| The
Black Magic Project The Story of Human Exploration and Discovery Beyond the Orion Arm The materials contained herein unless otherwise noted are the copyright of J. Austin Wilde, 1991 to 2009, all rights reserved. |
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Navigation Home Sagittarius Colonial Atlas Ahriman (HM+31 0938 B) Amethyst (HB+32 3331 B) Angelique (HM-50 2602 B) Apollonia/Phyrigia (HD+35 2475 A) Aquilla (SAG+56 0107) Arkhangelsk (HM+41 2746) Atlantis (HM+52 0225) Aurora (HM+47 2620 A) Avignon (HM+31 3323) Baker's End (SAG-36 0528) Bellarmine (HM+36 1662 A) Bellissimo (HM+40 2827) Beowulf (HM+39 5516 A) Bounty (HB+38 0524 A) Buran (HD+32 1678) Cauldron (SAG+47 1522) Charybdis (HB+56 0404 B) Concordia (HM+00 2422 A) Cora's World (HM-40 2634) Daedelus (SAG+45 4907 A) Demeter (HM+31 3563) Destiny (HD+47 0309) Dustbowl/New Deseret (SAG-42 4503 B) Frontiera (HD+40 1336) Frostpile (SAG+43 2208) Fury (HM+53 0102 A) Gateway (HM+00 0000) Goldrush (SAG+33 2643) Gulag (HD+40 4019) Hecate's Hate (HM+32 3972) Hyperborea (SAG+44 1855 B) Ice Station Mike (HD+42 3267) Ice Station Oscar (HD+42 5807) Inshallah (HM+53 0608) Jena (HB-33 4139 A) Jewel/Sulfur Flats (HM+41 0955 A & B) Jin Xian (HM-45 4415) Jove/Fuzhou (SAG+49 2911 A & B) Libertad (HD-46 2312) Marino (HD-31 4687) Midgard/Muspellheim (HD+54 1018) Mirabilis (HM-45 1718) Neu Bavaria (HM+31 7329) New Anchorage (HD+35 3455 A) New Ares (HM+57 0405 A) New Havana (HM+55 1217) New Tanstaafl (HM+43 3626 A) New Taranto (HB+31 2685 A) New Zion (HD+47 0954) Paydirt (HM+36 2309) Porto Fria (HM-52 2716 A) Pu'huonua (HM+35 2017) Research Station Victor (HB+55 1522) Sakura (HM-31 0629) Sandovar (HM+34 0139 A) Santa Clara (SAG+31 0179 B) Scherzo (SAG+55 2007 B) Sheba's World/Neu Bayer (HD-51 1306 A) Tanner's World (HB-32 1052) Tartarus (HM+31 5806) The Alamo (HM+34 0552 B) Tortuga (HD-37 4529) Toulon (SAG+55 0823 A) Valhalla (HD+31 1168) Viracocha (HM+31 1175 A) Waypoint November (HM+31 1969 A) Waypoint Omega (HM-06 1121 A) Waypoint Tango (HD+41 4528 A) Waypoint X-Ray (HD-66 1619) Waypoint Yankee (HD+10 1721) Waystation Alfa (HM+34 1207) Xiamen (HM+48 2891 B) Zhengzhou (HM-27 9791 B) Encyclopedia Spacecraft Technology Classification Designs AMC Registry of Vessels |
ENCYCLOPEDIA
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The Encyclopedia contains information
regarding the Sagittarius Arm and its inhabitants as well as relevant
historical knowledge of people, places, and events that led to its
colonization. Entries are cross-referenced as much as practical
to allow free-form browsing of the databanks so that visitors may
explore the spiral arm at their own pace. Users may begin their
search by clicking on the letters below corresponding to their items of
interest.
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| End of
History, The The End of History is a terrorist organization formed out of the ashes of the collapse of the Nanotopia movement in 2258 by Jasyn Gallando and several of his supporters. Originally considered left-wing and with a violent anarchist bent, the leadership of the group soon took on a nihilist philosophy and the group splintered even further in ideology and methodology. While their message has often been incoherent, and even at times self-contradictory, their basic 'goal' is the return of the human race to Earth to live a lifestyle in 'harmony' with the natural order. Some factions of the group are adamantly Luddite, demanding the human race return to a pre-industrial way of life, while others continue to espouse the technosocialism of the original Nanotopians. All factions agree that the time for words is long past, and that violent 'direct action' against the pillars of man's interstellar empire is the only available course, no matter the cost in blood. Any human construct in space is fair game to be destroyed. Any colony outside of Earth's biosphere is an abomination that must be destroyed. Man must be humbled before he can return to nature, his empires in space burned out of existence, and his pollution of other worlds ended. The End of History has had in fact an amazingly bloody career over the past hundred years. Numerous starships and orbital habitats have been bombed or sabotaged, public figures related to interstellar colonization and exploitation assassinated, and finally, they caused the destruction of the Epsilon Eridani-Epsilon Indi Stargate in 2359, which killed over six million people and nearly destroyed the entire interstellar economy. It is considered a distinct possibility that the End of History may have been directly responsible for the collapse of the Sagittarius-Orion Stargate in 2361, and at the very least, their threats against it may have indirectly contributed to the crash even if they were not directly responsible. Numerous pundits, politicians, commentators, and social scientists over the years have attempted to uncover what motivates its members to do the terrible things they do, and how they manage to attract new recruits in spite of their often suicidal actions. Innumerable books have been written, video documentaries made, and dramatic works performed trying to find the answer. Governments and Megacorporations have attempted to infiltrate the group and destroy it, but its decentralized structure and its fractured ideology have made this an impossible task. They are perhaps best summarized in the words of the famed psychologist Dr. Irving Keitel: "The
End of History is a cancer of mankind. It is the corruption and
atrophy of the body
politic,
the ironic turning upon itself as a result of its own success.
Their politics are
the
politics of Envy. They could not exist in
a world of ruin and poverty. Only the riches
of
our interstellar
world, with all its promise,
potential,
and reward, could inspire
such self-loathing madness." The End of History is known to have infiltrated at least one cell into Sagittarius, where they hijacked a freighter and attempted to destroy the isolated asteroid colony of The Alamo in the HM+34 0552 B System in August 2358. They were armed with several antiship missiles which did considerable damage, and carried three dozen fanatics who planned to board the asteroid colony and massacre the survivors. The intervention of the nearby prospecting ship MV Clementine, with its powerful mining laser, was the only thing that spared over 8000 souls. The three terrorist survivors of the attack were remanded to the SDC via Jan Mercer and the Enterprise (AMC-003). They were taken to Fury, and despite the protests of the United Nations and NGOs like Amnesty International, were tried by a panel of three SDC lawyers, convicted of piracy in open space and crimes against humanity, and hanged on 29 January 2360. It is the date of their execution, the 29th of January, that leads to strong suspicions that the End of History was responsible for the Sagittarius stargate crash exactly one year later. |
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| Enterprise
(AMC-003) Second starship of the Bonaventure class Heavy Explorer. Keel laid 12 October 2350, Commissioned 31 March 2353. Enterprise was a Block I model until 2361, when it was refit to the Block III standard. Enterprise participated in Expeditions ONE through FIVE before undergoing its refit. Enterprise responded to an attack by the nihilist group The End of History on the asteroid colony of The Alamo in the HM+34 0552 B System in August 2358, and conducted the three terrorist survivors to Fury, where they were hanged in 2360. The ship's master has been Jan Mercer throughout the ship's existence. For more information on the class, click here. |
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| Estrella
Esperanza Estrella Esperanza Shipyards is a prestigious spacecraft builder based on Terranova, in the Alpha Centauri system. Founded in 2253 by two Cuban expatriates who immigrated to the American colony of Independence as builders of small orbital vehicles, their rapid success allowed them to expand and construct their own shipyard in orbit above Terranova in 2258. Their shipyard was the first private graving dock located outside the Solar System, and soon found itself overwhelmed with work. A further expansion of the yards over the next twenty years saw Estrella Esperanza grow to become the yard of choice for merchant, military, and scientific vessels from all nationalities. The shipyard is now one of the most important facilities for building, repairing, and refitting starships in the Orion Arm. Estrella Esperanza has tackled three significant projects in recent history - the design and construction of the Pleiades expedition starship Maia, commanded by the famous Pietro Caravaggio, the design and construction of the Bonaventure class explorers for the SDC, and the unique space-going palace, SS Ahura Mazda (AMC-115). |
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| Exotic Tweak Modern society of the 24th Century has access to body modification technology impossible in the 21st Century, and with that technology has come a desire to exploit it to its fullest potential. For those who can afford such luxuries, body modification has become the ultimate form of self-expression and of conspicuous consumption. The Exotic is the logical outcome of such technology, a person who through nano-surgery, biotech, bodysculpting, cybernetics, and genome modification has become something Other. Most exotics exploit a desire to become a creature of fantasy and whimsy. Skin and hair modifications are the most common, as are minor anthropomorphic mods that create anime style 'petting zoo people' such as foxpeople, catpeople, bunnypeople, and other animal types, though there are more than a few who embrace their darker side and transform themselves into satyrs, vampires, demons, reptiles, and other nightmares of the human spirit. Exotic tweaks can trace their origins all the way back to the end of the 20th century, with primitive body modification techniques consisting of various piercings and tattoos, scarring, hair dyeing, teeth filing, tongue splitting, pigment scraping to lighten skin tone, spray on tans to darken it, and exotic contact lenses. Such modifications were received with varying degrees of acceptance within mainstream society and were often little more than fads that came and went. A more serious approach to body modification and genetic tweaking came from those within the Transhumanist movement. These people sought nothing less than to become more than human. Brazilian based Biosynth was one of the first high-tech corporations with a Transhumanist agenda, and they produced adaptive genemods for living on Mars, in microgravity, deep underwater, and high radiation environments. Even more than these useful mods, the rich and shameless desired new ways to flaunt their wealth and status, and Biosynth and its competitors led the way in answering their call. Joygirls and Joyboys, people with tweaked pheremone glands and enhanced tolerance for alcohol and recreational drugs were one side of the exotic coin, and the influence of anime and manga from Japan and the rest of the Pacific Rim saw genemods that made eyes bigger and brighter, mouths and noses tinier, chests that defied the laws of physics, and other hypersexualized traits became the other side of the coin. The Anthropomorphic Movement, composed of people who believed themselves to be animals trapped in the bodies of human beings, embraced radical bodysculpting mods that produced fur, muzzles, and tails. Many of these 'Furries,' as they often referred to themselves, were driven out of mainstream society or else opted out on their own and became Hiders. Life as an Exotic can be difficult, as by their very definition, they are unusual and rare, and can attract negative attention from others as well as positive. The worst are those who fall in with exotic fads, as they frequently find themselves out of fashion and stuck with their unhip bodies unless they can afford or are physically able to reverse their procedures. A slang term for someone who has worn out their body with numerous mods in order to keep up with the fleeting whimsy of fashion is an 'Em-Jay,' presumably named for 20th century performer Michael Jackson, whose own adventure with body modification came to a gruesome end. |
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