TRANSMISSIONS FROM THE HUNDRED WORLDS: 04/01/2011

Sunday, April 17, 2011

TRANSMISSION 03: Another Spoke Off the Wheel

Transcript of recording labeled TOP SECRET by ***NAME_OMMITED***_designate 18/12-5370-1174h280 – all marked identities verified – unmarked identities unprocessed or unconfirmed (monikers attached for reference) - coding secure – TAMPERING WITH THIS DATA IS IN DIRECT VIOLATION OF APPLICABLE MILITARY CODES - PROCEED WITH CAUTION

YOUNG FEMALE: This is the secure room. Record says they built this in ’84 in case there was a general riot.

ADMIRAL ENGELUND: Seems they weren’t far off

ENSIGN MATHESON: Watch your head, sir. We’ll be starting the broad-spectrum masking in a few minutes, so try not to say anything too loud.

AML. ENGELUND: Right.

BERG:-coming off right in between the… well, I’ll be. Kevin Engelund, in the flesh.

AML. ENGELUND: James Berg. How are you, you fat bastard?

BERG: (LAUGHTER) I’m not fat, I’m just trying to look like your wife to make you more comfortable.

AML. ENGELUND: Still not married, Jimmy, still not married.

BERG: You always were the ugly brat at the back of the class.

CPN. VILNIUS: Captain Merrick Vilnius, at your service.

AML. ENGELUND: Admiral Ugly Brat, pleasure to meet you.

CPN. VILNIUS: (LAUGHTER)

YOUNG FEMALE: I hate to break this up, gentlemen, but shall we sit down?

BERG: Yeah, yeah. So, how you doing, Kevin?

AML. ENGELUND: How’d you do it, Jimmy? I mean really, how’d you take Io?

BERG: Like I said, the stupid bastards killed each other over it.

AML. ENGELUND: Really.

BERG: I mean it, I’m not fucking kidding! I landed in the big, uh, big whatchamacallit, the Em-See-See, next thing I know, I’ve got blips on my com-tac telling me there’s a fight going on, I set up a radar tower, then boom! Something goes up, nuclear by the vibes, and I’ve got a clear board! The whole fucking station, wiped out! Amazing!

ENSIGN MATHESON: Gentlemen, I hate to say this, but could you keep it down a little? We are not one hundred per cent secure here.

BERG: Right, right, sorry, sorry. Exciting times, huh Kevin?

AML. ENGELUND: Exciting times.

BERG: So… you gonna tell me about this plan of yours, or what?

AML. ENGELUND: Simple. We catch ARM with their pants down and take out the Makemake installation with a quick smash-and-grab, make it a free mining colony like you just did with Io, and then we sit and watch as Armand and Blake lose control of the Kuiper.

CPN. VILNIUS: You’re talking about breaking the armistice.

AML. ENGELUND: It’s a bit too late for considerations like that, don’t you think, Captain? Jim’s move on Io is aggression to them. Think about it: if they were willing to send a SpecOps team to take down the Murasaks, they have to have had ambitions for that place, and Tcheky Armand is not a man who likes his ambitions thwarted.

YOUNG FEMALE: But I-

AML. ENGELUND: Certainly not by us. By you.

ENSIGN MATHESON: Gentlemen, we are secure. Intra-spec SIE scanning in place, third-level masking protocols in the green. Countermeasures active… standing by for DCS confirm.

CPN. VILNIUS: But what about the trade agreements? The free mining rights for oceanic territories on Earth? We make an aggressive move out here in the System, Armand is going to crack down on us at home.

AML. ENGELUND: First, Armand doesn’t have the manpower to do that. His SpecOps team just botched a minor offensive in Northern Europe, turning it into a bloodbath for all sides, not to mention losing whatever command officer was in the Em-See-See that went up on Io. There’s not enough troops lying around for an amphib assault. Second, it was only a matter of time before those outposts came under fire, from Armand or someone else. This will just be a pre-emptive strike… trust me, conflict with the ARM… is inevitable at this point.

CPN. VILNIUS: There is also the small matter of the armed locals.

BERG: Independent miners who set up shop there weeks ago. Armed to the teeth with black market ‘bots and tanks… probably sold their mothers for a share in that rock.

AML. ENGELUND: Well, they’ll have to pick a side. When we come for the ARM base, we can present them with an ultimatum-

BERG: We?

AML. ENGELUND: I’ll be right in there with you, Jim. I’ve got a Mobile Command Centre revved up and ready to go in… one-eight minutes?

ENSIGN MATHESON: Confirm, one-eight, sir.

BERG: Now? We’re leaving now?

AML. ENGELUND: No time like the present. What do you say, Mr. Vilnius? Can we close a pincer on the outpost fast enough to overwhelm them.

CPN. VILNIUS: Well… that’s… difficult to say, sir. We have an approximate location for the base in the large-scale mines south of Midridge, but the depth of the trenches… well, it’s pretty much impossible to get anything other than broadband com-tac. The area’s just too big and the trenches too deep.

AML. ENGELUND: So we go in seat-of-the-pants. We’ll do imaging with acoustics and res-packages as we go along.

YOUNG FEMALE: We go in hot like that, there’s not going to be much room to maneuver when we find them.

AML. ENGELUND: So we go in in full force, Samsons, Lugers and Merls with light Kbot support.

BERG: Well?

CPN. VILNIUS: No. There’s no room to maneuver anything larger than a Kbot in there, much less an M-One-Nineteen. This is gonna be hard, fast guerilla tactics if we do this, with small, dedicated teams of Kbots and not much else. The resources we have in there wouldn’t let you ‘lathe the victors anyway.

AML. ENGELUND: It’s a mine, isn’t it?

CPN. VILNIUS: Well, yes and no, sir. It’s a depleted mine… sure, there’s some raw material lying around, but we’re not talking Io here, sir. This place was mined pretty much because it was there and the ARM were desperate. Used to be, that anything big enough for hydrostat was mining fodder in the Kuiper; now, they’ve pretty much pulled out of everything except the big plutoids.

AML. ENGELUND: Fair enough; guerilla tactics it is. Small dedicated teams to clear the canyons so we can establish a cordoned perimeter, and I’ll lead the recon myself.

YOUNG FEMALE: Can I just say… one thing?

AML. ENGELUND: Yes.

YOUNG FEMALE: Well… these local miners, they’re not ARM sponsored, are they?

BERG: Nah. Local yokels, prospies out of Pluto, Charon and Titania. City boys.

CPN. VILNIUS: And you aren’t?

BERG: (CHUCKLES)

YOUNG FEMALE: Well… couldn’t we bypass the fight entirely and have these prospectors do our fighting for us?

AML. ENGELUND: Explain.

YOUNG FEMALE: You said we won’t have anything but broadband com-tac going in. Neither will they, right?

CPN. VILNIUS: Right.

YOUNG FEMALE: So, all we have to do is set up shop out of range of the ARM network, blow up a Kbot or two and wait for them to pick up the vibrations. They’ll send out a team to the only other armed force on the planet-

ENSIGN MATHESON: The locals-

YOUNG FEMALE: Right, and knowing the ARM home guard they’ll shoot first-

AML. ENGELUND: …and ask their questions with more shooting. Inspired.

BERG: You really think this Spy Vs Spy crap is gonna work?

CPN. VILNIUS: Why shouldn’t it? It worked for us on Io.

BERG: That was pretty much blind luck, Ricky. And we can’t bank on being that lucky twice.

YOUNG FEMALE: You won’t have to be.

BERG: What?

YOUNG FEMALE: Well, there’s really no impediment to setting up a base there anyway. We could implement my plan and prepare for the guerilla fight Captain Vilnius just described; they’re not mutually exclusive. Worst-case scenario, we’ll have a stand-up fight against armed miners and ARM Civil Guard irregulars.

BERG: And best-case?

AML. ENGELUND: Your people will have gained two world in two weeks without firing a shot.

BERG: Alright, I’m sold. Rick?

CPN. VILNIUS: I’m in.

AML. ENGELUND: Good. I propose we transfer to Captain Vilnius’s em-see-see to discuss the specifics, and end-mark our IFF frequencies for com-tac. Agreed?

BERG: Yeah.

CPN. VILNIUS: Aye.

AML. ENGELUND: Excellent. Ensign?

ENSIGN MATHESON: Copy that. Prepare for blackout volumes, masking is going off-line.

END TRANSCRIPT – CODING SOURCED AT DESIGNATE: 128465087638-#h22.44/84. File crop under code designate “ABLE” “JESSOP” “ATOLL” “SINGAPORE” All cross-referencing disabled.

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THE HISTORY OF THE HUNDRED WORLDS

THE MOON WAR

It began in our own solar system, so many centuries ago.

The Confederated Republics of Earth controlled the Inner Solar System, mining Mercury, Mars and the Jovian asteroids to maintain Earth's ever-rising population, but lacked the authority to police the many colonies man was establishing beyond the asteroids, on the moons of the gas giants and in the Kuiper belt beyond them. Men declared themselves warlords and raided colonies with impunity, with the CoRE powerless to stop them.

Thus was formed the Allied Rimworld Military: a coalition of colonist militias that eventually wiped out the piracy and despotism in the Rim. Within decades, they became powerful enough to challenge the CoRE. Tensions rose, and the inevitable ensued. Eventually, the ARM, acting in concert with the fledgling United System Military and the mysterious Earth Initiative, invaded Earth and brought the Confederacy to its knees.

Amid the conflict, other interest groups arose, splinter groups that demanded a say in the matter of how the Earth should be governed. Solar Patrol, initially established as the military arm of the CoRE, eventually became independent of their authority, and the USM betrayed the ARM, disapproving of their pacifist policies.

However, the trump card belonged to a young Martian magistrate called Silas Blake. At the crucial moment, he revealed himself to be the architect behind the Earth Initiative. He finally achieved complete dominance over the Earth after a massive assault from the Moon, giving the war the name it still bears now, decades later: the Moon War.

Rather than rule over it himself, he turned it over to a provisional council consisting of members of each government, while he himself retreated to the Outer Solar System, his designs a mystery to all but him.

Eventually, more players were added to the game. The Murasaki Corporation, already a powerful interplanetary conglomerate before the Moon War, quietly rose to dominate the Rimworlds while the others squabbled over the Earth. In opposition to them was formed the Privateers' Alliance, a group of free-traders who defied the Corporation's vision of the outer system.

After two short years, the Earth Provisional Council disintegrated, with the ARM fracturing into three groups. The Rimworld Senate, concerned that ARM Director Tcheky Armand was steadily becoming an unopposed tyrant, stripped him of his power and exiled him; he took a sizable section of hardline loyalists with him and crowned himself Emperor of the Solar System.

A small group of ARM soldiers also defied the Senate and struck out on their own. They were few in number, but eventually it was they who changed history.

THE JUMP CANNON

Fleeing into the Solar System's furthest reaches, the ARM deserters, led by former Special Forces Commander Alice Sheedy, came across an incredible discovery: Blake had all but exhausted the resources of the Kupier belt to build a massive device intended to transport man to the stars.

The CoRE and the ARM had been launching sleeper ships for centuries, but none were ever heard from again; it was assumed they had perished in the void. Blake's device, dubbed the Jump Cannon, was quite different: it could, theoretically, traverse light years in mere hours.

An altercation ensued, and Blake emerged victorious, but had left the cannon unguarded. Left without options, Sheedy pulled a desperate gambit: she raided the cannon and launched herself and her men towards the nearest star system in a stolen ship, but not before stealing the schematics for the Cannon and rigging it with explosives. The original Jump Cannon was destroyed after being used only once.

Another discovery awaited them at their destination. A sleeper ship had already come to the Proxima Centauri System centuries ago, and its inhabitants and their descendants had eventually terraformed three of the worlds in the system, transforming them into lush, verdant tropical paradises. A government had been established, calling itself the Freehold; they had ruled over the system peacefully ever since. They had even developed their own form of faster-than-light travel, although it was torturously slow going compared to the Jump Cannon, and used it to settle two nearby star systems.

Being the only one with any experience in warfare, Sheedy was made supreme commander of the newly created Freehold Directorate. After much deliberation, Sheedy and the Freehold came to a conclusion: they were going to take back Earth once and for all.

EXODUS

Using the massive resources of the Proxima System and the stolen schematics, the Freehold raised a huge army and constructed a new jump cannon, training it on the Solar System.

When they invaded, the shattered governments of Sol were powerless to resist. The soldiers of the Freehold blitzed through the Solar System, conquering it in a matter of weeks.

Rather than make the CoRE's mistake and impose her will on the people of the Solar System, or revisit Blake's tactic of simply leaving the survivors to their own devices, Sheedy proposed something new: the surviving members of all the governments would be given total amnesty, in exchange for complete and total exile from not only Sol, but also the worlds of the Freehold. They would be forced to use the jump cannons to explore other new worlds to fight their wars on.

It was discovered that the jump cannons had a practical range of only about seven light years or so, meaning that the process of exploration was a slow one. Eventually, a network of jump cannons was constructed, and humans began to explore the stars in earnest.

As the various governments expanded outwards from the nearest systems to Sol (which came to be known as the Shallows), they inevitably came across a variety of previously colonized worlds, settled centuries ago by the inhabitants of sleeper ships. Many of the colonists capitulated, being vastly technologically inferior to the old Sol governments. Some, such as those of Haven in the Gliese 783 System, fought to the bitter end, but eventually succumbed.

After several skirmishes over the rights to key worlds, the Sol governments eventually settled into their various territories, individual systems connected by a fragile network of jump cannons. Nine signatories put their names on the Proxima Treaty, which guaranteed an avenue of diplomacy between the governments, and agreed specific rules of engagement, such as forbidding the destruction of jump cannons. The Hundred Worlds were born.

THE PLAYERS

The Murasaki Corporation took quite readily to the role of an interstellar government, establishing its headquarters on Epsilon Indi and spreading out to cover a wide swath of resource-rich systems, some terraformed and others not, that came to be known as the Hinterlands. No-one knows quite how far the Hinterlands reach beyond Murasaki's tri-system hub in the Shallows, but their resources are reputed to be near-limitless; they have complex arms deals in play with several other governments. The current Chairman of the Board of Directors is Yu Jeong-yeol. They are one of the most powerful recognized governments in known space, if not the most powerful.

The United System Military became the United Systems Military, quickly settling a variety of worlds in over a dozen systems. They had the advantage of numbers, having attracted many civilians to their cause with their military superiority and liberal ideology. The United Systems cover a thick jumble of stars relatively close to Sol known as the Thicket, along with some outliers and the deep end of the Shallows. The current Admiral is Kevin Engelund, and their headquarters are on the waterlogged ecumenopolis of Islet, in the Ross 248 System.

The Privateers' Alliance rallied around Lisa Stebbing, the young widow of their first foreman, and established five colonies along the prosperous new trade route known as the Eridani Run, calling their unified government the Maidenhead Colonies. Essentially five independent worlds with mutual trade agreements, they quickly became very rich, profiting greatly over their control of the only route connecting the Thicket with the Rim. Stebbing is referred to as the Maiden, and acts as a moderator between the individual Colonial governments, the heads of which sit on the council known as the Quinquevirate. She also directs the Maidenhead military, which is known as Bridgehead, albeit with a great deal of 'advice' from senior military commanders.

Solar Patrol became Stellar Patrol, a kind of independent police force headquartered on the terraformed sleeper colony Newside, which orbits the white dwarf Gliese 1221, just coreward of the Thicket. It has garrisons on a number of planets and moons further out, but has little real pull in the interstellar community. Its commander is Admiral David Blake, a relative of the Blake who built the original Jump Cannon.

The Allied Rimworld Military now polices a different rim altogether. The two dozen systems out beyond the Maidenhead are collectively referred to as the Rim, and a quarter of them fall under the ARM's protection. Although their domain is little more than a handful of hardscrabble mining and sleepy agricultural colonies, not a single one is annexed; they are all active member worlds with seats on the Rimworld Senate, which meets on the planet Coastline, in the Keid system. Their leader is Senate President Eliza Karweta.

When Emperor Tchecky Armand struck out in search of a homeland for him and his loyalists, he happened upon the twin sleeper colonies of the V577 Monocerotis System and acid-rain-drenched Collar Bell in the Procyon System. As luck would have it, the inhabitants were descendants of ARM colonists, and their religious beliefs prophesied Armand's coming. They worship him like a god. The Emperor rules from a specially built temple on Collar Bell, while the Imperial Government dictates policy from V577 Monocerotis.

The Confederated Republics of Earth are now simply the Confederated Republics, and are the most powerful of the four Rim governments. The former Magistrates of the Earth Territories brought their style of government to ten planets in eight systems at the edge of the rim, and rule from a beautifully terraformed planet in the AD Leonis System. Nominally, their internally appointed leader is Speaker Vic Maitland, but it is the Directors of the various Internal and External Commitees who pull the strings behind the CoRe's endeavors.

Among those endeavors is the CoRe's four-way war with the Rim's other governments: the ARM, the Empire and the 'Blake Protectorate,' a loose, lawless conglomerate of three systems squeezed between the CoRe and the Empire. It is all that remains of Silas Blake's empire. There is no formal 'government' in charge of the Blake worlds as such, and whenever Blake requires resources or personnel to further his means, he negotiates with the local populace, most of whom are themselves exiles, refugees and renegades from all over the Rim. Blake himself is mercurial and rarely seen, and his objectives are unclear.

At the center of it all sits the Freehold Directorate, with its stranglehold on Earth and the Shallows. The Freehold consists of four houses, each one an extended family of nobles that has ruled over its ancestral homeland for centuries. They are, in effect, the only sleeper ship descendants still in power over their colony.

House Centauri is by far the oldest and most powerful, ruling as it does over the three inhabited worlds of the Proxima System: Sherwood, Shoreline and Spectaculum. They are, by-and-large, courtiers and statesmen, with little interest in the happenings of the outside world.

House Barnard, on the other hand, are technocrats who have not only allowed, but encouraged the rapid overdevelopment of their adopted homeworld, Codex. Some of the most advanced technology in the Hundred Worlds is developed on Codex, though it rarely has much practical application.

House Ross are hardened miners, opportunists and negotiators, conditioned by their radiation-pelted homeworld, Highground, and its status as a borderland; the Ross 154 System is the only Freehold system within jump range of non-Directorate space. They favor increased interaction with the other governments, be it diplomatic or hostile.

House Sol is the youngest house, created through a complicated series of interlocking arranged marriages between members of the other houses. Their jurisdiction, obviously, is the Solar System.

Very little information about the Solar System has been released by the Freehold, and House Sol are well-schooled in this policy of secrecy, despite their youth. They are as aware as the rest of humanity that they are in possession of that most precious of jewels: the Earth. They, like the others, know that one day, there will be a reckoning.

But for now, that day is far off. No single government has the power to smash through the Directorate's defenses, and even if they did, it is unlikely they would simply leave their respective domains; though few of them are exactly idyllic, many of humanity's colonies among the stars have become more than simply colonies; they have become homes.

But home is, after all, where the heart is, and humanity's heart will always be Earth. And all across the Hundred Worlds, people plot, kill and die to reclaim it...