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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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'uhuonua (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
| Magellan (AMC-005) |
Manchuria | Manchuria-Jovian War | Manhattan class |
| Marino | Martian Alliance | Martian Tweak | Mercer Compact |
| Mercer, Frederick | Mercer, Jan | Mercer, Joachim | Mercer-Aurimas, Gwendolyne |
| Mercer-Aurimas, Laeticia | Mercer Heavy Industries | Merkava class | Midgard |
| Ming Xing class | Mirabilis | Musgrave (AMC-008) | |
Fifth starship of the Bonaventure class Heavy Explorer, and the last remaining original Block II model. Named for Portugese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. Keel laid 9 July 2351, Commissioned 31 March 2353. Magellan was a Block II model until 2360, when it was refit to the Block III standard. Magellan participated in Expeditions ONE through FOUR before undergoing its refit, then participated in Expedition SIX.
For more information on the class, click here.
Old Earth nation consisting of portions of the former People's Republic of China that was created following the 2nd Chinese Civil War in the mid 21st Century. Manchuria is considered to be a regional power on Earth and a major interstellar power. The Manchurian government consists of bureaucrats from the major Chinese cities of Shanghai, Nanjing, Jinan, and Shenyang who rule from the symbolically important city of Beijing. They rule over most of old China, with the southern, mostly coastal provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Guangxi, and Hunan separating into their own nation, the Guangzhou Directorate. The Manchurians have never forgiven their southern cousins for destroying the PRC during their war of secession, but to date have been unable to return their wayward provinces to heel. More importantly, Manchuria has been embroiled in a series of wars and border skirmishes with Russia, both over the Russian Far East and over interstellar trade. An infamous Commerce War undertaken by mercenary and privateer proxies between Manchuria and her enemies: Russia, India, and Guangzhou, has bled over into numerous engagements in space with the other Great Powers. This commerce war was formally ended with a trade agreement with Russia and recognition of Guangzhou in 2359.
Manchuria was quick to get into space, and founded the first national colony in the Solar System at the L4 LaGrange point. An aggressive colonization effort to Europa and the other Jovian moons followed, with the hope of monopolizing the entire Jovian system. These hopes were dashed when the Manchurian colonies on Europa rebelled and attempted to join the fledgling Jovian League of independent colonies. Manchuria responded by creating the first interplanetary warships to bring their Europan colonies back into the fold during the Manchuria-Jovian War. They succeeded, but at a great cost, and caused the creation of the Western Alliance of nations to serve as a check on further aggression in space.
Manchuria wasted no time in interstellar space either, acquiring stardrives and the necessary experience and technical skills to use them by any means necessary. One of SSTE's Mark II Short Jump systems was stolen in 2213 before it could be delivered to the U.S. Government, and from this the Dahan Corporation was able to reverse-engineer their own models by 2229. Manchurian interstellar colonies often proved to be as troublesome as their Jovian ones, and the state was often just as preoccupied with putting down rebellions as it was with aggravating their Earthly enemies. The Western Alliance finally intervened in direct action against Manchuria's offworld colonies in the late 2340s, and Manchuria was forced into various painful agreements and treaties.
The government of Manchuria began as a Communist one-party state, a continuation of the old Chinese Communist Party. Its politics evolved into a Fascist one-party state, where private enterprise and private property were permitted within the needs (and often whims) of the state. This system of government has varied in its levels of oppression over the years, but for the most part has remained a velvet glove (over an iron fist) lest any more provinces break away and try for independence (or worse, join Guangzhou).
The first armed conflict between Earth and the offworld nations occured between Manchuria and the Jovian League in 2107, when a Manchurian enclave on Europa attempted to break away from the mother country.
Manchuria, still reeling from the 2nd Chinese Civil War that saw its southern provinces split away into a new nation known as the Guangzhou Directorate, was in no mood to see further secessions from its holdings, and began a rapid build up of interplanetary spacecraft purpose built for combat. Guangzhou operatives on Europa were already fomenting rebellion when the first interplanetary cruisers began their shakedown cruises, and the colonists soon realized that they had to act now or lose their chance. On March 9, 2107 the Director of the Kanghua 康華 colony on Europa, Yang Weimin, declared its independence from Manchuria. In a move that surprised and dismayed the Guangzhou agents provocateurs, Yang announced that Kanghua would seek admission to the League.
The Manchurian government wasted no time in replying, denouncing the bid for independence and ordering its handful of ships to take on propellant, weapons, and troops, and embark for Jupiter. The Manchurian squadron arrived in Jovian space on September 12, 2107, to a welcoming committee of Jovian League ships armed with crude missile and laser weapons. The Jovians launched a hit and run attack with ballistically guided missiles against the Manchurians as they decelerated into orbit around Jupiter, but the attack caused only minor damage. The Manchurian's counter-attack was hampered by the intense electromagnetic interference of Jupiter's magnetic field, allowing Jovian ECM systems to easily defeat the return salvo of the more sophisticated guided missiles. The battle was won by Manchuria solely on the Jovians' inability to deny them from entering orbit around Europa.
Once in orbit around Europa, the Manchurian squadron under the command of Shao Jiang (Major General) Chen Wulong demanded the surrender of Director Yang and the immediate renunciation of the independence of the colony. Yang responded with several ten ton blocks of Europan ice launched from the surface of the moon by electromagnetic catapult. The first block destroyed the interplanetary cruiser Shengfeng and killed over three hundred crew and troops, while the remainder were easily avoided by orbital maneuvering from a now wary fleet. Chen answered with a kinetic harpoon attack on the catapult, destroying it and the colony's offensive capability within the hour. He was unable to press the attack with a surface landing of his surviving troops, as a second Jovian squadron of inter-jovian transports and miners unleashed a second volley of missiles upon the squadron. The Manchurians, attempting to avoid casualties to non-combatants and especially loathe to involve the West in an incident, had great difficulty determining which spacecraft in Jovian space were hostiles, and this confusion and reluctance to act was compounded by the fact that non-League colonies and outposts were present on Europa, with all of their attendent space traffic. This second missile attack, coming from several vectors and completely by surprise, was devastating to Chen's squadron, crippling or destroying all but the flagship and bringing the death toll to over one-thousand. Chen was forced to retire to Callisto, where a Manchurian space station could resupply him with desperately needed propellant, and he could communicate with Earth, as his ship's narrow-band commo systems had been knocked out.
Chen's refuge in orbit around Callisto was short lived. The Jovians pressed the attack, harrying him all the way to the other moon before finally closing to laser range and shooting it out with his battered Wiefeng in orbit around Callisto. The Weifeng was out of missiles but with its efficient military laser systems was still better armed, and knocked out two Jovian ships before its own radiators were shot out and the vessel forced to surrender. General Chen and the survivors of the punitive expedition were taken prisoner by the Jovian League, and the war seemed to be over.
The ruling clique on Earth was shaken by their short and terribly one-sided defeat to the Jovians, whom most of the planet had regarded as unorganized and fractious outcasts. The United Nations was preparing to make a ruling on Kanghua's independence bid, having held off until the news of the expedition's failure reached Earth, and Manchuria was not about to allow their wayward colony's rebellion the color of international sanction. In reality there was little the UN could do, as Manchuria had inherited China's Permanent Security Council seat, and could veto any measure it did not approve of, but the memetic reality of such a measure, even vetoed, could threaten their hold on all of their other space based assets. The government refused to accept ultimate defeat, and furiously warned the neutral powers that the volume of space around Europa to a distance of one-hundred thousand kilometers could now be considered a combat zone, and any ships that entered this volume did so at their own risk. They also announced that any merchant shipping that supplied the League and the Kanghua colony were fair game for attack anywhere in the Solar System, and capped this announcement with the destruction of a Jovian flagged volatiles transport in orbit around Luna. The Jovians responded by destroying the Manchurian space station in orbit around Callisto. As the crew of the Jovian transport were not offered quarter, the crew of the Manchurian space station were not given it. An additional three hundred lives were taken in this tit-for-tat exchange.
The Western powers were aghast at the escalation of the war but were completely unprepared to do anything about it off-planet, and unwilling to antagonize a nuclear armed nation through military actions on Earth. Economic sanctions were considered, but the planet-based Manchurian economy was tied into everything else in the world, and pressure from the megacorporations soon nixed the idea. Manchuria redoubled its ship building efforts in orbit and around Luna, and Jovian ships were incapable of trade in cis-lunar space by mid-2108. A stalemate ensued for the next two years, with several skirmishes between the Manchurians and the Jovians in interplanetary space between Earth and Jupiter mostly going in favor of Manchuria. The Jovians lacked the sophisticated weapons, engines, and sensors to bring the fight to Earth, and the Manchurians realized that any fight at Jupiter would have to be overwhelming in its power, or else they would be picked apart piecemeal as they were months away from their sources of repair and supply. The Martian Alliance of colonies was rumored to be supporting the Jovians with technology transfers, and acting as brokers for trade from early 2108 to the end of the war, reflagging many Jovian freighters under the red blue and green. Manchuria was aware of this, but were already in too deep to get any further over their heads by antagonizing Mars, and restrained themselves to espionage and deniable covert actions against the reflagged Jovian ships. Aztlan proved to be an unlikely ally for the Manchurians, as they traded their considerable access to spies, mercenaries, and less ideologically pure terrorist groups for aid in establishing their own presence in space.
By February 8, 2111, a Manchurian armada was ready for decisive action against the Jovians. They could not hide the fleet, nor its departure from cis-lunar space, and especially not its arrival time and vector at Jupiter. They did not need to. They had assembled more than thirty interplanetary cruisers and an entire brigade of troops trained on Luna to fight the Jovian colony moons. Support, supply, and repair ships accompanied the fleet at several day's remove. The launch was a media and a propaganda circus for Manchuria, and prompted the Western powers to finally get serious about their own pathetic space forces before they found themselves restricted to low orbit around Earth. The Jovians readied their own fleet for an arrival date in May, and while it was clear that their ships had become more sophisticated, they were still hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned. Several spoiling attacks on the fleet during the transit by unidentified combatants (strongly suspected to be Martian 'privateers') were soundly repulsed. On May 4, 2111, the fleet engaged the Jovians as they decelerated for Jupiter orbit.
The battle was fierce but not as one-sided as the Manchurians hoped. Though they had applied the lessons learned in their first disasterous clash in 2107, the Jovians continued to surprise with their capabilities and their preparation of the battlespace. Minor moons and bits of flotsam had been turned into nodes in a sensor network, that, coupled with the Jovian's superior ability to communicate in the noisy radio environment of Jupiter, made their missile attacks more accurate and better coordinated than before in order to saturate the defense. Crude 'mines,' missile weapons with simple IR guidance that waited for hostiles to enter their engagement envelopes, and placed within the scarce Jovian ring as cover, did enormous damage to the following support fleet. Though they had bloodied the Manchurians' noses, the Jovians still failed to stop the juggernaut, which established orbit around Europa only after a cruel preparatory bombardment of every Jovian League colonies' observable defenses and its fragile and very vulnerable infrastructure. Though actual casualties were low during the bombardment, most of the League's colonies were effectively destroyed on Europa within hours. The Manchurians landed their brigade outside Kanghua, and after several hours of vicious compartment to compartment fighting within, had secured their wayward colony. Director Yang Weimin was killed in the fighting (some accounts say he committed suicide with a seismic charge as Manchurian soldiers attempted to subdue him). General Chen and the survivors of the first expedition were later found dead in the ruins of the colony's surface to orbit missile battery, having been placed there to guarantee their deaths at the hands of their comrades should the battle for Jupiter orbit be lost and the Manchurians reach Europa.
The Manchurian fleet consolidated their hold over Europa orbit for the next several days. The damage inflicted on their support fleet was painful, and affected the eventual political solution that resulted. The commander, Shang Jiang (Colonel General) Lei Shihao, had orders to destroy every last vestige of the Jovian League in Jupiter space and annex their colonies for Manchuria. He was authorized to use nuclear weapons if need be, and had a considerable number of warheads in varying yields with which to choose from. His brigade of troops had taken twenty percent casualties in the bitter fighting at Kanghua, but was strong enough to seize important locations in the Jupiter system. His fleet was battered but intact, but the support ship losses had included most of his propellant refining capabilities. His ships were out of fuel, and lacked the ability to refuel in a timely fashion, particularly under the expected harassment of the Jovian survivors of the space battle. Rather than press on and risk the entire fleet, General Lei decided to remain in orbit over Europa. He sent in his troops to secure the other Jovian colonies on the moon, and to salvage and repair what facilities he could to replenish the fleet while he waited for reinforcements from Earth. To prevent further incursions by the Jovians based at the other moons, he made it clear that the survivors of the Europan colonies would perish from their loss of life support systems and supplies during the attack, and that while he would do what he could to rescue them, he could not do so while he was under threat.
The Jovians were forced to sit by while Lei had his way with Europa. They were on the brink of collapse, with the various colonies that made up the League starting to squabble amongst themselves and even send out diplomatic feelers to Lei about concluding separate peace terms with Manchuria. Into this delicate situation the Martian Alliance made a bold move - they announced a formal alliance and mutual defense pact with the Jovian League. The United States, Japan, and Great Britain followed with announcements of their own pacts within the hour in what was starting to look like a coordinated diplomatic effort. The French and Germans cajoled the rest of the EU into a somewhat milder trade and defense agreement within the week. The threat of Manchuria controlling the entire solar system was never more apparent, and the Western Powers had come together into a more durable alliance than the old NATO treaty, which was subsumed into the Western Alliance's Treaty of Atlanta.
Manchuria was infuriated with this turn of events. They had crushed their enemies and regained their wayward colony. They had proven their space superiority. They were poised on the edge of conquest for the entire Jupiter system, and they were not ignorant of the implications that fact had for the rest of the Solar System. As feeble as the newly founded Western Alliance's space forces were, the Manchurian ruling clique knew that they could not take on the entire alliance in open conflict and hope to win. Worse, any open conflict in space would almost certainly translate to war on Earth between a dozen nuclear armed nations. General Lei was ordered to restore order to Kanghua, appoint a new Director, and withdraw half of his fleet to cis-lunar space while a permanent diplomatic solution was reached. General Lei complied, but not before destroying a Jovian transport attempting to rescue survivors of the ruined colonies with a nuclear warhead. The incident had the political cover of Lei acting in self-defence (since the Jovian's actual intentions could not be verified as it had been almost totally vaporized by the nuke), stuck a final finger in the eye of the League, and sent a message to the rest of the world that while Manchuria would back down from finishing off their enemies, they would not hesitate to use whatever force they felt necessary to defend themselves and their territory.
The war officially ended with an accord negotiated at the Kinshasha Above Station in geosynchronous orbit above Earth on December 1, 2112. Several minor incidents had taken place during the interim of the Second Battle for Europa, all of them brutually resolved by the Manchurian fleet in orbit there. The Jovian League was preserved by the intervention of Mars and the West, but terms of the treaty forbade them to call any territory on, above, or below the surface of Europa their own. The Manchurians have since maintained a strong military presence in the Jupiter system, and mutual antagonism in the form of sabotage, espionage, organized crime and piracy, and memetic warfare between them and the Jovian League continued to the present. One of the obvious political developments of the war was a militarization of space never before seen, the rise of the Western Alliance as a check against Manchuria (especially the Martian Alliance's own rapidly realized political and diplomatic strength), and a codifying of the conventions of armed conflict that has carried forth to the present day: that conflict in space is the preferred method of settling disputes rather than fighting on Earth itself. The final butcher's bill has been estimated at 4320 dead, with another 1200 estimated wounded or missing on both sides of the conflict.
The Martian Alliance is a political union formed in 2084 from the independent Martian colonies of Robinson, Zubrin, Bradbury, and Asimov. The Alliance was formed as a mutual trade pact, and to foster consensus for any plans for the eventual terraforming of the planet (a strong advocate for terraforming was the Zubrin colony, followed by Robinson). All four colonies were well developed, and with the advent of nuclear thermal propulsion and the American-Japanese Beanstalk in the Pacific Ocean, had large populations of libertarian minded colonists eager to shape the destiny of Mars. The need for an alliance was principally one to prevent conflict and avoid giving the nations of Earth a pretext to intervene against the independent colonies. All four colonies embraced the development of Mars, and to some extent its terraforming, but were divided on how far and how fast to proceed. The Zubrin and Robinson colonists wanted to begin terraforming as soon as possible, and hired several rockjack firms in the Belt to search for icy bodies within the Inner Solar System for deorbiting over the planet. The Bradbury and Asimov colonies were more conservative, and felt that decades of study of Mars as it currently existed was necessary before anyone went and altered it forever. The search for microbial life or at least fossil evidence of ancient life was the chief concern of the preservationist faction, as it came to be known.
The events which led to the alliance were a series of incidents related to the varying opinions on the development of Mars. The worst of these was an attempt to block the creation of a pipeline from the north pole to the colony of Zubrin that occured in 2080. The workers laying the pipeline were preparing to blast through several passes in the rock massif of the Arabia Terra region. This area was also under investigation by a team from Bradbury who were looking for fossil evidence of ancient life. When the Bradbury team realized that the Zubrinites were about to destroy a promising area of study, they attempted to block the demolition by occupying the site. The Zubrinites either did not notice the Bradbury team or did not care that they were placing themselves at risk (this remains a raging controversy in some circles on Mars even into the 24th Century), and set off their charges. The explosion and subsequent rockslides killed four of the five Bradburies and crippled the survivor beyond the capacity for late 21st Century Martian medicine to repair. The survivor, a man named Esteban Perez, was forced to accept a full conversion cyborg body due to the extent of his injuries. He later became the leader of a terrorist organization that would plague the Zubrin colony for more than a century before his death at the hands of Martian Alliance security forces in 2209.
The immediate reaction to the accident (if it was truly an accident), was the formation of a vigilante group from Bradbury armed with whatever weapons of opportunity they could scrounge together. The group was talked down by their peers before they reached the Zubrin colony, who had gotten wind of the coming attack and was preparing for all-out war. News of how close Mars had come to war spread to the other two colonies, and a summit to discuss the incident and the future of Mars was called by the leaders of Asimov. The summit, held in Asimov, was the first of the Asimov Conferences, and established a dialogue between the four colonies. The 2nd and 3rd Asimov Conferences, held in 2082 and 2083 respectively, created an oversight group that coordinated all activity on Mars that could affect the search for examples of past or present life on Mars. Zubrin and Robinson agreed to a moratorium on terraforming efforts until 2100, and in exchange, were granted with favorable trade and research concessions from the other two colonies.
The road to a permament political union was sped on by events on Earth. For most of the 21st century, Luna and cis-lunar space had been the primary focus of national and corporate interest. Places like Mars, the Belt, and Jupiter were too remote to justify the expense of large colonies and other operations. The only resource Luna truly lacked was abundant water, and the mining of cometary fragments within near Earth space was more than sufficient to meet those needs. Only dreamers, Hiders, and the desperate went to Mars or beyond. By 2083 however, Japan and the United States were finally backing dedicated national colonies after a fitful series of limited research missions to Mars throughout the century. The megacorporations were also looking outwards towards Mars, the Belt, and Jupiter, having dominated cis-lunar space. The four colonies of the Asimov Conferences realized that unless they presented a unified front to these 'invaders,' they would be powerless to shape the destiny of the planet they called home. The 4th Asimov Conference created a constitution recognizing a political union of Mars, and the sovereignty of the planet under Martian rule. The constitution called for a federal style government, known as the Martian Alliance, made up of sovereign colonies. Any decisions which affected the fate of the planet were to be made with the consent of three-fourths of the colonies of the alliance, and all were bound to a pact of free trade and mutual defense. The Martian constitution was ratified by the four colonies on October 8, 2084, and a delegation sent to the United Nations' headquarters in Geneva for admission to the family of nations. A passionate speech given by Dr. Jin Ae Yeun of Bradbury has proved to be an enduring work of masterful oratory, and is recited by Martian schoolchildren today in the same way as the Declaration of Independence or the Gettysburg Address once was by American children.
The United Nations accepted the Martian Alliance as a legitimate entity in the General Assembly, but the major Earth governments were slow to recognize Martian sovereignty, especially in light of their own recent desires for expansion there. Legal recognition also threatened to foster independence movements on the Moon and in cis-lunar space. World public opinion on the other hand, was strongly in favor of the Martians, especially in places like the United States, Canada, and Australia where the frontier spirits that had built those nations in the 19th century were still kindled in the hearts of many of their people. The United States was the first major power to recognize Mars in 2085, during the inaugural address of the newly elected President, Georgia Whitmire. The other great powers followed (albeit with lesser vigor) with their own recognitions of Martian sovereignty within the year. Most crucial of all perhaps, was the offer of central banking services to Mars by the Bank of Sol, which was accepted after some debate by the four colonies. Bank of Sol support proved to be a decisive factor in the development of Mars in the next ten years.
Martian sovereignty was not assured de facto during the late 21st century even if it was recognized de jure. The megacorporations in particular did not recognize the Alliance, and set up several mining and industrial operations that the Martians were powerless to stop. The colonies of the Alliance came to the uneasy realization that idealism and good intentions had not been suffiicient to keep themselves from conflict prior to the union, and certainly weren't going to stop those who did not share even those qualities with them. The Martian Defence Force (MDF) was raised by the Alliance in 2087 to check the megacorporations' predations of the Red Planet. The Martians enjoyed a high level of technology, and had embraced the potential of nano-scale molecular assemblers as soon as they became available. Using these to jump start a defense industry, the colonies swiftly created a uniquely Martian series of weapon systems and spacecraft constructed in low orbit. While the story of Mars bootstrapping itself for war has long been the subject of dramatic fiction, the reality is that the various independent outfits of the Belt and the Jupiter system had seen the writing on the wall: if Mars did not become an independent power capable of telling Earth 'no,' there would be no stopping them from doing the same to the rest of the Solar system. These independents were largely responsible for the MDF's fighting spacecraft in the final years of the 21st century, numerous stories of 'Bonnie' Jim Charlie and his Martian orbital roughnecks notwithstanding.
The Martians started out the year 2096 by exercising very little patience with their 'guests.' They informed the megacorporations that they would submit their operations to Alliance inspection and regulation, and pay appropriate taxes to the Martian government, or else they would be forcibly evicted from the planet. Most of the corps were not set up for any kind of fight with Mars, and certainly couldn't afford to disrupt their operations to prepare them for battle, nor were they willing to risk the substantial amounts of capital they had staked on them in the event they lost such a fight. These corps agreed to Martian terms and were in turn treated fairly and generously as a show of good faith by the fledgling state. Several corps were not interested in coming to terms, and they were prepared to fight. Among them were Dahan, an arm of the Manchurian state in most respects; Cis-Lunar Amalgamated, an ambitious space-based company that had built itself up from the scraps of low Earth orbit cast-offs and debris, and had a reputation for fighting dirty; and Empyrean, a lunar industrial corp with its back against the wall on the Moon and looking for a place to expand with less competition. All three cited the toothless and largely repudiated 1967 Outer Space Treaty as granting them the right to unrestricted access to Mars as part of the universal heritage of mankind. The MDF responded with an orbital blockade, preventing personnel, supplies, and materials from reaching or leaving the outlawed outposts on Mars. The first ship to attempt to run the blockade was an Empyrean freighter, and after refusing to heave to and be boarded by an MDF orbital cutter, was destroyed by concentrated laser fire from several MDF monitors. Though an attempt was made to limit casualties, three people were killed in the incident. The other two corps used chartered spacecraft for supply and transport of finished materials from Mars, and after this incident neither of them could get a captain willing to risk his ship against the blockade. Dahan announced that it was pulling up stakes and was permitted to evacuate from Mars, while Cis-Lunar Amalgamated came to terms and was allowed to continue operations after paying a penalty for its share of the cost of the blockade. Empyrean remained defiant, and even launched an abortive attack on the closest colony to its operations, Robinson. The MDF response was as brutal as it was decisive. MDF Air Force aerodynes punctured the habitat domes of the operation with kinetic bombs after dealing with the limited air defenses, while MDF Army forces stormed the outpost and seized it after a sharp but short battle with Empyrean's security detachment. The survivors were shipped to low orbit to await transport back to cis-lunar space on the first ship willing to take them, their fares paid by what could be salvaged from the operation. Questions of Martian sovereignty were put to rest as 2096 came to a close, and Empyrean folded in bankruptcy proceedings.
Mars' assistance to the Jovian League during the Manchuria-Jovian war in the early 22nd century was another signal moment in the history of the Red Planet. Though they were potentially facing the most powerful nation in space, there was no question that Mars would repay the debt of freedom the Jovians had given them in their wars of sovereignty against the corporations. Mars reflagged Jovian freighters to protect them from Manchurian predation, gave technology transfers and monetary aid, and finally, became a founding member of the Western Alliance that ultimately convinced Manchuria to settle for the victory it had instead of pressing the attack and destroying the League.
Mars continued to grow as a haven from the old Earth governments at the dawn of the 22nd century. Terraforming efforts proved to be far more difficult than the Zubrinites estimated, with little positive to show from deorbiting cometary material into the atmosphere to thicken it. The expense of these 'rainfall' drops was also underestimated, as by the 2100s all of the low hanging fruit in the form of near Mars cometary bodies that the original plan by Zubrin and his successors had planned for use had already been claimed for the development of Luna. Robinsonian efforts to seed algae and lichens to free nitrogen and oxygen from the rocks and soil had limited success as well, mostly due to the fact that humanity still lacked the materials technology to create the gigantic solar concentrating mirrors that were necessary to warm the planet and keep it warm, and there was still no workable solution for Mars' lack of a protective magnetic field to keep what atmopshere that could be added with comet drops or algae from being blown away by the solar wind.
Terraforming efforts stopped by 2130 not from any moratorium imposed by the colonies but from sheer exhaustion, both spiritual and financial. The colonies of Zubrin and Robinson remained dedicated to the idea of a Green Mars, but were more realistic about the truly awesome amounts of energy and resources that would be necessary to realize it. The Terradyne Corporation, formed in the Zubrin colony in 2240, is the only enduring legacy of Martian efforts to make the planet more hospitable. Telescope images of a possible Earth-like planet around Alpha Centauri had begun to sap the imaginations of many of Mars' would-be terraformers, and the Adventurer III's confirmation in 2199 sealed the dream's fate. There was no point to terraforming Mars as a second home for mankind when there were other far more hospitable worlds potentially within reach.
Mars remains a steadfast pillar of the Western Alliance, and even though its prestige has diminished in a world where Earth-like planets aren't as rare as was once feared, its effect on the culture, history, and politics remains undimished. It is considered part of the Core of human civilization. Many colonists in Sagittarius can trace their heritage back to Mars.
Martian tweaks are adapted to living on cold worlds with Thin atmospheres. Their lungs have been engineered with five times the oxygen capturing surface area of a normal human lung, and their oxygen-transit chemistry has been improved to allow them to breathe normally in atmospheres with an oxygen partial pressure down to 0.10 Bar, and can function in oxygen partial pressure atmospheres as thin as 0.05 Bar with some difficulty. Martians in richer oxygen atmospheres (0.20 Bar or greater partial pressure) must remember to breathe shallowly, or risk suffering from the euphoric, even toxic effects of too much oxygen. The first Martian tweaks were created as modified zygotes carried by the first settlers of the Asimov and Bradbury colonies to Mars in the mid 21st century. The zygotes were implanted in their mothers later as they became ready to carry their children to term, and it is from this second and third generation of colonists that most of the current populations of Asimov and Bradbury spring. Martian tweaks later spread to marginal worlds throughout human explored space in Orion, and ultimately, many came to Sagittarius. Their ability to thrive on worlds that unmodified genotypes would require mechanical assistance for allowed them to found colonies without concern for or competition over 'Goldilocks' planets.
In the wake of the Stargate Crash in January of 2361, Chief Operations Officer for Mercer Heavy Industries and a Managing Director of the Sagittarius Development Corporation Joachim Mercer advocated for a stronger role in the affairs of Sagittarius by the SDC, to the point of recommending that the SDC form some kind of unifying government over the various colonies. Joachim was overruled by Gavin Aurimas and his own father Frederick on the Board of Directors over the idea of actually declaring the SDC sovereign over the colonies, but managed to convince them that the old assumptions the SDC operated by were no longer valid, and that only the SDC possessed the means and the authority to act in order to provide the stability and security necessary to prevent the collapse of civilization in the Sagittarius Arm. They agreed to consider the matter, but at the time were more concerned with finding a cause for the collapse of the Stargate.
Shortly after this initial rebuke, Joachim returned to the SDC Board of Directors with a revised plan. In an impassioned speech to the Board, he declared that the SDC had a duty to those who had come to Sagittarius, a duty that was being shirked while the corporation flailed about looking for an answer they most likely would never find for the cause of the Stargate Crash. The SDC and its partners Mercer Heavy Industries, Helios, and the Bank of Sol had to act immediately and decisively in order to quell the growing panic among the colonists who had been cut off from their friends and family in Orion, and especially on behalf of the small, underfunded and marginal colonies who had relied on outside support or at the very least on a way out should their efforts fail.
He then produced a draft document of the compact, of which the Preamble and Article I are reproduced here:
Preamble
We the Colonies of Humanity in the Sagittarius Arm, by the dire circumstances of our Exile from our ancestral world, do recognize and declare that a system of unified democratic government is both right and necessary to preserve our lives, our fortunes, and our posterity, and do endeavor through this Compact to undertake the great work of civilization in a new and uncertain future.
Article
I
The provisions of this Compact are considered necessary for the survival and continuation of civilization in the Sagittarius Arm, and as such shall be considered the Highest Law of humankind, second only to the natural laws of the Universe from which there is no appeal.
Section I
The Definition of Colony and its designation within the Compact; Limitation of the Powers granted to the Compact with regards to local sovereignty.
A) The Colony shall be the lowest fundamental unit of government recognized by this Compact.
B) A Colony is considered to be any World or Habitat, great or small, which has been granted a Charter to colonize the Sagittarius Arm by the Sagittarius Development Corporation (SDC) during the period beginning on 12:00:00 UTC on 18 May 2353 and ending on 14:53:05 UTC on 29 January 2361 (both dates inclusive) in the Gregorian Calendar.
C) Any reorganization or formation of new settlements after the listed end date is not recognized by this Compact and considered Void. The laws and customs of Colonies not explicitly contradicted by this Compact are left to the disposition of the Colonies.
D)
This Compact and the Authority so engendered by it shall make no
attempt to regulate the internal affairs of the Colonies where they
do not conflict with the explicit text of the Compact and any future
Ratified Amendments to the Compact.
Assent to be governed by and Ratification of the Compact; Duration of the Compact
A) Each Colony shall send one Signatory and up to two Alternates to the city of Capital Main, on the planet Fury, in the HM+53 0102 A System, to review and give his or her Assent to this Compact by 23:59:59 UTC on 31 December 2361 in the Gregorian Calendar.
B) Upon the release of Assent, the provisions of this Compact shall be legally binding upon the Colony and its constituents for a period of time lasting until 23:59:59 UTC on 31 December 2362 (inclusive) in the Gregorian Calendar. If upon this time the Colony has not Ratified this Compact by the vote of its constituents subject to the provisions and limitations of the contracts, compacts, constitutions, bylaws, and charters which govern the Colony, this Compact shall no longer be considered legally binding upon the Colony, and the Colony is released from all duties and obligations this Compact shall impose upon it.
C)
Upon Ratification of this Compact, the Colony shall be subject to its
provisions, and the laws, regulations, duties, levies, and taxes
imposed by the Authority so engendered by the Compact in perpetuity,
or until such time as a vote of Two-Thirds of the Colonies agree to
release the Colony from the Compact.
Signatories to the Compact
A) The Signatories to this Compact must be lawfully empowered by their respective constituents to act on their behalf under the color and authority of the individual contracts, compacts, constitutions, bylaws, and charters applicable to their Colony.
B) Interstellar Corporations are considered by this Compact to be subject to the laws and authority of the Colony or State in which they were Incorporated. Those Corporations whose place of Incorporation is no longer in communication with Sagittarius due to the collapse of the Stargate shall be considered to be under the authority of the Colony where their Sagittarius headquarters was based as of 14:53:05 UTC on 29 January 2361 in the Gregorian Calendar. Those Corporations whose headquarters are not based within the domain of a Colony shall be considered Colonies in their own right.
Section IV
Declaration of Universal Rights and Obligations
A) Upon Ratification of this Compact, the definition of a Citizen of the Compact shall be any human being, natural born or artificed, and any Splices, Tweaks, Provolved Organisms, or Artifact Intelligences with a demonstrated sophoncy of at least 0.800 on the Ling Scale of Self-Awareness.
B) Conformance to this standard shall be adjudicated by review of the Chief Medical Officer of the Sagittarius Development Corporation, or their duly designated subordinate, within 180 Gregorian Days of the receipt of the request for review. If the review is not conducted within 180 Gregorian Days of receipt the request, the being in question shall be considered a Citizen of the Compact without further regard to questions of established competency or sophoncy.
C) A Citizen of the Compact enjoys all of the rights, privileges, and obligations granted by this Compact without limitation, even where these may contradict the customs, contracts, compacts, constitutions, bylaws, and charters of any Colony.
Chief Executive Officer and founder of Mercer Heavy Industries. Managing Partner of the Sagittarius Development Corporation. These are the titles of the second most powerful man in Sagittarius. Frederick started life as a brilliant engineer and had his own manufacturing corporation by age 25. In 2190 he landed the job that would forever change him, his family, and human civilization. His Mercer Heavy Industries was chosen to be the prime contractor for Gavin Aurimas' Stardrive project, and later for the Solarian Space-Time Engineering corporation. It was a partnership which has lasted to the present day through thick and thin, and reinforced by the marriage of Frederick's children to several of Gavin's.
Like all of the Mercer and Aurimas clan, he has been treated to the Amaranth process and appears to be in his late fifties.
Captain Jan Mercer is the second son of Frederick Mercer. He has commanded the Bonaventure class explorer Enterprise (AMC-003) since 2353, and led one of the original ten survey teams in Sagittarius. He is a just man and a capable captain and explorer, with a passion for the ideals of Dr. Gavin Aurimas and the SDC that make him highly respected outside his own family, and something of a self-righteous crusader to his kin.
Like all of the Mercer and Aurimas clan, he has been treated to the Amaranth process and appears to be in his early thirties.
Joachim Mercer is the oldest child of Frederick Mercer. He is currently the Chief Operations officer of Mercer Heavy Industries, and a Managing Director of the Sagittarius Development Corporation. Joachim Mercer is one of the strongest advocates for a unified government over the colonies in Sagittarius, and authored the Mercer Compact, the document that has set that dream in motion. Joachim married one of Gavin Aurimas' daughters, Laeticia, in 2320, and they have one child, Gwendolyne. Joachim is also the personal owner of the Pegasus class light cruiser, Callisto (AMC-001), considered to be the flagship of the Armada of the Mercer Compact.
Like all of the Mercer and Aurimas clan, he has been treated to the Amaranth process and appears to be in his late thirties.
Gwendolyne Mercer-Aurimas is the daughter and only child of Joachim Mercer and Laeticia Mercer-Aurimas. She is the grandchild of two towering figures in human history: Frederick Mercer and Gavin Aurimas. Gwendolyne, or Gwen as she is known in the popular media, was born in the Dutch colony of New Haarlem on Terranova, Alpha Centauri A. She had dual Dutch EU-British citizenship at the time of the stargate crash in 2361. She graduated from the University of Terranova in 2350, then pursued a master's degree in Astrophysics at the University of Tycho, on Luna. When offered a position in the family business, she declined in favor of an extended sabbatical between 2352 and 2357, where she and her entourage visited numerous worlds and habitats and gained a reputation for libertine behavior. Gwen herself was actually quite temperate during her sabbatical, but despite this she gained an interstellar reputation as a super rich party girl out to destroy her trust fund before she turned 30. When the Mercer family move to Sagittarius, she followed, and applied for a position with the SDC as a starship officer. Her father objected, but was pressured by her mother into accepting her, and she was sent to her uncle Jan Mercer, master of the Bonaventure class explorer Enterprise (AMC-003).
Like all of the Mercer and Aurimas clan, she has been treated to the Amaranth process and appears to be in her early twenties.
Laeticia is the wife of Joachim Mercer, Frederick Mercer's eldest son and the leading effort behind the Mercer Compact. She is a socialite and a celebrity on Fury, one of the few of Gavin Aurimas' six children to maintain a public presence. Laeticia is very much the public face of the Aurimas family, as her father and siblings are very reclusive. A popular rumor regarding her is that she is a female clone of Gavin Aurimas himself. Laeticia dismisses the rumor with a laugh whenever it comes up, but this has not stopped the tale. She married the scion of the Mercer family, Joachim Mercer in 2320, and bore a daughter, Gwendolyne, in 2328.
Like all of the Mercer and Aurimas clan, she has been treated to the Amaranth process and appears to be in her late twenties. The few who do not recognize her often naturally mistake her for Gwen's older sister.
Headquarters - Fury, (HM+53 0102 System)
Mercer Heavy Industries (MHI) began as a manufacturer of machine tools and heavy equipment, and soon was taking on colonization machinery, defense system production, starship construction, and even its own interstellar shipping company before being made the general contractor for SSTE to build Stardrives and Stargates. Mercer Heavy Industries is a critical partner to the SDC, and the families of both Aurimas and Mercer are very close, even intermarrying in several cases. Currently MHI has the lion's share of its operations around the Gateway and Fury systems, and other than demand for its automated manufacturing plants, design templates, and other finished high tech goods, has little direct influence in the sector.
Fourth planet in the HD+54 1018 System. Independent colony settled by mostly Scandinavian expatriates in 2357. Useful waypoint for starships travelling in the direction of galactic north above the plane of the galactic disc.
See Midgard's Sagittarius Colonial Atlas Entry for more information.
Ninth starship of the Bonaventure class Heavy Explorer. Named for 20th Century American astronaut Story Musgrave. Keel laid 28 February 2352, Commissioned 31 March 2353. Musgrave was built as a Block III model and has not needed an extended refit as earlier starships of her class have. Musgrave participated in Expeditions ONE through SIX.
For more information on the class, click here.