Pre-ChaNES: Into the Void

[Head Serf]

From President Astor of the United States of America
To all interested Governors

America looks forward to the expansion of our democratic values to the edges of the universe. As a major part of our values here in America, we believe that various smaller communities, let them be states, counties, or interstellar colonies, should be given some degree of autonomy within the greater good, instilled by the American Federal Government. To assure this, we would like to attract people to go abroad and administrate our interstellar colonies. As part of this, we will be allowing those governors a great deal of freedom, much more freedom than is currently present for the various states in the union. However, in addition, we would like governors to promise to adhere to several interstellar laws set forth by the US Federal Government. They are:

1. You must not attack American military or civilian personnel, either living in or visiting the colony.
2. You must allow open (not neccesarily free) trade between your colony and the American nation.
3. You must not conspire to, nor act, in any way that would require the United States to defend itself.
4. You must send income to the US Federal Government when requested (but please see below)

This are truly revolutionary guidelines for a nation connected to the US. We realize that a large degree of autonomy is necessary for the betterment and development of the colony, but we also realize that some guidelines are required in order to keep the establishment of new colonies within the interest of the American Government. Next follows a number of rights, in addition to the rights given to you in the Constitution, that all colonial governors will be given.

1. You may tax your citizens as you decide to.
2. You may have your own military, independent of the US Federal Government's military.
3. You will never be required to send more than 1/3 of your income to the US Government.
4. You may conduct separate diplomacy, although all agreements must be disclosed to the US Federal Government.

Thank you, and if you have any questions or comments, please voice them. If you are interested in being a governor for an American colony, please tell me right away, along with which planet or colonies you would like to administer.

 

[Shadowbound]

Pick me as your colonial governor, I'm probably too inactive to rebel, but smart enough to remember to zip up my jumpsuit when I come out of the bathroom.

EDIT: @Below: Just tell me when the Asari come, I'll get active real fast.

 

[Symphony D.]

I'm probably too inactive to rebel, but smart enough to remember to zip up my jumpsuit when I come out of the bathroom.

Decloak: Good, your Captain will be pleased.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

European Union- First Reaction

The Discovery of Stigma particles incited a huge excitement in the European Scientific Community. Nearly overnight, the funding of the ESA skyrocketed (pun not intended). From mid-2054 onwards, numerous tests with unmanned probes and Stigma-powered drives took place. By 2056, the first robotic probe mission (traveling via Stigma technology), codenamed 'Hermes' was sent towards the system designated 086-025. In 2058 and 2059, probes named 'Orion' and 'Thor' were sent to 151-056 and 021-047 respectively.

The Orion probe suffered a failure while passing out of the Oort cloud, recording only a rapid rise in temperature before its signal failed. Though no investigation has proven positively what happened, it is generally believed to be a mechanical malfunction, causing the nuclear battery to destroy the craft. Other theories are comet impacts getting through the ablative protection, a failure of Stigma technology, or deliberate sabotage of the probe prior to launch...

 

[Fuschia]

To: All Nations of the Islamic Summit

The discovery of the stigma represents an exciting new ground for our religion: a spreading throughout the stars. Entire planets may now enter Dar-al Islam. We may spread practice of our religion to all corners of the galaxy.

However, Islam must present a united face in order to compete with the power of the Christian-dominated area of space travel and research. To this end, we propose a United Muslim government based on the model of our own, the reason being that of practicality: Indonesia has shown an ability to unite an enormous number of islands into a single nation, as well as to incorporate other nations, such as Malaysia and Brunei, into our own. This gives our government-form the greatest chance of once again uniting Islam under a single government.

Indonesia will be the representative of Islam to the stars. It is your choice if you wish to join us in this endeavor and be a part of Dar-al Islam. However, to allow the domination of Christian and Western societies throughout the galaxy would be a great crime, one that we would not wish to be your fault, directly or indirectly.


OOC: This is just an initial response. We will be accepting questions, suggestions, demands and the like from any of those nations who wish to give them. I will also post a more internal response later, I just find this so much more interesting...

 

[Head Serf]

The nations of Somalia, Iraq, and the ARMM are strongly recommended to stay out of entering into any sort of alliance with their Muslim friends in Indonesia, lest the United States is forced to become involved. Any sort of Dar-al-Islamic alliance would be detrimental to US interests in the region, and we ask Indonesia to please minimize their space program and instead focus on bringing more democracy, free speech, and free economy to their nation.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

The Muslim governments of the world, without exception, reject a loss of their individual sovereignty to Indonesia.

 

[Head Serf]

From President Astor of the United States of America
To the rest of the World

We would like to offer up some names for the planets of 086-025, 021-047, and 151-056. Here they are:

System 086-025 to Infinitas System
086-025A to Vulcan
086-025B to Carmenta
086-025C to Portunes
086-025D to Bacchus
086-025E to Volturnus

I'll get some more later/tomorrow. I thought that the system closest to Earth should continue with the old Roman names. Any ideas for the other two systems? What about each system using names from various cultures? The next could be Greek, or Egyptian.

EDIT: Oops, Ceres is a moon. I changed it to Carmenta.

 

[jalapeno_dude]

lurker's comment: Why not go for some names from non-Western cultures? Otherwise I'd think China and Indonesia won't be happy. Maybe one system gets European names, one gets Asian, and one gets African (which may or may not mean Egyptian)?

 

[Symphony D.]

lurker's comment: Why not go for some names from non-Western cultures? Otherwise I'd think China and Indonesia won't be happy. Maybe one system gets European names, one gets Asian, and one gets African (which may or may not mean Egyptian)?

Decloak: Or, the people who wind up going to the systems could name them, so you don't have silliness like Chinese people living in the Ubuntu system.

 

[Abaddon]

Would make sense to claim and name rather than decide now.

 

[jalapeno_dude]

Decloak: Or, the people who wind up going to the systems could name them, so you don't have silliness like Chinese people living in the Ubuntu system.

lurker's comment: Doesn't everyone want to live in the Ubuntu system? It means no more blue screens of death!

 

[Lord_Iggy]

From President Astor of the United States of America
To the rest of the World

We would like to offer up some names for the planets of 086-025, 021-047, and 151-056. Here they are:

System 086-025 to Infinitas System
086-025A to Vulcan
086-025B to Carmenta
086-025C to Portunes
086-025D to Bacchus
086-025E to Volturnus

I'll get some more later/tomorrow. I thought that the system closest to Earth should continue with the old Roman names. Any ideas for the other two systems? What about each system using names from various cultures? The next could be Greek, or Egyptian.

EDIT: Oops, Ceres is a moon. I changed it to Carmenta.

The EU believes that it would be most rational to maintain both the original designation and a proper name, theough it expresses its concern that conflict may arise over naming rights.

 

[Fuschia]

The Muslim governments of the world, without exception, reject a loss of their individual sovereignty to Indonesia.

Well, that was an obvious failure. I suppose I had to try anyways...

I'll see if I can't get a story and my orders in, I'm having some trouble finding time to do anything at all for the moment.

 

[a_propagandist]

Prospective governor here.

 

[Head Serf]

I'm sorry, but I haven't sent orders in yet. I'll try to send them tonight, or tomorrow afternoon at the latest. Has everyone else already sent theirs?

 

[Fuschia]

To: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan
From: Indonesia

We would like to invite you to join and take a leading role in the International Islamic Space Program (IISP). The project's goal is to create a unified Muslim presence in the space-race and colonization of other planets, with the most immediate projects being to colonize the planets within our solar system and send probes to others in the hopes of eventual inter-stellar travel. Funds would be granted by member nations to be distributed as seen fit by a council of representative from the various nations, with representative number from any one nation being directly related to the amount of funds recieved from that nation. All productions of the project would be jointly owned by its members, and the colonies jointly governed by its members. As it currently stands, the IISP has four members: Indonesia, Bangladesh, Qatar, and the U.A.E. We hope you will see the importance of this program to Islam in its competition with Western and Christian powers.


OOC: The nations are listed in order of relative importance and effort spent in getting them to join. Hopefully they will all find this a tad more reasonable than my last offer...

 

[Chandrasekhar]

I'm sorry, but I haven't sent orders in yet. I'll try to send them tonight, or tomorrow afternoon at the latest. Has everyone else already sent theirs?

At the moment, I don't have any orders, so you aren't behind the pack by any means.

Keep in mind that I'd appreciate it if orders included which planets to colonize, what to do if said planets are already colonized, what to do if someone tries to colonize a planet that you've already established a colony on, (edit: colony/planet names, too) etc. I had actually expected a bit more diplomacy regarding who gets what planets by this point, but handling such matters by contingency is fine.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Spoiler :

To: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan
From: Indonesia

We would like to invite you to join and take a leading role in the International Islamic Space Program (IISP). The project's goal is to create a unified Muslim presence in the space-race and colonization of other planets, with the most immediate projects being to colonize the planets within our solar system and send probes to others in the hopes of eventual inter-stellar travel. Funds would be granted by member nations to be distributed as seen fit by a council of representative from the various nations, with representative number from any one nation being directly related to the amount of funds recieved from that nation. All productions of the project would be jointly owned by its members, and the colonies jointly governed by its members. As it currently stands, the IISP has four members: Indonesia, Bangladesh, Qatar, and the U.A.E. We hope you will see the importance of this program to Islam in its competition with Western and Christian powers.


OOC: The nations are listed in order of relative importance and effort spent in getting them to join. Hopefully they will all find this a tad more reasonable than my last offer...

Turkey and Turkmenistan reject this offer, but the other nations show various levels of apparent enthusiasm. Their degree of participation remains to be seen, however.

 

[Fuschia]

I suppose I have no excuse now. I'll have to write a story and get my orders in...