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A Brief History of Human Race Development, Space Travel and Whatnot in the 37-th century, or how we came to this state of things
Genesis
Listen here, sonny, it doesn’t take much to figure things out on global scale. You don’t have to be ex-government worker or ex-agency operative. Yes, it helps a bit, but is not necessary. And while there are some schizoid paranoid fruitcakes out there and that's not a thing I'd even argue about, you don't necessarily need to be a nutjob either.
See, government literally only wants one thing and it’s fucking disgusting.
And everything a government does is related to that one thing. And citizens? Hell, they want it too. And you can bet they like it when the government gives it to them. So it’s a perfect symbiosis. Keep that in mind for future reference.
Almost two centuries ago, it was all going great. The new Space Exploration Program worked as intended—prisoners, pensioners, sick bastards and everyone else who would not fit in a perfect society were volunteered to be the brave space pioneers that shall conquer new worlds. They were promised tax-free salaries and pensions and sizeable property claims on the new worlds they would discover and conquer. And so they settled off to some mumble-jumble-designation-alpha-zeta-niner-shizzle bullshit solar system, that has been pinpointed as great prospect years ago by astronomers and other academic desk rats. And surprisingly it proved to be great prospect indeed. Four planets, two of which habitable. And mere 9 light years away—almost a joke with current technology.
The first planet was called Helios Prime, because, as you might have guessed by now, it was closest to sun. So eventually Helios Prime became the capital planet. The so-called New Earth among the adepts of poetic positive wisdom and such.
It was before long however when brave new settlers realized the dreams of tax-free picturesque life are not coming up the desired way.
The Rift
Earth government soon seized control over Helios Prime and made it a poorer and uglier copy of Earth somewhere in the forsaken edges of space. Some folks leaning heavily towards libertarian ideologies did not like that and decided they will do a new colonization attempt on the other habitable planet, opposing old rules and creating their own brave new world.
So they called the new planet Lorena and settled there. Needless to say, that was a harsh task when you are reduced to not exactly the best genetic material in the universe. But here we are, some 150-ish years later and the struggle continues.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, without them useless eaters, things were flourishing. But there's this new problem. Every now and then some ship full of inbread genetic scraps unwilling to live the dream on Lorena lands back on the good ole Earth. And just how can you ban these from landing back and deteriorating your now perfect population and punish them for overthrowing your control at the same time? It doesn’t take much fantasy, really. You need a pandemic event pushed through all media for as long as citizens accept any government measure that comes attached to dealing with it. Higher taxes? Sure. Lower income? Yep. Curfew? Bring it on. 24/7 monitoring? It’s for the greater good. And here we come to...
The Lockdown
The legend has it a miner coming from Lorena brought with them a deadly strain of unknown bacteria that kills humans in many horrible ways. Live feeds with dying patients were broadcasted, horror stories were told and eventually it all came down to the only possible solution. Lockdown. You could leave Earth at any given time, but you can’t return, unless you have a special permit.
There was however one catch. Lorena citizens could never even enter Earth orbit again. Still, they had to keep paying taxes to Earth Government.
This is Ramsey
Get to know your new home
With diameter of 5.05 billion kilometers, Ramsey is about half the size of the Solar system. Its sun is a K-type main sequence star, a bit on the orange side of the spectrum. Directly related to that, at 4300 degrees Kelvin on the surface, it's also slightly more bearable when venturing up close. As a result of some apparently ancestral idiocy, most of the people call it Helios, hence the name of the first planet—Helios Prime. Its climate is moderate and quite pleasant actually. Lorena is a bit more temperamental with typically close to freezing temperatures and occasional severe blizzards and snow storms. Hell, even warmest raindrop feels like a kick in the face. Pinkerton's Butt once had a thriving colony that is now reduced to 7% of its initial population. Last planet Pure is not habitable unless some heavy geoengineering-terraforming shit takes place, which at this point is not substantiated. There are rumors about certain... hideouts on both planets, but no one has confirmed them. After all, that's why the call them hideouts, aye?
Of all the four planets [ ● ], it's just Lorena that has a moon. There are two asteroid rings—an inner and outer, that provide plenty of valuable resources. Innermost sun orbit, as well as the inner asteroid ring, are occupied by few planetoids [ ⬣ ] and huge asteroids [ ◆ ].
And here we come to the two stations [ ■ ]. Zenit/1 and Zenit/2 are sitting at Lagrange points next to the last two planets. These are more like outposts, rather than what usually comes in mind when one hears the term space station. Zenit/1 was built as miner's motel/depot for all those brave souls, who decided to earn hard but honest living drilling rocks in the outer ring. There were plans for Zenit/3 built around one of the planetoids in the inner ring, but they were abandoned soon after Zenit/2 was built, with the discovery of
The Great Beyond
It is a vast uncharted territory just beyond Zenit/2, that leads to dangerous and mysterious places. Many have attempted roaming it, but only few have returned. Those who have returned however became ludicrously wealthy. So there is always craving in one's heart to go out there for fame and riches. But there is also this shiver down their spine when they realise the odds of never coming back are quite high. There is also this silent agreement between all returnees to never talk about it too. For whatever happens in The Great Beyond, stays in The Great Beyond.
And then there is something else that might grab the attention of vigilant citizen. First it's the system being called Ramsey and then there's planet Pinkerton's Butt. Both being named after actual people and events.
Ramsey is tribute to one Ivan Ramsey, who after having been volunteered to be one of the first space travelers by the government, with great effort stood up from his wheelchair, spat in the face of commitee leader and said
"Well fuck you and your father altogether."
He didn't live to reach his new home, but the memory remained.
Slightly more curious is the case with Pinkerton's Butt. In certain situation where the hull of a ship with thousands of colonists cracked and that could have caused additional expensive damage to said vessel or at least kill people, an individual by the name of Pinkerton, also a proud owner of behind of enormous magnitude, got sucked in and his fat deposits sealed the crack, so to say, thus saving everyone around.
I mean, yeah, these are interesting and touching stories and whatnot, but do you want to know why and how they ended up being names on the stellar map? Because a referendum was conducted. And that's what you get when you give people too much of a liberty. The referendum itself had something of a side development as well. Socialist ideals flourished en masse. But I guess that should not come as a surprise either, when you mix the following easy-dough ingredients:
✓ Lack of control
✓ Less than ideal genetic material
✓ Low income
✓ A lot of anger and frustration
✓ Plenty of free time
It's not surprising that as many as half the population turned out to socialist ideals and developed all kinds of organizations and networks. Of these, the most prominent is Engels is God, that also holds the weekly City of Engels meetings on Zenit/2's bar The City of Angels. These are the doorway to join the organization and eventually climb the ladder. It's the initiation of new adepts.
But there are two details you need to know before you consider going to those parties. 1. They are invite-only, meaning someone from the organization should have noticed you. 2. There is butt sex involved.
It's a corporate world
Currently, there are four megacorporations operating in Ramsey. There are no open conflicts between them, as it's all settled peacefully—a cartel has been made and everyone has got a proper share.
It all started with Kometa Freight and Industry. The first megacorporation formed in Ramsey and actually the only one for quite some time. It became the backbone of everything. Truth be told, should it not have formed back in the day, things might have looked a lot grimmer for everyone out there. It's not to say they were saints or something, not at all, there was quite a hard labor exploitation involved, but hey, no one was ever forced to work, right? It was an educated choice. Sans educated in this case, because most of the workforce was and still is way below the IQ 80 barrier. But you get the idea.
The rich kids on the block. Few of The Great Beyond returnees formed Planetarii Exploration and it soon gained momentum. Partly because of a mutually benefitial agreement that was signed with Kometa Freight and Industry, according to which Planetarii will do the research and pinpoint valuable resources and Kometa will provide the brute force to extract it. Being former Kometa employees, they still shared some of the socialist ideology, so Planetarii actually roots back to proletariat and proletarii, a wordplay of sorts. Still, being the new riches, they could not help, but develop florid line of ships that sets them apart. I mean, you can't miss a fucking golden boat.
Earth government's foothold in Ramsey and the only official source of augmentation technology. Everyone in the corp has been augmented to certain degree and that's part of the deal, if you want to be in touch with the latest technological achievements. You need to transcend your human origins. It's not widely discussed and many bash it as outrageous conspiracy theory, but there is certain deviation in every individual's behavioral pattern after the... augmentation. Some whistleblowers have tried to shed light on the controversial happenings in the corporation. Needless to say, they soon died in tragic domestic accidents.
A private militia corporation, mix of ex-Earth militants and plain thugs. It's the only corporation whose ships are allowed to mount weaponry to enforce law and order. Law and order in Ramsey have been functionally dumbed down to match the quality of genetic material they need to govern. I.e. if you don't like the verdict of the jury or the sentence you received, you will be provided the chance to meet the Creator instead. Any way you like. For taking your own life is your only human right out here. And let's not get dramatically outraged down there on the good old Earth, but there is a practical side to that. 150 kilos of feces less to reprocess each year. Give or take.
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