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The Scattered Worlds is set in an aging human society, almost buried beneath the weight of it's own institutions. The characters should fit easily into the roles of apocalyptic anarchists, intent upon crushing the Org for the good of the people of Astor's Hope, or cunning plotters interested in reaping all the benefits they can take from the system. The mood should be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but with a dark side. Much of Astor's Hope is bleak and grim, with constant shortages and obsessive regulations. The creativity and industry of the past is extinguishing the possibilities of the present, but there are gaps in the blanket through which the characters can creep.
Refuge is an F0 star uncounted light-years from both Sol and Fennen. Accurate records of the original colonization of the Refuge system have long been lost. The system lacks an inhabitable world, but does boast three dense asteroid belts. Human society, centered around a series of large asteroid colonies, occupies the Beta and Gamma belts. At one time, several asteroids in the Alpha belt were also inhabited, but they no longer respond to radio contact and the navigational instructions necessary to reach them have been lost.
Human civilization in the Refuge system is extremely old, with known history stretching back some 4000 years. The Standard Calendar marks the current year as 9407 Post Arrival, though accurate information describing the colonization of the Refuge system has long been lost. There is some evidence that human presence in the Refuge system may stretch back over 10,000 years, but it is sketchy, contradictory and freighted with religious overtones.
Astor's Hope is one of about twenty (known) inhabited asteroids in the Refuge system. It is an oblong nickel-iron asteroid about 80 kilometers across and 300 kilometers long. The entire asteroid spins along it's long axis at a rate sufficient to produce centripetal gravity of about 0.7g in the Garden, and slightly more at the depths of the Warrens. It has been inhabited for over 10,000 standard years. It's current society is generally TL8, though many examples of TL7 technology can be found, especially deep in the Warrens.
About a quarter of the volume of Astor's Hope has been converted into a human-livable environment. The center of the asteroid is a hollow cylinder called the Garden. A massive fusion source sits at the axis, providing a normal thirty-hour day/night cycle. Most of the trade goods produced by Astor's Hope are biological goods (meat, specialty plant products, etc) grown or raised in the Garden. The Garden itself is approximately forty kilometers in diameter and 110 kilometers long. Only an elite few among the population are allowed to live and work in the Garden, roughly 500,000 of the total population.
Surrounding the Garden are the Warrens. In places, these tunnel networks stack up to forty levels deep, and house the remaining 95% of the population. Though in principle the Warrens are large enough to comfortably hold many times their current population, large portions of the complexes are sealed off and uninhabited. The entire Prole population lives in less than 15% of the available space in Astor's Hope.
Society in Astor's Hope is currently extremely class-oriented and stagnant, and has remained stable over the last two millenia. Astor's Hope is run by a semi-hereditary civil service. This system supplanted a neo-feudal society based around several families of technikoi who were once prospectors, researchers and explorers but degenerated into a despotic nobility. The current rulers are largely the descendants of the civil-service technicians who overthrew the Technikoi-Elite in the the Ten Years of Cold.
Though details vary, this sort of system is quite typical of the inhabited asteroids in the Refuge system. Contact between asteroids is limited, controlled largely by Intersys Transport and other similar organizations that do not answer to the rulers of Astor's Hope.
All of society in Astor's Hope is ruled by The Spec. From it's comparatively humble beginnings as the station's specifications, it has become an overflowing, nearly unreadable database of documents and procedures that dominate all official activities on Astor's Hope. Most upper-level members of the Org carry a ROM disk holding the entire contents of The Spec. Every policy of every component of the Org is controlled by The Spec. This is less limiting than it might seem, especially for the more technically-oriented parts of the Org, as many volumes of the Spec are contradictory, unintelligible, or densely technical. Given sufficient study, passages can be found to justify almost any decision.
The most visible part of the ruling class of Astor's Hope is the Org, a huge, multipartite bureaucracy. However, the Org is only the servant of the Ajudicators and the Readers, hereditary groups charged with the duty of protecting and maintaining The Spec.
The Ajudicators are a ritualized judiciary body responsible for arbitrating conflicts among the offices of the Org. They are also responsible for assessing penalties and "corrective actions" for violations of The Spec. They are masters of navigating The Spec, and have access to secret proprietary volumes of The Spec. Their reputation among the senior Org members is phenomenally threatening. The bulk of the population knows practically nothing about the Ajudicators; some even doubt that they exist.
The Readers are a deliberative body, drawn in part from among the most senior members of the Org. They are responsible for determining the policies of the Org, and by extension the entire society of Astor's Hope. Their powers are much more active than those of the Ajudicators, but they have effective control only over certain sections of the Org. Others (NetOrg and DockOrg in particular) have sufficiently technical areas of responsibility that the Readers are unable to exert much meaningful influence over them.
The direct arm of the Readers and the Ajudicators, AdminOrg is responsible for the internal and external economy of Astor's Hope. The budgets of FoodOrg, AirOrg and MedOrg are all controlled by AdminOrg. In most cases of minor violations of The Spec (including most crimes affecting individuals), AdminOrg has the authority to determine and administrate corrective action on behalf of the Ajudicators.
A shadowy component of the Org that answers directly to the Ajudicators and the Readers, WatchOrg serves as the auditor for the other components of the Org. It also performs surveillance upon the general population of Astor's Hope, especially in cases where the Ajudicators or WatchOrg suspect that significant violations of The Spec may be occurring.
FoodOrg is the most visible arm of the Org. Its members are resopnsible for all food production in Astor's Hope. FoodOrg managers and technicians staff and maintain the vast synthesis plants in the Warrens, and oversee the farms and ranches in the Garden that provide most of Astor's Hope's export income. Members of other parts of the Org look down upon members of FoodOrg, but that matters little to the coversuited Proles who look upon any Org member with awe and envy.
MedOrg was originally the medical arm of the Org, but it's role has expanded to include the manufacture of all forms of pharmaceuticals. Though MedOrg retains it's original medical functions, the depth of treatment available to non-Org members is very limited. The lower-ranking members of MedOrg are little better than drug pushers, peddling hallucinogens and euphorics to the Proles.
AirOrg is responsible for maintaining the environmental systems of Astor's Hope. This charter includes not only the atmospheric reclamation systems and the air filters, but also waste reclamation, power distribution, lighting, and internal transportation. By the magnitude of it's responsibilities, AirOrg deserves to be one of the highest-status components of the Org, or so it's managers continually claim. Unfortunately, almost all of AirOrg's tasks are either dangerous or unpleasant, and it is common knowledge that a career in AirOrg will surely involve many hours of crawling through clogged waste-reclamation conduits, searching for blockages. Lower-ranked AirOrg members are a close-knit group, suspicious of outsiders and resentful of their superiors, many of whom gained their positions through nepotism, bypassing the more unpleasant assignments of the rank-and-file. Those few managers who have been promoted from among the common AirOrg membership are often able to call upon almost fanatical loyalty from their employees.
NetOrg is one of the two poorly-controlled components of the Org. It's members have responsibility over both the internal computer systems and networks of Astor's Hope and the external links between Astor's Hope and the other asteroids of the Beta and Gamma belts. All of the other major components of the Org depend heavily upon NetOrg to keep their computer systems working. Even the Ajudicators and the Readers depend upon NetOrg, which gives NetOrg members extraordinary latitude compared to other Org groups.
Though the internal networks of Astor's Hope remain in relatively good shape, common wisdom holds that the external links to other asteroids are at best unreliable, certainly incapable of maintaining the distributed-consciousness VR environments necessary to create true social unification over societies light-minutes away from each other. The truth is only known to high-ranked (Rank 3+) NetOrg members.
DockOrg was originally only responsible for the Astor's Hope docking systems and local space control. Since that time, DockOrg has expanded its aegis to include ship maintenance, robot mining and ore processing, and a host of other operations in the space near Astor's Hope. DockOrg deals with other asteroid societies more than all other parts of the Org combined, and effectively controls the passage of good to and from Astor's Hope. This gives it's senior members significant leverage when dealing with the Ajudicators and the Readers. However, for all it's influence, DockOrg does not have a single sandrive ship with range sufficient to reach another asteroid settlement.
Intersys Transport is not affiliated with any asteroid government. It's members are secretive and clannish, living in their own separate enclaves in many different asteroids. It controls several sandrive ships, and uses them to transport goods and passengers among the asteroids. Intersys Transport Factors negotiate with DockOrg for living space and goods, providing transport services in return. Intersys is only the largest of the transport entities that serve Astor's Hope. The autonomous status of the various transport entities irks the Readers, but DockOrg has consistently maneuvered to protect them. The rationale given by the DockOrg functionaries is that Astor's Hope depends too heavily upon the services provided by Intersys Transport and the others to risk offending them. Some members of other parts of the Org have suggested, however, that DockOrg is simply working to preserve it's own elevated status within Astor's Hope.
The Circle of Brotherhood (generally referred to just as the Circle) is a religious organization prevalent among the Prole population. It's adherents assign spiritual significance to Astor's Hope and the other asteroid colonies, believing them to have been either inspired or created by the Divine to warm and comfort humanity against the extremes of space. Though the Org generally has little objection with most of the Circle's activities, some of the Circle's leaders have suggested that the Org is unfit as the guardian of The Spec. Several of these radicals are now hunted fugitives, constantly fleeing from WatchOrg agents.
The Gardeners are the elite 5% of the population who live and work in the Garden. Most of them are ranked members of the Org, though some are simply successful independants. The majority of them were born to Gardener parents, and have never lived in the Warrens.
The 90% of the population who live in the Warrens are referred to as Proles. They live in the Warrens, typically working in menial or makework jobs. About 30% of them are Org members, generally in the lower ranks. These clerks and operators form the remains of the "middle class" in Astor's Hope. The most hopeless Proles extinguish their days with the drugs provided by the MedOrg dispensaries for minimal session fees. Many Proles dream of someday living in the sunlit reaches of the Garden, even though many of them suffer from agoraphobia. Others, especially those who labor as contract workers in Org facilities, dream of becoming full Org members, unaware of the crushing rules and regulations of The Spec that burden low-ranked Org functionaries.
There are persistent rumors of folk who live in the sealed sections of the Warrens, free from Org control in flagrant violation of The Spec. How these folk survive without the services of FoodOrg and AirOrg is not known, but the rumors refuse to die. WatchOrg is rumored to have a special bureau dedicated to locating and correcting these Spec violators.
The members of independant groups like Intersys Transport make up about 5% of the population of Astor's Hope. They typically live in the Warrens, but usually have the ability to negotiate for their own restricted-access enclaves, isolated from the bulk of the population. Some of them enjoy a standard of living far better than that of all but the highest-ranking Org members and most successful entrepreneurial Proles.
Astor's Hope is a partially-closed economy, producing about 70% of the goods it requires. The remaining goods (primarily complex electronic and nanomech components, specialty bacterial and viral strains, and some rare materials) are imported from other asteroid settlements through intermediary agencies like Intersys Transport. In return, Astor's Hope provides natural plant and animal products, specialty pharmaceuticals, and medical equipment.
All external transactions are based upon a sophisticated synthetic economic system maintained by DockOrg and it's equivalents in the other asteroid colonies. Though the details of this economy are described in The Spec, the appropriate volumes are so intricate that even DockOrg Spec Examiners must rely upon expert system interpretations.
The internal economy is primarily run by AdminOrg, and is based around the comeck, or commercial exchange unit, an artificial unit of value set to be equal to 1% of the value produced by a Grade One Technical worker in one work shift. AdminOrg follows this measure of value in setting the wages of Org members and those contract workers it can control, though the absolute measure of a Grade One Technical worker is difficult to determine.
On average, one comeck is worth about $1 in GURPS terms. Notable exceptions include: housing and food (both of which can be practically free or excruciatingly expensive), and complex durable goods requiring components not made on Astor's Hope (which tend to be both expensive and hard to get).
Because the economy of Astor's Hope is controlled, Org Rank or friends in an influential independant organization can often be much more effective than money in obtaining hard-to-get items. In particular, DockOrg members are often able to get access to imported goods with impunity, while externally-produced components are often unavailable even to other Org members.
The guidelines below are intended to provide some sort of indication what is cheap and what is expensive in Astor's Hope. All costs are in relation to those given in the standard GURPS rules.
Item |
Cost |
|---|---|
| Firearms & ammunition (TL7) | 5x standard |
| Body armor (TL7) | 5x standard |
| Computers & electronics (TL8) | 2x standard |
| Computers & electronics (TL7) | 0.5x standard |
| Recreational Drugs (TL7, TL8) | 0.1x standard |
| Medical Drugs & poisons (TL7, TL8) | 0.5x standard |
| Blades & melee weapons (TL8) | 0.5x standard |
| Household utensils (TL7, TL8) | 3x standard |
| Food (FoodOrg dispensary) | 0.01x standard |
| Food (private supplier) | 2x standard |
One truth every organization on Astor's Hope has learned to acknowledge is instability of supply. Many necessary goods are manufactured only on other asteroids, and supply lines are often unreliable. The Org has responded to this problem by establishing large stockpiles of strategic supplies. Each part of the Org maintains it's own reserves, and the materials chosen depend very much upon the specific role of the group. At the same time, the Org is almost paranoid about dispersing stockpiled materials, reasoning that existing stockpiles must not be disturbed in the event that a critical distribution channel fails.
For example, video monitors and wallscreens are almost impossible to purchase for all save high-ranked members of AdminOrg and NetOrg. At the same time, both AdminOrg and NetOrg possess tens of thousands of each, carefully packed in long-term storage. These devices have been identified as strategic supplies, important to maintain internal communication and entertainment networks. Because they are so important, neither AdminOrg or NetOrg is willing to diminish their stockpiles. The overall effect is that Astor' Hope's internal communication and entertainment networks have fragmented.
Occasionally, enterprising Spec violators will break into one of the Org stockpiles and liberate a huge supply of some "strategic" commodity. The normal effect is to cause a brief surge of availability at sharply plummeting prices, followed by a rapid AdminOrg sweep to find and correct the Spec violators responsible.
Characters in Astor's Hope are built upon 100 points. The default assumption is that they are Proles living in the depths of the Warrens. Base wealth is 500 comecks. Characters are assumed to have some sort of living permit and an official record in the Org computer systems (unless they purchase the Zeroed advantage). Characters should probably also either be discontent with or unable to fit into normal society in Astor's Hope.
Some promising character types for a relatively low-level Astor's Hope campaign include:
Psionics are known in Astor's Hope, but rare. Having one psionic power is a 20-point Unusual Background. Having more than one is a 30-point Unusual Background. All powers from the Psionics book are available, but only at Power levels of four or less.
Several unique advantages available to residents of Astor's Hope are listed below. Also, some more common advantages have somewhat different meanings when applied to the pressure-cooker society the Org and The Spec have created.
The character has a residence permit in the Garden. This advantage includes one level of Status and the Unafraid of Open Space advantage. It also gives the character wide access to otherwise restricted areas in the Garden and (to some extent) in the Warrens.
Status in Astor's Hope is normally represented by the Org Rank advantage. However, it is possible to attain greater status in other ways. Gardeners automatically gain one level of status (see the Gardener advantage). Members of independant organizations may also have high status. Finally, particularly successful members of the underground economy may gain status, though it is usually impossible to purchase more than Status 2 without also possessing Org Rank or membership in an outsider organization (see the Outsider advantage).
The character has attained rank in one of the branches of the Org. The character's actual level of responsibility is listed in the table below. Typically, lower-ranked members of the Org are required to work long hours at painfully monotonous tasks, while higher-ranked members are allowed a much more relaxed schedule, to compensate them for the grave responsibility they must shoulder.
| Rank | Typical Job |
|---|---|
| 1 | Clerk, Data Entry, Janitor |
| 2 | Junior Technician, Supervisor (of contract labor), Warren Operative |
| 3 | Technician, Programmer, Junior Spec Examiner |
| 4 | Senior Technician, Supervisor (of Org members), Manager, Instructor, Spec Examiner |
| 5 | Section Chief, Senior Spec Examiner |
| 6 | Bureau Head |
| 7 | Org-level Manager, Reader or Ajudicator Liason |
Many Org members with Rank 5+ are able to secure residence permits for the Garden, if they desire. In general, few Org members without family connections in the upper ranks are able to gain Org Rank of more than 3.
The character is a member of an organization not affiliated with the Org. The most obvious example is Intersys Transport, though other groups that are entirely local to Astor's Hope do exist (most are economic collectives that provide some good or service unavailable or hard to get through the Org). This advantage gives the character free access to his organization's enclaves on Astor's Hope, and a certain immunity from Spec violations. Characters with Outsider status cannot be Org members, but are not necessarily employed by their organization. Some outside groups (Intersys Transport among them) have many more members than are really necessary to fulfill their customers' expectations. Most of the excess membership is employed in some form of makework, but others live independantly, using their organization for little more than a shield against accusations of Spec violations.
The character is not afraid of large open spaces.. Without this advantage, any resident of Astor's Hope must make a Will roll to voluntarily enter any space more than 30 meters high. There are some open channels in the Warrens larger than this, but most of the population avoids them. Almost all individuals who work in the Garden or who regularly perform EVA tasks have this advantage. This advantage is also common among Outsiders who have come from other asteroids.
Actual monetary wealth has little meaning in Astor's Hope when not connected to either the Org or one of the independant organizations. Wealth cannot be bought unless the character already has the Outsider advantage or at least one level of Org Rank or Status.
This advantage is a two-edged sword in Astor's Hope. Somehow, the character has no record in the Org computers. He may be a clandestine member of an independant organization who avoided an Org listing, or a Shadow who was never listed at birth, or a criminal who arranged (at great cost) for a NetOrg member to erase his records. This has obvious advantages in hiding from WatchOrg and AdminOrg personnel, both of whom rely very heavily upon computer records. However, it also means that the character cannot get food from FoodOrg dispensaries or medical care (no matter how limited) from MedOrg clinics without raising eyebrows.
Almost all inhabitants of Astor's Hope are slightly afraid of open spaces (see Unafraid of Open Spaces above), but few are truly agoraphobic. Those few who are more severely afflicted are limited to a shadowy existence, scuttling down back corridors and avoiding the lower levels of the Warrens, where they might glimpse the emptiness of open space in a viewport.
The people of Astor's Hope live their lives by the Spec, and most seek to avoid violating it in the way that people of 20th century Earth normally try to always tell the truth. A few minor Spec violations are considered inevitable. Characters with the Can't Violate Spec disadvantage are unable to tolerate this. They must always personally live by the Spec (at least as they understand it), and must always refer to it when faced by an unfamiliar situation. If forced into violating the Spec, they must make a Will roll or voluntarily turn themselves in to the Org for corrective action. They are also unable to tolerate Spec violations performed by others around them, and will act to implement corrective action whenever possible (though they are not necessarily bound to turn their friends in to the Org for spec violations).
Skill in The Spec is nearly a requirement for most Org members. This skill must be specialized by area. Available specializations are listed below. Specializations default to each other at -3.
The Spec specializations default to appropriate Computer Ops, Computer Programming, Electronics, Electronics Ops, Engineering and Mechanic skills at -4. In most cases, The Spec skill does not provide the ability to perform specific tasks. Instead, it provides an encyclopedic list of procedures and methods that must be followed.