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ataraxites) wrote2011-09-19 01:47 am
ataraxites) wrote2011-09-19 01:47 am
WORLD INFORMATION.
| A B O U T A T A R A X I O N |
| Characters do not know this information unless specifically told by an NPC. Some of this information may be discoverable in-character, if you ask the right questions, but for the most part, this is OOC data meant to flesh out the player's understanding of the universe in which Ataraxion takes place. This is also not mandatory OOC knowledge! You won't be penalized somehow for not knowing any of this, and we're not trying to burden you with irrelevant knowledge; this is simply here in case players are curious about certain aspects of the universe of Ataraxion. Q U I C K F A C T S LOCATION: ANDROMEDAN SYSTEM W O R L D O V E R V I E W In the most general terms possible: this is an entirely new solar system to you, full of terraformed planets and moons and independent, life-sustaining space stations. The solar system as a whole is governed by a representative democracy ruling sovereign over the solar system. The seat of government is located on an orbital space station over a planet called Alexandria, located on the inner rim of the solar system near the sun. The location was chosen to avoid the appearance of favoritism among the new settlers, as the space station—and every other space station in the system—is considered an independent entity, similar to the District of Columbia. There are three habitable planets in this solar system, each surrounded by a varying number of terraformed moons, and three more planets which are either wholly unconducive to human life or prohibitively difficult to terraform. Registered, independent space stations in the system number somewhere in the upper twenties, while the unregistered, much less legal stations are considerably more plentiful, especially in the farther reaches of the system.   NAME: HYPERION H Y P E R I O N   NAME: ALEXANDRIA A L E X A N D R I A   NAME: PASIPHAE P A S I P H A E H I S T O R Y Once upon a time, the Earth’s population outgrew its resources, and human beings were forced to facilitate interstellar travel or die in their little corner of the universe. You know the story: humans meet technology, humans fall in love with technology, humans use every scrap of that technology to either solve their problems or run from them as fast as they possibly can. As a result, the human race subsequently colonized the moon; this was a temporary move, as experts realized that even a terraformed moon couldn’t hold their numbers for very long. Consequently, they invested quite a lot of time and money in building generational colonization ships that could last for many, many years—and then, when humans had zeroed in on a similar habitable solar system, they deployed their ships and began their journey. Hundreds of years later, several solar systems have been colonized and terraformed, and many deep-space and solar-orbital space stations built as both homes and outposts for government and independent travelers. Despite humanity’s reach, both First Contact and FTL travel had never been accomplished. According to the laws of relativity, lightspeed or near-lightspeed travel is impossible; the G-forces would rip a human apart, and the structural integrity of any ship until that date simply wasn't designed for that kind of strain. Therefore, scientists had to think above and beyond the traditional methods of physical travel in time and space; the wormhole theory had of course been previously postulated, but scientists remained unable to implement it, let alone conclusively prove the existence of wormholes. Dr. Magdalena (better known as Lena, thank you) Clarke was the first scientist to discover that it was possible to manually generate wormholes at certain points where the curvature of space-time was thinner than normal. These points, which naturally appear scattered throughout the known universe, were coined “jump points” by Dr. Clarke, or “Clarke Points” by her multiple research prizes in physics. Each Clarke Point, or CP, can be located based on whichever galaxy is closest; the coordinates are numbered starting from the Galactic Center (or supermassive black hole), radiating outward, with additional locational information (such as the nearest solar or celestial body). For example, a sample CP located in the Milky Way Galaxy would be marked as: CP Sgr A* 001 Perseus Arm M1. This would indicate the first jump point heading away from the Milky Way’s Galactic Center, or Sagittarius A-star (Sgr A*), located in the Perseus Arm, somewhere in the vicinity of the Crab Nebula (M1). The exact location of a jump point is sometimes impossible to obtain, so general areas are specified and left to exploration. In fact, most jump points are located in between galaxies. Dr. Clarke noted this in several of her papers, illustrating that “... though the number of natural singularities located throughout our own galaxy is incredibly high, we must consider the quantity of singularities residing in intergalactic space, in the voids and supervoids, between the filaments that shape the observable universe—singularities that have not and will never be charted.” Until the government began a project to create a ship that could realistically traverse a jump point, Dr. Clarke’s theory remained untestable, though incredibly scientifically sound. The nearest point, according to her calculations, was just beyond the orbit of Pasiphae’s farthest moon. This prompted the government's immediate investment in the development of Clarke's Drive, the mechanism that would allow FTL travel to occur within each CP. This development stage (or Helios I project) was considered top secret, and took more than ten years to implement. The drive was built first, and then placed within a specially-built and fitted ship constructed on one of Hyperion's moons; the first ever of its kind. It was named the Solitude, and was sent off in complete secrecy.  P R A C T I C A L A S P E C T S Interplanetary commerce is roughly triangular in nature, with each planet's main products being shipped out to the other two and distributed to moons and local space stations from the planet's surface. Naturally, black marketeers tend to bypass this method of regulation in favor of delivering goods to wherever they might make a profit. These unregistered merchant ships tend to focus most of their commerce on space stations, especially the more lax privately-operated and unregistered stations. Government-licensed space stations tend to be much more tightly-regulated than the alternatives, which has both benefits and drawbacks. Crime rates are low, employment is high, and inhabitants feel safe… but on the downside, government-operated space stations are incredibly stifling to any ideas that may challenge the status quo, and they're all incredibly samey in design. Needless to say, the Tranquility will be avoiding government-operated space stations if at all possible. Privately-owned space stations, on the other hand, tend to be much more heterogeneous than the government stations. The free market—or a comparatively free market, anyway—leads to a relatively diverse environment, and privately-owned space stations' individual policies, appearances, and armaments vary widely. What is acceptable on one space station may not be passable on another, and the corporate overstructures present on the stations are often fragile due to takeovers, buyouts, or other economic instabilities. The Tranquility will try to avoid these stations if possible, but they're often the best (or only) way to refuel in a given area. Unregistered space stations tend to be most prevalent near the outer rim of inhabited space, even extending beyond Pasiphae's orbit into the nearby asteroid belt. These space stations, which tend to be cobbled together from remnants of other space stations, parts of shuttles, and anything else that could be used to make a floating, functional station. These stations tend to be hotbeds of criminal activity, since even living in an unregistered space station is a crime itself, and black-market commerce tends to flourish in areas like Pasiphae's outer rim and Hyperion's moons. The government will often overlook the smaller unregistered stations, since they don't hurt the system economy much, if at all, but if a station becomes too large, the government will often swoop in and dismantle it—with bullets. |