A History of the Far Colony
Introduction
Human civilization has been present in the Fennen system for about 250 Standard
Earth years, since the initial deceleration of the ramship Magellan. Since
their somewhat inauspicious beginnings, the human colonists have managed
to found several stable societies spread across the Fennen system and (after
the acquisition of the sadurtha FTL drive) in several adjoining systems
as well. In particular, the discovery of a second habitable world in the
Tafferden system was a major boon.
The Fennen Standard Calendar
The dating system used in this history is the Fennen Standard system, based
upon the 460-day year of Newhome. This dating system starts at 0 PSD (Post
System Deceleration, or Post Shut Down to some), which has been set at the
moment the Magellan's ramscoop generator was finally shut down. Because
the Magellan did not actually reach it's final destination, a stable orbit
around the moon Gagarin, for another 253 days, there is some debate among
academics as to the proper choice for calendar's start, but practical usage
has largely finished that debate.
The Early Years (0 PSD to 30 PSD)
The crew of Magellan was aware of the presence of sadurtha societies in
the Creutzen moon system and on the Southern continent of Newhome since
significantly before system entry. In part due to the presence of sadurtha,
the Steering Committee elected to end the ship's journey at one of the moons
of the gas giant Atlas. This decision marked the beginning of a conflict
that nearly destroyed the human race in Fennen. A significant group among
the crew had argued that Magellan should end it's journey in orbit around
Newhome, sadurtha or no. Overridden by the Steering Committee, they then
argued to send a smaller expedition to Newhome, using some of Magellan's
scramjets and whatever supplies could be spared. The Steering Committee
rejected this plan also, arguing that all of Magellan's resources and supplies
were necessary for the development of the Atlas moon system. The Steering
Committee's stated intention was to wait until a firm industrial base could
be established around some of the more promising moons, and only then address
the problems of contacting the sadurtha and exploring Newhome. They admitted
that reaching this point could take upwards of twenty to thirty Fennen years.
The Colonist Mutiny
The Colonist faction's repeated defeats at the hands of the Steering Committee,
ad their suspicion that some members of the Committee were deliberately
impeding efforts to establish a colony on Newhome to preserve their own
power, quickly caused them to take extreme actions. In 8 PSD, a conspiracy
headed by an extremist Colonist cadre took control of twenty of Magellan's
twenty-eight scramjets. They loaded them with whatever supplies and weapons
they could steal (taking a significant fraction of Magellan's equipment),
loaded the scramjets with almost 1500 Colonist sympathizers in frozen sleep
tanks, and departed to Newhome.
Harsh Measures on Magellan
The effects of the Colonist Mutiny upon Magellan were extreme. The departing
Colonists had taken large amounts of critical equipment with them, forcing
the Steering Committee to inflict harsh austerity measures upon the crew.
Of the nearly 50,000 humans living on Magellan, almost 80% were forced
to return to frozen sleep to save resources. The remaining 10,000 crew,
chosen for their specialized skills, worked feverishly to assemble the automated
factories and zero-gee mining robots left in Magellan's holds. To maintain
order, the Steering Committee instituted the Public Safety Association,
a formal police force that many crew felt were little better than jackbooted
thugs.
In many ways, the measures taken in the three years after the Colonist Mutiny
truly defined the authoritarian nature of society in the Atlas moon system
stations. Even when the power of the Steering Committee was waning, the
forces that arose to replace it were almost as strict. Even 200 years later,
stations and outposts in the Atlas system are far more controlled than either
the civilization on Newhome or the various independent Family outposts.
Tempered Success on Newhome
The initial Colonist effort on Newhome was more successful than many left
behind on Magellan believed, but was still hardly paradise. The rapid nature
of the Colonist departure, and the fact that almost all Colonist personnel
not involved in actually piloting their stolen scramjets spent the entire
journey to Newhome in frozen sleep, meant that biologic and geologic surveys
of Newhome prior to landing were incomplete at best. The Colonists had
spectroscopic data to tell them that the air was breathable, but they knew
little more.
They quickly found that Newhome's native biology was fairly compatible with
human biology, and that some native plants were even nutritious. Unfortunately,
they also found that a large number of native flora and fauna were outright
poisonous, and that some were particularly hostile to Terran life. They
also found that Newhome was quite lacking in available surface metal deposits.
These two problems would plague the Newhome colony for years, slowing development
efforts and hindering industrialization. Despite their slower start, the
folk remaining back on Magellan would regain self-sustaining large-scale
heavy industry significantly sooner than Newhome.
Early Development: 31 PSD to 50 PSD
The next twenty years saw significant development both on Newhome and in
the Atlas moon system. The Newhome colony succeeds in establishing a working
birthlab facility by 55 PSD, enabling it to rapidly expand it's population.
It also spend a significant amount of effort establishing advanced ceramics
plastics industries to compensate for the lack of metals in Newhome's crust.
The deepteach tapes taken from Magellan had included a significant amount
of ceramics technology, and the Newhome colonists took full advantage of
it, eventually leveraging their knowledge into a working (if limited) aerospace
industry capable of repairing and refitting the scramjets the original Colonist
faction used to reach the planet. By 50 PSD, the colony on Newhome was
able to send missions out to Low Orbit.
Meanwhile, Magellan's unfrozen crew worked to establish the beginnings of
the current networks of stations orbiting the moons Chenoir and Gagarin.
Efforts to bring the pre-fab automated factories on-line had largely succeeded
by 35 PSD, and by 48 PSD most of Magellan's crew had been unfrozen. By
60 PSD, the population of the Atlas moon system had reached almost 60,000.
Contact: 51 PSD to 90 PSD
By 50 PSD, there was no question that humanity would survive in the Fennen
system. Both the Newhome colony and the outposts in the Atlas moon system
were self-sufficient and growing. They could talk, but neither possessed
the capability to actually travel to and visit the other. Contact with
the sadurtha had long been limited by an old Steering Committee ruling forbidding
trade with the aliens for any goods human civilization could produce. Though
the stated rationale was that dependence upon the sadurtha for any goods
would be dangerous to human survival in the Fennen system, the ruling actually
played to a nascent xenophobic streak among the humans both on Newhome and
in the Atlas moon system.
The Steering Committee still ruled the Atlas moon system with an iron hand,
and claimed jurisdiction over Newhome, though it was clear that the Governor
of the Newhome colony, elected by colonist vote, didn't even pay lip service
to them.
The Trapper Caste
Soon after the re-establishment of low-orbit launch capability on Newhome,
colony scientists launched a series of reconnaisance satellites to observe
the sadurtha enclave on the southern continent. This data accomplished
two contradictory goals. First, it convinced much of the population that
the sadurtha were truly alien, and a possible threat to the colony's survival.
Second, it allowed a few members of the Newhome colony's technical elite
the opportunity to open communication with the sadurtha. Their explorers
made contact with members of the sadurtha Trapper Caste, and after three
years of painstaking effort managed to develop a working software model
of the dominant sadurtha language.
The Trapper Caste told the human researchers that the sadurtha race was
slowly dying. They wanted human genome information to try and revitalize
their species, and were willing to trade the technology for an FTL drive
for it. Though the xenophobic factions in the Newhome colony council argued
against it, they were defeated and the exchange was made. However, after
the initial exchange significant contact with the sadurtha was once again
abandoned.
Contact with Atlas
The stations in the Atlas moon system were stable and (relatively) prosperous
by 63 PSD, and had the resourced to start working on projects that were
not rated survival-critical by the Steering Committee. The shipyards at
Gagarin had already developed the ability to construct interplanetary craft
sufficient to transport people and goods among the various Atlas moons and
stations. It took them only five years to develop and construct a longer-ranged
craft able to reach Newhome. In 72 PSD, the Venture entered into Newhome
orbit to meet with an old Magellan scramjet sent up by the Newhome colony.
The first tentative contacts between Atlas and Newhome quickly developed
into steady trade relations. Better orbital technology obtained from Atlas
also allowed several Newhome corporations to establish permanent industrial
stations in Newhome orbit.
The First FTL Ships
Though the Newhome colony was able to negotiate with the sadurtha to obtain
their FTL drive, it lacked the shipbuilding knowledge necessary to make
direct use of the information. Several of the Atlas outposts, in particular
the Realtechnik Industrial Combine orbiting Gagarin, were. After contact
was established in 72 PSD, they negotiated with the Newhome colony for access
to the sadurtha FTL drive. The engineers at Gagarin learned that the drive
could also be used to create a low-acceleration reactionless drive that
would dramatically simplify insystem travel, in addition to its more direct
use as an interstellar drive.
In 84 PSD, RIC constructed a series of unmanned probes to prove out the
sadurtha drive, sending several to neighboring systems. After several false
starts, they constructed a working drive in 88 PSD, and within a year had
build the Odyssey, a working FTL starship.
The Sadurtha Transmitter
The crew of Magellan had known about the massive interstellar transmitter
array orbiting Fennen at a radius of 1.3 AU since they first approached
the system. Even long-range photographs from unmanned drones were enough
to prove that it was the transmitter responsible for the initial sadurtha
message to Earth. However, the precarious nature of human society in the
Fennen system had prevented any manned missions to investigate it before
the construction of the Odyssey. Soon after Odyssey was commissioned, the
Steering Committee sent it with a scientific team to study the transmitter
array.
The scientists quickly confirmed that the array had been built by the sadurtha,
albeit using a technology far beyond both the currently existing societies.
They also retrieved a wealth of information not only about the ancient
sadurtha technology but also the locations of other sadurtha enclaves (presumably
long abandoned) in the Fennen system.
The Chenoir Birthlabs
The stations oribiting Chenoir in the Atlas moon system had managed to establish
a birthlab facility near the end of Atlas' drive to initial industrialization.
The integration of birthlab individuals into Atlas society was not nearly
as seamless as it was on Newhome, due in part to the extremely rigid education
regimen prescribed by the Chenoir planners. However, the birthlabs were
not satisfied to simply utilize existing genetic material. By 55 PSD, they
had embarked upon an aggressive eugenics and genengineering program. Their
goals included a human subrace with greater tolerance to the Newhome biosphere
and a human subrace adapted for zero-gravity life. Their initial efforts
were fairly limited in scope, but showed significant promise.
The Golden Age: 91 PSD to 140 PSD
The fifty years following the purchase of the sadurtha FTL drive represented
a golden age for humanity in the Fennen system. Though exploration outside
the Fennen system proper remained limited, the application of the sadurtha
drive as an interplanetary drive opened the system to human explorers on
a far wider scale than otherwise possible.
A Second Habitable World
The limitations of the sadurtha drive limited the extent to which systems
adjacent to Fennen could be explored with manned probes. However, in 95
PSD an unmanned probe sent by the Long Range Exploration Authority on Gagarin
identified a possible habitable world in the Tafferden system, a F0 star
about thirty light years from Fennen. A subsequent manned expedition confirmed
the finding. The LREA survey ship lacked re-entry capability, so the crew
was limited to sending probes down to the surface and generating satellite
maps.
Unfortunately, actual development of the newly-discovered world would remain
impossible for many due to the lack of ships able to reach the Tafferden
system.
New Government on Newhome
Ever since Newhome achieved significant industrialization, the government
had worked closely with industrial interests. This close integration had
been necessary in the early days, when scarce metal ores and equipment made
cooperation much more important than competition. As Newhome's economy
gained complexity and relations with the Atlas moon system expanded from
occasional technical exchanges and vociferous debates with the Steering
Committee over sovereignty to regular trade, the domination of Newhome's
political life by corporate interests became more formal. The population
of the Newhome colony brooked no significant objection to this, as most
businesses on Newhome were organized as economic collectives with strong
worker constituencies, a style dating back to the original founding of the
colony. In 105 PSD popular referendum reorganized the Newhome colony as
the Newhome Corporate Republic, granting effective governmental control
to a coalition of corporations and economic collectives, prominently including
several large aerospace concerns.
The Rise of the Families
The data recovered from the sadurtha transmitter and the sudden availability
of good long-range interplanetary ships sparked a rush of prospectors who
hunted through unexplored moons and asteroids for forgotten sadurtha artifacts.
Most of the prospectors were citizens of the various Atlas moon system
stations who were both adventurous and unable to tolerate the strictly regimented
society of the stations. A number of these early prospectors were quite
successful, and brought back sadurtha artifacts that made them quite wealthy.
Brimming with newfound wealth, the early explorers found that they were
able to free themselves from the yoke of the Steering Committee by establishing
their own outposts. From 90 PSD to about 120 PSD, stations and habitats
sprang up by the hundred throughout the Alpha and Beta asteroid belts and
the less-populated moons of the Atlas system. Many of these floundered,
but others prospered, eventually giving rise to the Families.
From the beginning, most of the Families were opportunistic on a scale not
commonly seen in the Fennen system. They based their wealth upon recovered
ancient sadurtha technologies, but recognized that the artifacts could only
take them so far. They were always on the watch for other opportunities.
Early on, several Families dominated the black market of trade with the
sadurtha, exchanging human slaves (typically near-automatons from the birthlabs)
for drugs and alien technologies. The Steering Committee knew of the Families'
activities, but was powerless to stop them, as the Public Safety Association
had become hopelessly corrupt. On a more positive note, a coalition of
Families purchased an interest in a Newhome aerospace cooperative and used
the technology to develop gas-giant dredges.
The Chenoir Project
By 110 PSD, the influence of the Steering Committee upon society in the
Atlas moon system was waning. The Public Safety Association, insulated
from criticism by the iron discipline demanded by the Steering Committee,
had become corrupt and ineffectual. Citizens of the Atlas moon system colonies
looked around them at the wealth they had created and wondered why the strict
regimentation and arbitrary laws passed by an increasingly distant government
was really necessary.
In comparison, the economic collectives of the Newhome colony remained active
and vital. Frustrated with their inability to obtain cooperation from the
Steering Committee, a consortium of over a dozen large Newhome corporations,
funded in large part by the Corporate Republic government, allied with several
Families to begin the Chenoir Project.
The original crew of the Magellan had identified Atlas' moon Chenoir as
a promising terraform candidate. It was large, with a reducing-CO2 atmosphere
and abundant water frozen in it's polar icecaps. The Chenoir Coalition
seeded it with microorganisms intended to transform the atmosphere. The
seeding project took almost thirty years. The Newhome scientists estimated
that transformation of Chenoir's atmosphere would take at least 1000 years,
and that the next stage of the effort would need to commence in about 800
years.
The Rise and Fall of the Union Syndicate
The increasingly corrupt social order of the Atlas moon system colonies
and the dominance of Newhome corporate interests both in the Atlas system
and on the stations orbiting Newhome gradually provoked a response from
the citizens of the Atlas moon system. The beginnings of unionization could
be seen in the increasingly strident tone taken by professional associations
in the Gagarin and Chenoir stations as early as 93 PSD.
By 108 PSD, formal trade unions were forming all through the orbital stations
around Newhome and Atlas. The effectiveness of the unions was dramatically
enhanced in 113 PSD when the Union Syndicate was organized by several dozen
of the most influential unions.
The Union Syndicate quickly overwhelmed the Steering Committee, becoming
the de facto government in the Atlas moon system. Union demands of station
governors and Newhome collectives were extreme, but most workers considered
them to be only their just rewards. However, the influence of the Union
Syndicate was to be short-lived. Enthralled by their own power, Union officials
became just as corrupt as the Public Safety Association and Steering Committee
leaders they had supplanted.
By 136 PSD, the Union Syndicate's demands had grown to the point that the
Fennen system's economy could no longer support them. Unable to comply
with the Union Syndicate, the Families, the Newhome corporate associations,
and the remnants of the Steering Committee instead allied to crush it.
Judicial reform purged both the Steering Committee and the Union Syndicate
of their worst excesses, in the process excising the leadership of the Union
Syndicate. Most of the wealth the Union Syndicate leadership had accumulated
was distributed among the Families and the Steering Committee. By the end
of the pogrom, the concept of organized labor had been so thoroughly discredited
among the working population of the Fennen system that the Steering Committee
was easily able to pass additional laws forbidding all but the most limited
unionization.
The Discovery of Anti-agathics
The last great event of the golden age was the announcement in 138 PSD that
researchers at Chenoir working on an outgrowth of the ongoing eugenics program
had produced a drug capable of extending human lifespan to about 300 years.
Unfortunately, the drug was quite expensive to produce, and required a
microgravity facility to produce. The introduction of the anti-agathics
proved to be a significant shock to the still basically socialist society
of the Atlas moon system. Only the wealthy and influential could live forever,
but Atlas society looked down upon those who lived took extravagantly.
The Families suffered no such problems. Powerful and wealthy Family heads
eagerly paid the fortunes demanded by the Chenoir biogeneticists.
Expansion and Divergence: 141 to 190 PSD
The Janashan IV Outbreak
141 PSD started with a tragedy. A virulent plague outbreak in the Janashan
IV Industrial Habitat in Newhome orbit claimed the lives of over 4500 residents.
The Janashan station had been a major transshipment point between Newhome
and the Atlas colonies, allowing the plague to spread across the Fennen
system. Response in the Atlas colonies was rapid and draconic: incoming
ships were subjected to strong quarantine measures, and stations with known
infections were sealed from contact. The plague persisted for almost five
years, claiming tens of thousands of lives, before scientists on Newhome
developed a vaccine for the Janashan plague.
All through the height of the plague, speculation ran rampant as the the
source. Nothing like the Janashan plague had ever been seen before, and
analysis of the virus responsible showed that it had significant similarities
to native Newhome life. Many in both Atlas and on Newhome, including many
scientists and genetics specialists, openly speculated that the plague may
have been engineered by the Newhome sadurtha using the human genome information
they purchased years ago. The fact that the original sadurtha responsible
for the transaction was the Trapper Caste and not the Medical Caste only
further fueled the suspicion. However, no firm evidence was ever found,
and no human government ever made serious attempt to force the Newhome sadurtha
into an answer.
Family Independence
In the aftermath of the destruction of the Union Syndicate, the Families
took the lessons they had learned to heart. Starting around 138 PSD they
embarked upon an ambitious program to become as independent as possible
from the Atlas stations. In the process, they acquired a significant stake
in the Chenoir birthlab facilities and started applying Chenoir's genengeneering
knowledge into the production of exotics, humans with dramatic genetic modifications
intended to adapt them to specific roles and environments. Though the Families
were as interested in adaptations to zero-gravity life as the original Chenoir
biogeneticists, they also worked to develop exotics able to survive on the
surface of the habitable world identified in the Tafferden system. A side
effect of the Family genetic efforts was the proliferation of exotic workers
and bondservants throughout the Fennen system.
Colonization in Tafferden
As part of their bid for economic independance, the Families established
first a series of orbital outposts and finally a small colony upon the habitable
world in the Tafferden system. As the first permanent residents, the Family
colonists named the world Eden.
The Osoro Conference
By 160 PSD, the Families had grown strong enough that they were able to
call a Conference of Independence on the Osoro Prime station with the Newhome
government and the Steering Committee. At the Conference, the Association
of Free Families demanded and got recognition as an independant, sovereign
body. Almost as an afterthought, the Steering Committee finally rescinded
it's claims of authority over the human colonies on Newhome, acknowledging
that the Newhome Corporate Republic was also a sovereign body.
One outgrowth of the Osoro Conference was the recognition of the Families'
claim to the world of Eden. However, the Families agreed to rescind claim
to significant portions of the Tafferden system, and to offer land and mineral
grants upon the surface of Eden proper in exchange for material aid in the
colonization effort from Newhome and the Atlas stations.
Magellan II
The closing event of this history is the Steering Committee decision to
close the circle that brought humans to Fennen. They ordered the construction
of Magellan II, a long-range FTL ship with the ability to return to Earth.
The journey would take much less time than Magellan's original trip, but
it was still projected to take the better part of a human lifetime.
The Present Day
The year is now 194 PSD, and the human race is expanding out of the Fennen
system rapidly. All the systems on the FTL route between Fennen and Tafferden
have permanent orbital stations (though some are little more than prefab
living rings). The Tafferden colony is well-established, but remains very
much a frontier. Sadurtha artifacts have been found in half a dozen systems
within twenty light-years of Fennen. In some cases, ancient sadurtha outposts
have been found apparently destroyed by colossal forces. Relations between
the three major human governments are civil, but is hardly close. The two
sadurtha civilizations remain mysteries as they slowly decline. And the
fate of Earth, nearly a thousand light-years away, remains unknown.