Racing the Darkness - An Alpha Centauri Photologue

[Trenacker]

The U.N. Mission to Alpha Centauri trained colonists and crew in low- and zero-gravity environments, some in space stations, but others on the lunar surface.

The first long-duration mission to the Moon was undertaken by the European Space Agency in 1999. South African, American, Soviet, and Chinese missions followed, each of increasing complexity. In 2028, the first permanently-staffed science station on the Moon was a collaboration between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Apple Electronics, and Sperry Rand.

The U.N. training base later became the core for colonial ventures on the Moon, which took off in the final years before Mission Launch. Much of the population was engaged in logistics work in support of the Unity and its passengers.

Control of the lunar surface and orbit was a sticking point for many of the nations of Earth. They relinquished their claims to the United Nations only because of the degree of internal strife brought on by internal conflicts. The multi-national inspectorate designed to conflict the Moon's disarmament succeeded in its broader mission of preventing any nation from taking advantage, but failed to protect mission assets from terror attacks. By 2060, the extent of the threat could no longer be denied and the Security Council voted for a garrison of several thousand U.N. Marines.

[Trenacker]

Name: Johann Anhaldt
Rank: Mission Area Director
Position: Atomic Energy Laboratory
County of Origin: Switzerland
DOB: 1-12-2000
Height: 203.7cm
Weight: 104kg

Service Record:
Native of Bern. Ph.D. in nuclear physics, MIT. Two-time Nobel laureate for advances in cold fusion theory. Frequent foil to Soviet researcher Prokhor Zakharov.

Twelve years at CEA/Cesta simulating nuclear fission with the Megajoule laser. Twenty  years at CERN focusing on particle acceleration and low-temperature reactions. Five years at RIKEN-TRI studying robotics in connection with Fukushima-Daiichi recovery operations. Frequently employed crowd- and machine-assisted decision-making to aid with complex problem-solving.

Participated in San Francisco Roundtable on Machine Thinking as a guest of the American Reclamation Corporation in 2064. Retained as a consultant on same topic until 2070.

Leading global advocate of fission-based solutions in the area of renewable energy. Noted skeptic of war strategies based on "limited use" of atomic weapons.

Controversially expressed support for rejections of vaccination and GMO use, arguing that although not scientifically valid, such attitudes were "an accurate reflection of the human values to which science must always, in the end, be suborned." Public statements credited with helping to mend cleavages between public and "political-scientific establishment" following Survivalist Wars.

Unanimous election as Mission Area Director to AEL. Responsible for staff of more than 200 nuclear scientists and engineers.

Anhaldt's superior, Prokhor Zakharov, declined to send for subject during the Unity Crisis, charging that Anhaldt's was "the inferior intellect." Anhaldt and the AEL staff were recovered instead by the data scientists of Sathieu Metrion, who hoped to co-opt the AEL into supporting ground-side operations of the Unity Data Core.

After ejection of the Data Core, Anhaldt, his AEL subordinates, some of Metrion's programmers, a scattering of engineers and security people, and assorted Comprehensive Transport personnel evacuated in one of two Landing Pods secured by Metrion's partisans. A failed attitude thruster sent Anhaldt's lander off-course, and it touched down within sight of the Monsoon Jungle with little more than basic survival equipment on board.

The polyglot community accepted Anhaldt's suggestion that, to minimize disputes, they reprogram the Landing Pod's onboard computer to assist with base operations. Three years later, they made first contact with the Human Tribe, which discovered that although Anhalt provided the appearance of human leadership, virtually every meaningful decision taken in Colonia Secundus was run through the settlement's pet AI.

Psych Profile: Mediator
Gifted scientist and communicator.

Adept at navigating large bureaucracies and political environments, but delegates most managerial tasks to subordinates. Selection likely reflected Security Council concern that atomic energy would prove a controversial energy source among the colonists.

Enthusiastic about the possibilities for human development inherent in applications for machine-assisted thinking and robot labor.

[Trenacker]

U.N.S. Unity power plant under construction in Moscow, U.S.S.R., 2021.

The project was, in generous terms, an unmitigated disaster. First conceived as the American Ares III intra-solar foundry, Unity's derelict skeleton had been a fixture in the nighttime sky above North America for more than a half-century before it was purchased by the U.N.'s Janovic Commission for conversion. The ship then finished another forty-three years in geosynchronous orbit, followed by six of trials that took it only as far as Pluto. By both length and volume, it was the largest object ever built by man. Knowing that technological progress would outpace them before completion, her shipwrights opted for dated but proven systems and modular design, hoping to install the engines, reactor, and computer mainframe last, while swapping out secondary systems if and when necessary.

U.N.S. Unity's development was a case study in design flaws, self-destructive behavior, and the perils of consensus-based project management. Amidst countless arguments, industrial accidents, and incidents of terrorism and sabotage, entire sections were started, gutted, and started again as political will and available resources waxed and waned.

A revolving door of visionaries, sponsors, and builders produced a "Frankenstein's Ark" of obsolete and incompatible systems. Political imperatives often spoke louder than practical science. When the Western powers temporarily suspended their participation in the Project from 2014 to 2050, the U.N.'s new Chinese and Warsaw Pact dismantled and stole entire modules for closer study Earthside. During one of countless breakdowns in contract re-negotiations, Morgan Aerodynamics sealed over dozens of cargo bays previously installed by competitors, including Serrol-Merowe, Fairchild-Grumman, and the American Reclamation Corporation, then charged the U.N. to rebuild and restock similar bays on the ship's opposite side. To a U.N. Board of Inquiry completed just hours before his departure for the lunar cradle, Unity's captain, Jonathan Garland, observed wryly that there was not a single integrated or accurate schematic--let alone a proper inventory--of the whole ship anywhere in existence.

Providing a crew for the ship presented a separate brace of problems. Tens of thousands of crew members perished in training, while many more died at the hands of mobs and terrorists incensed at the idea of being left behind. During times of extremity, the U.N. made a habit of accepting donations from corporations, private individuals, and even criminal enterprises. Earth's best and brightest  shared their one-way trip with exiles, outcasts, and stowaways of every conceivable stripe. Pursuant to a charter further amended beyond recognition after most were placed in cold sleep, led by a multi-national crew on the verge of dissolution since the day it had formed, they were destined for a world where contact with a smaller, earlier mission launched in better times, the Pathfinder Probe, had been lost for reasons still unknown.

[Trenacker]

After tens of millions of Americans died in recurring pandemics during the first half of the twenty-first century, the United States finally found the technological solution required to endure long periods of home isolation: an army of drones of every conceivable size, shape, and purpose. Drones to sanitize public spaces, day and night. Drones to deliver food, fuel, medicines, and other necessities to the front door of every household. Drones to replace humans laborers in factories and fields.

Washington applied the same solution after the Holnist rebellion metastasized into the Second Civil War and one-fifth of the former U.S. Armed Forces defected or went AWOL. "During the long years of civil war and reconstruction in the 2040s," the The New York Times editorial page later mused, "the Federal government perfected first push-button war, then push-button peace."

The United States provided Oscar van de Graaf's ARC contingent upwards of 9,000 autonomous labor drones, known as Multiple Use Labor Elements ("MULES"), to help safely perform the tasks of colonization. The MULE was a sturdy, easily-repaired worker that relied on simple programming language and could be customized for a wide range of tasks. It was also powered by hydrocarbons, a peculiarity that attracted much unwanted attention from Planet's native biologics.

[Trenacker]

The Soviet Union staggered out of the bloody twentieth century and into the twenty-first with its alliance structure in tatters and its economy overheating from an excess of defense spending. Many predicted a quick collapse. Instead, Soviet leaders took deft advantage of the rise of Fundamentalist Islam to achieve a long detente with the West and shove aside discredited or dismantled petrostates to claim a dominant place in the global energy market. As American and European attentions turned increasingly inwards, Moscow wasted no time before engaging in new adventurism, accumulating tidy victories in Syria, Afghanistan, the Congo, and even Bolivia, where Washington signally declined to uphold the Monroe Doctrine during the second [Sleezebag] administration. But the Red Star rose only so high. If the costs of meddling in the Third World were less than those of an arms race with NATO, a new and dangerous threat to the preeminent Communist giant emerged in the form of China. Successful participation in the Sino-Indian War came with a bill that, paired with the costs of environmental renewal at home, the Soviets paid only with difficulty. Soviet accomplishment in the arts and sciences, starved of patronage, declined precipitously. When the U.N. came knocking in 2045, the Soviets were two generations behind the global standard in electronics. Their once-vaunted space program was but a shadow of its former glory. What the U.S.S.R. did have to offer was the miniaturized nuclear reactor (slim safety margins and all), along with ten thousand junked armored cars, all fission-powered, readily converted to reconnaissance, liaison, and utility duties in environments requiring full NBC protection, and all fully capable of independently powering a colony of modest size. In return, the U.N. agreed to hold Moscow blameless for any "accidental fission" and found a place for 20,000 additional convict laborers sourced from the GULAG.

[Trenacker]

France retained a substantial amount of overseas real estate and subjects in the second half of the twentieth century, and although the terms of association sweetened progressively, France fought long wars to retain Algeria, Indochina, and the Levant. In an open secret, France also played a crucial role in securing Quebec's independence from Canada, a gambit for which it was temporarily expelled from the European Union.

As in past eras, retention of a colonial empire and tampering in the affairs of other peoples earned the French a certain pride-of-place in international affairs. To protect their considerable investments in Africa, the French assiduously cultivated the United Nations. Peacekeeping, in Africa especially, thus took a familiar form: the French fist, fit snugly in the United Nations glove. French talents contributed their fair share to Unity's development, and the launch pads at the Centre Spatial Guyanais were practically a U.N. operation after 2021. Beyond these traditional aspects of project involvement, however, France distinguished itself in another way: by providing the future colony with defensive equipment when long-range sensing data suggested that Chiron might be home to potentially dangerous lifeforms.

[Trenacker]

A Kashmiri gas plant at sunset.

Internecine conflict prevented Indian from assuming the position of an acknowledged superpower until very late in the twenty-first century, after the traditional claimants to the title were themselves exhausted by the onslaught of war, disease, and environmental disaster. India suffered through its own share of catastrophes, winning a short, sharp naval war with China in spectacular fashion but later experiencing the unmitigated horror of a nuclear exchange with Pakistan during the Six Minute War.

During its own reconstruction, India invested heavily in the U.N. Mission to Alpha Centauri, if only to affirm, even to itself, that it possessed not just the wherewithal, but the national will, to contribute to the well-being of all humankind even in light of its own heavy need. As the starship's final fitting out began, India's technology sector was moving from a service focus to idea creation, while Indian materials science was leading the way in the production of new polymers. A considerable quantity of the hardware at Unity's heart, along with its countless 3D printers, were Indian-produced. Urgent requests in the 2060s prompted India to deliver more digital and industrial equipment to the United Nations.

Several of India's rebuilt cities were hastily-constructed residential factories that fed last-minute requirements up the Space Elevators directly into the Unity's hold. The Times of India famously lampooned the ship as a rapacious European gourmand snacking on India's beleaguered people.

[Trenacker]

Recently, I was prompted to do a bit of a "story Bible" for this fan-fic of mine as I look to engage new folks to come and supply content of their own. This involves taking a step back and looking at the story so far with fresh eyes. It also means a bit of ret-con work to make the story "true up" when all the pieces are laid on the table, end-to-end.

Sadly, this will ruin many of the dates previously supplied, but I suppose

Here are the fundamental elements of the world I built on Brian Reynolds's back, as it were. I will expand these as I develop more of them.

Missions to Alpha Centauri

▪ The Pathfinder Probe launched during a fruited period of Earth's history, under circumstances far more auspicious than those surrounding the Unity Mission.

▪ The Pathfinder Probe landed on Alpha Centauri, and a base was established, but contact with the colony was lost shortly thereafter amidst an outbreak of viral illness. The specific fate of the Pathfinder colonists was not disclosed by the U.N. Security Council and remained a mystery even to the Unity command crew.

▪ Because of the challenge of training a huge number of people on common systems when some of them would enter cold sleep decades before their comrades, the mission opted for a "last common technological paradigm" philosophy. It would be the equivalent of a space ship in 2060 launching with systems and equipment built in the 1980s, or at least designed with only the same set of components.

▪ Work on Unity commenced in 1996. Unity left the Sol System for Alpha Centauri in 2071.

A Brief History of Violence

▪ Earth was afflicted by a series of human-caused catastrophes, including but not limited to: a pandemic of Red Flu, the Six-Minute (atomic) war between India and Pakistan, the Sino-Indian War, the Hypersurvivalist Wars, and the Second American Civil War.

▪ "Hypersurvivalist Wars" is a blanket term for hundreds of conflicts, fought primarily in North America and Europe, that pitted adherents of the anarcho-populist "survivalist" movement against various national governments and local self-defense forces. The central figure in this tragedy was Nathan Holn, a malcontent and pseudo-intellectual famous first for his hagiography of Vice President and would-be American monarch, Aaron Burr, second for his calls to arms against the legitimate governments of the United States and Canada, and third for his execution after being found guilty of attacking a U.S. Army base in Colorado. Holn died before the turn of the twenty-first century, but he lived on in the popular imagination of his fevered followers, who feared and resented the change that social media told them was happening so rapidly and on all fronts. The conflicts during this period followed a distinctive pattern. A national emergency would occasion pleas for assistance from Washington or Ottawa, leading to confrontations between authority and the self-styled “Holnists,” often in extreme conditions for which only the latter were properly prepared. As pirate radio broadcasts urged concerned citizens to hoard supplies and discount official instructions – frequently invoking the specter of government-operated concentration camps – Holnist instigators would infiltrate hospitals, distribution centers, and staging areas, accusing authorities of withholding vital services. Sometimes, the Holnists distributed supplies of their own to burnish their image of legitimacy. Popular unrest would then provide the hyper-survivalists with cover to conduct organized looting of food convoys and private property. The federal government’s heavy-handed response would cow some, outrage others, and generally arrive too late to do anything but pick up the pieces. During the first few years of the Anarchy, tens of thousands of new recruits rallied to the cause thinking to find assistance from the seemingly well-stocked Holnists, while the central governments lost what precious little legitimacy they had previously managed to retain. The reality was that Holnism was usually just another word for self-aggrandizement. Holnists took what they wanted--land, goods, people--and defied anyone to stop them. Holn’s philosophies never constituted a coherent roadmap for political transformation, and though a cottage industry of serious thinkers labored mightily to produce political platforms and coherent manifestos for living, the masses of his so-called adherents had no time for intellectuals or consistency. Holn's calls for a Second American Revolution fired the popular imagination, that's all. The existing alliance between "self-governance" movements and religious radicals provided the path down which millenarian movements like Evangelical Fire marched to secession, then to defeat. Holn's collected papers contained a message that was, at root, fundamentally self-contradictory and anti-social. Holn knew what he was against: compromise, racial and gender equality, civic-minded sacrifice. He hardly knew what he wanted the United States to become. Put simply: Holn claimed to want to make the world “safe for the little guy, who works hard and deserves much,” but his mélange of racism, misogyny, and anarchic sentiments was generally a formula for making civilization impossible. Holnists were bushwhackers and sociopaths dressed up in philosophical trappings.

▪ After Nathan Holn, perhaps the second most-infamous man in modern American history was Jean-Baptiste Keller. Keller was no more successful a man than Holn in his many careers, but his politics were far more coherent. A wind farmer and sometime-lay pastor in southern Illinois, he was a self-described “mourner” of the breakdown of civil society at the local level. His rise as a globally influential thinker coincided with a steep decline in the fortunes of his local church and a severe economic depression that once again hollowed out the cities of the West’s traditional industrial heartlands. In a deliberate critique of phylism, Keller linked the decline of social and economic well-being with the breakdown of the traditional family and physical community – literally, one’s geographic neighbors. While neither a Luddite nor Evangelical, Keller echoed the traditional complaint of the Religious Right that the Internet 2.0 was a gateway to troubling addiction, deluding its users by enabling them to engage in fundamentally false, and therefore spiritually unfulfilling, interactions. with free trade policies, which he considered responsible for an “epidemic” of social ills. Keller allowed that his appeals were not intended for a general audience per se, but hoped that they might have special application to those facing economic and social dislocation as a result of changing patterns of economic and cultural behavior due to globalization. This pattern of thought, although less popular than Holnism, nevertheless attracted hundreds of thousands of committed followers. Keller eventually amassed a bizarre constellation of supporters, including the families of out-of-work engineers from the Great Lakes region who accused Wall Street of failing to stand by the American worker and students at the Midwest’s many public universities who felt that they were being prepared for vocations that free trade policies had rendered inviable. Keller later reappeared to rally communities of the faithful both within and outside occupied Des Moines, orchestrating a series of diversionary attacks on Holnist defensive positions to cover the smuggling of weapons and relief to followers trapped behind enemy lines. Gradually derided as cultists, Keller’s followers were frequently subjected to massacres, first by the Holnists, then by the U.S. Army, and later by various adversaries ranging from mercenaries employed by the American Reclamation Corporation to local Home Guard units operating under federal writ during the Third Reconstruction. Of necessity, Keller authorized designated followers to raise standing “self-defense committees” on the model of the Viet Minh, raising money and collecting weapons and other supplies intended to make good on a new vision of “armed neutrality.” Whether at Keller’s command or otherwise, forces acting in his name not only ejected the Holnists from Des Moines, but slaughtered tens of thousands of refugees in the care of the Red Cross, alleged retaliation for pogroms previously visited upon the Kellerites themselves. Keller’s adherents eventually went underground in the face of mounting pressure from the U.S. Army and the ARC. Many relocated to the Northern California region where they centered various around shared cultural heritage, civic orientation, or even lineage, frequently lamented the breakdown of civil society at a distinctively local level, consciously rejecting the move toward globalized conceptions of identity enabled by the telecommunications revolution of the early twenty-first century.

▪ Decades after the reunification of both the United States and Canada, Holnism remained a powerful political lure for those who considered themselves to have been failed by the reconstruction governments, and the Spartan Movement took some cues from Holnism. Spartan ideology begins with a Realist premise: the State of Nature is a war of all against all. Security is possible only through subjugation or elimination of threats, and the soldier must maintain their skill through practice. In choosing coexistence with geopolitical adversaries, the West doomed itself, first to subversion, then to military destruction. Spartan thought differs from Holnism in that it is not explicitly predatory, although it is equally as violent. The Spartan competes with the "lesser self" as much as with opponents; unlike hypersurvivalism, however, it values military readiness more than generic "preparedness." That said, a fight against an unwilling or unprepared enemy is of no moral value.

Notes on the Geopolitical Situation on Earth

▪ At different times, national sponsors for the U.N. Mission to Alpha Centauri included: the United States, Canada, the European Union, the British Empire, the French Union, the U.S.S.R., Communist China, Golden China, India, Japan, Brazil, and Argentina.

▪ Antarctica was settled, terraformed, and ultimately home to several new nation-states by 2070. Large new landmasses were raised up in the Indian and Pacific Oceans to facilitate human settlement.

▪ Colonialism and freedom struggle continue to dominate a world where the Cold War still rages. France, despite having pioneered what it calls a "third way," is mostly seen as a Soviet stooge. A rift that began forming between Communist China and the U.S.S.R. cracked wide open with the rise of the Golden Emperor, but China is still coming into its own as a great power. The U.S.S.R. is suffering from economic and political difficulties reminiscent of the Gorbachev era. The United States is still rebuilding from the horrors of a civil war that ruined much of the South and Midwest.

Notes on the Faction Leaders

▪ Prokhor Zakharov was the second-oldest official member of the Unity passengers. (In theory, a stowaway could have been even older.) Sheng-ji Yang is younger by a few years.

▪ Captain Jonathan Garland's was murdered. No perpetrator(s) were ever apprehended. Most survivors assume he was ordered killed by Santiago. Morgan, sometimes called "the first stowaway," is the second most-popular suspect.

▪ Santiago lost control of the mutiny she started. The "mainline" Spartans intended to commandeer mission resources to build an independent colony. The Holnists began self-destructive attacks on the ship and its crew--violence for its own sake. They were seemingly content to destroy the Unity, and themselves along with it, as an expression of retributive rage over being excluded by mission planners.

Fundamentals of Faction Design

▪ Each faction in the story is led by a single leader (with the exception of the Dreamers, which are led by two). The leader has articulated an ideological vision that answers three questions in a unique way. These are: (1) What is the fundamental truth of the universe? (2) Why did civilization on Earth fail? (3) What is needed for the human species to survive, and thrive, on Chiron?

▪ Here is a link to some basic faction information. As you will see, some are incomplete or uncomfortably similar to others.

[Trenacker]

Name: Sergeant Peter “Pete” Landers
Rank: -
Position: -
Country of Origin: United States of America
DOB: c. 2032
Height: 73.0 cm
Weight: 90.4 kg

Credit for this faction goes to Thorn of the community at The Frontier.com, a new-defunct forum for matrix-style games.

Service Record:
Precise date and place of birth unknown. Speech analysis yields 82.3% probability of origination in Midwestern United States. Attended, but did not graduate, Iowa Technical College. Volunteered for Illinois Army National Guard following death of schoolmates during hyper-survivalist raid. Promoted to Sergeant following abbreviated Non-Commissioned Officer Candidate Course.

WIA during skirmish with Holnist fighters at Cairo, IL, December 2053. Recovered by devotees of anti-disassociationist cult leader Jean Baptiste Keller. Passed through hands of multiple followers to avoid capture by Holnist death squads. Diagnosed with Helsinki Syndrome on return to unit. Listed MIA following Federal defeat outside Davenport, IA.

U.S. Army Signals Intelligence intercepts indicate subject was leading Kellerite troops shortly after disappearance, scoring numerous victories over U.S. Army and auxiliaries, significantly delaying reconstitution of Government authority west of Mississippi River. Implicated in civilian massacres.

Resurfaced outside Sacramento, CA in 2058 in overall command of a regional self-defense compact. Present at Berkeley, CA speech at which visibly infirm Keller reemerged from hiding to speak on Unity mission.

Caution: United Nations Intelligence Agency place very high confidence in assessments concluding that approximately two hundred Kellerites boarded Unity while it was still under construction and entered hibernation, intending to join the colony. As early as 2045, a fire at the Brooklyn Navy Yard provided cover for Tribe sympathizers previously inserted into the base's industrial fire brigade to board a supernumerary module and cache small arms intended for use by future Kellerite stowaways.

For a Tribal, Pete Landers was the epitome of the welcome convert to anti-disassociationism: a well-meaning young man who, once he understood the Kellerite philosophy, sacrificed everything to put himself in its service. Aboard Unity, he was the chief author of their vengeance against the hated Holnists.

Once Planetside, the "Tribe" settled at the mouth of a broad river, which they named the Slowwind. Using Radnor hoverbikes, they also mounted local patrols, hoping to dissuade other survivors from coming too near.

Less than thirty-six hours after the Kellerites arrived, Spartan Colonel Corazón Santiago founded the settlement of Sparta Command on rocky heights not far upriver. Spartan landing operations were soon disturbed by the arrival of a Tribe security patrol. Santiago ordered her people into defensive positions and demanded that the "interlopers" withdraw. The Tribe commander refused, and the Spartans opened fire, killing three scouts and destroying a pair of bikes before the rest broke contact. Spartan Myrmidons gave immediate chase, capturing a third bike.

Within the week, and under close observation from Spartan rovers, Tribe 'Formers poured concrete for a bunker complex on an island forming in the final oxbow bend of the Slowwind before it reached the sea, effectively closing the delta to Spartan river traffic.

Psych Profile: Defender
U.S. Army induction Psych screen indicates strong need for attachment to authority figures.

At Quad Cities debrief, ARC trauma specialist documented insubordinate language, heightened paranoia, and “wavering commitment to mission,” indicative of increased vulnerability to recruitment by subversive organizations. Subject repeatedly criticized command decisions to hold position during civilian massacres by survivalist flying columns. Recommendation for subject to be withdrawn from line for further medical observation overruled by commanding officer due to exigency of military situation at the time.

Subject's commanding officers repeatedly judged him a tactician of unusual ability despite limited formal military training.

[Trenacker]

Sathieu Metrion was an Annunciator of the Tommorow Initiative.

Data Services mobilized a massive response to the Data Core during the Unity Crisis, fighting fires and starting systems diagnostics. Peacekeeper Terrance LaCroix later found evidence to confirm that they had ignored multiple alarms to supervise key life support and fire control systems remotely from Core Control.

Chief Engineer Zakharov had ignored the needs of others, but Data Services under their Lieutenant Commander Tạ Dọc Thân had treated the reactor crew's every need as both urgent and sacrosanct. Internal message traffic between data terminals used by Thân's team found that they had worked to resolve a half-dozen competing emergencies, not least of which were viruses, compiling errors threatening to consume precious system resources, and physical attacks on junction boxes elsewhere aboard the starship. Thân led his people well. And then he had died.

Thân was a French Indochina native of about 32 at the time of his death. Born to a wealthy Catholic family in Huế, he completed his education in France and never returned home. Thân was a computer scientist minoring in Philosophy quickly placed in supervisory positions with the European Space Agency. Involvement with the Centre National d' Etudes Spatiales and the Venusian Survey preceded secondment to the Unity Mission. Thân had been an unwilling candidate. His file was appended with a personal letter to the French president requesting reassignment--a reflection of the strong political valence acquired by the mission in French politics.

Despite personal misgivings regarding the value of the U.N. mission to his home country, Thân remained true to form, earning high marks from evaluators for his mental stability and team orientation. He had an enviably high score on both parts of the Atherholt Trauma Function Test. U.N. psychologists judged that disappointment over career derailment would not prevent Thân's becoming "a full and valuable mission contributor."

The Peacekeeping Forces killed Tạ Dọc Thân, in a matter of speaking. He was one of the approximately forty fatalities caused by decompression when Pravin Lal ordered the ejection of the Data Core. The surviving data scientists never satisfied themselves as to who bore responsibility--the supposedly transparent Peacekeepers used a masked account.

Among Thân's numerous protégés was Sathieu Metrion, a Thai. National service in the Royal Thai Navy prefaced training in data science at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and ultimate nomination to the Unity Mission. In possession of Officer-Like Qualities, Metrion was thought to lack the political acumen or perceived reliability to be promoted to higher rank within the U.N. command structure, a fate typical of those who joined as members of explicitly national contingents.

Metrion led his faction's first expedition to Chiron's southern pole, literally ramming his way through a Nautilus Pirates blockade with a full-sized Unity Hydrofoil, one of the few combat-capable watercraft not commandeered by the New State.

Experience with the Red Flu led all Tomorrow Institute personnel to don bulky encounter suits--full-body coveralls of no-rip fabric with integral booties, gloves, and hood, similar to the "Moon Suits" of twenty-first century clean rooms. Colored bands at waist, biceps, and thighs indicated belonging to certain divisions aboard Unity. The initial accounts of the Peacekeepers point to a robust representation of the original departments among the Hydrofoil's landing party: the purple of the U.N. Security Forces, the blue of the Aquatic Operations Division, the green of Botany, the orange of Damage Control, the red of Engineering, the silver of Medical, the Yellow of Industrial Safety, and, predominating, the black of Data Services. At least one new arrival wore the red-in-black of the Constabulary.

[MysticWind]

Name: Robin Huxley
Rank: Master Sergeant
Position: Forward Contact Team
County of Origin: United Kingdom
DOB: 05-04-2035

Service Record:
Born 2035, Cornwall, United Kingdom, to military parents. Attended Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, specializing in counterinsurgency tactics, mechanized weapon technologies, and with minor focus in political sciences. Joined British Territorial Army upon graduating, saw action in Edinburgh Retaliation (Second Scottish War of Independence outside U.K.) in a tank division she later commanded. Spearheaded use of efficient anti-militia tactics towards the end of the conflict, crushing all nationalist opposition in Northumberland, earning her the nickname of “Boudicaa” from Briton and Scot alike. Returned to a hero's welcome to Truro, said to have deterred incipient Cornish separatism simply with her presence.

Served as an Imperial expeditionary advisor in the Canadian Troubles. Controversially led armored cavalry unit in crowd suppression action during Battle of Montreal. Civilians were cowed and separated from armed irregulars besieging the airport, but oppressive optics further tarnished Anglo-Canadian efforts towards winning hearts and minds, ultimately losing Quebec. Had further success east- awarded honors from both Confederation of Canada and the Dominion of Newfoundland after victorious Gros Morne campaign against Vinlanders, Holnist offshoot hyper-survivalists hiding among the island's fjords. Modified snow speeder tanks for “stealth” ambushes, one of her most infamous tactics.

Settled after reassignment to Australia, becoming a guest professor on governmental theory at Northern Territory University. Undertook a study of aboriginal societies as part of master's in applied history, focusing in nomadic cultures. Published thesis "Correlational Trajectories Across Declining Premodern Polities", featuring a novel repurposing of formulas from tank munition vector calculus for her historical projections. Formed a veterans unit of fellow anti-militiamen, the Darwin Road Warriors. Infamous for racing through the outback in demilitarized tank chassis. Personally witnessed ratification of controversial Farewell With Honour agreements in Canberra.

Record within the British Empire and reputation for carrying out stabilizing missions earned a fast-tracked assignment to Unity mission. Originally recommended for officership on security team, instead volunteered for J.T. Marsh's Forward Contact Team. Given latitude to recruit fellow former veterans for mission, and indeed placed many anti-survivalists and former tank crew in key positions. While their military experience was seen as an invaluable asset among his team, the warden was quickly disappointed to find their discipline lacking, their demeanors brusque and unserious, and their loyalties undeniably not with him. When Huxley later declared herself Khagan, he was all too happy to discharge her and her followers.

Despite absence, it has been observed that former DRW members within the Unity security force behaved erratically in a coordinated fashion during Planetfall, and have been linked to the disappearance of mathematicians from the science team, along with several librarians possessing key archival data. It is unknown of these personnel are in contact with Huxley or any other members of the FCT.

Psych Profile: Wanderer Restorationist
Superb combat prowess due to comprehensive knowledge of tactics and talent at repurposing opponent strategies to use against them. Units under subject's command maintained strong esprit de corps through fraternal bloodshed. Not content to stay in one place, favoring movement and activity instead of passiveness and caution. Scorn for the contented and sedentary possibly rooted in family's pre-military working class roots.

Intellectual background is of interest. While known to be an outspoken critic of Nathan Holn's neo-feudalistic survivalism, subject agrees with assertions of a slow “dum-dum decay” of civilization, leading to inevitable collapse and complete dark age. Morally opposed to hypothetical catastrophe, in contrast to Holnist dogma. Instead favors the rejuvenation of civilization by a return to the mutual separation of urbanized and frontier societies. Reduced from hegemony, smaller urban sedentary societies would then be forced to engage in healthy competition, spurred on by challenges from the frontier. Suspect excerpts hint at a far long-term restoration of universal empire via nomadic conquest, plans determined by precisely calculated social engineering, statistical modeling. Ideals conveyed in NTU teachings, inspiration unclear, possibly twentieth century works.

Quote: “The hyper-survivalist militias of old Earth were wrong. Humanity had not fallen, nor were we in a decline. What was truly at stake was stagnation- should we be content forever to live soft, innocent-bystander lives? Perhaps the masses can, but we shall not. To the wilds we'll go, taking what we need from the complacent, until their cities fall, their nations break, and our nucleus lives on.”



Huxley and fellow FCT scout rest on a heavy buggy during early reconnaissance of Planet. The former Darwin Road Warriors' tendency to add cosmetic customizations to their vehicles and even their uniforms was another act of unprofessionalism often bemoaned by Warden Marsh.

[Trenacker]

Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Traditional

Rampart, water catchment, grow tent. This was the ironclad sequence of construction followed by every successful colony.

Without a complete understanding of Centauri ecology, early settlements grew familiar crops in hermetically sealed environments using Terran seeds and growth medium.

Constraints on the supply of labor, defensible space, and packaged rations meant that food production vied with, and often superseded, cultivation of medicinal plants.

Once the colonists made a close study of Centauri organisms, however, they identified a number of plant and animal byproducts useful for the care of sick and wounded persons, including analgesics, antipyretics, bioadhesives, and organic fibrin sealants.

The first rich survey of this type was led by Walter Kyle Planitzer, a U.N. Marine serving with the Peacekeeping Forces. Mechanics in Warm Welcome modified a mobile field hospital with laboratory equipment for analysis of plant material.

[MysticWind]

Schematics for the T-42 Babayka, a shagokhod ("walker") armored bipedal weapons platform built by the Soviet Union. Shagokhods were used extensively by the imperial powers in various police actions and stabilization operations throughout the 21st century. In the lead-up to the launch of the Unity, the U.N. Security Forces themselves resorted to their own contingents of baby blue-painted shagokhods purchased from Soviet, American, or Japanese surplus to protect their fragile Space Elevator zones. Their ability to traverse difficult terrain, attain greater battlefield visibility, and psychologically intimidate lesser-armed foes came at the cost of far greater expense, meaning that only the most technologically advanced or financially capable militaries possessed shagokhods.

While amateur public domain, open-sourced, or otherwise leaked blueprints were brought to Chiron in the Unity's massive data archives, no prototypes for extraterrestrial shagokhods were built until colonial society had progressed considerably, towards the "Pre-Sentience Age". Not until the advent of Portable Fission Reactors and Advanced Industrial Base were such war machines feasible for Planetary warfare. But when they were, they were a sight to behold.


A New State NS-13 Murat shagokhod and a Tirailleur assault an enemy polar base. Note the use of Particle Impactor weaponry.

[MysticWind]

Name: Cuzco Sol
Rank: Powertech
Position: Power Ops Engineering
County of Origin: Guatemala
DOB: 05-03-2043

Service Record:

Lucero Eztli Salvador, born 2043, Guatemala City. Mother a policewoman, father a doctor. Childhood marked by repeated juvenile offenses - fighting, truancy, shoplifting, data denial, vandalism. Most local records officially expunged or fragmentary, extant only in U.N. Consolidated Criminal Justice Database. Known membership in 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 at 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, studied Energy Engineering and Mesoamerican Mythology. Abruptly dropped out in 2062 after 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. Paid tribute and inducted as acolyte at Apollo’s Throne, Khartoum. Eurasian leg of tour cut short by the Sixth Yugoslav Crisis, disrupting access to Illyrian Neolithic temple ruins. Resumed studies until the 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 consisting 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 became integrated into Centroamerican armed forces as autonomous militia. Redeployed to fighting various DEA-supported insurgencies- Costa Rican national secessionists, Mexican revanchists in Chiapas, Holnist free-loggers in Los Altos. Conduct appears to have been 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 out foliage in pursuit of neo-Contras. Commended with Roméo Dallaire Medal for bravery in the field following entrance of U.N. Security Forces mission into the conflict.

Recalled from Yucatán annexation campaign for noncombat duties in the wake of Hurricane Quincy. Unit performed flood rescue operations ably. 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 active member of Aten priesthood. Learned Coptic and began mentorship of local disaffected young men. Frequent speaker at Khepri Temple of the Dawn, guest sermon “Eternal Morning is Man's Gift” of 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 emergent neopagan Ra cult and the Sons of Ra tribal subculture.

Assumed low-profile yet locally important role during Planetfall. Even as other sections were falling apart due to structural instability and in-fighting, rallied the Power Ops team to keep the Unity's solar sails functioning even as Zakharov's scientific engineering teams fought to get the reactor online. Despite dearth of weaponry, led several defense actions against Spartan/Holnist incursions for days before U.N. Marine forces could arrive to assist. Under Sol's direction, the powertechs gained infamy for adopting the Ra Boys practice of shaving their captives and leaving them in the ship's observational rooms to be exposed to light from the approaching 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 form initial impressions of individual. 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 aggression. Subject shows submission 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 Ra 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, 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 subject's truly reformed nature. Only possible reservation stems from subject's potential 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 acolyte.

Quote: “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.”





Rapidly accelerating environmental deterioration in the 21st century provoked wildly-different responses from different demographics. In the FirstWorld and SecondWorld, particularly in the capitalist and consumerist state capitalist nations, the long-since demoralized middle classes turned inwardly towards spiritual perfection, sparking fads from the American neo-hippie movement on the left and the Evangelical Fire on the right, hardline Madrid Catholicism in southern Europe, and the various ethno-religious mystic trends of the Slavic Resurgence in the Warsaw Pact states. The newly-SecondWorld states in Latin America, the declining-FirstWorld countries in northern Europe, and the teeming masses in the colonial empires all gravitated towards Return to Nature ideologies, promoting atavistic identities to reclaim ancient wisdom as a means to survive in 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 religious 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 global climate change, adapting to its challenges through the mass adoption of solar power and celebrating the masculine energies involved in struggling against environmental disaster. Needless to say, such movements often found themselves at odds with one another, and with their political and scientific establishments.

[Trenacker]

An Archytas launch vehicle with satellite payload stands ready on the pad at the Paramount while an 8x8 armored rescuer vehicle evacuates the last of the ground crews to safety.

The Ascendancy's enthusiasm for self-aggrandizement caught up to it in M.Y. 30. After losing more than a quarter of his territory, Nwabudike Morgan prevailed on his increasingly fearful neighbors, Zakharov, Anhaldt, Metrion, and Landers, to form a defensive alliance.

The four made odd bedfellows: the scientists despised one another over the divergent opinions regarding whether popular mores should serve as a brake on public science, Anhaldt often accused the Tomorrow Institute of attempting to infiltrate his networks, and all four other factions were united in their resentment of Morgan's demands to be "made whole" anytime Monopoly analysts assessed their new allies' military performance as deficient. Nonetheless, it proved a winning combination. Fighter for fighter, Tribal minutemen were the near-equal of Pahlavi's genetically-enhanced Specials. Equipped with the Chaos weaponry coming out of University laboratories and battle plans turned out by Unity's salvaged supercomputers, the Kellerites were the first effective answer to Neo-Sapien.

Finding that she little liked being on the back foot, Pahlavi resolved to turn a new leaf and find friends of her own. Roshann Cobb's price for Dreamer participation in her war: access to the Ascendancy's space program, and a large share of the prisoners taken by her legionnaires.