Racing the Darkness - An Alpha Centauri Photologue

[Trenacker]

A light reconnaissance VTOL departs the Restoration mission carrier, Battlecry of Freedom, during the hunt for the Spartan arsenal ship, Dynast, in the Sea of Nessus.

Dynast, hours before destruction by the guns of the University of Planet's megafortress, Zvezda. The Academician, a man known for his violent distempers and proud of his own national service, needed little of Nwabudike Morgan's prodding to better fortify the eastern approaches to the Howling Straits, a task he entrusted to an old personal friend, ex-Soviet Podpolkóvnik Revmir Galaktionov.

Hounded by General Salan's aeronaval forces, Spartan Droungarios Arkan Deng and his mighty warship strayed just within the extreme range of Zakharov's rocket-assisted artillery.

[Trenacker]

The Gauss rifles of the Spartan Stander were reputed to have kept a dozen more ships in port for every nautical mile the battleship travelled from Fleet Anchorage.

Stunned by the loss of its consort, the Dynast, Stander chose the better of two bad match-ups, running the gauntlet of Restoration air power in preference to Zakharov's guns.

Battlecry of Freedom stood out from the fight and scrambled nearly two dozen needlejets. The result was a surprise even for the bold Spartans: Stander's point-defense lasers knocked four of the first wave from the sky. Micromissiles launched from the battleship's waist-mounted pepperboxes did for six in the next. The ship's stealth coating and powerful jammers helped reduce the effectiveness of the jets' bombing runs: Stander suffered only three direct hits from gravity bombs and missiles, none of which were sufficient to break through her buckypaper armor.

[Trenacker]

Name the most resilient parasite. A bacterium? A virus? An intestinal worm? No. The most resilient parasite is an idea. Explosive. Highly contagious. Once formed in the brain, an idea is impossible to erradicate. My scientists tell me that even what is allegedly forgetten is still in there... somewhere. By rearranging the pieces of the puzzle into a sensible portrait, one gains the key to self-knowledge--and, thus, to taming our species' worst and most self-destructive impulses. I haven't got a map. But I do have a lovely box of dynamite. - The Art of Extraction

The first Probe Teams on Chiron were merely digital safe-crackers. When bases were overrun in the conventional manner, specialists were ushered to crawl over what remained of the defenders' Network Nodes.

It was not long before some factions expanded the scope of Probe Team activity to encompass a fuller range of intelligence missions. The Morganite outpost at Eutherium was rumored to be a traditional listening station. The Dreamers twice caught and executed confessed Restoration operatives, and, in doing so, furnished evidence sufficient to mute protests from a Planetary Council that had surely sanctioned the prisoners' work. Terrance LaCroix found evidence that the Sabre Corporation personnel who came aboard Unity with Morgan included several individuals sought by INTERPOL on suspicion of having carried out assassinations.

Anyone willing to introduce malicious code into their own base systems could earn a healthy portfolio on the Planetary Exchange. Hence Sheng-ji Yang's wry observation: "When Morgan cannot buy a meal, he is not above bribing the chefs to spoil it."

Roshann Cobb turned the page to a new era when he commissioned a Probe Team without the digital component. The archetypal Probe Team was a combination of data techs and veterans of national or military intelligence agencies, but its ability to squeeze information from human targets stopped not far past the point where bribes and brutality ended. Even with a willing confederate, they could only obtain what that person consciously knew that they knew.

The Dreamer concept required a new paradigm for thinking about a Probe Team's work. Cobb swapped out the computer scientists for physicians and psychiatrists. Equipped with vials of Somnacin and the instruments to chart, record, and analyze the neurological activity of a body at rest, they exhumed treasures never imagined by the likes of Ian Fleming.

Source: This quotation, with some adjustment by your present author, is from Christopher Nolan's 2010 film, Inception.

[Trenacker]

The degree of ideological unity achieved by each of the human factions on Chiron varied according to a number of factors. Chief among these were the extent of sympathy for the leader's vision among their immediate retinue at Planetfall, the extent to which the faction provided members with a compelling blueprint for self-actualization, and the quality of leadership provided. Ideological unity was the most reliable, and certainly the cheapest, source of faction stability.

All societies must establish structures to deal with the inherent inequality of their members. On Chiron, inequality arose from both the natural intellectual endowments of each survivor, as well as their ability to work. In theory, the rigorous U.N. screening process, which covered the vast majority of the crew, meant that baseline intellectual attainment was high, and physical fitness could be safely assumed, but the number of those incapacitated by wounds was initially very great, and natural birth, knowledge specialization, and personal preference meant that some were better-suited for certain environments than others. For all their other achievements, world-class glassmakers, pilots, pianists, jurists, chefs, theologians, artillerists, historians, and poets laureate were still unlikely to make fundamental breakthroughs in materials science or repair malfunctioning electronics. Not all of the people answering to Prokhor Zakharov were suited for, or even interested in, a life of the mind. Their place in University society was sometimes important--even vital--but never exalted. To become anything other than a researcher was to fall short of the golden ideal. Life in the Dynamic Enterprise was similarly complicated. Nwabudike Morgan, the chief protagonist in a rags-to-riches story, was an eloquent defender of meritocratic principle, but in practice, the high levels of acceptable corruption conferred almost-insurmountable advantages to those who made their fortunes in the first few years after Planetfall. Mileage varied. Department heads might believe that their staff would not perform at optimal levels without significant compensation, but they were just as likely to accept the premise that labor existed to be exploited. Terra Nova was governed by a small coterie of shareholding families who had helped Oscar van de Graaf assemble his initial subscription to the United Nations. Some of the New Two Thousand, as paid employees of the Joint Stock Company, had direct control over their own land and energy credits. Others were indentured, and survived on a basic outlay of supplies provided in weekly lots, along with whatever charity their employer might dispense.

Elsewhere, divisions between favor and disfavored classes were formalized in an explicit caste system. Military service was the minimum asking price for political voice in Raoul St. Germaine's underwater fiefdom. Yang nerve-stapled anyone who did meet his standards for intellectual and moral utility. The most-fortunate received leadership education at the ruler's right hand. The remainder became technicians or overseers. Each of the four groups ate different diets, received different political education, and spent their recovery cycles only with their own peers. In the Human Ascendancy, extreme meritocracy among the initial survivors at the Pinnacle gave way to planned geniocracy as the faction implemented Pahlavi's grand vision of producing a paragon. Individuals were, quite literally, conceived and brought up by faction minders with the ends. (Natural procreation was strictly forbidden.)  Ascendancy techs resolved most defects before full gestation, but the much-abridged adolescence of the faction's newest members received obsessive scrutiny. The price of repeat disappointing performance in any number of endeavors was to have one's genetic line excised from Pahlavi's "blueprint." Social ostracism and demotion were thereafter inevitable.

The number of individual persons in a colony and its "members" rarely meant the same thing. Many factions, including the Labyrinth, Spartans, Archimedes Group, Dreamers, and Human Ascendancy, took or kept what must be called slaves. In Sparta, helots (captives) possessed almost no formal rights and were treated as the common property of the government. Santiago used them to complete public works projects. From his high perch in the Eye of Planet, Sardul Singh challenged prisoners under his care to "elevate" themselves past the need for confinement. Good behavior earned exemption from the chain gang, and, eventually, the opportunity to pursue opportunities for work and education more in keeping with the individual's own tastes.

Some factions, particularly the Nautilus Pirates, Spartan Federation and the Hunters of Chiron, preached a physical discipline and adversarial ethos that required some to fail so that others could judge the extent of their own success. In other factions, especially among the Children of the Atom and the New State, the promise of clear direction and physical security were often enough to overcome complaints about poor quality of life.

The freest and happiest societies on Planet--the Peacekeeping Forces, the Gaians, the Conclave, and the Restoration, and the Tribe--not only embraced a minimum concept of human rights, but imposed the fewest demands on their members and made a point of releasing, if not expelling, those disinclined to their ideologies. (The Restoration was a special case: a military hierarchy, although comprised exclusively of volunteers that shared a common ethos and was strongly committed to the shared objective of getting home to Earth.)

[MysticWind]

Name: Trung Thi Hoang
Rank: Captain
Position: Shuttle Pilot
County of Origin: Vietnam
DOB: 03-08-2032

Service Record:

Born 2032, Hai Phong, Vietnamese Soviet Republic. Father a seaplane pilot, mother a futsal player. Taught to fly at an early age, receiving amateur pilot license shortly after eighteenth birthday. Studied Developmental Neuroscience at Vietnam National University. Masters program in Neuropsychology halted after five months with start of the Fourth Indochina War with signing of Zhao-Rivière Agreement. Father’s plane downed by Golden Chinese fighters during the naval 2nd Battle of Cấm River.

Enlisted in the Vietnam People's Air Force following the fall of Hanoi. Completed F-88 Lion flight training, assigned to 989th Fighter regiment, Le Thi Thu Nguyet “Iron Bird” Squadron amidst Southern Pacification Campaign. Took part in the Battle of Hải Dương, scoring first kill. Launched the final volley that sank the GCV Yuan Shikai. Continued counterattacks against invader forces, including pivotal Battle of Spratly Island. Charged with insubordination for providing cover to a civilian convoy when ordered to shoot down a Golden Prince-Marshal. Reassigned to desk job as psychological operations officer.

Served as mental health liaison to Soviet expeditionary forces after French Indochinese forces crossed 17th parallel, activation of WARPAC. Learned deep scanning, personality restoration techniques, combat meditation from GRU military advisors. Conducted landmark psych survey pinpointing cause of Annam Syndrome to French Union use of sonic subliminal stimuli weaponry. Recalled to frontline service after French Indochinese launched second invasion via Lao associated state. Deployed to new western front. Took part in initial wave that captured Vientiane, scored a career high of three kills against AAE bogeys and provided crucial cover to 967th Khe Sanh “Steel Viper” Squadron that destroyed the Indochinese Aéronavale armored war dirigible Sisavang Vatthana.

Shot down over enemy territory during Central Highlands campaign. Captured by Golden Chinese-affiliated counterrevolutionary bandits, held for forty days in infamous Camp Cloud Cobra prison. Feigned defeat under torture, offering convincing false intel that misdirected enemy assets. Despite malnourishment and sleep deprivation, formed plan with fellow prisoners including Vietnamese military servicemen, Warsaw Pact advisors, kidnapped locals, Cambodian refugees, and enslaved tribespeople. Prison revolt successful; later decorated with Military Exploit Order for role as orchestrator.

Remained in region for the duration of war. Group of fellow prisoners formed core of irregular unit Army of the Phoenix, conducting guerrilla attacks and acts of sabotage against Chinese, French, and comprador forces alike. Oversaw liberation of mercenary-occupied native villages. Became involved with one Y Thih Enuol, ethnic Rhade tribal fighter and former Cloud Cobra inmate. Gave military leadership to Y Thih while retaining internal overwatch of unit, including prosecution of looters and other offenders. Forging deep relations to local tribes, Phoenix brought expelled all invader and comprador-collaborator bandits from operation area.

Fought in Spring Festival Offensive precipitating Chinese withdrawal. Golden China’s invasion formally ended after breakdown of Zhao-Rivière. Paris affirmation of French Indochinese sovereignty over Kouang-Tchéou-Wan proved to be final straw.Deferred bereavement leave when Y Thih was KIA by retreating Chinese forces; sought and received reassignment to embedded combat psych officer in the post-New Delhi Treaty push against the French. Oversaw deprogramming of Indochinese prisoners captured during final southern campaign; paper “Demonic Rhythms: Initiation and Indoctrination Practices of the French” well-received, receiving commendation from Warsaw Pact psych researchers. Promoted to captain by end of war.

Did not return home to remaining family. Worked on reconstruction efforts in Central Highlands DMZ among Montagnard villages. Became activist on behalf of tribes, using war hero prestige to advocate for government recognition of wartime service and conferment of veteran benefits. Led womens’ rights campaign modeled after empowered tribeswomen of the Rhede, Cham, Mnong. Publicly repudiated EuroAm ninth-wave feminist consensus.

Subsequent political activities drew more controversy. Demanded prosecution of leaders responsible for Vietnamese military’s program of retaliatory torture of invader POWs. Lobbied for blacklisting of individuals identified by U.N. as probable war criminals. Accused of extrajudicial vigilantism against human traffickers, operating sleeper cells of postwar Phoenix veterans. Appointed by U.N. Alpha Centauri Mission Committee for wartime flight record and psych work. Designated survey shuttle pilot, Unity auxiliary helmsman, tertiary non-emergency psych staff.

Like many impromptu leaders born during the Unity crisis, Trung rallied both former comrades and the lost and desperate alike. Ex-Phoenix professionals stood guard and fought off attacking Holnist wreckers while Trung toiled alongside her new followers to prepare the shuttle bay for launch under rapidly unraveling circumstances. Tragically, the mission’s entire contingent of surveyor shuttles were lost to structural damage caused by a Holnist suicide bomber. Viewing the entire senseless loss of life as further continuation of the irrational conflicts of Earth, and of the tyranny of the violent against the helpless, Trung brought all of the innocents she could, notably leaving behind surrendered Holnists, and took flight to the new world.

Psych Profile: Cognitive Guardian

Extroversion and public outspokenness belie deep analytical abilities and keen observational skills. Subject presents a vibrant, imperious spirit cultivated with wartime service. Calm exterior and courage under fire ensure that subject performs admirably under high-stress crisis situations. Subject is not first to speak, but abundantly responds with detailed and deeply-considered responses when presented with provocation. Diagnosed with hyperkinesthetic acuity at early age, enabling extraordinarily high levels of spatial and motion awareness that is an asset for aviatory duties.

Driven by a deeply personal code of ethics, subject seeks to defend all those around her. Tragedy instilled fierce hatred for unwarranted aggression, deep empathy for the oppressed. Postwar estrangement from surviving family indicates potential sublimation of personal loss into societal aspirations, avoidance of unresolved pain.

Memetic analysis indicates that subject chiefly motivated by sense of justice towards the defenseless and desire to prevent further suffering. Activism for protection of war criminals included calls for more comprehensive personality tests, psychological monitoring of military personnel for potential antisocial tendencies; critics have labeled such methods a "People's Panopticon."

At-times fiery commitment to social causes, concern for the marginalized, potential distraction from overall mission. Capacity to command presents a threat to mission cohesion. Recommend subject assigned to secondary role(s) and sanctioned from ideological discussion whenever possible.

Quote: “We fly from old Earth covered in ash, dreaming of a better home. But those responsible for the great pyre are still among us. There can be no peace, no new world, until the lion lays before the lamb. Violence is a malady of the mind; all maladies must be cured.”

[Trenacker]

When you have learned to use a human to fill a gap in the line just as you would sealant to fill a crack in a wall, and with no more hesitation, then you will have understood the full extent of the resources at the Hive's disposal. - Ethics for Tomorrow

To keep his excavators digging, Yang immediately cannibalized most of the vehicles at hand after his Landing Pods made Planetfall. The Hive thus went on to operate a relatively large number of infantry for a faction its size—hardly ideal in a radioactive desert that potential targets quickly learned to avoid.

Labyrinth patrols wandered far afield to locate attractive targets. Even if the attackers used their rations sparingly, a small work party, once captured with its equipment and supplies, might yield up less in the way of food, fuel, and other supplies than it cost to find, fix, and overrun. Since the Hive was reliably aggressive and obsessively insular, it struggled to make up the shortfall through trade. Yang sent his own caravans out, but was unwilling to countenance visitors.

Despite an extremely high birthrate that preserved its manpower pools, the Hive's military didn't get better over time. Living conditions in the Labyrinth were atrocious. A regime of psychological terror was worsened by chronic lack of food and water. Ironically, Yang favored feeding the Drones who were building his warrens and the monitors keeping them in line over the Talents assisting him to rule. But low morale and malnutrition alone do not fully explain faction’s ignominious military record.

Simply put, Yang sapped the Hive of the conditions to produce effective junior officers. Only one in three Hivemen was spared the lobotomizing effects of the Nerve Staple. The fortunate few were rarely prepared for the eager truth-telling and high independence required of successful battlefield commanders. Of the standout commanders that did emerge in spite of these obstacles, many were killed by the Hive's foes before they could pass on their craft.

In time, the rising powers of Chiron tired of Yang’s capriciousness and, increasingly confident in their strength, visited upon the Human Labyrinth a fearsome retribution, razing the outworks of two of Yang’s six known settlements. Secreted in their subterranean fastness, Yang and his disciples rode out the storm, but emerged to find their moisture collectors dismantled and echelon mirrors smashed. Worst of all, the rampaging allies carted away huge quantities of Yang’s primary export, the radioactive metal that gave the Flats their name.

[Trenacker]

Once a man changes the relationship between himself and his environment, he perforce gains a new frame of reference. Try as he might, he cannot return to the ignorance he left. Motion changes perspective. If you're stuck, move. The deep thinking comes later. - The Lost World

Of all the technologies ferried across the stars by Unity, none was more decisive to the survival of the First Settlements than the Scout Rover. Formally the Fairchild-Grumman Light All-Terrain Reconnaissance Vehicle Chassis, this ultra-light, ruggedized motor vehicle served in dozens of different applications across every environment Planet had to offer. Earth-mover, ambulance, crane, gun platform, and recovery vehicle—the hardy little ‘Rover did it all and then some.

Powered by sunlight, the baseline model's range was theoretically limitless. Small and light enough in its basic form to be broken down and carried on the backs of just two men, it was hauled up and over mountain ranges, then reassembled on the other side. It even shot rapids. When no foil was at hand, the ‘Rover’s tires could be super-inflated and the vehicle floated like a Conestoga wagon of old.

University of Planet Rover 226, captured in the drone feed above, retained the same mission profile as its simpler forebears but its design reflected from more than a century of hard lessons-learned. The variable wheelbase could be adjusted for heavier cargoes, smoother travel, climbing, and trench-crossing. Cargo pods, easily loaded from the top or rear of its cage, were magnetized to the rover's hull. Steep climbs, high speeds, and hard evasive action no longer risked detachment. If swarmed by xenofungus, the Rover could eject its self-contained cockpit to an altitude of 200' and a distance of more than 700'. A fusion battery, carried in containment behind the pilot, provided ample power for the miniaturized engine. For simpler routes, an onboard AI replaced the crew of one.

Judging by the lack of a defense weapon and self-recovery equipment, it is safe to assume that Rover 226 was relegated to rear-area work.

Source: This quotation slightly altered from the original, which was ascribed to Lal, in connection with Doctrine: Mobility.

[Trenacker]

Prisoner transports unload their cargo at the Memory Palace while troopers in first-generation power armor look on. The garrison in this vid-cap surely did not survive long: their attention is misdirected on the disembarkation process, and not the horizon from which attack might come.

Most captives taken in battle by the Dreamers of Chiron were put to the productive and service functions required of any viable base, from farming to facilities maintenance. Talents were another matter.

At best, a Talent was a leader in possession of important factual knowledge about faction governance. At worst, a Talent was an intellectual with ideas that might kick-start the Dreamer's own research activities. Both could be "extracted" through the process known as oneiromachaíri, the "dream knife."

Armored personnel carriers fetched high-value targets back to unique detention centers. Struan's engineers crossed the University's penchant for transformable structures with Yang's insight that what could not be seen was less likely to be attacked. Once loaded, the prisons were ratcheted back down below the surface, protected by blast shields up to a foot thick.

To prepare their subjects for lucid dreaming, Dreamer goalers placed them in sensory deprivation chambers (the square modules clearly visible on the facing surface of the prison, above the intake ramp). The process was similar to the Wespe-Quinn-Vagner method of hibernation: prisoners were partially submerged in warm, salty water, in sound-proofed spaces, without light. Recording devices heard their every utterance, charted their every heartbeat. Roshann Cobb's records confirm that not a single prisoner survived the ordeal with their mental faculties intact. More than a third suffered myocardial or stroke events within less than three hours of interment. After four hours, severe and irreversible psychosis created the conditions that Dreamer retrieval specialists were seeking.

Unwrapped like that, the broken mind is just archaeology waiting to happen. A good oneirologist knows the universal symbology common to all human dreams. A better one can distinguish cultural signposts. Those are your buckets. Everything goes into a bucket. Then, you play the tapes and move it all around. It'll never be a perfect fit, but you can always tell a temple from a hovel or a tower. - Rebuilding Man

[MysticWind]

Rosa Carlota

Service Record

Born 2030, Cuba, to a military family whose martial exploits dates to the revolutionary era. Drawn to armed forces even before compulsory service, entered the Career Officers School at age 16. Excelled in her ideological education as well as drills. Offered an opportunity to serve abroad. Chose exchange program in Portuguese West Africa during the 21st century failed war of independence. Initial noncombat duties in MPLAN-held territory sporadically interrupted by attacks from Portuguese incursions, French-backed UNITNAM insurgents. Ably held her own, successfully rallying fellow junior officers and the MPLAN rebels to the barricades, beating back the counterrevolutionaries. Subsequently promoted to combat command, involved in multiple guerrilla attacks against Estado Novo expeditionaries in the jungle interior.

Stayed in-country alongside thousands of Cuban volunteers after WARPAC forces withdrew after official Belgian entrance into war. Eventually accepted commission with the MPLAN. Spent most of her military career waging insurgencies. Seriously wounded in Gran Leste offensive against Franco-Belgian-Katangese coalition forces, promoted to first lieutenant. Struggled through rehabilitation, but by the time she was deemed fit for active duty, the revolutionary leadership had broken down and accepted disarmament.

Officially retired in early 2060s. U.N. Intelligence Cell concludes Carlota immediately began taking training contracts with various ideologically aligned armed non-state actors in Françafrique, Portuguese East Africa, and elsewhere on the continent. Most recently spotted in the Ethiopias in 2066 training the PDREM against Morgan Industries-sponsored governments ("Mugatustans"). Implicated in half a dozen attacks against space elevators and other aerospace complexes, including the 2062 Stanleyville Bombings.

U.N.I.C. determines there is high probability subject has already infiltrated the mission via the Stellar Lifeboat Project. Strong likelihood subject is in disguise as one of the international refugees and internally displaced persons given new lease on life as Unity colonists in the UNHCR program. Potential motivation ranges from continued personal vendetta against imperial enemies, desire to spread ideological struggle to the stars, or even fulfillment of monetary contract on behalf of unknown benefactors. High degree of certainty that subject is in contact with various revolutionary leftist and national liberation movements covertly represented aboard the ship.

Psych Profile: Global Seditionary

Born and bred revolutionary. Linked to multiple communist, decolonialist, and other anti-imperialist movements throughout Africa. Willing to commit sabotage and terrorism to further goals.

Ideological zeal tempered by military discipline. Father was a major in the Cuban Revolutionary Army. Strong early influence on subject’s upbringing, encouraged military pursuits prior to departure for full-time service in Central American interventions.

Memetic analysis suggests common thread of subject’s beliefs rests in struggle against the multinational oldline entities preying upon the colonies, whether political, economic, or spiritual. Testimony from former MPLAN comrades suggests that subject viewed U.N. Alpha Centauri initiatives as “Earth’s final pillaging by kings.” Repeatedly voiced concerns that the imperial powers were using interstellar colonization project to hide massive wealth transfers from the planet's working classes, accelerate resource exploitation of the subjugated. Vowed that such plundering could not continue to the next world.

[MysticWind]

The Prokofiev-class armored war airship ascended to the bulwark of Soviet stability in troubled regions during the latter half of the 21st century, another symbol of the Red Air Armada's near-unchallenged might over the territories of the Warsaw Pact. The USSR first employed war airships in policing actions en masse during the extended Constitutional Crisis of the early 1990s, in which Osoaviakhim-class rigid airships proved decisive in putting down reformist and splittist elements. In the decades that followed, airship engineering advanced by leaps and bounds amidst brushfire wars from the Caucasus to the Black Sea. With their silent flight, high reach above range of MANPADS, and their looming profile as artificial clouds, they wreaked havoc upon infantry targets and enemy facilities alike with near endless supplies of bombs. Low fuel requirements meant airships could operate as longer-term self-sustaining floating fortresses, complete with repair workshops, compartments of surveillance and armed defense drones, and even docking bays for smaller aircraft.

Many generations later, modern state-of-the-art airships such as the flagship Kirov are commonly seen patrolling the unsteady autonomous republics of Central Asia, the uneasy streets of Kaliningrad, the uncertain Outer Mongolian S.S.R.-Golden Manchurian border, and the unseemly slums around the space elevator zones. Many other air forces have adopted airships for their own purposes, from conventional military invasions all the way down to commercial propaganda use towards unwitting onlookers.

Airship use on Chiron did not arrive until the introduction of Doctrine: Lighter-Than-Air Power. While primitive aerostats were used in the exploration of the Planet, drawing from identifiable sources of helium, the refinement of such chemicals was costly and considered a low priority, especially when such vehicles were often at the mercy of swarms of Locusts of Chiron. Only adequate development of factional industrial capabilities would make their use feasible again as they were on Earth. In the latter ages that were to follow, the discovery of Monopole Magnets and similar technologies that similarly led to the invention of the Hovertank would provide truly native Planetary airships that did not rely upon lifting gases at all, but fundamental forces of matter that would counteract the forces of gravity.

[Trenacker]

A reporter for The Wall Street Journal once asked me whether I stuck my thumb on the scales of justice. Absolutely I did. The hand must be seen to sit firmly on that scale. That's the only way it works. We say that justice is blind for a reason. Too many people think that means it is fair. Not true. You've got to lead justice. You have to collect the facts, but you have to make sense of them, too. Justice itself isn't going to do that for you. The blind can't lead. - Under My Wings, All Things Prosper: A History of the American Reclamation Corporation, Vol. 2

To enforce the compact at the center of his proprietary community, Oscar van de Graaf relied upon the same mercenary soldiers that had served him as head of the American Reclamation Corporation.

In addition to base defense and internal security, these so-called Regulators performed a third function: asset recovery.

Forty-four percent of Unity's construction vehicles, including virtually all the terraforming rigs, were put up by van de Graaf and his top stakeholders. Under the terms of his contracts with the United Nations Mission to Alpha Centauri, they were on five-year loan, with Captain Jonathan Garland acting as guarantor. Van de Graaf argued that General Francisco d'Almeida's abrogation of the Unity Charter had cut the mission short, and the loan with it.

The Regulators had a mixed track record. Every faction fought desperately to defend its heavy equipment, and the ARC warriors, while certainly competent, faced superior adversaries in the form of Ascendancy Legionnaires, New State Fencibles, Spartan Myrmidons, and Tribal Minutemen. Even ambushing 'Formers carried high risk. Road crews were usually game for a fight and retrofitted their rides with all manner of defenses including turret-mounted machine guns, banks of launchers for smoke and fragmentation grenades, and even guided anti-tank missiles. Nor was military victory a certain prelude to mission success. If defeat seemed assured, better to disable or destroy those irreplaceable assets than let them serve a rival. By M.Y. 90, the Regulators had added just three squadrons worth of 'Formers to the New Two Thousand's motor pool.

[Trenacker]

We are used to confusing life with abundance. The cell multiples. The seed ripens and grows. But I challenge you to remember that not all growth is healthy. - Remarks in Assembly

A biostatic is a substance that prevents or discourages the growth of a living thing.

The field of medical biostatics advanced quickly among the First Settlements. Every life was precious, and all leaders hoped to return as many survivors as possible to healthy productivity. Biostatic interventions played a central role in the story of this recovery because of the nature of the afflictions themselves. Many of the sick were suffering from aggressive cancers brought on by radiation exposure. There were also large numbers of people who had been shot by bullets or flechettes. Fighting malignant cell growth and preventing cytokine storms kept medical staff busy around the clock.

Once humans began interacting on a regular basis with native life forms, especially fungal tubers, biostatic ointments were an essential element of the treatments plans for minor cuts and bruises. Fungal fibers were barbed and could embed in the skin like splinters, where they released compounds that caused rapid necrosis through hardening. Biostatics could slow the process long enough for microsurgery to remove the offending contaminants, or for inorganic chemotherapies to kill them.

[Trenacker]

Nay! Speak not of Satan, sir. His lieutenant, and mine, is yet in my neighbor-room. Or what report shall he give his true master? – The Tragedy of the House of Luxembourg, Part II, Act 1, Scene 1

Struan’s Pacific Trading Company was a Hong Kong conglomerate involved principally in agriculture and pharmaceuticals. The conglomerate's holdings in Africa alone exceeded fifty million hectares under irrigated cultivation. Frequent political strife on the continent impelled the company’s directors to make strategic investments in a “government services” division full of fixers that often stole the spotlight from its more mundane business operations. The Chairman of the Struan’s Board, Ian Dunross Struan, was known to defend these decisions as the “unavoidable cost” of retaining an international footprint, implying that one had to be cruel to be kind.

In 2070, just over a year ahead of mission launch, Struan’s became the twelfth and final prime contractor for the United Nations Mission to Alpha Centauri. The Secretariat was in panic. It had exhausted the goodwill first of the United States, then the Soviet Union, then the Non-Aligned Movement. After also being shut out of Western Europe, it had turned in desperation to private sponsors. In return for refreshing the Mission’s depleted accounts, the Struan’s tai-pan was allowed to place aboard Unity some twenty thousand employees and counter-parties beholden to himself. A wave of similar deals followed, and contingents embarked by Morgan Industries and the American Reclamation Corporation were each twice as large and much better-funded. Yet the Struan’s contribution was arguably unique.

Struan’s—with roots reaching back to the African slave and Chinese opium trades. Struan’s—a company that never looked to outrun or outgrow its position on the liminal edge of the law. Few secrets were more open than the involvement of Struan’s in-house intelligence services in the sustainment of neo-colonialism. On behalf of his NATO clients, the tai-pan underwrote regimes in Amman, Beirut, Elizabethville, Pretoria, and Tehran.  Golden China trusted no one else with the “reeducation” of Communist Party apparatchiks. And who was suspected in the “accidental” death of an Australian prime minister determined to steer his country out of the Commonwealth? It was no exaggeration to say that entire divisions of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs were kept employed bringing cases against Struan’s and its subsidiaries.

I clean up my space. I lock up my chest. Dole Yudikon comes and takes all the rest. – Rhyme of Minding, Warm Welcome Children’s Crèche

When picking his representatives on Chiron, Ian Dunross began as he often did: with family. In the Scots peerage, Struan’s was called the Noble House, but the private conduct of its squires strayed far from that standard. The leader of Struan’s Unity contingent was one Roshann Cobb, the tai-pan’s illegitimate son.

In an earlier age, Cobb would have been made a bishop or a cardinal. If very lucky, perhaps packed off to the Americas or India to make his fortune. If unlucky, he might become a midshipman or an adjutant. But this is the Rocket Age. On Planet, he may have a kingdom. – Ken Burns's Planet: A History

Cobb’s qualifications were controversial, but not disqualifying per se. Like his natural-born siblings, he had received a public school education befitting his family’s pretensions, first Eton, then Oxford, where he read philosophy. Five years with MI6 reportedly left him a changed man, and for the better. Gone was the wastrel who had misspent his Kowloon youth as a bet runner. In his place there was a professional crisis manager who took the wheel of Struan’s Hong Kong just as Asia entered a period of severe market instability.

Preserving market share meant papering over failed clinical trials of psycho-dynamic drugs and beating a rash of lawsuits for intellectual property theft, but the proof was in the pudding and the flavor proved palatable. In time, Struan’s gained the patents to protect their investments and the political influence required to lock their competitors out of emerging markets in the Communist Bloc. Young Cobb succeeded in positioning his father’s company as the global leader in funding for research in brain mechanics and lucid dreaming. At a series of symposiums boycotted by most Western scientists, Cobb collected to himself a rogue’s gallery whose bleeding-edge, often ethically execrable research laid the foundations for cold sleep, thought extraction, neural recoding, and more.

The principal interest of a corporate sponsor was return-on-investment. This marked a signal departure from the thinking that had spurred the mission’s very design, for it implied that Unity would be more first grasp than last gasp. To realize profit, it would be at least necessary to restore contact with Earth. Risk managers working for the United Nations gave the Earth a term of no more than fifty years before the next extinction event, yet not even one of Unity’s corporate underwriters agreed that Earth’s affliction was fatal.

Today I saw the men who have come to lie for their countries. – Personal Diary, Observations at the Basel Accords

[1] The apocryphal play is the brainchild of @etranger01, who made a Grand Strategic Roleplaying game of it on the Sufficient Velocity Forums.

[Trenacker]

Jonathan Garland, though born to the American purple, was for all practical purposes an expatriate. His childhood influences were ecumenical to say the least, and who could say whether genuine academic accomplishment or a diplomat mother’s connections won him access to the United States Space Force Academy in Panama City? Afterward, a life in United Nations service took him to the furthest edges of human habitation in the solar system and back again.

The Secretariat-General had been delighted to find that their token American lacked any desire to participate in his country’s great civil war and compromised with Washington by placing Garland in a logistician’s role. After the war, Garland went up with the space elevators and stayed there.

Tendentious negotiations over water rights in the Main Belt, urgent rescues in zero-gravity, and precise shepherding of consumable resources—these were the essential kernels of experience that his U.N. masters later came to believe had fitted Garland to command the exodus from his species’ homeworld. He departed Earth having never fired a weapon in anger.

Time-Life hailed him as “the ultimate compromise candidate,” acceptable to Washington because he was American, and to Moscow because he was the closest approximation to Phillip Nolan still on the rolls. A popular saying went that he was just uninteresting enough for the job.

Garland was a non-entity to many of his theoretical subordinates. After several screaming matches with his fellow officers went unpunished, Prokhor Zakharov pegged Garland as "weak-willed, with a tendency to talk when he should act." Francisco d'Almeida had been briefed by the Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado that Garland would have no friends among the mission's multinational command crew and few natural allies in either temperament or outlook. Having reviewed some of the latter's speeches, d'Almeida told his national press that the Unity's captain was "obviously a Utopianist," which in the general's opinion was "not ideal." The U.N. hoped that, at the very least, the Portuguese martinet would complement Garland's softer style but the two men did not socialize ahead of the mission and d'Almeida was never present for Garland's showdowns with other subordinates. Chief of Security Rachael Winzenried, killed by the original meteorite strike, recorded in her diary that Garland seemed never to have made peace with his own decision to bring U.N. Marines aboard ship--even though it was a widely-acknowledged certainty that the U.N. Security Forces were lousy with Holnists. At the founding of Terra Nova, Oscar van de Graaf remembered Garland to his followers as "a pathological consensus-seeker" they were all better off without.

In the moment of extremity, Garland found that himself the victim of two mutinies, one slow-moving, the other fast. After calculating the odds, Garland wanted to eject the damaged main reactor and place Unity on a long slingshot run that would allow it to try the approach to Alpha Centauri again. His Chief Engineer, Zakharov, refused to accept this plan, having calculated that he himself would be unlikely to survive the traumatic return to hibernation. Zakharov's solution was to retreat to the damaged aft reactor bay so that he could personally direct repairs. Before Garland could intervene, the Spartans emerged from hiding, guns blazing.

Coordinated attacks on the bridge damaged sensor feeds to other parts of the ship. Thus Garland had less actionable information about what was happening aboard Unity than his first officer, Francisco d'Almeida. Despite Garland's orders to focus on damage control operations, d'Almeida began waking defenders. (Some, like fellow Portuguese officer Fong Na Spínola, claim that d'Almeida could no longer raise Garland on internal comms when that decision was made.) Nevertheless, the influx of engineers and security personnel was insufficient to either repair the damaged reactor or put down the Spartan revolt, though it certainly slowed life-saving operations and may also have prevented an outcome in which Unity could have been placed in a geosynchronous orbit.

[Trenacker]

Name: Kleisel Mercator
Rank: Sub-Commander
Position: Commander, Unity Air Group
County of Origin: West Germany
DOB: 4-17-2016
Height: 188cm
Weight: 96kg

Service Record:
Member of first graduating class of Inter-European Air Forces Academy. Flew one of seven Luftwaffe Panavia Tornado combat aircraft during May 27th, 2039 Baltic Sea Intrusion. Credited with 2 aerial kills against Soviet MiG-67N Falchions flown off Soviet aircraft carrier Chiatura, earning Bundeswehr Cross of Honour for Valor.

Hand-picked to participate in groundbreaking West German military mission to Yugoslav Air Force and Air Defense. Stationed at Željava Air Base, an air base tunneled into the side of Plješevica mountain and the headquarters for the country's networked early warning radar system. Duties included strategic planning for OPFOR as part of a two month-long war exercise following the suspicious sinking of the frigate Split in the Albanian port of Durrës in October 2044. Yugoslavia credited the loss to the KGB.

Family emergency in early 2047 resulted in reassignment from North Germany to Graz, Alpine Air Defense Zone. Commanded 76 Tactical Air Wing, part of NATO Response Force, equipped with Panavia Recht multirole fighter. Achieved consistently high readiness levels through frequent drills. Praised by in-country U.S. Commanders for aggressive posture toward potential air space encroachments by WARPAC fliers. Attracted complaints from French and Soviets alleging needlessly provocative conduct. Reassigned to non-combat roles at the insistence of the short-lived Werner detente government, 2052. Disciplined for giving interview with Der Spiegel in which subject questioned the integrity of West Germany's commitment to self-defense, NATO, and the preservation of a united, democratic European Community.

Volunteered for service with West German National Contingent in 2054, formed to respond to the Canadian's Government's urgent request for military assistance to face down the Quebec Emergency. Coordinated missions for German-Danish ground-support squadron as part of Montreal and Gros Morne Campaigns. Loss of three pilots to ground fire (Soviet surface-to-air missiles) caused scandal in West Germany. Approached by Federal Intelligence Service in connection with the then-still-embryonic Price Mutiny. Subject was judged "reliable," but political considerations led to subject's recall.

Twelve years with U.N. Relief Mission in the Indian Ocean (UNRMIO), four enforcing Shamash Demilitarized Zone. On December 25, 2057 Combat Air Patrol above Ussaylas River Valley, recorded gun camera footage of Unidentified Flying Object. Soon reassigned to Islamabad Blast Zone as German military attaché. Frequently volunteered with local Pakistani aid clinics.

Luftwaffe observer attached to German Antarctic Expedition, 2065-68. Prepared first detailed reports on undeclared Soviet installation in Enderby Land. Retired from active service in July 2068. Relocated to Lunar Colony.

Recommended for appointment to U.N. Mission to Alpha Centauri by German National Selection Committee in November 2041. Accepted, December 2069. Subject's remit included flight command for Unity's complement of trans-orbital shuttles and conventional fixed-wing and rotorcraft.

Subject was awakened as part of General Francisco d'Almeida's effort to mobilize officers who could direct common action against the ship's then-unknown attackers. Standing over subject's cryopod, uniformed officers of the crew helped him dress and handed him a shredder pistol. Subject was badly injured during destruction of Hangar Bay Ӆ by a Holnist bomber. Stabilized through the interventions of medics working under the protection of shuttle pilot Trung Thi Hoang. Left behind after a nearby defender confirmed subject's identity and record of former service against Free Quebec. Recovered by security forces loyal to Francisco d'Almeida. Current whereabouts unknown.

Psych Profile: Cynic
Answers to Newcomb Nuclear Attitudes Questionnaire indicates that subject suffers from high levels of nuclear anxiety, almost certainly linked to military service.

Friends and relations describe subject as fatalistic, believing that the West had lost the political will to sustain its fight against International Communism. Maintained these views even through the period of abrupt Soviet decline starting circa 2060. Those closest to subject confirmed that, after Ussaylas Incident, he began "methodically searching for answers," and became increasingly convinced that there was "another space race" raging between the West and the Soviets over access to objects of potentially extraterrestrial origin.

U.N. Intelligence Cell found that subject's personal databases included security-locked reports relating to communications with Earth from the Pathfinder Probe, apparently obtained during his time in military service.

Protégé of SETI Vice Chairman Oratile Mokoena, with whom he first corresponded following Ussaylas encounter. Both men later participated in the German Antarctic Expedition. Subject is believed to have visited Mokoena at Lunar Large Array shortly before reporting for mission induction.

Faction: The Memory of Earth
Affinity: Purity
Priorities: Discover, Command
What is the fundamental truth of the universe? Humany is not the only intelligent life.
Why did civilization on Earth fail? We lacked a common external threat strong enough to unite us.
What is needed for the human species to survive, and thrive, on Chiron? The Unity survivors must share in the common struggle against an external threat that compels them to flatter the better angels of their nature.