Racing the Darkness - An Alpha Centauri Photologue

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A king in captivity.

Vesper Abaddon, better known to most by his sobriquet "The Bloody King of Carmel," was brought aboard the U.N.S Unity as cargo.

Abaddon was born in 1987 in what was then Australia. His upbringing was unremarkable but for his family's relocation to Gath, a newly-established nation in the Indian Ocean Exclusion Zone. Built up from the sea bed, Gath eventually reached a size comparable to the state of Florida. The Abaddons operated a successful sheep station in the Gathi interior.

In 2032, Gath was invaded by the neighboring country of Shiloh. A two-year war resulted in the loss of Gath's only major city, Port Prosperity, along with its agricultural watershed which Shiloh promptly dammed up. Eight hundred thousand Gathis died in the resulting famine; another million emigrated. Abaddon became Prime Minister in 2036 with the backing of the country's politically powerful Range Association. International observers thought they perceived a familiar and depressing pattern when he mortgaged state-owned diamond and copper mines to Israeli companies and received a few battalions' worth of surplus military vehicles in return.

When war resumed, it caught international observers flat-footed. Gathi paratroopers crossed the border not into Shiloh, but rather neighboring Dan, a micro-state without a military of its own. Within days, Dan's sprawling oil fields were producing once again. Looking west, the Gathi Federal Guard then continued their advance, this time into Selah, a traditional ally.

Abaddon’s first press conferences were elaborate. He read aloud scathing indictments of Selah’s monk-kings and proclaimed its people free of serfdom. Gathi occupiers tore down statues of Selah priests to the cheers of rapturous peasant crowds. A quarter of the proceeds of Dan's oil wealth was returned assiduously to public works and social programming by Gathi administrators.

Abaddon waited another four years to declare hostilities with Shiloh. This new war was not like the previous two: Shiloh fought hard, mobilizing not only her own tough military but considerable partisan movements in both Dan and Selah. His treasury dwindling, Abaddon resorted to terror tactics.

Dan’s population numbered just 1.2 million. The small Gathi garrison exterminated whole villages to discourage resistance. In Selah, Gathi officers fired temples and used chemical munitions on rebel strongholds. Abaddon made common cause with Selah religious dissenters whose militias became his army’s auxiliaries, paid in plunder. Two large offensives in Shiloh were prosecuted with the help of Sarin gas. Shiloh’s National Salvation Government surrendered only because Gathi tanks shelled the country’s capital, Gilboa, for thirty-two hours straight.

Abaddon’s subsequent declaration that he was uniting four countries made sense. His decision to abruptly retire and devolve all governing power to a supranational federation, did not. The Noble Prize Commission was glad to fete Abaddon for his miraculous conversion and the U.N. willingly opened the spigot on aid dollars once he committed his army to a sweeping Truth and Reconciliation process. Abaddon wore the quadruple-crown of Carmel for two days, long enough to call a constitutional convention with equal representation from all four subject nations. To most Gathi, and large pluralities in Dan and Selah, Abaddon was a hero, but after so ferocious blood-letting, citizens of the newly-forged Carmelite nation were relieved to see him step aside.

Abaddon retired to a villa in the Gathi capital, Belloc. Under heavy pressure from the Gathi military, Carmel’s first parliament gave him its pardon. Persona non grata everywhere else, Abaddon remained under house arrest through 2071. Early that year, he flew to Basel, Switzerland for longevity treatments following a bout with colon cancer. At the direct request of then-U.N. General Secretary Apsara Mongkut, the French Duxieme Bureau kidnapped Abaddon and placed him in cold sleep pending a trial. One month later, Mongkut was killed in a car crash.

Upheaval in the U.N. ranks prompted the Unity-skeptic French government to include Abaddon among an allotment of politically disfavored persons that it insisted be taken into the crew complement as effective exiles from Earth. According to his personal journal, Unity’s captain, Jonathan Garland, believed he was doing the world a service by removing Abaddon to the Alpha Centauri System. Garland appears to have developed a personal fascination with Abaddon, whom he studied in depth. Just before mission launch, as intelligence reports about hyper-survivalist sabotage attempts became more dismal, Garland developed a plan to include Abaddon in a top-secret strategy cell with which he hoped to out-think threats to the mission.

Commissioner Pravin Lal's Peacekeeping Forces discovered Abaddon among fifty survivors of a crash-landed Colony Pod and brought him into their colony none the wiser. Lal was surprised when Abaddon confessed his origins, but, amidst his own civil crisis, declined to bring charges against the one-time despot, suggesting a precedent in which crimes committed on Earth would be considered outside the jurisdiction of Chiron's justice systems. Abaddon participates as a guest in meetings of the Peacekeeping Forces Command Counsel.

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The General Atomics Corporation's Autonomous Work Unit 5, better known as "Mr. Handy," was a fixture in American households from its introduction in 2020.

The militarized version, "Mr. Gutsy," found similar favor with American servicemen, who appreciated its simple, rugged design.

On Chiron, descendants of the "Gutsy" served ably in reconnaissance roles, while worker models proved themselves experts in the care of bases that would have them.

Robotics were controversial. The Hunters of Chiron eschewed them for philosophical reasons: Warden J.T. Marsh reasoned that dependence on fully-automated machine labor had retarded the physical and moral health of terrestrial societies. The Human Ascendancy, New State, and Human Conclave were similarly skeptical of artificial intelligence, leading to official disinterest if not outright prohibitions. The Human Labyrinth taught that robots were a possible vector for infiltration, although, in truth, Chairman Sheng-ji Yang only needed a plausible excuse for his faction's repeated failure to develop or seize such fabulous technology.

More enthusiastic users of robotics included the University, the Dreamers, and the Morganites, all to take work away from human hands.

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The Chevrolet-Monarch Consolidated-300 was a popular variant of the company's Powered Combat Suit, a personal military exo-frame designed to enhance its wearer's speed, strength, survivability, and lethality on the battlefield. Standing nearly eight feet tall, the so-called "Firebat" sported a pair of wrist-mounted napalm projectors. The suit offered its operator full NBC and thermal protection.

Two squadrons of CMC-300 suits, numbering twenty-six including spares, were present in the Unity's Armory at launch. Twenty-four of the suits were taken by the Forward Landing Team.

On several occasions during the early years of settlement, CMC-300's participated in combat alongside conventional Main Force Patrol units, usually against native megafauna but sometimes Holnists or Tribal Minutemen. The suits were praised for their combat effectiveness.

As the Mindworm threat came increasingly into focus, CMC-300's were detailed to burn large tracts of Xenofungus along the main tracks used by pioneer road crews. The practice was so successful, Marsh sold these services to multiple other factions. In this way, squadrons of Hunters became the first line of defense for settlements founded by the University, the Ascendancy, and the Tomorrow Initiative.

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Image by Boskov01.

Tamineh Pahlavi was Mission Area Director of Unity's Genetic Laboratory. A descendant of the last monarch of Iran, Pahlavi was orphaned by Red Flu at age 7. She earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Stanford University and was nomated for the Nobel Prize in 2029 for breakthroughs in viral retranscription with applications for suppression of autoimmune disorders. She was denied the prize following the discovery that she had written extensively on the desirability of mandatory generic screenings and sterilization of persons with genetic markers for degenerative diseases and antisocial tendencies who would not undergo remediational gene therapies.

In 2032, Pahlavi was appointed Vice President of the Special Projects Division of the American Reclamation Corporation (ARC). In this capacity, Pahlavi repeatedly directed the company's private military contractors to forcibly immunize persons presenting at federal refugee camps. She was later appointed to the Unity Mission by the ARC directorship at the recommendation of ARC CEO Oscar van de Graaf. Pahlavi was charged with designing and initiating long-term evaluation of Chiron's effects on the human genome.

During the Unity Crisis, Pahlavi retrieved and escaped with the full contents of the mission's genetic library.

Although a subordinate of the mission's Chief Science Officer, Prokhor Zakharov, Pahlavi was not among the individuals awakened by him; rather, she seems to have been an incidental survivor of tampering by Kellerite saboteurs, who brought nearly her whole bay out of cold sleep in the search for their companions.

Pahlavi broke with Zakharov around the same as Malachi Ro amidst what appears to be a sharpening of the University's core principles. Pahlavi's "crime" was to critique exploratory research begun in the area of mind-machine interface. Her punishment was to be stripped of tenure by a disciplinary committee. Pahlavi responded by resigning her position and joining the general exodus into the Monsoon Jungles. With followers, she founded The Pinnacle, where, with other departmental staff, she declared a start to attempts at producing neo-Sapien, a being uniquely suited to life on Chiron.

The U.N. Intelligence Cell found that feelings of helplessness over her parents' deaths were displaced to pursuit of medical immortality. Strong aversion to those with apparent infirmities. Once compared life without genetic medicine to human slavery.

An ARC personnel file credited Pahlavi with various "officer-like qualities," including: clarity of purpose, strong work ethic, and lack of tolerance for the suffering of others.

[Buster's Uncle]

...It was Stockard Channing that was breaking page width on p.1.  Fixed now...

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Thanks much, Buster's Uncle!

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Sheng-ji Yang followed an unlikely path to Chiron. Born in 1992 to a family disfavored by the Communist regime due to a grandfather's service in the Nationalist Army during the Second World War, Yang completed his education late in life and endured long exile in the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, spending more than 45 years under state surveillance.
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Listed as MIA during the Uighur Revolt of 2038, Yang reappeared during the Golden Revolution as a senior officer in the Emperor's Lifeguard. He was later recommended for the U.N. Mission to Alpha Centauri as a Political Officer with special supervisory authority over the ship's Chinese contingent.

The Human Labyrinth propounds a philosophy emphasizing the Three Pillars: 法 (Fa), or Law, meaning that the law is known and obeyed because it is systematically enforced; 術 (Shu), or Method, whereby the ruler holds himself apart from society and applies "special tactics and secrets" to obscure his motivations, reducing the opportunity for confidants or supplicants to influence him inappropriately; and 勢 (Shi), or Legitimacy, which focuses on drawing distinctions between the excellence of the ruler and the flaws of the man who rules.​

Yang and his followers landed in the inhospitable Dune Sea, apparently by design. His engineers used heavy mining equipment to excavate subterranean bases. The new leader quickly established a rigid structure of examinations to sort followers into classes. Those who supposedly demonstrated the least aptitude for implementing Yang's vision were immediately subjected to nerve stapling and neural re-socialization before being reassigned to perform menial labor or base defense. Persons flagged as potential Talents were prepared for leadership roles and received direct instruction from Yang himself. Candidates who then failed to meet Yang's exacting physical, mental, and "moral" standards received "redirection" into mid-level technical and administrative posts.

Since the so-called "Human Hive" rarely relinquishes its members willingly, the only reliable information on Yang's grand experiment in social organization comes from a handful of traders and prisoners. The consistent description is of a life dedicated wholly to the leader's whim, usually squalid, never with enough to eat, and always in fear of official reprisal for failure to meet quotas or demonstrate sufficient "thought discipline." The austerity and density of Hive living, combined with the desperate need to please an all-powerful individual, promote grinding competition that saps the innovation, enthusiasm, and mental health of every one of Yang's unfortunate subjects.

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A rare image of Canadian Forces soldier Marcel Salan in his youth.

Salan was the senior military officer aboard Unity. At 71 years old, he was one of the eldest among the crew, a combat veteran of the War for Quebec Independence.

United Nations Marines under his command provided a crucial second line of defense against mutineers during the Unity Crisis when U.N. Security Forces personnel were found to have been riddled with Spartan defectors.

Salan lost more than three-quarters of his Marines defending the general evacuation but survived to make Planetfall, whereupon he immediately attempted to restore communications with Earth. This ambition prompted Salan to craft and execute a daring raid into the Dune Sea to retrieve the Unity Data Core, which the Peacekeeping Forces had caused to be ejected during the ship's final hours.​ During that fight, the Marines had their first exposure to Yang's Hivemen. The outgunned eusocialists attempted to interfere, resulting in their slaughter by the armored Marines.

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An access port stands open amidst the ruins of Fort Garland, the receiving ground erected by J.T. Marsh's Forward Contact Team for an expedition that had already dissolved. The site was quickly occupied on an emergency basis by survivors under the direction of Marcel Salan. Narration in Ken Burns's Plant: A History memorably described the Fort as "an open-air hospital, catering to the already-dead, the actively dying, and those soon to follow."

Less a "fort" than a clearing, Garland possessed few natural defenses. Constant attacks by the Spartans compelled Salan to make a fighting withdrawal within weeks of arrival.

Spartan scouts tasked to take possession of the compound reported it being heavily booby-trapped. The defensive fencing, for example, was still electrified, and the entire area had been seeded with anti-personnel mines.​ Santiago recorded a loss of 34 personnel in her war diary--a high price given that the "enemy" was nowhere in evidence.

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United Nations Peacekeeping Forces, circa 2019.

Selection or appointment to the Unity Mission was understood by many at the time as a matter of life and death. Mob violence was a commonplace when communities felt passed over. U.N. Such a fate, wrote U.N. Commissioner Pravin Lal, was tantamount to permanent cultural death. Individuals who might not rouse themselves to elect better leaders or protest immediate wrongs were more than willing to kill for the opportunity to be represented, and ostensibly remembered, by somebody destined to walk on alien soils.

The United Nations maintained thousands of security police to protect the space elevators at British Singapore, Batavia, Stanleyville, and Rio de Janiero by which the Unity was stocked. During the fifteen years between 2012 and 2027 alone, an average of nineteen protestors and one U.N. officer died each day.​

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Shoichiro Nagao and Ikurō Kamatari.

Nagao was Director of Terraforming Operations for the U.N. Mission to Alpha Centauri. Few were surprised by the Japanese Government's decision to nominate the man universally credited with the successful decontamination of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and its associated exclusion zone. Nagao's method of nitrogen soil fixation resolved inadequacies with the original frozen soil barrier laid down to prevent groundwater contamination.

Nagao and Kamartari were among the most-important of the forward-deployed pioneers to part ways with Jeremy Tanner Marsh upon the latter's founding of the Hunters of Chiron. The decision was amicable, and Marsh honored a prior commitment to allow rejectionists a share of the heavy equipment under his ambit.

Nagao proposed to "map" Earth onto Chiron's biome through a project of aggressive terraforming and eschewed the idea that humans should attempt to situate themselves within the existing ecosystem, such as by planting hybrid crops or respecting the fungus as a living organism with inherent conservational value.

Following Nagao's vision, his followers established a settlement of their own at Eden's Promise. Kamatari served as Base Operations Director and presided over a massive program of clear-cutting.

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Night-vision vidcap of a Spartan Unity Rover patrolling a track in the foothills below Xerxion.

Lacking meaningful armor or heavy weaponry, the Rover's selling points were excellent acceleration, easy serviceability, and an extremely high top speed.

There were many marks of Unity Rover. The ship's stores included an abundance of light patrol cars like this one, meant to be assembled in less than an hour from prefabricated kits. This particular model lacks a fuel tank, indicating that it was a parasite dependent upon either a fixed charging station or a carrier vehicle such as a mining crawler.​

All factions armed Unity Rovers for reconnaissance, salvage, and screening work. Rover pilots were some of Chiron's earliest celebrities. Through their daring, factions at their most-vulnerable secured urgently-needed supplies from the No-Man's Land between colony borders.

[DrazharLn]

I've enjoyed reading the first page of these. Thanks! I think you've done a good job at dropping in details to suggest a much more complete world.

[Trenacker]

I've enjoyed reading the first page of these. Thanks! I think you've done a good job at dropping in details to suggest a much more complete world.

Many thanks, sir! I aspire to delight.

[Trenacker]

Avtoritet Ryang

Service Record
Born 2027, Tashkent, Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, to ethnic Korean parents resident in U.S.S.R. since Joseon Dynasty and deported to Central Asia by Joseph Stalin. Entered Russian mafia circles during childhood. Became Vor v Zakone bjust prior to conscription into Soviet Airborne Forces in 2046. Adherents may accept no charity and must perform no honest work so long as they live. Branded an outcast by criminal compatriots for violating pledge never to collaborate with government. Served three tours in Afghanistan before mustering out. Frequently seconded to intelligence operations of GRU.

Ascended to leadership position in Tashkent organized crime circa 2052 following assassination of top rivals. Cooperated with KGB to place underworld tails on suspected Western intelligence operatives. U.N. Intelligence Cell estimates with very high confidence that subject exploited commercial and underworld contacts in Turkey, Persia, and Golden China to broker more than $700 billion in credit to Soviet government during Financial Crisis of 2054, accounting for more than half of all funds secured. Negotiated similar agreement with United Nations Alpha Centauri Mission Project Control in 2055 to make one-time donation of more than $1.2 trillion on behalf of the Constituent Peoples of the Soviet Socialist Republics.

Subject's criminal enterprises commonly linked to protest action and sabotage of Morgan Industries holdings in Soviet Union throughout 2050s. Major distributor of arms to Soviet-aligned forces in Saharan, Canadian, and Indochinese Conflict Zones.

Arrested in Leningrad, 2062. Remanded to Gulag system. Current whereabouts unknown.

U.N. Intelligence Cell assesses that most convicts assigned by Soviet Union to Project Unity owe final allegiance to subject's organization.

Psych Profile: Non-conformist
Often judged an idealist for willingness not just to serve, but perpetuate, the Soviet system of government despite total repudiation of Soviet labor philosophy and his own personal involvement in protracted conflicts with municipal Militsiya and Ministry of Internal Affairs. Linked to the deaths of more than 300 Soviet police and military personnel.

Repudiation of "legitimate" living and assumption of significant risks by adopting criminal lifestyle potentially reflects out-sized confidence in own judgment and efficacy, tending toward hubris.

Outstanding soldier with demonstrated capacity to carry out "political work," euphemism for action against declared enemies of the Soviet state.