managed to survive the mindworm attacks and spore storms, that is.

Colony at the crossroads

Now, as the final landing pods arrive at Earthrise Base, the last of the original passengers have awakened to join Centauri society. But not all is well with humanity’s remnants. Even as the mission leader moves towards retirement, his captaincy finally going down with the ship (too large to land and its useful parts stripped and brought down to the colonies, the UNS Unity is due for a controlled crash into an uninhabited corner of Planet), the mission’s future moves into an uncertain direction. His subordinates vie for control, each bringing their own idiosyncratic worldview to the Unity diaspora. Outside the base walls, the xenofauna swarm restlessly, upset at the human presence offending their ecosystems. And the stars above glitter with strange and alien movement…

 

[MysticWind]

The old king


John Garland
Current Rank: Mission Leader
Unity Position: Captain
Origin Country: United States
Party: None

The nearly-universally revered captain of the Unity steered the colonies’ ship of state throughout its rough and tumble decades. From the founding of the first base to the erection of the first 'former farm to sifting through the grisly aftermath of the first encounter of mindworms, he has always been at the frontlines of his people, with his people. Garland has won reelection in every race since the Planetary colonial government was founded, even if his margins grow smaller and smaller. (The challenger in second place? Undecided.)

Now that civilization feels a little bigger and the frontier a little farther away, he yearns to pass his mantle, but increasingly is at a loss to whom. Some of the loudest and most popular voices speak with rhetoric that discomforts him. Those who have aligned with his views the most closely, may not be strong enough to shout down those voices. He may yet be tempted to stay on until the principles of the U.N. Charter can be guaranteed.

Garland grows more and more tired. He was always the first to insist he be given longevity treatments the last, yet he received them just the same. Clinically he is a spry fifty, but his spirit feels the weight of the mission years and his age is over thrice that. Part of him yearns to take the closest of his people and wander into the desert, away from the political power struggles. His heart calls for freedom, yet his duty compels to continue, one way or another…

 

[MysticWind]

The seven sovereigns

The Once and Future Heir


Pravin Lal
Current Rank: Director-General of Chiron Health Organization
Unity Position: Chief of Surgery
Origin Country: India
Party: Unity

The head of medical emergency response, Lal ably and compassionately directed the various physician teams to care for the wounded during Landing. Upon the settlement of Planet, he championed the creation of a vast and responsive health system able to likewise serve all colonists, especially in the event of disaster and danger. Lal’s tireless work in the field camps and incessant lobbying at the Colonial Council produced a planetary health service overseen by the CHO ensuring universal coverage of each citizen. While the bureaucracy involved has grown rapidly, it remains a vital institution, even if the general population has begun to take it for granted.

Long-considered the protege and natural successor to the current Mission Leader, in recent years Lal has faced more skepticism towards his higher aspirations. While most candidates can speak only a few ill words about his past service, they are also quick to assure that if they were to be elected to the supreme office, they would gladly keep him on as director of CHO, respectfully sidelining him. His crusading image has fallen in recent years as citizens grow tired of his insistence on overstepping his office to weigh in on issues as far flung as guaranteeing the free flow of information and the regulation of cybernetic modifications. Playing politics and excusing it as humanitarianism. The fact is, all of Lal’s talk of human rights, goodwill, and peace has marked him to be an irritating do-gooder to more hard-nosed voters, and easy prey for rivals who consider him a naive sap. Not to mention, many are eager for a change and do not want a simple continuation of Garland’s policies, the bureaucratic relic of the dinosaur U.N. and its establishmentarian Unity Party.

But there is another side to Lal, the one that manifests in late-night Council sessions and last-minute deals brewed from pints of blood and sweat. The Lal who was there to care for the screaming psychotics afflicted in the Summer of the Super-Boil of M.Y. 2113. The Lal who put down his public pacifist persona and marched into the DeepKinz drone riots in M.Y. 2159 and told the bloodmaster that the strikers could either come to the negotiating table, or the Colonial Peacekeepers would be pouring in after him, preventing his CHO rapid relief teams from bringing medical care to all. The Lal who, while a fervent believer in the greater good and the liberal virtues, is ready for a political showdown to protect democracy.

 

[MysticWind]

The Caudillo Who Could Be


Corazon Santiago
Current Rank: Leonidas of the Spartan Coalition (formerly Spartan Work Corps), Colonel of Colonial Scouts (ret.)
Unity Position: Security team Lieutenant
Origin Country: Puerto Rico
Party: Sparta Molon Labe

Known for decades as the woman who might have been generalissimo, Santiago was originally a minor security functionary aboard the Unity. Destined to play orderly for those afflicted with space madness before descent to Planet, or bouncer to the disorderly starshine drunks in the depressing bare bases of the early colonies, she defied destiny by organizing her own cadre of U.N. Security Force officers. Apparently awoken by chance during the bumpy Landing, her security team within the security team greatly assisted the ship’s engineers and cosmonaut corps during repairs, becoming some of the first heroes of the mission.

During the ad hoc pioneering early days on Planet, Santiago swiftly formalized her comrades into the Sparta Work Corps, her own labour militia acting autonomously of upper leadership. Because of the initial professionalism of the mission staff, security often found themselves bereft of serious duties, and so she beat psych-whips into plowshares by joining her Spartans in the taming of the Planet, embedded within former teams to build roads and solar collectors for the fledgling colony. After the discovery of hostile native life, the so-called Spartans put the incessant training she had imposed to good use, fearlessly fighting against mindworm boils with iron will discipline.

A warrior since childhood, Santiago enlisted in the U.N. Peacekeeping Forces (now the Colonial Peacekeepers) against the mindworm menace after the disastrous Massacre of Newt’s Nest in M.Y. 2108. Uptick in wildlife attacks increased danger for colonization and exploration. Unpredictable fungal blooms caused xenofungus fields to spring up overnight, further impeding human encroachment. With the planet seemingly at war against the Unity mission, Santiago and many of her S.W.C. traded their policing protection mandate for red-pink armored environment suits and heavy firepower.

Known to be an exemplary battlefield commander, an excellent tactician, and mental tenacity capable of shrugging off waves of mindworm attacks, she rose up the ranks and carved out her own band of diehard followers. The “Spartan Speartip” were frontline wilderness specialists capable of enduring months of long range surveying and swarm extermination missions, composed of S.W.C. at its core and supplemented by Peacekeepers convinced by Santiago’s teachings. High command, alarmed by her popularity, split off the Speartip and neutrally rebranded it as the Colonial Scouts, Planet’s very first special forces unit.

Even as her popularity skyrocketed thanks to breathless MorganLink coverage and even a Morganwood action blockbuster, Santiago deigned to play power games within the military. Despite the possibility of promotion, she stayed at the top of the Scouts rather than rejoining the Peacekeepers. Some say out of a desire to stay in the field as a colonel rather than as some career-climbing desk jockey, others allege severe differences in opinion with the Force Commander himself. In either case, Santiago has since left the military. She has reorganized the S.W.C. into the Spartan Coalition: no longer just a helping hand wielding a sword and shield for the formers, but also a veterans’ legion, a survivalist school, and a political pressure group.

Declaring that the best defense is an ironclad offense, Santiago has agitated for greater and greater investment in the colonial armed forces. Research lavished on petting mindworms and hugging fungal towers must instead be reallocated towards defense R&D. Development policy must be to expand: only when humanity flexes its muscles against the xeno can our survival be assured. To this end, the Coalition has recently sponsored its own political party for Council elections, with Santiago herself as the unanimous candidate for Mission Leader.

The colonel’s popularity disquiets many in the colony, in light of her fiery rhetoric. Many are concerned that her militarism will not end with wars against nature, but against her fellow man. (The former Chief Botanist’s camp, of course, bristle at that very start.) Others find her combative nature to be needlessly belligerent, imprudent. Some find the focus on weapons research to be wasteful. Yet others like her former media patron, the CEO of Morgan Industries, find her demands for little psych spending besides generous benefits for veterans to be overly spartan.

Incumbent Mission Leader Garland himself worries about the Spartan phenomenon. His own decade-long investigations, substantiated by invasive details that his former X.O. was all-too-happy to supply him, suggested that the Coalition might have had premeditated origins to the late Earth itself, that it was far from an impromptu emergency workforce as Santiago insisted. But they have made a strong impression upon many of the manual working class population just the same, never mind upon the fighting men and women. He grasps at ways to take the wind out of the militarists’ sails with conciliatory appeals to common humanity. He wonders if Santiago might be bought with an appointment to Special Representative for Defense. He frets at the thought of asking the Peacekeepers- or even the Colonial Security Bureau- to check the Spartans’ power.

Meanwhile at a training camp just east of Manderley Memorial Base, Santiago looks upon a crop of fresh wilderness graduates and salutes stoically while she beams inwardly. These young warfighters are destined to join in the protection of humanity, perhaps her elite Scouts. Soon she will return to the city to greet crowds of admirers, whose love she cares only to elevate her to supreme commander. At that, she does smile grimly. Survival is at hand!

 

[MysticWind]

The Dragon Who Digs


Sheng-Ji Yang
Current Rank: Inspector General of the Colonial Security Bureau, Founder of People's Teeming, head of the Censorate (alleged)
Unity Position: Executive Officer
Origin Country: Great China
Party: Public Security

While a noisy minority of rabble claim they have the hearts of the armed guardians of order in colonial society, those who truly love the law know that there is none more perfectible to exercise the state’s monopoly on force than the former Executive Officer of the Unity, the incorruptible Sheng-Ji Yang. A man without a nation, he served as Garland’s second, who often felt ill at ease towards the enigmatic exile. The captain was far from alone in doing so. During the years of preparation before the ship’s launch, a common joke posted to the mission datalinks was “Never ask a woman her age; a man, his salary; and X.O. Yang what he was doing after the Crimson Succession and before the U.N. gave him a job.” Yet no ensign would dare crack such a joke out loud during training, not even in private. It was said that the Unity first mate could hear through entire decks, never mind walls.

And yet, for all of the fearful respect that Yang garnered, his role before Planet was largely ceremonial. While he did train the U.N. Security Force squaddies to within an inch of their lives, making cryptic pronouncements and doling out opaque yet oddly profound wisdom all the while, the voyage was mostly uneventful. As with all others he slept in cryo, so there was not much in the way of acting in support of the captain’s will- not that the Unity captain was as stringent as his X.O., in any case. In fact, a popular saying states that his presence was to ensure Garland’s safety- everyone was incentivized to keep the latter safe, because no one wanted Yang as captain.

Even during Landing, he was tardy. For unknown reasons, the system failed to wake the X.O. immediately as per protocol- whether by a glitch resulting from the collision with Hydra, or by sabotage, it is unknown. Yet another joke goes that Garland decided that seeing Yang as the first face would send weak-hearted sleepers crawling back into their pods for four more decades. And such, he was only present towards the last third of the incident, called up to organize the security staff, now awakened in full. He did so with his usual intense precision and unearthly magnetism, though some swear that the normally sphinx-like Yang looked rather cross to have been late to the party.

An uneventful approach to Planet aside, Yang had a pivotal role during the founding of the colonies. His tireless service in building Garland’s vision is known to all, deftly and subtly managing the disparate peoples and personalities of the Unity diaspora into one conforming whole. From designing communal canteens where nutrition bars from the ship’s modest stores and hydroponically-grown vegetables were served to each according to one’s needs, to devising a sophisticated CCTV system installed in the public spaces of the bases, Yang’s handiwork permeates the colonies. And yet, his otherwise paternalist less-than-democratic schemes for fostering unity come with both sticks and carrots. Every meal at the feeding bays would host at least one delicacy, whether lab-grown veal, heirloom cloned tomatoes, or dessert, as to woo colonists to dine there rather than at Morgan Rationrants or other private facilities. And his security analysts posted heroic, funny, tender, or otherwise emotionally poignant public scenes captured by their cameras to the network nodes, giving a human face to Yang’s surveillance.

As the mission decades went by, and as Garland’s sufferance of his second diminished while rising stars increased in Council, Yang has focused on fewer roles. The Colonial Security Bureau has maintained law and order following its founder’s hand: with an open palm and a closed fist, overcoming dualism by striking the perfect balance between benevolent and hostile. As civil disorder increases, his officers’ workloads have increased sharply- an expanding so-called “drone” population due to crowding from the fully thawed Unity passagers, rising birthrates, divisions of wealth and worldviews, and decreasing economic opportunities for those lacking “skills” deemed socially desirable. While publicly evincing sympathy for the drones, Yang has directed the Bureau to use every policing tactic available within interpretably legal boundaries.

But his work does not end with simply keeping the streets safer than those of yesteryear. Always a proponent for infrastructure development, he has become one of the fiercest advocates for more public works projects from within the Council, arguing that large-scale construction would cure the problems of dissatisfaction. While on the face uncontroversial, Yang’s details bedevil potential allies: He calls for squeezing resources from more economically independent–minded segments, earning eternal ire from those self-identifying with free enterprise. He insists that drones be conscripted rather than given the choice to join. And he refuses any free labour battalions, militias, or corps to act as intermediaries- vital industry must remain at the hands of the colonial government, not subcontracted to dubious cadres. Despite Garland’s pleas for Yang to moderate these terms, he has refused the mission leader at every turn.

Yang has seemingly lower ambitions. Ironically, he has gone forward with his own infrastructure side project independent of the Council: at the new base of People’s Teeming, his loyalists within Colonial Security and devotees of his high-minded pseudo-mystic philosophy (broadcast every night on public access datalinks channels) have joined him to excavate a vast underground warren into Chiron’s crust. Buttressed with thick shields and already half a dozen levels deep, this experimental “hive city” is a utopian project to create a perfectly safe base free from the dangers on Planet’s surface. Beneath steel and concrete, Yang claims that he will be able to withstand any potential mindworm attack or unexpected storm. There the Bureau would be freshly re-headquartered, ready to take on crime far from the corruption of the capital.

The inspector general's calls for investigating corruption in the colonial administration and harshly punishing offenders have received some grassroots support. In response, the extrajudicial Censorate movement have attacked both kickback-taking bureaucrats and lazy officials alike. Rumored to be incognito Colonial Security officers gone vigilante, the shadowy Censors don veiled hats, not unlike those of beekeepers, and inflict physical punishment against the accused. The murder of Captain Anakkala for illegally diverting Colonial Scout funds has earned the Censorate an undying feud with the Spartan Coalition, who had cherished her as a leading member. Since investigators uncharacteristically found no leads in this case, Spartans accuse the Bureau itself for corruption from the top down, claiming political persecution at the hands of its secret police force. Garland worries of street brawls.

Finally, Yang has recently gone after another target: irrational belief systems, which he blames for undermining the secularist state. Religious and spiritual movements, including his very own inwards-looking, outwards-joining philosophy have grown over time as colonists yearned for metaphysical succor and new fraternal bonds. A few have become quite popular, capable of inspiring great passions and developing parallel social structures threatening the centrality of colonial authority. Yang has suggested a crackdown on those "discordant ideologies" damaging the harmonious society, blaming "overabundant theism." This, of course, has earned him no love from the Conclave, who upon taking a page from Leviticus 11:29, have given to calling him the “Mole-Rat King.”

Garland and his supporters are convinced that the formerly aloof X.O. now wishes to start a mass movement. Previously never one for self-government, Yang's gang has "spontaneously" formed the Public Security Party, making it clear their desire to organize a faction in the Colonial Council. His polarizing proclamations show his desire to be the next Mission Leader, while his project at People's Teeming hint that he is not above separatism if he fails to win. While many are chilled by the notion of building a secure society under enlightened control, still others are drawn to it. Even if colonial society is not yet of one mind, Yang's hive aims to be the one to realize it...

 

[MysticWind]

The Reluctant Reverend Mother


Miriam Godwinson
Current Rank: Psych Chaplain of the Colonial Psych Programme, Mother Superior of the Angels of Mercy, Eldest Sister of the Conclave of Believers, Psych Priest of Centauri Diocese
Unity Position: Psych Chaplain
Origin Country: Christian States
Party: Human Faith

Of those who vie for Garland’s throne, none is as misunderstood, nor perhaps as hesitant, as the former Unity Psych Chaplain. With a personality as powerful as the Spartan colonel’s, an intellect as broad as the former Chief of Science’s, and natural charisma as eerily hypnotic as the old X.O.’s, the preacher-psychotherapist from the Christian States of America was a leading light in the mission. Called to minister to those afflicted by the stresses and shocks of going into space, Godwinson spent much time during the training counseling, soothing, and exhorting the passengers for their divine mission to the stars.

During Landing, her steady hand and solid faith led many of the newly-thawed away from the brink of despair. An angel guiding the storm, Godwinson shone her light in the dark passages of the shaken ship, her even-keeled presence calming wayward sheep. Together, they walked out of the darkness together, dodging hull breaches and crevasses made by the impact with Hydra.

In the colonies, her voice continued to welcome those awoken decades after the mission began, ushering entire cohorts of newly-thawed peoples into the new Planet. After emotional diagnostics and orientation, her Colonial Psych Programme was to help them find new lives on Planet, then send them off with a handshake...

Miriam never wanted to be anyone’s savior. Yet she was called to serve from birth. Daughter to Christian States clerical nobility, she was earmarked for high office within the theodemocracy. After her humanitarian work in Crusader Wars-devastated nations, she was called by the C.S. President-Presbyter himself to the very launch facilities at the newly-renamed Cape Calvary down in Conch State. Drafted into a CASA crash course, she was made space-ready within weeks as the young nation’s foremost representative on the Unity, in the hopes of an easy win in the friendly rivalry with the amiably-separated U.S. (Of course, no shortage of rumors abounded that some in the Evangelical Fire wanted to be rid of a turbulent prophet.)

On Planet, written off a second time as a mere reconciliatory figure with her head in the heavens, Godwinson’s heart grew heavy as the machines of administration clanked on. As inefficiency and corruption grew, so did the suffering of the always-present poor. Increasing inequality turned academics into test subjects and laborers into social dropouts. So she acted. Upper leadership has glossed over her prominence for mission decades, considering her office to be a simple ministry of morale, but with time the Psych Chaplain of Chiron has broadened her purview. Psych staff not only attend to the psychological well-being of the colonists through mental and, if requested, spiritual ministering. The Programme has also skillfully navigated the administrative bureaucracy to engage in resource allocation, determining if this base or not needs more doctors, this lab or not merits additional technicians, what psych spending is necessary to turn a community's restive drones into fulfilled workers.

As attacks from mindworms and other psychoactive fauna continued, Godwinson founded a front-line psych service. The Angels of Mercy are yet another unmistakable organization on Chiron: armored in white environmental suits emblazoned with large red crosses, carrying oversized shields adorned with the same cross, and packing syringes on wrist gauntlets, the Programme’s elite psych specialists dispense healing and counsel to disaster-stricken bases and battlefield wounded alike. Its creation is yet another reason for her popularity.

For some time, Miriam Godwinson was seen as a potential Unity vice-candidate, whose spiritual affectations (and growing material services) would balance the former Chief of Surgery’s secular bonafides. But this past season has seen the unexpected “Great Schism.”

Between her aid to the afflicted and to the weary, and immense personal charisma, Godwinson could not help but to attract an unwanted cult of personality. The largest sect was the C.S.-descended Sons of Christ the King, but whether Evangelical Protestant or not, the “Faithists” who have gathered around her have always insisted she follow the captain. And despite her wishes to remain apart from temporal power, she has gradually and grimly accepted that there is no solution to the current problems of governance without a purification of the soul.

Calling a Conclave of all believers at the Great Spiritual Center of Concordia Base, she gathered Faithists of all stripes from the apostles of the Latter-Earth Saints to the Assemblies of Krishna to the Grand Mufti of Unity City. There, she denounced the lack of charity of the colonial authority and the need to bring about the revival of colonial society. For too long, the Mission Leader’s minions have shoveled excessive amounts of funding into either risky or fruitless research projects, writing grants for either socially unproven technologies or graft vaporware to enrich the pockets of bureaucrats. No good fruit could come from this bad tree.

Instead, she sought to lead a party of healers of body and mind, soul and spirit. Together with the peoples who believed, she declared the Human Faith Party, one that would bring about renewal in Chironian society with shared ritual and reverence, careful regulation of technology, and prudent psych spending for all citizens. Then, perhaps politically not so prudently, the Sons of Christ the King elected her the Psych Priest of Centauri Diocese, awkwardly crowning her with an egregiously ecclesiastical role right after she was given a secular nomination.

Godwinson's sudden schism with the Unity Party is yet another headache for Garland, but an unsurprising one. For too long, the captain of the Unity had sensed that the deep empathy of the Psych Chaplain had bristled against the Colonial Council's mismanagement. And yet he was unable to fully accede to her psych priorities in allotment, nor openly sympathize with her calls for humility against scientific hubris. Once again, he has allowed a once-cooperative talent to slip away into zealotry.

Only now can he express regret at how the Faithists gather in meeting halls, places of worship, even Psych Programme mental clinics to discuss bold, even radical policies: pro-natalism, citizens' research restriction boards, bioengineering bans, creche prayer, content controls on infotechnologies. But who is he to deny them an opiate against the suffering he has been unable to staunch? In the house of God at Concordia, the Psych Priest reads Scripture, and awaits her coming.

 

[MysticWind]

The Mind in the Ivory Tower


Prokhor Zakharov
Current Rank: Grand Academician of the University of Chiron
Unity Position: Chief of Science
Origin Country: Russian Republic
Party: Progress

Landing was the mythical origin story of humanity on Planet, the desperate days where legends were born and destinies forged. And no hero was more unexpected than the cranky and crotchety pedantic misanthrope, the curmudgeon-in-chief, Chief Science Officer Prokhor Zakharov. Respected for his genius and loathed for his offputting demeanor, the Hydra impact crisis was his chance to shine. And thus the scientist extraordinaire did so, engaging in brilliant and audacious feats of starship repair that would rival the Chief of Surgery’s deftness at the operating table. True, his science team was far from the only heroes during the crisis- aside from the “zeroth responder” Spartan labour battalion, many groups including the Unity engineering division, the cosmonaut corps, and even shiplink datatechs each played their role in averting disaster. Zakharov just happened to be the mind who found all of the problems and figured out all of the solutions. From determining how to restart the fusion drive, to devising an adjusted flightplan, to dispatching the Chief of Engineering’s crews deep into the ship's bowels in search of radiation leaks, he exercised steadfast calm and audacious vision. His management of the crisis was regarded second only to the captain’s own. And both after and during Landing, he had let everyone know it.

For his role in rescuing their remnant of humanity, the colonists absolved him of arrogance, giving him the keys to the kingdom. The Colonial Scientific Innovations Research Agency was founded to his exact specifications, and he became its first Chief Researcher. For the next mission half-century, the name of Zakharov was synonymous with science. As the master of the colony’s laboratories and field research teams, he was entrusted with directing all of humanity’s scientific efforts. CSIRA, known as the ubiquitous Agency, oversaw breakthrough after life-saving, cost-cutting, convenience-boosting breakthrough- at least in the first few decades. From the vital understanding of Centauri Ecology that birthed the very first terraformer designs to the life-extending miracle of Biogenetics, even the most irrational critic of scientific expertise could not reject the blessings bestowed upon the colony. Zakharov tended the fruit that man ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and for a time, it was good.

As the Chief Researcher’s influence spread, his scope extended beyond the labs and into the very fabric of society. Believing that a well-informed population would be the catalyst for accelerating scientific discovery and prioritizing research, he moved into the field of education. With funding from the colonial administration itself, Zakharov founded the very first University of Chiron campus at Unity City. Many more followed, each with different specializations and strengths, but ultimately all emphasizing the hard sciences and engineering. The first generations born on Planet would become graduates of U of Chi. Many of the later-thawed science personnel, unable to find vacancies in the labs, would become faculty in the same, paid a pittance but given the opportunity to grind their way into tenure and recognition from the Grand Academician himself.

Over time, all systems fall prey to entropy. Not even CSIRA was immune to the second law of thermodynamics. As budgets bloated and despised politicking brewed among staffs, the scientific output of the colonies began to falter. Projects experienced overrun, with no goal in sight. Red herring research yielded shiitake mushroom meat substitutes that expended more energy to grow than they gave. Graft and corruption and grant forgeries bloomed. Sloppy experiments with dubious ethical conduct abounded. The output of pragmatic, everyday enhancements fell. Labs under rival administrations began to crop up, challenging the Agency's prior monopoly. Throughout all of this, Zakharov refused to admit wrong. He stubbornly held on to the belief that pure research was the most important priority, and that any so-called practical applications would be secondary in focus, as technological advancement was a natural runoff. Any other complaints, he waved with his hand, would be gradually engineered out over time.

And so, the long decline of the former Unity Chief Science Officer continued. Rather than change his visionary course, he redirected his defense to offense. The Agency adopted a long-running feud with the Colonial Psych Programme, wrestling for resources and personnel. The question of "labs or psych" became a decades-long dichotomy in the colonies. Naturally, most citizens desired morale-boosting public necessities, not wishing to spend extra to purchase amenities from Morgan or other corporations. But his reputation as a legend held, and CSIRA had a tendency to outweigh the CPP. Even when the CHO joined forces with the latter, arguing the need for more life science graduates to go into doctoring, both physical and mental-spiritual, rather than to poke at fungal samples. Criticism also came from the opposite end of the spectrum: the colonel of the Colonial Scouts, breaking apolitical military norms, outwardly criticized the Agency's lack of interest in defense research, arguing that it only emboldened the enemies of man that lurked in those same xenofungus fields.

Most of all, despite all of the prior advances that the labs had made under Zakharov's watch, the public began to tire of his pedantic, preening, self-rightfulness nature. He had an entire channel on the datalinks devoted to scientific programming, including a decurnly program on which he would debunk popular rumors, legends, and misconceptions of the day. He increasingly used it to launch polemics against "illogical worldviews," those with even a whiff of superstition. Thus, the Grand Academician's Weekly Logos became the battle platform that fired first against the Faithists, specifically their symbol of unreason, the Psych Chaplain. As angry Conclave believers rallied on her behalf, outside observers suggested that this was his attempt to open a new front in the eternal holy war against Psych spending.

As colonial society grew tumultuous with mindworm attacks and social division, so did the public lose faith in the former hero of Landing. The income disparity between high-ranking talents at the U of Chi and those stuck in remedial courses, let alone who didn't attend University, was seen as the natural formation of a technocratic aristocracy. And in the slums of Astrograd and all the other bad districts right next to gleaming campuses, conspiracy theories spread that Zakharov was deliberately engineering an elite illuminati of scientists to rule over mankind. Whispers that he was seeking to suppress religion, even as the Psych Chaplain was the only one advocating for their care. As he hoarded energy credits for his precious labs, horrific human experimentation, the brewing of eugenic viruses, and the breeding of unholy alien hybrids were all being conducted by his satanic scientists. To the drones, Zakharov was among their worst villains, whose name they cursed on the datalinks.

Ultimately, it was the arrival of Intellectual Integrity that ironically proved to be his downfall. Devised in a Science of Philosophy department, the manifesto claimed to empower all human beings to attain wisdom by casting out all prejudice through rigorous self-questioning, using modern psychological methods. With it, practitioners would be able to truly act with reason, emotionlessly choosing the best approach for the greater good, even at great cost. Kill a million to save a billion, kill ten to save a hundred. Maybe even kill ten to save eleven. Calling it the dawn of "Total Rationality," Zakharov breathlessly trumpeted Intellectual Integrity throughout the 'links. The unfortunate branding, coupled with overzealous statements on his MorganChirp nanoblog, had him skewered by the public and Morgan press. He was denounced as heartless, inhumane, too cold to direct the future of the colonies. A popular movement demanding his removal appeared, seemingly overnight.

And so, Zakharov was retired as Chief Researcher of Chiron. His replacement was none other than the former Chief of Engineering aboard the Unity, whom he had allegedly tried to sideline out of the limelight during Landing. She took on the role with great satisfaction, promising to be a steady guide over humanity's scientific endeavors. A long-term critic, even occasionally a rival of Zakharov's, the new Chief Researcher was a rare leading light not from his circle of colleagues. She had founded the Centauri Cooperative Institute as a competitor to the University. (The U of Chi, incidentally, lost a great deal of public funding over the mob's accusations of social engineering.) Thus did she declared a new dawn for CSIRA, and Planetary science...

But you can't keep a self-proclaimed genius down, especially not when you pit all of society against him. Recently, from the campus of University of Chiron - Astrograd, Zakharov proclaimed the Progress Party- a movement to instill true intellectual integrity and logical thinking throughout the colonies. The restoration of adherence to scientific methods and proper prioritization of pure research. Of a civilization based on free inquiry and free debate, even of thoughts considered unseemly- or insulting.

Garland is unsure what to make of this, though further balkanization causes his headache to multiply further. At one point, Zakharov might have been his natural successor, or at least the assistant mission leader to a more amiable figure. But goodwill from Landing has seemingly been all squandered, save from his admittedly very large fan club of admirers: U of Chi academics, lab rats, scientism adherents, and technology fetishists. As much as the Grand Academician might lack for social grace, his straight-shooter practical nature (current research priorities aside), holds great appeal to those drawn towards technocracy. Upon the next elections, the avowed champions of Progress might very well find a decent number of seats in the Colonial Council. But first they must temper their views on belief, whether that of the faiths within the Conclave of Believers, the materialist but still mystic pseudo-philosophy of the Public Security Party, or those who hold reverence for Planet's ecology itself. Whether that is an ethical calculation that Prokhor Zakharov is willing to make, however, is known only to the genius himself.

 

[MysticWind]

The Dissenter of the Court of Thorns


Deirdre Skye
Current Rank: Keystone Ecologist of the Environment of Chiron Conservation Organisation
Unity Position: Chief Botanist/Xenobiologist
Origin Country: Free Scotland
Party: Gaian Green

Some fortunes were found on Planet herself. As a senior member of the science staff, Chief Botanist Deirdre Skye was awoken alongside crucial members of her team to put knowledge of biology towards healing those wounded by the impact with Hydra. She did so ably, if distractedly- witnesses report that she carried an absent-minded, almost disassociated, affect while among the crew. Skye was also seen frequently hurrying off to the Greenhouse and to her hydroponic bays, leaving behind bewildered horticulturists to issue first aid.

While this behavior earned her none of the glory that many of her fellow officers won during Landing, she gradually found her niche on Chiron. Those who had scorned her half-hearted role in atmo, when she seemed to hold higher regard for her precious plants than for her fellow man, received a surprising delight when her agronomy lab at Rose of Sharon unveiled groves of white pines, fields of golden rice, orchards of honeycrisp apples, and even a burgeoning vineyard. Indeed, the tireless work Skye had put into preserving seed stores and specimens aboard the injured Unity had borne produce to supplement the meager ration diets in the early colonial years. Even during the most barebones times, a colonist exhausted from days toiling at hab construction or reprocessing waste could find the time to sit under the branches of a Skye-grown tree in the parks of Unity City. From mandrake root to boysenberry, the agronomists had rescued countless species both to feed and shade humanity, and perhaps one day to regrow the lost ecologies of Earth.

The gifts of the life sciences and Mission Leader's trust in Skye elevated her to prominence. Despite having a distant and frosty relationship with her superior, the former Chief Science Officer, Skye's own growing popularity allowed her to bypass his position and establish her own influence. For her expansive knowledge and mastery over the original species of Earth, she became the initial founding member of the pollyannaishly-named Planetary Cultivation Board. The PCB was first granted the ability to weigh in on internal urban planning, determining where 'formers should set up farms and irrigation to best feed the colonists. Over time, this mandate expanded to determining where entirely new bases should be built based on their proximity to nutrient resources and access to appropriate amounts of rainfall. Mild and meek food producers now held a prominent role in shaping humanity's future on Planet.

And as time went on, Skye's own responsibilities expanded. As the colony's Master Xenologist, she was the foremost authority on alien life of Chiron. Viewing the new world through the lens of ecological systems thinking, she charted out the species in detail, marveling at how they all interacted with one another. Her department made countless discoveries on Chironian wildlife. Her field reports, digestible by general audiences, became popular on the datalinks, followed by her half-philosophical books musing on the seeming purposefulness of Planet. Her views on how environmental collapse had led to Earth's demise, and the need to develop in harmony with this new environment, became known to the public. Morgan Discovery produced numerous nature documentaries following Skye's researchers into the wild, though not all with pleasant endings...

As human activity surged and mindworm boils swarmed, the very nature of the PCB changed. Skye's "Lovelockians," so-called for their belief in James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, were accompanied by those less inclined towards sustainable development. All manner of colonial agencies and interest groups fought to have a say in where to build next. Many argued that the C should not stand for "cultivation." There were those who believed in colonization, that bases should be fruitful and multiply, planted hither and yon like Johnny Appleseed's crop. Others wanted construction, the judicious laying out of infrastructure to improve existing settlements, paving roads over fungal patches and flattening fields with solar arrays. There was the ever-present voice of the Spartans, who wanted to prioritize regions of strategic importance, building fortress bases guarded by sensor arrays, bunkers, flamer teams to clearcut xenofungal enemy hideouts. Still more there were those who wanted collection- splitting the ground with mines, perhaps even boreholes deep past the crust, taking as many precious minerals and thermal energy from the very Planet herself.

Like so many other institutions, the Planetary Cultivation Board had become a Council below the Council, another source of gridlock thanks to competing interests and ideologies. This ship upon rocky seas, with a crew less cohesive than the one during Landing, became an adversarial arena for Skye and her cultivators. With every visit to the fungus, each close call narrowly avoiding mindworm attack, her legendary distractedness became apparent. Her assistants reported her staring outside the viewports at the landscape for hours, whispering strange neologisms like "sporedream" and "earthbeing."

She bore this eccentricity into Board meetings, insisting on the necessity of slow, thoughtful colonization, even when it seemed against the interest of the colonies. For all of the love she had earned for reviving small forgotten luxuries like açaí bowls and avocado toast, the public was increasingly irritated by her calling disposable robo-surveyors "litter," and disturbed by her seemingly anti-natalist views. In her final years at the post, she would make fervent speeches both for population control measures, and against continued thawing of colonists still in hibernation. Even as the probability of cryopod failures increased, Skye argued that the carrying capacity of the colonies was insufficient to accommodate the remainder aboard the now-sleeper ship Unity, and that rapid expansion of bases would produce too much of a strain on the Planetary ecosystem. While she had a sympathetic ear from the CHO in its desire to promote health and by reducing disease vectors, both advocates for economic growth and the very office of the Psych Chaplain bitterly resisted these policies, calling them inhumane and anti-human.

In the end, the Silphium Affair was the last straw. Details for extensive settlement of the resource-rich Cyrene Hills, requiring not only the destruction of a small mountain's worth of xenofungus fields but the erection of multiple mines and factory farms, mysteriously arrived on Skye's PDA. The plans, devised by Morgan Collections, was accompanied with shelves worth of correspondence with other PCB members, including both the CPP (promised a Morgan Construction-built worship center) and CSIRA (signed over exclusive rights to the local wildlife). Almost the entire Board had conspired to cut out the Lovelockians and their concerns entirely.

Perhaps whomever leaked all of this Skye had expected her to use the information as leverage, as blackmail fodder, to subtly oppose the plans. But Skye had never cared for human ecosystems of power. Instead she tore out the throat of the PCB. Dumping out the Cyrene plans, she accused the others of chicanery not only against her people and her Planet, but against each other. She unearthed confidential Morganite reports and conflicting contracts. The psych center occupied the same territory that the xenozoological deep-examination hot lab was to be built on. Flame units earmarked to the Spartan Coalition volunteers for a proposed worm hunt were far inferior to those fielded by Morgan Corporate Security, indicating that the colonel's men were to be less tip of the spear, than meat shields for the CEO's former crews. And of course, evidence that the usual environmental reports and health and safety inspections had been flouted through bribes and kickbacks.

The leaks provided by Silphium, brought to light by Skye, infuriated the PCB. But rather than allowing a simple dogpile on Morgan Industries, she called for the very Board to be dissolved for corruption. As shocking as the suggestion was, one by one, each member agreed, half-driven by anger at the others, half-transfixed by Skye's nearly hypnotic glare. The end of the PCB killed the Cyrene Hills deal and forced a reshuffling of the colonial administration, ruining the Mission Leader's mission month.

Out of disappointment as much as displeasure, Garland revoked Skye's leadership over farm production. Her teams were now subordinate to the newly-formed Colonial Agriculture Office under the popular governor of Pax Africana. Having extensively promoted health growth of entire cities on Earth, and ensured food security at his base, the new Head of Agriculture promised to respect the views of the Lovelockians. His conciliatory, almost avuncular nature was in contrast to the new Master Xenologist, a polite but shadowy youngster who seemed most interested in the mysterious powers of the mindworms, known to have spent large amounts of time away from land.

Skye herself was granted dominion over the newly-formed Environment of Chiron Conservation Organisation, with sweeping powers of consultation and advisement in colonial development. But gone were her days of having a finger on the tiller, let alone wearing two of the the most prestigious hats in the colonies. For three decurns, she retired to her lab facility at Rose of Sharon, leaving only for naturalist ventures into the fields, listening to strange fungal song. When she emerged once more to lead the ECCO, she promised to open a new chapter for life on Planet. In the mission years that followed, her environmentalists have built up a passionate, if bitterly-resisted, following, linking up with likeminded Green-inclined movements and figures. Most recently, they have renamed their cause and formed a new party, seeking to preserve the environment by moving the very highest levers of administration. And yet, even Skye's closest admirers say that their beloved lady's heart might not be fully into the upcoming elections. For she is rarely at home amidst the gritty matters of statecraft or governance, yearning to be working upon the very soil of Planet.

 

[MysticWind]

The Showman of Industry


Nwabudike Morgan
Current Position: CEO of Morgan Industries
Party: Monopoly Power!

Nwabudike Morgan was not the only business leader on the Unity mission, but he got in via the most outrageous manner. While the economic fluctuations in the dying days of Earth make accurate assessments difficult, it is known that the former diamond tycoon and hotelier held the highest net worth on the planet for over sixty-eight percent of post-2055 fiscal quarters. The usually-richest man in the world used his influence as a major private contractor for the Unity to install a hidden cryocell within the vast ship, the “royal sarcophagus” in which he lay hidden among fellow passengers for decades and light-years.

During the panic of Landing, a pair of lowly ensigns uncovered the stowaway, bringing him before Garland’s assembled war room. Given the urgency of the situation, Morgan was treated with the kid gloves he was accustomed to, even gaining admittance to staff meetings. With charisma and dealmaking acumen, he broke every attempt to rein in his behavior, fraternizing with the staff and even lending his unasked-for counsel to the captain himself. Though the emergency was handled well-enough without his input, Morgan used the crisis to grow a network that would catapult him to the top of the business world again.

The mogul arrived with no secret stores of gold or silver, no caches of bullets or ration bars. He brashly banded about his partial ownership of the ship as a Unity Franchise Holder, but did not otherwise press for returns on his investment. With none but a smile, a handshake, and a vision of infinite possibilities, he won over a seed round of colonists seduced by his guarantees that they would become Chiron’s future luxury elite. These eager new employees became the workhorses for his great project. Refounded as Planet’s first private enterprise, Morgan Industries became a one-stop shop for all of the colonial administration’s needs, originally for resource extraction and infrastructure development but soon extending to every facet of life from armed protection by Morgan Security to diner-style rations at Nwabby’s.

While everyone from the Colonial Security Bureau to Lovelockian ecologists has protested at the colony hosting a gigacorp in its midst, especially one subject to a self-proclaimed visionary’s whims and rapacious designs, the Mission Leader has been oddly disinclined to rein in Morgan Industries. Despite its founder’s open desires to dominate the economic future of humanity, for many mission decades it has played by the loose laws of the newfound society, refraining from straining against the jurisdiction of the colonial administration. It has also provided many genuinely beneficial goods and services to the long-suffering citizens on the frontier, then reinvesting its profits towards large-scale infrastructure development to settle that frontier. Finally, Garland was reluctant to quash the desires of independent-minded colonists who wished to join such a dynamic enterprise. Not wanting to govern by diktat, he allowed a steady stream of the hungry and foolish to join the CEO’s ranks.

That was, at least, the case for the first era of the mission. Despite its dominant position, Morgan Industries now receives competition from at least a dozen companies across a variety of verticals, including some founded by ex-employees. Morgan himself seems to relish the challenge, welcoming each former working bee to try his or her luck at besting “Planet, Inc.” before stomping all comers. Even so, with each mission year comes more startups seeking to disrupt his control, and several former titans of industry from Earth have thawed to launch their own firms aimed at exploiting Morgan’s inefficiencies. And so, a market economy flourishes even in the shadow of a giant.

As time passed, the founder’s eye has shifted away from pure business to the glam of showbiz. On the datalinks, brassy Morgan news outlets frequently tie in the ratings with the official Colonial Update (CUP). Slick, sexy, and often silly, Morgan TV channels offer everything from liveplay soap operas where Thulium-tier subscribers can participate in bodice-rippers to game shows where citizens eat mindworm husks before diving into tanks filled with sea fungus. And during the third evening of the mid-year decurn of celebrations, viewers tune in to the Morgan Academy Awards to see which blockbusters from Morganwood (and occasionally, lesser studio systems) will win the hearts and minds of the Academy of Morgan Picture Arts and Sciences.

Morgan media dole out circuses even in times of little bread. This morale improvement was much-appreciated by beleaguered base governments. And when the shows got stale, they made gladiators out of senators. “More Goin’ On” on Channel REVELant was MorganLink’s first foray into semi-serious, semi-editorial news satire, focused on cutting, timely jokes from current events. A small-fry irregularly-aired fifteen minute production originally cobbled together on a shoestring budget by disaffected base administration majors for course units at Morgan University, it would balloon into a lavishly-produced two hour daily show occasionally hosted by the CEO himself. “More Goin’ On” lent a sympathetic ear to frequent frustrations of the day like boil incursions, and sensationalized little-known issues like onerous environmental regulation by the Planetary Cultivation Board. It showcased a variety of guests from the colonial administration to scientific institutions to religious orders.

Under the MGO spotlight, boisterous characters like the colonel have found a ready bully pulpit before the citizens of the colonies, but so have quiet or elusive ones like the lady ecologist or even the inspector general. Previously fringe figure like the corsair, the prophet, the pop xenoarcheologist, and the cloner have had their various causes amplified by the show, then reverberated by follow-up appearances on the other organs of the Morgan media empire. “More Goin’ On” has elevated more than one average shmuck into supernovadom, turned pet issues into ideological crusades, transformed fan clubs into full-blown factions.

Mission years later, CEO Nwabudike Morgan has begun to realize the consequences of bestowing fame. As citizens increasingly grow unhappy with the state of things, so do calls to shake up the status quo. As elections loom on the horizon, so does the possibility of political winners who want an end to business as usual. He realizes that the colonel has little use of luxury goods or fine living, and her victory might result in troubles for Morgan Industries to find customers, as many difficulties as those same citizen-customers to vote again in future elections of uncertain existence. The inspector general is even worse, vowing to impose even ghastlier economic plans upon the hapless free market. And if the lady ecologist wins? Say hello to de-growth, and the worms taking over.

The CEO is not very political, other than having the obligatory Colonial Council seats bought and paid for. Early on in the colonies' history he secured the status of private property against unreasonable search and seizure, and the right of citizens to enter binding contracts without undue infringement, thanks to those seats and the generous services he provided the colonial government. But now it seems like the sheep are on the cusp of voting their own rights away, and more importantly their wealth. And most importantly, his. So with much acclaim and great bombast, Morgan enters the fray. Founding a party overnight, the CEO gracefully clambers onto a platform based on liberty, property, and prosperity for all. Loyal customers cheer at this man from the private sector come to clean up the bureaucracy while Garland slams his head upon his desk despairing at yet another spoiler candidate, this time better funded than all the others' campaigns combined. But like it or not, the ubiquitous brand is now part of the race. Citizen Morgan gleefully chants “The voters! The voters! The voters!” at rallies in a top hat, promising to embrace, extend, and enhance the lives of every person on Chiron.

 

[MysticWind]

Glossary #1 - Organizations and Institutions

Currently named entities, more to come, list is non-exhaustive. Also, design notes.

“colonial administration” - description of the government, not necessarily the official name.

Colonial Council: the leadership of the administration, plays a similar role to the Planetary Council but has far more seats than seven. Exact nature of this council- or whether it is even legislative, or executive, or both- is up to the discretion of the player.

Many of the organizations are prefixed with “Colonial” because I played a ton of Alien: Isolation during lockdown and I’m overly-impressed by how they introduced the new Colonial Marshals as an alternative to the Colonial Marines, an Aliens concept not included in the game. Here, I thought it was a snappy prefix because I didn’t just want to label everything as “U.N.”, as that felt too Peacekeeper-specific.

Bases (non-exhaustive) - Unity City (capital), Earthrise Base, Manderley Memorial Base (Santiago dominant, military), People’s Teeming (Yang dominant, future CSB headquarters), Concordia Base (Godwinson dominant), Astrograd (Zakharov dominant), Pax Africana, Rose of Sharon (Skye dominant), Cyrene Hills (canceled), Newt’s Nest (destroyed)

Decurns are the ten-day weeks on Planet from early cut material.

Military and paramilitary forces

Colonial Peacekeepers: This reimagining of SMAC by Mellian added “an entire regiment” of U.N. peacekeepers to the Unity, which is a cool idea. (It also placed the number of colonists at 100,000, which I much prefer to the official ~10k count. The more the merrier.) So in addition to the security team, these U.N. soldiers were sent to provide defense to the colony on Planet’s surface, and this worked out because there really were dangerous wildlife to deal with. Led by the not yet named Force Commander, who is staunchly loyal to Mission Leader Garland and the proper chain of command. They do not handle policing duties on bases during normal times, and if they were to act as such it would be incredibly unpopular; rather they are intended solely for fighting mindworms, protecting formers, and “outbound” duties such as exploration.

Colonial Security Bureau: the successor to the Unity red-uniformed security team, now the Planetside internal security agency. Led by Inspector General Sheng-Ji Yang. Colonial Security officers, or Colonial Constables, are well-armed law enforcement officers but not militarized. The Constables are also internally split, not unlike the increasingly-polarized colonial society at large: approximately, 35% Yang die-hards (meaning in full support of the inspector general’s utopian designs, cheering on hardline “anti-corruption” policies, potentially Censorate vigilantes), 20% Spartan sympathizers (Santiago for Leonidas of Chiron, an armed colony is a happy one, war on nature), 30% loyalists (Garland devotees; Lal liberals; I love democracy, I love the U.N.), and 15% moderates, apolitical, or simply clueless about the ideological war waging for the soul of Planet’s police force (plus the odd cop who’s backing a different candidate or cause).

Colonial Scouts: The special forces of the Colonial Peacekeepers formed from “Sparta’s Speartip” (name retcon), a militia founded by Santiago and her heavies. Wilderness survivalists. Almost all loyal to Santiago’s ideology. Name is a tribute to how the humble Scout unit is the military and expeditionary workhorse of SMAC’s early game. I can’t bother to assign hard population numbers to anything but I’d imagine there couldn’t be more than three hundred of these operators.

Spartan Coalition: After Santiago and her would-be mutineers were caught skulking around during Landing, they posed as volunteers for the ship’s repairs. On Planet, the Spartan Work Corps aided former operations, clearing fungus and building farms while fighting mindwormers. They were eventually renamed the Spartan Coalition (the actual name of their survivalist movement on Earth…) and became a veterans' legion, a survivalist school, and a political pressure group. Their party, Sparta Molon Labe, (like the Morganites, they love slapping their brand on everything) is really just a mouthpiece of the Coalition. The organization is also a clandestine network of like-minded soldiers and veterans from the Peacekeepers, the Security Bureau, the Scouts, and beyond who subscribe to Santiago’s Social Darwinist views.

This conspiracy pretending to be a “labour battalion” is modeled after the Black Reichswehr, an illegal secret paramilitary in interwar Germany which pretended to be laborers in order to skirt the troop limits from the Treaty of Versailles. Come to think of it, a Unity mission that had managed to hold itself together probably would have ended up like the Weimar Republic eventually, with charismatic demagogues and ideological factions everywhere. Though that’s also because A House United, like many other Something Awful forum nationsims, starts with a messy setting to encourage plotting and inevitable civil war. (I’ve also been in a Spanish Republic and Revolutionary French nationsims there.)

Morgan Security: Like in A House United, Morgan Industries provides protective services ranging from cheap rent-a-cops to well-outfitted mercenaries. Usually contracted with the colonial administration via local base governors, though other companies and wealthy individuals also hire them. I haven’t thought of unit names for them yet, but I’m rather partial to the ones from the nationsim (Mindguard Force™, Flagship Force™).

Morgan Corporate Security: Morganite in-house protection for company assets. Name comes from the faction .txt file.

Social agencies

Chiron Health Organization: the Planetary health service. Led by Director-General Pravin Lal. Healthcare is guaranteed to all colonists. Can be source of controversy, between increasing costs from mindworm attacks, fungal ailments, diseases like the Prometheus virus on one hand, and increasing issues- bioengineering as the tech tree progresses, unequal care for drones and/or those awoken later in the colony’s lifecycle, cybermodification, etc..

Colonial Psych Programme: the government organ that oversees energy spending in Psych (Per the SMAC manual - “recreation, culture and basic luxuries”). Led by Psych Chaplain Miriam Godwinson. Here that also extends to mental health and spiritual wellness. Since Miriam cares about both the morality and the morale of the populace, she naturally wants more social spending as opposed to investment in labs and other priorities.

Angels of Mercy: Psych medics, outfitted in battlefield-capable environment suits. Given the traumatic mental damage that mindworms and the alien environment can inflict on civilians and scouts alike, having psychological battleline healers would be a natural successor to the psych chaplain concept brought up in Miriam’s backstory. Founded and led by Mother Superior Miriam Godwinson. Name riffs on how technically in the game .txt files the Believers’ military forces are named Angels of Justice.

Scientific authorities

Colonial Scientific Innovations Research Agency: the organizational body of all of the colony’s governmentally-owned laboratories, overseeing public research. Led by a yet-unnamed Chief Researcher, previously Prokhor Zakharov. Criticized for research priorities. Name from Rifters series by Peter Watts, starting with Maelstrom - the Complex Systems Instability Response Authority, or the “Entropy Patrol.” (see Notes #4)

University of Chiron: premier public higher education system of the colonies. Led by Grand Academician Prokhor Zakharov. Recently under fire for intellectual biases.

Morgan University: private higher education system. Cost-to-quality ratio is questionable.

Planetary Cultivation Board: defunct colonial administration organization that managed terraforming operations with an eye towards food production, with major influence over urban planning and expansion. Represents corresponding in-game ‘forming actions. After becoming a bloated bureaucracy with power overreach, then corrupted by competing interests, destroyed by a vengeful Deirdre Skye, its original leader.

Colonial Agriculture Office: newly-formed agency overseeing food production. Led by a yet-unnamed Head of Agriculture, the governor of Pax Africana.

Environment of Chiron Conservation Organisation: ecological protection agency with some of the powers (largely consultative) held by the former PCB. Currently controlled by scientific-oriented Lovelockians. Led by Keystone Ecologist (Lady) Deirdre Skye.

[yet-unnamed alien research org]: colonial research group dedicated to understanding Planet’s flora and fauna. Led by a new yet-unnamed Master Xenologist, previously Skye.

Religious groups

Faithists: ideological, political movement centered on Psych Chaplain Miriam Godwinson, believing that colonial law and daily life should be more influenced by religious teachings and traditions. Ecumenical, but with a bias towards more conservative interpretations of the various faiths represented. More anti-secularist than outright theocratic, but extremist views exist. Can also refer to members of the Human Faith Party.

Conclave of Believers: interfaith network uniting most of the religious bodies in the colonies, led by Eldest Sister Miriam Godwinson. Purposes include fostering ecumenism, lobbying, messaging. The Human Faith Party is the electoral arm of Conclave.

Sons of Christ the King: a Chironian church descended from the ruling sect in the Christian States of America. (The GURPS sourcebook says the Evangelical Fire from Miriam’s bio was “the largest Christian denomination in the once-United States,” but I prefer using the name for the ruling priesthood or body of the church, not the church itself.) Leading constituency of the Conclave. Zealous and bioconservative, but savvy enough to link up with those with compatible perspectives from other religions. Name comes from Neuromancer.

Centauri Diocese: the Chiron equivalent to whatever the Heavenly Diocese was in Miriam’s bio, an ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the SoCtK. Led by (of course) Psych Priest Miriam Godwinson.

more old-line groups - Church of Latter-Earth Saints, Assemblies of Krishna, Centauri Ulema

Lovelockians: nature-based movement based on James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis. Prioritization respect and care for Chiron’s environment, non-invasive development, slow to no population growth. As much scientific as pseudo-religious. More mystical adherents called “Gaians.”

Media

Colonial Update (CUP): official public news datalinks channel.

MorganChirp: Nanoblogging platform from Morgan Industries. Often used by prominent citizens as their personal public announcement system and soapbox.

Morgan Discovery: datalinks channel from Morgan Industries for nature and scientific programming

Channel REVELant: datalinks news channel from Morgan Industries, evincing an irreverent, edgy vibe

Grand Academician's Weekly Logos: Zakharov’s datalinks program to rant at religion and other topics he deems irrational

More Goin’ On: the preeminent news satire and interviews program from Morgan Industries, highly-viewed in the colonies. If you appear on it, you’ve made it.

Morganwood: the Morganite family of film studios, encouraged to compete with one another

Academy of Morgan Picture Arts and Sciences: hosts the Morgan Academy Awards, also known as the Gayles (for the award)

Morgan Industries subsidiaries (non-armed)

Morgan TV: creates datalinks shows, as seen in the game

Nwabby’s: fast casual diner-chain

MorganLink: some sort of multimedia thingy, haven’t decided yet. Whatever it is, it’s behind 3DVision Live Interviews.

I don’t actually think I’ve mentioned any non-Morgan companies yet, nice.

 

[MysticWind]

Breakdown #1 - Characters and Motivations

My takes on the faction leaders is heavily inspired on “Journey to Centauri,” the original SMAC novella by Michael Ely, particularly Episode 30 where they vote to dissolve the mission and become faction leaders. The story does a great job of charting out Planetfall, and fosters a ton of different interactions between the future faction leaders, sadly lacking in his later writings. For their backgrounds, I defer to the faction bios from the old Firaxis site, though I took some of the country names from the in-game datalinks. Also the GURPS SMAC sourcebook has some useful details I pick and choose from. Finally, I use the A House United forum nationsim to fill in blanks here and there.

Lal: This is him at his best. He might still have bouts of melancholy and is, at heart, a liberal weenie who believes in a rules-based order even as everyone is trying to subvert it and tear it down. But here his family is alive (naturally, he bent the rules to get his wife Pria on the short list for life extension treatments) and the captain is in charge. Garland was where the buck stopped, the whipping boy for all of the colony’s problems for decades upon decades. Lal is the darling of the humanitarians, and for him diplomacy is more of a sport than survival. This is a Cool Pravin if you will, without the emotional baggage as in canon. But, he is perhaps one of the least inspiring of the potential successors. Think Macron, Trudeau, Romney, all of the perfect haircut, perfect resumé establishmentarian figureheads. As an aside, on the issues he is friendly towards cloning research, for some reason.

Relations: Lal, the Unity Party in general, is the traditional center of power and every candidate who arises is one that seeks to disrupt tradition. There are potential allies from the following, but all are running for the sake of opposing the status quo, which defeats the purpose of extensive collaboration with Lal. What he does have, besides his personal strengths and appeal, is quiet support from Garland- though as much of a George Washington figure as he is, he’s getting on in his age; not to mention he might just go above Lal’s head and deal with difficulties himself - and from many of the yet-unnamed senior members of the colonial administration.

Santiago: The first big populist threat to democracy as we know it. The twist, of course, is while “Journey to Centauri” had the Spartans launch a secessionist mutiny which probably broke the mission beyond all repair (I’m not a big fan of this, tbh- places too much blame on one faction), here they are mysteriously thwarted and spin the situation where they instead end up looking like heroes. And, ironically, Santiago is the big war hero of the colonies, the killer of mindworms. Where she lurked in the shadows in the original story, here she might be gifted control by the mob, allowing her to convert the colonial democracy into a junta. Themes here are the usual, can a corrupt republic be redeemed, how can one act within legal limits to prevent a dictator, and does she actually have a point once you get down to it?

Relations: as previously described, she basically has no allies, since almost all other candidates have difficulties with her. But at the start, the Spartans need no allies, as their popularity is ascendent, and will continue to be as alien threats and drone violence worsen. That said, Yang might ironically be the character most intrigued by her. Both are all about discipline and are comfortable with violence- the Hive has an Aggressive aggression, after all, and the Spartans are merely Erratic! He would probably want her as a general and her soldiers for his own utopian project; but in the long run, their visions for the future are incompatible.

Yang: Out of all of the base game characters, Yang might be one of the least popular in the fandom. Miriam is much hated, especially for how she behaves in-game, but she’s gotten a rehabilitated image over time as people point out the nuance depicted by her quotes. Yang, on the other hand, is the despot- the game even directly calls him that- and doesn’t have any positive side. He’s not much of a people-person, either. His faction isolates from everyone beneath the ground, and the only people who like him are his hapless brainwashed citizens. There’s also a great irony in how he’s the Executive Officer (he’s Chief of Security in his Firaxis website bio; I ignore that), despite all that, and not really having a work relationship with the captain at all. But in the novella, he does get at least one instance or two where (young, impressionable) ensigns are impressed by his abilities, and act in his name. He has powerful self-control and probably latent empath abilities.

So anyway: the major irony is that like Santiago the covert mutineer, Yang the shadowy mastermind is asking for your vote to let him abolish your right to vote. But his approach is the opposite of hers; he operates behind secrets and stratagems, cultivating the right-minded among the Colonial Constables while building utopia in one base. I suppose in the end they’re not all that different, the Spartans favor those of combative strength, while the Censorate and their fellow-travelers value those of a certain moral fortitude. Also it’s ironic that he’s trying to become leader of the colonies (and probably, surviving humanity) while self-isolating into the grand social experiment of People’s Teeming. Sort of a plan B in case he doesn’t get elected to Mission Leader, perhaps.

Relations: he’s not much liked by others, but he comes off as more creepy and sinister than outright scary like others might. Santiago doesn’t like Yang because his top-down rule would strictly subordinate the military and other fighting forces to him. Miriam and Morgan for different ideological reasons.

Ironically, while Lal might personally despise Yang’s totalitarian philosophy and find him anathema, they might be able to cooperate short-term, as Yang insists on loyalty to authority above all else- and for now, the system that Lal serves is the ruling authority.

Zakharov is pretty stridently anti-irrationality, but Yang’s mystical elements are relatively low-priority here. Not to mention, the philosopher-despot is a materialist at heart, and values science as much as the good Academician does. There is potential for them to revive the traditional twentieth century alliances between their ancestral nations.

Finally, while Yang and Deirdre’s views on human life are- divergent, at best- his grabbag of classical Chinese thought does include Taoism in there somewhere. Just as it’s possible to run Green Hive in game, Yang has the potential to be agreeable to nature, so long as it does not get in his way. Could they be friends, much less allies? Unlikely. But maybe they can occasionally collaborate on very specific points.

Miriam: Vox populi, vox Dei. The interesting thing about the novella is that Miriam is actually pretty conciliatory and reasonable, as opposed to how she’s perceived by fans, and how she behaves in the game. In-universe, you can maybe attribute her going a little crazy based on the traumatic experiences of Planetfall, not least when she narrowly escapes doom by becoming the impromptu spiritual leader of a landing pod at the end of the story. Here, this is a much longer process, though ironically conceptually the same.

Ultimately, Miriam is a humanitarian, who loves her fellow man as she loves God, as per the greatest commandment. Most telling is in the aforementioned Episode 30, where she is the only officer besides Lal to vote against dissolving the mission, demonstrating her respect for the law (again, Biblical- all authorities are divinely-appointed). So here she is not driven to go against the establishment until her people urge her to, when she sees them suffering beyond all reason.

Relations: That said, Godwinson here is still fairly diplomatic, at least at the start. Ironically, she probably is closest to Lal, cooperating to push for social programs and for peace. At least until the colonial administration starts pushing for policies that disagree with her moral stances. She cannot tolerate Yang’s type of atheism, though unlike in A House United, they probably both agree on pro-natalism (the Hive is +1 Growth, after all).

Miriam- or at least some of her followers- can probably try to minister to the Spartans with the hook of talking about the “God-given” aspect of their right to bear arms, not to mention the Believers’ +2 Support means they might enjoy a good weapon anyway. Which, to talk design notes again, is a source for her radicalization in this story. I think of her less driven towards division against the establishment by religion or her personality, so much by her own followers, particularly the enthusiastic Sons of Christ the King sect. So a potential narrative here is that Miriam is going from good shepherd to a woman being prodded along by her own flock. Becoming a space messiah against her will. Sounds like a good movie, doesn’t it?

Zakharov: He’s probably the fan favorite character, so I made him the #1 hero of the early colonial period, even more beloved than Santiago, Skye, etc. (This is despite how in “Journey to Centauri” he comes off as brusque, narrow-minded, heartless, and surprisingly belligerent when it comes to hating on Miriam’s religion.) And then I subvert that popularity: all good things come to an end, he flies too close to the sun, and gets washed over time by his disregard for the common citizen, ethical blindspots (corruption), and scientific failings (more corruption). Everyone loves a comeback story, so Zakharov’s intense- and probably incredibly irritating- fandom on Planet is spreading the word that their supreme technocrat will be able to truly clean house and govern humanity along lines of rationality if he wins.

Relations: All he cares for is to be able to run his labs in peace, so really his main beef is against Miriam, whose moralistic rabble-rousing and prattling on about psych spending is most oppositional to his efforts. Everyone else he could potentially work with- Lal is good on free flow of information and he respects his medical doctor STEM background, Yang is a materialist despite his annoying metaphysical affectations (though if he clamps down on the free flow of scientific research information there would be hell to pay), Morgan has graciously given him a platform, and his major differences with Santiago and Skye are on research priorities. (Though he does not care for his former junior scientific officer, who he considers to be little better than Godwinson in terms of ethical quibbling and irrational mysticism.) But also note, having recently fallen from grace, it will take time for him to regain his credibility with the public at large. Seems like it’ll take a special operation, perhaps a Secret Project, for him to win back their love.

Deirdre: To me, she has the hands down most interesting portrayal in Episode 30, where she casts the tie-preventing vote to dissolve the mission, defying Lal and Miriam. After being held hostage by Santiago and seeing beloved people and plants alike get murdered needlessly, she had lost her faith in the mission, and perhaps in humanity. She must dissent. Instead of trying to salvage the dying tree, she uprooted it entirely and salted the earth, as she does in this story with the former PCB.

Deirdre is not too far from a hippie; as per Adam Curtis’ interpretation of that movement, self-centered egoists who watered down collective action by disappearing into inward-looking individualistic spiritualism. Her Gaia-bothering, like Miriam’s God-bothering, leads her to spurn the hard work of collaboration- oh sure she’s all for local democracy, but in the game she chose to do so apart from the others. Granted, in “Journey to Centauri,” she did so after some intense trauma, but that impulse is still present in this setting, too. Her obsession with the pristine, perhaps overly naive, may end up empowering her worst enemies. And it’s with great irony that semi-canonically, if we go by most popular interpretations of the in-game quotes, the pacifistic, aloof Gaians end up vanquishing the Spartans and winning via the Transcendence victory.

Relations: As you’d expect, she’d have much grievance with Morgan, whose relentless resource exploitation is most hurtful to her. But here, she would also be a bitter enemy of Santiago’s, who only has the mindworms in her crosshairs, for now. (Ironically, the in-game quotes are sort of strange in describing a Spartan-Gaian conflict… that happens in the second Michael Ely novel, but mechanically speaking it’s an unexpected conflict.) If the Conclave of Believers can adopt a more Planet-friendly line on stewardship, Miriam might actually be a powerful ally, perhaps admitting the Lovelockians- or at least the Gaian minority within them- into the Conclave. There’s also the similarly longshot possibility of compatibility with Yang, who could potentially put his authoritarianism towards preserving the natural order.

Morgan: Here I explore the concept of media sacrificing objectivity for ratings, chasing viewers with salacious entertainment, and in doing so poisoning the body politic and giving voice to demagogues. And here we also have a businessman who believes he’s the only one who can fix the problems of government. (Maybe it’s extra appropriate that here he’s promising to solve the problems he himself introduced.)

Relations: He wants to protect his empire of capital, but he doesn’t mind raking in the dough on the way up. In this setting I see Morgan as particularly Machiavellian, so he’s likely to play the candidates against one another in the process, giving them appearances on his numerous media platforms while twisting their words and reported actions into themselves. So he’s not above temporarily working with anyone. Not even his worst semi-creation, Santiago. And there’s a chance he’d even work with her in the long run; if he can get her to let some (or just one) of the wealthy keep their filthy lucre, meaning look past the aversion to Wealth, he would not mind backing her completely as Mission Leader. After all, killing mindworms involves bulldozing fungal fields, meaning more safe land for Morgan Industries to develop.

His worst nemeses would not be in this number- even Yang could potentially pursue market-friendly policies within his utopia of absolute government control- but those who seek to rouse the underclasses. For that, we have to look beyond the seven.

 

[MysticWind]

The five upstarts

If there is hope, it lies with the Drones


Arthur Donaldson
Current Position: Secretary-Foreman of the Free Union Drones
Unity Position: Director of Planetside Mining Ops
Origin Country: Australia
Minor Party: Centauri Labour

The proof that there are third acts in Chironian lives rests in the drama of Free Union Drones Secretary-Foreman Arthur Donaldson, popularly known as Citizen Domai. Once the colony’s head of mining operations, as a civilian contractor he enjoyed an enviable existence as one prized by the mission without the obligations of being a member. Serving outside of the regimented crew command structure or the bureaucracy of the colonial administration, Donaldson oversaw the exploration and exploitation of Chiron’s mineral wealth, dispatching robo-miners to scout out mining beacons, then ordering massive former operations to the dig sites. The geologist-administrator gathered a reputation as one of the colony’s workhorses, discovering and tapping ample quantities of valuable metals for constructing bases and replenishing crucial rare minerals for the fading electronics brought from Earth.

Commendations from Garland’s office followed, and even appearances on MorganLink shows where company talking heads would try to poach him in realtime. Morgan Collections and Morgan Mines had an intracorporate race for which division could harvest Donaldson’s team first. Meanwhile, criticism of rampant drilling grew from the Planetary Cultivation Board, which advanced crackpot theories that disruption of local ecosystems attracted mindworm activity. Reports of worker maltreatment also blossomed, with harrowing tales of relentless timetables that drove miners to despair, unnecessarily fraught mineshafts that were as deadly as the thickest xenofungus field. But Donaldson dismissed such talk as fool’s gold, beneath his notice, and mined on.

​

His fortunes finally shifted when he embarked on his career’s magnus opus. After completing the colony’s first off-shore drilling platform in the Great Asbolus Bight, Donaldson was finally wooed over to the private sector by a lavish contract to build an experimental magma well for Morgan DeepWorks. This exotic prototype would tap into the magma vents on the southeastern side of Mount Planet, accessing the free flow of molten material and siphoning mineral-rich rock from deep into the mantle. The Morgan Magma Well was to serve as an invaluable step towards harnessing the unlimited energy and resources deep beneath Planet. Unfortunately for Donaldson, he would not be around to see it.

Donaldson was a harsh taskmaster on both his teams and himself. He had worked on major infrastructure projects for the colonial administration, from digging the foundations of the Unity City Command Center to boring the tunnels for the monorail system at Future’s Fulcrum. But he saw this project as potentially his greatest challenge and accomplishment. So he drove his workers on, even when the underground sensor readings triggered red flags in his own geology expertise. Every progress report, every virtual check-in from the CEO, every sleepless moment pushed him towards completion.

Until one fateful workday his seismic engineers found a blockage in the molten flow, potentially delaying the decurn’s targets. Determined to allow no setback to prevail, Donaldson alone donned an experimental thermal suit straight from the CSIRA’s workshop of wonders and crept into the fire passages while his own staff refused to follow even upon threats of termination. As he prepared the mining laser, in horror he realized that in their rush his workers had failed to account for a secondary magma chamber, which was now undergoing explosive pressure buildup. The hot-cracking they inflicted had the capacity to unleash an eruption, perhaps of the entirety of Mount Planet. Cursing his folly, he ruefully set the laser to self-detonate and ran for it. The ensuing controlled demolition released the pressure much less severely than if the entire chamber had burst on its own, but collapsed the main passage nonetheless. The miners were astonished to find Donaldson at the magma well entrance, burnt badly but alive.

The decurn’s work ended up being evacuation as workers fled uncontrolled lava streams and toxic fumes that emerged from beneath Planet’s crust. Morgan DeepWorks’ medical tent overflowed with the injured, and the company decided to cut its losses. CEO Nwabudike Morgan himself wrote the playbook: the Morgan Magma Well would be shuttered, written off as a hefty tax write-down, its experimental data and information locked behind the company IP vault. Casualties suffered from the explosion would be sealed in suspended animation and gradually rethawed over several quarters, to amortize the mountain of medical expenses. As each worker was stuffed into legacy Unity cryotubes, a bored company representative recited to them the time remaining on their contract. Before his tube sealed, a bewildered Director Donaldson, face and body still haphazardly-smeared with vitacream, struggled against the organic restraints as the rep locked eyes and stated, “Asset designated project cancellation root cause.”

​

Time passed. The company moved on to other ventures. With advances in Ecological Engineering, Morgan traded away the fancy magma well design for simple thermal boreholes, easily dug by a single former team, albeit with harsher blowback from pesky environmentalists, and the environment itself. Mining operations became the purview of the Colonial Development Directorate under the romantic, dashing figure of the hero cosmonaut. In cryo, Donaldson’s natural metabolic processes slowly healed his wound, or at least slowed the injuries. (For a time, wealthy citizens had used stasis as a means of proto-life extension, until long-term side effects were better understood.) Some distant part of his mind, only half-somnolescent, yearned to be stirred, to emerge forth, to dig once more.

But it was a long time coming.

Datafile corruption seeped into the company databanks, the aftermath of a cyber-intrusion. The hard copy of the planning charts and reanimation orders were on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory down in the office cellar. Arthur D. and his workers slept on in the stasis sepulcher in the gleaming Morgan People Ops building at New Era. Mission years turned into mission decades.

Then one day, an inventory team finally came across the forgotten batch. They triaged the wounded, consigned the least salvageable to reclamation, then roused the rest. Arthur took no comfort in that he had only been saved from the tanks by the advancement of medical technology over decades, reducing the severity of his injuries and designating him as marginally salvageable. In fact, he could barely feel at all. Imperfections in his cryotube seal had gradually exposed him to a miasma of coolant chemicals within the vast chamber. The toxic buildup, coupled with the rude awakening, produced a cerebral accident- a stroke. An entire hemisphere of his brain had been temporarily shut off, damaging his language centers to an extent that even modern medicine could not easily repair.

The Morganites mistook Donaldson’s muteness to be the sign of a simpleton, a dumb animal. But as dirty as such a beast was, his burden was valuable- if domesticated. (His exact identity, along with his compatriots, was lost to the sands of unformatted records and department reorgs.) Barely recovered from the thaw, they were drafted for the maintenance division at the Morgan facilities in New Era. The once-datalinks mugging former mining director, now demoted to Assistant Jobtech 3rd Class, scrubbed toilets and mended widgets. Day and night he fought to remember how to speak, even as his sense of self slipped from his inability to relate to others and constantly flickering memories. All the while, impatient corporate taskmasters prodded them with shock batons, resetting his train of thought with each taze.

​

The drudgery lasted for a mission year. He slowly regained control over his vocal functions, but not his vocabulary. His verbal repertoire was limited to the most emotionally charged units of communication- nine or so, mostly expletives. For this intellectual progression he was promoted to the sweltering liquid metal baths of the base’s smelter, forced to man blast furnaces separating useful minerals from ore. It was hot, heavy work, and often needlessly hazardous- the Morgan overseers prioritized expensive machinery over cheap men, so when the former broke, the latter were often sent in instead. More than once he was dispatched into the chemical tanks in a bare respirator, cleaning toxic surfaces with hand scrapers and stumbling over the skeletal remains of past maintenance workers. At night he lumbered to the labor barracks in long queues of exhausted workers, driven nameless and numb by their toil, craving for contract end. Back at Morgan Tiffany’s, wealthy socialites ogled at fine gold and platinum pieces on sale.

It is said that if physical labor is both onerous and repetitive, the mind is not only free to wander to more imaginative climes, it actually flees to higher planes. The same could be said of the heart- of a soul's capacity for empathy.

One fateful workday, when the furnaces burned particularly hot, the ventilation was particularly stuffed, and climate control was on the fritz, a small scuffle between two testy ore workers started at supper. CorpSec stepped in to break it up, and within seconds a full-on brawl broke out. He dove underneath the dining table, not wanting to get involved, but was hit in the chest by a tranq dart from a guard’s wrist-mounted mini-crossbow. His smeltsuit prevented the projectile from wounding him deeply, but not the drugs from entering his system.

A faded memory arose: Granddad Artie O’Brien Donaldson telling tales of his own grandfather’s grandfather Sean Aloysius Donaldson in the Eureka Rebellion. How the doughty prospector idealist had joined the Ballarat Reform League to agitate for representation from the taxers, solemnly stood on Bakery Hill to swore an oath to the Southern Cross, dutifully built the stockade that defended the rebel miners, and gallantly bled alongside Lalor himself in that grim ten minutes against the horde of redcoats. Barely surviving the battle, young Sean lived to fight on behalf of the diggers and all workers of the growing colony. In the family legacy he was more than a hero- a union man.

Though not quite reintegrated, in that moment Donaldson regained a sense of where he had come from. With a glint of destiny in his eye, he emerged from the table and rushed towards the brawl. “No work without all rights,” he roared, though the actual words that spilled forth from his mouth were, “Get stuffed drongos! Bastard bellends. Fair go, bloody oath!” “Strewth!” replied a nearby worker, mid-grapple with a CorpSec flunky. Donaldson waded into the fight, pummeling company men, assisting fellow workers caught in chokeholds or under dogpiles, shouting commands to shore up their ranks that came out as more gleeful curses. As they gradually formed a solid line of manpower, the workers pushed their assailants outwards towards the exits. Then the doors slid open and guards in riot gear flooded into the mess hall, exploding canisters of soporific gas. The last thing he saw was a man with a truncheon.

Thus ended his second mission year since he left cryo.

​

He awoke at the bottom of the world.

A Morganite rep, looking identical to the one who had sealed him up mission decades ago- save for an updated company uniform- handed a ClipCom over to a stocky figure in a dark environmental suit, collar in blue with red trim. The figure’s head was covered with a fine mesh, obscuring its face, extending beneath a wide-brimmed hat. As if hearing him stir, the figure turned towards him as it finger-painted a checkmark.

「都買了。」 a female voice said with a northerly Jingping twang. Dōu mǎi ler. All bought.

As if from some unknown panglottal understanding fostered by linguistic degeneration, he looked around. Around him were smelter workers, also in chains. Many sported bandages, arm slings, even stimpacks. They, too, were sedated, slowly stirring.

“Dōu mǎi,” echoed the rep, also turning to face him. Beaming, he chirped, “Morgan Industries appreciates your service.”

A blood-curdling shriek filled the holding cell. The regular early morning yell of horror was the sound of Arthur Donaldson waking up and suddenly remembering where he was.

He would later learn that the inspector general was a hardcore classicist in addition to a classist. Even before the voyage he had argued that the lingua franca should not be limited to Mission English and Esperanto, but all twelve of the U.N.’s official languages. So in his new base, the founder decreed that Common Han be the main tongue. It was the very closest that Yang could be to sentimental, a tribute to the fallen Golden Emperor he failed to protect, citizens whispered to each other. Having cracked a joke at the inspector general’s expense, they would then quickly glance around the room, and pretend to look busy. And so, as he slowly regained his capacity for speech, he found himself grunting in a language he had never spoken before.

Building the bones of People’s Teeming was hard and dangerous, though not much more than in other hellholes he had worked in before. What made the pit truly despondent was what it represented. This was no penal colony for rehabilitation through labor. This was a grand social experiment of utopian perfection. From a bubble office suspended dozens of levels from the bottom, the founder surveyed all beneath him. The next floors of the panopticon were the offices of the Talent-bureaucrats who had passed the rigorous examinations into Yang Thought and oversaw the workings of the base. Then were the copious decks that housed the barracks and training areas for the security forces- mostly Colonial Constables or former officers- that guarded the state. Floors for food production, manufacturing, and so on followed. Then at its deepest, darkest depths, those who built this inverted edifice lived as the lowest of the low.

Domai dwelled in this hive for the third mission year after waking.

 

[MysticWind]

Sympathy for the Drone

​

Contrary to popular conceptions on the surface, few drones fully fit the archetype of “unskilled, unsuitable, and disgruntled” “lazy troublemakers” “all carry[ing] weapons.” At least, not by their own choosing. The underclass manual laborers and shiftless forgotten pariahs, Domai came to learn, were most often those chewed up by the gears of society, dumped into trash heaps beyond the reach of any Psych Programme. Nine days a decurn he manned the great clanking mudpit ultradrills alongside wormbit PTSD veterans, SASA amnesiacs, low-energy debtors, socially maladjusted cryo-chrono-displaced “Ripples” (as in Rip Van Winkle) from out of time (like himself), the long-duration “late thaw” cryosleep brain-damaged (also him), addicts, dissidents, hackers, tech-pirates, and criminals of every kind.

For all of their disparate origins, all had found no place on the surface, meeting the same inevitable fate as permanent outcasts under the sleepless eyes of a deranged philosopher-king. It was here, huddled in the dirty caves and side tunnels crowded with refuse, that Domai learned true despair. This was the end of the line; the last station for those colonial society deemed truly unredeemable, unfit for anything more than the pickaxe and the lash of a psych whip. Escape did not exist as a concept, because to be a drone transcended all time or space. It was the same here or at the bottom of a constable’s boot during a riot at New Arzamas. A drone is A drone.

Ironically, it was also here where he would regain his full humanity.

​

Basic cognition slowly returned. As backbreaking as building an underground base was, the rote labor had the unexpected effect of jogging his memories. Every wheelbarrow of rubble he had to push, each shaft jam he had to crawl to unclog, all mechanical movements stimulated physical memories of doing the same, long back. Before he had left Earth. Before he was a geologist-specialist. When he was still a simple miner at Kalgoorlie. Flashes of memories gradually swirled, gathering in the cavern of his mind even as the caverns he crept in were lit by the dim yellow of buzzing glowlamps.

And emotions. Memories of emotion. Feelings. The determination and drive for ambition and achievement. The proudness of accomplishment, of production. Claps on his back and lapels on his suit and the brass band playing “Waltzing Matilda” at the national mission nomination ceremony. His oldies grinning to fight back tears, or maybe weeping to keep from laughing in pride. In his own heart a mix of the same: of having finally made it only to have to go away forever, of the mickle glory he could not take with him, of a stifled fear of the unknowns that lurked on an alien Planet, and then the crowd parted and his granddad, two decades gone, approached with an accusatory finger and shrieked and the door with the Morgan company logo slammed shut and mist enveloped the cryopod.

Sleep was the friend of few who dwelled in the drone barracks, and so they befriended each other. Big and dull-eyed Kohai. And bigger and duller Pankol. People who used to have proper names, turned to mush by the overseers or by each other, by memory loss from Spontaneous Atmospheric Shock Amnesia or language deterioration from fungshots or long cryo. Grunting was the true universal language among drones, even more than broken Common Han or mangled Esperanto. Many found Domai’s curse-speech to be endearing, and he kept it long after he had regained his full diction, code-switching to those who were no longer capable of the words of the upper-dwellers.

They swapped stories of the Talent-bureaucrats' decadent riches above, of nutrients that did not come in stick nor slime form, of clothes that fit properly, and of baths. They traded tall tales of daring in the tunnels below, of braving cave-ins, discovering mole-like sentients, and battling ravenous rockworms. They whispered of the depravity of the hooded Censors and their austere punishments, of the true unfortunates marched up the Way of Perfection and made to listen to the inspector general read his poetry. And they sat wordlessly with each other crying after work hours, sobbing of some lost love from a lost home, of a life lost to the hive city.

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But there were those who believed that not all was lost. That even in this endless oubliette there could be a spark of hope. Memories that there a sky, and there was a sun, maybe even two. Of days without glowlamps, without the Censorate, and without unceasing work for a place that despised them. In the dark sub-basements of People’s Teeming, a man appeared. As if from some half-forgotten prophesy, he walked the tunnels boldly, acting in ways like he cared not what the hiveguards would do, speaking strange yet seductive words of a life outside of the belly of the base. Jin Long was youthful, charismatic, and telegenic. It seemed like the mud could not blot out a glowing within him. Some said he was once a Talent poet, perhaps even one of the great councilors who advised the inspector general. Others looked at him with suspicion, and scoffed at the young pit-born drones who joined him as fools. Still, whenever he manifested at a subsection, the drones would chance the wrath of the overseers to hear him.

Domai was among the throngs for Jin Long. He listened with keen interest, head still trying to grasp the slippery words. This scintillating speaker’s orator offered hope, and hatred. Jin Long held seemingly unlimited anger towards the Talents, whom he called the enemy. He blamed their existence for sustaining Yang’s dictatorship, even more than the security hordes that enforced his diktats. He reigned but they ruled, managing the administrative state that ran People’s Teeming. And they provided an impossible dream for naive workers to aspire to, to one day ascend into the ranks of the order-givers, the submission rod wavers, the managers. To continue a cycle of slavery. Jin Long preached that the only hope was rebellion, to truly rise, smash the cycle, and kill the hated Talent-bureaucrats and their terrible sovereign once and for all.

This impassioned call to action spoke to Domai. He approached Jin Long, even as he harbored his own opinions. He pledged his support to the cause, if not to the man himself. Domai quickly impressed all as a natural organizer of the drones, his former life shining through the memory fog in distorted, almost mirror images. Domai sniffed rich veins of discontent across a dozen subsections as keenly as he once did as a rockhound. Like the expert mining crews he once organized, he ran these disgruntled workgangs expertly, building lines of communication for all levels of action. They exchanged mutual aid, providing rations and smuggled health kits for those abandoned by the overseers’ beneficence, or stung by the tender care of the hiveguards. They passed news to one another of dangers, from faulty shafts to security patrols. And they looked after one another, searching for those who had been snatched up by the Censorate in the darkest hours.

​

In short time, Domai became a face of the underground, as widely respected as Jin Long. To the latter’s credit, the originator cared not for attribution or glory. But he did care about absolute commitment to the overthrow of the Talents. Domai, in contrast, was more ambivalent towards the prospect of all-out tunnel warfare. Under the hive, he was never to shy away from a blue, but he also knew when to use discretion when the enemy was too much to bear. Domai doubted that even if all the drones were united, and allied to some of the upper-workers and even a few good hiveguards, they could win. Instead he suggested they simply flee. This pit was surmountable, he argued with Jin Long. There was light above, and they had machines to reach it. Flight was not a dream, but their future.

But Jin Long disagreed with his friend, stubbornly directing the Fight Drones to prepare for battle. Teaching them effective and strangely elaborate unarmed arts of combat in clandestine training academies, the young resistance leader stoked the fire of revolution. And soon spread it. Visages of the inspector chairman were vandalized in a prelude campaign, lone security officers ambushed in the tunnels. This targeted incitement drew in more patrols who were also beaten with their own psych-whips and submission rods, their armor stripped for the drones. Amidst all this, Domai reluctantly joined in with his Flight Drones, mindful of the inevitable hammer that was to fall.

Then came exactly one decurn before the rebellion was to begin. Hundreds of hooded Censors flooded the tunnels, having already sealed all possible egress points. Spraying passages with riot gas, soaking them with sonic weapons, and flooding some entirely with quick-harden bakelite, the Censorate was merciless in its assault. Led by a woman in a blue-black environment suit with red trim, the security hordes acted with pinpoint accuracy. During this Blue Night, many of the Fight Drones’ lieutenants rallied under Jin Long’s alleged orders to counterattack, roused their forces, and fell swiftly to security. The man himself was nowhere to be found. The fight died in the night.

​

In the mission days following this great purge, Domai slowly reemerged. He had not joined in, instead directing the Flight Drones under his command to flee their subsections and seek refuge in the auxiliary maintenance tunnels and unfinished construction shafts beyond the knowledge of security and Censorate. On Blue Night, he and a few others left only to bring in Jin Long's remnants to shelter, risking being captured, themselves. Domai felt a twinge of shame. he was determined that he was right in preserving his drones for another battle, but still burned from the cowardice of retreat. And mourned the loss of his friend and comrade. He vowed that when the day came when it was right to fight, he would commit all of their lives to the task.

Far from his internal conflict, the survivors united under Domai. They crowned him the new leader of the Free Drones, the one who had saved them from massacre. He immediately pivoted the movement to a new mission: to escape People’s Teeming. Calling together desmocked University of Chiron academics and New Digger heretic apostates, Domai's advisors devised a plan to repurpose their work to dig a secret shaft towards the surface. Similar to the failed rebellion, their true actions would be cloaked by small disruptions- work delays caused by dense stone deposits, rather than graffiti. Extra work would then have to take place, easily justifiable to overseers. And during that time, heavy ultradrills would be covertly used to build their way out. Paying tribute to lost Jin Long, the motto for this desperate operation was “The enemy’s gate is up.”

The work took the remainder of the mission year. Leaning on subconscious mining knowledge, he coordinated the drones. With each meter of rock cleared, he unlocked more memories of the man he once was. And with each direction and exhortation he gave to the drill teams, Donaldson regained a sense of his former self. As they neared their emergence day, the Free Drones increasingly feared a second crackdown by security. But the foreman urged calm. He sent words of encouragement down the line even as he supervised the construction. By his reckoning they were mere minutes away from emergence, from freedom. As pebbles and silt trickled down, Domai repeated three words to his seconds, who whispered it down the line. “One way up.” No time for speeches, these words became a chant that resounded through the escape shaft. “One way up!” as the first rays of Centauri teased through the dirt. “One way up!” as the drones fought back against a surprised security team that had stumbled upon them, kicking hiveguards down the shaft. “One way up!” as support drones handed out rebreathers for the mythical surface. In Han and English, in Esperanto and Basque, in Moroccan and Mongolian, “One way up! One way up!” And then came the suns.