MysticWind
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2008
- Messages
- 148
Racing the Darkness: A Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Fan Fiction Photoessay
- Thread starter Axis Kast
- Start date
MysticWind
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2008
- Messages
- 148
Mercator’s Projectionists: Vic Montoya
Cambridge-educated behavioral scientist Vic Montoya is a lecturer at the burgeoning Mokoena University and occasional “consulting investigator” for the Memory of Earth's Ministry of Internal Investigations. Formerly a special agent of the Central Security Bureau, the Second American Civil Wartime emergency troika of the CIA, NSA, and FBI, Montoya was dismissed for “insubordinate negligence and frivolous activities” for personal crusades that he carried all the way to Chiron: allegations that the United States government had been aware of extraterrestrial intelligences since its founding and was actively covering up this reality. According to his superiors, Montoya’s in-depth investigation into the Palmer slayings or the death of Apsara Mongkut were not excessive intellectual exercises due to overtraining, but the obsessions of a deranged and unpatriotic character.
Despite dismissal from the CSB, Montoya was both nominated and accepted by the multinational U.N. Alpha Centauri Mission Committee for his untiring crime-solving acumen. The admittance was seen as but one among several impolitic choices designed by the United Nations to embarrass America, with the intention of shaming the great power into renewing its commitments to the Unity project. Furthermore, because the debadged agent had focused his accusations on his own nation’s government only and not other authorities, he was seen as ideologically compatible with the overall project.
Montoya proved himself to be more than a politically advantageous kook during Planetfall, when he deduced that based on their past track record on Earth (and with the benefit of his own personal biases), the Kellerites did not mean to subvert the mission in the same way the Spartans did. While Unity X.O. d’Almeida thoughtlessly brushed off this analysis, U.N. Marine General Salan did not and indulged in his pet hunch, allowing the opening of dialogue with Kellerite representative Sergeant Landers. This temporary ceasefire allowed the contingent of survivors loyal to the U.N. led by Salan and Pravin Lal to brook no trouble from the Tribals, though no further cooperation developed from this brief interaction.
Montoya would later emerge in the Memory of Earth, drawn to the ideology of Commander Kleisel Mercator and the faction’s preoccupation with extraterrestrial life. Though even his behavior was too much for Observer ministries to officially employ him, he was allowed to share his expertise as a civilian advisor. Beyond his instructional duties, Montoya runs a column on the datalinks, the X-ron Chronicle, correlating near-daily xenological discoveries on Planet to past paranormal incidents from Earth’s past, not to mention tell-tale signs of foreknowledge from the powers-that-be. Though officially frowned upon by faction leadership, it has a modest following among the more ardent Wanters (as in, “I want to know”), exemplifying that theory’s preoccupation with UFOs, alien secrets, and willingness to accuse Old Earth organizations of conspiracy. With its ascension to the Planetary Datalinks, the Chronicle has since become quite popular among Gaian theists, Dreamer parapsychologists, and Monopolist tabloid-readers alike.
While Montoya is a fairly obscure figure beyond readers of the Chronicle, the continuous spate of surprising findings about Planetlife, coupled with mysterious- often violent- incidents during life in the colonies, have led the MII to increasingly call him in to consult on cases they cannot satisfyingly explain. As to what Han Jae-Moon, Mercator, or any others at the top might think of the quixotic questioner, the answer can only be found out there.
Casting
Victor “the Questioner” Montoya is portrayed by David Duchovny as J.P. Prewett in Zoolander.
Notes:
A totalitarian “CIA/NSA/FBI troika” is one of the unfortunate outcomes in Replay by Ken Grimwood.
The Chiron Chronicle was a popular collaborative SMAC fanfiction series from the Apolyton forums at the turn of the century.
Adaptation Notes
Originally I had envisioned the CSB to have directly ruled the U.S. during part of the 2ACW. Now I’m thinking that it was the power behind the throne for one of the hapless presidents during that conflict, but did not overtly declare itself in charge. Afterwards it was broken up into its predecessor agencies.
I’m still not entirely sure when the 2ACW takes place in the RtD timeline (maybe as early as 20-30 years before the mission?). As with many characters, Montoya’s age is really thrown into question. But one of my writing principles on this project is “everything is happening all of the time” so I roll with it anyhow. That’s also why I basically assume every named character, both canon and OC, were somehow all gifted the Longevity Vaccine and still around on ‘present day’ Planet with their original looks.
Victor “the Questioner” Montoya said:
Cambridge-educated behavioral scientist Vic Montoya is a lecturer at the burgeoning Mokoena University and occasional “consulting investigator” for the Memory of Earth's Ministry of Internal Investigations. Formerly a special agent of the Central Security Bureau, the Second American Civil Wartime emergency troika of the CIA, NSA, and FBI, Montoya was dismissed for “insubordinate negligence and frivolous activities” for personal crusades that he carried all the way to Chiron: allegations that the United States government had been aware of extraterrestrial intelligences since its founding and was actively covering up this reality. According to his superiors, Montoya’s in-depth investigation into the Palmer slayings or the death of Apsara Mongkut were not excessive intellectual exercises due to overtraining, but the obsessions of a deranged and unpatriotic character.
Despite dismissal from the CSB, Montoya was both nominated and accepted by the multinational U.N. Alpha Centauri Mission Committee for his untiring crime-solving acumen. The admittance was seen as but one among several impolitic choices designed by the United Nations to embarrass America, with the intention of shaming the great power into renewing its commitments to the Unity project. Furthermore, because the debadged agent had focused his accusations on his own nation’s government only and not other authorities, he was seen as ideologically compatible with the overall project.
Montoya proved himself to be more than a politically advantageous kook during Planetfall, when he deduced that based on their past track record on Earth (and with the benefit of his own personal biases), the Kellerites did not mean to subvert the mission in the same way the Spartans did. While Unity X.O. d’Almeida thoughtlessly brushed off this analysis, U.N. Marine General Salan did not and indulged in his pet hunch, allowing the opening of dialogue with Kellerite representative Sergeant Landers. This temporary ceasefire allowed the contingent of survivors loyal to the U.N. led by Salan and Pravin Lal to brook no trouble from the Tribals, though no further cooperation developed from this brief interaction.
Montoya would later emerge in the Memory of Earth, drawn to the ideology of Commander Kleisel Mercator and the faction’s preoccupation with extraterrestrial life. Though even his behavior was too much for Observer ministries to officially employ him, he was allowed to share his expertise as a civilian advisor. Beyond his instructional duties, Montoya runs a column on the datalinks, the X-ron Chronicle, correlating near-daily xenological discoveries on Planet to past paranormal incidents from Earth’s past, not to mention tell-tale signs of foreknowledge from the powers-that-be. Though officially frowned upon by faction leadership, it has a modest following among the more ardent Wanters (as in, “I want to know”), exemplifying that theory’s preoccupation with UFOs, alien secrets, and willingness to accuse Old Earth organizations of conspiracy. With its ascension to the Planetary Datalinks, the Chronicle has since become quite popular among Gaian theists, Dreamer parapsychologists, and Monopolist tabloid-readers alike.
While Montoya is a fairly obscure figure beyond readers of the Chronicle, the continuous spate of surprising findings about Planetlife, coupled with mysterious- often violent- incidents during life in the colonies, have led the MII to increasingly call him in to consult on cases they cannot satisfyingly explain. As to what Han Jae-Moon, Mercator, or any others at the top might think of the quixotic questioner, the answer can only be found out there.
Casting
Victor “the Questioner” Montoya is portrayed by David Duchovny as J.P. Prewett in Zoolander.
Notes:
A totalitarian “CIA/NSA/FBI troika” is one of the unfortunate outcomes in Replay by Ken Grimwood.
The Chiron Chronicle was a popular collaborative SMAC fanfiction series from the Apolyton forums at the turn of the century.
Adaptation Notes
Originally I had envisioned the CSB to have directly ruled the U.S. during part of the 2ACW. Now I’m thinking that it was the power behind the throne for one of the hapless presidents during that conflict, but did not overtly declare itself in charge. Afterwards it was broken up into its predecessor agencies.
I’m still not entirely sure when the 2ACW takes place in the RtD timeline (maybe as early as 20-30 years before the mission?). As with many characters, Montoya’s age is really thrown into question. But one of my writing principles on this project is “everything is happening all of the time” so I roll with it anyhow. That’s also why I basically assume every named character, both canon and OC, were somehow all gifted the Longevity Vaccine and still around on ‘present day’ Planet with their original looks.
r16
not deity
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2008
- Messages
- 11,502
if that's (I don't get it) we in Turkey had a radio programme for years that had a regular guest . An instructor in the Military Academy who wouldn't reveal his name for some reason . He cited the said book by the said author multiple times , essentially claiming the new system being established in my country was creating fake enemies to justify itself and to unite people for its own agenda . None of which seems to do any good for the country .
your Hobbes is a Korean already , perhaps .
your Hobbes is a Korean already , perhaps .
MysticWind
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2008
- Messages
- 148
Just a couple more design notes on the Muckers. Here’s my more or less canonical (or rather headcanon) explanation for what they’re about.
Besides being inspired by Monolith stalkers, ruiners are ultimately examples of the cosmic horror tropes of driven mad by old-ass ancient artifacts typified by the works of Lovecraft. (Also feels vaguely Indiana Jones, and given how that character was no doubt distantly descended from the swashbuckling tales of the likes of Edgar Rice Burroughs or Robert E. Howard, maybe it’s more accurate to say it’s more of a generally weird fiction / pulp trope.) So naturally, sleeping in a monolith is a bad idea, it exposes one to brain-breaking motif of harmful sensation as nuclear fallout exposes one to radiation. I don’t really know how Progenitor sites/artifacts fit in with Planetmind, but I assume it’s all connected and the underlying mechanism is similar to how mindworms drive people cray-cray. (The fixed- mostly- nature of monoliths also raises the intriguing possibility of Chironian ley lines, which are a feature of another kitchen sink of a setting I am inspired by in my rendition of RtD.) In the end, it’s makes you think twice about sending your damaged units to unexplored monoliths, those ostensible oases of free healing and experience upgrades. The ruiners sort of worship the alien sites (dirt-worshippers, eh) and are generally inscrutable. <Maybe I should’ve said something about relics, too- like ruiners steal alien artifacts back, hence why they target smacers. Actually that could be a good mechanic to make you protect your artifacts, and not hoard too many of them in a single base! I’m going to have to add that to a future segment eventually.>
My headcanon for wreckers is that they are driven mad by Planetmind. First, I think that such an entity is not self-unified but rather a conflux of innumerable thoughts, personalities, intentions, factions?, some of which are more malevolent than others. And the cohesive singular Planetmind as we know it (asking and chiding earthdeirdre) doesn’t fully manifest itself until the lategame. <Far be it for me to speculate, much less explore, what might possibly exist within the Planetmind consciousness, since that would be a layer of complexity that would make all of this even more convoluted.> Maybe, for those who were sealed in bits of the ship upon landing, they were visited by planetdreams that drove them into staying indoors instead of profaning the environment? Perhaps planetentities reached into their memories of the atrocities they had done to Earth, and decided to keep them shut up in metal cages. When exposed to the outside, like ruiners, they kill their own, keeping down the population of invasive humans before they have a chance to wreck the entire ecosphere. (Even passively, simply by denying them access to potentially life-saving goods stored in the Unity wreckage) So in both cases, they serve as human equivalents to mindworms.
However, I maintain that muckers are distinct from the Cult of Planet and other Gaian-like Planet-loving factions. For one thing, those polities are actually not completely insane. So they’re able to communicate with other factions, even participate in relations like the Planetary Council, and behave semi-rationally, even if others might find their ideology insane. Also, I’m emphasizing that both types of muckers aren’t overt Planet idolaters. Ruiners declare the glory of the monoliths and artifacts. Wreckers are trapped in strange nightmares of having to stay in. Assertion and reaction.
Besides being inspired by Monolith stalkers, ruiners are ultimately examples of the cosmic horror tropes of driven mad by old-ass ancient artifacts typified by the works of Lovecraft. (Also feels vaguely Indiana Jones, and given how that character was no doubt distantly descended from the swashbuckling tales of the likes of Edgar Rice Burroughs or Robert E. Howard, maybe it’s more accurate to say it’s more of a generally weird fiction / pulp trope.) So naturally, sleeping in a monolith is a bad idea, it exposes one to brain-breaking motif of harmful sensation as nuclear fallout exposes one to radiation. I don’t really know how Progenitor sites/artifacts fit in with Planetmind, but I assume it’s all connected and the underlying mechanism is similar to how mindworms drive people cray-cray. (The fixed- mostly- nature of monoliths also raises the intriguing possibility of Chironian ley lines, which are a feature of another kitchen sink of a setting I am inspired by in my rendition of RtD.) In the end, it’s makes you think twice about sending your damaged units to unexplored monoliths, those ostensible oases of free healing and experience upgrades. The ruiners sort of worship the alien sites (dirt-worshippers, eh) and are generally inscrutable. <Maybe I should’ve said something about relics, too- like ruiners steal alien artifacts back, hence why they target smacers. Actually that could be a good mechanic to make you protect your artifacts, and not hoard too many of them in a single base! I’m going to have to add that to a future segment eventually.>
My headcanon for wreckers is that they are driven mad by Planetmind. First, I think that such an entity is not self-unified but rather a conflux of innumerable thoughts, personalities, intentions, factions?, some of which are more malevolent than others. And the cohesive singular Planetmind as we know it (asking and chiding earthdeirdre) doesn’t fully manifest itself until the lategame. <Far be it for me to speculate, much less explore, what might possibly exist within the Planetmind consciousness, since that would be a layer of complexity that would make all of this even more convoluted.> Maybe, for those who were sealed in bits of the ship upon landing, they were visited by planetdreams that drove them into staying indoors instead of profaning the environment? Perhaps planetentities reached into their memories of the atrocities they had done to Earth, and decided to keep them shut up in metal cages. When exposed to the outside, like ruiners, they kill their own, keeping down the population of invasive humans before they have a chance to wreck the entire ecosphere. (Even passively, simply by denying them access to potentially life-saving goods stored in the Unity wreckage) So in both cases, they serve as human equivalents to mindworms.
However, I maintain that muckers are distinct from the Cult of Planet and other Gaian-like Planet-loving factions. For one thing, those polities are actually not completely insane. So they’re able to communicate with other factions, even participate in relations like the Planetary Council, and behave semi-rationally, even if others might find their ideology insane. Also, I’m emphasizing that both types of muckers aren’t overt Planet idolaters. Ruiners declare the glory of the monoliths and artifacts. Wreckers are trapped in strange nightmares of having to stay in. Assertion and reaction.
MysticWind
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2008
- Messages
- 148
So technically the Memory of Earth (the Observers) are @Axis Kast's baby, but I do think there is similarities between that description and this faction. The leader of this faction is West German, though. The Korean character is just an import from Civilization: Beyond Earth for this faction.
Last edited:
MysticWind
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2008
- Messages
- 148
Mercator’s Projectionists: Ellie Argus
Doctor Ellie Argus is the Memory of Earth’s foremost medical examiner, renowned for her post-xenoform attack inquests and studies on mindworm behavior. PanMayo Clinic educated in internal medicine with an undergraduate degree in biophysics from UC Berkeley, Argus originally cut her teeth on a Médecins Sans Frontières post-residency in the war-torn American Midwest. During her service, Ellie determined that the mysterious wasting disease afflicting civil war refugees was not mere malnutrition, but acute cachexia caused by a chemical agent deployed by one of the local hypersurvivalist militias.
Originally the coroner on Chief of Surgery Pravin Lal’s staff, Argus found her way into Zakharov’s camp of engineers and scientists. While her medical expertise was appreciated, her physics background made her an even better fit for the University in formation. Possessing an empirical skepticism, despite clinging on to a Greek Orthodox faith from childhood, made her a natural Academic. On Planet, her abilities made her humanity’s first forensics xenopathologist, explaining deaths claimed by mindworms and ancient Progenitor remains. (Indeed, her field experience and courage during xenoform incursions placed her on the Schreiber Project’s priority poach list.) Though the discipline of xenoarcheology was nascent in the early colonial period, Argus gained a reasonable grasp of the topic.
So when a Chiron Guard artifact extraction team captured her scout expedition at the Hippotion Gorge, the duty officer recognized Ellie as a prominent researcher. Rather than consigned to the prisoner exchange process, she was offered a role with the Observers. Believing in the probability of distinguishing herself in their number and intrigued by their focus on Planetlife, Argus accepted.
The doctor finds the Memory of Earth to be professional yet overly credulous. Upon becoming one of Mercator’s heralded defectors, and a veteran field investigator, Argus has also become an outspoken proponent of the Skeptic theory. Subscribing to the observable reality that sentient life had disappeared from Planet for untold millennia, Ellie is a popular critic of supposed sightings of alien intelligence. Wielding both biophysics and medical knowledge, she debunked the infamous Bullock sighting, determining the “ghost lights” to be no more than gas arising from marshy swamps reflecting light from Hercules. She has testified before the Observer Diet and even on pop infotainment datalink programmes about the proliferation of supposed “experts” peddling fraudulent claims about the nature of the universe, and urging factional policy be based on verifiable evidence, not myth and legend. Though Argus has collaborated with colleagues from other theories- most notoriously during the MY 2118 Curien case, with a particular datalinks-famous Wanter- her convictions remain unshaken.
Skeptic theories
The Skeptics are an audible minority within the Memory of Earth, their views conflicting with the commander’s worldview. However, as with many theories, Skepticism carries the potential for crossover. Skeptic-Defenders advocate for global coordinated defense, believing in the possibility of fixing the mistakes of NATO and past petty regional alliances to bridge humanity for the challenge of space colonization. But they also claim that fears of alien attack are unsubstantiated and superfluous, a distraction at best and dangerous misinformation at worst. Similarly, Skeptic-Unifiers believe that the Memory of Earth must bring about the unification of the Unity diaspora to avoid repeating the endless conflicts of the species’ past. To fixate on an external enemy is to craft a false scapegoat, rejecting true fraternity on the base of false fears.
Despite the moniker, not all Skeptics are as scientifically-inclined as Ellie Argus. Few in number but abundant in fringe groups, the Alt-Skeptics break with establishment with their own pseudoscientific myths. Famed needlejet squadron leader Norman “Wild Bill” Hastings came out as a controversial Skeptic by spreading the doctrine that monuments of Chiron are not ancient alien constructs but rather the works of Satan. Dissenting from Sister Miriam Godwinson’s proclamation of Planet as a promised land, the former United States Air Force captain from Colorado Springs claimed that Alpha Centauri was a purgatory of sorts filled with dangerous, leviathans, ziz, and demons. Thus the purpose of the Memory of Earth is to shepherd the stranded flock through this dire valley of darkness. Artifacts must be carefully gathered, ritually cleansed, and destroyed. A subsequent inquiry by Aurora Flight officials cleared Hastings of any treason, though the growing popularity of this heresy gives his superiors great consternation.
More clandestinely, within the Ministry of Internal Investigations dwells a cabal of ex-CSB federal agents loyal to the reconstituted Church of Latter-Earth Saints. The g-men consider the Progenitors to be not some sort of hokey science-fictional elder race birthed by the blind chance of evolution, but fellow brothers and sisters heretofore created by Elohim. They view the scientific marvels of the monoliths as clearly the work of denizens of Kolob, maybe even spirit children of the heavenly parents. Calling themselves New Nephites, as Lehi and his progeny once similarly crossed a great distance to a new world, these agents seek to use the resources of the Observers to closely understand Chiron and grow closer to Heavenly Father, perhaps to find His celestial kingdom beyond the next manifold.
Finally, a small group of SIGINT analysts within the Ministry of External Intelligence, rallying around a former Research and Analysis Wing bureau chief descended from Kargil survivors, suggest that the creators of the Chironian artifacts are no less than Earthmen from the age of Treta-yuga who, skilled in the Vedic sciences, built the vimana flying chariots and came to Planet. Interpreting alleged xenoanthropological phenomena through the lens of the Sanskrit epics, they have decided that the Progenitors were their own ancestors. After the wars with Pakistan, the rise of the Kavithan heresy, and the cataclysm of the Six-Minute War, these embittered survivors believe the only way to restore Akhand Bharat would be to use the vimana to return home and smash the mlecchas. (They have opened a covert channel to the Restorationists, who are understandably perturbed by their notions and enthusiasm.)
By defying the Mercator consensus, despite substituting in their own clearly non-scientific mythos, all of the above groups can be considered Skeptics.
Dr. Argus, for her own part, has some sympathy for the cultural superstitions of these Alt-Skeptics, but bears no patience for their attempts on influencing factional decisions. Her public persona as a Skeptic thus draws suspicion and hostility both from them, and from those who support Mercator’s theories such as the Wanters. While the Observers are supposedly a professional and objective lot, ideological zeal strikes them as fervently as in any other faction. Thus, even as Ellie speaks out against the forces of irrationality, some of the same forces might conspire to push back.
Casting
Eleanor “Ellie” Argus is portrayed by Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully in The X Files: I Want to Believe.
Notes:
Eleanor “Ellie” Arroway is the protagonist of Contact by Carl Sagan, who becomes the director of Project Argus, a radiotelescope array in New Mexico dedicated to the SETI project.
The PanMayo Clinic is a bit of deep SMAC cut content- this beta version(?) of Lal’s biography on the official site archived by DataPacRat had the commissioner educated there.
Just as the factions in canon might have a tinge of influence from their leaders’ origins, here I have the Memory of Earth’s legislature be a German-style diet.
The idea that Hindu texts describe the ancients building flying machines (and committing nuclear war) is a psuedoarcheological conspiracy theory. See “Ancient India had aeroplanes, nuclear weapons, says chief of India's premier history body”, India Today. Also for some reason in Escape Velocity Nova there’s the sub-faction Vell-os founded by an Indian prince who telepathically went to outer space in the first millennium AD.
Aurora Flight is my name for the Observer atmospheric corps / air force, referring to the rumored SR-91 Aurora.
Eleanor “Ellie” Argus said:
Doctor Ellie Argus is the Memory of Earth’s foremost medical examiner, renowned for her post-xenoform attack inquests and studies on mindworm behavior. PanMayo Clinic educated in internal medicine with an undergraduate degree in biophysics from UC Berkeley, Argus originally cut her teeth on a Médecins Sans Frontières post-residency in the war-torn American Midwest. During her service, Ellie determined that the mysterious wasting disease afflicting civil war refugees was not mere malnutrition, but acute cachexia caused by a chemical agent deployed by one of the local hypersurvivalist militias.
Originally the coroner on Chief of Surgery Pravin Lal’s staff, Argus found her way into Zakharov’s camp of engineers and scientists. While her medical expertise was appreciated, her physics background made her an even better fit for the University in formation. Possessing an empirical skepticism, despite clinging on to a Greek Orthodox faith from childhood, made her a natural Academic. On Planet, her abilities made her humanity’s first forensics xenopathologist, explaining deaths claimed by mindworms and ancient Progenitor remains. (Indeed, her field experience and courage during xenoform incursions placed her on the Schreiber Project’s priority poach list.) Though the discipline of xenoarcheology was nascent in the early colonial period, Argus gained a reasonable grasp of the topic.
So when a Chiron Guard artifact extraction team captured her scout expedition at the Hippotion Gorge, the duty officer recognized Ellie as a prominent researcher. Rather than consigned to the prisoner exchange process, she was offered a role with the Observers. Believing in the probability of distinguishing herself in their number and intrigued by their focus on Planetlife, Argus accepted.
The doctor finds the Memory of Earth to be professional yet overly credulous. Upon becoming one of Mercator’s heralded defectors, and a veteran field investigator, Argus has also become an outspoken proponent of the Skeptic theory. Subscribing to the observable reality that sentient life had disappeared from Planet for untold millennia, Ellie is a popular critic of supposed sightings of alien intelligence. Wielding both biophysics and medical knowledge, she debunked the infamous Bullock sighting, determining the “ghost lights” to be no more than gas arising from marshy swamps reflecting light from Hercules. She has testified before the Observer Diet and even on pop infotainment datalink programmes about the proliferation of supposed “experts” peddling fraudulent claims about the nature of the universe, and urging factional policy be based on verifiable evidence, not myth and legend. Though Argus has collaborated with colleagues from other theories- most notoriously during the MY 2118 Curien case, with a particular datalinks-famous Wanter- her convictions remain unshaken.
Skeptic theories
The Skeptics are an audible minority within the Memory of Earth, their views conflicting with the commander’s worldview. However, as with many theories, Skepticism carries the potential for crossover. Skeptic-Defenders advocate for global coordinated defense, believing in the possibility of fixing the mistakes of NATO and past petty regional alliances to bridge humanity for the challenge of space colonization. But they also claim that fears of alien attack are unsubstantiated and superfluous, a distraction at best and dangerous misinformation at worst. Similarly, Skeptic-Unifiers believe that the Memory of Earth must bring about the unification of the Unity diaspora to avoid repeating the endless conflicts of the species’ past. To fixate on an external enemy is to craft a false scapegoat, rejecting true fraternity on the base of false fears.
Despite the moniker, not all Skeptics are as scientifically-inclined as Ellie Argus. Few in number but abundant in fringe groups, the Alt-Skeptics break with establishment with their own pseudoscientific myths. Famed needlejet squadron leader Norman “Wild Bill” Hastings came out as a controversial Skeptic by spreading the doctrine that monuments of Chiron are not ancient alien constructs but rather the works of Satan. Dissenting from Sister Miriam Godwinson’s proclamation of Planet as a promised land, the former United States Air Force captain from Colorado Springs claimed that Alpha Centauri was a purgatory of sorts filled with dangerous, leviathans, ziz, and demons. Thus the purpose of the Memory of Earth is to shepherd the stranded flock through this dire valley of darkness. Artifacts must be carefully gathered, ritually cleansed, and destroyed. A subsequent inquiry by Aurora Flight officials cleared Hastings of any treason, though the growing popularity of this heresy gives his superiors great consternation.
More clandestinely, within the Ministry of Internal Investigations dwells a cabal of ex-CSB federal agents loyal to the reconstituted Church of Latter-Earth Saints. The g-men consider the Progenitors to be not some sort of hokey science-fictional elder race birthed by the blind chance of evolution, but fellow brothers and sisters heretofore created by Elohim. They view the scientific marvels of the monoliths as clearly the work of denizens of Kolob, maybe even spirit children of the heavenly parents. Calling themselves New Nephites, as Lehi and his progeny once similarly crossed a great distance to a new world, these agents seek to use the resources of the Observers to closely understand Chiron and grow closer to Heavenly Father, perhaps to find His celestial kingdom beyond the next manifold.
Finally, a small group of SIGINT analysts within the Ministry of External Intelligence, rallying around a former Research and Analysis Wing bureau chief descended from Kargil survivors, suggest that the creators of the Chironian artifacts are no less than Earthmen from the age of Treta-yuga who, skilled in the Vedic sciences, built the vimana flying chariots and came to Planet. Interpreting alleged xenoanthropological phenomena through the lens of the Sanskrit epics, they have decided that the Progenitors were their own ancestors. After the wars with Pakistan, the rise of the Kavithan heresy, and the cataclysm of the Six-Minute War, these embittered survivors believe the only way to restore Akhand Bharat would be to use the vimana to return home and smash the mlecchas. (They have opened a covert channel to the Restorationists, who are understandably perturbed by their notions and enthusiasm.)
By defying the Mercator consensus, despite substituting in their own clearly non-scientific mythos, all of the above groups can be considered Skeptics.
Dr. Argus, for her own part, has some sympathy for the cultural superstitions of these Alt-Skeptics, but bears no patience for their attempts on influencing factional decisions. Her public persona as a Skeptic thus draws suspicion and hostility both from them, and from those who support Mercator’s theories such as the Wanters. While the Observers are supposedly a professional and objective lot, ideological zeal strikes them as fervently as in any other faction. Thus, even as Ellie speaks out against the forces of irrationality, some of the same forces might conspire to push back.
Casting
Eleanor “Ellie” Argus is portrayed by Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully in The X Files: I Want to Believe.
Notes:
Eleanor “Ellie” Arroway is the protagonist of Contact by Carl Sagan, who becomes the director of Project Argus, a radiotelescope array in New Mexico dedicated to the SETI project.
The PanMayo Clinic is a bit of deep SMAC cut content- this beta version(?) of Lal’s biography on the official site archived by DataPacRat had the commissioner educated there.
Just as the factions in canon might have a tinge of influence from their leaders’ origins, here I have the Memory of Earth’s legislature be a German-style diet.
The idea that Hindu texts describe the ancients building flying machines (and committing nuclear war) is a psuedoarcheological conspiracy theory. See “Ancient India had aeroplanes, nuclear weapons, says chief of India's premier history body”, India Today. Also for some reason in Escape Velocity Nova there’s the sub-faction Vell-os founded by an Indian prince who telepathically went to outer space in the first millennium AD.
Aurora Flight is my name for the Observer atmospheric corps / air force, referring to the rumored SR-91 Aurora.
MysticWind
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2008
- Messages
- 148
MysticWind
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2008
- Messages
- 148
Mercator’s Projectionists: Jerry Wobegon and Dharma Vetter
For over half a century, the multimedia news conglomerates of the United States stirred up the worst passions of the raucous republic. But after the hypersurvivalist Holnist memetic plagues and the Second American Civil War, the federal government had had enough. The newly-inaugurated Department of Public Sanity, with support from the reconstructed Congress, enacted executive fiats restricting the news from hyperpartisan coverage, establishing strict editorial guidelines with violations punishable by severe civil forfeiture.
And lo, the RoyStar Weiguo news and entertainment empire, that venerable symbol of yellow journalism, did go full tabloid, pivoting to sensationalism on apolitical topics in the spaces beyond the reach of DoPS censors and accuracy ombudsmen. It turned its armies of shock jock pundits and bottom-feeder muckrakers, hidden camera gotcha journos and dashboard-datalinked angry ranters away from political points-scoring and towards celebrity gossip, sports news, business drama, true crime, and a grand revival of the News of the Weird. RoyStar rolled out half a dozen multimedia networks covering the strange and bizarre: speculative cybernetics, discoveries in metaphysics, missing link simian sightings, modern witch cults, mysterious murders, and alien appearances.
Thus when the ancient founder of RoyStar deigned to buy his way aboard the Unity, opting instead to continue his interminable search on Earth for a successor to his empire, it was Vice President of Fortean Hypermedia Jerome “Jerry” Wobegon who became the hapless executive dispatched in his stead. Like so many other robber barons, the RoyStar founder intended to continue his gigacorporation in space, owning the media sector on Alpha Centauri even before the colonies had an economy. By spearheading Operation Succession, Jerry would be the Johnny Newspaperseed who would found RoyStar’s first media outlet on an alien land, conditioning audiences for the distant future when it would be feasible for the company to launch its own mission. Some said the old man himself was undergoing experimental cryo-treatments to live to the far day of that speculative voyage, when he himself had settled the question of chairmanship on Earth, so he could report the news on Chiron free of tedious political fishmongers and their pesky laws.
Jerry, the time-and-again disgraced exec who had risen swiftly, yet precariously, thanks to a strategic corporate marriage, had accepted the white elephant mission not out of regret of perhaps eternal exile, but rather a short-sighted, sweaty, frantic leap at a shaky rung on the media giant’s infinite career ladder.
Part of the small RoyStar contingent was young Donald “Dharma” Vetter, his aide-de-camp of an executive assistant, a distant relation to the founder, and a minor titled noble thanks to his own calculated courtship. Becoming adrift on the homeworld after attaining a moderate level of hyper-wealth and success, and increasingly browbeaten by Wobegon into continuing their relationship into space, Dharma found himself also undergoing months of hard training just so he could run a satellite office on a dangerous frontier colony.
The pair experienced Planetfall with a predictable amount of screaming and running around like decapitated fowl. But as masters of cleaning symbiosis, both eventually found their way into usefulness for larger, better-armed bodies: Jerry briefly became one of d’Almeida’s message-masseuses during the crisis, crafting the executive officer’s missives to reassure the loyal crew under the stressful circumstances. Despite effort and panic, their attempts at reconciliation with the mutineers, of would you kindly surrender in exchange for maybe reduced sentences, were lost on Spartan, Holnist, and Kellerite alike. Meanwhile, Dharma found an easier time working with the much less scary and shouty Garland, whose well-meaning communiques also had little impact during Planetfall.
Somehow, the duo found their way into the Memory of Earth. The commander, no stranger to the movers and shakers of ufology, was quick to identify persons of interest for his faction in formation. An Observer undercover agent approached Wobegon at U.N. Great Refuge with a job offer, upon which the discombobulated exec was exfiltrated by cargo rover to Mercator himself. The job, it turned out, was to be the very head of the Observer’s public relations and communications ministry, the official media organ of a new state. Faced with an offer he could not refuse, Jerry allowed himself to fall upwards once more and accepted, becoming the faction’s Minister of Public Information. With one or two stipulations. A snatch and grab probe team mission later, a bewildered Dharma was likewise taken from Gaia’s Landing.
The two quickly discovered that creating a media empire on a new planet, even a successor petty kingdom, was no easy task. But they were blessed with a faction with no shortage of military public affairs personnel, war correspondents, counterintelligence officers, and political warfare specialists. In some ways, it was easier than their original mission of building RoyStar Centauri on their own: they had a much larger talent pool of experienced consent-manufacturers. And they found the messaging to be fairly simple. Cover all news through the lens of Mercator’s mission statement, and the viewers will come.
The Ministry of Public Information’s framing of Planetary goings-on is straightforward: Appeal to the [curiosity|fear|anxiety] of the extrasolar unknown, and uphold joint military defense, preparation, unification. Given their years of work at RoyStar, both Jerry and Dharma are seasoned veterans of datalinks memetic breeding and crosspollination. Knowing all of the classic newsmen’s tricks that the most sensationalistic multimedia outlets of late stage America had to offer, their work has made MPI a highly rated source of news and entertainment both in-faction and out, on the Planetary Datalinks. Offering an array of programmes from the matter-of-fact (“Observer’s Eye on Planet”) to the in-depth and serious (“End of Line Reports”, “Follies of Earth: Cold War Edition”) to the partisan and polemical (“Live Fire: Destroying Lotus Eaters with Reason and Data”) to the frivolous and vapid (“Prehistoric Progenitors”, “Psi-X Investigators”, “Can You Survive Chiron for 18 Hours?”), MPI is seen as one of the most professional- in operation, if not in content- multimedia organizations of Planet.
MPI programs under Jerry Wobegon’s tenure blended news updates with dramatic, visceral imagery and a heavy dose of mission-oriented statements, appealing to the average Observer citizen and to curious outsiders alike
Both Jerry and Dharma can be classified as adherents of the Hoaxer theory. Like many Observers who are apolitical and convictionless, they are apatheist towards the existence of aliens- or at least, some grand shadow war involving them- and care little for ideology. As in any faction, most citizens are simply getting by, doing a job- or in the case of drones, perhaps none. But what makes Hoaxers a theory is simply their job perpetuating the Memory of Earth’s mission statement. By spreading rumors of intelligent aliens, proliferating the UFO narrative, and making up stories where there were none, both self-consciously hoax the public, even when their personal beliefs do not align with the mission.
It is hard to say how many Hoaxers exist within the Memory of Earth. Outside of dramatic actions such as running, or just working for, the very media ministry that upholds the mission, there are plenty of lesser examples such as Defenders or Unifiers who readily parrot Mercator’s musings even if they secretly care more about strategic planning or collective security than they do about xenomachy. And so many theories are in their own way, Hoaxer to some extent.
The MPI, for its part, is ecumenical in its loud blaring content. It has indeed offered many a Skeptic, including the good Doctor Argus herself, appearances on its networks. MythosBreakers is an entire datalinks channel dedicated to Skeptic views, seen as subversive to mainstream Observers and rather tiresomely faux-edgy by the actual government.
Since Jerry and Dharma’s work have been such an unexpected hit, they’ve caught the eye of rival operations among the likes of Morgan Entertainment and Restoration InfoCom. In fact, both men secretly harbor ambitions for ascendancy at rival networks, if not for the fact that the Chiron Guard remains a terrifying adversary. Wobegon considers more outlets he could head and Vetter has an unspecified legal case against the Stepdaughter’s of Gaia. Both could profit from opportunity at other factions, if not for the fact they would quickly rise up on Mercator’s priority probe lists. So while at present they are securely ensconced into the Observer faction at its top echelons, RoyStar’s own mission looms large in the background, at the backs of their minds. For even though there is no news yet from Earth, the old man is out there.
Casting
Jerome “Jerry” Wobegon is portrayed by Matthew Macfadyen as Thomas “Tom” Wambsgans on Succession.
Donald “Dharma” Vetter" is portrayed by Nicholas Braun as Gregory John “Greg” Hirsch on Succession.
Notes:
Opening quote is a pastiche of this exchange-
SECRET GOLD JULY BOOJUM is from “A Colder War” by Charles Stross
Weiguo is the transliteration of several popular patriotic Chinese given names.
Vetter is German for “cousin.”
Image Credits
Alien news update is from Starship Troopers
Jerome “Jerry” Wobegon and Donald “Dharma” Vetter said:
For over half a century, the multimedia news conglomerates of the United States stirred up the worst passions of the raucous republic. But after the hypersurvivalist Holnist memetic plagues and the Second American Civil War, the federal government had had enough. The newly-inaugurated Department of Public Sanity, with support from the reconstructed Congress, enacted executive fiats restricting the news from hyperpartisan coverage, establishing strict editorial guidelines with violations punishable by severe civil forfeiture.
And lo, the RoyStar Weiguo news and entertainment empire, that venerable symbol of yellow journalism, did go full tabloid, pivoting to sensationalism on apolitical topics in the spaces beyond the reach of DoPS censors and accuracy ombudsmen. It turned its armies of shock jock pundits and bottom-feeder muckrakers, hidden camera gotcha journos and dashboard-datalinked angry ranters away from political points-scoring and towards celebrity gossip, sports news, business drama, true crime, and a grand revival of the News of the Weird. RoyStar rolled out half a dozen multimedia networks covering the strange and bizarre: speculative cybernetics, discoveries in metaphysics, missing link simian sightings, modern witch cults, mysterious murders, and alien appearances.
Thus when the ancient founder of RoyStar deigned to buy his way aboard the Unity, opting instead to continue his interminable search on Earth for a successor to his empire, it was Vice President of Fortean Hypermedia Jerome “Jerry” Wobegon who became the hapless executive dispatched in his stead. Like so many other robber barons, the RoyStar founder intended to continue his gigacorporation in space, owning the media sector on Alpha Centauri even before the colonies had an economy. By spearheading Operation Succession, Jerry would be the Johnny Newspaperseed who would found RoyStar’s first media outlet on an alien land, conditioning audiences for the distant future when it would be feasible for the company to launch its own mission. Some said the old man himself was undergoing experimental cryo-treatments to live to the far day of that speculative voyage, when he himself had settled the question of chairmanship on Earth, so he could report the news on Chiron free of tedious political fishmongers and their pesky laws.
Jerry, the time-and-again disgraced exec who had risen swiftly, yet precariously, thanks to a strategic corporate marriage, had accepted the white elephant mission not out of regret of perhaps eternal exile, but rather a short-sighted, sweaty, frantic leap at a shaky rung on the media giant’s infinite career ladder.
Part of the small RoyStar contingent was young Donald “Dharma” Vetter, his aide-de-camp of an executive assistant, a distant relation to the founder, and a minor titled noble thanks to his own calculated courtship. Becoming adrift on the homeworld after attaining a moderate level of hyper-wealth and success, and increasingly browbeaten by Wobegon into continuing their relationship into space, Dharma found himself also undergoing months of hard training just so he could run a satellite office on a dangerous frontier colony.
The pair experienced Planetfall with a predictable amount of screaming and running around like decapitated fowl. But as masters of cleaning symbiosis, both eventually found their way into usefulness for larger, better-armed bodies: Jerry briefly became one of d’Almeida’s message-masseuses during the crisis, crafting the executive officer’s missives to reassure the loyal crew under the stressful circumstances. Despite effort and panic, their attempts at reconciliation with the mutineers, of would you kindly surrender in exchange for maybe reduced sentences, were lost on Spartan, Holnist, and Kellerite alike. Meanwhile, Dharma found an easier time working with the much less scary and shouty Garland, whose well-meaning communiques also had little impact during Planetfall.
Somehow, the duo found their way into the Memory of Earth. The commander, no stranger to the movers and shakers of ufology, was quick to identify persons of interest for his faction in formation. An Observer undercover agent approached Wobegon at U.N. Great Refuge with a job offer, upon which the discombobulated exec was exfiltrated by cargo rover to Mercator himself. The job, it turned out, was to be the very head of the Observer’s public relations and communications ministry, the official media organ of a new state. Faced with an offer he could not refuse, Jerry allowed himself to fall upwards once more and accepted, becoming the faction’s Minister of Public Information. With one or two stipulations. A snatch and grab probe team mission later, a bewildered Dharma was likewise taken from Gaia’s Landing.
The two quickly discovered that creating a media empire on a new planet, even a successor petty kingdom, was no easy task. But they were blessed with a faction with no shortage of military public affairs personnel, war correspondents, counterintelligence officers, and political warfare specialists. In some ways, it was easier than their original mission of building RoyStar Centauri on their own: they had a much larger talent pool of experienced consent-manufacturers. And they found the messaging to be fairly simple. Cover all news through the lens of Mercator’s mission statement, and the viewers will come.
The Ministry of Public Information’s framing of Planetary goings-on is straightforward: Appeal to the [curiosity|fear|anxiety] of the extrasolar unknown, and uphold joint military defense, preparation, unification. Given their years of work at RoyStar, both Jerry and Dharma are seasoned veterans of datalinks memetic breeding and crosspollination. Knowing all of the classic newsmen’s tricks that the most sensationalistic multimedia outlets of late stage America had to offer, their work has made MPI a highly rated source of news and entertainment both in-faction and out, on the Planetary Datalinks. Offering an array of programmes from the matter-of-fact (“Observer’s Eye on Planet”) to the in-depth and serious (“End of Line Reports”, “Follies of Earth: Cold War Edition”) to the partisan and polemical (“Live Fire: Destroying Lotus Eaters with Reason and Data”) to the frivolous and vapid (“Prehistoric Progenitors”, “Psi-X Investigators”, “Can You Survive Chiron for 18 Hours?”), MPI is seen as one of the most professional- in operation, if not in content- multimedia organizations of Planet.
MPI programs under Jerry Wobegon’s tenure blended news updates with dramatic, visceral imagery and a heavy dose of mission-oriented statements, appealing to the average Observer citizen and to curious outsiders alike
Both Jerry and Dharma can be classified as adherents of the Hoaxer theory. Like many Observers who are apolitical and convictionless, they are apatheist towards the existence of aliens- or at least, some grand shadow war involving them- and care little for ideology. As in any faction, most citizens are simply getting by, doing a job- or in the case of drones, perhaps none. But what makes Hoaxers a theory is simply their job perpetuating the Memory of Earth’s mission statement. By spreading rumors of intelligent aliens, proliferating the UFO narrative, and making up stories where there were none, both self-consciously hoax the public, even when their personal beliefs do not align with the mission.
It is hard to say how many Hoaxers exist within the Memory of Earth. Outside of dramatic actions such as running, or just working for, the very media ministry that upholds the mission, there are plenty of lesser examples such as Defenders or Unifiers who readily parrot Mercator’s musings even if they secretly care more about strategic planning or collective security than they do about xenomachy. And so many theories are in their own way, Hoaxer to some extent.
The MPI, for its part, is ecumenical in its loud blaring content. It has indeed offered many a Skeptic, including the good Doctor Argus herself, appearances on its networks. MythosBreakers is an entire datalinks channel dedicated to Skeptic views, seen as subversive to mainstream Observers and rather tiresomely faux-edgy by the actual government.
Since Jerry and Dharma’s work have been such an unexpected hit, they’ve caught the eye of rival operations among the likes of Morgan Entertainment and Restoration InfoCom. In fact, both men secretly harbor ambitions for ascendancy at rival networks, if not for the fact that the Chiron Guard remains a terrifying adversary. Wobegon considers more outlets he could head and Vetter has an unspecified legal case against the Stepdaughter’s of Gaia. Both could profit from opportunity at other factions, if not for the fact they would quickly rise up on Mercator’s priority probe lists. So while at present they are securely ensconced into the Observer faction at its top echelons, RoyStar’s own mission looms large in the background, at the backs of their minds. For even though there is no news yet from Earth, the old man is out there.
Casting
Jerome “Jerry” Wobegon is portrayed by Matthew Macfadyen as Thomas “Tom” Wambsgans on Succession.
Donald “Dharma” Vetter" is portrayed by Nicholas Braun as Gregory John “Greg” Hirsch on Succession.
Notes:
Opening quote is a pastiche of this exchange-
SECRET GOLD JULY BOOJUM is from “A Colder War” by Charles Stross
Weiguo is the transliteration of several popular patriotic Chinese given names.
Vetter is German for “cousin.”
Image Credits
Alien news update is from Starship Troopers
MysticWind
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2008
- Messages
- 148
Mercator’s Projectionists: Gennaro da Gama
Gennaro da Gama was Brazil’s most celebrated librarian, until he gave it all away on account of conscience. Born in 2010, Recife. Father was a WTO representative with a heart of gold, mother was the best network security specialist in all of the Portuguese Empire's academies. Studied library sciences and the psychological analysis of history, becoming an early datalinks tech pioneer.
Instead of joining industry like so many of his fellows, da Gama entered public service, becoming an unlikely symbol of patriotic strength during the Novo Brasil era. His datalinks innovations to digitize and store the entire collection of the Biblioteca Nacional do Brasil was heralded as a sign of the colony’s immortal spirit and contribution to humanity. Da Gama would go on to become the steward of multiple grand projects preserving cultural heritage across all of Latin America and the Lusophone world. Even beyond Earth: as reward for compiling the database of the solar sailer Tiradentes, he was appointed master librarian of the Museu da Vida, a would-be Noah’s Ark meets Library of Alexandria in geostationary orbit.
But less than a decade later, da Gama left his honor post aboard Portuguese Brazil’s soft power spacecraft. Amidst accusations of treasonous whistleblowing, he decamped for the countryside to teach poor indigenous youth. No one is entirely sure who leaked warehouses’ worth of data on the Brazilian Space Corps’ weaponization plans, but the carefully curated evidence- defly organized for reporters and future historians alike- and his opportune role aboard the Tiradentes made him the key suspect in the court of public opinion. Scorned after scandal, he went to aid the forgotten of Novo Brasil.
Official insignias of the Brazilian Space Corps
This act of kindness was punished as the Amazon became a warzone when the eco-sovereigntist Smoke Jaguars and their Salvadores da Terra allies battled against the Brazilian government and its Portuguese patrons, setting the jungle ablaze. The ensuing hostage crisis, with its bloody resolution delivered by the vicious Amazonian BOPE, shook da Gama to his core and drove him to early retirement. Only years later, with the advent of Unity’s launch finally in reach, did he accept the United Nations’ request for him to join as a cultural archivist for its Data Sciences team.
Da Gama’s work on the new datacube storage format was his main impact during the leadup. Having cordial but curt relations with Lt. Cmdr. Tạ Dọc Thân, the archivist preserved supplementary records. Thanks to his own government’s nudging, he was ostracized, restricted from interfacing with the Data Core itself. That much of Portuguese Brazil’s actual contributions to the Core, intended to be part of humanity’s collective knowledge, were derived from his previous preservation projects, was an irony that was not lost to Da Gama.
This unkind act proved to be his saving grace during Planetfall, as he was not part of the team of data technicians and librarians lost when the Data Core was mysteriously jettisoned. Awakening towards the tail end of the crisis, the archivist gamely shuffled off on a refugee pod belonging to the Peacekeepers, and became the head of Lal’s attempt to rebuild the United Nations Digital Services Agency on Planet. Tasked with reassembling supplementary data fragments held by the faction, Da Gama slipped back into the depressive moods that had consumed him during his service in the BSC. Expeditions to salvage the Data Core were thwarted by bandit smacers, wreckers, and hostile factions alike. UNDSA was chronically underfunded as resources were funneled towards to both critical infrastructure and to Terrance LaCroix’s weaponized Signals Intelligence probe operations. Each Mission Year brought news of broken Treaties of Friendship and hastily forged Pacts in response to new Vendetta.
After U.N. Digital Services was reassigned to defense duty by Major Bruce King’s Operation: Plowshare, da Gama again found himself enmeshed in a military project against his will
Gennaro gradually realized that for all of Lal’s ideals, the Peacekeeping Forces did not have the wherewithal to ensure that humanity’s knowledge was properly preserved. Moreover, the safekeeping of wisdom would be pointless if the Unity diaspora was lost to humanity’s insisted self-destruction.
So then, who to join? While the librarian had the ideal background for the Legacy Initiative, he decided Metrion’s search was ultimately looking in the wrong direction. By focusing all of their energies on the past, the Initiative gazed at what could not be changed, rather than trying to study the future. Without a tomorrow to look towards, records of the past would inevitably be as useless to mankind as the dusty ruins of Planet were to the long-gone Progenitors.
Other knowledge-based factions, da Gama believed, were consumed by their own obsessions. The Digital Oracle did have the potential to unite the Planet behind artificial intelligence, but inevitable pushback from anti-technologists and those skeptical of living under computer rule would only lead to fiercer ideological wars, according to Gennaro’s psychohistorical models. Zakharov’s University was not a universal one, but one that only operated within the narrow confines of the provost’s positivist worldview. The Ascendancy were eugenicists. The Dreamers were torturers. So many others were simply mercantilists, dilettantes, or warlords.
As unlikely as it was, the Memory of Earth became the natural choice for defection. While the commander’s preoccupations were eccentric in their orbits, da Gama decided his professional citizens and pro-unification mission made them the most likely to prevent imminent destruction of all human civilization on Planet. So he snuck aboard a diplomatic rover heading home from the Observer embassy at Warm Welcome, taking with him zettabytes of datacubes including ufological libraries of records, footage, and analysis.
da Gama gifted Mercator high quality imagery of the Cidade Sorriso entity, one of his homeland’s most famous UFO sightings
The Brazilian librarian became yet another one of the commander’s unlikely collaborators. Finding da Gama’s ideals sound, if rather overly pessimistic, and delighted by the ample stores of extraterrestrial evidence he delivered, Mercator welcomed him into the ranks of the Observers. He was allowed to preach his testimony on the need for interfactional unity in the face of imminent obliteration upon MPI networks, paraded around by Wobegon’s media consultants and the Chiron Guard’s PR talking heads as evidence of the Memory’s righteous cause.
(Back at U.N. Headquarters, the loss of such an upstanding talent proved to be an embarrassment to the commissioner’s administration. Publicly, Lal made statements about the openness of the Peacekeeping Forces’ commitment to an “open society with free movement and association for all”, and regretted the “baffling sudden departure of a passionate, if flighty, specialist.” Privately, LaCroix and King were given carte blanche to repatriate da Gama in the future- or at least the data stores he hoarded.)
Despite his fervor for the Memory of Earth mission, da Gama quickly wore out his welcome through doomsaying. As attention-grabbing as his initial warnings were, Observers became less enthused by his harping on the dire need for diplomacy, or the way he cited reams of past records to make his point. So da Gama was shuffled off with a commission with the Ministry of Special Political Operations. Taking great pains to assure him that all of his work would be civilian in nature, in perpetuity, his new superiors tasked da Gama to collate, organize, and archive mountains of statistical data, interpret endless hours of faction leader recordings for behavioral trends, and generate new sweeping psychohistorical models. These massive amounts of macrodata refinement was no less than the beginning of a Secret Project: the Cassandra Almanac, the Observer attempt at creating a computerized social model of Planet. By crafting the most sophisticated simulation of human power relations this side of the Digital Oracle’s algorithms, the project’s initiators- whether Mercator or Han or someone else entirely- intend on forging the optimal path to unification.
Observer librarians, formerly staff of the NATO Communications and Information Systems Services Agency, incorporate current events into the Almanac’s model under the direction of Special PoliOps Minister da Gama
There are Unifiers in every faction. It is not simply a theory but a pathos, a feeling, a vibe: to bring all of humanity together under one roof and one ideology. Some, such as the Peacekeepers, may not call for much ideological rigor to join the club. Some, like the Centauri Monopoly, view their economic system as one without alternative. The Memory of Earth believes in unification as not an end but a means: to ensure the victory of mankind over the monsters who lurk in the inky ether.
Closely related to the Defenders’ vision of mutual military defense and planetwide crisis planning, Unifier theorists are perhaps of a less confrontational temperament. They believe that the Observers must lead the way to reaching a species-wide understanding. Only then can a proper global defense initiative be created- anything prior to that is just forging more regional and ideological pacts, no different from the failed treaties of the Cold War. As one of the most staunch supporters of this theory, Gennaro da Gama touts it not simply as a means- he has little interest in hypothetical alien civilizations and often finds the need to pander to the commander’s beliefs to be maddening- but as an end of its own, a necessary prerequisite for man to reach his full potential. Whether that be building one true military, or creating records of memory even longer-lasting than the relics and ruins of Planet, it does not matter to Unifiers like him- we must stand together, or kneel apart.
Notes:
Gennaro da Gama is from my Second Ship project. (see synopsis for design notes). He was originally called Gennaro Almeida (as early as in 2005!), until RtD produced a namespace collision via its Executive Officer's name.
Terrance LaCroix, Bruce King, and Warm Welcome are all Peacekeeper elements from the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: Iterations story quest, by the same author of RtD.
Image Credits
Cyberpunk machinist is “The Fixer” by Josan Gonzalez
Starry eagle in space symbol is the logo of the Titans from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, specifically from this fan translation of the RX-80PR-4 PALE RIDER DII
Holographic display analyst and powersuit investigators is from Cthulhutech Vade Mecum, page 4, by Kunrong Yap
UFO seen through Stinger missile sights is from Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions, level 11
Holographic news analysts suspended in air is from Cthulhutech Mortal Remains, page 12, by Darren Yeow
Gennaro da Gama said:
Gennaro da Gama was Brazil’s most celebrated librarian, until he gave it all away on account of conscience. Born in 2010, Recife. Father was a WTO representative with a heart of gold, mother was the best network security specialist in all of the Portuguese Empire's academies. Studied library sciences and the psychological analysis of history, becoming an early datalinks tech pioneer.
Instead of joining industry like so many of his fellows, da Gama entered public service, becoming an unlikely symbol of patriotic strength during the Novo Brasil era. His datalinks innovations to digitize and store the entire collection of the Biblioteca Nacional do Brasil was heralded as a sign of the colony’s immortal spirit and contribution to humanity. Da Gama would go on to become the steward of multiple grand projects preserving cultural heritage across all of Latin America and the Lusophone world. Even beyond Earth: as reward for compiling the database of the solar sailer Tiradentes, he was appointed master librarian of the Museu da Vida, a would-be Noah’s Ark meets Library of Alexandria in geostationary orbit.
But less than a decade later, da Gama left his honor post aboard Portuguese Brazil’s soft power spacecraft. Amidst accusations of treasonous whistleblowing, he decamped for the countryside to teach poor indigenous youth. No one is entirely sure who leaked warehouses’ worth of data on the Brazilian Space Corps’ weaponization plans, but the carefully curated evidence- defly organized for reporters and future historians alike- and his opportune role aboard the Tiradentes made him the key suspect in the court of public opinion. Scorned after scandal, he went to aid the forgotten of Novo Brasil.
Official insignias of the Brazilian Space Corps
This act of kindness was punished as the Amazon became a warzone when the eco-sovereigntist Smoke Jaguars and their Salvadores da Terra allies battled against the Brazilian government and its Portuguese patrons, setting the jungle ablaze. The ensuing hostage crisis, with its bloody resolution delivered by the vicious Amazonian BOPE, shook da Gama to his core and drove him to early retirement. Only years later, with the advent of Unity’s launch finally in reach, did he accept the United Nations’ request for him to join as a cultural archivist for its Data Sciences team.
Da Gama’s work on the new datacube storage format was his main impact during the leadup. Having cordial but curt relations with Lt. Cmdr. Tạ Dọc Thân, the archivist preserved supplementary records. Thanks to his own government’s nudging, he was ostracized, restricted from interfacing with the Data Core itself. That much of Portuguese Brazil’s actual contributions to the Core, intended to be part of humanity’s collective knowledge, were derived from his previous preservation projects, was an irony that was not lost to Da Gama.
This unkind act proved to be his saving grace during Planetfall, as he was not part of the team of data technicians and librarians lost when the Data Core was mysteriously jettisoned. Awakening towards the tail end of the crisis, the archivist gamely shuffled off on a refugee pod belonging to the Peacekeepers, and became the head of Lal’s attempt to rebuild the United Nations Digital Services Agency on Planet. Tasked with reassembling supplementary data fragments held by the faction, Da Gama slipped back into the depressive moods that had consumed him during his service in the BSC. Expeditions to salvage the Data Core were thwarted by bandit smacers, wreckers, and hostile factions alike. UNDSA was chronically underfunded as resources were funneled towards to both critical infrastructure and to Terrance LaCroix’s weaponized Signals Intelligence probe operations. Each Mission Year brought news of broken Treaties of Friendship and hastily forged Pacts in response to new Vendetta.
After U.N. Digital Services was reassigned to defense duty by Major Bruce King’s Operation: Plowshare, da Gama again found himself enmeshed in a military project against his will
Gennaro gradually realized that for all of Lal’s ideals, the Peacekeeping Forces did not have the wherewithal to ensure that humanity’s knowledge was properly preserved. Moreover, the safekeeping of wisdom would be pointless if the Unity diaspora was lost to humanity’s insisted self-destruction.
So then, who to join? While the librarian had the ideal background for the Legacy Initiative, he decided Metrion’s search was ultimately looking in the wrong direction. By focusing all of their energies on the past, the Initiative gazed at what could not be changed, rather than trying to study the future. Without a tomorrow to look towards, records of the past would inevitably be as useless to mankind as the dusty ruins of Planet were to the long-gone Progenitors.
Other knowledge-based factions, da Gama believed, were consumed by their own obsessions. The Digital Oracle did have the potential to unite the Planet behind artificial intelligence, but inevitable pushback from anti-technologists and those skeptical of living under computer rule would only lead to fiercer ideological wars, according to Gennaro’s psychohistorical models. Zakharov’s University was not a universal one, but one that only operated within the narrow confines of the provost’s positivist worldview. The Ascendancy were eugenicists. The Dreamers were torturers. So many others were simply mercantilists, dilettantes, or warlords.
As unlikely as it was, the Memory of Earth became the natural choice for defection. While the commander’s preoccupations were eccentric in their orbits, da Gama decided his professional citizens and pro-unification mission made them the most likely to prevent imminent destruction of all human civilization on Planet. So he snuck aboard a diplomatic rover heading home from the Observer embassy at Warm Welcome, taking with him zettabytes of datacubes including ufological libraries of records, footage, and analysis.
da Gama gifted Mercator high quality imagery of the Cidade Sorriso entity, one of his homeland’s most famous UFO sightings
The Brazilian librarian became yet another one of the commander’s unlikely collaborators. Finding da Gama’s ideals sound, if rather overly pessimistic, and delighted by the ample stores of extraterrestrial evidence he delivered, Mercator welcomed him into the ranks of the Observers. He was allowed to preach his testimony on the need for interfactional unity in the face of imminent obliteration upon MPI networks, paraded around by Wobegon’s media consultants and the Chiron Guard’s PR talking heads as evidence of the Memory’s righteous cause.
(Back at U.N. Headquarters, the loss of such an upstanding talent proved to be an embarrassment to the commissioner’s administration. Publicly, Lal made statements about the openness of the Peacekeeping Forces’ commitment to an “open society with free movement and association for all”, and regretted the “baffling sudden departure of a passionate, if flighty, specialist.” Privately, LaCroix and King were given carte blanche to repatriate da Gama in the future- or at least the data stores he hoarded.)
Despite his fervor for the Memory of Earth mission, da Gama quickly wore out his welcome through doomsaying. As attention-grabbing as his initial warnings were, Observers became less enthused by his harping on the dire need for diplomacy, or the way he cited reams of past records to make his point. So da Gama was shuffled off with a commission with the Ministry of Special Political Operations. Taking great pains to assure him that all of his work would be civilian in nature, in perpetuity, his new superiors tasked da Gama to collate, organize, and archive mountains of statistical data, interpret endless hours of faction leader recordings for behavioral trends, and generate new sweeping psychohistorical models. These massive amounts of macrodata refinement was no less than the beginning of a Secret Project: the Cassandra Almanac, the Observer attempt at creating a computerized social model of Planet. By crafting the most sophisticated simulation of human power relations this side of the Digital Oracle’s algorithms, the project’s initiators- whether Mercator or Han or someone else entirely- intend on forging the optimal path to unification.
Observer librarians, formerly staff of the NATO Communications and Information Systems Services Agency, incorporate current events into the Almanac’s model under the direction of Special PoliOps Minister da Gama
Bedouin proverb said:
There are Unifiers in every faction. It is not simply a theory but a pathos, a feeling, a vibe: to bring all of humanity together under one roof and one ideology. Some, such as the Peacekeepers, may not call for much ideological rigor to join the club. Some, like the Centauri Monopoly, view their economic system as one without alternative. The Memory of Earth believes in unification as not an end but a means: to ensure the victory of mankind over the monsters who lurk in the inky ether.
Closely related to the Defenders’ vision of mutual military defense and planetwide crisis planning, Unifier theorists are perhaps of a less confrontational temperament. They believe that the Observers must lead the way to reaching a species-wide understanding. Only then can a proper global defense initiative be created- anything prior to that is just forging more regional and ideological pacts, no different from the failed treaties of the Cold War. As one of the most staunch supporters of this theory, Gennaro da Gama touts it not simply as a means- he has little interest in hypothetical alien civilizations and often finds the need to pander to the commander’s beliefs to be maddening- but as an end of its own, a necessary prerequisite for man to reach his full potential. Whether that be building one true military, or creating records of memory even longer-lasting than the relics and ruins of Planet, it does not matter to Unifiers like him- we must stand together, or kneel apart.
Notes:
Gennaro da Gama is from my Second Ship project. (see synopsis for design notes). He was originally called Gennaro Almeida (as early as in 2005!), until RtD produced a namespace collision via its Executive Officer's name.
Terrance LaCroix, Bruce King, and Warm Welcome are all Peacekeeper elements from the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: Iterations story quest, by the same author of RtD.
Image Credits
Cyberpunk machinist is “The Fixer” by Josan Gonzalez
Starry eagle in space symbol is the logo of the Titans from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, specifically from this fan translation of the RX-80PR-4 PALE RIDER DII
Holographic display analyst and powersuit investigators is from Cthulhutech Vade Mecum, page 4, by Kunrong Yap
UFO seen through Stinger missile sights is from Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions, level 11
Holographic news analysts suspended in air is from Cthulhutech Mortal Remains, page 12, by Darren Yeow
MysticWind
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2008
- Messages
- 148
You can kind of see how my writing style in Racing the Darkness really came to fruition with the Mercator's Projectionists. Han Jae-Moon was my first import of a Civilization: Beyond Earth sponsor leader (I imported three and a half of my Second Ship characters even before the Gennaro da Gama profile lol). Montoya and Argus were me really embracing conceputal crossovers and allusions to other series. Wobegon and Vetter was me cribbing from prestige drama and going full multimedia, baby.
Observer "theories" was also my first time coming up with RPG gameline-style "splats" for this setting. I didn't just want to add a ton of full-fledged factions to collide with @Axis Kast's additions, so I figured these sub-factional cliques would make sense to explore ideological (and other) internal divisions within one of his factions. And a good way to populate them with characters.
(As a tangent, the splats concept is something that's I've always found amusing about White Wolf's dark universe. The idea that these conspiracies, as ancient and powerful as they have, might support so many internal ideologies despite being their low raw population numbers is rather odd to me. How can you have fully-formed mini-societies within larger societies if each of them might have fewer than a hundred beings? Let alone get into huge vendettas with one another? Anyway there's definitely an analogy there to RtD's maximalist take on Alpha Centauri. Ultimately it's all very fun.)
I think just like with canon SMAC, each character is a vessel for ideology, quotes, and the history of doomed future Earth. So that's why I write up so many of them.
Institutions work similarly in RtD. The Observers really didn't get many besides the Chiron Guard, so I invented all of these ministries.
Observer "theories" was also my first time coming up with RPG gameline-style "splats" for this setting. I didn't just want to add a ton of full-fledged factions to collide with @Axis Kast's additions, so I figured these sub-factional cliques would make sense to explore ideological (and other) internal divisions within one of his factions. And a good way to populate them with characters.
(As a tangent, the splats concept is something that's I've always found amusing about White Wolf's dark universe. The idea that these conspiracies, as ancient and powerful as they have, might support so many internal ideologies despite being their low raw population numbers is rather odd to me. How can you have fully-formed mini-societies within larger societies if each of them might have fewer than a hundred beings? Let alone get into huge vendettas with one another? Anyway there's definitely an analogy there to RtD's maximalist take on Alpha Centauri. Ultimately it's all very fun.)
I think just like with canon SMAC, each character is a vessel for ideology, quotes, and the history of doomed future Earth. So that's why I write up so many of them.
Institutions work similarly in RtD. The Observers really didn't get many besides the Chiron Guard, so I invented all of these ministries.
MysticWind
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2008
- Messages
- 148
Mercator’s Projectionists: Nasreen Davar
Born 2042, Gorno-Badakhshan, Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic, in a time of social disintegration. Family served as keepers of the Kala-i Kukhna, Silk Road era town housing a Zoroastrian temple and buzkashi arena, for the State Hermitage Museum. Overirrigation of the Panj River, topsoil erosion, lingering fallout from the Tselinogorki nuclear disaster caused economic depression. Sectarian strife and periodic Soviet repression shaped her childhood; radicalized in insurgent camps after orphaned by bombing of Castle Karon during teen years. A rapid polyglot, flowed between various Pamir community militias, picking up combat training and experience. Conscripted into pan-Pamiri state-sponsored volunteer brigade “Mountain Tajik Renaissance” at age eighteen and deployed to suppress riots in Dushanbe.
Deserted for home valley, embroiled in the conflict between secular nationalists, Soviet authorities, and sunnahists provoked by mujahideen crossing over the Tajik–Afghan Friendship Bridge. While fighting in Gharm at the height of Operation Infinite Freedom, she was approached by a CIA officer tasked with assembling a roster of deniable, native-language assets for use in clandestine operations against communist forces. Davar spent two years conducting “extrajudicial actions” on all sides of the tripoint, building suspected terror networks on behalf of paymasters in Karachi, Tehran, Riyadh, Beijing, and Langley.
Even as the Afghan invasion of the Soviet Union reversed and the Northern Front regime in Panjshir fell, Davar continued resistance against the resurgent People’s Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Reportedly experienced a change of heart after witnessing the sunnahists’ controlled demolition of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. (Others allege she accepted a competing contract from UNESCO.) Broke contact with the Agency, turning against new in-country assets. Waged personal war against Taliban idoloclasts along the Pamir Highway. Reportedly reconciled with former WARPAC adversaries, becoming a contractor for the anti-looter 23rd Directorate of the KGB (Securing Relics of Historical-materialist Importance). Hunted down antiquities traffickers and rebels subsisting on art smuggling. Guarded cultural sites as her family once did. Rumored to have fought in the Secret Battle of Kandahar against immense red-headed creature freed from an antediluvian cave complex by U.S. Special Forces. Operational territory expanded as the 23rd Directorate recognized her capabilities, ongoing civil disorder in GBAO made repatriation impossible.
Disappeared in the Kurdistan republic during 2067 anti-smuggling mission on behalf of the Iraqi People’s Union. Later arrested when attempting to enter Somalia with stone talisman. Incarcerated at French Foreign Legion base in Djibouti for six months without charge. Escaped handover for Agency extraordinary rendition to Kuwait. Publicly reappeared during Planetfall under assumed identity as Quebecois national with falsified Morgan SafeHaven credentials.
Pursued targets of equal opportunity during Unity dissolution, fighting for U.N. Marines against Spartan survivalists one hour before turning her AR-16 on Salan’s men the next. Though this behavior endeared Davar little to the warring factions aboard the ship, it let her carve a path through its superstructure to the Humanities Wing of the Data Core. Among the shelves of empty display cases and smashed crates she found a band of Kavithan fanatics threatening members of the aircrew, curiously far from the hangars. More out of habit than mercy, she swiftly dispatched the devotees without fanfare. Grateful, they identified themselves under orders of Air Operations chief Kleisel Mercator to secure a laundry list of historical objects, including a replica of the Antikythera mechanism. Unfortunately, the Canoneers and their head archivist had already safely evacuated the stores of priceless Earth keepsakes. Unable to complete their assignment, they decided to depart, bringing along their rescuer.
Mercator was more than happy at his pilots returning safely, even if they lacked the Quimbaya squadron he coveted. Planetside, the commander warmly welcomed Davar into the fold, heralding her inclusion as a symbol of the newly-founded faction’s post-national, inter-agency cooperation. Despite this endorsement, she would be seen with suspicion for mission decades by both former NATO officers and ex-WARPAC agents in the Memory of Earth. More than once she was given assignments just a hairbreadth away from certain doom, or had near misses against friendly shredder fire.
Indeed, Davar’s first role was scout point man for expeditions into the untamed Chironian wilderness. With personal flame cannon and molecular-edged machetes she cut her way through xenofungal thickets, securing resource deposits and base sites for the Memory of Earth. And monoliths for the Chiron Guard. A consummate survivor, she oversaw the major excavations of Medon’s Tower, the Ebon Ziggurat, and Site 121, clearing surrounding territories of boils and protecting Ministry of Xenoculture archeologists from snooping smacers and rampaging ruiners. Davar searched and rescued the ill-fated Marconi Convoy from the Thicket of No Return, scattering a pack of tearbeasts with a Unity-era M249 SAW LMG as the Schreiber Project field team ran for the cover of an Observer rover. The defection of the researchers along with their discovered sample of ichor was a diplomatic coup for Mercator, who decorated her with the Emerald Pyramid for valor.
Currently the foremost “sphinx” of Branch Ominae, special probe unit. The sphinxes are called to infiltrate installations from smacer hutches to faction labs to retrieve xenocultural items of import. Other responsibilities range from safeguarding those same artifacts en route between Observer bases, infiltrating the silent galleries of the dark market, to eliminating adversarial personnel to maintain opsec of the faction’s holdings. It is a role she takes on dutifully, and with some relish. Every retrieved relic is another bit of Planet’s history protected, for an unknown people not yet forgotten. And each new ruin is a tomb to be raided.
Davar typifies the theoryless citizen within the Memory of Earth. A contributor to the Mercator mission without any particular ideological underpinnings, her main commitment is to her work as a sphinx and the satisfaction of the fight. A stolid soldier, she will vanquish any opponent to guarantee xenoarcheological superiority for the Observers- at least until a worthier war calls to her.
Notes
Nasreen Davar is a non-playable supporting character from Far Cry 2. Extended biography here.
Pamir background is an invention by me, though plausible given her birthplace. See “Tajikistan’s Pamirs: A Perfect Political Storm on the Roof of the World,” The Diplomat
Kala-i Kukhna, or Castle Karon, info from “In Tajikistan, discover the ruins of a once mighty Silk Road kingdom,” National Geographic
Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S. post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan, was originally named Operation Infinite Justice.
The Kandahar giant was an urban legend about a cryptid discovered during the U.S. invasion.
The Antikythera mechanism and the Quimbaya airplanes are both examples of OOPArts.
Ominae (御神苗) is the surname of Yu Ominae of Spriggan, meaning “god seedlings.”
Born 2042, Gorno-Badakhshan, Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic, in a time of social disintegration. Family served as keepers of the Kala-i Kukhna, Silk Road era town housing a Zoroastrian temple and buzkashi arena, for the State Hermitage Museum. Overirrigation of the Panj River, topsoil erosion, lingering fallout from the Tselinogorki nuclear disaster caused economic depression. Sectarian strife and periodic Soviet repression shaped her childhood; radicalized in insurgent camps after orphaned by bombing of Castle Karon during teen years. A rapid polyglot, flowed between various Pamir community militias, picking up combat training and experience. Conscripted into pan-Pamiri state-sponsored volunteer brigade “Mountain Tajik Renaissance” at age eighteen and deployed to suppress riots in Dushanbe.
Deserted for home valley, embroiled in the conflict between secular nationalists, Soviet authorities, and sunnahists provoked by mujahideen crossing over the Tajik–Afghan Friendship Bridge. While fighting in Gharm at the height of Operation Infinite Freedom, she was approached by a CIA officer tasked with assembling a roster of deniable, native-language assets for use in clandestine operations against communist forces. Davar spent two years conducting “extrajudicial actions” on all sides of the tripoint, building suspected terror networks on behalf of paymasters in Karachi, Tehran, Riyadh, Beijing, and Langley.
Even as the Afghan invasion of the Soviet Union reversed and the Northern Front regime in Panjshir fell, Davar continued resistance against the resurgent People’s Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Reportedly experienced a change of heart after witnessing the sunnahists’ controlled demolition of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. (Others allege she accepted a competing contract from UNESCO.) Broke contact with the Agency, turning against new in-country assets. Waged personal war against Taliban idoloclasts along the Pamir Highway. Reportedly reconciled with former WARPAC adversaries, becoming a contractor for the anti-looter 23rd Directorate of the KGB (Securing Relics of Historical-materialist Importance). Hunted down antiquities traffickers and rebels subsisting on art smuggling. Guarded cultural sites as her family once did. Rumored to have fought in the Secret Battle of Kandahar against immense red-headed creature freed from an antediluvian cave complex by U.S. Special Forces. Operational territory expanded as the 23rd Directorate recognized her capabilities, ongoing civil disorder in GBAO made repatriation impossible.
Disappeared in the Kurdistan republic during 2067 anti-smuggling mission on behalf of the Iraqi People’s Union. Later arrested when attempting to enter Somalia with stone talisman. Incarcerated at French Foreign Legion base in Djibouti for six months without charge. Escaped handover for Agency extraordinary rendition to Kuwait. Publicly reappeared during Planetfall under assumed identity as Quebecois national with falsified Morgan SafeHaven credentials.
Pursued targets of equal opportunity during Unity dissolution, fighting for U.N. Marines against Spartan survivalists one hour before turning her AR-16 on Salan’s men the next. Though this behavior endeared Davar little to the warring factions aboard the ship, it let her carve a path through its superstructure to the Humanities Wing of the Data Core. Among the shelves of empty display cases and smashed crates she found a band of Kavithan fanatics threatening members of the aircrew, curiously far from the hangars. More out of habit than mercy, she swiftly dispatched the devotees without fanfare. Grateful, they identified themselves under orders of Air Operations chief Kleisel Mercator to secure a laundry list of historical objects, including a replica of the Antikythera mechanism. Unfortunately, the Canoneers and their head archivist had already safely evacuated the stores of priceless Earth keepsakes. Unable to complete their assignment, they decided to depart, bringing along their rescuer.
Mercator was more than happy at his pilots returning safely, even if they lacked the Quimbaya squadron he coveted. Planetside, the commander warmly welcomed Davar into the fold, heralding her inclusion as a symbol of the newly-founded faction’s post-national, inter-agency cooperation. Despite this endorsement, she would be seen with suspicion for mission decades by both former NATO officers and ex-WARPAC agents in the Memory of Earth. More than once she was given assignments just a hairbreadth away from certain doom, or had near misses against friendly shredder fire.
Indeed, Davar’s first role was scout point man for expeditions into the untamed Chironian wilderness. With personal flame cannon and molecular-edged machetes she cut her way through xenofungal thickets, securing resource deposits and base sites for the Memory of Earth. And monoliths for the Chiron Guard. A consummate survivor, she oversaw the major excavations of Medon’s Tower, the Ebon Ziggurat, and Site 121, clearing surrounding territories of boils and protecting Ministry of Xenoculture archeologists from snooping smacers and rampaging ruiners. Davar searched and rescued the ill-fated Marconi Convoy from the Thicket of No Return, scattering a pack of tearbeasts with a Unity-era M249 SAW LMG as the Schreiber Project field team ran for the cover of an Observer rover. The defection of the researchers along with their discovered sample of ichor was a diplomatic coup for Mercator, who decorated her with the Emerald Pyramid for valor.
Currently the foremost “sphinx” of Branch Ominae, special probe unit. The sphinxes are called to infiltrate installations from smacer hutches to faction labs to retrieve xenocultural items of import. Other responsibilities range from safeguarding those same artifacts en route between Observer bases, infiltrating the silent galleries of the dark market, to eliminating adversarial personnel to maintain opsec of the faction’s holdings. It is a role she takes on dutifully, and with some relish. Every retrieved relic is another bit of Planet’s history protected, for an unknown people not yet forgotten. And each new ruin is a tomb to be raided.
Davar typifies the theoryless citizen within the Memory of Earth. A contributor to the Mercator mission without any particular ideological underpinnings, her main commitment is to her work as a sphinx and the satisfaction of the fight. A stolid soldier, she will vanquish any opponent to guarantee xenoarcheological superiority for the Observers- at least until a worthier war calls to her.
Notes
Nasreen Davar is a non-playable supporting character from Far Cry 2. Extended biography here.
Pamir background is an invention by me, though plausible given her birthplace. See “Tajikistan’s Pamirs: A Perfect Political Storm on the Roof of the World,” The Diplomat
Kala-i Kukhna, or Castle Karon, info from “In Tajikistan, discover the ruins of a once mighty Silk Road kingdom,” National Geographic
Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S. post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan, was originally named Operation Infinite Justice.
The Kandahar giant was an urban legend about a cryptid discovered during the U.S. invasion.
The Antikythera mechanism and the Quimbaya airplanes are both examples of OOPArts.
Ominae (御神苗) is the surname of Yu Ominae of Spriggan, meaning “god seedlings.”
MysticWind
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2008
- Messages
- 148
Memory of Earth Lexicon
Ronald Reagan said:
Common Parlance
Observer: Demonym for a citizen of the Memory of Earth.
Theory: Sub-ideologies within the Memory of Earth, identifying how Observer individuals or subcultures relate to Commander Kleisel Mercator’s mission.
Defender: Theory emphasizing the pursuit of global defense and coordinated organization. Advocates preparing for Planetary-scale threats, regardless of the existence of alien intelligences. Popular among the military and intelligence officer class.
Wanter: Theory obsessing over the particulars of hypothetical alien civilizations. Often ties into Earth era ufological lore and conspiracy theories alleging government cover-ups. Unofficially supported by Mercator’s pronouncements but seen by many as taking his musings too far, distracting from more practical matters. Strong grassroots support.
Unifier: Theory calling for political unity among the Unity diaspora. Suggests that humanity’s reunification is a prerequisite to proper Planetary defense. Supported by more liberal-minded and pacifistic intelligentsia, often defectors from other factions.
Skeptic: Theory advancing that sentient alien life is absent from Chiron and probably from the entire Alpha Centauri system. Rejects factional focus on alien intelligence as a waste of resources and as publci misinformation. Supported by a large minority of the scientific and academic population, passively adhered to by hybrid Skeptic-Defenders and Skeptic-Unifiers who are apathetic on the Grey Question.
Alt-Skeptics: Theories that reject the Mercator establishment line, arguing that intelligent aliens exist but are mislabeled, identifying them as other beings, often from religion or mythology. Supported by pseudoscientific fringe and seen as cult-like eccentric cranks by all others, but often sparking popular sensationalist interest.
Hoaxer: ‘Theory’ held by those who, while personally unbelieving or uncaring about the existence of alien intelligence, actively manufacture and spread content about aliens to the rest of the citizenry. Usually disengaged from other aspects of Observer ideology as well. Supported by many who work in factional media and information services.
Chiron Guard: The armed services of the Memory of Earth.
Aurora Flight: The atmospheric corps / air force of the Chiron Guard.
Sphinx: A probe operative of the Branch Ominae xenoantiquities retrieval unit.
Old Form
Battlezoner: A believer in a previously popular Wanter narrative rooted in Commander Mercator’s concept of the “other space race.” Alleges that Eisenhower began a clandestine extraterrestrial military unit, the rumored “National Space Defense Force,” and the Artemis program- parallel to NASA and the Apollo program- that established an armed American presence on the lunar surface in competition with the Soviets. Details of this techno-myth include covert discovery of alien objects, exploitation of exotic bio-metallurgical materials, combat involving top secret experimental vehicles and weapons on the Moon that spanned the entire Cold War. See also Black Dog, named after an officially nonexistent (but supposedly formed) NSDF military space unit that participated in this conflict.
Artistic rendition of the short-lived NASA-Vorona partnership that built the Kletka space lab
Kletkaist: An adherent of the popular ufological techno-myth that the Kletka orbital space laboratory constructed in 1960 was used to house and constrain an extraterrestrial species previously discovered by the Soviet cosmonauts operating under the Vorona design bureau. Conspiracy theorists claim that a secret joint agreement between Kennedy and Khrushchev allowed for the building of the installation, leading to the minor detente that was only ended by the former’s assassination. One of the prevailing conspiracy narratives supporting Commander Mercator’s belief in the “united deception” that great powers use to keep truth hidden from the public. The nature of whatever supposed aliens discovered are unknown, but Wanters will of course allege a link between them and Chironian species.
Paradoxian: A diehard devotee of the Fermi Paradox. Grapples with unanswered question: if there once was intelligent life on Planet, why aren’t they here now? From a Skeptic perspective, if the Progenitors are long-gone along with any observable extrasolar species, why are they absent, and is it inevitable? From a Wanter perspective, where did they go, and can we find them again?
Vulgar Argot
St. Reaganite: Slur by Skeptics for the Unifier theory, in reference to the American president’s use of alien-tinged rhetoric as means for rapprochement with WARPAC. Denotes skepticism towards the feasibility of utilizing external fears to engender interfactional understanding. Can imply that the deference to “Saint Reagan” is based in Hoaxer cynicism, covering up militarism with feigned utopianism.
The Raygunner: Skeptic nickname for Commander Mercator. Pejorative.
Χ-Ronnie: An avid follower of Vic Montoya’s Χ-Ron Chronicle datalinks column.
Disinfo Brothers: Nickname for Minister for Public Information Wobegon and Deputy Minister Vetter. Allegedly coined by the latter.
Zookeepers: Nickname for advanced extrasolar intelligent lifeforms. Drawn from the Zoo Hypothesis, which argues that aliens are undetectable because of intentional seclusion from humanity. Suggests possible retreat into the abyssal depths of Chiron’s oceans, or even into the planet’s core itself (“hollow Planet” theory), observing humanity for fear of its aggression. This general concept is scoffed at by Skeptics and by Wanters alike- the former for its non-falsifiability, the latter for its contrivance. Also see Projectors, the hypothetical controllers of the Planetarium Hypothesis, who are claimed to be running all of Alpha Centauri in some kind of elaborate digital simulation to safely house Unity humanity.
Notes:
The NSDF and the Black Dogs are from Battlezone (1998).
The Artemis program is from the comic Planetary.
Vorona and Kletka are from Prey (2017). Here, the Typhon are not meant to be present, there just happened to be a brief joint cross-superpower goodwill space project during a brief detente until JFK got got.
Further Reading
Zoo Hypothesis, Universe Today
Planetarium Hypothesis, Universe Today
Image Credits
Header image is from XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Joint American-Soviet space capsule is from Prey (2017)
MysticWind
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2008
- Messages
- 148
So, having re-posted my Memory of Earth character profiles, it's given me a chance to reflect on this RtD addition to SMAC, as well as how I contribute to this project. As I said, this arc sort of set the pattern for my segments- now that I've added a Far Cry 2 merc, the only thing it's really missing is one of the factions from the SMAC Fac Pack or Pickly's 5 Custom Factions lol (though those are already earmarked for other places). It was where I first really used the visual element of this project to really evoke characters and moods from other series, and outside of the genre. In many way, I consider RtD to be an elaborate exercise in fancasting- but not only of actors, but organizations, concepts.
Helping to fill out the Observers' internal society via the theories was fun. The Defenders, Unifiers, and Wanters all directly uphold a separate aspect of the mission statement. (I probably should have had a less conspiratorial version of the Wanters, but I suspect most of the more sober-minded xenobiologists and other people searching for intelligent life would just fit into the other theories anyway, or more likely be dutiful non-ideological theoryless.) Breaking down each segment of the Observer ideology in order to create subcultures was neat, even though I haven’t done the same for any of the other RtD factions. Though I also did that SMAC Fac Pack import Chiron Cartel.
What do I actually think of the Memory of Earth now? In short, they give a very strong Alien Crossfire-esque expansion vibe to be. Very SMAX feel. Their obsession with alien intelligence is very niche and rather oddball in the same way the Data Angels are a completely hacker culture. Seems like a small interest/identity to build an entire society around, an entire political faction. (The Nautilus Pirates, piratical dressing aside, are plainly a bandit-barbarian faction, which makes sense to me.) But the UFO focus does fit the 1990s vibe of the original game, and brings along a lot of neat imagery to evoke. (I didn't really mention Grays so much and the only slight reference to XCOM/X-COM was in my Lexicon segment, but they could probably be featured more in the Observer lore. Also I threw in a slight in-joke to Delta Green.) As far as how viable would the Observers be? Hell if I know! But I think adding the theories gives them greater depth and texture, indicating what internal conflicts might exist within.
The Memory and Mercator also fit in RtD's specific setting very well, and so I envisioned the faction would be composed of mainly former intelligence agents and military officers, not to mention the more oddball rocket scientists and the like. I can't really imagine them existing in canon SMAC since the political motivation isn't exactly there- after all, that's a world that's hinted to be completely fallen apart, way past a century-long Cold War. Well, I guess you can imagine alt-Mercator still thinking that the reason why humanity failed is because that it didn't have an external enemy to focus its efforts against. But in that situation, something like climate collapse or nuclear war might be more resonant. RtD as it is feels like the superpowers are still able to maneuver and machinate and build - there's space colonies in the Solar System, a vault system lifted straight from Fallout (ugh), and the whole new continent pulled forth from the Indian Ocean (uh huh). <As a side note- the Shamash thing really could use some references to real-world Atlantean lost continents located in that region- Kumari Kandam and Lemuria come to mind.)
So what's my takeaway from all this? I really enjoy writing character profiles sprinkled with alternate future history references. Sorry in advance for people who don't like Firaxis-style character bios, because there's a lot more to come.
Helping to fill out the Observers' internal society via the theories was fun. The Defenders, Unifiers, and Wanters all directly uphold a separate aspect of the mission statement. (I probably should have had a less conspiratorial version of the Wanters, but I suspect most of the more sober-minded xenobiologists and other people searching for intelligent life would just fit into the other theories anyway, or more likely be dutiful non-ideological theoryless.) Breaking down each segment of the Observer ideology in order to create subcultures was neat, even though I haven’t done the same for any of the other RtD factions. Though I also did that SMAC Fac Pack import Chiron Cartel.
What do I actually think of the Memory of Earth now? In short, they give a very strong Alien Crossfire-esque expansion vibe to be. Very SMAX feel. Their obsession with alien intelligence is very niche and rather oddball in the same way the Data Angels are a completely hacker culture. Seems like a small interest/identity to build an entire society around, an entire political faction. (The Nautilus Pirates, piratical dressing aside, are plainly a bandit-barbarian faction, which makes sense to me.) But the UFO focus does fit the 1990s vibe of the original game, and brings along a lot of neat imagery to evoke. (I didn't really mention Grays so much and the only slight reference to XCOM/X-COM was in my Lexicon segment, but they could probably be featured more in the Observer lore. Also I threw in a slight in-joke to Delta Green.) As far as how viable would the Observers be? Hell if I know! But I think adding the theories gives them greater depth and texture, indicating what internal conflicts might exist within.
The Memory and Mercator also fit in RtD's specific setting very well, and so I envisioned the faction would be composed of mainly former intelligence agents and military officers, not to mention the more oddball rocket scientists and the like. I can't really imagine them existing in canon SMAC since the political motivation isn't exactly there- after all, that's a world that's hinted to be completely fallen apart, way past a century-long Cold War. Well, I guess you can imagine alt-Mercator still thinking that the reason why humanity failed is because that it didn't have an external enemy to focus its efforts against. But in that situation, something like climate collapse or nuclear war might be more resonant. RtD as it is feels like the superpowers are still able to maneuver and machinate and build - there's space colonies in the Solar System, a vault system lifted straight from Fallout (ugh), and the whole new continent pulled forth from the Indian Ocean (uh huh). <As a side note- the Shamash thing really could use some references to real-world Atlantean lost continents located in that region- Kumari Kandam and Lemuria come to mind.)
So what's my takeaway from all this? I really enjoy writing character profiles sprinkled with alternate future history references. Sorry in advance for people who don't like Firaxis-style character bios, because there's a lot more to come.
MysticWind
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2008
- Messages
- 148
Datalinks: Neopagan Revivals
Rapidly accelerating environmental deterioration in the 21st century provoked wildly-different responses from different demographics. In the developed world, particularly the capitalist and consumerist state capitalist nations, long-since demoralized middle classes turned inwardly towards spiritual perfection. Fads emerged, as varied as the neo-hippie movement on the United States left and the Evangelical Fire on the Christian States right, hardline Madrid Catholicism in southern Europe, and the various ethno-religious mystic orders of the Slavic Resurgence in the WARPAC countries. From West African Vodun to Haitian Voodoo, Neo-Shintoism to Thakurite syncreticism, Modern Tengrism upon the Central Asian steppe and the Mapother Rite along the shores of Clearwater, alienated masses sought relief through belief.
The newly advancing states in Latin America, the declining nations of northwestern Europe, and the teeming masses of the colonial empires gravitated towards Return to Nature ideologies, promoting atavistic identities to reclaim ancient wisdom amidst a swiftly-changing world. Such memeplexes called for the veneration of primal forces, eschewing the hyper-technological state of modernity, and addressing ecological destruction along doctrinal lines. For the various Gaian neopagan movements, this meant adopting Green policies on an Earth-wide level, healing the maternal planet through conservationist efforts to staunch Her suffering. For the Ra cult, this meant embracing climate change, adapting to its challenges through the mass adoption of solar power while celebrating the masculine energies involved in the struggle for survival. Needless to say, such movements relying on traditional essentialist notions often found themselves at odds with one another, and with the political-social establishments of old.
Notes:
Gaian neopaganism is from (but not exclusively so, obviously) Earth by David Brin, as is the Ra Boys cult/youth sub-culture.
Image Credits
Header image is “Gaia - EARTH DAY” by Alice Popkorn
Stonehenge celebrants is of pagans during summer solstice by Carl Court, AFP
Baltic pagans is of the Lizdeika altar during Lithuanian summer solstice by Petras Malukas, AFP
MysticWind
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2008
- Messages
- 148
Name: Cuzco Sol
Rank: Powertech
Position: Power Ops Engineering
Country of Origin: Guatemala
DOB: 05-03-2043
Service Record:
Born 2044, Guatemala City, Federation of Centroamerica, as Lucero Eztli Salvador. Mother a policewoman, father a doctor. Childhood marked by repeated juvenile offenses - assault, truancy, shoplifting, data denial, vandalism. Most local records officially expunged, fragments extant only in U.N. Consolidated Criminal Justice Database. Registered member of Sons of Ra tribal youth subculture. Remnants of auto-lawyer court logs suggest no fewer than five instances of participation in sanctioned gang battles and no fewer than two unsanctioned fights resulting in moderate non-tribal civilian injuries. Arson attempt of protected urban grove led to alias Lucero Chispero and elevation to Medjay within Ra gang hierarchy. Withdrawn from private school by mother, who resigned Policia Transnacional commission to provide full-time home education.
Attended José Simeón Cañas Central American University, studying Energy Engineering and Mesoamerican Mythology. Abruptly dropped out after a school trip to El Mirador. Embarked on worldwide tour of archeological sites dedicated to solar worship, from Hawikuh to Tiwanaku, subsidized by freelance solar work and selling ayahuasca. Sacrificed at Apollo’s Throne, Khartoum, inducted as acolyte. Eurasian leg of tour cut short by the Sixth Yugoslav Crisis, disrupting access to Illyrian Neolithic temple ruins. Resumed studies until Second Central American Civil War. Dodged El Salvadoran draft officers amidst separatist riots in Antiguo. Reappeared in Guatemala City as head of Espíritu de Sangre (Blood Spirit), a municipal auxiliary force made up of many former gang-mates.
Fought with distinction, eliminating sympathizer cells efficaciously. Honored with Order of Justo Rufino Barrios after the Defense of Palacio Verde. EdS was integrated into Centroamerican armed forces as an autonomous militia. Redeployed to fighting various DEA-supported insurgencies- Costa Rican national secessionists, Mexican revanchists in Chiapas, Holnist free-loggers in Los Altos. Wartime conduct largely within bounds of Geneva Convention, though incidents exist of unit shaving and exposing captives to direct sunlight until tanned. Rumors of destruction of local jungle neopagan shrines attributed to accidental burnover while clearing foliage in pursuit of neo-Contras. Commended with Roméo Dallaire Medal for bravery in the field following entrance of U.N. Security Forces into conflict.
Recalled from Yucatán annexation campaign for noncombat relief duties in the wake of Hurricane Quincy. Unit ably performed flood rescue operations. Received Medal of Two Oceans for reestablishing electricity in Tegucigalpa with improvised Perovskite solar cells reprinted from cyclone-damaged building material. Reprimanded once for ordering his troops to fly the Midday Banner from the top of the Edificio Arce. Recurrent history of elevating loyalty to Ra tribal religion quietly overlooked by military superiors despite complaints from Cuban officers embedded in mission.
Finished degree after war. Returned to Egypt. Employed as power cell array optimizer for Morgan Solarfex in Omdurman. Fully initiated and rechristened as member of Aten priesthood. Learned Coptic, began mentoring local disaffected young men. Frequent speaker at Khepri Temple of the Dawn, guest sermon “Eternal Morning is Man’s Gift” achieved minor renown on local nets. Placed third in Wíinkilil at Baku 2068 World Universal Fighting Tournament. Recruited as solar power engineer by U.N. Alpha Centauri Mission Committee. Recommended for emergency response experience, military service, hiring network, and representation of the neopagan Ra cult and the Sons of Ra tribal subculture.
Assumed low-profile yet locally important role during Planetfall. While other sections were falling apart due to structural instability and in-fighting, successfully rallied the Power Ops team to keep Unity’s solar sails functioning as Zakharov’s engineering teams fought to reactivate the reactor. Despite dearth of weaponry, led several defenses against Spartan/Holnist incursions for days before U.N. Marine forces could assist. Under Sol’s direction, the powertechs gained infamy for adopting the Ra Boys practice of shaving captives and leaving them in the ship’s observational rooms for light exposure from the incoming Alpha Centauri system. Whereabouts post-landing not yet determined- potential status as independent faction contradicted by conflicting reports that Sol negotiated a partnership with figures as disparate as Roshan Cobb, Miriam Godwinson, Oscar van de Graaf, or even Corazón Santiago.
Psych Profile: Heliocentric Devotee
Bright disposition and sense of camaraderie upon initial impression. Further interaction reveals apparent good-naturedness accompanied by bouts of braggadocio, male swagger. Positive personality undercut by inclination towards tendency to steer conversations, bordering on domination. Defers only in matters related to personal metaphysics, such as in the presence of senior co-religionists. Theological-memetic analysis suggests subject’s sun worship extends beyond conventional Ra practices. Questionable ideological views offset by high motivational potential, seen also in other solar followers approved for mission. Fascination with stellar veneration shapes subject's scientific priorities, explaining both technical proficiency in chosen vocation as well as avowed reason for joining Unity: to seek a place of two suns.
Dominant competitive spirit. Command abilities forged from youthful indiscretions. High skill in traditional unarmed combat. Adolescent experiences suggest past frustrations towards family dynamics. Subject’s mother, adherent of the revived Cult of Minerva in Guatemala, was perhaps instrumental in rehabilitating subject. Displays ability to channel experience of youth tribal warfare towards prosocial activities, even in peacetime. Meritorious conduct and loyalty to lawful governments during time of global crisis demonstrates truly reformed nature. Only possible reservation stems from subject’s sharp religious disagreements with non-adherents, potentially mitigable by recruiting additional Ra co-religionists to staff solar sailer team. Postwar mental health record verified by multiple U.N. Psych Chaplains. Sole dissenting interviewer resigned, later revealed to be Earth Mother adept.
Visions of Alpha Centauri
Faction: Sons of Centauri-Ra
Classification: Saga spiritual memeplex
Founding Base: Temple of Sol
“As the clouds of the dirt worshippers’ beloved Gaia burned and sundered, the magnificent rays of Kinich Ahau, Tonatiuh, Inti, Amaterasu, Helios warmed the land and the waters. Even as weaklings thirst and drown, Great Ra shines on his chosen. Here, on another Earth, let us give thanks to the life-giving love of our two new Suns- for before our fathers found fire, there was you.”
-- Heliophant Cuzco Sol, “Centauri’s Dawn”
Casting
Cuzco Sol is portrayed by Andrew Rotilio as Diogo Harari on The Expanse.
Notes
Cuzco Sol is from my Second Ship project. (see synopsis for design notes)
The Ra Boys are a neopagan faith / “tribal” youth gang from Earth by David Brin. Here’s an illustrative excerpt.
Guatemalan President Manuel José Estrada Cabrera really did foster a Cult of Minerva in the early twentieth century.
Centroamerica is a name I got from Kaiserreich, as was the idea of reviving the United Provinces of Central America / Federal Republic of Central America. Here it’s more of a stringent regional pact than a unitary super-state, though.
Adaptation Notes
The Sons of Centauri-Ra are one of my more direct adaptations of a concept from Earth by David Brin for my Second Ship project. For Racing the Darkness, I’ve opted not to have them create yet another faction (and another cult-like one, at that) or even a sub-faction entity. Rather, a “Saga-class spiritual memeplex” denotes that the Sons are a religious creed with an organization to boot. They may control bases and hold territory, and Sol might be their theological head, but their believers are citizents of actual factions. They are an old Earth religion revived in the horrors of the Blackjack Century, reborn again on Chiron after some local evolution.
Last edited:
MysticWind
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2008
- Messages
- 148
U.N. Temple of Sol
The Sons of Centauri-Ra narrowly escaped the destruction of the Unity via Landing Pod. They consisted of most of the ship’s solar sailer team: powertechs, solartechs, laborers, most of them belonging to the rising neopagan cult from the latter days of Old Earth. Along for the ride were survivors swept up along the way to the nearest hangar bay. Cuzco Sol, once Lucero Eztli Salvador, led the motley crew, boldly extolling the Centauri suns and exhorting all whom they came across to join them, so long as they renounced darkness and shadow. Their landing was hastily done under frightfully uncertain circumstances. Throughout the descent, Sol called upon Centauri-Ra to shine his faithful rays upon his children, so they may live to grow strong and powerful on this new mudball. Along that harrowing passage, new converts were born, existing faith was reforged in the reentry heat of the pod chassis. Shortly after, Sol unilaterally declared himself the spiritual and mission leader of the lost flock, annointing himself Heliophant.
They landed on gentle foothills surrounded by dense fields of xenofungus. The elevation was heralded by Sol as a good omen, “closer to Ra,” with the potential for solar collector developments. He called this new base Temple of Sol as both tribute to the sun cult and to his own humble zeal. So began the hardscrabble life of the Sons. It was a theocratic society but not excessively so. The brotherhood stressed vigorous activity and striving for perfection in the martial arts, which lent itself well to building and defending the colony. Sun worship was encouraged but not mandated. The macho attitude of the cult stressed each individual journey towards solar enlightenment. Believers often tried to outdo each other in the hunting of local megafauna, the erection of more solar collectors above quota, the more time spent outside under the sun. Those who were weaker in faith were mocked as effete, secret Earth-loving pansies, but left unpersecuted. So in their chauvinistic, yet open-natured way, the Sons eked out a passable society.
Temple of Sol was a functional base from the start, but survival was difficult and fraught with danger
Not long after its founding, Temple of Sol welcomed its first set of surprise visitors. They were non-hostile, unlike the bugs of the air and the beasts of the field. A corporate convoy carrying heavy equipment under the command of Dai Seung Heavy Industries passed through the territory of the Sons. These fellow survivors had landed quite some distance away, in desolate wasteland. Only with great difficulty and trepidation- and the best navigation that the company survival scouts could rustle up- did they narrowly evade worm attacks to arrive here. A mining and construction civilian contractor attached to the Unity mission, the former chaebol was searching for a better site to set up shop, and hopefully, customers to sell to. Even if the mission was technically dissolved, the surviving executives reasoned, work could still be done to make use of the place. They were open to clients, and, taking note at the rather shabby and under-equipped nature of the Heliophant’s faithful, potential workers as well.
Headquartered in the Gangnam District of Seoul, Dai Seung was particularly well-positioned to form unlikely partnerships. The company had been the first to operate in the Koryoin Autonomous Oblast, the Soviet-occupied zone of the northeast Korean peninsula. With a corporate culture stressing adaptability, flexibility, and pragmatism as its highest values, Dai Seung would go on to operate contracts as disparate and far-flung as constructing nuclear power plants in the Vietnamese Soviet Republic to exploring offshore natural gas fields off the coast of French Indochina, building medical facilities for the post-Six Minute War Indian government to laying infrastructure for “Self-Sufficient” Japan’s disputed IOEZ naval holdings on Netaji Bose Island. While the field execs were at first apprehensive towards working with a batch of fanatically hypermasculine meatheads, they analyzed the situation quickly and cooly.
Vice President of Field Operations- Labor Relations Young Kwan-Yong surmised that the Centauri-Ra cult, while pugnacious and prone to atavistic flights of fancy (one of Heliophant Cuzco Sol’s first pronouncements was his intent to personally climb one of the nearby alien monoliths and carve the twin-sun sigil onto its capstone - he was only dissuaded from doing so when company reps proposed building their own obelisk for the cult’s ceremonies, rather than disfiguring the priceless ancient artifact), did indeed possess valuable technical expertise in solar power generation, and that their bravado could be harnessed under the chaebol’s guiding hand. He further determined that for all of their fighting ability, most were engineers, technicians, and workers without actual combat experience, and the amount of actual weaponry they held beyond improvised blades and bludgeons was paltry. While Dai Seung Security Services did not possess firepower akin to that of Sabre, SafeHaven, ARC, and the like, they did have more than the surviving solartechs had salvaged from the ship.
One of the dozen Dai Seung VPs who survived Planetfall, Young Kwan-Yong was an expert in brokering deals with workforces from many markets. His pre-Chiron claim to fame was reaching an accord with striking miners at Komdok in 2061
The Sons were not simpletons- they had long since abandoned their initial infamous tactic of attacking mindworm swarms in melee combat, swinging sledge hammers as clubs with broken photovoltaic cells as shields. And their insistence on ritually sunbathing in the light of Alpha Centauri A and Hercules did seem to offer salutary effects- Dai Seung Human Asset Management psych chaplains discovered that observant Centauri-Ra acolytes performed ably in battle against psi-wielding xenoforms, resisting hallucinatory effects for precious minutes longer than non-observant practitioners and non-members who lacked extensive off-base experience. Young asserted that this personnel resource could not be disregarded, and his partnership proposal was soon adopted by the Field Operations Working Board.
This working relationship was rocky upon inception with the Sons of Centauri-Ra scoffing at the idea of listening to corporate suits, but all was smoothed over as Dai Seung opened its modest armory of shredder pistols, penetrator rifles, field HUD scouters, even several prototype exo-frames used for heavy loading. Most importantly, the Agriculture and Food Synthesis Divisions upscaled to accommodate feeding a doubled population. While the Sons had a store of survival rations, the specter of starvation would not be fully banished until Dai Seung graciously shared its food supply. In return, the Sons got to work building out a full state-of-the-art (by pre-launch standards) electrical infrastructure. The Heliophant’s daily messages gave succor to the faithful, who rallied to the difficulties of frontier settlement. Dai Seung’s managers found that the sun worshippers were more than up to the task of settlement. They were particularly competent at defending against mindworms and hostile factions. While professional, the corporation’s Security Services were unaccustomed to savage irregular raids from Holnists, smacers, and mindworms. In exchange, the corporation allocated excess work cycles towards constructing shrines to appease their partners.
Dai Seung construction crews built the Shining Face, a massive idol of Helios placed in the Chamber of Initiates
After several mission years of independent operation, the Temple of Sol met its greatest threat yet: Spartan aggression. While the Colonel expressed amusement towards the mob of half-crazed sun lovers, and held their fighting spirit in some esteem, she had no patience for their corporate fellows. Denouncing the pursuit of wealth as decadent, Santiago charged Dai Seung as another horde of capitalist monopolists leeching off the truly productive protectors of society (this rhetoric was a sop to the remaining Holnists left in her Federation) and accused Cuzco Sol of falling prey to the lies of weak-willed energy worshippers. Indeed, the immense energy stores generated by the vast solar collectors built by the cult gave the base the makings of a future Merchant Exchange- and had crowned Young Kwan-Yong CEO of his company. To Young and staff, Dai Seung and the heliocentric brotherhood were after the same thing. Radiance meant reverence to some, riches to others. Far from accepting the claims of this provocateur, the Heliophant upheld the cult’s honor and declared that no Son of Ra may betray his friends to any outsider.
While brave, the base came under swift attack by an overwhelming force that outnumbered and out-organized the defenders. Deployed to the passes leading to the city, in the gaps of the xenofungus fields under the shade of Cuzco’s obelisk, the Saulė calpulli and the 2nd Field Security Team ‘Chungmu’ saw their positions overrun by an army of helots. Low in morale, these meat-grinder captives taken from prior conquests were force-marched by their Spartan officers straight into the joint Sons-Dai Seung force’s firing lines. Some crawled through the dense xenofungus themselves- company PR officers would later decry that as evidence of nerve-stapling on the part of the Spartans. Even as some corporate security personnel would shamefully break and flee from the onslaught, the Ra acolytes, their bloodthirst triggered, broke ranks to run towards the enemy, taking out industrial-forged ceremonial Huitzauhqui spiked bats and 3D-printed Champi star-shaped maces and bludgeoned at the flood. For a shining instant, the gambit worked. The stunned Spartans’ momentum was thrown back by this vanguard, allowing the other defenders to hail storms of shredder flachettes. But this instant passed as Myrmidons outfitted in combat laser rovers and attack hoverbikes approached and blew past the defensive lines.
After second sunset, Spartans overloaded the Surya Agricultural Dome, denounced by Dai Seung as industrial sabotage and by the Sons of Centauri-Ra as blasphemous descecration
The Spartans had arrived at the perimeter walls of the colony. Defenders unleashed a variety of weapons upon them- anti-mindworm flamer guns, hot water pressure washers, even an experimental high-speed excavator arm. But these efforts were fruitless. Colonel Santiago had wanted the corporation as helots, the cultists as janissaries, and the city as her prize. Already her military communiques referred to the base as War Outpost. Visayas-born former PMC operator Arturo Quiepo, the invasion commander, had Myrmidons punch through the defensive perimeter with explosives. After several blasts and fending off a counterattack by the Aruna calpulli with fire support from the 7th Base Security Division ‘Gasin’, the Filipino Spartan and his forces dove into Temple of Sol, ready to slay and enslave all within.
It was then a U.N. Peacekeeping Forces division miraculously emerged upon the scene. Having tracked Spartan troop movements closely for over a decurn as part of a long-simmering pseudo-vendetta, Major Steven Howard, the leader of the blue berets, invoked Article 5 of the Joint Signatory Framework, declaring that the Spartan Federation had attacked a neutral party, violating interfactional law. Armed with the latest impact weaponry, the Peacekeepers blasted the Spartan forces in the field before attacking their rearguard at the base’s walls. The invaders were caught by the hammer of Lal and the anvil of the Temple. Quiepo, no stranger to lost causes, ordered a speedy retreat, spitting threats of true vendetta upon the Peacekeepers as battered Myrmidons withdrew from the gates.
And so did the Temple of Sol make first contact with the Peacekeeping Forces. Major Howard was bemused to discover an independent settlement co-ruled by a religious organization and a private corporation. He would later describe the arrangement as “a distant echo of those weird big business-loving Midwest theocracies from the Second American Civil War.” Regardless of the unusualness of the arrangement, Howard quickly recognized Sol and Young as co-leaders of the city. Relief workers stayed to see to the wounded and the reconstruction, proper emissaries were exchanged, and the base was inducted into the Peacekeepers’ protective orbit.
Major Steven Howard and a Peacekeeper anthropologist granted an audience before Heliophant Cuzco Sol, flanked by Medjay elites
Several mission years later, the base expanded with Peacekeeper support. While they continued to train vigorously and ritualistically, diminishment of outside threats meant that the Sons of Centauri-Ra were able to focus fully on solar collector construction. The settlement became renowned as the “City of Ten Thousand Mirrors,” its vast solar arrays surrounding the countryside where xenofungus fields used to be, now plucked clean by Peacekeeper ‘formers leased to Dai Seung construction teams. Following no lack of polite prodding by Lal’s diplomats, the Heliophant and the CEO gradually acceded to entrance into the faction. Thus was the community renamed U.N. Temple of Sol, an odd rarity among the faction’s bases.
The commissioner and his advisors would later rue giving the place more than associate status: while its governors were democratically elected, they tended to fiercely advocate for cult and corporate interests. This ranged from the irritatingly monomaniacal (designating the Heliophant’s corporate-built shrines as UNESCO Planet Heritage Sites) to the alarmingly unhinged (favoring widespread adoption of hydrocarbon-producing vehicles and MULEs, both for cost-cutting reasons and for immanentizing Amun-Ra’s eschaton). But between the fervor of the cult and the professionalism of the corporation, U.N. Temple of Sol maintained a low population of drones. Even as both realized there was more to Planet beyond the base walls, their steadfast stewardship made the City of Ten Thousand Mirrors truly shine.
U.N. Temple of Sol at the cusp of the Pre-Sentience Age
In time, the story of both the Sons of Centauri-Ra and Dai Seung Heavy Industries diverged beyond this first base. Cuzco Sol’s departure for the south, the following succession struggles, the rise of the Proxima-Aten heresy, the various exoduses and pilgrimages that ensued, and the faith’s experiences living among other societies is beyond the scope of this account. Though of particular interest is the curious case of the small Centauri-Ra community within the Lord’s Conclave at Mount Sanctuary- like the Dharmic-based Kavithans of Thakurism, non-Abrahamic religions have always had an uneasy, often antagonistic existence within the the Conclave despite Sister Godwinson’s official credo of “life of religious worship.” Even more precarious is the state of the Solarus sect among the Stepdaughters of Gaia. A sororal offshoot originally welcomed by the Gaians as fellow nature-loving neopagans, they quickly drew the ire of the Lady herself for their belligerence and tendency to light entire groves on fire in devotion to the Heliades. Fortunately for both the Gaian hosts and the Solarii, Chiron’s low oxygen makes forest fires difficult to spread.
And as contact with ever more civilizations (and potential clients) increased, Dai Seung perpetual Acting Field CEO Young took up more contracts, forging partnerships beyond U.N. Temple of Sol. The company rebranded itself New Unity Industries, popularly known as Unicorp. Boasting the motto “The Only Answer to Tomorrow,” it would become a second-party developer to the Shapers of Chiron. Providing the engineering muscle and know-how to some of the movement’s most audacious mass terraforming projects, Unicorp also began to run into limits of its cultural adaptability. Even as Dai Seung had reformed on Planet and become an industrial giant as New Unity Industries, Young and his executives grew more assured in their own vision of how to run Planetary operations smoothly, often locking horns with the Coordinator. And the chaebol often pursued its own agenda independent of Nagao’s mystic quest, as it had done with the Sons. Unicorp often deviated from the main Shaper mission, waging its own trade wars and industrial espionage campaigns against the likes of Morgan and ARC, fighting for the hearts and wallets of Planet.
Regardless, the story of the Temple of Sol illustrates how sub-factional societies could exist and coexist on Chiron. Religious, cultural, even ideological identities did not always have to belong to a single faction or outpost. Private entities, whether corporate or otherwise, could work with multiple factions or even a single sub-factional society. The settlement of Planet continues to be a multivariate affair hosting a diverse array of radically different groups.
Casting
Young Kwan-Yong is portrayed by Ha Jung-woo as Kang In-gu on Narco-Saints.
Steven Howard is portrayed by Kurt Russell as Jack O'Neil in Stargate.
Notes:
The entire premise of this segment is to explain why there’s a Peacekeeper base with the titular name. True story.
Unicorp, also known as New Unity Industries, founded as Dai Seung Heavy Industries, is from the custom mod faction set SMACFacPack by Nathan Weismuller and Adam Gieseler. Unicorp is rather like an unabashed Morgan Industries, a corporation that is self-aware that Planetary monopoly results in Planned economics, and the Free Market is an impediment to that. txt file here
Arturo Quiepo is from Far Cry 2.
Major Steven Howard is from Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction.
The Solarii are a hero unit in Majesty: the Fantasy Kingdom Sim, worshippers of the sun goddess Helia.
My design for the Sons of Centauri-Ra are meant to have a good amount of Mesoamerican cultural influence in addition to Egyptian, Greek, and other ancient sun worshipping societies. So their military units are organized into calpulli and they initially fight with modern adaptations of Aztec and Inca weaponry. Each calpul is named after solar deities from different traditions, from Baltic to Hindu.
For Dai Seung / Unicorp, I gave their Security Services units nicknames, as is common in the Republic of Korea Army. Chungmu (충무), “loyal valor,” is a posthumous name given to great military commanders of the Joseon Dynasty. Gasin (가신) are protective household deities in Korean shamanism.
Thakurism / Thakurite belief is the religion of the Kavithan Protectorate from Civilization: Beyond Earth.
Image Credits
Space colony base on magenta planet is the box art from Sierra On-Line game Outpost
Room with giant golden face statue is a submission for a Solarpunk-themed Atomhawk art challenge by Tom Sterckx
Burning dome with wicker man on top is from Burning Man 2013, photo by Andy Barron/Reno Gazette-Journal via AP
Futuristic solar-arrayed city is “Solarpunk” by Steven Wong
Adaptation Notes
Removed references to a Korea divided along historical lines.
My original rendition of Young Kwan-Yong was female- I felt the gender imbalance of the SMAC Fac Pack was too heavily skewed, unlike that of SMAC. Upon reflection I’ve decided to keep it along the original creators’ intent. I had cast Kim Hye-soo from Default (2018), South Korean drama film about the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
The Sons of Centauri-Ra narrowly escaped the destruction of the Unity via Landing Pod. They consisted of most of the ship’s solar sailer team: powertechs, solartechs, laborers, most of them belonging to the rising neopagan cult from the latter days of Old Earth. Along for the ride were survivors swept up along the way to the nearest hangar bay. Cuzco Sol, once Lucero Eztli Salvador, led the motley crew, boldly extolling the Centauri suns and exhorting all whom they came across to join them, so long as they renounced darkness and shadow. Their landing was hastily done under frightfully uncertain circumstances. Throughout the descent, Sol called upon Centauri-Ra to shine his faithful rays upon his children, so they may live to grow strong and powerful on this new mudball. Along that harrowing passage, new converts were born, existing faith was reforged in the reentry heat of the pod chassis. Shortly after, Sol unilaterally declared himself the spiritual and mission leader of the lost flock, annointing himself Heliophant.
They landed on gentle foothills surrounded by dense fields of xenofungus. The elevation was heralded by Sol as a good omen, “closer to Ra,” with the potential for solar collector developments. He called this new base Temple of Sol as both tribute to the sun cult and to his own humble zeal. So began the hardscrabble life of the Sons. It was a theocratic society but not excessively so. The brotherhood stressed vigorous activity and striving for perfection in the martial arts, which lent itself well to building and defending the colony. Sun worship was encouraged but not mandated. The macho attitude of the cult stressed each individual journey towards solar enlightenment. Believers often tried to outdo each other in the hunting of local megafauna, the erection of more solar collectors above quota, the more time spent outside under the sun. Those who were weaker in faith were mocked as effete, secret Earth-loving pansies, but left unpersecuted. So in their chauvinistic, yet open-natured way, the Sons eked out a passable society.
Temple of Sol was a functional base from the start, but survival was difficult and fraught with danger
Not long after its founding, Temple of Sol welcomed its first set of surprise visitors. They were non-hostile, unlike the bugs of the air and the beasts of the field. A corporate convoy carrying heavy equipment under the command of Dai Seung Heavy Industries passed through the territory of the Sons. These fellow survivors had landed quite some distance away, in desolate wasteland. Only with great difficulty and trepidation- and the best navigation that the company survival scouts could rustle up- did they narrowly evade worm attacks to arrive here. A mining and construction civilian contractor attached to the Unity mission, the former chaebol was searching for a better site to set up shop, and hopefully, customers to sell to. Even if the mission was technically dissolved, the surviving executives reasoned, work could still be done to make use of the place. They were open to clients, and, taking note at the rather shabby and under-equipped nature of the Heliophant’s faithful, potential workers as well.
Headquartered in the Gangnam District of Seoul, Dai Seung was particularly well-positioned to form unlikely partnerships. The company had been the first to operate in the Koryoin Autonomous Oblast, the Soviet-occupied zone of the northeast Korean peninsula. With a corporate culture stressing adaptability, flexibility, and pragmatism as its highest values, Dai Seung would go on to operate contracts as disparate and far-flung as constructing nuclear power plants in the Vietnamese Soviet Republic to exploring offshore natural gas fields off the coast of French Indochina, building medical facilities for the post-Six Minute War Indian government to laying infrastructure for “Self-Sufficient” Japan’s disputed IOEZ naval holdings on Netaji Bose Island. While the field execs were at first apprehensive towards working with a batch of fanatically hypermasculine meatheads, they analyzed the situation quickly and cooly.
Vice President of Field Operations- Labor Relations Young Kwan-Yong surmised that the Centauri-Ra cult, while pugnacious and prone to atavistic flights of fancy (one of Heliophant Cuzco Sol’s first pronouncements was his intent to personally climb one of the nearby alien monoliths and carve the twin-sun sigil onto its capstone - he was only dissuaded from doing so when company reps proposed building their own obelisk for the cult’s ceremonies, rather than disfiguring the priceless ancient artifact), did indeed possess valuable technical expertise in solar power generation, and that their bravado could be harnessed under the chaebol’s guiding hand. He further determined that for all of their fighting ability, most were engineers, technicians, and workers without actual combat experience, and the amount of actual weaponry they held beyond improvised blades and bludgeons was paltry. While Dai Seung Security Services did not possess firepower akin to that of Sabre, SafeHaven, ARC, and the like, they did have more than the surviving solartechs had salvaged from the ship.
One of the dozen Dai Seung VPs who survived Planetfall, Young Kwan-Yong was an expert in brokering deals with workforces from many markets. His pre-Chiron claim to fame was reaching an accord with striking miners at Komdok in 2061
The Sons were not simpletons- they had long since abandoned their initial infamous tactic of attacking mindworm swarms in melee combat, swinging sledge hammers as clubs with broken photovoltaic cells as shields. And their insistence on ritually sunbathing in the light of Alpha Centauri A and Hercules did seem to offer salutary effects- Dai Seung Human Asset Management psych chaplains discovered that observant Centauri-Ra acolytes performed ably in battle against psi-wielding xenoforms, resisting hallucinatory effects for precious minutes longer than non-observant practitioners and non-members who lacked extensive off-base experience. Young asserted that this personnel resource could not be disregarded, and his partnership proposal was soon adopted by the Field Operations Working Board.
This working relationship was rocky upon inception with the Sons of Centauri-Ra scoffing at the idea of listening to corporate suits, but all was smoothed over as Dai Seung opened its modest armory of shredder pistols, penetrator rifles, field HUD scouters, even several prototype exo-frames used for heavy loading. Most importantly, the Agriculture and Food Synthesis Divisions upscaled to accommodate feeding a doubled population. While the Sons had a store of survival rations, the specter of starvation would not be fully banished until Dai Seung graciously shared its food supply. In return, the Sons got to work building out a full state-of-the-art (by pre-launch standards) electrical infrastructure. The Heliophant’s daily messages gave succor to the faithful, who rallied to the difficulties of frontier settlement. Dai Seung’s managers found that the sun worshippers were more than up to the task of settlement. They were particularly competent at defending against mindworms and hostile factions. While professional, the corporation’s Security Services were unaccustomed to savage irregular raids from Holnists, smacers, and mindworms. In exchange, the corporation allocated excess work cycles towards constructing shrines to appease their partners.
Dai Seung construction crews built the Shining Face, a massive idol of Helios placed in the Chamber of Initiates
After several mission years of independent operation, the Temple of Sol met its greatest threat yet: Spartan aggression. While the Colonel expressed amusement towards the mob of half-crazed sun lovers, and held their fighting spirit in some esteem, she had no patience for their corporate fellows. Denouncing the pursuit of wealth as decadent, Santiago charged Dai Seung as another horde of capitalist monopolists leeching off the truly productive protectors of society (this rhetoric was a sop to the remaining Holnists left in her Federation) and accused Cuzco Sol of falling prey to the lies of weak-willed energy worshippers. Indeed, the immense energy stores generated by the vast solar collectors built by the cult gave the base the makings of a future Merchant Exchange- and had crowned Young Kwan-Yong CEO of his company. To Young and staff, Dai Seung and the heliocentric brotherhood were after the same thing. Radiance meant reverence to some, riches to others. Far from accepting the claims of this provocateur, the Heliophant upheld the cult’s honor and declared that no Son of Ra may betray his friends to any outsider.
While brave, the base came under swift attack by an overwhelming force that outnumbered and out-organized the defenders. Deployed to the passes leading to the city, in the gaps of the xenofungus fields under the shade of Cuzco’s obelisk, the Saulė calpulli and the 2nd Field Security Team ‘Chungmu’ saw their positions overrun by an army of helots. Low in morale, these meat-grinder captives taken from prior conquests were force-marched by their Spartan officers straight into the joint Sons-Dai Seung force’s firing lines. Some crawled through the dense xenofungus themselves- company PR officers would later decry that as evidence of nerve-stapling on the part of the Spartans. Even as some corporate security personnel would shamefully break and flee from the onslaught, the Ra acolytes, their bloodthirst triggered, broke ranks to run towards the enemy, taking out industrial-forged ceremonial Huitzauhqui spiked bats and 3D-printed Champi star-shaped maces and bludgeoned at the flood. For a shining instant, the gambit worked. The stunned Spartans’ momentum was thrown back by this vanguard, allowing the other defenders to hail storms of shredder flachettes. But this instant passed as Myrmidons outfitted in combat laser rovers and attack hoverbikes approached and blew past the defensive lines.
After second sunset, Spartans overloaded the Surya Agricultural Dome, denounced by Dai Seung as industrial sabotage and by the Sons of Centauri-Ra as blasphemous descecration
The Spartans had arrived at the perimeter walls of the colony. Defenders unleashed a variety of weapons upon them- anti-mindworm flamer guns, hot water pressure washers, even an experimental high-speed excavator arm. But these efforts were fruitless. Colonel Santiago had wanted the corporation as helots, the cultists as janissaries, and the city as her prize. Already her military communiques referred to the base as War Outpost. Visayas-born former PMC operator Arturo Quiepo, the invasion commander, had Myrmidons punch through the defensive perimeter with explosives. After several blasts and fending off a counterattack by the Aruna calpulli with fire support from the 7th Base Security Division ‘Gasin’, the Filipino Spartan and his forces dove into Temple of Sol, ready to slay and enslave all within.
It was then a U.N. Peacekeeping Forces division miraculously emerged upon the scene. Having tracked Spartan troop movements closely for over a decurn as part of a long-simmering pseudo-vendetta, Major Steven Howard, the leader of the blue berets, invoked Article 5 of the Joint Signatory Framework, declaring that the Spartan Federation had attacked a neutral party, violating interfactional law. Armed with the latest impact weaponry, the Peacekeepers blasted the Spartan forces in the field before attacking their rearguard at the base’s walls. The invaders were caught by the hammer of Lal and the anvil of the Temple. Quiepo, no stranger to lost causes, ordered a speedy retreat, spitting threats of true vendetta upon the Peacekeepers as battered Myrmidons withdrew from the gates.
And so did the Temple of Sol make first contact with the Peacekeeping Forces. Major Howard was bemused to discover an independent settlement co-ruled by a religious organization and a private corporation. He would later describe the arrangement as “a distant echo of those weird big business-loving Midwest theocracies from the Second American Civil War.” Regardless of the unusualness of the arrangement, Howard quickly recognized Sol and Young as co-leaders of the city. Relief workers stayed to see to the wounded and the reconstruction, proper emissaries were exchanged, and the base was inducted into the Peacekeepers’ protective orbit.
Major Steven Howard and a Peacekeeper anthropologist granted an audience before Heliophant Cuzco Sol, flanked by Medjay elites
Several mission years later, the base expanded with Peacekeeper support. While they continued to train vigorously and ritualistically, diminishment of outside threats meant that the Sons of Centauri-Ra were able to focus fully on solar collector construction. The settlement became renowned as the “City of Ten Thousand Mirrors,” its vast solar arrays surrounding the countryside where xenofungus fields used to be, now plucked clean by Peacekeeper ‘formers leased to Dai Seung construction teams. Following no lack of polite prodding by Lal’s diplomats, the Heliophant and the CEO gradually acceded to entrance into the faction. Thus was the community renamed U.N. Temple of Sol, an odd rarity among the faction’s bases.
The commissioner and his advisors would later rue giving the place more than associate status: while its governors were democratically elected, they tended to fiercely advocate for cult and corporate interests. This ranged from the irritatingly monomaniacal (designating the Heliophant’s corporate-built shrines as UNESCO Planet Heritage Sites) to the alarmingly unhinged (favoring widespread adoption of hydrocarbon-producing vehicles and MULEs, both for cost-cutting reasons and for immanentizing Amun-Ra’s eschaton). But between the fervor of the cult and the professionalism of the corporation, U.N. Temple of Sol maintained a low population of drones. Even as both realized there was more to Planet beyond the base walls, their steadfast stewardship made the City of Ten Thousand Mirrors truly shine.
U.N. Temple of Sol at the cusp of the Pre-Sentience Age
In time, the story of both the Sons of Centauri-Ra and Dai Seung Heavy Industries diverged beyond this first base. Cuzco Sol’s departure for the south, the following succession struggles, the rise of the Proxima-Aten heresy, the various exoduses and pilgrimages that ensued, and the faith’s experiences living among other societies is beyond the scope of this account. Though of particular interest is the curious case of the small Centauri-Ra community within the Lord’s Conclave at Mount Sanctuary- like the Dharmic-based Kavithans of Thakurism, non-Abrahamic religions have always had an uneasy, often antagonistic existence within the the Conclave despite Sister Godwinson’s official credo of “life of religious worship.” Even more precarious is the state of the Solarus sect among the Stepdaughters of Gaia. A sororal offshoot originally welcomed by the Gaians as fellow nature-loving neopagans, they quickly drew the ire of the Lady herself for their belligerence and tendency to light entire groves on fire in devotion to the Heliades. Fortunately for both the Gaian hosts and the Solarii, Chiron’s low oxygen makes forest fires difficult to spread.
And as contact with ever more civilizations (and potential clients) increased, Dai Seung perpetual Acting Field CEO Young took up more contracts, forging partnerships beyond U.N. Temple of Sol. The company rebranded itself New Unity Industries, popularly known as Unicorp. Boasting the motto “The Only Answer to Tomorrow,” it would become a second-party developer to the Shapers of Chiron. Providing the engineering muscle and know-how to some of the movement’s most audacious mass terraforming projects, Unicorp also began to run into limits of its cultural adaptability. Even as Dai Seung had reformed on Planet and become an industrial giant as New Unity Industries, Young and his executives grew more assured in their own vision of how to run Planetary operations smoothly, often locking horns with the Coordinator. And the chaebol often pursued its own agenda independent of Nagao’s mystic quest, as it had done with the Sons. Unicorp often deviated from the main Shaper mission, waging its own trade wars and industrial espionage campaigns against the likes of Morgan and ARC, fighting for the hearts and wallets of Planet.
Regardless, the story of the Temple of Sol illustrates how sub-factional societies could exist and coexist on Chiron. Religious, cultural, even ideological identities did not always have to belong to a single faction or outpost. Private entities, whether corporate or otherwise, could work with multiple factions or even a single sub-factional society. The settlement of Planet continues to be a multivariate affair hosting a diverse array of radically different groups.
Casting
Young Kwan-Yong is portrayed by Ha Jung-woo as Kang In-gu on Narco-Saints.
Steven Howard is portrayed by Kurt Russell as Jack O'Neil in Stargate.
Notes:
The entire premise of this segment is to explain why there’s a Peacekeeper base with the titular name. True story.
Unicorp, also known as New Unity Industries, founded as Dai Seung Heavy Industries, is from the custom mod faction set SMACFacPack by Nathan Weismuller and Adam Gieseler. Unicorp is rather like an unabashed Morgan Industries, a corporation that is self-aware that Planetary monopoly results in Planned economics, and the Free Market is an impediment to that. txt file here
Arturo Quiepo is from Far Cry 2.
Major Steven Howard is from Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction.
The Solarii are a hero unit in Majesty: the Fantasy Kingdom Sim, worshippers of the sun goddess Helia.
My design for the Sons of Centauri-Ra are meant to have a good amount of Mesoamerican cultural influence in addition to Egyptian, Greek, and other ancient sun worshipping societies. So their military units are organized into calpulli and they initially fight with modern adaptations of Aztec and Inca weaponry. Each calpul is named after solar deities from different traditions, from Baltic to Hindu.
For Dai Seung / Unicorp, I gave their Security Services units nicknames, as is common in the Republic of Korea Army. Chungmu (충무), “loyal valor,” is a posthumous name given to great military commanders of the Joseon Dynasty. Gasin (가신) are protective household deities in Korean shamanism.
Thakurism / Thakurite belief is the religion of the Kavithan Protectorate from Civilization: Beyond Earth.
Image Credits
Space colony base on magenta planet is the box art from Sierra On-Line game Outpost
Room with giant golden face statue is a submission for a Solarpunk-themed Atomhawk art challenge by Tom Sterckx
Burning dome with wicker man on top is from Burning Man 2013, photo by Andy Barron/Reno Gazette-Journal via AP
Futuristic solar-arrayed city is “Solarpunk” by Steven Wong
Adaptation Notes
Removed references to a Korea divided along historical lines.
My original rendition of Young Kwan-Yong was female- I felt the gender imbalance of the SMAC Fac Pack was too heavily skewed, unlike that of SMAC. Upon reflection I’ve decided to keep it along the original creators’ intent. I had cast Kim Hye-soo from Default (2018), South Korean drama film about the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
MysticWind
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2008
- Messages
- 148
Name: Young Kwan-Yong
Position: Vice President of Field Operations- Labor Relations
Company: Dai Seung Heavy Industries
Country of Origin: Korea
DOB: 03-01-2024
Unity Contractor Background History:
Born 2024, Ssangmun-dong, Seoul, Republic of Korea. Eldest son of middle-class proprietors of a seafood import supply company for the Banghak-dong Dokkaebi Market. Raised to take over the family business, spent post-secondary school primarily on vendor visits, leaving daily operations in the hands of siblings. While on an illicit hongeo fishing trawler in the Sea of Japan, a freak typhoon struck. The young Young lept into action, barking orders on behalf of the injured captain. Ship emerged unscathed west of South Skira Island, coming across a light plane grounded upon the rocks. Cessna belonged to Dai Seung Heavy Industries of Gangnam District, Seoul. Several executives and a Golden Chinese diplomatic liaison had been in backchannel talks above the disputed waters when storm struck. The hongeo trawler managed to secure all passengers before Japanese or Soviet patrols detected their presence.
Grateful for the rescue and impressed by the youngster, one of the corpos encouraged him to look to larger markets, offering him a college scholarship. Graduated from Seoul National University in Business Administration, admitted into the Dai Seung Professional Campus at Kaesong after acing Seunggyeongdo Examinations. Fast-tracked to analyst role. Consulted on company’s expansion of the Chosŏn Taeyangho Great Northern Railway, spending extended time on-site in the Rangrim Mountains. As a “non-traditional” hire, often met with suspicion and skepticism by colleagues, resulting in more assignments to remote, difficult regions. Accepted without complaint, next fulfilling a contract with the American government to construct a bridge between Little Diomede Island and Cape Prince of Wales. Maintained positive morale despite polar conditions, sourcing for his workers alcohol, luxury foodstuffs, and entertainment datatapes from the Alaskan mainland, allegedly using the Young family company as supplier.
Second international assignment was management of the Komdok mine in the Koryoin Autonomous Oblast, the Soviet-occupied zone of the northeast Korean peninsula. Dai Seung narrowly defeated Hyundai Heavy Metals and Korea Zinc to secure the nation’s first detente contract with Soviet Union. Frequently beset by culture clashes with local workers, suspected sabotage by rival chaebols. Escalating tensions led to strike that nearly paralyzed operations. Only after Young approached mob of miners with outstretched arms, reminding them in near-fluent Koryo-mar of their duty to not only make the Rodina prosper, but themselves, did union leaders agree to meet with leadership. Wove series of deals providing enhanced living conditions contingent on teams meeting higher quotas in shorter timelines, with a modestly improved baseline for all. Strike halted as foremen drove their reports to vie for extra prizes, rank and file momentarily satisfied by larger housing repurposed from shipping compartments and stocked with Hite beer. Dai Seung’s guidance deemed profitable, Komdok became case study for “internal competition with Soviet characteristics.”
Success rewarded with more hazardous locales. Five months aboard the DSS Jewel of Wonsan in the Korea Strait, overseeing efforts to extract manganese nodules from the abyssal sea plain beneath Sub-Seoul. While fruitless, passages carved by his teams would be repurposed for the Mireuk Bosal Dome. An all-time humid summer surveying for rare-earth elements in Manchuria alongside Golden China’s Manzhou Mining Group. Promoted to Hostile Environment Resource Development Specialist. Then again to the Americas, building Jabiru Vault City for the Portuguese Brazilians at the height of the Novo Brasil period.
Constructed in the enormous subterranean cavern system at the heart of the Amazon River basin, Jabiru Vault City was a symbol of subnational pride for Portuguese Brazil
Flood control dredging had revealed an antediluvian series of cyclopean chambers beneath the Amazon, and the rulers in Brasilia decided to make grand use of it. A settlement intended to dwarf the North American social experiments, the Jabiru geofront was to house factories, river docks, research facilities, colonial offices, living quarters, even commercial districts and pleasure quarters, linked together by an extensive network of roadways, tunnels, and canals. Dai Seung again won a contract, tasked to build vast foundational pillars of the southern sector of the city. Meanwhile, a mining consortium led by Hakamichi Electronics (Japan), Gerlich (West Germany), and Voorster (Netherlands) won responsibility for the northern pillars. And again under Young’s leadership, the Korean company narrowly prevailed, completing its columns nearly a week before the Euro-Japanese consortium despite tropical climate, unstable terrain, and local unrest. Hakamichi-Gerlich-Voorster would later lodge complaints of bribery, breaching confidentiality, and subcontracting, accusing him of hiring Salvadores da Terra and Earthdawn Movement eco-activists as extra labor, with the implicit quid pro quo of trading actionable intelligence of the complex for their non-aggression. Still, the Portuguese Brazilian government decorated Young with the Order of Rio Branco for winning the Dig Race, following his turnover of the project’s personnel files to the Civil Police.
Became an outspoken member of the employee group dubbed the Universal Cooperation clique by chaebologists. Advocated Dai Seung Heavy Industries aspire to be more than simply a Korean equivalent to the American Reclamation Corporation or similar national champions of other countries. Second signatory of anonymous “Blue Ocean, Blue Planet” memo; widely believed to be a coauthor. Following August faction incident of 2056 and the Great Restructurings, transferred to offworld H.E.R.D. projects. Spent next decade as Dai Seung’s pointman in outer space, setting up salvage operations in the Kessler Belt and drill sites on Hygiea while dodging Orbitnoid wokou through the frigid void. Investigated by Transportation Authority Police for hiring Ceres Syndicate mercenaries as muscle on mining installations; vilified by wildcat prospectors for expanding into ore-rich unregistered territories.
After final takeover of the board by conservative Jirisan clique, added to Dai Seung’s list of candidates for the U.N. Alpha Centauri Mission Committee. Faced with placement in the chaebol’s billet for Unity extrasolar expedition, or subject to immediate request for resignation, only a dozen executives - all supporters of Universal Cooperation - accepted. To the surprise of his rivals, Young, newly-minted as the offworld Vice President of Field Operations- Labor Relations, was among them. Only stipulation was that all his company shares and bonuses be sent to his family, previously thought to be estranged.
Psych Profile from Contractor Database: Builder-Excavator
Very blunt demeanor paired with practical outlook. Impatient towards philosophical pursuits; prioritizes completion of his work beyond all else. Preoccupation with harvesting resources and constructing edifices not undergirded by ideology (“civilizing missions,” manifest destiny, conquest of nature, setting man free from men, etc.), but simply to access useful materials and efficiently repurpose them for the sake of survival, either immediate or economic.
Willingness to operate in dangerously difficult H.E.R.D. locations rooted in adventurous childhood spirit (see testimony by Young Si-hyun, et al), possibly reaction to inevitable “coronation” as head of comfortable but limited familial enterprise. Witnesses report subject displaying great satisfaction after initially joining chaebol, use of phrases such as “uncovering destiny” and “crafting transcendence.” Displayed little interest in climbing corporate ladder despite perfectionism. Conflict with colleagues of differing cliques based on individual’s views on company mission. Should Dai Seung operate to maximize profit, or political power? Or should Dai Seung do so because it can do it best?
Young infiltrates one of his own construction crews at Hesperides Park, Eden’s Promise. His micromanagement was appreciated by the Shapers of Chiron and other clients but irritated workers, whom he mollified with spore-distilled soju and lab-cultivated bulgogi
Visions of Alpha Centauri
Faction: New Unity Industries
Classification: Bahadur corporeal actor
Founding Base: Unicorp Corporate
“Our first priority must be and must remain industrial infrastructure. Without industry to supply its needs, modern civilization has no hope of survival. As long as Unicorp supplies those needs, it is a necessary link in the chain of survival.”
-- Field CEO Young Kwan-Yong, “Inaugural Address”
Casting
Young Kwan-Yong is portrayed by Ha Jung-woo as Kang In-gu on Narco-Saints.
Notes:
Unicorp, also known as New Unity Industries, founded as Dai Seung Heavy Industries, is from the custom mod faction set SMAC Fac Pack by Nathan Weismuller and Adam Gieseler. txt file here.
Quote is from SMAC Fac Pack’s custom blurbs.txt file, for Industrial Base.
Hongeo is the Korean name for skate, served in the hongeo-hoe delicacy. In Narco-Saints, it is the reason why Kang In-gu and his friend went to Suriname to start a business.
Skira Island, located west of Sakhalin, is the fictional setting of Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising.
Seunggyeong-do is a board game from feudal Korea for scholar-gentry children, simulating advancement of government officials under the Confucian system.
Bridging the Bering Strait is a proposed engineering concept that has been explored.
The Komdok mine is one of the largest lead and zinc mines in North Korea and in the world.
Koryoin or Koryo-saram are ethnic Koreans who live in Russia and the former Soviet Union. Some speak a dialect called Koryo-mar.
Jabiru is a species of large stork found in Latin America, and might be the etymological origin for Jaburo, the giant military complex built underneath the Amazon rainforest in Universal Century Mobile Suit Gundam.
Sub-Seoul and the Miruek Bosal Dome are mentioned in the backstory of Han Jae-Moon of Chungsu in Civilization: Beyond Earth.
Hakamichi Electronics, Gerlich, and Voorster are members of the blue diamond-searching rival Euro-Japanese consortium from Congo by Michael Crichton.
Given that North Korea does not survive the Korean War in this setting, the August faction incident refers to a very different event a century later.
Adaptation Notes
As with many of my adaptations, the personality depiction is influenced by the character from which I have lifted the visual design. I don’t actually recall Kang In-gu bribing anyone with food on the show, but it seems like the pragmatic move he’d make, so Young is similarly capable of using carrots instead of sticks. It’s more fun than writing about yet another corpo who inflicts negative reinforcement on the workforce. Also I took Kang’s readiness to go to the ends of the Earth to make a buck for his family.
In the actual SMAC Fac Pack, Young is described as no-nonsense and the least ideological. So I have interpreted him as someone who really enjoys his job and believes he’s really good at it. Given that Unicorp is more or less a Morgan Industries-type corporate monopoly but unabashed about the collectivism and economic planning that would imply- e.g. Morgan’s theme with Yang’s personality- it’s only natural that Young is so certain in his vision of development, and that the rest of the company, and beyond, should follow him. Though unlike those two, he is far less interested in having a cult of personality.
Since I’ve imported so many personalities into RTD, I’ve tried to reduce faction spam by having not-quite-faction entities. In this case, New Unity Industries / Unicorp being a Bahadur-class corporeal actor means that it is a corporation that is not tied to any particular faction (unlike Morgan or ARC) and freely solicits many different customers. Which isn’t to say they don’t have their own agendas or even their own territory, it’s just such an entity would be less likely to pursue anything as blatant as, say, Conquest.
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MysticWind
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2008
- Messages
- 148
I've been describing my reposts as "arcs" and sometimes it is the case, but this one was really just two posts, a barely-ported biography of my Second Ship character and then the actual U.N. Temple of Sol narrative, lol. I split off the bit about Neopaganism for its own post and wrote the second bio this past week. This is a mini-arc, really. I wanted to introduce the concept of neopagan religions arising in response to climate devastation (which I got from Earth), especially the interesting concept of one focused on macho ideals, in contrast to the stereotypical Earth Mother archetype. And then have them exist in RTD's Planet without being its own faction, but as a religion, a memeplex.
So it turns out I had written both the original Smacer post and Temple of Sol two years ago in May. If I wanted to be cynically self-deprecatory, that was probably my peak contribution to RTD. Looks like I was able to crank out both posts within a week. In the latter post, I had one of my Second Ship factions meeting a SMACFacPack faction, then fighting an original SMAC faction before getting rescued by another SMAC faction, and later working for an RTD faction. I even tossed in one of my early Far Cry 2 cameos there. These days, it'd take me a whole week plus just to write a bio, and it'd be crammed with references to fanon, in-jokes to other series and alt history, needless world-building, etc. I'd get stuck for days trying to figure out a concept I had listed early on development and trying to get it to fit. I guess what I'm saying is that I should trim down the amount of content in each post.
So it turns out I had written both the original Smacer post and Temple of Sol two years ago in May. If I wanted to be cynically self-deprecatory, that was probably my peak contribution to RTD. Looks like I was able to crank out both posts within a week. In the latter post, I had one of my Second Ship factions meeting a SMACFacPack faction, then fighting an original SMAC faction before getting rescued by another SMAC faction, and later working for an RTD faction. I even tossed in one of my early Far Cry 2 cameos there. These days, it'd take me a whole week plus just to write a bio, and it'd be crammed with references to fanon, in-jokes to other series and alt history, needless world-building, etc. I'd get stuck for days trying to figure out a concept I had listed early on development and trying to get it to fit. I guess what I'm saying is that I should trim down the amount of content in each post.
MysticWind
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2008
- Messages
- 148
Dei ex Machinis
The U.N. Interstellar Colonization Agency and its Alpha Centauri Mission Committee attempted to screen candidates for high rationality and logical reasoning. They failed. For all of psychtech efforts to screen out the emotionally unstable and mentally ill, they were unable to keep out those who possessed memeplexes that went beyond base reality. Belief in miracles or the supernatural, blind faith in cutting-edge technology, political zealotry in service of the moderate or the extremes, conspiracy theories and fringe views; all found purchase among the hundreds of thousands who arrived on Planet. It was simply too difficult to exclude experts who might have odd notions here or there, too hard to reject applicants who bore no sin save subscribing to certain cultural outlooks, too messy to wrangle with potential accusations of bias.
In the early post-Planetfall era the societies of Chiron were steeped in superstition. Rumors filled every Rec Commons, and the advent of the Planetary Datalinks led to exponential growth in memes that faction authorities sought to suppress. Techno-myths were particularly prevalent, second only in number to frontier legends passed around by wormbit scout veterans and ‘former hands who claimed to see strange shapes on the horizon.
One major strain was what the U.N. Memetics Studies (formerly headquartered in Brussels, now at the titular Peacekeeper base) designated as “machine-ghost” techno-myths. Belief in the existence of digital sentience, or devices otherwise animated with suppressed importance, was second in popularity only to tales of supposed alien civilizations. Even before the U.N. Alpha Centauri Mission, a UNMS census determined that nearly two-thirds of the world population believed leading governments were concealing knowledge of genuine artificial intelligence. Multiple sources spawned machine-ghost techno-myths in the initial mission centuries.
What is a techno-myth?
The Many Cases of the Unity Main Computer
As with the UNS Unity itself, there is no complete schematic of the ship’s computational network. Like an immense patchwork quilt, the vessel was stitched together over decades by dozens of national governments, corporate contractors, scientific foundations, and more. As were its internal systems. Yet this mosaic of mostly obsolete, second-rate equipment miraculously carried its passengers safely and sleeping soundly to the Alpha Centauri system, only to be smashed apart by an eleventh hour micrometeorite.
Unlike other computers in this series, the Unity systems generally do not inspire breathless claims of hidden sophistication, even self-consciousness. The late ship’s datalinks are generally considered too slapdash and ragtag to have spontaneously generated a gestalt intelligence, even if its systems architecture was refactored by a (rehabilitating) prodigy shortly before mission launch. Lingering questions about the Luttinen algorithm experiment aside, the only who actually(?) believe that the Unity computers became sentient are the so-called Sheckleyans.
A multi-factional datalinks conspiracy subculture / BBS collective, the Sheckleyans call for the dignified extinction of the human race through novel and innovative ways. Previously agitating on Earth for gengineering new predators based on ancient folklore to cull humanity, a new Sheckleyan subsect on Planet suggested that the behavior of the Unity- traveling over half a century only to be nearly blown away by a pebble- was a sign of advanced intelligence and supreme irony. After so long in the dark, pouring over the varying grotesqueries of the species’ nature, the hypothetical Unity A.I. finally had enough, embarking on a death drive to end it once and for all.
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a primary supplier for the ship’s newer computer labs. This PDA depicts an SGI Propane, a workstation workhorse capable of scientific processing
Like the Sheckleyans themselves, this “killer computer” narrative is largely considered to be facetious, even if some faction governments have found it sufficiently unfunny to go as far as to persecute the group on-line. But the techno-myth has also spread so far and wide that the University of Planet, its rival Togra Labs, and its splinter-rival the Schreiber Project published a joint postmortem on the Unity, concluding that the ship’s computer failed to detect the celestial projectile and redivert simply because of natural deterioration of its sensor web over the many years and light-years. This study, of course, is the ongoing subject of numerous datalinks discussions which occasionally devolve into foodfights.
Other techno-myths about the Unity computer are usually accusations of hack-and-slash sabotage towards one Earth party or another- NATO, WARPAC, Morgan Industries, Golden China, post-India, the Third World, the Fifth Force, France, etc.- even if this would mean sacrificing their own passengers. Though wildly contradictory and universally flimsy, such spurious claims provide justification for aggrieved individuals to settle scores against other colonists on Planet. This has been suppressed by the post-national factions, who frown on their citizens exhuming archaic grudges to attack one another. But it also only inflames the myths.
One more story emerged on the ‘links after the Bosco discovery of a potential “Artifact Network” of nebulous energy emanations linking xenological objects, even sites, throughout Chiron. The fringe theory, popularized by Wanters of the Memory of Earth, posited that the mysterious lack of course correction was caused by the central flight computer reacting to broadcasts sent from Planet, probably from one of the mysterious monoliths. After all, if the Progenitor artifacts could communicate with one another, who’s to say they could not likewise send a payload of unknown encoding and content to the machines of man? Drawn to this “siren song” and distracted, the Unity was thus thrown off course by light-seconds, right into the path of errant projectiles. The basis of this fringe theory, of course, relied on generous misreadings of telemetry data and muddled black box logs, which was more than ample ‘evidence’ for true believers to swear loyalty by.
Notes:
Brussels, incidentally, is the center of a real-life techno-myth: “IT Myths: Does the 'Beast of Brussels' know everything about us?”, ZDNET
The Sheckleyans are off-handedly mentioned in Earth by David Brin, in a segment contrasting different ideological responses to how to best ecologically regulate humanity (pro-degrowth or pro-extinction eco-radicals, Gaian neopagans who favor intelligent self-regulation, pro-space colonization movement, Madrid Catholics and other old-line religious believers who believe in human primacy):
According to Brin, they are named after sci-fi author Robert Sheckley.
SGI was a legendary manufacturer of high-performance graphics workstations in the 1990s, who despite making many of the machines that rendered Hollywood special effects, ended up as one of the casualties of PC commodification but still fondly remembered today. One of their workstation series is the SGI Octane. SGI was big enough to get a product placement cameo in Lost in Space (1998) as one of the sponsors of the Jupiter mission alongside the U.S. Army. (Replacing Coca-Cola in the shooting script, interestingly enough.) See: “Silicon Persistence,” Tedium.
Image Credits
Young woman at the control panel in the ZIL car assembly building, USSR, 1978
Spaceship bridge console is Halo Reach(?) concept art by Alex Chin Yu Chu
SGI device depicting SGI desktop computer is from Lost in Space (1998)
Academician Prokhor Zakharov said:
The U.N. Interstellar Colonization Agency and its Alpha Centauri Mission Committee attempted to screen candidates for high rationality and logical reasoning. They failed. For all of psychtech efforts to screen out the emotionally unstable and mentally ill, they were unable to keep out those who possessed memeplexes that went beyond base reality. Belief in miracles or the supernatural, blind faith in cutting-edge technology, political zealotry in service of the moderate or the extremes, conspiracy theories and fringe views; all found purchase among the hundreds of thousands who arrived on Planet. It was simply too difficult to exclude experts who might have odd notions here or there, too hard to reject applicants who bore no sin save subscribing to certain cultural outlooks, too messy to wrangle with potential accusations of bias.
In the early post-Planetfall era the societies of Chiron were steeped in superstition. Rumors filled every Rec Commons, and the advent of the Planetary Datalinks led to exponential growth in memes that faction authorities sought to suppress. Techno-myths were particularly prevalent, second only in number to frontier legends passed around by wormbit scout veterans and ‘former hands who claimed to see strange shapes on the horizon.
One major strain was what the U.N. Memetics Studies (formerly headquartered in Brussels, now at the titular Peacekeeper base) designated as “machine-ghost” techno-myths. Belief in the existence of digital sentience, or devices otherwise animated with suppressed importance, was second in popularity only to tales of supposed alien civilizations. Even before the U.N. Alpha Centauri Mission, a UNMS census determined that nearly two-thirds of the world population believed leading governments were concealing knowledge of genuine artificial intelligence. Multiple sources spawned machine-ghost techno-myths in the initial mission centuries.
What is a techno-myth?
Dr. Ian Malcolm said:
The Many Cases of the Unity Main Computer
Datajack Sinder Roze and Annunciator Sathieu Metrion said:
As with the UNS Unity itself, there is no complete schematic of the ship’s computational network. Like an immense patchwork quilt, the vessel was stitched together over decades by dozens of national governments, corporate contractors, scientific foundations, and more. As were its internal systems. Yet this mosaic of mostly obsolete, second-rate equipment miraculously carried its passengers safely and sleeping soundly to the Alpha Centauri system, only to be smashed apart by an eleventh hour micrometeorite.
Unlike other computers in this series, the Unity systems generally do not inspire breathless claims of hidden sophistication, even self-consciousness. The late ship’s datalinks are generally considered too slapdash and ragtag to have spontaneously generated a gestalt intelligence, even if its systems architecture was refactored by a (rehabilitating) prodigy shortly before mission launch. Lingering questions about the Luttinen algorithm experiment aside, the only who actually(?) believe that the Unity computers became sentient are the so-called Sheckleyans.
A multi-factional datalinks conspiracy subculture / BBS collective, the Sheckleyans call for the dignified extinction of the human race through novel and innovative ways. Previously agitating on Earth for gengineering new predators based on ancient folklore to cull humanity, a new Sheckleyan subsect on Planet suggested that the behavior of the Unity- traveling over half a century only to be nearly blown away by a pebble- was a sign of advanced intelligence and supreme irony. After so long in the dark, pouring over the varying grotesqueries of the species’ nature, the hypothetical Unity A.I. finally had enough, embarking on a death drive to end it once and for all.
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a primary supplier for the ship’s newer computer labs. This PDA depicts an SGI Propane, a workstation workhorse capable of scientific processing
Like the Sheckleyans themselves, this “killer computer” narrative is largely considered to be facetious, even if some faction governments have found it sufficiently unfunny to go as far as to persecute the group on-line. But the techno-myth has also spread so far and wide that the University of Planet, its rival Togra Labs, and its splinter-rival the Schreiber Project published a joint postmortem on the Unity, concluding that the ship’s computer failed to detect the celestial projectile and redivert simply because of natural deterioration of its sensor web over the many years and light-years. This study, of course, is the ongoing subject of numerous datalinks discussions which occasionally devolve into foodfights.
Other techno-myths about the Unity computer are usually accusations of hack-and-slash sabotage towards one Earth party or another- NATO, WARPAC, Morgan Industries, Golden China, post-India, the Third World, the Fifth Force, France, etc.- even if this would mean sacrificing their own passengers. Though wildly contradictory and universally flimsy, such spurious claims provide justification for aggrieved individuals to settle scores against other colonists on Planet. This has been suppressed by the post-national factions, who frown on their citizens exhuming archaic grudges to attack one another. But it also only inflames the myths.
One more story emerged on the ‘links after the Bosco discovery of a potential “Artifact Network” of nebulous energy emanations linking xenological objects, even sites, throughout Chiron. The fringe theory, popularized by Wanters of the Memory of Earth, posited that the mysterious lack of course correction was caused by the central flight computer reacting to broadcasts sent from Planet, probably from one of the mysterious monoliths. After all, if the Progenitor artifacts could communicate with one another, who’s to say they could not likewise send a payload of unknown encoding and content to the machines of man? Drawn to this “siren song” and distracted, the Unity was thus thrown off course by light-seconds, right into the path of errant projectiles. The basis of this fringe theory, of course, relied on generous misreadings of telemetry data and muddled black box logs, which was more than ample ‘evidence’ for true believers to swear loyalty by.
Notes:
Brussels, incidentally, is the center of a real-life techno-myth: “IT Myths: Does the 'Beast of Brussels' know everything about us?”, ZDNET
The Sheckleyans are off-handedly mentioned in Earth by David Brin, in a segment contrasting different ideological responses to how to best ecologically regulate humanity (pro-degrowth or pro-extinction eco-radicals, Gaian neopagans who favor intelligent self-regulation, pro-space colonization movement, Madrid Catholics and other old-line religious believers who believe in human primacy):
According to Brin, they are named after sci-fi author Robert Sheckley.
SGI was a legendary manufacturer of high-performance graphics workstations in the 1990s, who despite making many of the machines that rendered Hollywood special effects, ended up as one of the casualties of PC commodification but still fondly remembered today. One of their workstation series is the SGI Octane. SGI was big enough to get a product placement cameo in Lost in Space (1998) as one of the sponsors of the Jupiter mission alongside the U.S. Army. (Replacing Coca-Cola in the shooting script, interestingly enough.) See: “Silicon Persistence,” Tedium.
Image Credits
Young woman at the control panel in the ZIL car assembly building, USSR, 1978
Spaceship bridge console is Halo Reach(?) concept art by Alex Chin Yu Chu
SGI device depicting SGI desktop computer is from Lost in Space (1998)
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