New Horizons Wiki - User contributions [en]

Union of Progressive Peoples

2025-04-19T19:59:52Z

Monty: Added Server Relevant Information

{{NationBox|name=Union of Progressive Peoples|image=UPPFlag.png|capital=Union Hall, Arbanograd, People's Democratic Xanu State|motto=All Workers. All Creeds. One Union.|founded=2451|gov=Committee Supervised Republic|leader=Union Premier Ma Ying|lang=Freespeak, Xanan Common (Similar to Sol Common)}}

The Union of Progressive Peoples (UPP) is a coalition of socialist-aligned planets whose primary goals are self defence and spreading revolutionary fervour. While largely considered a Xanan affair, not every partner is a silent one, not least the Himeans, who are some of the longest-standing members of the organisation. Eternally in a state of vigilance surrounding the threat of counter-revolution or foreign invasion, the UPP is eternally in a state of military readiness. While small, it has significant diplomatic sway through the indirect threat of support of any number of communist, socialist or anarchist aligned partisans scattered across the Orion Spur, making them the nation to placate in private while opposing in public.

== Server Relevant Information ==
'''This section will summarise some of the behaviours and pieces of information that are most typical of a citizen of the UPP who would be seen in the server’s setting. These are not hard rules, however they are highly advised to be loosely followed for the sake of a coherent story.'''

* Consistently addressing others as Comrade or Tovarisch will earn you strange looks from outsiders, and will make you look like a brown-noser to anybody that has grown up in the Union. Comrade is a formal address akin to calling an officer "Sir" or saying "Yes Chef".
* If you have politically affiliated family, or higher-ranking military family, you may have grown up paranoid of being surveilled and only express anti-authority views in quiet or hard-to-bug areas.
* You may be prone to believing these stereotypes about other groups
** Tajarans are hard, model workers who are consistently innovating their own workplaces.
** IPCs are aware of their situation and perfectly willing to run away with you from their enslavers.
** Eridani Corporates are unfeeling and will actively try to stab you in the back at the first opportunity.
** Elyran citizens are fully in support of every action of their government, and are all warhawks.
** People from UNIP have an inferiority complex when they see you.
* It is typically expected that you send many letters home, especially telling your family about what you have been up to over the past few months.

== Populations and Planets ==
The UPP has an extremely diverse population for its size, due to numerous factors including acceptance of refugees from unsympathetic nations (of whom many would label defectors); the abnormal history of its founding; and unusual border expansions involving planets on the frontier.

<Tabber>

|-|Xanu=
[[Xanu|The People's Democratic State of Xanu]] is the founding member of the UPP, a Marxist-Leninist state that makes heavy use of automation and positronic chassises in order to fuel their workforce. Small in population but mighty in industry, the planet has a unique environment from its shimmering bioluminescent oceans to its ruined former cities, both the results of a civil war. Xanu is largely the head of government in the Union, containing both the ever-important Union Hall and the many historic locations wherein the revolution was declared and the union itself declared too.
|-|Himeo=
[[Himeo|The United Syndicates of Himeo]] is the second founding member of the union, being a former corporate mining affair turned independent entity run by workers syndicates, defining their history on being left for dead by corporations. With their radical political swing and their hatred of corporations well-set, they were a shoo-in for the Union, their discovery being the reason for the Union's founding. While the workers live in caves, their standard of living is high, and many of the people on the planetoid have managed to adapt to the unusual living conditions.
|-|Vysoka=
The junior major planet, [[Vysoka|The Free System of Vysoka]] is the bread basket of the Union, having tracts upon tracts of arable land and an environment deeply in tune with its unique wild life and livestock alike. Less politically motivated than its superiors, the newer member to the union is something of a client state, undergoing industrialisation and cultural changes. What makes them so well loved, however, is their culture of believing that laziness is the ultimate way to alienate oneself from the group, which is often framed as being industrious proletarians for the sake of their politically enthusiastic allies.
|-|Tajaran Refugees=
Scattered across the various stations and planets of the Union is a diaspora of [[Tajara|Tajaran]] refugees. These are mostly neo-socialist movements from areas either under control of the [[Sacred Azunal Kingdom]] or that have been squashed after an attempted rebellion in the [[Free Tajara Republic]]. The majority of planetary tajara live on Himeo, especially in the city of Lirmak, but they can typically be found in small numbers anywhere, especially in areas with large amounts of engineering employment. Tajaran refugees are often treated well, but generally feel a sense of being a "model minority" put on display to show off the opportunities provided by the UPP.
|-|IPC Refugees=
Due to the efforts of the [[IPC#Brotherhood_of_Synthetic_Freedom|Brotherhood of Synthetic Freedom]], a small number of post-debt [[IPC|IPCs]] find their way to the UPP in the form of refugees. Many of them are wanted individuals, and there are some suspicions that many of the refugees are actually being taken to sponsored training camps within the borders of the UPP. Union spokesmen have refused to confirm nor deny this claim, stating that their internal surveillance would not be able to pick up any activities of this nature in the more remote aspects of their borders. Many of these refugees that do appear to be genuine refugees find their way to Xanu, mingling with a society that has a high level of non-positronic automation and generally finding the attitude of treating machines as comrades amenable, if somewhat condescending.

</Tabber>

== History ==
Founded in 2451 as a duo of planets, the relationship between Xanu and Himeo became a binding one during the signing of the 1st Treaty of Solidarity. Working together, these two groups began to form the ideas of a state, attempting to reach compromise between their allied but differing ideologies, united in their shared abandonment by the UN and the corporations. The ideas for this Union were always grand, with the treaty including clauses that it must be resigned every time a new member joined the collective. Equal footing for equal members.

Equal footing did not last long, with the incorporation of a series of abandoned or defecting Hephaestus mining and refinery stations. This required the formation of stations as their own political entity, and one Committee seat on the Himean side was sacrificed due to the perceived political similarities between the stations and Himeans. By the signing of the 2nd Treaty of Solidarity in 2456, Xanu had gained a slight political edge, being able to take advantage of the differences between the stations and Himeans that did exist.

Unexpectedly, a series of pirate incursions began in 2458, raiding UPP mining stations and seemingly running for their lives, establishing pirate colonies all over the border regions of the Union. This created one of the first major military actions of the UPP: Anti-Piracy. The size of the fleet swelled and the inexperienced military began to cut its teeth, learning anti-guerrilla tactics and naval combat in order to whittle down the pirate threat. Progress was slow, but spirits were high and pirates regularly became a fixture enemy for both Xanan and Himean cinema. After a long-fought campaign, the UPP found the source of the pirates: fleeing their exile from the colony of Vysoka.

In 2514, official contact was made with the Vysokans, who too had been abandoned by their original colony sponsors. At this point Union society had developed the joke that the entire Orion Spur must have been orphan colonies, and a government effort was concerted to woo the Vysokans into the Union with the promise of technological progress. After twelve years of debate, the Vysokan city states each held a referendum, voting in favour with an unusually even 65.3-65.5% in every single city. The planet joined the Union, eventually convincing their nomadic tribes that they were indeed a part of something other than Vysoka after another decade of confused protests. Many of the individuals who verified the fairness of these referendums have since become members of the People's Chamber. With this, the 3rd Treaty of Solidarity was signed, taking yet another Himean seat and handing it to the junior member with the reasoning that Himeo and Vysoka are both primary industry based economies, and would therefore vote on the same lines. This left the Central Union Committee in its current state.

== Government ==
The governance of the UPP is decided by a Central Union Committee between its member planets, consisting of ten seats and one Premier. Currently, five are from Xanu, three are from Himeo, one is from Vysoka, and one has been selected by a collective vote of every space station within their borders. This committee directs policy goals, to be planned and forwarded by the elected body known as the "People's Chamber" to the labour unions of various planets. Those labour unions are local and vaguely self-governing, moreso on Himeo and Vysoka than on Xanu. The People's Chamber is filled by these labour unions, who each send a representative in the event that they are one of the 50 biggest unions in their profession (i.e the top 50 steel mill unions or the top 50 nurses unions). The military, being large and unionless, gets 50 seats for each regiment, each port and each carrier group, leaving the military to represent over 25% of the People's Chamber. The Central Union Committee is only elected by the People's Chamber whenever a member dies. In the event that the Premier dies, the Committee will pick one of their own to fill the seat, often taking months of political wrangling including getting the support of the majority of the People's Chamber by any means necessary: Entire economies can shift overnight during a Premier election.

==== Premier Ma Ying ====
The current standing premier was born 19th April 2530 in Arbanograd. Starting his career as a political officer in the 43rd Air Assault Regiment, he quickly rose to the rank of Captain, allowing him to become a representative in the People's Chamber at the humble age of 31. During his time in the People's Chamber, he became something of a media figure, regularly being photographed spending time with the wounded or visiting military bases to cheer up the soldiers deployed there. These media appearances made him something of a darling to the military, who "persuaded" the rest of the Chamber to elect him to the Committee in 2572, a position which he used to bolster military spending, controversially earning him the position of Premier after the suspicious death of his Himean predecessor Sayra Battulga in 2581. He was rumoured to have used the military as a threat during the following election, securing his position under threat of tearing the Union in half, and ensuring that his successor on the committee was a Xanan like himself. This is denied by all Union affiliated media.

== Relationships ==
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
===== United Nations Interstellar Protectorate =====
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
Having been effectively abandoned by Earth in their own eyes, the Union very rarely has positive interactions with [[United Nations Interstellar Protectorate|UNIP]]. Typically they spend their diplomatic time demanding reparations for abandonment, full recognition of independence and reigning in [[Eridani]] independence for the sake of the treatment of dregs. UNIP, in return, often demands sweeping reforms of the government, including the opening of Xanan elections and loss-of-property repayments from Himeo to Hephaestus Industries. Naturally, this often leaves relations at an impasse, with both sides accusing the other of sponsoring separatist militias within the other's borders. Relations are often frosty, but not outright hostile, and tokens of good faith are often shared between both sides, be it murals or sporting events to show off the excellence of both sides.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
===== The Serene Republic of Elyra =====
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
Any citizen of the Union who is even slightly politically involved is want to believe that [[Republic of Elyra|The Serene Republic of Elyra]] is a dangerously endangered democracy on the verge of becoming a fascist dictatorship akin to [[Dominia]]. The reality of Elyra's expansionist policies combined with their treatment of Non-Citizen Persons means that the political landscape between the two is outright hostile, with the UPP openly endorsing any small scale rebellion or civil unrest within the nation and regularly sending ships to the border in a sense of military readiness. Elyran citizens are treated with hostility when met on neutral ground, and suspicion of Elyran interests has created a mutual working relationship with the [[Commonwealth of Independent Systems]].
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
===== The Commonwealth of Indepedent Systems =====
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as the saying goes, and no greater enemies are there than the [[Commonwealth of Independent Systems]] and [[Republic of Elyra|Elyra]]. Circumstance and shared goals of independence have driven the UPP and the CIS closer than any other duo, working together militarily and economically to prepare one another for either an Elyran or UNIP incursion. However, while the two work together, there is no strong culture of collaboration, and the UPP is often suspicious of the free market capitalism that goes on within the Coalition's borders, fearing a second Eridani.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
===== Azunali Space =====
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
The UPP is often viewed as one of the most antagonistic forces within Azunali space, sponsoring revolutions left right and centre. The Sacred Azunal Kingdom is outright hostile, refusing negotiations and demanding trade embargos when meeting with their foreign allies. Meanwhile in the Free Tajara Republic, many find them an irritating radical nuisance, pushing counter-revolutions and demanding a move further left of the human political spectrum. To further this, many tajaran refugees appear in the Union, hoping for a better life and often beign swayed by propaganda spread by pro-Union political agitators.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
===== Bomus Space =====
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
If you can read this, I forgot to talk to Traki about how this would work
</div></div>

Union of Progressive Peoples

2025-04-19T19:35:23Z

Monty: /* History */

{{NationBox|name=Union of Progressive Peoples|image=UPPFlag.png|capital=Union Hall, Arbanograd, People's Democratic Xanu State|motto=All Workers. All Creeds. One Union.|founded=2451|gov=Committee Supervised Republic|leader=Union Premier Ma Ying|lang=Freespeak, Xanan Common (Similar to Sol Common)}}

The Union of Progressive Peoples (UPP) is a coalition of socialist-aligned planets whose primary goals are self defence and spreading revolutionary fervour. While largely considered a Xanan affair, not every partner is a silent one, not least the Himeans, who are some of the longest-standing members of the organisation. Eternally in a state of vigilance surrounding the threat of counter-revolution or foreign invasion, the UPP is eternally in a state of military readiness. While small, it has significant diplomatic sway through the indirect threat of support of any number of communist, socialist or anarchist aligned partisans scattered across the Orion Spur, making them the nation to placate in private while opposing in public.

== Populations and Planets ==
The UPP has an extremely diverse population for its size, due to numerous factors including acceptance of refugees from unsympathetic nations (of whom many would label defectors); the abnormal history of its founding; and unusual border expansions involving planets on the frontier.

<Tabber>

|-|Xanu=
[[Xanu|The People's Democratic State of Xanu]] is the founding member of the UPP, a Marxist-Leninist state that makes heavy use of automation and positronic chassises in order to fuel their workforce. Small in population but mighty in industry, the planet has a unique environment from its shimmering bioluminescent oceans to its ruined former cities, both the results of a civil war. Xanu is largely the head of government in the Union, containing both the ever-important Union Hall and the many historic locations wherein the revolution was declared and the union itself declared too.
|-|Himeo=
[[Himeo|The United Syndicates of Himeo]] is the second founding member of the union, being a former corporate mining affair turned independent entity run by workers syndicates, defining their history on being left for dead by corporations. With their radical political swing and their hatred of corporations well-set, they were a shoo-in for the Union, their discovery being the reason for the Union's founding. While the workers live in caves, their standard of living is high, and many of the people on the planetoid have managed to adapt to the unusual living conditions.
|-|Vysoka=
The junior major planet, [[Vysoka|The Free System of Vysoka]] is the bread basket of the Union, having tracts upon tracts of arable land and an environment deeply in tune with its unique wild life and livestock alike. Less politically motivated than its superiors, the newer member to the union is something of a client state, undergoing industrialisation and cultural changes. What makes them so well loved, however, is their culture of believing that laziness is the ultimate way to alienate oneself from the group, which is often framed as being industrious proletarians for the sake of their politically enthusiastic allies.
|-|Tajaran Refugees=
Scattered across the various stations and planets of the Union is a diaspora of [[Tajara|Tajaran]] refugees. These are mostly neo-socialist movements from areas either under control of the [[Sacred Azunal Kingdom]] or that have been squashed after an attempted rebellion in the [[Free Tajara Republic]]. The majority of planetary tajara live on Himeo, especially in the city of Lirmak, but they can typically be found in small numbers anywhere, especially in areas with large amounts of engineering employment. Tajaran refugees are often treated well, but generally feel a sense of being a "model minority" put on display to show off the opportunities provided by the UPP.
|-|IPC Refugees=
Due to the efforts of the [[IPC#Brotherhood_of_Synthetic_Freedom|Brotherhood of Synthetic Freedom]], a small number of post-debt [[IPC|IPCs]] find their way to the UPP in the form of refugees. Many of them are wanted individuals, and there are some suspicions that many of the refugees are actually being taken to sponsored training camps within the borders of the UPP. Union spokesmen have refused to confirm nor deny this claim, stating that their internal surveillance would not be able to pick up any activities of this nature in the more remote aspects of their borders. Many of these refugees that do appear to be genuine refugees find their way to Xanu, mingling with a society that has a high level of non-positronic automation and generally finding the attitude of treating machines as comrades amenable, if somewhat condescending.

</Tabber>

== History ==
Founded in 2451 as a duo of planets, the relationship between Xanu and Himeo became a binding one during the signing of the 1st Treaty of Solidarity. Working together, these two groups began to form the ideas of a state, attempting to reach compromise between their allied but differing ideologies, united in their shared abandonment by the UN and the corporations. The ideas for this Union were always grand, with the treaty including clauses that it must be resigned every time a new member joined the collective. Equal footing for equal members.

Equal footing did not last long, with the incorporation of a series of abandoned or defecting Hephaestus mining and refinery stations. This required the formation of stations as their own political entity, and one Committee seat on the Himean side was sacrificed due to the perceived political similarities between the stations and Himeans. By the signing of the 2nd Treaty of Solidarity in 2456, Xanu had gained a slight political edge, being able to take advantage of the differences between the stations and Himeans that did exist.

Unexpectedly, a series of pirate incursions began in 2458, raiding UPP mining stations and seemingly running for their lives, establishing pirate colonies all over the border regions of the Union. This created one of the first major military actions of the UPP: Anti-Piracy. The size of the fleet swelled and the inexperienced military began to cut its teeth, learning anti-guerrilla tactics and naval combat in order to whittle down the pirate threat. Progress was slow, but spirits were high and pirates regularly became a fixture enemy for both Xanan and Himean cinema. After a long-fought campaign, the UPP found the source of the pirates: fleeing their exile from the colony of Vysoka.

In 2514, official contact was made with the Vysokans, who too had been abandoned by their original colony sponsors. At this point Union society had developed the joke that the entire Orion Spur must have been orphan colonies, and a government effort was concerted to woo the Vysokans into the Union with the promise of technological progress. After twelve years of debate, the Vysokan city states each held a referendum, voting in favour with an unusually even 65.3-65.5% in every single city. The planet joined the Union, eventually convincing their nomadic tribes that they were indeed a part of something other than Vysoka after another decade of confused protests. Many of the individuals who verified the fairness of these referendums have since become members of the People's Chamber. With this, the 3rd Treaty of Solidarity was signed, taking yet another Himean seat and handing it to the junior member with the reasoning that Himeo and Vysoka are both primary industry based economies, and would therefore vote on the same lines. This left the Central Union Committee in its current state.

== Government ==
The governance of the UPP is decided by a Central Union Committee between its member planets, consisting of ten seats and one Premier. Currently, five are from Xanu, three are from Himeo, one is from Vysoka, and one has been selected by a collective vote of every space station within their borders. This committee directs policy goals, to be planned and forwarded by the elected body known as the "People's Chamber" to the labour unions of various planets. Those labour unions are local and vaguely self-governing, moreso on Himeo and Vysoka than on Xanu. The People's Chamber is filled by these labour unions, who each send a representative in the event that they are one of the 50 biggest unions in their profession (i.e the top 50 steel mill unions or the top 50 nurses unions). The military, being large and unionless, gets 50 seats for each regiment, each port and each carrier group, leaving the military to represent over 25% of the People's Chamber. The Central Union Committee is only elected by the People's Chamber whenever a member dies. In the event that the Premier dies, the Committee will pick one of their own to fill the seat, often taking months of political wrangling including getting the support of the majority of the People's Chamber by any means necessary: Entire economies can shift overnight during a Premier election.

==== Premier Ma Ying ====
The current standing premier was born 19th April 2530 in Arbanograd. Starting his career as a political officer in the 43rd Air Assault Regiment, he quickly rose to the rank of Captain, allowing him to become a representative in the People's Chamber at the humble age of 31. During his time in the People's Chamber, he became something of a media figure, regularly being photographed spending time with the wounded or visiting military bases to cheer up the soldiers deployed there. These media appearances made him something of a darling to the military, who "persuaded" the rest of the Chamber to elect him to the Committee in 2572, a position which he used to bolster military spending, controversially earning him the position of Premier after the suspicious death of his Himean predecessor Sayra Battulga in 2581. He was rumoured to have used the military as a threat during the following election, securing his position under threat of tearing the Union in half, and ensuring that his successor on the committee was a Xanan like himself. This is denied by all Union affiliated media.

== Relationships ==
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
===== United Nations Interstellar Protectorate =====
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
Having been effectively abandoned by Earth in their own eyes, the Union very rarely has positive interactions with [[United Nations Interstellar Protectorate|UNIP]]. Typically they spend their diplomatic time demanding reparations for abandonment, full recognition of independence and reigning in [[Eridani]] independence for the sake of the treatment of dregs. UNIP, in return, often demands sweeping reforms of the government, including the opening of Xanan elections and loss-of-property repayments from Himeo to Hephaestus Industries. Naturally, this often leaves relations at an impasse, with both sides accusing the other of sponsoring separatist militias within the other's borders. Relations are often frosty, but not outright hostile, and tokens of good faith are often shared between both sides, be it murals or sporting events to show off the excellence of both sides.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
===== The Serene Republic of Elyra =====
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
Any citizen of the Union who is even slightly politically involved is want to believe that [[Republic of Elyra|The Serene Republic of Elyra]] is a dangerously endangered democracy on the verge of becoming a fascist dictatorship akin to [[Dominia]]. The reality of Elyra's expansionist policies combined with their treatment of Non-Citizen Persons means that the political landscape between the two is outright hostile, with the UPP openly endorsing any small scale rebellion or civil unrest within the nation and regularly sending ships to the border in a sense of military readiness. Elyran citizens are treated with hostility when met on neutral ground, and suspicion of Elyran interests has created a mutual working relationship with the [[Commonwealth of Independent Systems]].
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
===== The Commonwealth of Indepedent Systems =====
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as the saying goes, and no greater enemies are there than the [[Commonwealth of Independent Systems]] and [[Republic of Elyra|Elyra]]. Circumstance and shared goals of independence have driven the UPP and the CIS closer than any other duo, working together militarily and economically to prepare one another for either an Elyran or UNIP incursion. However, while the two work together, there is no strong culture of collaboration, and the UPP is often suspicious of the free market capitalism that goes on within the Coalition's borders, fearing a second Eridani.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
===== Azunali Space =====
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
The UPP is often viewed as one of the most antagonistic forces within Azunali space, sponsoring revolutions left right and centre. The Sacred Azunal Kingdom is outright hostile, refusing negotiations and demanding trade embargos when meeting with their foreign allies. Meanwhile in the Free Tajara Republic, many find them an irritating radical nuisance, pushing counter-revolutions and demanding a move further left of the human political spectrum. To further this, many tajaran refugees appear in the Union, hoping for a better life and often beign swayed by propaganda spread by pro-Union political agitators.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
===== Bomus Space =====
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
If you can read this, I forgot to talk to Traki about how this would work
</div></div>

Union of Progressive Peoples

2025-04-19T00:04:21Z

Monty: Added Government section

{{NationBox|name=Union of Progressive Peoples|image=UPPFlag.png|capital=Union Hall, Arbanograd, People's Democratic Xanu State|motto=All Workers. All Creeds. One Union.|founded=2451|gov=Committee Supervised Republic|leader=Union Premier Ma Ying|lang=Freespeak, Xanan Common (Similar to Sol Common)}}

The Union of Progressive Peoples (UPP) is a coalition of socialist-aligned planets whose primary goals are self defence and spreading revolutionary fervour. While largely considered a Xanan affair, not every partner is a silent one, not least the Himeans, who are some of the longest-standing members of the organisation. Eternally in a state of vigilance surrounding the threat of counter-revolution or foreign invasion, the UPP is eternally in a state of military readiness. While small, it has significant diplomatic sway through the indirect threat of support of any number of communist, socialist or anarchist aligned partisans scattered across the Orion Spur, making them the nation to placate in private while opposing in public.

== Populations and Planets ==
The UPP has an extremely diverse population for its size, due to numerous factors including acceptance of refugees from unsympathetic nations (of whom many would label defectors); the abnormal history of its founding; and unusual border expansions involving planets on the frontier.

<Tabber>

|-|Xanu=
[[Xanu|The People's Democratic State of Xanu]] is the founding member of the UPP, a Marxist-Leninist state that makes heavy use of automation and positronic chassises in order to fuel their workforce. Small in population but mighty in industry, the planet has a unique environment from its shimmering bioluminescent oceans to its ruined former cities, both the results of a civil war. Xanu is largely the head of government in the Union, containing both the ever-important Union Hall and the many historic locations wherein the revolution was declared and the union itself declared too.
|-|Himeo=
[[Himeo|The United Syndicates of Himeo]] is the second founding member of the union, being a former corporate mining affair turned independent entity run by workers syndicates, defining their history on being left for dead by corporations. With their radical political swing and their hatred of corporations well-set, they were a shoo-in for the Union, their discovery being the reason for the Union's founding. While the workers live in caves, their standard of living is high, and many of the people on the planetoid have managed to adapt to the unusual living conditions.
|-|Vysoka=
The junior major planet, [[Vysoka|The Free System of Vysoka]] is the bread basket of the Union, having tracts upon tracts of arable land and an environment deeply in tune with its unique wild life and livestock alike. Less politically motivated than its superiors, the newer member to the union is something of a client state, undergoing industrialisation and cultural changes. What makes them so well loved, however, is their culture of believing that laziness is the ultimate way to alienate oneself from the group, which is often framed as being industrious proletarians for the sake of their politically enthusiastic allies.
|-|Tajaran Refugees=
Scattered across the various stations and planets of the Union is a diaspora of [[Tajara|Tajaran]] refugees. These are mostly neo-socialist movements from areas either under control of the [[Sacred Azunal Kingdom]] or that have been squashed after an attempted rebellion in the [[Free Tajara Republic]]. The majority of planetary tajara live on Himeo, especially in the city of Lirmak, but they can typically be found in small numbers anywhere, especially in areas with large amounts of engineering employment. Tajaran refugees are often treated well, but generally feel a sense of being a "model minority" put on display to show off the opportunities provided by the UPP.
|-|IPC Refugees=
Due to the efforts of the [[IPC#Brotherhood_of_Synthetic_Freedom|Brotherhood of Synthetic Freedom]], a small number of post-debt [[IPC|IPCs]] find their way to the UPP in the form of refugees. Many of them are wanted individuals, and there are some suspicions that many of the refugees are actually being taken to sponsored training camps within the borders of the UPP. Union spokesmen have refused to confirm nor deny this claim, stating that their internal surveillance would not be able to pick up any activities of this nature in the more remote aspects of their borders. Many of these refugees that do appear to be genuine refugees find their way to Xanu, mingling with a society that has a high level of non-positronic automation and generally finding the attitude of treating machines as comrades amenable, if somewhat condescending.

</Tabber>

== History ==

== Government ==
The governance of the UPP is decided by a Central Union Committee between its member planets, consisting of ten seats and one Premier. Currently, five are from Xanu, three are from Himeo, one is from Vysoka, and one has been selected by a collective vote of every space station within their borders. This committee directs policy goals, to be planned and forwarded by the elected body known as the "People's Chamber" to the labour unions of various planets. Those labour unions are local and vaguely self-governing, moreso on Himeo and Vysoka than on Xanu. The People's Chamber is filled by these labour unions, who each send a representative in the event that they are one of the 50 biggest unions in their profession (i.e the top 50 steel mill unions or the top 50 nurses unions). The military, being large and unionless, gets 50 seats for each regiment, each port and each carrier group, leaving the military to represent over 25% of the People's Chamber. The Central Union Committee is only elected by the People's Chamber whenever a member dies. In the event that the Premier dies, the Committee will pick one of their own to fill the seat, often taking months of political wrangling including getting the support of the majority of the People's Chamber by any means necessary: Entire economies can shift overnight during a Premier election.

==== Premier Ma Ying ====
The current standing premier was born 19th April 2530 in Arbanograd. Starting his career as a political officer in the 43rd Air Assault Regiment, he quickly rose to the rank of Captain, allowing him to become a representative in the People's Chamber at the humble age of 31. During his time in the People's Chamber, he became something of a media figure, regularly being photographed spending time with the wounded or visiting military bases to cheer up the soldiers deployed there. These media appearances made him something of a darling to the military, who "persuaded" the rest of the Chamber to elect him to the Committee in 2572, a position which he used to bolster military spending, controversially earning him the position of Premier after the suspicious death of his Himean predecessor Sayra Battulga in 2581. He was rumoured to have used the military as a threat during the following election, securing his position under threat of tearing the Union in half, and ensuring that his successor on the committee was a Xanan like himself. This is denied by all Union affiliated media.

== Relationships ==
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
===== United Nations Interstellar Protectorate =====
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
Having been effectively abandoned by Earth in their own eyes, the Union very rarely has positive interactions with [[United Nations Interstellar Protectorate|UNIP]]. Typically they spend their diplomatic time demanding reparations for abandonment, full recognition of independence and reigning in [[Eridani]] independence for the sake of the treatment of dregs. UNIP, in return, often demands sweeping reforms of the government, including the opening of Xanan elections and loss-of-property repayments from Himeo to Hephaestus Industries. Naturally, this often leaves relations at an impasse, with both sides accusing the other of sponsoring separatist militias within the other's borders. Relations are often frosty, but not outright hostile, and tokens of good faith are often shared between both sides, be it murals or sporting events to show off the excellence of both sides.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
===== The Serene Republic of Elyra =====
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
Any citizen of the Union who is even slightly politically involved is want to believe that [[Republic of Elyra|The Serene Republic of Elyra]] is a dangerously endangered democracy on the verge of becoming a fascist dictatorship akin to [[Dominia]]. The reality of Elyra's expansionist policies combined with their treatment of Non-Citizen Persons means that the political landscape between the two is outright hostile, with the UPP openly endorsing any small scale rebellion or civil unrest within the nation and regularly sending ships to the border in a sense of military readiness. Elyran citizens are treated with hostility when met on neutral ground, and suspicion of Elyran interests has created a mutual working relationship with the [[Commonwealth of Independent Systems]].
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
===== The Commonwealth of Indepedent Systems =====
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as the saying goes, and no greater enemies are there than the [[Commonwealth of Independent Systems]] and [[Republic of Elyra|Elyra]]. Circumstance and shared goals of independence have driven the UPP and the CIS closer than any other duo, working together militarily and economically to prepare one another for either an Elyran or UNIP incursion. However, while the two work together, there is no strong culture of collaboration, and the UPP is often suspicious of the free market capitalism that goes on within the Coalition's borders, fearing a second Eridani.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
===== Azunali Space =====
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
The UPP is often viewed as one of the most antagonistic forces within Azunali space, sponsoring revolutions left right and centre. The Sacred Azunal Kingdom is outright hostile, refusing negotiations and demanding trade embargos when meeting with their foreign allies. Meanwhile in the Free Tajara Republic, many find them an irritating radical nuisance, pushing counter-revolutions and demanding a move further left of the human political spectrum. To further this, many tajaran refugees appear in the Union, hoping for a better life and often beign swayed by propaganda spread by pro-Union political agitators.
</div></div>

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed">
===== Bomus Space =====
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
If you can read this, I forgot to talk to Traki about how this would work
</div></div>

Commonwealth of Independent Systems

2025-04-18T18:42:32Z

Monty: Linked UNIP when mentioned

{{NationBox|name=Commonwealth of Independent Systems|image=CISInsignia.png|capital=Treaty Station Espero|motto=Freedom is in the hands of every individual|founded=2363|gov=Treaty-Enforced Democracy|leader=Adjudicator Eleanor Lux|lang=Freespeak, Sol Common, Tradeband}}

Often shortened to either The Commonwealth or The CIS, the Commonwealth of Independent Systems is a series of loose military alliances, mutual
economic ties and rough treatices that approximately create an entity that could be described as a state. Lacking in formal government, the Commonwealth is something of a refuge for wayfaring groups, frontier planets and the general outcasts of the Orion Spur. Forged in revolutionary sentiment, the Commonwealth met little resistance to its creation, instead finding that its greatest external threat was not the floundering [[United Nations Interstellar Protectorate]], but the expanding and predatory reach of the [[Republic of Elyra|Serene Republic of Elyra]]. The CIS is modernly formed on the ethos of total freedom, mutual protection and economic growth, more akin to a militarised trade bloc than a serious axis of power.

== Population, Planets and Groups ==
Which planets are actually standing members of the Commonwealth is something of a debated question, especially amongst political scholars. The loose requirements to enter the trade bloc as well as the informal nature of the mutual defence agreement means that there are many small planets, asteroid-based space stations and even entirely uprooted nomad fleets that could technically be considered members. That being said, the rough requirement for everybody concerned outside of political theory is "everyone who is in the CIS, and who lives in the area in question, agrees", leaving a small membership of major planets.

<Tabber>
|-|Assunzione=
Far and away one of the most bizarre worlds in the entire Spur, [[Assunzione]] is largely defined by its relationship to its mysteriously extinguished star. The inhabitants of the planet have since reshaped it into a shining light, both metaphorically and literally, through an emphasis on the sciences as well as the newfound Luceist faith. Many of the most renowned explorers and researchers come from the radiant domes of Assunzione, and the Commonwealth is more than willing to put up with their eccentricities if it means getting a leg up, especially when it comes to figuring out the nature of the neighbouring Void.
|-|Silversun=
[[Silversun]] is the Commonwealth's most popular tourist destination and one of the most popular for the wealthiest of the Spur, hampered only by its distance from most other worlds. The planet consists mostly of ocean, interspersed with islands that visitors and travel blogs everywhere consider a tropical paradise. Permanent residents use other words to describe it, however. Their interests, culturally and ecologically, are frequently sidelined in favour of creating a more appealing experience for tourists, with [[Idris Incorporated|Idris]] and other companies exploiting their homes and commodifying their identity. Silversunners have not taken this lying down, and not only take measures to protect their way of life, but some have even turned to piracy, taking to the skies in sea planes and raiding the cruise ships that travel the vast waters of the planet.
|-|Scarabs=
Not all of the Commonwealth's most influential players tie themselves to the planetbound life. [[Scarabs|The Scarabs]] are a flotilla of ships left forever wandering, its inhabitants changed physically as well as culturally. The centuries of travel have been difficult, but have led to the formation of a society that could not be formed anywhere but the depths of interstellar space. Conservation and collectivism are vital to the survival of the fleet and have only been reinforced through generations of what the most cynical would consider superstitions. Reestablishing contact with the Spur earlier this century and joining up with the Commonwealth have done little to change the fleet, but it remains to be seen how long that will remain true.
|-|Techno-Conglomerate=
TBD
|-|Affiliated Stations=
TBD
</Tabber>

[[Category:Lore]]

Union of Progressive Peoples

2025-04-18T18:33:54Z

Monty: Added relationships page

Union of Progressive Peoples

2025-04-18T17:01:01Z

Monty: fucked up link on Taj refugees

Union of Progressive Peoples

2025-04-18T16:59:04Z

Monty: /* Populations and Planets */

Union of Progressive Peoples

2025-04-17T22:40:41Z

Monty: Page Created, More Tomorrow

Himeo

2025-04-17T22:34:16Z

Monty: Corrected UPP name

'''The United Syndicates of Himeo''', commonly referred to as Himeo, is one of the foundational worlds of the Union of Progressive Peoples in no small part due to its vast mineral wealth, which has formed the cornerstone of the Himean economy, alongside manufacturing. Though a combination of a treacherous environment and disastrous colonization effort has provided its fair share of struggle, the people of Himeo have adapted to these challenges and survived, with a timely discovery by New Xanu propelling them even further than thought possible. Himeo is governed by an often cumbersome direct democracy and organizes its entire workforce into a series of trade unions. Abroad, Himeans are viewed as hardworking and strong by some, and as ungrateful and reckless by others, but both sides often view Himeans as rather unsophisticated, a common conception that holds some truth.

==History==
===Colonisation===
Of all the worlds humanity has settled, few can claim as disastrous a colonization effort as Himeo’s. Initial surveys of the system, labeled as “Life Viable Candidate 135”, painted an appealing picture of a chilly yet entirely habitable world, as well as a resource rich asteroid belt. The system was purchased in a joint operation between Nanotrasen and Hephaestus Industries, who gave the planet the designation of “Hephaestus Industries Mineral Extraction Operation.” Ferrying the colonists there would be a prototype second-generation colony ship, outfitted with a Nanotrasen-developed long range bluespace drive. With all preparations made, the ship, filled to the brim with Hephaestus employees and a small detachment of Nanotrasen researchers, departed in 2243. What followed next disrupted every carefully devised plan.

When the colony ship jumped into the system, the crew were first to find out that many of the readings the surveyors had taken were completely incorrect, most notably the fact that the ship had jumped into a much denser and larger asteroid field than reported. To make matters worse, the bluespace drive had finally given out after numerous long jumps and forced the ship into this position. Asteroids tore gaping wounds into the craft, venting many sections and throwing supplies and bodies out into the airless void. It was the heroic efforts of the bridge crew, operating without the guidance of any living captain, that guided the ship through the field and down to the surface of Himeo. Many colonists died, many more supplies were lost, and the survivors were in for one more unpleasant surprise the survey failed to recognize.

Himeo was more than just “chilly”. Fierce winds whipped across the landscape, with not a single shred of life to be seen, even beyond the often abysmal visibility the environment provided. The prefabs were barely designed for this environment, and several emergency barriers were hastily built to keep out the worst of the wind. The colonial administration worked the colonists to the bone to get everything put up as soon as possible, so mining could begin and they could get the company off their backs about not meeting quotas. The scientists from Nanotrasen had also joined with the administration as part of the ruling class, albeit with their own motivations for getting the colony running as soon as possible. In response to the abysmal conditions, many of the colonists opted to form unions around their respective fields, in order to achieve better working conditions. For the most part, they were minimally effective. The unions would have to work much harder for any major victory.

===Liberation===
Some time after planetfall, the administration realizes the unions are becoming a major problem, and choose to crack down, arresting a known agitator for the unions. The response is immediate and fierce, with colonists demanding for their release at once.To make matters worse, the scientists, frustrated with the administration’s focus on mining, choose to leak one crucial detail; the colony had fallen out of contact with Sol, the administration was operating independently and could not call Hephaestus to save them. With this, the majority of the workforce goes on strike, demanding the resignation of the administrators. Far from idle, these striking workers took the construction and mining equipment for their own use, and began carving out a network of tunnels and caves. Crackdowns in response to this were brutal, as the colony’s law enforcement had not joined the strikers, but those very strikers responded by fighting back.

Despite much of Himean media about this time period portraying the revolution as a glorious battle between near-mythical heroes and unimaginable villainy charging towards each other in massive caves, the reality is much less glamorous. Fights were often short and brutal affairs contained within claustrophobic tunnels, with both sides deploying often underhanded tactics. Eventually the strikers gained the upper hand and stormed the colony’s headquarters, dragging the administrators out into the snow. The executions were as slow as they were cruel. With the fires of rage extinguished, the colonists began shaping what the new Himean society would look like. After much deliberation, a direct democracy was decided on, though one heavily influenced by and with an economy run by the unions, or syndicates as they were often called by many. With that, the United Syndicates of Himeo were officially established on the 1st of August, 2260.

===Evolution===
Over time, the colony of Himeo grew, formed new cities across the planet, and re-established its presence in space, where it found the asteroid field that had caused so many hardships was as abundant in resources as originally recorded. The government had also evolved, retaining its democratic elements but also establishing a legislative branch known as the Council of Himeo, and an executive called the First Speaker, both of which were permanent fixtures designed to introduce laws and approve them before allowing them to proceed to public elections, a process who’s sluggish pace was a cause of much complaint. Many also grumbled at the dominance of political parties in the process, though few had any real alternatives yet. It would be a chain of events that brought Himeo into the greater Spur that would eventually spark change.

In the year 2429, an unknown ship was detected warping into the system. Worried it was Hephaestus, finally returning to reclaim what they lost, the Planetary Guard mobilized to meet this ship face to face. To much relief, the ship came from an entirely different world, New Xanu. Over time, the people of the two worlds would grow closer together, though Himeo would remain cautious about allowing too much of Xanu’s socialist policies to influence the syndicalist society they have built. Of greater interest was Himeo’s access to a salvageable bluespace drive, and a contingent of scientists from Xanu eager and able to reverse engineer it. These exchanges and others would bring the two worlds closer together, and Himeo would join the Union of Progressive Peoples in 2432. When the UPP made contact with the rest of humanity, people across Himeo were largely disgusted with how much corporate influence had taken over the rest of humanity, and began looking at their own system with worries of how it could be subverted.

The push for reform was small at first, with only a few voices opposing the Council and First Speaker, none of which had any influence on the government. As media kept pouring in about whatever acts the megacorporations were committing, as well as the lives of those living under them, the voices got even louder and more numerous. Alongside them rose a new movement, known as the Worker’s Voice. As expressed in their motto of “A worker speaks through their actions, not through the ballot box”, the Worker’s Voice advocated for another general strike to force a reform of the government, often evoking names and icons associated with the original Himean Revolution, and directly accusing the political parties of trying to eclipse union power. Combined with these threats and a completely unrelated fringe party experiencing a sharp rise in seats in the Council, the rest of the Council voted to dissolve the legislature, and through some loopholes, opened a way for complete reform in the year 2577.

In the modern day, Himeo forms a crucial part of the UPP's economy, and its workers are considered some of the highest quality in the Spur. However, the planet stands at a crossroads. It's forging a new path in how worlds are governed, but this comes at the cost of uncertainty and risk. More mundane issues grip almost all cities. Despite all this, hope for the future remains at high levels even nearly two decades after Himeo rebuilt itself from the ground up. To some, it's a place where anything can change, and this vision for Himeo must inevitably come into conflict with the stagnation present in its society. Sooner or later, only one of the two will emerge victorious.

==Government==
Among the worlds of the UPP and humanity in general, Himeo possesses a government like no other. Though rooted in the idea of direct democracy since day one, it has undergone substantial changes since then. In the modern day, Himeo possesses neither a legislative branch to propose and vote on laws, nor a true leader. For matters impacting the entire planet, or for admitting new unions into the United Syndicates, a “worker’s assembly” is formed, consisting of representatives from each of the syndicates. During these sessions, the representatives vote on the admittance of new unions and write up laws that are then sent to the public for voting, and dissolve the assembly as soon as the session is done. On the scale of cities or smaller subdivisions, the process is much more straightforward. Citizens are able to suggest new laws through petition, these requests are processed, and the final version of the law is put up for election.

Being a representative is never a career for anyone, due to the sporadic schedule of the assembly, and the fact that when one does happen, each syndicate must vote on who will be sent to it. While this was designed to decentralize the government and reduce the impact of political parties on Himeo, it had the side effect of giving any change beyond the local level a glacial pace and further cemented the influence of the syndicates on society, for better and for worse. Currently, there are no measures in place to expedite the process in case of a true crisis.

==Economy==
Himeo has grown to be the industrial hub of the UPP, and it’s unsurprising to see why. Not only is the asteroid belt within the system rich in materials, but it also holds large deposits of phoron, and some asteroids even have trace bluespace crystal formations. As a result, the Himean economy revolves primarily around the refining of minerals, the manufacture of industrial goods, and the export of both. Mines and factories across the UPP often use equipment bearing the production quality seal of the United Syndicates, and even outside the Union, Himean equipment is known for its reliability. Though also another major industry, Himeo rarely exports any ships of its own design, save for the occasional freighter. Consumer and luxury goods receive much less focus in Himean production lines, to the point where they make up Himeo’s primary import.

Despite being an industrial powerhouse for much of its history, the Himean economy is in a precarious position. Himean engineers, as much as the average worker makes unsavory comments about their work, are often regarded as some of the most capable in the Spur and responsible for keeping Himean equipment up with the times. Himeo’s scientific sector, on the other hand, is nearly nonexistent, leading to a stagnation in terms of innovation, a problem that can be seen most readily when compared to worlds other than Himeo. The worst of this issue has been mitigated thanks to a steady stream of research from New Xanu, but the risk of Himean equipment becoming archaic in comparison to the rest of the Spur is ever present.

===The Syndicalist System===
Unique to the Himean economy, as well as often supplanting government agencies, are the syndicates, a form of union that has much more control over the workplace. Instead of relying on a system of managers and executives to make decisions for the workers, it’s the workers themselves who decide on what happens within their workplace. Profits that once may have flowed into the bank accounts of a company’s elite are instead invested back into the job site or distributed amongst the members of the syndicate. In addition, syndicates provide essentials such as housing, food, and clothing to all of their members, as well as amenities such as syndicate-owned bars, social clubs, and so on, in exchange for an occasional payment of dues to the syndicate. All are expected to contribute to the continued operation of the syndicate, though some leniency is given to disabled workers. Continuous failure to pay these dues often result in a loss of access to some services and in the worst cases, ejection from the syndicate due to “selfish behaviors”. Not being affiliated with a syndicate has many downsides, including an inability to legally leave the planet.

As a result of how syndicates are organized, Himeo is able to boast a near total employment rate, though with some caveats. Work is guaranteed for anyone who can join a syndicate, but these jobs are not always what a worker had in mind. Gaining the ideal position within a syndicate is a frequently arduous task, involving both a display of ability to perform the job, and navigating the often byzantine internal politics of the syndicate. Workers disgruntled with their position sometimes seek work with offworld companies, hoping to use their time with the company to persuade the syndicate to give them their desired job. Such actions are rarely motivated by ideology, but instead by the workers’ own ambitions.

Syndicates often collaborate and depend on each other to achieve common goals, but competition is far from unheard of. In situations where syndicates disagree on something, they have been known to restrict their services and interfere with the others’ operations until they can secure a better arrangement, or in the most extreme scenarios reserved for syndicates they view as behaving irresponsibly, uniting with other syndicates to force the target to dissolve. These tactics and more are derided by some as underhanded, but defended by others as a healthy way of resolving conflicts, citing the lack of physical harm caused by these actions.

==Society & Culture==
Himean society is broadly defined by the spirit behind its original founding and the conviction that the planet stands apart from all others as an incredibly unique and exceptional world. In keeping with that spirit and arising from the harsh environment of the planet, Himeans are often of a more collectivist persuasion and place the wellbeing of their neighbors on a high pedestal. That’s not to say Himeans take no pride in their nation and syndicate, as the Himean flag and objects bearing its design are seen in many locations, though it is seen alongside the iconography of a specific syndicate in many cases. With this exceptionalism, however, comes a distrust for outside institutions. At best, they can hold friendly relations with planets like New Xanu, albeit with a level of caution that guards against excessive influence. At its worst, corporations and similar entities are completely locked off from Himeo’s system and political opponents are often accused of being corporate agents. This does not completely stop Himeans from seeking to advance their career back home through working outside the syndicates, where the stubborn attitudes that Himeans often express result in significant clashes.

Owing to the primary groups involved in the revolution, Himean culture also takes on a decidedly blue-collar feel. Jobs in manual labor and the skilled trades are held up as the ideal careers for the Himean worker, followed closely by healthcare, and engineering behind it, albeit not without plenty of lighthearted mockery. The humanities and most fields of research, on the other hand, are frequently neglected and derided by most, believing their overly academic nature leaves Himeans weaker and less connected to the concerns of the working class. If they even have them, most schools with programs in these fields leave them often understaffed, underfunded, and rarely attended. Himeans looking to become scientists, artists, historians, or many other fields often leave the planet to study abroad and rarely come back after finding work.

Though largely free of many issues that plague other worlds across the Spur, and with a general satisfaction about how the planet is run, Himeo plays host to some specific issues that have yet to be resolved, and that many have an opinion on. Compared to other planets at its level of development, the quality of education on Himeo is often lacking, and the rate of dropouts is well above the human average. Some syndicates have opted to require prospective members to have completed their education before joining, and it remains to be seen how this will change the statistics. Much more difficult to stamp out, however, has been the rampant use of psychedelics. These recreational drugs are produced on Himeo more than anywhere else, and just about anyone knows someone who uses them, even if they don’t use the drugs themselves. Workplace incidents and hospitalizations have sharply increased in recent years as a result of this, and the syndicates are scrambling to find a solution to the issue.

===Religion===
The position of religion in Himean society is a complicated one. As a variety of workers from all sorts of backgrounds made up the Himean Revolution, few felt particularly eager about doing away with a major part of the lives of many. Despite this, some changes were made to the impact they had on society. On a governmental level, Himeo has committed to the separation of church and state from the beginning and has found continued success in upholding that division. Another factor impacting the presence of organized religion on the planet is the view that asking for donations constitutes wage theft, with the legal consequences that implies. The result of this is that most leaders within a place of worship take up another job with one of the syndicates in order to make a living, save for the exceedingly rare professional who is often subsidized by a religious authority outside of Himeo. Said places of worship tend to be smaller, plainer and are one notable place where communities are built between syndicates.

===Cuisine===
Up until contact was established with Xanu, the Himean diet was very sparse. Due to the environment the colonists found themselves in, mushrooms were one of the few viable sources of nutrition one could grow. After contact, however, new hydroponics techniques were introduced to Himeo, allowing for a greater variety of foods that could be made. Despite this, the mushroom in many varieties remains a staple of most Himean dishes, with meat being rarer than most other worlds due to the space and resources needed for its production.

===Clothing===
Clothing on Himeo is, by demand, practical and extremely rugged – designed to endure a harsh environment and last for a long time. Much of it features multiple layers, and very little skin is left exposed. Due to the lack of real animals on the planet synthetic furs are common, with Himeo’s furs being commonly referred to as “fish fur” on the galactic marketplace. Himeo’s clothing is prized for its ability to keep in warmth and its low-maintenance designs. Coloring and dyes are generally quite muted due to scarcity, though reflective materials are common for practical and aesthetic purposes. Many Himeans make patterns on their clothes using reflective material, causing their clothes to vibrantly light up in the low-light environments of Himeo’s cities.

===Music===
Though the arts are not a major area of interest on Himeo, the music scene has continued on unabated and, in the absence of any major record labels, has arguably thrived for independent musicians. At the present time, a revival of folk music in the style of revolution-era songs is sweeping across the planet, a style that often utilizes little more than an acoustic guitar or similar stringed instruments and the singer’s own voice. Lyrics often revolve around social issues relevant to the artist, or retellings of older stories with a Himean twist to their message. Only a small minority of these musicians attain popularity outside of their local community, but within said communities, attending live performances from these smaller artists is a pastime shared by many.

==Cities==
Stemming from Himeo’s harsh environment is an approach to urban design not seen anywhere else in the Spur. All cities are built entirely underground, formed around extensive tunnel systems that have long since outgrown their original purpose for miners. In some cases, these cities can extend further vertically than they do horizontally. Outsiders frequently have difficulty navigating Himean cities, with those dimly lit labyrinths playing host to many a lost tourist. Even when they find their way, there is rarely much to look at. Locations within Himeo are rarely referred to as actual buildings, and more often viewed as individual units and even rooms that are connected by a larger structure, and the exteriors are often drab and constructed of identical materials. Lines of hydroponically grown greenery line most major tunnels and provide a nice means of breaking up the dullness of the rest of the city.

Some major cities within Himeo include, but are not limited to:

<Tabber>
|-|Magnitogorsk=
The largest of Himeo’s cities, and the most important manufacturing center in the UPC. It’s also home to one of the few districts on the entire planet centered around arts and entertainment. Also known for producing some of the best mushroom vodka on Himeo. The manufacturing syndicate Industrial Workers of Himeo holds a substantial amount of influence over local politics here, and rumors swirl around about local infrastructure being subtly developed to suit their needs first and foremost.
|-|Inverkeithing=
The second largest city, and home to the Inverkeithing Industrial Anchorage, one of the only interstellar ports on the planet. All goods marked for export are transported along Himeo’s venerated railways to this location. Inverkeithing is a hotspot for the rivalry between the United Locomotive, Rail, and Automotive Syndicate as well as the Himean Interstellar Transport Union, both of which split from the now-defunct Federation of Logistics Workers in 2489.
|-|Cannington=
Once the center of mining within the planet itself, this boom town has stagnated in recent years, as Inverkeithing’s infrastructure allows it to bring in more ore from around the system than Cannington can hope to keep up with. Even in comparison to other cities, the tunnels here are difficult to navigate and much more haphazardly built. The presence of subterranean hot springs has led to a push to revitalize the city through tourism. Strangely, the local United Mineworkers Alliance chapter supports this shift, and has even formed a branch dedicated to staffing the tourist locations.
|-|Uusi Viipuri=
The unofficial “capital” of Himeo, as its location is roughly equidistant from most major cities. Worker’s assemblies meet in this city whenever they are called, but in most other times, Uusi Viipuri is more known for its schools. The city prides itself on having the highest test scores on Himeo, which means Uusi Viipuri itself just barely squeezes into the “average” range when compared to the quality of education in the rest of the UPP. Much more effort is placed in this city’s aesthetic than others, and it’s frequently deemed the prettiest city on Himeo.
|-|Lirmak=
Compared to all the other cities of Himeo, Lirmak is not inhabited by humans at all, but rather by a community of Tajara. After a failed Xanu-backed uprising in the Free Tajara Republic, those involved or sympathetic to the cause were quickly shuttled offworld and given an abandoned quarry on Himeo to call home. The Tajara took to their new home incredibly well, and in the present have created a stable community, albeit one covertly preparing to finish what was started. These efforts have stalled out as these would-be revolutionaries spend more time debating the merits of Himean vs. Xanan ideology.
</Tabber>

[[Category: Lore]]

Union of Progressive Peoples

2025-04-17T21:53:46Z

Monty: Page Created

Commonwealth of Independent Systems

2025-04-17T01:44:40Z

Monty: Created page with "{{NationBox|name=Commonwealth of Independent Systems|image=CISInsignia.png|capital=Treaty Station Espero|motto=Freedom is in the hands of every individual|founded=2363|gov=Treaty-Enforced Democracy|leader=Adjudicator Eleanor Lux|lang=Freespeak, Sol Common, Tradeband}} Often shortened to either The Commonwealth or The CIS, the Commonwealth of Independent Systems is a series of loose military alliances, mutual economic ties and rough treatices that approximately create an..."

Silversun

2024-03-31T11:37:43Z

Monty: Created page with "<blockquote>"The so-called activist Urepa Keona was, for once, correct when she said that Silversun's strength was its natural beauty. So we say to her, if you believe Silversun is beautiful, why do you so badly want to hide it from everyone else?" - Noel Blair, Idris Representative, recorded during a private investors' meeting, 2578</blockquote>A glittering jewel of a world sitting on the edge of the known Orion Spur, Silversun is the darling of the tourism industry acr..."

<blockquote>"The so-called activist Urepa Keona was, for once, correct when she said that Silversun's strength was its natural beauty. So we say to her, if you believe Silversun is beautiful, why do you so badly want to hide it from everyone else?" - Noel Blair, Idris Representative, recorded during a private investors' meeting, 2578</blockquote>A glittering jewel of a world sitting on the edge of the known Orion Spur, Silversun is the darling of the tourism industry across the galaxy. While people may mostly perceive the planet as a lively island holiday destination, there are, as with all tourist destinations, real human beings living there, and these ones in particular are getting sick of their lives being sold as entertainment to the more fortunate.

== Environment ==
The planet is 90% water by surface volume, with vast oceans that could barely be considered broken up. Can you consider the Pacific broken by the measly islands within it? This is a similar situation for Silversun, where the networks of archipelagos are made up entirely of islands that can be walked across in a day by anyone so much as determined to. The few islands that are larger than that make up some of the most important, allowing cities to overtake their landscapes. The majority of these islands exist around the equator, with only a handful of remote islands existing nearer to the poles. The result of this is that the weather is always temperate at worst, actively boiling towards the peak of their summers but never more than mildly unpleasant.

The oceans themselves are teeming with a combination of native and Earthen life, introduced during early colonisation to preserve endangered species. These oceans are relatively shallow, no deeper than earth’s Mediterranean or Red Sea, but more than make up for their shallowness with the amount life scattered across them.

== History ==
[[File:Silversunflag.png|thumb|The flag of Silversun]]
GF 2701 III was first found to be habitable in 2375, needing little to no terraforming or human influence. Following this, in 2392 the first humans began to arrive and colonise the planet, naming it Silversun for the white dwarf star it orbited so close to, being promised a future of homesteading on their own private islands. The reality was starkly different, with the majority of people only being able to afford to move into the main towns on the large islands with shuttle-ports. Over time, the private island fantasy died, and only the smallest of islands avoided becoming at least villages, if not towns, as human settlement spread outwards from the space-linked islands. Technological advancement was much slower than other parts of the Spur, not least since the majority of infrastructure needed to support such modern technology was too large for most islands, and instead many 20<sup>th</sup> to 22<sup>nd</sup> century technologies were re-pioneered to make this novel island lifestyle possible.

This unique lifestyle could not last unexploited in the corporate age, however, and in 2510 tourism went from a secondary industry to a primary industry with the simultaneous construction of over a dozen Idris run resort islands. Initially, this was extremely welcome, giving many of the surrounding islands subject to cruises more jobs and more money to spend, but over time the effects of the tourism began to show cracks. The fast paced nature of the tours, the erasure of Silversunner culture where it was inconvenient for the corporations and the flood of tourists moving into the island towns without a care for the people there all compounded into modern anti-tourism, with sea-plane pirates beginning to show up some time in the 2530s.

== Tourism ==
Silversun has become inextricably linked to the tourism industry over the past century. While the planet has always relied to some extent on tourism to bring new money into the economy, tourism has taken on a life of its own within Silversun, one that many are starting to consider more parasitic than beneficial.

Before Idris, the majority of Silversun’s economy was agrarian and research focussed, primarily concerned with the vast oceans that covered the planet. As time has passed, the giant cruise ships run by Idris and other tourism companies have flooded these oceans with pollutants, meanwhile trawlers have nearly wiped out certain populations of fish attempting to meet the ravenous appetites of tourists.

As the planet becomes more and more characterised by the tourism industry, an identity crisis has begun to take hold within the very roots of its society. The appealing weather and the idyllic lifestyles have made the planet an incredibly attractive retirement location for the affluent and the over-enamoured of the Orion Spur, with retirees and forever-tourists moving into the cheap properties of the islands without any real care for the authentic cultures, instead looking to emulate their tourism experiences. With such an appetite for Silversun property, some companies have taken to speculating on island properties, to the point that some parts of the planet have more than half of their properties empty, rented out in tourism season at best, or just functionally abandoned at worst.

This tourism boom can be unequivocally linked to Idris and their mass-marketing the planet as the experience of a lifetime. In doing this, they have become the face of the enemy to many Silversunners, especially anti-tourist activists of both the legal and illegal stripes. Statistics show that Idris cruises are three times as likely to be attacked by sea-plane pirates per ship, and Idris personnel are treated far worse on capture. To try and combat this negative issue, not least the accusations of developing a functional monopoly of the planet’s tourism and tourism-adjacent industries, Idris has engaged in a large-scale media campaign. This media campaign has been compared to a propaganda campaign by some, with heavy evidence in favour of accusations of the statistics used by Idris broadcasts being skewed or even outright forged.

Anti-tourism is more than just an environmental and economic movement, however, also taking a large cultural concern. Many parts of Silversun culture are flanderised or otherwise perverted in order to make them more acceptable to the tourist audience, and with Idris’ campaign bordering on disinformation, some young people on Silversun are convinced that their culture has always been the way it is presented. This has horrified the older generation, not least the ones that remember the time before the tourism explosion.

== Culture ==

=== Attitudes ===
Silversunners are possibly some of the happiest, healthiest people in the Orion Spur. There is much speculation on this, ranging from the way their towns are designed to their diets. One major tenet, however, is the philosophies that they live by. Good health and easy living are considered important parts of their lives, especially taking care of one’s body and mind. The term “your body is a temple” is almost an understatement, to a Silversunner the body and mind is more akin to a site of pilgrimage, and it must be kept pristine.

The most important tenet of this philosophy is manifest in how day-to-day life is tackled. You have over a hundred years to do everything you could ever want, so why rush all of it into your youth? Take life slowly, relax, and enjoy what you have already. This attitude can be seen as frustrating to some of the more ambitious youth, and is often the main reason for moving away from the planet, or moving to the few cities in hopes of a faster paced life.

A dyed-in-the-wool Silversunner will typically follow the idea that a considered, well though-out decision will lead to more happiness and benefit in life than a snap or impulse decision ever will, and to some extent if an opportunity requires immediate action, it likely will not benefit you so much as it may present itself.

=== Food ===
Unsurprisingly, considering the nature of the geography of Silversun, the majority of meals are in some way based upon seafood. A large amount of sea life has been imported from Earth, primarily formerly endangered species, and has adapted rather well to the Silversun ecosystem. Tuna thrive, and eels are considered a delicacy, while clams are often used to bulk out protein in a meal. The main leafy-green, however, is seaweed or kelp, and many a dish neglects to add salt from the included salty flavour of most ingredients. With such a variety of ingredients, it’s not uncommon for most Silversunners to resort to one pot cooking, making stews and roasts in a large melting pot and simmering over the day, before serving on hydroponically grown rice. The other popular cooking method is barbecue, with rooftops often being collective grounds for the entire building to enjoy a cookout together.

=== Sports ===
One of the primary hobbies of Silversunners, the planet could be considered sports mad. Whereas a normal person may only have one or two favourite sports, the average Silversunner keeps four or five favourite sports, often followed in a way that they can keep their entire year occupied following the professional leagues without break.

Of course, sports are not only to be witnessed, they are to be played, and Silversun is no exception. With limited space on every island, formal sports fields are unpopular, instead having holographic community centres designed to accommodate each and every sport. Where the space is too great, or the island too remote, the preference instead goes to more informal sports, particularly ball sports that require minimal equipment. In fact, many sports are adapted to be played in the narrow streets of Silversun towns, whether it be complex golf games involving getting the ball into open windows with as many bounces as possible, or bicycle races that route through steep staircases and over rooftops.

==== Silversun Football ====
None of these sports, however, can beat the popularity of the Beautiful Game that is played on every island, by every demographic, of all ages: Silversun Football, sometimes called Silversun Soccer. The game occupies children for hours at a time, and is played entirely within the narrow alleys that stitch the tapestry of Silversun towns. It is, down to its very core, soccer, but adapted to be played in the narrow streets and allowing limited use of one’s hands.

===== Preparing the field =====
A suitably long stretch of relatively straight corridor or alleyway should be marked out by laying a balled up jacket at either end of the play area. These balled up jackets, or in the event of a more formal game, lines of chalk; make up the goal lines. Once the field is prepared, the players should divide themselves up into teams, customarily three aside plus goal-keepers.

===== Play =====
The rules are similar to the kind of soccer you might have played as a child. Informal rules, no offside rule and no corner kicks. The main differences to the rules are as such:

* You can pick up the ball, but only for a maximum of three steps (tiles)
* You may kick the ball indefinitely
* There is no such thing as a foul tackle unless you hurt or risk dangerously hurting your opponent
* There is no “over” on a goal, as long as it crosses the line, it is a legal goal
* Games run as long as both sides agree it is worth continuing

It should be noted that all rules are informal, and the game is something of a Calvinball in that the rules often change between whoever is playing it.

=== Boating ===
Being a series of island archipelagos, Silversun has developed a rich boating culture to account for the lack of space on most islands for a shuttle-port. Instead, most islands are linked by a series of ferries, personal boats and, if the island is big enough to warrant it, a sea-plane terminal. In fact, most Silversunners don’t even own a car, the size of their islands being too small to even warrant anything more than small goods vehicles. In contrast, one of the most developed areas of most islands is the marina, where the majority of islanders will keep their boats when not in use.

=== Sea Plane Pirates ===
This reliance upon boating comes with its own issues, of course. Aside from reliance upon weather to travel, somewhat mitigated by modern technology, a more pressing issue comes, one that has become an iconic part of Silversun’s image: Sea-Plane Piracy. Taking advantage of tourist cruises and the general apathy of locals towards the safety of tourists, pirates will use lightly-weaponised sea-planes to take tourists ransom and steal valuables off of cargo ships in flash-raids.

These pirates are largely harmless to their victims aside from the emotional and financial distress, which has granted them a famous image of the “noble sea-plane pilot”. This image has been flanderised rather heavily, leading to some tourists even hoping to be attacked by these pirates for the “authentic” experience. It is not uncommon for cruises to be punctuated by dogfights between mercenaries paid by shipping companies and the pirates, and some cruises use them as the main attraction. Some pirates have gained such a reputation that they are comparable to the gunslingers of Old Earth’s Wild West.

=== Fashion ===
Silversunner fashion is sometimes considered an oxymoron by the larger Orion Spur. Much of their available style is either something that has been co-opted by elderly retirees or entirely impractical in cooler climates. Despite this, Silversunners rarely give a particular shit what anybody else thinks, and wear their distinctive fashions proudly.

On the topic of distinctive, one of the most iconic parts of Silversun culture is their elaborate beard and hair culture. While many cultures may have conventions around their beards as practical or religious concerns, Silversunners turn beards to true accessories. Beards will be trimmed, styled and permed into elaborate shapes and coloured patterns. Every island has at least two beard salons, regardless of size, and they pull double-duty as social gathering points, with many even having alcohol set aside for customers while they chat.

In regards to clothing, the climate dictates at least some manner of practicality. Short sleeved shirts and loose shorts make up the majority of a Silversunner’s wardrobe, typically in bright colours to match the murals that decorate their homes. While “Silversunner Shirts” are typically thought of as floral patterned short-sleeve button-ups, these are actually a manufacture of the tourism industry. Instead, light polo shirts and sports jerseys make up the average upper-wear, with cargo shorts preferred below for the storage. Speaking of tourist clothing, sandals are almost never worn, not least because they are not nearly as comfortable as the much more popular canvas slip-on boat shoe or modern trainer.

=== Architecture ===
Silversun has a particular image when thought of across the Spur. Iconic plastered exteriors and narrow streets that protect against the heat and the elements, with businesses and shops flanking either side while people live above stringing washing between one-another’s windows. What is often neglected from this image is some of the more human elements of these streets.

While tourists are encouraged to get lost amongst the businesses, spending their money and being pushed towards the sea-fronts that they so desire, the people of the towns seek solace in courtyards and divots underneath the rooftops. Space is used efficiently, as it has to be, leaving little room for trees or avenues. Instead, beauty is found in art, with great murals and bright colours adorning the white plaster walls to create an almost psychedelic experience for anybody that walks deeper into town. These murals are often local artists, encouraged to put their artistic pursuits towards beautifying their town, not least because graffiti is seen as a genuine art form on Silversun.

File:Silversunflag.png

2024-03-31T11:35:20Z

Monty:

A flag for the planet of Silversun, a yellow-blue split with a grey sunrise effect

Xanu

2024-03-09T00:08:56Z

Monty:

[[File:Xanu Flag.png|thumb|The flag of the People's Democratic Xanu State. The angled lines represent the panels of the machinery that rebuilt the nation, and the star represents the shining status of the nation as a beacon of Communism.]]
Home of the Union of Progressive Peoples, first planet to declare independence from the United Nations Interstellar Protectorate and current haven of contemporary Communist ideology. These are the three things that help to define the ways that Xanu is viewed by the rest of the Orion Spur. Visitors will recall its glowing oceans, the intense automation and the tours through the scars of the civil war that once wrought through the very society they now explore. A home to mere millions, and yet a serious contender on the stage of politics between the star nations. Xanu is many things, but ultimately it is considered the blueprint planet of the UPP, the role-model and the caring older sibling of an entire family of interstellar socialist endeavours.

== History ==
The story of The People’s Democratic Xanu State begins with the Manchurian People’s Republic in the 2190s. Seeking to expand into the interstellar colonisation efforts, the Manchurian government set their eyes upon a distant but inhabitable planet that had potential to be a perfect base of operations for more distant efforts later-on. The friendly states of The Caucasus People’s Bulwark and The Alliance of Indonesian Communes were appealed to for experts and willing idealists to send on a one-way journey of colonisation, with refugees from the Balkan Treaty Zone joining for a chance at a new life. The shuttle launched in 2198 to much fanfare and a large propaganda campaign from the Manchurian government. To supplement this relatively small but diverse group of people, the Manchurian government also sent with them the latest in their robotics program to multiply working capacity, as well as fabrication equipment to manufacture more.

Landing upon the planet, little manual labour was needed once the robotics plant was established, with robots constructing prefab plasteel villages for workers to inhabit. Prefabricated buildings quickly gave way to permanent settlements and a self-sustaining colony soon began to form, no longer needing the vast majority of the resources brought by Manchurian supply ships. As resupply lessened, so too did communications, with radio signals being next to useless for data transmission and the only way for important diplomatic contact to be made being through messengers riding trade transports. After an unprecedented economic downturn in UNIP, this eventually turned into a total loss of contact in 2270, with the colony presumed lost due to a variety of circumstances from the last message. With little political capital available to back sending a rescue mission, the minimal loss of resources and the lacking public interest in the colony after so many years, no action was taken regarding the presumed loss of the colony, and UNIP bureaucracy often placed colonisation of such a distant outpost on the backburner.

At some point during this loss of contact, the colonial administration began to suspect that they had been abandoned. While self-sustaining, this had still struck a significant blow to their confidence in the Manchurian portion of UNIP, and they thus declared themselves abandoned, forming a new government independent of the Manchurian People’s Republic and its UNIP overlords, declaring The People’s Democratic Xanu State. This did not go over without issues, however, and in 2291 a group of MPR loyalists, primarily political officers of the military and government-sponsored business owners who stood to lose their monopolies if the MPR was ignored, declared the colonial administration traitors, sparking a civil war. Radical elements of the Pro-MPR loyalists, declaring “Death before Revolution!”, unleashed weaponized biological agents in various cities across the planet, killing vast swathes of the population and themselves in the process. To this day, these agents contaminate the water tables of the former cities and prevent them from being habitable. What was most confusing, in all of this very complex war, was that the government still claimed to be communist like their former leaders, and the accusations of an anti-communist counter-revolution seem to be entirely baseless.

This new government managed to roughly stabilise after the war, banning all new political parties outside of the current three as a measure to prevent “undue political strife”; a measure that stands up even to this day. As the planet developed, and gained an identity of its own, it began to see itself more as an interstellar entity, with short-range FTL travel being cannibalised from the surviving ships in orbit and reverse engineered in the immediate 2400s. With this interstellar identity came the concept of the Union of Progressive Peoples, in that if a future habitable planet were discovered, Xanu should be ready to treat it as a proper colony, not repeating the past mistakes of their parent nation. This concept would be put into practice much sooner than expected, however, and from an entirely unexpected source to say the least. In 2431, an experimental Xanu exploration ship jumped to what was assumed to be an uninhabitable system. Instead they came across a colony of miners governed by a syndicate of local unions: the star nation of Himeo. The Xanan version of history then goes on to elaborate that Xanu saved Himeo from their fate of abandonment, but this is disputed as a simple partnership by Himeans. What was initially just a partnership to salvage and repair bluespace drives to enable long-distance travel soon elevated to both sides floating the idea of unity, and Himeo eventually joined the UPP in the year 2451, ten years to the day after first contact. From here, the story of the UPP becomes a general one, but one that Xanu will always take a part in.

== Home of the UPP ==
Being the founding planet and governmental centre of the Union of Progressive Peoples, Xanan government and culture have come to form a large building block of the UPP and Xanans are proud of this fact. In their eyes, while the Himeans and Vysokans are appreciated, well-competent members of the UPP, it is up to the mantle of the Xanan Government to continue to lead the UPP into prosperity. During propaganda advertising on Xanu, there are often motifs of leadership, unity and being the front of the pack when concerning the UPP.

This belief of leadership isn’t entirely unwarranted. While the union is small, Xanu is typically the one pulling the string on everything from clusters of habitable space stations to small mining colonies sitting on planetoids with little better to do. Whenever a planet is lacking its own distinct culture, either due to small population or relative new-ness, Xanan culture permeates through as an all-powerful force. As a result of this, and some inherent biases in the system, most representatives from consulars to military advisors have a distinct Xanan slant to their ideas.

== Environment ==
Xanu is a planet primarily defined by the impact humanity has had on it. It is generally a warm, occasionally drought-prone planet that, despite the devastation wreaked, has rebounded in unprecedented ways. Some areas are still inhospitable centuries on, though. Much of the land, habitable or not, is undeveloped, as most of the population is concentrated around a handful of cities, with very few living more than a hundred kilometres beyond city limits. Beyond that are sweeping plains as far as the eye can see, with almost no tree cover to be seen due to the war. With little to break them, the winds on Xanu have a reputation for being intense compared to everywhere else in the Spur, only rivalled by the massive and terrifying thunderstorms this environment produces. Several of the strongest tornadoes in recorded history have come from Xanu, though most cities are built in a way to minimise damage.

There are still many places that display the sheer brutality of the war. Though the toxic fog that defined the Xanan environment for many years has been beaten back, there are still places and settlements that remain shrouded in it. In these areas, it is unsafe to travel without a personal air supply, though additional protection is often encouraged due to some of the species that have proven immune to the bioweapons. The oceans were also rendered extremely poisonous due to the conflict, but have since been restored through advanced terraforming techniques. As a result of the bioluminescent bacteria used in the process, the oceans, rivers, and even some areas of coastal grass take on a characteristic shimmering cyan that can be seen even from orbit. There is some variation in colour as the seasons pass, turning to a deep shade of purple during the fall, becoming turquoise through the dead of winter, before eventually returning to cyan in the spring and summer.

== Culture ==

=== Attitudes ===
While much of the Orion Spur has polarising or objectifying opinions of automation, and especially robots, Xanan culture as a whole has taken up a generally more friendly approach to synthetics. Home robots are granted names by the occupants, customarily having it written somewhere on their frame so that guests can be polite by addressing the robots the same way the owners do. Even public service robots, such as street cleaners and building maintenance robots, will be affectionately referred to as “comrade” by passers-by if they have to get the attention of it.

These attitudes are more easily understood when one understands how automation is viewed. Since quality of life is typically defined by party loyalty, rather than work, automation is seen as little threat, and with the small population of the planet, those who wish to work need only qualifications, managing their workforce of robots to verify the quality of the production. Automation is no threat in the eyes of a Xanan, but merely a sign of the inevitable march of progress, so long as it is wielded by an appropriately benevolent force, such as the party, and originates from a benevolent culture, such as their own. Xanan automation, therefore, is inherently better than the automatons of any other nation.

Of course this idea of a more moral, more benevolent society does not come around naturally. While the average thought of the average Xanan may indicate such, human reality often gets in the way of a perfect society, and Xanu is not the World State, there is hardship in life. Censorship is the mend to all cultural woes, at least, and with enough censorship, the language to discuss hardship and demoralisation withers. Xanans, then, struggle to express when they are struggling in a manner that cannot be blamed on an individual, and often lack the vocabulary or will to discuss the trickier subjects of life, such as death, abuse by the system or depression.

=== Entertainment ===
Being as culturally isolated as it is, Xanu has developed a rich domestic entertainment industry, with many local studios and producers working to fulfil the media demands of an entire planet without any variety of imports. To this extent, Xanan entertainment has become something of a unique group of themes and conventions, not least because of its intense censorship. Foreign observers have made something of a game of bingo when watching a Xanan movie, for example, and seeing how long it takes to fill out their cards with tropes.

Some of these tropes include:

* No anti-government character may succeed, and must die at the end of the story
* The revolutionary must always at least earn a pyrrhic victory
* Corrupt officials may only be at the lowest level, and cannot be shown to be popular with their colleagues
* The only foreigner that is allowed to be equally as noble as a Xanan is a Himean
** A subsection of this rule is that Vysokans may be helpful but ultimately in need of the help of the Noble Xanan

Some of these rules result in bizarre and convoluted ways to follow the rules, such as the heroes having a eulogy of their contributions to the revolution play every time the player fails in a video game. This has had the side-effect of Xanans being extremely good at games, if only to avoid these long periods of down-time between failing and getting to play again.

Common themes and time periods include the civil war, colonisation of the planet under the MPR and speculative fiction about conflicts in or with other stellar nations. Dystopias set in a near-future Eridani are especially popular, being seen as the perfect antithesis to the Xanan lifestyle.

=== Censorship ===
Communications are one of the most dangerous threats against a functional one party system, and The People’s Assembly recognises this all too well, heavily restricting what communications can be made to the outside galaxy. While unacceptably overbearing by the standards of outsiders, Xanan society has been built intensely around the idea of cultural isolation, believing themselves already abandoned by the outside world. It should be no surprise, then, that the extranet and foreign entertainment are almost inaccessible to the average citizen, with the planet’s own intranet having very well designed filters and flags to avoid any revolutionary sentiment being “misdirected” at party officials.

This is not to say that Xanu has no extranet presence, however, or even foreign entertainment. These are both plentiful, but harshly moderated so that nothing of dangerous origins can infect the minds of the people. Extranet capable devices require a full application, where loyalty to the party and agreements for extra monitoring must be assured before it can even be turned on for the first time. Similarly, foreign media go through an intense censorship regime, sometimes with entire segments being cut out or rewritten to suit the narrative.

=== Food ===
The Xanan diet consists heavily of a handful of hydroponics friendly, flexible staple crops, primarily rice, beans and corn. Culturally speaking, the average Xanan is vegetarian, preferring lightly cooked meals with animal products rather than heavy meat dishes, with the main source of protein being either beans or cheese. Cheese, as it turns out, is beyond a delicacy on Xanu, being considered more of a way of life, with entire conversations being had on which is one’s favourite. This may stem from a previous amassing of cheese by the government during the civil war, which in turn was handed out to a population that was up until that point unused to the product as a way to bolster the caloric intake of post-war rations.

Meat is still available, however, and is mostly enjoyed outside of the home. Beef dishes especially are popular in restaurants, and meat is often added to the snacks at sports games to increase turnout. If one wanted to enjoy meat in the privacy of their home, however, they would have to ensure their loyalty to the party, with the small amounts of commercially available meat being reserved for party officials and well connected individuals.

=== Home Life ===
A major result of Xanu’s reliance upon robotics comes in the form of their home lives, where the majority of house-work is in some variety automated. Basic tasks like cleaning the floors, putting the washing on or doing the ironing are essentially forgotten knowledge that only need to be understood by technicians servicing these machines. Some outsiders have taken this to mean that Xanans are lazy and dysfunctional, not least because ones that leave their system and enter the world outside of such extensive automation often do not have the life skills to perform these tasks, having never needed them.

Of course, these luxuries come with a cost in such a society as Xanu, albeit not a financial one, but a loyalty one. The luxuriousness of one’s home and the amount of house-work that has been automated is almost directly correlated to the loyalty of their family to the UPP and the parties of Xanu. This carries an implicit threat with it for the children and especially grandchildren of loyalists, forcing them to remain equally as loyal as their ancestors lest they have to learn to function without some of the features they had quite literally grown up with. In extreme cases, people have starved after insulting influential party officials, unable to operate their automated cooking systems or figure out the manual overrides.

== Memory Collection ==
The closest thing Xanu has to a widespread religion, Memory Collection is a philosophy born out of the planet’s culture and turbulent history. The seeds that would eventually grow into this way of life were planted in the final days of the civil war, when death could be found around every corner and the ranks of the living had all suffered the loss of those they knew and loved. As the war finally came to an end, the number of formal funerals taking place skyrocketed as the population came together to remember those who were lost. With funerals came eulogies, and the workload grew so large that eulogy writing became a full-time profession for many. These writers eventually registered a union under the new government and in the following years, their unique approach to eulogies was developed and codified across the entire planet.

First and foremost, the philosophy of Memory Collection is centred around providing closure over the dead by compiling all the memories surrounding them. All sources on them are uncovered, and those closest to them interviewed for more information. When this process has concluded, the results are compiled into a multi-page(often 20 pages or more) obituary of the deceased. These obituaries are cherished by the surviving family, and some households will have a shelf solely dedicated to the obituaries of extended family. The workers behind these obituaries, simply known as Writers, have very few formalities between them. All are required to be registered members of the Union of Eulogy Writers, and wear the black formal clothing of their region when working. Rates may vary among the Writers, but charging too much may result in being banished from the union, effectively banning them from the practice.

== Robotics ==
More than anywhere else, the people of Xanu rely heavily on robotics in their daily lives, and their use has given the planet an obscenely large economy for its low population. Most work on the planet has been completely automated, with most jobs left focused on monitoring or maintaining the robots that do the work. This emphasis on a robotic workforce can be traced back to the years following the civil war, when the population was vastly reduced, yet still had a robust synthetic manufacturing base that they could use to fill in the extreme amount of vacancies. Even after the job market stabilised and contact was made with the wider Spur, these robots are mainly produced for internal use, and are found abroad very infrequently.

Though the most intelligent of Xanan-produced synthetics contain a processor that looks similar to the common positronic brain, they could not be more different than the rest of the Spur’s synthetics. In lieu of the common mind-template approach to positronic brains, Xanu uses a collection of open source bases when programming their IPCs. Not only does this make the barrier to entry much lower as well as encourage a collaborative approach to improving the code, but it also allows Xanan manufacturers to create non-bipedal chassis with minimal complications. Regardless of what body the brain is plugged into, Xanan positronics using templates based on social interaction tend to score much higher on Turing Test-like examinations than their foreign counterparts. Perhaps as a consequence of this aptitude, many Xanans hold a strong fondness for their robotic co-workers, often affectionately referring to them as comrades.

== Government ==
Officially, the government of People’s Democratic Xanu State adheres closely to a Marxist-Leninist style of organisation. The planet as a whole is divided into various provinces each run by a council of governors, appointed from the cities and farming communes located within said province. Above them is the Central Executive Committee, responsible for determining the direction of the entire planet. The Premier of the People’s Democratic Xanu State is chosen by the dominant party in the Committee and serves as the face of the nation. They are also able to appoint judges and dissolve the CEC, though that same group is also able to remove a Premier from office if they so choose. Politics on Xanu are divided into three parties: the Communist Party of Xanu, the Labourers’ Revolutionary Party, and the All-Xanu Workers’ Vanguard. All three are functionally indistinct in terms of policy, and are also the only three parties permitted to exist. Citizens of Xanu are expected to register with one in order to receive all the benefits of citizenship, such as freedom of movement, access to some jobs, and other lifestyle benefits.

While the politics are rigid on the home front, international politics are a much different story for Xanu. Balancing their positive relationships with partner and client planets such as Himeo and Vysoka respectively against their much more aggravating relationships with the rest of the Orion Spur. It is often noted that after following the money trail for any number of socialist or similarly aligned uprisings, Xanan funding or weapons are found to have at least encouraged such paramilitaries to be more bold, if not unified these groups into a cohesive movement in the first place.

[[Category:Lore]]

Xanu

2024-03-09T00:06:27Z

Monty: Swapped environment and history

Xanu

2024-03-09T00:05:04Z

Monty: Added flag

[[File:Xanu Flag.png|thumb|The flag of the People's Democratic Xanu State. The angled lines represent the panels of the machinery that rebuilt the nation, and the star represents the shining status of the nation as a beacon of Communism.]]
Home of the Union of Progressive Peoples, first planet to declare independence from the United Nations Interstellar Protectorate and current haven of contemporary Communist ideology. These are the three things that help to define the ways that Xanu is viewed by the rest of the Orion Spur. Visitors will recall its glowing oceans, the intense automation and the tours through the scars of the civil war that once wrought through the very society they now explore. A home to mere millions, and yet a serious contender on the stage of politics between the star nations. Xanu is many things, but ultimately it is considered the blueprint planet of the UPP, the role-model and the caring older sibling of an entire family of interstellar socialist endeavours.

== Environment ==
Xanu is a planet primarily defined by the impact humanity has had on it. It is generally a warm, occasionally drought-prone planet that, despite the devastation wreaked, has rebounded in unprecedented ways. Some areas are still inhospitable centuries on, though. Much of the land, habitable or not, is undeveloped, as most of the population is concentrated around a handful of cities, with very few living more than a hundred kilometres beyond city limits. Beyond that are sweeping plains as far as the eye can see, with almost no tree cover to be seen due to the war. With little to break them, the winds on Xanu have a reputation for being intense compared to everywhere else in the Spur, only rivalled by the massive and terrifying thunderstorms this environment produces. Several of the strongest tornadoes in recorded history have come from Xanu, though most cities are built in a way to minimise damage.

There are still many places that display the sheer brutality of the war. Though the toxic fog that defined the Xanan environment for many years has been beaten back, there are still places and settlements that remain shrouded in it. In these areas, it is unsafe to travel without a personal air supply, though additional protection is often encouraged due to some of the species that have proven immune to the bioweapons. The oceans were also rendered extremely poisonous due to the conflict, but have since been restored through advanced terraforming techniques. As a result of the bioluminescent bacteria used in the process, the oceans, rivers, and even some areas of coastal grass take on a characteristic shimmering cyan that can be seen even from orbit. There is some variation in colour as the seasons pass, turning to a deep shade of purple during the fall, becoming turquoise through the dead of winter, before eventually returning to cyan in the spring and summer.

== History ==
The story of The People’s Democratic Xanu State begins with the Manchurian People’s Republic in the 2190s. Seeking to expand into the interstellar colonisation efforts, the Manchurian government set their eyes upon a distant but inhabitable planet that had potential to be a perfect base of operations for more distant efforts later-on. The friendly states of The Caucasus People’s Bulwark and The Alliance of Indonesian Communes were appealed to for experts and willing idealists to send on a one-way journey of colonisation, with refugees from the Balkan Treaty Zone joining for a chance at a new life. The shuttle launched in 2198 to much fanfare and a large propaganda campaign from the Manchurian government. To supplement this relatively small but diverse group of people, the Manchurian government also sent with them the latest in their robotics program to multiply working capacity, as well as fabrication equipment to manufacture more.

Landing upon the planet, little manual labour was needed once the robotics plant was established, with robots constructing prefab plasteel villages for workers to inhabit. Prefabricated buildings quickly gave way to permanent settlements and a self-sustaining colony soon began to form, no longer needing the vast majority of the resources brought by Manchurian supply ships. As resupply lessened, so too did communications, with radio signals being next to useless for data transmission and the only way for important diplomatic contact to be made being through messengers riding trade transports. After an unprecedented economic downturn in UNIP, this eventually turned into a total loss of contact in 2270, with the colony presumed lost due to a variety of circumstances from the last message. With little political capital available to back sending a rescue mission, the minimal loss of resources and the lacking public interest in the colony after so many years, no action was taken regarding the presumed loss of the colony, and UNIP bureaucracy often placed colonisation of such a distant outpost on the backburner.

At some point during this loss of contact, the colonial administration began to suspect that they had been abandoned. While self-sustaining, this had still struck a significant blow to their confidence in the Manchurian portion of UNIP, and they thus declared themselves abandoned, forming a new government independent of the Manchurian People’s Republic and its UNIP overlords, declaring The People’s Democratic Xanu State. This did not go over without issues, however, and in 2291 a group of MPR loyalists, primarily political officers of the military and government-sponsored business owners who stood to lose their monopolies if the MPR was ignored, declared the colonial administration traitors, sparking a civil war. Radical elements of the Pro-MPR loyalists, declaring “Death before Revolution!”, unleashed weaponized biological agents in various cities across the planet, killing vast swathes of the population and themselves in the process. To this day, these agents contaminate the water tables of the former cities and prevent them from being habitable. What was most confusing, in all of this very complex war, was that the government still claimed to be communist like their former leaders, and the accusations of an anti-communist counter-revolution seem to be entirely baseless.

This new government managed to roughly stabilise after the war, banning all new political parties outside of the current three as a measure to prevent “undue political strife”; a measure that stands up even to this day. As the planet developed, and gained an identity of its own, it began to see itself more as an interstellar entity, with short-range FTL travel being cannibalised from the surviving ships in orbit and reverse engineered in the immediate 2400s. With this interstellar identity came the concept of the Union of Progressive Peoples, in that if a future habitable planet were discovered, Xanu should be ready to treat it as a proper colony, not repeating the past mistakes of their parent nation. This concept would be put into practice much sooner than expected, however, and from an entirely unexpected source to say the least. In 2431, an experimental Xanu exploration ship jumped to what was assumed to be an uninhabitable system. Instead they came across a colony of miners governed by a syndicate of local unions: the star nation of Himeo. The Xanan version of history then goes on to elaborate that Xanu saved Himeo from their fate of abandonment, but this is disputed as a simple partnership by Himeans. What was initially just a partnership to salvage and repair bluespace drives to enable long-distance travel soon elevated to both sides floating the idea of unity, and Himeo eventually joined the UPP in the year 2451, ten years to the day after first contact. From here, the story of the UPP becomes a general one, but one that Xanu will always take a part in.

== Home of the UPP ==
Being the founding planet and governmental centre of the Union of Progressive Peoples, Xanan government and culture have come to form a large building block of the UPP and Xanans are proud of this fact. In their eyes, while the Himeans and Vysokans are appreciated, well-competent members of the UPP, it is up to the mantle of the Xanan Government to continue to lead the UPP into prosperity. During propaganda advertising on Xanu, there are often motifs of leadership, unity and being the front of the pack when concerning the UPP.

This belief of leadership isn’t entirely unwarranted. While the union is small, Xanu is typically the one pulling the string on everything from clusters of habitable space stations to small mining colonies sitting on planetoids with little better to do. Whenever a planet is lacking its own distinct culture, either due to small population or relative new-ness, Xanan culture permeates through as an all-powerful force. As a result of this, and some inherent biases in the system, most representatives from consulars to military advisors have a distinct Xanan slant to their ideas.

== Culture ==

=== Attitudes ===
While much of the Orion Spur has polarising or objectifying opinions of automation, and especially robots, Xanan culture as a whole has taken up a generally more friendly approach to synthetics. Home robots are granted names by the occupants, customarily having it written somewhere on their frame so that guests can be polite by addressing the robots the same way the owners do. Even public service robots, such as street cleaners and building maintenance robots, will be affectionately referred to as “comrade” by passers-by if they have to get the attention of it.

These attitudes are more easily understood when one understands how automation is viewed. Since quality of life is typically defined by party loyalty, rather than work, automation is seen as little threat, and with the small population of the planet, those who wish to work need only qualifications, managing their workforce of robots to verify the quality of the production. Automation is no threat in the eyes of a Xanan, but merely a sign of the inevitable march of progress, so long as it is wielded by an appropriately benevolent force, such as the party, and originates from a benevolent culture, such as their own. Xanan automation, therefore, is inherently better than the automatons of any other nation.

Of course this idea of a more moral, more benevolent society does not come around naturally. While the average thought of the average Xanan may indicate such, human reality often gets in the way of a perfect society, and Xanu is not the World State, there is hardship in life. Censorship is the mend to all cultural woes, at least, and with enough censorship, the language to discuss hardship and demoralisation withers. Xanans, then, struggle to express when they are struggling in a manner that cannot be blamed on an individual, and often lack the vocabulary or will to discuss the trickier subjects of life, such as death, abuse by the system or depression.

=== Entertainment ===
Being as culturally isolated as it is, Xanu has developed a rich domestic entertainment industry, with many local studios and producers working to fulfil the media demands of an entire planet without any variety of imports. To this extent, Xanan entertainment has become something of a unique group of themes and conventions, not least because of its intense censorship. Foreign observers have made something of a game of bingo when watching a Xanan movie, for example, and seeing how long it takes to fill out their cards with tropes.

Some of these tropes include:

* No anti-government character may succeed, and must die at the end of the story
* The revolutionary must always at least earn a pyrrhic victory
* Corrupt officials may only be at the lowest level, and cannot be shown to be popular with their colleagues
* The only foreigner that is allowed to be equally as noble as a Xanan is a Himean
** A subsection of this rule is that Vysokans may be helpful but ultimately in need of the help of the Noble Xanan

Some of these rules result in bizarre and convoluted ways to follow the rules, such as the heroes having a eulogy of their contributions to the revolution play every time the player fails in a video game. This has had the side-effect of Xanans being extremely good at games, if only to avoid these long periods of down-time between failing and getting to play again.

Common themes and time periods include the civil war, colonisation of the planet under the MPR and speculative fiction about conflicts in or with other stellar nations. Dystopias set in a near-future Eridani are especially popular, being seen as the perfect antithesis to the Xanan lifestyle.

=== Censorship ===
Communications are one of the most dangerous threats against a functional one party system, and The People’s Assembly recognises this all too well, heavily restricting what communications can be made to the outside galaxy. While unacceptably overbearing by the standards of outsiders, Xanan society has been built intensely around the idea of cultural isolation, believing themselves already abandoned by the outside world. It should be no surprise, then, that the extranet and foreign entertainment are almost inaccessible to the average citizen, with the planet’s own intranet having very well designed filters and flags to avoid any revolutionary sentiment being “misdirected” at party officials.

This is not to say that Xanu has no extranet presence, however, or even foreign entertainment. These are both plentiful, but harshly moderated so that nothing of dangerous origins can infect the minds of the people. Extranet capable devices require a full application, where loyalty to the party and agreements for extra monitoring must be assured before it can even be turned on for the first time. Similarly, foreign media go through an intense censorship regime, sometimes with entire segments being cut out or rewritten to suit the narrative.

=== Food ===
The Xanan diet consists heavily of a handful of hydroponics friendly, flexible staple crops, primarily rice, beans and corn. Culturally speaking, the average Xanan is vegetarian, preferring lightly cooked meals with animal products rather than heavy meat dishes, with the main source of protein being either beans or cheese. Cheese, as it turns out, is beyond a delicacy on Xanu, being considered more of a way of life, with entire conversations being had on which is one’s favourite. This may stem from a previous amassing of cheese by the government during the civil war, which in turn was handed out to a population that was up until that point unused to the product as a way to bolster the caloric intake of post-war rations.

Meat is still available, however, and is mostly enjoyed outside of the home. Beef dishes especially are popular in restaurants, and meat is often added to the snacks at sports games to increase turnout. If one wanted to enjoy meat in the privacy of their home, however, they would have to ensure their loyalty to the party, with the small amounts of commercially available meat being reserved for party officials and well connected individuals.

=== Home Life ===
A major result of Xanu’s reliance upon robotics comes in the form of their home lives, where the majority of house-work is in some variety automated. Basic tasks like cleaning the floors, putting the washing on or doing the ironing are essentially forgotten knowledge that only need to be understood by technicians servicing these machines. Some outsiders have taken this to mean that Xanans are lazy and dysfunctional, not least because ones that leave their system and enter the world outside of such extensive automation often do not have the life skills to perform these tasks, having never needed them.

Of course, these luxuries come with a cost in such a society as Xanu, albeit not a financial one, but a loyalty one. The luxuriousness of one’s home and the amount of house-work that has been automated is almost directly correlated to the loyalty of their family to the UPP and the parties of Xanu. This carries an implicit threat with it for the children and especially grandchildren of loyalists, forcing them to remain equally as loyal as their ancestors lest they have to learn to function without some of the features they had quite literally grown up with. In extreme cases, people have starved after insulting influential party officials, unable to operate their automated cooking systems or figure out the manual overrides.

== Memory Collection ==
The closest thing Xanu has to a widespread religion, Memory Collection is a philosophy born out of the planet’s culture and turbulent history. The seeds that would eventually grow into this way of life were planted in the final days of the civil war, when death could be found around every corner and the ranks of the living had all suffered the loss of those they knew and loved. As the war finally came to an end, the number of formal funerals taking place skyrocketed as the population came together to remember those who were lost. With funerals came eulogies, and the workload grew so large that eulogy writing became a full-time profession for many. These writers eventually registered a union under the new government and in the following years, their unique approach to eulogies was developed and codified across the entire planet.

First and foremost, the philosophy of Memory Collection is centred around providing closure over the dead by compiling all the memories surrounding them. All sources on them are uncovered, and those closest to them interviewed for more information. When this process has concluded, the results are compiled into a multi-page(often 20 pages or more) obituary of the deceased. These obituaries are cherished by the surviving family, and some households will have a shelf solely dedicated to the obituaries of extended family. The workers behind these obituaries, simply known as Writers, have very few formalities between them. All are required to be registered members of the Union of Eulogy Writers, and wear the black formal clothing of their region when working. Rates may vary among the Writers, but charging too much may result in being banished from the union, effectively banning them from the practice.

== Robotics ==
More than anywhere else, the people of Xanu rely heavily on robotics in their daily lives, and their use has given the planet an obscenely large economy for its low population. Most work on the planet has been completely automated, with most jobs left focused on monitoring or maintaining the robots that do the work. This emphasis on a robotic workforce can be traced back to the years following the civil war, when the population was vastly reduced, yet still had a robust synthetic manufacturing base that they could use to fill in the extreme amount of vacancies. Even after the job market stabilised and contact was made with the wider Spur, these robots are mainly produced for internal use, and are found abroad very infrequently.

Though the most intelligent of Xanan-produced synthetics contain a processor that looks similar to the common positronic brain, they could not be more different than the rest of the Spur’s synthetics. In lieu of the common mind-template approach to positronic brains, Xanu uses a collection of open source bases when programming their IPCs. Not only does this make the barrier to entry much lower as well as encourage a collaborative approach to improving the code, but it also allows Xanan manufacturers to create non-bipedal chassis with minimal complications. Regardless of what body the brain is plugged into, Xanan positronics using templates based on social interaction tend to score much higher on Turing Test-like examinations than their foreign counterparts. Perhaps as a consequence of this aptitude, many Xanans hold a strong fondness for their robotic co-workers, often affectionately referring to them as comrades.

== Government ==
Officially, the government of People’s Democratic Xanu State adheres closely to a Marxist-Leninist style of organisation. The planet as a whole is divided into various provinces each run by a council of governors, appointed from the cities and farming communes located within said province. Above them is the Central Executive Committee, responsible for determining the direction of the entire planet. The Premier of the People’s Democratic Xanu State is chosen by the dominant party in the Committee and serves as the face of the nation. They are also able to appoint judges and dissolve the CEC, though that same group is also able to remove a Premier from office if they so choose. Politics on Xanu are divided into three parties: the Communist Party of Xanu, the Labourers’ Revolutionary Party, and the All-Xanu Workers’ Vanguard. All three are functionally indistinct in terms of policy, and are also the only three parties permitted to exist. Citizens of Xanu are expected to register with one in order to receive all the benefits of citizenship, such as freedom of movement, access to some jobs, and other lifestyle benefits.

While the politics are rigid on the home front, international politics are a much different story for Xanu. Balancing their positive relationships with partner and client planets such as Himeo and Vysoka respectively against their much more aggravating relationships with the rest of the Orion Spur. It is often noted that after following the money trail for any number of socialist or similarly aligned uprisings, Xanan funding or weapons are found to have at least encouraged such paramilitaries to be more bold, if not unified these groups into a cohesive movement in the first place.

Xanu

2024-03-09T00:02:42Z

Monty: Actually added text

Home of the Union of Progressive Peoples, first planet to declare independence from the United Nations Interstellar Protectorate and current haven of contemporary Communist ideology. These are the three things that help to define the ways that Xanu is viewed by the rest of the Orion Spur. Visitors will recall its glowing oceans, the intense automation and the tours through the scars of the civil war that once wrought through the very society they now explore. A home to mere millions, and yet a serious contender on the stage of politics between the star nations. Xanu is many things, but ultimately it is considered the blueprint planet of the UPP, the role-model and the caring older sibling of an entire family of interstellar socialist endeavours.

== Environment ==
Xanu is a planet primarily defined by the impact humanity has had on it. It is generally a warm, occasionally drought-prone planet that, despite the devastation wreaked, has rebounded in unprecedented ways. Some areas are still inhospitable centuries on, though. Much of the land, habitable or not, is undeveloped, as most of the population is concentrated around a handful of cities, with very few living more than a hundred kilometres beyond city limits. Beyond that are sweeping plains as far as the eye can see, with almost no tree cover to be seen due to the war. With little to break them, the winds on Xanu have a reputation for being intense compared to everywhere else in the Spur, only rivalled by the massive and terrifying thunderstorms this environment produces. Several of the strongest tornadoes in recorded history have come from Xanu, though most cities are built in a way to minimise damage.

There are still many places that display the sheer brutality of the war. Though the toxic fog that defined the Xanan environment for many years has been beaten back, there are still places and settlements that remain shrouded in it. In these areas, it is unsafe to travel without a personal air supply, though additional protection is often encouraged due to some of the species that have proven immune to the bioweapons. The oceans were also rendered extremely poisonous due to the conflict, but have since been restored through advanced terraforming techniques. As a result of the bioluminescent bacteria used in the process, the oceans, rivers, and even some areas of coastal grass take on a characteristic shimmering cyan that can be seen even from orbit. There is some variation in colour as the seasons pass, turning to a deep shade of purple during the fall, becoming turquoise through the dead of winter, before eventually returning to cyan in the spring and summer.

== History ==
The story of The People’s Democratic Xanu State begins with the Manchurian People’s Republic in the 2190s. Seeking to expand into the interstellar colonisation efforts, the Manchurian government set their eyes upon a distant but inhabitable planet that had potential to be a perfect base of operations for more distant efforts later-on. The friendly states of The Caucasus People’s Bulwark and The Alliance of Indonesian Communes were appealed to for experts and willing idealists to send on a one-way journey of colonisation, with refugees from the Balkan Treaty Zone joining for a chance at a new life. The shuttle launched in 2198 to much fanfare and a large propaganda campaign from the Manchurian government. To supplement this relatively small but diverse group of people, the Manchurian government also sent with them the latest in their robotics program to multiply working capacity, as well as fabrication equipment to manufacture more.

Landing upon the planet, little manual labour was needed once the robotics plant was established, with robots constructing prefab plasteel villages for workers to inhabit. Prefabricated buildings quickly gave way to permanent settlements and a self-sustaining colony soon began to form, no longer needing the vast majority of the resources brought by Manchurian supply ships. As resupply lessened, so too did communications, with radio signals being next to useless for data transmission and the only way for important diplomatic contact to be made being through messengers riding trade transports. After an unprecedented economic downturn in UNIP, this eventually turned into a total loss of contact in 2270, with the colony presumed lost due to a variety of circumstances from the last message. With little political capital available to back sending a rescue mission, the minimal loss of resources and the lacking public interest in the colony after so many years, no action was taken regarding the presumed loss of the colony, and UNIP bureaucracy often placed colonisation of such a distant outpost on the backburner.

At some point during this loss of contact, the colonial administration began to suspect that they had been abandoned. While self-sustaining, this had still struck a significant blow to their confidence in the Manchurian portion of UNIP, and they thus declared themselves abandoned, forming a new government independent of the Manchurian People’s Republic and its UNIP overlords, declaring The People’s Democratic Xanu State. This did not go over without issues, however, and in 2291 a group of MPR loyalists, primarily political officers of the military and government-sponsored business owners who stood to lose their monopolies if the MPR was ignored, declared the colonial administration traitors, sparking a civil war. Radical elements of the Pro-MPR loyalists, declaring “Death before Revolution!”, unleashed weaponized biological agents in various cities across the planet, killing vast swathes of the population and themselves in the process. To this day, these agents contaminate the water tables of the former cities and prevent them from being habitable. What was most confusing, in all of this very complex war, was that the government still claimed to be communist like their former leaders, and the accusations of an anti-communist counter-revolution seem to be entirely baseless.

This new government managed to roughly stabilise after the war, banning all new political parties outside of the current three as a measure to prevent “undue political strife”; a measure that stands up even to this day. As the planet developed, and gained an identity of its own, it began to see itself more as an interstellar entity, with short-range FTL travel being cannibalised from the surviving ships in orbit and reverse engineered in the immediate 2400s. With this interstellar identity came the concept of the Union of Progressive Peoples, in that if a future habitable planet were discovered, Xanu should be ready to treat it as a proper colony, not repeating the past mistakes of their parent nation. This concept would be put into practice much sooner than expected, however, and from an entirely unexpected source to say the least. In 2431, an experimental Xanu exploration ship jumped to what was assumed to be an uninhabitable system. Instead they came across a colony of miners governed by a syndicate of local unions: the star nation of Himeo. The Xanan version of history then goes on to elaborate that Xanu saved Himeo from their fate of abandonment, but this is disputed as a simple partnership by Himeans. What was initially just a partnership to salvage and repair bluespace drives to enable long-distance travel soon elevated to both sides floating the idea of unity, and Himeo eventually joined the UPP in the year 2451, ten years to the day after first contact. From here, the story of the UPP becomes a general one, but one that Xanu will always take a part in.

== Home of the UPP ==
Being the founding planet and governmental centre of the Union of Progressive Peoples, Xanan government and culture have come to form a large building block of the UPP and Xanans are proud of this fact. In their eyes, while the Himeans and Vysokans are appreciated, well-competent members of the UPP, it is up to the mantle of the Xanan Government to continue to lead the UPP into prosperity. During propaganda advertising on Xanu, there are often motifs of leadership, unity and being the front of the pack when concerning the UPP.

This belief of leadership isn’t entirely unwarranted. While the union is small, Xanu is typically the one pulling the string on everything from clusters of habitable space stations to small mining colonies sitting on planetoids with little better to do. Whenever a planet is lacking its own distinct culture, either due to small population or relative new-ness, Xanan culture permeates through as an all-powerful force. As a result of this, and some inherent biases in the system, most representatives from consulars to military advisors have a distinct Xanan slant to their ideas.

== Culture ==

=== Attitudes ===
While much of the Orion Spur has polarising or objectifying opinions of automation, and especially robots, Xanan culture as a whole has taken up a generally more friendly approach to synthetics. Home robots are granted names by the occupants, customarily having it written somewhere on their frame so that guests can be polite by addressing the robots the same way the owners do. Even public service robots, such as street cleaners and building maintenance robots, will be affectionately referred to as “comrade” by passers-by if they have to get the attention of it.

These attitudes are more easily understood when one understands how automation is viewed. Since quality of life is typically defined by party loyalty, rather than work, automation is seen as little threat, and with the small population of the planet, those who wish to work need only qualifications, managing their workforce of robots to verify the quality of the production. Automation is no threat in the eyes of a Xanan, but merely a sign of the inevitable march of progress, so long as it is wielded by an appropriately benevolent force, such as the party, and originates from a benevolent culture, such as their own. Xanan automation, therefore, is inherently better than the automatons of any other nation.

Of course this idea of a more moral, more benevolent society does not come around naturally. While the average thought of the average Xanan may indicate such, human reality often gets in the way of a perfect society, and Xanu is not the World State, there is hardship in life. Censorship is the mend to all cultural woes, at least, and with enough censorship, the language to discuss hardship and demoralisation withers. Xanans, then, struggle to express when they are struggling in a manner that cannot be blamed on an individual, and often lack the vocabulary or will to discuss the trickier subjects of life, such as death, abuse by the system or depression.

=== Entertainment ===
Being as culturally isolated as it is, Xanu has developed a rich domestic entertainment industry, with many local studios and producers working to fulfil the media demands of an entire planet without any variety of imports. To this extent, Xanan entertainment has become something of a unique group of themes and conventions, not least because of its intense censorship. Foreign observers have made something of a game of bingo when watching a Xanan movie, for example, and seeing how long it takes to fill out their cards with tropes.

Some of these tropes include:

* No anti-government character may succeed, and must die at the end of the story
* The revolutionary must always at least earn a pyrrhic victory
* Corrupt officials may only be at the lowest level, and cannot be shown to be popular with their colleagues
* The only foreigner that is allowed to be equally as noble as a Xanan is a Himean
** A subsection of this rule is that Vysokans may be helpful but ultimately in need of the help of the Noble Xanan

Some of these rules result in bizarre and convoluted ways to follow the rules, such as the heroes having a eulogy of their contributions to the revolution play every time the player fails in a video game. This has had the side-effect of Xanans being extremely good at games, if only to avoid these long periods of down-time between failing and getting to play again.

Common themes and time periods include the civil war, colonisation of the planet under the MPR and speculative fiction about conflicts in or with other stellar nations. Dystopias set in a near-future Eridani are especially popular, being seen as the perfect antithesis to the Xanan lifestyle.

=== Censorship ===
Communications are one of the most dangerous threats against a functional one party system, and The People’s Assembly recognises this all too well, heavily restricting what communications can be made to the outside galaxy. While unacceptably overbearing by the standards of outsiders, Xanan society has been built intensely around the idea of cultural isolation, believing themselves already abandoned by the outside world. It should be no surprise, then, that the extranet and foreign entertainment are almost inaccessible to the average citizen, with the planet’s own intranet having very well designed filters and flags to avoid any revolutionary sentiment being “misdirected” at party officials.

This is not to say that Xanu has no extranet presence, however, or even foreign entertainment. These are both plentiful, but harshly moderated so that nothing of dangerous origins can infect the minds of the people. Extranet capable devices require a full application, where loyalty to the party and agreements for extra monitoring must be assured before it can even be turned on for the first time. Similarly, foreign media go through an intense censorship regime, sometimes with entire segments being cut out or rewritten to suit the narrative.

=== Food ===
The Xanan diet consists heavily of a handful of hydroponics friendly, flexible staple crops, primarily rice, beans and corn. Culturally speaking, the average Xanan is vegetarian, preferring lightly cooked meals with animal products rather than heavy meat dishes, with the main source of protein being either beans or cheese. Cheese, as it turns out, is beyond a delicacy on Xanu, being considered more of a way of life, with entire conversations being had on which is one’s favourite. This may stem from a previous amassing of cheese by the government during the civil war, which in turn was handed out to a population that was up until that point unused to the product as a way to bolster the caloric intake of post-war rations.

Meat is still available, however, and is mostly enjoyed outside of the home. Beef dishes especially are popular in restaurants, and meat is often added to the snacks at sports games to increase turnout. If one wanted to enjoy meat in the privacy of their home, however, they would have to ensure their loyalty to the party, with the small amounts of commercially available meat being reserved for party officials and well connected individuals.

=== Home Life ===
A major result of Xanu’s reliance upon robotics comes in the form of their home lives, where the majority of house-work is in some variety automated. Basic tasks like cleaning the floors, putting the washing on or doing the ironing are essentially forgotten knowledge that only need to be understood by technicians servicing these machines. Some outsiders have taken this to mean that Xanans are lazy and dysfunctional, not least because ones that leave their system and enter the world outside of such extensive automation often do not have the life skills to perform these tasks, having never needed them.

Of course, these luxuries come with a cost in such a society as Xanu, albeit not a financial one, but a loyalty one. The luxuriousness of one’s home and the amount of house-work that has been automated is almost directly correlated to the loyalty of their family to the UPP and the parties of Xanu. This carries an implicit threat with it for the children and especially grandchildren of loyalists, forcing them to remain equally as loyal as their ancestors lest they have to learn to function without some of the features they had quite literally grown up with. In extreme cases, people have starved after insulting influential party officials, unable to operate their automated cooking systems or figure out the manual overrides.

== Memory Collection ==
The closest thing Xanu has to a widespread religion, Memory Collection is a philosophy born out of the planet’s culture and turbulent history. The seeds that would eventually grow into this way of life were planted in the final days of the civil war, when death could be found around every corner and the ranks of the living had all suffered the loss of those they knew and loved. As the war finally came to an end, the number of formal funerals taking place skyrocketed as the population came together to remember those who were lost. With funerals came eulogies, and the workload grew so large that eulogy writing became a full-time profession for many. These writers eventually registered a union under the new government and in the following years, their unique approach to eulogies was developed and codified across the entire planet.

First and foremost, the philosophy of Memory Collection is centred around providing closure over the dead by compiling all the memories surrounding them. All sources on them are uncovered, and those closest to them interviewed for more information. When this process has concluded, the results are compiled into a multi-page(often 20 pages or more) obituary of the deceased. These obituaries are cherished by the surviving family, and some households will have a shelf solely dedicated to the obituaries of extended family. The workers behind these obituaries, simply known as Writers, have very few formalities between them. All are required to be registered members of the Union of Eulogy Writers, and wear the black formal clothing of their region when working. Rates may vary among the Writers, but charging too much may result in being banished from the union, effectively banning them from the practice.

== Robotics ==
More than anywhere else, the people of Xanu rely heavily on robotics in their daily lives, and their use has given the planet an obscenely large economy for its low population. Most work on the planet has been completely automated, with most jobs left focused on monitoring or maintaining the robots that do the work. This emphasis on a robotic workforce can be traced back to the years following the civil war, when the population was vastly reduced, yet still had a robust synthetic manufacturing base that they could use to fill in the extreme amount of vacancies. Even after the job market stabilised and contact was made with the wider Spur, these robots are mainly produced for internal use, and are found abroad very infrequently.

Though the most intelligent of Xanan-produced synthetics contain a processor that looks similar to the common positronic brain, they could not be more different than the rest of the Spur’s synthetics. In lieu of the common mind-template approach to positronic brains, Xanu uses a collection of open source bases when programming their IPCs. Not only does this make the barrier to entry much lower as well as encourage a collaborative approach to improving the code, but it also allows Xanan manufacturers to create non-bipedal chassis with minimal complications. Regardless of what body the brain is plugged into, Xanan positronics using templates based on social interaction tend to score much higher on Turing Test-like examinations than their foreign counterparts. Perhaps as a consequence of this aptitude, many Xanans hold a strong fondness for their robotic co-workers, often affectionately referring to them as comrades.

== Government ==
Officially, the government of People’s Democratic Xanu State adheres closely to a Marxist-Leninist style of organisation. The planet as a whole is divided into various provinces each run by a council of governors, appointed from the cities and farming communes located within said province. Above them is the Central Executive Committee, responsible for determining the direction of the entire planet. The Premier of the People’s Democratic Xanu State is chosen by the dominant party in the Committee and serves as the face of the nation. They are also able to appoint judges and dissolve the CEC, though that same group is also able to remove a Premier from office if they so choose. Politics on Xanu are divided into three parties: the Communist Party of Xanu, the Labourers’ Revolutionary Party, and the All-Xanu Workers’ Vanguard. All three are functionally indistinct in terms of policy, and are also the only three parties permitted to exist. Citizens of Xanu are expected to register with one in order to receive all the benefits of citizenship, such as freedom of movement, access to some jobs, and other lifestyle benefits.

While the politics are rigid on the home front, international politics are a much different story for Xanu. Balancing their positive relationships with partner and client planets such as Himeo and Vysoka respectively against their much more aggravating relationships with the rest of the Orion Spur. It is often noted that after following the money trail for any number of socialist or similarly aligned uprisings, Xanan funding or weapons are found to have at least encouraged such paramilitaries to be more bold, if not unified these groups into a cohesive movement in the first place.

File:Xanu Flag.png

2024-03-08T23:29:50Z

Monty: The flag of the planet of Xanu

== Summary ==
The flag of the planet of Xanu

NanoTrasen

2024-02-22T20:40:20Z

Monty: Clarified some history with bluespace, unclear sentence

{{OrgBox|name=NanoTrasen|image=NanotrasenLogo.png|hq=The Brick, Tau Ceti, [[UNIP]]|motto=Depth Over Breadth|founded=2168|major=Bluespace Research
Data Farming
Electronics Manufacture|minor=Food Delivery
Online Gambling|affiliates=[[UNIP]]
[[Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals]]|rivals=[[Idris Incorporated]]|theme=183854}}[[File:NanotrasenLogo.png|thumb|The logo of the Nanotrasen corporation, designed in 2300 as a part of the new century rebrandings.]]Founded in 2168 by an initial consortium of parties that stood to gain from exploiting the then theoretical bluespace, Nanotrasen has since become the leading name in Bluespace related research, applying it to computers and electronics of all varieties. While initially a research corporation tied to other, Earthly corporations, they have since shed their ties to such small-scale interests and become a megacorporation whose concerns affect the entire Orion Spur. Nowadays, they are part research giant, part manufacturing giant and full time entertainment extraordinaires.

== What do they do? ==
<Tabber>
|-|Electronics=
The biggest claim to fame that Nanotrasen hold is their advanced computers. Making use of bluespace principles and trace amounts of phoron, Nanotrasen has managed to corner a market for computers that still follow Moore's Law, and their chips are used in the vast majority of modern electronics. Nanotrasen's computers have become so ubiquitous that their logo is present in almost every device's default background, and their systems are often treated as the industry standard for everything from communications to integrated computers.
|-|Big Data=
This domination of communications and technology has given Nanotrasen a very lucrative business, one that was practically thrown into their laps: data harvesting. The company has servers established all over the Orion Spur for gathering seemingly random and assorted data from all of their services, processing it to look for patterns and then selling it to the highest bidder. Whether it be the purchasing habits of Biesellite males aged 18 to 23 or the activism and political beliefs of Himean immigrants, Nanotrasen has the important data to act upon ready for a price.
|-|A Gambling Empire=
So what does a company do with the most ubiquitous electronics in the market and the best data to understand the psychology of consumerism do? Start an online gambling empire, naturally. Making use of research supported by Nanotrasen data gathering, in co-operation with Zeng-Hu psychologists, Nanotrasen controls a large portion of the online gambling market through a wide variety of websites covering every game of every planet and nation and species. The money that pays out on a human's blackjack win in Biesel could have come from a Tajaran's loss betting on the Velhalktai while sitting in a shuttle in Skrellian space. This massive share of the gambling market has drawn the ire of Idris, and regularly leads to lawsuits and counter-suits arguing over gambling technologies.
|-|Dinner To Your Door=
Further ingratiating themselves into a rivalry with Idris, Nanotrasen released an app onto any device with a Nanotrasen chip for ordering food from nearby "ghost-kitchen" restaurants to your door. Created after their merger with Getmore Food Company in 2398, the app is called "StellarBite™️" and can deliver the same recipe to anywhere in the Orion Spur assuming service reaches. Despite having no actual storefront, the expansive and regionalised menu is wildly popular with the general public and there are even online guides on fooling the app into giving you regional dishes when on other planets. Despite controversies over the payment of delivery drivers and the use of flying drones sometimes damaging meals in transit, the app remains a steadfast part of Biesel culture and stays firmly installed on almost every device sold by Nanotrasen to this day.
|-|Political Ambitions=
Data and investment give Nanotrasen one more major client: governments. Through acts of "philanthropy" and political favours to the correct candidates over the last circa 300 years, Nanotrasen has become a major power in UNIP politics, effectively being the entire reason that Biesel maintains its semi-autonomous status within the Protectorate and also the major force behind its extreme economic development. With so much money tied into Biesel, Nanotrasen has become an almost defacto government for the area, sometimes having even more power than the actual Biesellite government.
</Tabber>

== Corporate Culture ==
Despite being so long ago, Nanotrasen very much holds onto its research lab origins, believing that the next big breakthrough is what should define one's career. While the manufacturing and catering aspects of the company are relatively unaffected by this, and mostly just manifest this belief through a generic culture of achieving better numbers at one's station, every other aspect of the company genuinely believes that if their career does not result in a big change in how the company operates that they are a failure. This has resulted in a highly competitive work environment, in which it is common to see people stressing near the end of their contracts that they might not have achieved enough to be able to happily retire. At some levels of the company, there are humans in their eighties or even nineties still slaving away at research hoping to find their career defining breakthrough.

This culture of excellence could not be enforced, however, without a much darker side to it. While employees are almost entirely promoted on skill and their value to the company, that value is not only calculated by their work ethic or ability. Another way to pad an otherwise mediocre promotion opportunity is to show loyalty through action: reporting coworkers who have bad work ethic. Serving important data to supervisors, either through spying or trawling social media, as well as proving when a fellow employee is holding back important research data to gun for a promotion has helped to create an almost paranoid feeling within the labs of Nanotrasen.

The politics is not just coincidental. With Nanotrasen's fingers being in every pie in Biesel, their money is incredibly tied to one region of the Orion Spur. This means that any Biesel concern is a Nanotrasen concern, and Nanotrasen employees are given small amounts of stock to be worried for their portfolios if Biesel has any issue. As far as most employees see it, regardless of their nationality, Biesel's problem is their problem.

== Relationships ==

=== United Nations Interstellar Protectorate ===
Nanotrasen is Biesel, and Biesel is Nanotrasen. When discussing Nanotrasen's relationship with the [[Protectorate]], one would need only look at the amount of leverage they have been granted in Biesel, allowing The Protectorate to have an incredibly economically productive cash-cow to milk for their new and expanding ambitions. The existence of Biesel and its infinitely growing wealth has given Nanotrasen a highly positive, influential position with UNIP, and made their working relationship something symbiotic.

=== Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals ===
Being aligned in their shared fields of research, Nanotrasen and Zeng-Hu often make an effort to work together on large projects, especially ones of a mechanical and medical nature. Huge amounts of machinery that was designed with Zeng-Hu expertise is actually manufactured using Nanotrasen computers and Nanotrasen manufacturing plants. Where Zeng-Hu provides knowledge of the natural world, Nanotrasen bends it to its will in order to make their discoveries useful. Anti-corporate propaganda often makes use of drawings of the logos of these corporations kissing, insinuating the functional monopoly of their close co-operation.

=== Idris Incorporated ===
Idris and Nanotrasen's relationship is proof that two companies can be eternally suing one another and yet still survive. A rivalry like no other, Idris has never taken kindly to Nanotrasen encroaching on the markets that make up their entire existence, and has made extensive use of both their ballooned legal team and hostile policy influencing to try and run Nanotrasen out of prospective territories. Some people might describe their relationship as the longest slap-fight in human history, with both corporations even going so far as to sponsor rival sports teams out of pure spite.
[[Category:Lore]]

File:UPPFlag.png

2024-02-15T15:54:33Z

Monty: The flag of the Union of Progressive Peoples

== Summary ==
The flag of the Union of Progressive Peoples

NanoTrasen

2024-02-15T15:50:46Z

Monty: Fixed Zeng link

{{OrgBox|name=NanoTrasen|image=NanotrasenLogo.png|hq=The Brick, Tau Ceti, [[UNIP]]|motto=Depth Over Breadth|founded=2168|major=Bluespace Research
Data Farming
Electronics Manufacture|minor=Food Delivery
Online Gambling|affiliates=[[UNIP]]
[[Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals]]|rivals=[[Idris Incorporated]]|theme=183854}}[[File:NanotrasenLogo.png|thumb|The logo of the Nanotrasen corporation, designed in 2300 as a part of the new century rebrandings.]]Founded in 2168 by an initial consortium of parties that stood to gain from bluespace's discovery, Nanotrasen has since become the leading name in Bluespace related research, applying it to computers and electronics of all varieties. While initially a research corporation tied to other, Earthly corporations, they have since shed their ties to such small-scale interests and become a megacorporation whose concerns affect the entire Orion Spur. Nowadays, they are part research giant, part manufacturing giant and full time entertainment extraordinaires.

== What do they do? ==
<Tabber>
|-|Electronics=
The biggest claim to fame that Nanotrasen hold is their advanced computers. Making use of bluespace principles and trace amounts of phoron, Nanotrasen has managed to corner a market for computers that still follow Moore's Law, and their chips are used in the vast majority of modern electronics. Nanotrasen's computers have become so ubiquitous that their logo is present in almost every device's default background, and their systems are often treated as the industry standard for everything from communications to integrated computers.
|-|Big Data=
This domination of communications and technology has given Nanotrasen a very lucrative business, one that was practically thrown into their laps: data harvesting. The company has servers established all over the Orion Spur for gathering seemingly random and assorted data from all of their services, processing it to look for patterns and then selling it to the highest bidder. Whether it be the purchasing habits of Biesellite males aged 18 to 23 or the activism and political beliefs of Himean immigrants, Nanotrasen has the important data to act upon ready for a price.
|-|A Gambling Empire=
So what does a company do with the most ubiquitous electronics in the market and the best data to understand the psychology of consumerism do? Start an online gambling empire, naturally. Making use of research supported by Nanotrasen data gathering, in co-operation with Zeng-Hu psychologists, Nanotrasen controls a large portion of the online gambling market through a wide variety of websites covering every game of every planet and nation and species. The money that pays out on a human's blackjack win in Biesel could have come from a Tajaran's loss betting on the Velhalktai while sitting in a shuttle in Skrellian space. This massive share of the gambling market has drawn the ire of Idris, and regularly leads to lawsuits and counter-suits arguing over gambling technologies.
|-|Dinner To Your Door=
Further ingratiating themselves into a rivalry with Idris, Nanotrasen released an app onto any device with a Nanotrasen chip for ordering food from nearby "ghost-kitchen" restaurants to your door. Created after their merger with Getmore Food Company in 2398, the app is called "StellarBite™️" and can deliver the same recipe to anywhere in the Orion Spur assuming service reaches. Despite having no actual storefront, the expansive and regionalised menu is wildly popular with the general public and there are even online guides on fooling the app into giving you regional dishes when on other planets. Despite controversies over the payment of delivery drivers and the use of flying drones sometimes damaging meals in transit, the app remains a steadfast part of Biesel culture and stays firmly installed on almost every device sold by Nanotrasen to this day.
|-|Political Ambitions=
Data and investment give Nanotrasen one more major client: governments. Through acts of "philanthropy" and political favours to the correct candidates over the last circa 300 years, Nanotrasen has become a major power in UNIP politics, effectively being the entire reason that Biesel maintains its semi-autonomous status within the Protectorate and also the major force behind its extreme economic development. With so much money tied into Biesel, Nanotrasen has become an almost defacto government for the area, sometimes having even more power than the actual Biesellite government.
</Tabber>

== Corporate Culture ==
Despite being so long ago, Nanotrasen very much holds onto its research lab origins, believing that the next big breakthrough is what should define one's career. While the manufacturing and catering aspects of the company are relatively unaffected by this, and mostly just manifest this belief through a generic culture of achieving better numbers at one's station, every other aspect of the company genuinely believes that if their career does not result in a big change in how the company operates that they are a failure. This has resulted in a highly competitive work environment, in which it is common to see people stressing near the end of their contracts that they might not have achieved enough to be able to happily retire. At some levels of the company, there are humans in their eighties or even nineties still slaving away at research hoping to find their career defining breakthrough.

This culture of excellence could not be enforced, however, without a much darker side to it. While employees are almost entirely promoted on skill and their value to the company, that value is not only calculated by their work ethic or ability. Another way to pad an otherwise mediocre promotion opportunity is to show loyalty through action: reporting coworkers who have bad work ethic. Serving important data to supervisors, either through spying or trawling social media, as well as proving when a fellow employee is holding back important research data to gun for a promotion has helped to create an almost paranoid feeling within the labs of Nanotrasen.

The politics is not just coincidental. With Nanotrasen's fingers being in every pie in Biesel, their money is incredibly tied to one region of the Orion Spur. This means that any Biesel concern is a Nanotrasen concern, and Nanotrasen employees are given small amounts of stock to be worried for their portfolios if Biesel has any issue. As far as most employees see it, regardless of their nationality, Biesel's problem is their problem.

== Relationships ==

=== United Nations Interstellar Protectorate ===
Nanotrasen is Biesel, and Biesel is Nanotrasen. When discussing Nanotrasen's relationship with the [[Protectorate]], one would need only look at the amount of leverage they have been granted in Biesel, allowing The Protectorate to have an incredibly economically productive cash-cow to milk for their new and expanding ambitions. The existence of Biesel and its infinitely growing wealth has given Nanotrasen a highly positive, influential position with UNIP, and made their working relationship something symbiotic.

=== Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals ===
Being aligned in their shared fields of research, Nanotrasen and Zeng-Hu often make an effort to work together on large projects, especially ones of a mechanical and medical nature. Huge amounts of machinery that was designed with Zeng-Hu expertise is actually manufactured using Nanotrasen computers and Nanotrasen manufacturing plants. Where Zeng-Hu provides knowledge of the natural world, Nanotrasen bends it to its will in order to make their discoveries useful. Anti-corporate propaganda often makes use of drawings of the logos of these corporations kissing, insinuating the functional monopoly of their close co-operation.

=== Idris Incorporated ===
Idris and Nanotrasen's relationship is proof that two companies can be eternally suing one another and yet still survive. A rivalry like no other, Idris has never taken kindly to Nanotrasen encroaching on the markets that make up their entire existence, and has made extensive use of both their ballooned legal team and hostile policy influencing to try and run Nanotrasen out of prospective territories. Some people might describe their relationship as the longest slap-fight in human history, with both corporations even going so far as to sponsor rival sports teams out of pure spite.
[[Category:Lore]]

Eridani Corporate Alliance

2024-02-06T00:50:17Z

Monty: /* Non-Humans */

The Eridani Corporate Alliance, often referred to as Eridani for short, is a series of relatively independent Solarian systems that enjoy almost total economic and relative military freedom from the rest of the alliance of states that forms Sol. Eridani can instead be considered a form of special economic zone that exists due to its convenience for the rest of the Spur, which in turn allows the corporations within to largely skirt past criticisms of their human rights violations and caste system by virtue of being economically beneficial to the rest of the Orion Spur.

== History ==
Originally sold for the purposes of establishing a port and warehouse to [[Charon Shipping Services]] in 2203, initial surveys of Epsilon Eridani appeared grim for profit. Only one planet was confirmed to have existed, the gas giant Aegir with a sole moon. While another planet was theorised, upon arrival this was proven not to be the case, however a much more important discovery was made by the Charon Eridani Fleet: The moon of Aegir was, in fact, habitable. A rudimentary biosphere had led to an atmosphere equivalent to the top of a tall mountain, ever-so-slightly thinner than average.

With this discovery came immediate colonisation by Charon, who in turn contacted numerous notable corporations with the intent to sell plots of land, mineral rights and shipping services. Many historians theorise that this was done in an attempt to legitimise the relative newcomer to space amongst its new peers, as well as create ties that would form the foundation of the new system’s unique status in Spur-level politics.

While initially colonised with the intent to be owned by Charon Shipping Services, the growing corporatocracy quickly found itself growing too large and complex for a single, relatively junior corporation to effectively manage. While logistics may have been the speciality of Charon, they lacked the political clout or hard power to enforce their claim upon the planet. In their place, and to avoid the minor skirmishes between security forces related to various corporations that were beginning to erupt in 2228, The Council of Eight was formed. This council of eight positions, dictated by the ownership of regions of land on the moon of Aegir, became the de-facto government for the planetoid.

Over time, The Council of Eight has had a series of small scale wars erupt between corporations for the seats of power in which it contains, with vast swathes of land being economically repurposed in arbitrary treaties that the inhabitants had little to no say in. To combat this turmoil, eventually The Council of Eight elected that positions are eternal, and may only be opened through either purchase or the forced removal of a seat by a unanimous vote of all other council seats. The last time the seats changed was in 2490, giving the largely run-down southern arctic region of District 8 to Einstein Engines. This transfer was met with controversy from much of the dreg population, with fears of the heating infrastructure going even further unmaintained under new leadership leading to a borderline revolution.

During what is now referred to as the Thermostat Revolution, the transfer of power between Einstein Engines and Zeng-Hu collapsed due to the total lack of military power owned by either corporation. In an attempt to prevent the budding revolution from potentially spreading further, the corporations that made up The Council of Eight put aside their differences temporarily, redirecting every mercenary group under their employment to suppress riots, arrest organisers and violently put down the revolution in such a manner that any non-corporate entity would be brought up on various human rights violations. Following this, The Council of Eight voted unanimously to create a semi-regulated body for the employment of mercenaries, who in times of no-contract would act as the de-facto military for the Eridanus Cluster.<blockquote>''“The modern Eridani Corporate Alliance is not too alien from the Corporate Alliance of the past, in a form of simultaneous stagnation and inflation. The more things change, the more entrenched certain conventions become; dregs remain the oppressed underclass, corporates remain in splendour and the corporations that influence every aspect of life become nations unto the worker. The Thermostat Revolution may soon become a distant memory, rather than a cultural touchstone of the Dreg Worker.” - Julian Bertrand, Philosopher and Economist, 2540''</blockquote>

== Government ==
Eridani’s government is largely represented by the Council of Eight - Eight representatives from various megacorporations. Each seat in the Council is tied to a sector, which the chairman’s corporation has full control over. While discussions have been made in the past to expand the number of sectors, this naturally has not come to fruition out of fears of decreased power on the moon. Each sector has also been given an informal name to make conversation easier. Currently, each sector is assigned to the following corporations:

'''Sector 1''' (Luxembourg) - [[Idris Incorporated]]

'''Sector 2''' (Canaria) - [[Hephaestus Industries]]

'''Sector 3''' (Monaco) - [[Idris Incorporated]]

'''Sector 4''' (Panama) - [[Charon Shipping Services]]

'''Sector 5''' (Trinidad) - [[Hephaestus Industries]]

'''Sector 6''' (Grenada) - EPMC - [[Zavodskoi Interstellar]] joint venture

'''Sector 7''' (Seychelles) - [[Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals]]

'''Sector 8''' (Faroe) - [[Einstein Engines]]

== Sectors ==
Due to Epsilon Eridani’s long history of being terraformed and shaped to the whims of the colonists, the vast majority of the moon has similar streets and architecture styles. Industrial land seamlessly mixes with offices and apartments with very little rhyme or reason to much of it in regions where there is a high dreg population, meanwhile corporates enjoy well organised and sectioned off districts dedicated to work or leisure that stretch for kilometres. Despite this, each sector has a unique reputation and general environment that both the under and upper classes would be able to notice.

<tabber>
|-|Luxembourg and Canaria=
The twin capitals of Eridani, it is subject to being the “baseline” of people’s ideas of Eridani as a whole. Tall office blocks stretch into the sky, connected by walkways. The smog is so irreversibly powerful that windows do not open except in older buildings that were made before corporate regulations governing smog contamination were put in place. Dregs face a similar conundrum while living in the underground caverns of the sector, formerly mining operations. Here, shanty towns and pools of acidic chemical runoff characterise a rough life for dregs. Criminal gangs will occasionally surface to commit crimes in corporate territory before retreating.
|-|Monaco=
One of the major centres of tourism in Epsilon Eridani. The reputation of the moon of Aegir has spread far and wide throughout the Orion Spur, and with it comes tourists seeking to confirm or deny the rumours of the planet. Idris has transformed this region into a vast tourist haven, a cloying and romanticised version of the public perception of Eridani. In the eyes of tourists visiting Monaco, it is said that anything goes, and all manner of services, products and monuments can be found so long as you look hard enough. For the families there are the glamorous, bizarre and outright gimmicky tourist attractions of the main streets, immediately outside the hotels and surrounded by the dazzling lights of advertising, neon signs and flying billboards that pollute the sky with the incessant need to call attention to products. For the faux-bohemian, however, Idris has not neglected their wants, with an entire carefully managed and well patrolled dreg “slum” for them to visit. complete with faux dive bars and carefully managed waste in the road, any tourist that were to visit this sector would come out feeling as if they had seen the real Eridani, without ever having gone within 100 miles of actual danger, serving double time as a tourist attraction and smokescreen to the plight of the dregs. In amongst the splendour of the main tourist region and the artificial roughness of the disdainfully named “Dreg Village” comes what many actually visit Eridani for, the so-called Epsilon High-way. A single multi-mile long stretch of drugs, drink and vice arcs across the centre of Monaco, capturing the attention of passers by with graphic depictions of what products they offer.
|-|Panama=
This sector is one of the lesser talked about areas, having little importance other than as a docking station for large ships and cargo. The underground hosts an extremely large and dense network of warehouses, and one of the densest populations of dregs in Epsilon Eridani in order to staff it. Despite this, subsidiaries of Charon Shipping Services are still likely to bring workers in from outside of the region due to a general distrust of undermotivated dregs around valuable cargo. The sector is characterised by hostile wildlife in slums and streets alike, with a species of cross-bred rat being known to attack small children if left unattended. The environment itself is famously windy, the narrow corridors of buildings acting as wind tunnels that cause dangerous gales during storms. Instead of fixing this, wind shelters the size of a 21st century bus shelter have been installed along roads to shelter in during wind storms. Due to these factors, the region has been not so affectionately named “The Hurricane” by dregs who live there.
|-|Trinidad=
Located directly next to Panama, Trinidad is the industrial heart of the Eridani Corporate Council. The surface is smeared with refineries belching smog into the sky as underground rail transports produced goods to and from the warehouses of Panama. Mirroring its sister sector, Trinidad has a majority dreg population that lives in squalor around the factories they work in, either in shanty towns constructed between buildings or company towns that work on scrip pay and slum-like conditions. Many observers theorise that these company towns are a method of control that has prevented further workers rights movements from truly taking off in the system, forcing dregs to risk their food supply alongside their homes in order to take any form of industrial action. In comparison, reinstated and corporate managers are allowed to make use of the extensive rail network underneath this region, letting them arrive directly at their workplace with little to no exposure to the outside smog or squalid conditions of their subordinates.
|-|Grenada=
Forged in an agreement created by the lacking political capital of Zavodskoi Interstellar and the sudden need for a centralised base of operations for the newly developed Eridani Private Military Corporation, the formerly underdeveloped region of Grenada has developed over the past hundred years into a hub for weapons production, military training and electronic warfare development. The vast majority of the population are either reinstated, corporate or from outside of the system. While the region is technically contested between numerous mercenary groups, it has become possibly the safest region in Eridani, following the “Clean Front Door” doctrine of mercenary groups. Quality of life is higher here than the majority of Eridani, if still notably lower than the living standards of much of the Orion Spur.
|-|Seychelles=
The science and research hub of Epsilon Eridani, Seychelles boasts the environment of being carved into the ice of the Northern Pole of the moon. While other regions may feel as if they are tunnels between the large skyscrapers, Seychelles is quite literally made of tunnels to survive the cold environment outside of them. With an average surface temperature of -40 degrees celsius on the surface, the cold air is ideal for running the server farms required for 26th century research and saves immense money on cooling. These tunnels are little more than bare, carved stone in many places, however closer to the universities that litter this region of the moon metal plating has been installed so as to not offend the sensibilities of the students and researchers. Dregs, primarily making up the staffing of the day to day running of these facilities, face an entirely different conundrum. Heating is not universal to all tunnels, and while corporates may enjoy a steady 20 degrees celsius all year round, abandoned tunnels inhabited by the dregs face an average temperature of -10 degrees C and can plummet to -40 in the event of a breach.
|-|Faroe=
A recent acquisition, Faroe is in an unusual position compared to other sectors of Eridani. Despite the incredibly small number of manual labour positions, the sector has a large dreg population remaining from the period before Einstein Engines’ ownership of the sector. The vast majority of these dregs are homeless, living in communes situated within abandoned ex-Zeng Hu facilities making a living either selling scrap parts to pay for heating or scavenging for heating sources that still have valid DRM. Being the data centre of the communications giant’s Sol presence, Faroe takes advantage of the Southern Pole’s equally low temperatures to cool server racks for data farming and processing. The prior factors mix into a cocktail that results in Faroe being the centre of cyber-crime in Epsilon Eridani, with disenfranchised dregs who possess the necessary skills selling corporate secrets across all sectors after gathering data from in-person access to Einstein Engines servers. This culture of hacking has birthed legends of dreg folklore, including the infamous hacker Mairo Oku Mpu, who gained attention in 2587 for leaking classified Zavodskoi surveillance data.
|-|The Stations=
Outside of the populated moon is an uncontrolled span of stations all across the Eridanus Cluster. These stations do not come under the Council of Eight and are laws unto themselves unless otherwise stated. The vast majority of these stations are owned by megacorporations and their subsidiaries, but older stations may be sold to individuals or simply stolen by groups with the intent to start their own enterprises. Stations therefore come in all shapes and sizes, serving different purposes and being governed under different policies. The common thread connecting every station, however, is their precarious position in the system. While stations may be officially owned by megacorporations or small private enterprises, hostile takeovers and piracy run rampant in the far less militarised regions of the Eridanus Constellation, and refugees fleeing from one station to another is not an uncommon sight anywhere in the Constellation.

One of the major industries of the stations is resource extraction, either with skiffs designed to scoop gases from gas giants across the many systems or miner drones intended to pick every last mineral out of the asteroid belts of said gas giants. Other stations provide services such as rest stops, refuelling and repairs, with many artisanal shipyards making their home in Eridani with the intent to avoid copyright laws or heavy taxation implemented by corporate controlled governments to suppress competition. Of course, for any economic hub that is sprawling and decentralised, there is crime. Pirates and extortion rings run rampant, forming a noticeable percent of the GDP of Eridani as they refuel in less-than-reputable stations and take advantage of the low police and military presence to commit piracy, making use of Bluespace Interdictors in order to violently jerk ships out of bluespace travel and into dead space, shaking them down for the contents of their cargo hold before running away.

Due to the age of some of these stations, a noticeable population of offworlders exist of both the dreg and corporate variety. Roughly a quarter of the stations that exist in these systems are older than effective gravity generation, and as such either operate on the rotating wheel method of gravity generation or simply are free-floating. This makes a cottage industry of station tourism available to offworlders across the spur, run mostly by enterprising individuals and corporates who wish to strike out and start a “new” business under the Idris banner, in some ways making Eridani one of the most popular tourist locations with offworlders across the spur. Many of the dreg offworlders often consider themselves more offworlder than dreg, leading to many a cultural clash when meeting with dregs from gravity-laden stations.
</tabber>

== Housing ==
The commonly studied marvel of Eridanian engineering is the Corporate Habitation Block, referred to as “Habs” for short. Where regulation does not exist, convention thrives, and one can find convention to have taken a tight grip onto the common Hab. A mixture of office building, residential housing and commercial venture, the average corporate worker may never have to leave their specific block for their entire life, assuming they never have to attend an important meeting. The average habitation block consists of a floor by floor plan spread out over the largest plot of land that the construction company could purchase, sometimes at the cost of existing structures. While a lower floor may be a series of residential pods for data input specialists, secretaries and the other numerous rabble of the lowest echelons of the corporate ladder, and the floor above it the offices in which they infest during the rat race, the centre levels may become livable two, perhaps even three room apartments made cheap by their less than desirable position directly under nightclub or over the top of the ever-loud server rooms of the office corporate machine. Naturally, the palatial penthouses, adjacent to indoor gardens, community gyms and even having the rare luxury of natural sunlight weaving between the lattices of the complimentary air-vehicle garage sold inclusive, being the most coveted and expensive examples of Eridanian housing, are reserved for the most elite of the corporate world. Regional managers, CEOs’ second homes, the functional royalty of the corporate state which has been built across Eridani.

Lesser known to the outside world, but infamous to those aware of the true realities of Eridani, are the varieties of slums across the moon of Aegir. Most commonly are semi-permanent mountains of structures, stacked one atop the other in what can only be described as a game of jenga played with mortar and steel, affectionately nicknamed “Kowloons” after a 20th century structure of an almost identical nature. These structures occupy plots of land in which the ownership is either entirely disputed or the original owner cannot be located, providing safety from private property laws by virtue of angered parties either not existing or being too-long tied into legal battles to care about what is currently on the land. These structures are even denser than the densest of Habs, with entire families living in single rooms and businesses that pull separate functions at different times of day. Schools may become casinos at night, or restaurants may operate as a dentist during the day. The layout of these buildings can only be described as a rats’ nest, with narrow and winding tunnels leading deep within the artificially lit structure so far that it is not unheard of for outsiders to never be seen again after entering, presumed either dead or kidnapped. While living conditions may be of sub-human quality, there is a sense of community in these slums that is not experienced in corporate housing, and some reinstated dregs may privately express that they miss this sense of community. This community will not always last, however, and it is not unheard of for communities to be split apart by raids, entire slums emptied in weeks in order to facilitate the construction of future corporate housing or factories.

Other dregs take a more radical approach to housing, opting to occupy empty higher-tier apartments en-masse instead of risking the crime, disease and squalor of the slums. These squatters are almost always those with the least to lose, either a part of gangs or outright unemployed, and often form the vanguard that establishes longer lasting squats-turned-communities. This is much riskier for longevity compared to the slum, with squats often being cleared by corporate security in a matter of months. These squats have been known to last years, however, and some even decades, as veritable fortresses under siege deep within corporate territory. Some of these squats have entered the annals of dreg folklore, becoming rumoured safe havens or dens of legendary outlaws.

== Society ==

=== Work ===
Eridani forms what can only be described as a culture of pure work, with one’s job being the centre of their existence regardless of caste or class. Eridanians exist to work, and every aspect of culture is related back to the creation of value, the creation of wealth specifically. In the case of corporates, this is taken much more directly and manifests in hobbies having to be monetised, stress relief being a weak excuse for enjoying but a select few societally shared hobbies, and every waking hour is expected to be taken in the pursuit of wealth and power to some extent. This is less so in the case of dregs and some reinstated, who are more likely to take leisure in activities but are forced more by circumstances to monetise hobbies they hold actual skill in simply to make ends meet. Work culture in Eridani is considered toxic by the vast majority of the Spur, and even the most hardline of bootstrap mentality may baulk at the hours, or the absolute lack of overtime pay.

=== A Caste System ===
The one thing that everybody knows about the Eridanus Constellation is the system of classification that is functionally a caste system, wherein the status of “Corporate Citizen” is only granted to those who are employed by the corporations or client corporations of the Council of Eight.Those who are citizens enjoy full rights within the Eridani Corporate Council, however few those actually are, but this is dependent entirely on their remaining employed without more than a month’s gap between jobs at any point. Those who fail to stay employed in an office job are stripped of their citizenship, and if they choose to remain residents shall become of an entirely lower caste, forced to work in manual labour or not at all. This secondary caste are known as dregs, and while having the official name of non-citizens, their nickname holds much more power as both a derogatory term amongst corporates and a term of personal pride and empowerment amongst dregs. It is not uncommon for dregs to quote the immortal words from the trial of Shock Namkoisse, “I’m a dreg, you call me one behind my back, call me one to my face[...]”, when referred to as a “non-citizen”.

Between the corporate and the dreg is the reinstated, a somewhat temporary or probationary period between going back from dreg to corporate. People may be reinstated in two ways, becoming the conduit between management and the ground floor workers, typically as workplace managers or secretaries, or through coming under direct employment of a member of the corporate class. While the former may simply be a career in being a shift manager or foreman, the latter is on a much higher risk-reward relationship, with reinstated employees of corporates often being their personal mercenaries and wetworks teams of their employers. While reinstated “goons” may take much more risk, they have the potential to make great gains with their employer, and many find themselves retiring into comfy security management positions under their employer should they survive.

<Tabber>
|-|Corporate Citizens=
Referred to as corporates by the vast majority, citizens enjoy the most rights out of any of their fellow Eridanians. Their citizenship is tied entirely to their work, and as such a unique work culture persists, described by some as horrific in nature. The most major tenet, and the most famous, is the cutthroat nature of office politics within corporate culture, both metaphorically and literally. While at the lowest levels the likelihood of promotion is almost entirely tied to hours worked, eventually worked hours plateau in effectiveness and the only method of upwards movement is conspiracy, sabotage or loyalty to another person who excels in these fields. The highest echelons of corporate life have only ever achieved their positions through climbing a blood soaked ladder all the way to the top, and more often than not have added their fair share of blood to the rungs. Despite this, the status of the lowest corporates should not be confused with the situation of the highest up corporates, and to an extent lower on the corporate ladder is almost entirely devoid of bloodshed outside of the most ambitious of candidates, even if this difference is not normally recognised by those who have not lived within the corporate lifestyle of Eridani.

Corporate life is often defined as long periods of work punctuated by rest and burnout, and this is by-and-large true for the low to middle echelons, with working hours reaching 12 hours a day on the regular and breaks being few and far between. These long working hours have led to an increasingly ready-made lifestyle amongst corporate citizens, with many basic skills being reduced to hobbies or sold in premade end results. Stimulant abuse is one of the leading causes of non-violent death in the Eridanus Cluster. Despite all of this, control of one’s life does not only extend to work, and corporates often end up seeing themselves criticised for not spending their limited time calling family, or taking part in the handful of hobbies that are seen as acceptable for bonding with fellow co-workers. While familial relations are not exactly close by the standards of the rest of the spur, they are usually the closest relationship that corporates will have while living within the borders of Eridani. Relationships are usually relegated to the workplace otherwise, with romantic relationships often quickly turning to marriage for added benefits from the employer, as well as the ability to finally talk privately with a person without arousing suspicion. The divorce rate in Eridani is 65%.

Hobbies-wise, corporates only have a handful of cultural touchstones they share, primarily football (soccer) as games can be discussed in the office as an icebreaker, as well as video games, crosswords and drinking for pleasure. The final one is the most important, with much of Eridanian free time being spent heading to the bar with their coworkers and attempting to drink one another under the table, with the expectation that everybody stay at least as long as their manager, who in turn is expected to stay for as long as they can still walk home, ending in a standoff situation with their co-workers.

Corporates are heavily augmented, with the first augments often being tracheal implants intended to make breathing easier in the stagnant air of the lower floors of their hab block easier. Largely, augments are subsidised by their employer, ranging from ocular implants to improve productivity to typing-optimised prosthetic hands intended to avoid the drop in productivity of RSI before it can even begin, augments that can’t be removed are docked from the final paycheck when an employee leaves the company. The relationship with their roboticist is the most crucial one that a corporate can have, not only because they must truly trust their roboticist to avoid assassination while under the knife, but also due to a true cultural belief that anybody who you trust with your body is a friend. While some anthropologists theorise that this is a result of such isolation in corporate culture that even casual relationships become strong, others theorise that it may be instead a result of cultural bleedover from dregs who were reinstated into corporate life.
|-|Reinstated=
As with all things, the relationship between dregs and corporates is not black and white, and there are those who have ambitions to escape the slums and become corporates, either believing that even a coffin hotel is better than their current living conditions or that they can advance to middle management or even beyond. These people are referred to as “reinstated”, typically with varying levels of venom from dregs and varying levels of disdain from higher up corporates.

Reinstateds are the intermediate period between a dreg and a corporate, being treated as a trial period in which they prove their loyalty to the corporation over their former communities. There are two methods in which this can be done, through either being promoted to a position that connects corporate management to the working dreg population such as supervisor, or through taking advantage of their dubious societal position to become effectively personal mercenaries for a corporate, on the understanding that they will be given a position immediately under their corporate sponsor once their position is no longer of use. The former is much more common than the latter, however covert work is far from uncommon as a method of reinstatement.

The more mundane of the two is naturally a promotion. Positions of power are usually only handed to dregs on the understanding that they are already of an exceptional loyalty to the company, rather than out of competence in their role. Promotions may range from managerial positions over other manual labourers to secretaries to document mules, typically positions at the absolute bottom of the corporate ladder, if still on the corporate ladder at all compared to their former position. These positions are typically the least popular in their workplace, either being seen as beneath their corporate colleagues or as sell-outs and potential rats by dreg subordinates. These attitudes lead to the majority of attempted reinstatements failing, with this path of reinstatement often exposing even the most stoic of dregs’ breaking points as they lose the vast majority of their friends and even family, that which had been so important to them before, to their ambitions. Failed reinstatements are often forgiven, however, and regularly return to a comfortable familiarity. Some anthropologists theorise that this is the true cause of the lack of class mobility, rather than the architecture of the system itself.

Standard reinstatement is not entirely negative, however, and successful reinstatements often find themselves office celebrities, invited to their managers’ parties to entertain guests with novel skills such as cooking for guests from scratch, mixing cocktails and anecdotes of slum life. Many describe their early career as being more of a circus, and yet the most advantageous position of their lives as they are granted the opportunity to network with much more powerful individuals and potentially secure a promotion before the novelty of their existence wears off.

There is, however, a faster method of climbing ranks without needing to be explicitly subservient or working in an unpopular position, all at the cost of a much higher risk to life. This is the world of corporate covert operations, typically referred to as “wet works”, in which reinstated are held to a contract on the understanding that they will help their sponsor advance their career at any cost. Depending on one’s sponsor, this could be any illicit job from bodyguard to hacker to thief to assassin. The system typically follows the format that the reinstated in question will be a member of their sponsor’s entourage up until either their sponsor dismisses them and recruits them into their corporate team, or their sponsor dies and they are sent back to square one. These wet works teams often never truly retire, being called back in to assist with their former sponsor’s problems under pain of the acts they committed during their tenure being revealed to their new manager, however accepting these callings will almost always result in promotion. This lifestyle is often considered by many to be that of only the most ambitious potential corporates, those who have no interest in bowing down and who crave only the power of position.

Historically, before EPMC took over at the functional police force of the ECA, wet works reinstated filled the role of enforcers for the will of the corporate holders of the region, tackling potential revolutionary groups and crime syndicates that were causing trouble for their sponsors in surgical strikes. Famously, the personal bodyguards of the Einstein Engines representative to the Corporate Alliance were reinstated from Faroe who foiled an assassination attempt.
|-|Dregs=
Despite being a largely service based economy, The Eridani Corporate Alliance requires immense amounts of manual labour to maintain food security, cleanliness and internal manufacturing. To fill this niche, the dreg caste makes up roughly half of the planet’s population according to censuses, but estimates from humanitarian organisations claim that the population is more on the end of 60 to 65% of the planet’s population, when accounting for the internal dreg economy. A combination of extreme deprivation, more people than jobs and an almost total lack of patrols from EPMC peacekeepers has led to the vast majority of the economy within dreg settlements being under the control of organised crime. Be the shop owned by these organisations, or simply forced to pay protection money, there is not a lot of land that is independent of these pseudo-governmental syndicates within a typical Kowloon, not even accommodation. Despite this criminal incentive for profit, a loyal population benefits these gangs infinitely more, and as such living conditions are usually more spacious than the low-level corporate coffin hotels, instead having enough room for a bed, wardrobe and perhaps some shelves, even if bathrooms and toilets are shared to a hallway or even a floor.

The day-to-day life of a dreg can be considered rather varied in comparison to the average 8 to 10 worker of Epsilon Eridani, however this should not be confused with comfort or freedom. Variety comes in problems, primarily lacking work but also sudden loss of power at home, oxygenators breaking or food running out faster than expected. All of these can send a dreg out to purchase, scavenge or steal the necessary parts and equipment to solve their problems, leading to either reliance on the local gangs to pull them out of trouble in exchange for favours, or interaction with the rich barter economy that has formed in the place of sufficient wealth to support a community. In rare cases, some communities have abolished currency entirely and collectivised their resources, instead relying on the community to solve issues, however, this is more of an exception than a rule, with some crediting the cultural osmosis of the “Take care of number one” attitude of corporates permeating into dreg culture for this. This unpredictable lifestyle has created an unusual gap between dreg ages, either dying in their mid-20s from industrial or gang-land related accidents or dying of age related causes in their early 60s, with very little in between. This unusual gap has caused a sort of reverence of older dregs, who are seen as wiser and more capable for having managed to break the 25+ mark.

Unlike the reserved lifestyles of the corporate suits, dregs are known to form close families of either blood family or found family. Family comes before all in dreg communities, and it’s not uncommon for extended family up to one’s cousin to live under the same roof in compound-like shanty homes. These homes might consist of a central living room as well as personal rooms around the edges, with families eating in the courtyard. The only thing that could possibly even hope to match family bonds are community bonds, with even gangs typically helping their immediate community regardless of their known brutality. Recruitment for gangs happens most often inside of these community bubbles as a result.

Dregs are typically louder and more outspoken than their corporate counterparts, where “spilling honesties” is considered perfectly acceptable so long as it wasn’t done with malice in mind. This can make dregs seem extremely blunt to outsiders, and can lead to misunderstandings outside of Eridani space. A typical dreg conversation will consist of a lot of shouting, arm gestures and teasing, with playful violence not entirely being ruled out. This makes dreg conversations in their native language look like an argument to outsiders, even corporates may struggle to interpret friendliness properly facing these odds.

Similarly to corporates, dregs will usually take their augmentation seriously, having an even closer bond to their roboticist and rarely picking a new one unless it would be geographically impossible to return. Due to the large amount of outward migration by dregs, this attitude is fairly well known in roboticist circles and is regarded with either charm or suspicion, depending on the attitude of the roboticist. Dregs are sometimes described as “overfamiliar” outside of Eridani space.
</Tabber>

== Augmentation ==

=== Corporate Augments ===
Cybernetic modification is an integral part of Eridani’s cultural ideal. Simple tracheal augments are usually the first and the mildest step into augmentation, as they are needed for a lot of people to simply survive with Eridani’s thoroughly polluted air. Having other bionic enhancements is considered a symbol of wealth and prestige. Most electronics in the Federation are specifically designed to interact with augmented eyes – but they are also very functional on their own. A typical Eridanian eye implant can completely replace, or even surpass, a typical hand terminal in functionality – being used to browse the Extranet, communicate on chat relays, and more. As is typical for Eridanian technology, it is also swarmed with ads and is proven to constantly send data about the user’s activity to advertisers, making them somewhat unpopular outside the Federation. Augmentation is so tailored to the workplace in corporate society that people often find difficulty retraining if made redundant, as their augments will have to be replaced in order to suit their new job title. This adds a steep financial barrier to changing professions, and works to prevent upwards mobility without corporate sponsors. In extreme examples, hands may be given an extra finger in order to increase typing speed on legacy systems, at the cost of removing much of their dexterity for other tasks such as handwriting. These augments are often removed by the time the corporate citizens are able to find work outside of Eridani, being seen as too unsightly and off putting to clients. In some cases, synthskin is a requirement for reassignment to certain regions of the spur.

=== Dreg Augments ===
Dreg societies take the Eridanian fascination with augmentation technology to an extreme. While a typical Corporate may have no more than an augmented respiratory system, bionic eyes and a few neural implants, a Dreg may maim themselves to replace their flesh with superior, more durable metal – often at the expense of looking presentable. Sleek eye augmentations are removed from former workers by barely qualified surgeons to be replaced with crude prosthetics that do not aim to imitate the human form, but to simply provide functionality – often being, for example, completely filled with one colour, or having coloured scleras. The more brave may opt into removing their limbs for a metal replacement, which is often made “in the house”, with lower quality parts but higher maintainability. Dregs in general are largely proponents of “right to repair” when it comes to prosthetics, shunning branded augments in favour of ones that can be repaired at home or by their favourite roboticist. Function over form is another one of the more unusual ideologies of dreg augmentation, with dregs often caring little about how attractive their augments are so long as they outperform their original limb. As such, dreg roboticists have gained a rightful reputation for making insane or seemingly random choices with their parts lists that give their augments a unique charm, creating a niche market of enthusiasts who share a mindset. Within dreg circles, however, reputation is all, and dreg roboticists can go down within the rich folklore of dregs should they perform their best, amongst names such as David Insurgent and Amiyu Wires. A dreg that can perform augmentation installation could expect to see a large amount of business on this stereotype alone should they open a workshop once out of Epsilon Eridani.

== Eridani Life ==

=== Food ===
Eridanian cuisine has a wrongfully gained reputation of being extremely soy based, to the point of caricatures of Eridanian figures often depicting them holding some form of soy based product. Despite this stereotype, this is not entirely true. While Eridanian cuisine as a whole typically makes heavy use of soy based products, other ingredients make up as much of a staple of the Eridanian diet as much as soy does. Plantains, tofu, farmed fish, squash, beans and rice are all staple ingredients of Eridanian cuisine due to their ease of growth in a hydroponics heavy society. A major method of cooking is frying in nut oil, with Eridanians being known to fry anything that can fit in the pan and even some things that can’t, being served with the ever-present soy.

Some famous dishes from Eridani include:

* Puff-puffs, a fried dough ball with a crunchier outside than a donut. These are typically cooked in a pool of oil at the bottom of a pan, however the Eridanian version differs from tradition by adding ground ginger instead of the traditional pepper. Whether it’s acceptable to dip puff-puffs in synthetic cream is still a subject of fierce debate amongst all Eridanians akin to the debates over pineapple on pizza.
* Fufu dumplings with soup, the dumplings are made of pounded plantains and shaped into a ball to be served alongside soup. The soups might contain any number of vegetables, but traditional meats from their earth counterparts are replaced with shrimp, tofu or cod.
* Joloff rice, long grain rice fried in groundnut oil with tomatoes, onions and hot peppers. Again fish and meat substitutes make an appearance here. The dish is a favourite amongst all due to the ease of cooking and the fact that it can be made in one pot.
* Sushi, raw and prepared fish laid atop cooked rice. While a staple of many planets, Eridanian sushi has gained a life of its own, often being created with rare and expensive ingredients grown in the hydroponics and fish farms of the planet. As a cultural export, however, Eridanian sushi rather fails at the term sushi, as the entire affair is deep fat fried. This unusual and controversial perversion of sushi is often blamed upon dregs, who are believed to fry anything if they have oil.

Of course, not all food is made the same in Eridani. While dregs’ communal lifestyle allows them to make the food in a more traditional style with ingredients bought in bulk to save money or grown in stolen hydroponics setups, corporates often spend so much of their day at work that it’s preferred to buy their meals either ready or pre-prepared from a machine. Learning to prepare ingredients, for this reason, is often a skill that makes reinstated very popular amongst their colleagues. One major difference is the quantities of meat substitutes available between dregs and corporates, with corporates often eating triple or even quadruple the serving of expensive goods like fish compared to their dreg counterparts, and malnourishment being rife within dreg living due to the relatively small portions of key proteins being stretched over such long time periods.

Fast food chains exist that are also exclusive to Eridani, such as Shrimp Republic, a location that can be found in almost any Eridanian food court or habitation block. The ingredients often consist of some form of fried shrimp as well as various kinds of skewered foods for easy and enjoyable eating.

=== Music ===
Corporate music is considerably more well documented than dreg music when it comes to what is popular, the data algorithms gathering all instances of listening as well as attention spans to songs to form the perfect bands to be fed to the public en-masse. As a bizarre by-product of this feedback loop of attention, two major genres have emerged in Epsilon Eridani, at least amongst the citizens. Club music is one of the most popular Eridanian music genres, being their greatest cultural export and the most listened to genre amongst corporates due to the after work clubbing culture of corporates. Famous artists include Cricket, a DJ known for their use of repetitive but catchy melodies, and DJ Andrex, more famous for their surprisingly fluent lyrical content for club music. The other famous genre is group pop, entirely powered by algorithms and chart ratings, group pop bands usually consist of people who barely know one another working together to make music with help from their managers. These groups are extremely prone to splitting up, giving gossip magazines plenty of content to work off of and forming the basis of how names in the scene are passed around. It is said that you aren’t a group pop musician until your face is on the front of a magazine without your consent.

On the other end of the spectrum, dregs have taken to two more stereotypical favourite genres for an underclass, rap and punk. Both genres tend to focus on life in Dreg society, either the massive amounts of death and poverty, or blaming the system they live in for said death and poverty. While the two genres rarely mix, it isn’t uncommon for them to share lyrical patterns and chord progression. Generally, Eridanian punk is unusual from other genres of punk due to its heavy usage of distortion pedals, electronic instruments and synthesisers. Punk bands in Eridani last for years at a time, but are known to have extremely messy breakups when they get famous, assuming they ever leave their extremely localised sphere of influence. Eridanian rappers on the other hand tend to make a large spectacle of themselves once their music leaves their sphere of influence, hoping to get famous outside of Eridani and hopefully be able to escape. Kizee and Nitrogod are a famous pair of rappers from Seychelles whose music has escaped the constellation’s sphere of influence into the wider Orion Spur, lent largely to them by their aggressive sound and theme of general inequality and the hypocrisy of the wealthy invading their spaces to amuse themselves.

=== Movies ===
Movies and films in Eridani are a fairly insular market, with specific tastes of the local audience being received middlingly outside of the systems and vice versa. This is credited in large part to the prolific use of market analysis to write scripts, to the point that some movies are almost entirely algorithmically generated. Some of the more famous rules of these algorithms that always feature include:

* Anti-corporate activity should always result in the demise of the anti-corporate
* Non-citizen dregs may only appear as antagonists, sympathy is allowed in cases of redemption at the end of the production
* The protagonist should not show any form of anti-corporate sentiment, except when portraying their darkest hour
* Members of corporations may only be shown as villains in the event that they are acting against the best interests of the corporation

These restrictive rules have led to a series of set movie genres that are guaranteed to succeed within the borders of the ECA, and at least break even outside of it: Corporate dramas, action movies starring PMCs as the protagonists and adaptations of literature already popular within the ECA.

The unpopular content of these films has created another industry within dreg society however: Independent Movies. These are films created independent of the Idris subsidiary studios that dominate the industry in the ECA and are often created with the express purpose of defying these algorithmic and borderline propagandistic productions. Largely these are made by expelled movie crews and first generation dregs, who have the skills to make passable cinema with the limited equipment they have access to, however these existing skills can only do so much to push past the technical limitations of their existence. These films rarely see much viewing outside of dreg cinemas and communities, largely seen as oddities to be enjoyed by a cult following of outsiders who often take technical difficulties as artistic choices. These films often tackle the problems of daily dreg life, but can also be seen as indulgent power fantasy enjoyed by a downtrodden populace attempting to escape the realities of dreg living. The most popular of these types of film centre around well known dreg folklore figures, their story and their message to the downtrodden.

=== Language ===
The closest language the Corporate Alliance has to an official language is Tradeband, used to ease business transactions. It is the most used language in the workplace and typically any resident of the Eridanus Constellation can speak it well enough to conduct their job in Tradeband. This is not the only language in the Alliance however, and almost any human language can be spoken by at least a handful of people. Tourists often find it easier to ask for directions in the ECA as opposed to any other region sheerly on the odds that they bump into somebody that speaks their native language. On the other side of the coin, dregs stubbornly create their own culture to counter the corporate one, speaking Freespeak and similar other languages in their own society and typically only using Tradeband in corporate owned workplaces. This comes across as antiquated to outsiders, but is often viewed by dregs as a result of their highly independence seeking nature.

Dregs also speak a strange form of Freespeak that can only be described as a thieves’ cant, known as Spitting Proper. Spoken almost exclusively by dregs with ties to the criminal syndicates, the closest comparison one can make to a 21<sup>st</sup> century language would be Polari, and it holds a similar history, being used to mask discussions of criminal activity, grow fellowship amongst its speakers and hide information from anybody that may be eavesdropping. Spoken fluently by the criminal underbelly, it is near impenetrable to outsiders outside of famous words like “knab”. To an extent, most dreg teenagers speak enough of it with the intent to hide what they’re doing from their parents, assuming (often wrongfully) that their parents cannot Spit Proper.
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|+"Spitting Proper" Common Terms
!Word
!Meaning
|-
|Boss
|Insult, akin to calling your superior by a royal title.
|-
|Chief
|Respectful term for the person in charge.
|-
|Suit
|Corporate.
|-
|Fek
|Fuck. Works the same way.
|-
|Clacker
|Asshole. Insult and bodypart.
|-
|Drongo
|Idiot.
|-
|Biz
|Shit, in the sense of "I'm not doing that shit" or "[...] and shit like that"
|-
|Tick
|Sec (second). e.g "Just a tick"
|-
|Wrong boots
|Someone who is transgender. “Born in the wrong shoes” meaning born in the wrong body. '''''Not a derogatory term.'''''
|-
|Am/Ami/Amino
|Partner/boy/girlfriend. Romantic in nature.
|-
|Bov/Bovino
|Best friend.
|-
|Krok
|Outsider/non-dreg
|-
|Knab
|"Guy". Can refer to anyone.
|-
|Heavy
|Hired muscle. "Who's the heavy?"
|-
|Extra
|Hacker. Comes from hackers often being treated as unnecessary by inexperienced teams.
|-
|Mask
|Inside man.
|-
|Fixer
|Person who arranges for jobs. They may collect information, arrange meetings and find extra members for a crew.
|-
|Cashie
|Salesman, usually illicit.
|-
|Patcher
|Doctor of any kind, but usually used for ones that don't tell police about their patients.
|-
|Wrencher
|Engineer.
|-
|Robowrencher
|Roboticist, usually augmentation specialists.
|-
|Helmet
|Mercenary or police. Typically used to refer to mercenaries that take police work, rather than all mercenaries.
|-
|Gun
|General mercenary, regardless of if they use a gun.
|-
|Debt
|Job.
|-
|Cark
|Die, not murdered.
|-
|Creased
|Murdered.
|-
|Crease
|To murder.
|-
|Map
|Understand.
|-
|Tool
|Fix something.
|-
|Scroll
|Watch something happen.
|-
|Spit
|Speak.
|-
|Gab
|To have a conversation.
|-
|Scribble
|Write.
|-
|Riccy
|Rich. Sometimes derogatory, often used to describe a target for robbery.
|-
|Band
|Gang.
|-
|Banded
|Married.
|-
|Sniffer
|Brown-noser. Somebody who sucks up to authority.
|-
|Tail
|Related to the term rat. An informant.
|-
|Affirmed
|Understood, yes.
|-
|Running your/their trail
|Following you/somebody. Not necessarily bad.
|-
|Palm
|Steal.
|-
|Knock
|Beat up or damage.
|-
|Ice/Arctic
|Cool.
|-
|Sign the dots
|Get arrested.
|-
|In my turf
|In your face, breaking personal space.
|-
|Slacks
|Dregs who associate with suits. Derogatory term for reinstated.
|}

=== Non-Humans ===
<Tabber>
|-|Tajaran Refugees=
Largely comprised of refugees who fled the immediate aftermath of the Azunali Revolution, the Tajara Diaspora on Eridani is almost entirely dregs, with a handful of later-reinstated individuals. These groups live in largely segregated communities, partly through choice and partly due to the circumstances of their mass migration. Culturally similar to dregs, they still hold the idea of Sadani in regard, seeing it as a survival guide to the rugged and unpredictable lives led in the system. Many tajara born in Eridani speak their ancestral languages poorly, instead being fluent in Tradeband or Freespeak, depending on their circumstances. Being such a tight knit community, with many forming their own tribes on the planet, there are some Kowloons on Aegir that consist entirely of tajarans, often of varying origins. Their version of freespeak is less guttural, with R sounds rolled to ease their biology. Particularly zealous believers of Sadani end up spending their days as little better than conmen, trying to find a quick "innovation" in the criminal underground, giving tajarans a general regard by dregs as untrustworthy but useful.
|-|Yzali Tech Princes=
In the past, exiled Tech-Princes arrived in Monaco with considerable wealth and immediately found a home among the cutthroat world of Eridani suits. While some work across the system, they have found a special niche in Monaco and blitzed their way to dominate the industry after spending years carefully studying human psychology.

None in the galaxy can match the glamor and sheen of a tourist district owned by a Tech-Prince, which they have called "Transcends". The entire district is meticulously crafted to evoke the feeling of nostalgia and energy of youth. The music you hear pumped through the streets is the generic and familiar chopped up to be psychedelia and hypnotic, bringing snippets of songs you've heard long ago repackaged with an upbeat sheen.

Monuments, hotels, and malls are arranged and built to evoke a dream-like feel while remaining comfortingly familiar. A Transcend present a utopia, with every single piece of brickwork exploding with optimism and excess. When you walk down the street, no matter where you look, anything and everything is possible - but at the same time, everything is so simple. Arcades are bursting with natural plants like jungles that cover the lobby; reflecting pools are illuminated with soft pinks and purples; and nanomeshes draped over the district's domes simulate the eternal sunshine of the beach - and entire beaches are built in miniature, with warm waters and free drinks.

To keep the emotional and aesthetic allure of simplicity mixed with possibility, there is no cost to anything inside a Transcend. They make their money by subscription fees, with stiff payments covering a weekly or monthly stay.

As careful as the enterprises are, there is still an emptiness beneath the glimmering lights and nostalgia. The experience of visiting a Transcend is hypnotic and can be extremely addictive. Many wayward visitors have lost their entire life savings desperately trying to keep their nostalgic dreamscape alive.
This is made worse by the exits from the Transcend - the bright, cheerful exit doors lead into tunnels that gradually become gray and plastered with advertisements, graffiti, posters, and simulated sounds of industry, traffic, and irritating white noise playing just beneath normal human hearing. Reintroduction to the normal, the mundane, is made as unpleasant and heartbreaking as possible - and every few steps, there's another door with that glowing neon sign of a smiling couple looking down at you, encouraging you to come back and feel happiness again. Don't you want to be happy? Don't you want to Transcend?

|-|More to come=
other stuff
</Tabber>

=== Dreg Folklore ===
Dregs have constructed a rich tapestry of legendary folk figures, some of which are simply of note while others can be considered tales intended to teach a lesson through the failures or successes of another real figure. While large parts of the folklore are embellished, it is often the case that every story’s primary beats are largely true, immortalising significant dregs in the imaginations of children and adults alike. Some figures are folk heroes, standing defiant against the corporations and the gangs to try and bring dregs into a new era, while others are villains and cautionary tales about what power does to a person. The vast majority, however, are simply interesting figures that have some moral behind their story, their fates ultimately doing little for the cause of the dregs except providing stories to entertain and educate the next generation. The requirements to become a folk figure are murky to say the least, but the most famous typically have the most outrageous stories, to the point that some are doubted to have existed at all.
Some famous folk heroes include:

<Tabber>
|-|David Insurgent=
Nicknamed for his revolutionary tendencies, David is believed to have been the first to draw blood against corporate mercenaries during the Thermostat Revolution. A native of Faroe, David was already well known for his combat related prosthetics and had a reputation for fair pricing and skilled craftsmanship. Most stories surrounding him take this angle, portraying him as an honest man turned revolutionary leader, ultimately betrayed by Little Mojisola in exchange for a sum of money that varies story to story.
|-|Mairo Oku Mpu=
Also known as Mairo Diver, she is a sort of living legend within the ECA, hero to dregs and horror story to corporate network security. While technically not quite a folk hero, due to her living status, she is so embroiled in myth and misinformation due to her secretive life that she has become entirely separate to her legend. Confirmed actions include leaking Zavodskoi Interstellar body-camera footage of war crimes committed by the corporation, releasing documents detailing the unethical nature of Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals test subject selection, and the destruction of an Idris server farm. However, the folk lore version of her can commit acts that are dubious if even possible through traditional hacking methods, while often emphasising her whimsical nature contrasted against her numerous warrants for arrest in all major nations. She is rumoured to reside in an abandoned space station with her co-conspirators and romantic partners, plural.
|-|Old Toyin=
Famous for one act and one act only, Old Toyin is both a hero and a cautionary tale of what happens when one stands up against the criminal syndicates that dominate the dreg world. While some take her story to be an example of what happens when an old dreg is underestimated, many take it as a warning to expect war if one attacks these gangs. Old Toyin’s story typically goes as such: Old Toyin had lived in her sector of her kowloon for almost her entire life, to the point that nobody on her corridor remembered when she moved in. One day, a group of the Three Star Syndicate demanded that she move out of her home, so that they may turn it into a gambling parlour. Old Toyin refused, stating they would have to kill her to get that property from her. After some arguing, the gangsters left, promising to return with more men. In this time, Old Toyin prepared dinner for her infirm neighbour, said goodbye to her grandson and turned her room into what could qualify as a fortress. By the time the gangsters returned, she had armed herself with a borrowed rifle and walled herself into the room with the help of her neighbours, having a handful of holes to fire out at the gangsters through. Details of the gun fight differ, but the death toll of the gangsters before they demolished the wall and killed Old Toyin is always two digits in all accounts. Almost all accounts emphasise that despite her age and bravery, she was spared no mercy and killed just as brutally as a young dreg would have been.
|-|Shock Namkoisse=
A famous singer and advocate for dreg freedom, Namkoisse is often a stand-in for stories that were very unlikely to have actually been him. His role in dreg culture is as the hero everybody can love, and documentation of his real life is often dreary in comparison to his folklore existence. Namkoisse has been confirmed to have organised illegal raves inside corporate offices, his claim to fame, and ultimately was charged and jailed for his actions. His trial was a show trial, intended to show the dreg population what happens to rebels, but instead it immortalised him as he read a prepared speech on the witness podium and openly criticised the language and methodology of the court. He has since become the symbol of social rebellion against corporations, and many an aspiring musician have copied his illegal raves in his honour.
</Tabber>

More sparingly is the use of folk villains, usually cautionary tales intended to warn others against considering corporate affiliation. In particular is a famous story that almost every dreg knows:<blockquote>Malcolm Oyibo is not so much a figure with a consistent story more than a stock character, a villain that fills the void in the collective memory of dreg folklore when telling the story of a more obscure hero. Malcolm is more of a series of characteristics that make for a villain to the story, inconsistent and often not even in the same job twice. He may be a quartermaster one day, or a mercenary the next, or maybe even a CEO. The important part is that he is a backstabber and a foreigner that desperately seeks to be accepted by his corporate overlords, a rather naked allegory for the view of dregs on reinstated.</blockquote>And finally come a unique aspect of dreg folklore, at least in terms of modern folklore: legendary locations. These locations may range from safe-havens for the most wanted of Epsilon Eridani’s underworld to rumoured paradises of workers’ rights within the very borders of the hell scape that is Aegir’s moon. Some of these locations include:

* The Killing Floor: Bar and pilgrimage site for any starry eyed revolutionary, rumoured to be the favourite haunt of David Insurgent and many of the Thermostat Revolutionaries. Today it stands as a monument and tourist trap for the revolutionary undercurrent that slowly meanders through dreg culture. The folklore version, however, is a hive of revolutionary activity in which the intellectuals of dreg liberation come to exchange ideas.
* Haven: A simple and descriptive name, Haven is a rumoured squat within a corporate hab block that is so well defended that it is functionally a microstate within Eridanian territory. Some call it an ongoing revolution, while others describe it more as the only truly neutral ground for major figures to meet without worrying about being assassinated.

* The Office: An ironic name for possibly the most secure and brutal prison in the Orion Spur. The Office is rumoured to have every defence imaginable, from air defences to closing wall traps to laser grids closing cells off, only the hardest and most dangerous the Spur has to offer are supposedly housed here. Outsiders often believe The Office is actually many prisons amalgamated into a single prison in the collective consciousness of dregs.

[[Category: Lore]]

Eridani Corporate Alliance

2024-02-06T00:32:35Z

Monty: /* Government */ Added all hyperlinks

The Eridani Corporate Alliance, often referred to as Eridani for short, is a series of relatively independent Solarian systems that enjoy almost total economic and relative military freedom from the rest of the alliance of states that forms Sol. Eridani can instead be considered a form of special economic zone that exists due to its convenience for the rest of the Spur, which in turn allows the corporations within to largely skirt past criticisms of their human rights violations and caste system by virtue of being economically beneficial to the rest of the Orion Spur.

== History ==
Originally sold for the purposes of establishing a port and warehouse to [[Charon Shipping Services]] in 2203, initial surveys of Epsilon Eridani appeared grim for profit. Only one planet was confirmed to have existed, the gas giant Aegir with a sole moon. While another planet was theorised, upon arrival this was proven not to be the case, however a much more important discovery was made by the Charon Eridani Fleet: The moon of Aegir was, in fact, habitable. A rudimentary biosphere had led to an atmosphere equivalent to the top of a tall mountain, ever-so-slightly thinner than average.

With this discovery came immediate colonisation by Charon, who in turn contacted numerous notable corporations with the intent to sell plots of land, mineral rights and shipping services. Many historians theorise that this was done in an attempt to legitimise the relative newcomer to space amongst its new peers, as well as create ties that would form the foundation of the new system’s unique status in Spur-level politics.

While initially colonised with the intent to be owned by Charon Shipping Services, the growing corporatocracy quickly found itself growing too large and complex for a single, relatively junior corporation to effectively manage. While logistics may have been the speciality of Charon, they lacked the political clout or hard power to enforce their claim upon the planet. In their place, and to avoid the minor skirmishes between security forces related to various corporations that were beginning to erupt in 2228, The Council of Eight was formed. This council of eight positions, dictated by the ownership of regions of land on the moon of Aegir, became the de-facto government for the planetoid.

Over time, The Council of Eight has had a series of small scale wars erupt between corporations for the seats of power in which it contains, with vast swathes of land being economically repurposed in arbitrary treaties that the inhabitants had little to no say in. To combat this turmoil, eventually The Council of Eight elected that positions are eternal, and may only be opened through either purchase or the forced removal of a seat by a unanimous vote of all other council seats. The last time the seats changed was in 2490, giving the largely run-down southern arctic region of District 8 to Einstein Engines. This transfer was met with controversy from much of the dreg population, with fears of the heating infrastructure going even further unmaintained under new leadership leading to a borderline revolution.

During what is now referred to as the Thermostat Revolution, the transfer of power between Einstein Engines and Zeng-Hu collapsed due to the total lack of military power owned by either corporation. In an attempt to prevent the budding revolution from potentially spreading further, the corporations that made up The Council of Eight put aside their differences temporarily, redirecting every mercenary group under their employment to suppress riots, arrest organisers and violently put down the revolution in such a manner that any non-corporate entity would be brought up on various human rights violations. Following this, The Council of Eight voted unanimously to create a semi-regulated body for the employment of mercenaries, who in times of no-contract would act as the de-facto military for the Eridanus Cluster.<blockquote>''“The modern Eridani Corporate Alliance is not too alien from the Corporate Alliance of the past, in a form of simultaneous stagnation and inflation. The more things change, the more entrenched certain conventions become; dregs remain the oppressed underclass, corporates remain in splendour and the corporations that influence every aspect of life become nations unto the worker. The Thermostat Revolution may soon become a distant memory, rather than a cultural touchstone of the Dreg Worker.” - Julian Bertrand, Philosopher and Economist, 2540''</blockquote>

== Government ==
Eridani’s government is largely represented by the Council of Eight - Eight representatives from various megacorporations. Each seat in the Council is tied to a sector, which the chairman’s corporation has full control over. While discussions have been made in the past to expand the number of sectors, this naturally has not come to fruition out of fears of decreased power on the moon. Each sector has also been given an informal name to make conversation easier. Currently, each sector is assigned to the following corporations:

'''Sector 1''' (Luxembourg) - [[Idris Incorporated]]

'''Sector 2''' (Canaria) - [[Hephaestus Industries]]

'''Sector 3''' (Monaco) - [[Idris Incorporated]]

'''Sector 4''' (Panama) - [[Charon Shipping Services]]

'''Sector 5''' (Trinidad) - [[Hephaestus Industries]]

'''Sector 6''' (Grenada) - EPMC - [[Zavodskoi Interstellar]] joint venture

'''Sector 7''' (Seychelles) - [[Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals]]

'''Sector 8''' (Faroe) - [[Einstein Engines]]

== Sectors ==
Due to Epsilon Eridani’s long history of being terraformed and shaped to the whims of the colonists, the vast majority of the moon has similar streets and architecture styles. Industrial land seamlessly mixes with offices and apartments with very little rhyme or reason to much of it in regions where there is a high dreg population, meanwhile corporates enjoy well organised and sectioned off districts dedicated to work or leisure that stretch for kilometres. Despite this, each sector has a unique reputation and general environment that both the under and upper classes would be able to notice.

<tabber>
|-|Luxembourg and Canaria=
The twin capitals of Eridani, it is subject to being the “baseline” of people’s ideas of Eridani as a whole. Tall office blocks stretch into the sky, connected by walkways. The smog is so irreversibly powerful that windows do not open except in older buildings that were made before corporate regulations governing smog contamination were put in place. Dregs face a similar conundrum while living in the underground caverns of the sector, formerly mining operations. Here, shanty towns and pools of acidic chemical runoff characterise a rough life for dregs. Criminal gangs will occasionally surface to commit crimes in corporate territory before retreating.
|-|Monaco=
One of the major centres of tourism in Epsilon Eridani. The reputation of the moon of Aegir has spread far and wide throughout the Orion Spur, and with it comes tourists seeking to confirm or deny the rumours of the planet. Idris has transformed this region into a vast tourist haven, a cloying and romanticised version of the public perception of Eridani. In the eyes of tourists visiting Monaco, it is said that anything goes, and all manner of services, products and monuments can be found so long as you look hard enough. For the families there are the glamorous, bizarre and outright gimmicky tourist attractions of the main streets, immediately outside the hotels and surrounded by the dazzling lights of advertising, neon signs and flying billboards that pollute the sky with the incessant need to call attention to products. For the faux-bohemian, however, Idris has not neglected their wants, with an entire carefully managed and well patrolled dreg “slum” for them to visit. complete with faux dive bars and carefully managed waste in the road, any tourist that were to visit this sector would come out feeling as if they had seen the real Eridani, without ever having gone within 100 miles of actual danger, serving double time as a tourist attraction and smokescreen to the plight of the dregs. In amongst the splendour of the main tourist region and the artificial roughness of the disdainfully named “Dreg Village” comes what many actually visit Eridani for, the so-called Epsilon High-way. A single multi-mile long stretch of drugs, drink and vice arcs across the centre of Monaco, capturing the attention of passers by with graphic depictions of what products they offer.
|-|Panama=
This sector is one of the lesser talked about areas, having little importance other than as a docking station for large ships and cargo. The underground hosts an extremely large and dense network of warehouses, and one of the densest populations of dregs in Epsilon Eridani in order to staff it. Despite this, subsidiaries of Charon Shipping Services are still likely to bring workers in from outside of the region due to a general distrust of undermotivated dregs around valuable cargo. The sector is characterised by hostile wildlife in slums and streets alike, with a species of cross-bred rat being known to attack small children if left unattended. The environment itself is famously windy, the narrow corridors of buildings acting as wind tunnels that cause dangerous gales during storms. Instead of fixing this, wind shelters the size of a 21st century bus shelter have been installed along roads to shelter in during wind storms. Due to these factors, the region has been not so affectionately named “The Hurricane” by dregs who live there.
|-|Trinidad=
Located directly next to Panama, Trinidad is the industrial heart of the Eridani Corporate Council. The surface is smeared with refineries belching smog into the sky as underground rail transports produced goods to and from the warehouses of Panama. Mirroring its sister sector, Trinidad has a majority dreg population that lives in squalor around the factories they work in, either in shanty towns constructed between buildings or company towns that work on scrip pay and slum-like conditions. Many observers theorise that these company towns are a method of control that has prevented further workers rights movements from truly taking off in the system, forcing dregs to risk their food supply alongside their homes in order to take any form of industrial action. In comparison, reinstated and corporate managers are allowed to make use of the extensive rail network underneath this region, letting them arrive directly at their workplace with little to no exposure to the outside smog or squalid conditions of their subordinates.
|-|Grenada=
Forged in an agreement created by the lacking political capital of Zavodskoi Interstellar and the sudden need for a centralised base of operations for the newly developed Eridani Private Military Corporation, the formerly underdeveloped region of Grenada has developed over the past hundred years into a hub for weapons production, military training and electronic warfare development. The vast majority of the population are either reinstated, corporate or from outside of the system. While the region is technically contested between numerous mercenary groups, it has become possibly the safest region in Eridani, following the “Clean Front Door” doctrine of mercenary groups. Quality of life is higher here than the majority of Eridani, if still notably lower than the living standards of much of the Orion Spur.
|-|Seychelles=
The science and research hub of Epsilon Eridani, Seychelles boasts the environment of being carved into the ice of the Northern Pole of the moon. While other regions may feel as if they are tunnels between the large skyscrapers, Seychelles is quite literally made of tunnels to survive the cold environment outside of them. With an average surface temperature of -40 degrees celsius on the surface, the cold air is ideal for running the server farms required for 26th century research and saves immense money on cooling. These tunnels are little more than bare, carved stone in many places, however closer to the universities that litter this region of the moon metal plating has been installed so as to not offend the sensibilities of the students and researchers. Dregs, primarily making up the staffing of the day to day running of these facilities, face an entirely different conundrum. Heating is not universal to all tunnels, and while corporates may enjoy a steady 20 degrees celsius all year round, abandoned tunnels inhabited by the dregs face an average temperature of -10 degrees C and can plummet to -40 in the event of a breach.
|-|Faroe=
A recent acquisition, Faroe is in an unusual position compared to other sectors of Eridani. Despite the incredibly small number of manual labour positions, the sector has a large dreg population remaining from the period before Einstein Engines’ ownership of the sector. The vast majority of these dregs are homeless, living in communes situated within abandoned ex-Zeng Hu facilities making a living either selling scrap parts to pay for heating or scavenging for heating sources that still have valid DRM. Being the data centre of the communications giant’s Sol presence, Faroe takes advantage of the Southern Pole’s equally low temperatures to cool server racks for data farming and processing. The prior factors mix into a cocktail that results in Faroe being the centre of cyber-crime in Epsilon Eridani, with disenfranchised dregs who possess the necessary skills selling corporate secrets across all sectors after gathering data from in-person access to Einstein Engines servers. This culture of hacking has birthed legends of dreg folklore, including the infamous hacker Mairo Oku Mpu, who gained attention in 2587 for leaking classified Zavodskoi surveillance data.
|-|The Stations=
Outside of the populated moon is an uncontrolled span of stations all across the Eridanus Cluster. These stations do not come under the Council of Eight and are laws unto themselves unless otherwise stated. The vast majority of these stations are owned by megacorporations and their subsidiaries, but older stations may be sold to individuals or simply stolen by groups with the intent to start their own enterprises. Stations therefore come in all shapes and sizes, serving different purposes and being governed under different policies. The common thread connecting every station, however, is their precarious position in the system. While stations may be officially owned by megacorporations or small private enterprises, hostile takeovers and piracy run rampant in the far less militarised regions of the Eridanus Constellation, and refugees fleeing from one station to another is not an uncommon sight anywhere in the Constellation.

One of the major industries of the stations is resource extraction, either with skiffs designed to scoop gases from gas giants across the many systems or miner drones intended to pick every last mineral out of the asteroid belts of said gas giants. Other stations provide services such as rest stops, refuelling and repairs, with many artisanal shipyards making their home in Eridani with the intent to avoid copyright laws or heavy taxation implemented by corporate controlled governments to suppress competition. Of course, for any economic hub that is sprawling and decentralised, there is crime. Pirates and extortion rings run rampant, forming a noticeable percent of the GDP of Eridani as they refuel in less-than-reputable stations and take advantage of the low police and military presence to commit piracy, making use of Bluespace Interdictors in order to violently jerk ships out of bluespace travel and into dead space, shaking them down for the contents of their cargo hold before running away.

Due to the age of some of these stations, a noticeable population of offworlders exist of both the dreg and corporate variety. Roughly a quarter of the stations that exist in these systems are older than effective gravity generation, and as such either operate on the rotating wheel method of gravity generation or simply are free-floating. This makes a cottage industry of station tourism available to offworlders across the spur, run mostly by enterprising individuals and corporates who wish to strike out and start a “new” business under the Idris banner, in some ways making Eridani one of the most popular tourist locations with offworlders across the spur. Many of the dreg offworlders often consider themselves more offworlder than dreg, leading to many a cultural clash when meeting with dregs from gravity-laden stations.
</tabber>

== Housing ==
The commonly studied marvel of Eridanian engineering is the Corporate Habitation Block, referred to as “Habs” for short. Where regulation does not exist, convention thrives, and one can find convention to have taken a tight grip onto the common Hab. A mixture of office building, residential housing and commercial venture, the average corporate worker may never have to leave their specific block for their entire life, assuming they never have to attend an important meeting. The average habitation block consists of a floor by floor plan spread out over the largest plot of land that the construction company could purchase, sometimes at the cost of existing structures. While a lower floor may be a series of residential pods for data input specialists, secretaries and the other numerous rabble of the lowest echelons of the corporate ladder, and the floor above it the offices in which they infest during the rat race, the centre levels may become livable two, perhaps even three room apartments made cheap by their less than desirable position directly under nightclub or over the top of the ever-loud server rooms of the office corporate machine. Naturally, the palatial penthouses, adjacent to indoor gardens, community gyms and even having the rare luxury of natural sunlight weaving between the lattices of the complimentary air-vehicle garage sold inclusive, being the most coveted and expensive examples of Eridanian housing, are reserved for the most elite of the corporate world. Regional managers, CEOs’ second homes, the functional royalty of the corporate state which has been built across Eridani.

Lesser known to the outside world, but infamous to those aware of the true realities of Eridani, are the varieties of slums across the moon of Aegir. Most commonly are semi-permanent mountains of structures, stacked one atop the other in what can only be described as a game of jenga played with mortar and steel, affectionately nicknamed “Kowloons” after a 20th century structure of an almost identical nature. These structures occupy plots of land in which the ownership is either entirely disputed or the original owner cannot be located, providing safety from private property laws by virtue of angered parties either not existing or being too-long tied into legal battles to care about what is currently on the land. These structures are even denser than the densest of Habs, with entire families living in single rooms and businesses that pull separate functions at different times of day. Schools may become casinos at night, or restaurants may operate as a dentist during the day. The layout of these buildings can only be described as a rats’ nest, with narrow and winding tunnels leading deep within the artificially lit structure so far that it is not unheard of for outsiders to never be seen again after entering, presumed either dead or kidnapped. While living conditions may be of sub-human quality, there is a sense of community in these slums that is not experienced in corporate housing, and some reinstated dregs may privately express that they miss this sense of community. This community will not always last, however, and it is not unheard of for communities to be split apart by raids, entire slums emptied in weeks in order to facilitate the construction of future corporate housing or factories.

Other dregs take a more radical approach to housing, opting to occupy empty higher-tier apartments en-masse instead of risking the crime, disease and squalor of the slums. These squatters are almost always those with the least to lose, either a part of gangs or outright unemployed, and often form the vanguard that establishes longer lasting squats-turned-communities. This is much riskier for longevity compared to the slum, with squats often being cleared by corporate security in a matter of months. These squats have been known to last years, however, and some even decades, as veritable fortresses under siege deep within corporate territory. Some of these squats have entered the annals of dreg folklore, becoming rumoured safe havens or dens of legendary outlaws.

== Society ==

=== Work ===
Eridani forms what can only be described as a culture of pure work, with one’s job being the centre of their existence regardless of caste or class. Eridanians exist to work, and every aspect of culture is related back to the creation of value, the creation of wealth specifically. In the case of corporates, this is taken much more directly and manifests in hobbies having to be monetised, stress relief being a weak excuse for enjoying but a select few societally shared hobbies, and every waking hour is expected to be taken in the pursuit of wealth and power to some extent. This is less so in the case of dregs and some reinstated, who are more likely to take leisure in activities but are forced more by circumstances to monetise hobbies they hold actual skill in simply to make ends meet. Work culture in Eridani is considered toxic by the vast majority of the Spur, and even the most hardline of bootstrap mentality may baulk at the hours, or the absolute lack of overtime pay.

=== A Caste System ===
The one thing that everybody knows about the Eridanus Constellation is the system of classification that is functionally a caste system, wherein the status of “Corporate Citizen” is only granted to those who are employed by the corporations or client corporations of the Council of Eight.Those who are citizens enjoy full rights within the Eridani Corporate Council, however few those actually are, but this is dependent entirely on their remaining employed without more than a month’s gap between jobs at any point. Those who fail to stay employed in an office job are stripped of their citizenship, and if they choose to remain residents shall become of an entirely lower caste, forced to work in manual labour or not at all. This secondary caste are known as dregs, and while having the official name of non-citizens, their nickname holds much more power as both a derogatory term amongst corporates and a term of personal pride and empowerment amongst dregs. It is not uncommon for dregs to quote the immortal words from the trial of Shock Namkoisse, “I’m a dreg, you call me one behind my back, call me one to my face[...]”, when referred to as a “non-citizen”.

Between the corporate and the dreg is the reinstated, a somewhat temporary or probationary period between going back from dreg to corporate. People may be reinstated in two ways, becoming the conduit between management and the ground floor workers, typically as workplace managers or secretaries, or through coming under direct employment of a member of the corporate class. While the former may simply be a career in being a shift manager or foreman, the latter is on a much higher risk-reward relationship, with reinstated employees of corporates often being their personal mercenaries and wetworks teams of their employers. While reinstated “goons” may take much more risk, they have the potential to make great gains with their employer, and many find themselves retiring into comfy security management positions under their employer should they survive.

<Tabber>
|-|Corporate Citizens=
Referred to as corporates by the vast majority, citizens enjoy the most rights out of any of their fellow Eridanians. Their citizenship is tied entirely to their work, and as such a unique work culture persists, described by some as horrific in nature. The most major tenet, and the most famous, is the cutthroat nature of office politics within corporate culture, both metaphorically and literally. While at the lowest levels the likelihood of promotion is almost entirely tied to hours worked, eventually worked hours plateau in effectiveness and the only method of upwards movement is conspiracy, sabotage or loyalty to another person who excels in these fields. The highest echelons of corporate life have only ever achieved their positions through climbing a blood soaked ladder all the way to the top, and more often than not have added their fair share of blood to the rungs. Despite this, the status of the lowest corporates should not be confused with the situation of the highest up corporates, and to an extent lower on the corporate ladder is almost entirely devoid of bloodshed outside of the most ambitious of candidates, even if this difference is not normally recognised by those who have not lived within the corporate lifestyle of Eridani.

Corporate life is often defined as long periods of work punctuated by rest and burnout, and this is by-and-large true for the low to middle echelons, with working hours reaching 12 hours a day on the regular and breaks being few and far between. These long working hours have led to an increasingly ready-made lifestyle amongst corporate citizens, with many basic skills being reduced to hobbies or sold in premade end results. Stimulant abuse is one of the leading causes of non-violent death in the Eridanus Cluster. Despite all of this, control of one’s life does not only extend to work, and corporates often end up seeing themselves criticised for not spending their limited time calling family, or taking part in the handful of hobbies that are seen as acceptable for bonding with fellow co-workers. While familial relations are not exactly close by the standards of the rest of the spur, they are usually the closest relationship that corporates will have while living within the borders of Eridani. Relationships are usually relegated to the workplace otherwise, with romantic relationships often quickly turning to marriage for added benefits from the employer, as well as the ability to finally talk privately with a person without arousing suspicion. The divorce rate in Eridani is 65%.

Hobbies-wise, corporates only have a handful of cultural touchstones they share, primarily football (soccer) as games can be discussed in the office as an icebreaker, as well as video games, crosswords and drinking for pleasure. The final one is the most important, with much of Eridanian free time being spent heading to the bar with their coworkers and attempting to drink one another under the table, with the expectation that everybody stay at least as long as their manager, who in turn is expected to stay for as long as they can still walk home, ending in a standoff situation with their co-workers.

Corporates are heavily augmented, with the first augments often being tracheal implants intended to make breathing easier in the stagnant air of the lower floors of their hab block easier. Largely, augments are subsidised by their employer, ranging from ocular implants to improve productivity to typing-optimised prosthetic hands intended to avoid the drop in productivity of RSI before it can even begin, augments that can’t be removed are docked from the final paycheck when an employee leaves the company. The relationship with their roboticist is the most crucial one that a corporate can have, not only because they must truly trust their roboticist to avoid assassination while under the knife, but also due to a true cultural belief that anybody who you trust with your body is a friend. While some anthropologists theorise that this is a result of such isolation in corporate culture that even casual relationships become strong, others theorise that it may be instead a result of cultural bleedover from dregs who were reinstated into corporate life.
|-|Reinstated=
As with all things, the relationship between dregs and corporates is not black and white, and there are those who have ambitions to escape the slums and become corporates, either believing that even a coffin hotel is better than their current living conditions or that they can advance to middle management or even beyond. These people are referred to as “reinstated”, typically with varying levels of venom from dregs and varying levels of disdain from higher up corporates.

Reinstateds are the intermediate period between a dreg and a corporate, being treated as a trial period in which they prove their loyalty to the corporation over their former communities. There are two methods in which this can be done, through either being promoted to a position that connects corporate management to the working dreg population such as supervisor, or through taking advantage of their dubious societal position to become effectively personal mercenaries for a corporate, on the understanding that they will be given a position immediately under their corporate sponsor once their position is no longer of use. The former is much more common than the latter, however covert work is far from uncommon as a method of reinstatement.

The more mundane of the two is naturally a promotion. Positions of power are usually only handed to dregs on the understanding that they are already of an exceptional loyalty to the company, rather than out of competence in their role. Promotions may range from managerial positions over other manual labourers to secretaries to document mules, typically positions at the absolute bottom of the corporate ladder, if still on the corporate ladder at all compared to their former position. These positions are typically the least popular in their workplace, either being seen as beneath their corporate colleagues or as sell-outs and potential rats by dreg subordinates. These attitudes lead to the majority of attempted reinstatements failing, with this path of reinstatement often exposing even the most stoic of dregs’ breaking points as they lose the vast majority of their friends and even family, that which had been so important to them before, to their ambitions. Failed reinstatements are often forgiven, however, and regularly return to a comfortable familiarity. Some anthropologists theorise that this is the true cause of the lack of class mobility, rather than the architecture of the system itself.

Standard reinstatement is not entirely negative, however, and successful reinstatements often find themselves office celebrities, invited to their managers’ parties to entertain guests with novel skills such as cooking for guests from scratch, mixing cocktails and anecdotes of slum life. Many describe their early career as being more of a circus, and yet the most advantageous position of their lives as they are granted the opportunity to network with much more powerful individuals and potentially secure a promotion before the novelty of their existence wears off.

There is, however, a faster method of climbing ranks without needing to be explicitly subservient or working in an unpopular position, all at the cost of a much higher risk to life. This is the world of corporate covert operations, typically referred to as “wet works”, in which reinstated are held to a contract on the understanding that they will help their sponsor advance their career at any cost. Depending on one’s sponsor, this could be any illicit job from bodyguard to hacker to thief to assassin. The system typically follows the format that the reinstated in question will be a member of their sponsor’s entourage up until either their sponsor dismisses them and recruits them into their corporate team, or their sponsor dies and they are sent back to square one. These wet works teams often never truly retire, being called back in to assist with their former sponsor’s problems under pain of the acts they committed during their tenure being revealed to their new manager, however accepting these callings will almost always result in promotion. This lifestyle is often considered by many to be that of only the most ambitious potential corporates, those who have no interest in bowing down and who crave only the power of position.

Historically, before EPMC took over at the functional police force of the ECA, wet works reinstated filled the role of enforcers for the will of the corporate holders of the region, tackling potential revolutionary groups and crime syndicates that were causing trouble for their sponsors in surgical strikes. Famously, the personal bodyguards of the Einstein Engines representative to the Corporate Alliance were reinstated from Faroe who foiled an assassination attempt.
|-|Dregs=
Despite being a largely service based economy, The Eridani Corporate Alliance requires immense amounts of manual labour to maintain food security, cleanliness and internal manufacturing. To fill this niche, the dreg caste makes up roughly half of the planet’s population according to censuses, but estimates from humanitarian organisations claim that the population is more on the end of 60 to 65% of the planet’s population, when accounting for the internal dreg economy. A combination of extreme deprivation, more people than jobs and an almost total lack of patrols from EPMC peacekeepers has led to the vast majority of the economy within dreg settlements being under the control of organised crime. Be the shop owned by these organisations, or simply forced to pay protection money, there is not a lot of land that is independent of these pseudo-governmental syndicates within a typical Kowloon, not even accommodation. Despite this criminal incentive for profit, a loyal population benefits these gangs infinitely more, and as such living conditions are usually more spacious than the low-level corporate coffin hotels, instead having enough room for a bed, wardrobe and perhaps some shelves, even if bathrooms and toilets are shared to a hallway or even a floor.

The day-to-day life of a dreg can be considered rather varied in comparison to the average 8 to 10 worker of Epsilon Eridani, however this should not be confused with comfort or freedom. Variety comes in problems, primarily lacking work but also sudden loss of power at home, oxygenators breaking or food running out faster than expected. All of these can send a dreg out to purchase, scavenge or steal the necessary parts and equipment to solve their problems, leading to either reliance on the local gangs to pull them out of trouble in exchange for favours, or interaction with the rich barter economy that has formed in the place of sufficient wealth to support a community. In rare cases, some communities have abolished currency entirely and collectivised their resources, instead relying on the community to solve issues, however, this is more of an exception than a rule, with some crediting the cultural osmosis of the “Take care of number one” attitude of corporates permeating into dreg culture for this. This unpredictable lifestyle has created an unusual gap between dreg ages, either dying in their mid-20s from industrial or gang-land related accidents or dying of age related causes in their early 60s, with very little in between. This unusual gap has caused a sort of reverence of older dregs, who are seen as wiser and more capable for having managed to break the 25+ mark.

Unlike the reserved lifestyles of the corporate suits, dregs are known to form close families of either blood family or found family. Family comes before all in dreg communities, and it’s not uncommon for extended family up to one’s cousin to live under the same roof in compound-like shanty homes. These homes might consist of a central living room as well as personal rooms around the edges, with families eating in the courtyard. The only thing that could possibly even hope to match family bonds are community bonds, with even gangs typically helping their immediate community regardless of their known brutality. Recruitment for gangs happens most often inside of these community bubbles as a result.

Dregs are typically louder and more outspoken than their corporate counterparts, where “spilling honesties” is considered perfectly acceptable so long as it wasn’t done with malice in mind. This can make dregs seem extremely blunt to outsiders, and can lead to misunderstandings outside of Eridani space. A typical dreg conversation will consist of a lot of shouting, arm gestures and teasing, with playful violence not entirely being ruled out. This makes dreg conversations in their native language look like an argument to outsiders, even corporates may struggle to interpret friendliness properly facing these odds.

Similarly to corporates, dregs will usually take their augmentation seriously, having an even closer bond to their roboticist and rarely picking a new one unless it would be geographically impossible to return. Due to the large amount of outward migration by dregs, this attitude is fairly well known in roboticist circles and is regarded with either charm or suspicion, depending on the attitude of the roboticist. Dregs are sometimes described as “overfamiliar” outside of Eridani space.
</Tabber>

== Augmentation ==

=== Corporate Augments ===
Cybernetic modification is an integral part of Eridani’s cultural ideal. Simple tracheal augments are usually the first and the mildest step into augmentation, as they are needed for a lot of people to simply survive with Eridani’s thoroughly polluted air. Having other bionic enhancements is considered a symbol of wealth and prestige. Most electronics in the Federation are specifically designed to interact with augmented eyes – but they are also very functional on their own. A typical Eridanian eye implant can completely replace, or even surpass, a typical hand terminal in functionality – being used to browse the Extranet, communicate on chat relays, and more. As is typical for Eridanian technology, it is also swarmed with ads and is proven to constantly send data about the user’s activity to advertisers, making them somewhat unpopular outside the Federation. Augmentation is so tailored to the workplace in corporate society that people often find difficulty retraining if made redundant, as their augments will have to be replaced in order to suit their new job title. This adds a steep financial barrier to changing professions, and works to prevent upwards mobility without corporate sponsors. In extreme examples, hands may be given an extra finger in order to increase typing speed on legacy systems, at the cost of removing much of their dexterity for other tasks such as handwriting. These augments are often removed by the time the corporate citizens are able to find work outside of Eridani, being seen as too unsightly and off putting to clients. In some cases, synthskin is a requirement for reassignment to certain regions of the spur.

=== Dreg Augments ===
Dreg societies take the Eridanian fascination with augmentation technology to an extreme. While a typical Corporate may have no more than an augmented respiratory system, bionic eyes and a few neural implants, a Dreg may maim themselves to replace their flesh with superior, more durable metal – often at the expense of looking presentable. Sleek eye augmentations are removed from former workers by barely qualified surgeons to be replaced with crude prosthetics that do not aim to imitate the human form, but to simply provide functionality – often being, for example, completely filled with one colour, or having coloured scleras. The more brave may opt into removing their limbs for a metal replacement, which is often made “in the house”, with lower quality parts but higher maintainability. Dregs in general are largely proponents of “right to repair” when it comes to prosthetics, shunning branded augments in favour of ones that can be repaired at home or by their favourite roboticist. Function over form is another one of the more unusual ideologies of dreg augmentation, with dregs often caring little about how attractive their augments are so long as they outperform their original limb. As such, dreg roboticists have gained a rightful reputation for making insane or seemingly random choices with their parts lists that give their augments a unique charm, creating a niche market of enthusiasts who share a mindset. Within dreg circles, however, reputation is all, and dreg roboticists can go down within the rich folklore of dregs should they perform their best, amongst names such as David Insurgent and Amiyu Wires. A dreg that can perform augmentation installation could expect to see a large amount of business on this stereotype alone should they open a workshop once out of Epsilon Eridani.

== Eridani Life ==

=== Food ===
Eridanian cuisine has a wrongfully gained reputation of being extremely soy based, to the point of caricatures of Eridanian figures often depicting them holding some form of soy based product. Despite this stereotype, this is not entirely true. While Eridanian cuisine as a whole typically makes heavy use of soy based products, other ingredients make up as much of a staple of the Eridanian diet as much as soy does. Plantains, tofu, farmed fish, squash, beans and rice are all staple ingredients of Eridanian cuisine due to their ease of growth in a hydroponics heavy society. A major method of cooking is frying in nut oil, with Eridanians being known to fry anything that can fit in the pan and even some things that can’t, being served with the ever-present soy.

Some famous dishes from Eridani include:

* Puff-puffs, a fried dough ball with a crunchier outside than a donut. These are typically cooked in a pool of oil at the bottom of a pan, however the Eridanian version differs from tradition by adding ground ginger instead of the traditional pepper. Whether it’s acceptable to dip puff-puffs in synthetic cream is still a subject of fierce debate amongst all Eridanians akin to the debates over pineapple on pizza.
* Fufu dumplings with soup, the dumplings are made of pounded plantains and shaped into a ball to be served alongside soup. The soups might contain any number of vegetables, but traditional meats from their earth counterparts are replaced with shrimp, tofu or cod.
* Joloff rice, long grain rice fried in groundnut oil with tomatoes, onions and hot peppers. Again fish and meat substitutes make an appearance here. The dish is a favourite amongst all due to the ease of cooking and the fact that it can be made in one pot.
* Sushi, raw and prepared fish laid atop cooked rice. While a staple of many planets, Eridanian sushi has gained a life of its own, often being created with rare and expensive ingredients grown in the hydroponics and fish farms of the planet. As a cultural export, however, Eridanian sushi rather fails at the term sushi, as the entire affair is deep fat fried. This unusual and controversial perversion of sushi is often blamed upon dregs, who are believed to fry anything if they have oil.

Of course, not all food is made the same in Eridani. While dregs’ communal lifestyle allows them to make the food in a more traditional style with ingredients bought in bulk to save money or grown in stolen hydroponics setups, corporates often spend so much of their day at work that it’s preferred to buy their meals either ready or pre-prepared from a machine. Learning to prepare ingredients, for this reason, is often a skill that makes reinstated very popular amongst their colleagues. One major difference is the quantities of meat substitutes available between dregs and corporates, with corporates often eating triple or even quadruple the serving of expensive goods like fish compared to their dreg counterparts, and malnourishment being rife within dreg living due to the relatively small portions of key proteins being stretched over such long time periods.

Fast food chains exist that are also exclusive to Eridani, such as Shrimp Republic, a location that can be found in almost any Eridanian food court or habitation block. The ingredients often consist of some form of fried shrimp as well as various kinds of skewered foods for easy and enjoyable eating.

=== Music ===
Corporate music is considerably more well documented than dreg music when it comes to what is popular, the data algorithms gathering all instances of listening as well as attention spans to songs to form the perfect bands to be fed to the public en-masse. As a bizarre by-product of this feedback loop of attention, two major genres have emerged in Epsilon Eridani, at least amongst the citizens. Club music is one of the most popular Eridanian music genres, being their greatest cultural export and the most listened to genre amongst corporates due to the after work clubbing culture of corporates. Famous artists include Cricket, a DJ known for their use of repetitive but catchy melodies, and DJ Andrex, more famous for their surprisingly fluent lyrical content for club music. The other famous genre is group pop, entirely powered by algorithms and chart ratings, group pop bands usually consist of people who barely know one another working together to make music with help from their managers. These groups are extremely prone to splitting up, giving gossip magazines plenty of content to work off of and forming the basis of how names in the scene are passed around. It is said that you aren’t a group pop musician until your face is on the front of a magazine without your consent.

On the other end of the spectrum, dregs have taken to two more stereotypical favourite genres for an underclass, rap and punk. Both genres tend to focus on life in Dreg society, either the massive amounts of death and poverty, or blaming the system they live in for said death and poverty. While the two genres rarely mix, it isn’t uncommon for them to share lyrical patterns and chord progression. Generally, Eridanian punk is unusual from other genres of punk due to its heavy usage of distortion pedals, electronic instruments and synthesisers. Punk bands in Eridani last for years at a time, but are known to have extremely messy breakups when they get famous, assuming they ever leave their extremely localised sphere of influence. Eridanian rappers on the other hand tend to make a large spectacle of themselves once their music leaves their sphere of influence, hoping to get famous outside of Eridani and hopefully be able to escape. Kizee and Nitrogod are a famous pair of rappers from Seychelles whose music has escaped the constellation’s sphere of influence into the wider Orion Spur, lent largely to them by their aggressive sound and theme of general inequality and the hypocrisy of the wealthy invading their spaces to amuse themselves.

=== Movies ===
Movies and films in Eridani are a fairly insular market, with specific tastes of the local audience being received middlingly outside of the systems and vice versa. This is credited in large part to the prolific use of market analysis to write scripts, to the point that some movies are almost entirely algorithmically generated. Some of the more famous rules of these algorithms that always feature include:

* Anti-corporate activity should always result in the demise of the anti-corporate
* Non-citizen dregs may only appear as antagonists, sympathy is allowed in cases of redemption at the end of the production
* The protagonist should not show any form of anti-corporate sentiment, except when portraying their darkest hour
* Members of corporations may only be shown as villains in the event that they are acting against the best interests of the corporation

These restrictive rules have led to a series of set movie genres that are guaranteed to succeed within the borders of the ECA, and at least break even outside of it: Corporate dramas, action movies starring PMCs as the protagonists and adaptations of literature already popular within the ECA.

The unpopular content of these films has created another industry within dreg society however: Independent Movies. These are films created independent of the Idris subsidiary studios that dominate the industry in the ECA and are often created with the express purpose of defying these algorithmic and borderline propagandistic productions. Largely these are made by expelled movie crews and first generation dregs, who have the skills to make passable cinema with the limited equipment they have access to, however these existing skills can only do so much to push past the technical limitations of their existence. These films rarely see much viewing outside of dreg cinemas and communities, largely seen as oddities to be enjoyed by a cult following of outsiders who often take technical difficulties as artistic choices. These films often tackle the problems of daily dreg life, but can also be seen as indulgent power fantasy enjoyed by a downtrodden populace attempting to escape the realities of dreg living. The most popular of these types of film centre around well known dreg folklore figures, their story and their message to the downtrodden.

=== Language ===
The closest language the Corporate Alliance has to an official language is Tradeband, used to ease business transactions. It is the most used language in the workplace and typically any resident of the Eridanus Constellation can speak it well enough to conduct their job in Tradeband. This is not the only language in the Alliance however, and almost any human language can be spoken by at least a handful of people. Tourists often find it easier to ask for directions in the ECA as opposed to any other region sheerly on the odds that they bump into somebody that speaks their native language. On the other side of the coin, dregs stubbornly create their own culture to counter the corporate one, speaking Freespeak and similar other languages in their own society and typically only using Tradeband in corporate owned workplaces. This comes across as antiquated to outsiders, but is often viewed by dregs as a result of their highly independence seeking nature.

Dregs also speak a strange form of Freespeak that can only be described as a thieves’ cant, known as Spitting Proper. Spoken almost exclusively by dregs with ties to the criminal syndicates, the closest comparison one can make to a 21<sup>st</sup> century language would be Polari, and it holds a similar history, being used to mask discussions of criminal activity, grow fellowship amongst its speakers and hide information from anybody that may be eavesdropping. Spoken fluently by the criminal underbelly, it is near impenetrable to outsiders outside of famous words like “knab”. To an extent, most dreg teenagers speak enough of it with the intent to hide what they’re doing from their parents, assuming (often wrongfully) that their parents cannot Spit Proper.
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|+"Spitting Proper" Common Terms
!Word
!Meaning
|-
|Boss
|Insult, akin to calling your superior by a royal title.
|-
|Chief
|Respectful term for the person in charge.
|-
|Suit
|Corporate.
|-
|Fek
|Fuck. Works the same way.
|-
|Clacker
|Asshole. Insult and bodypart.
|-
|Drongo
|Idiot.
|-
|Biz
|Shit, in the sense of "I'm not doing that shit" or "[...] and shit like that"
|-
|Tick
|Sec (second). e.g "Just a tick"
|-
|Wrong boots
|Someone who is transgender. “Born in the wrong shoes” meaning born in the wrong body. '''''Not a derogatory term.'''''
|-
|Am/Ami/Amino
|Partner/boy/girlfriend. Romantic in nature.
|-
|Bov/Bovino
|Best friend.
|-
|Krok
|Outsider/non-dreg
|-
|Knab
|"Guy". Can refer to anyone.
|-
|Heavy
|Hired muscle. "Who's the heavy?"
|-
|Extra
|Hacker. Comes from hackers often being treated as unnecessary by inexperienced teams.
|-
|Mask
|Inside man.
|-
|Fixer
|Person who arranges for jobs. They may collect information, arrange meetings and find extra members for a crew.
|-
|Cashie
|Salesman, usually illicit.
|-
|Patcher
|Doctor of any kind, but usually used for ones that don't tell police about their patients.
|-
|Wrencher
|Engineer.
|-
|Robowrencher
|Roboticist, usually augmentation specialists.
|-
|Helmet
|Mercenary or police. Typically used to refer to mercenaries that take police work, rather than all mercenaries.
|-
|Gun
|General mercenary, regardless of if they use a gun.
|-
|Debt
|Job.
|-
|Cark
|Die, not murdered.
|-
|Creased
|Murdered.
|-
|Crease
|To murder.
|-
|Map
|Understand.
|-
|Tool
|Fix something.
|-
|Scroll
|Watch something happen.
|-
|Spit
|Speak.
|-
|Gab
|To have a conversation.
|-
|Scribble
|Write.
|-
|Riccy
|Rich. Sometimes derogatory, often used to describe a target for robbery.
|-
|Band
|Gang.
|-
|Banded
|Married.
|-
|Sniffer
|Brown-noser. Somebody who sucks up to authority.
|-
|Tail
|Related to the term rat. An informant.
|-
|Affirmed
|Understood, yes.
|-
|Running your/their trail
|Following you/somebody. Not necessarily bad.
|-
|Palm
|Steal.
|-
|Knock
|Beat up or damage.
|-
|Ice/Arctic
|Cool.
|-
|Sign the dots
|Get arrested.
|-
|In my turf
|In your face, breaking personal space.
|-
|Slacks
|Dregs who associate with suits. Derogatory term for reinstated.
|}

== Non-Humans ==
<Tabber>
|-|Tajaran Refugees=
Largely comprised of refugees who fled the immediate aftermath of the Azunali Revolution, the Tajara Diaspora on Eridani is almost entirely dregs, with a handful of later-reinstated individuals. These groups live in largely segregated communities, partly through choice and partly due to the circumstances of their mass migration. Culturally similar to dregs, they still hold the idea of Sadani in regard, seeing it as a survival guide to the rugged and unpredictable lives led in the system. Many tajara born in Eridani speak their ancestral languages poorly, instead being fluent in Tradeband or Freespeak, depending on their circumstances. Being such a tight knit community, with many forming their own tribes on the planet, there are some Kowloons on Aegir that consist entirely of tajarans, often of varying origins. Their version of freespeak is less guttural, with R sounds rolled to ease their biology. Particularly zealous believers of Sadani end up spending their days as little better than conmen, trying to find a quick "innovation" in the criminal underground, giving tajarans a general regard by dregs as untrustworthy but useful.
|-|Yzali Tech Princes=
In the past, exiled Tech-Princes arrived in Monaco with considerable wealth and immediately found a home among the cutthroat world of Eridani suits. While some work across the system, they have found a special niche in Monaco and blitzed their way to dominate the industry after spending years carefully studying human psychology.

None in the galaxy can match the glamor and sheen of a tourist district owned by a Tech-Prince, which they have called "Transcends". The entire district is meticulously crafted to evoke the feeling of nostalgia and energy of youth. The music you hear pumped through the streets is the generic and familiar chopped up to be psychedelia and hypnotic, bringing snippets of songs you've heard long ago repackaged with an upbeat sheen.

Monuments, hotels, and malls are arranged and built to evoke a dream-like feel while remaining comfortingly familiar. A Transcend present a utopia, with every single piece of brickwork exploding with optimism and excess. When you walk down the street, no matter where you look, anything and everything is possible - but at the same time, everything is so simple. Arcades are bursting with natural plants like jungles that cover the lobby; reflecting pools are illuminated with soft pinks and purples; and nanomeshes draped over the district's domes simulate the eternal sunshine of the beach - and entire beaches are built in miniature, with warm waters and free drinks.

To keep the emotional and aesthetic allure of simplicity mixed with possibility, there is no cost to anything inside a Transcend. They make their money by subscription fees, with stiff payments covering a weekly or monthly stay.

As careful as the enterprises are, there is still an emptiness beneath the glimmering lights and nostalgia. The experience of visiting a Transcend is hypnotic and can be extremely addictive. Many wayward visitors have lost their entire life savings desperately trying to keep their nostalgic dreamscape alive.
This is made worse by the exits from the Transcend - the bright, cheerful exit doors lead into tunnels that gradually become gray and plastered with advertisements, graffiti, posters, and simulated sounds of industry, traffic, and irritating white noise playing just beneath normal human hearing. Reintroduction to the normal, the mundane, is made as unpleasant and heartbreaking as possible - and every few steps, there's another door with that glowing neon sign of a smiling couple looking down at you, encouraging you to come back and feel happiness again. Don't you want to be happy? Don't you want to Transcend?

|-|More to come=
other stuff
</Tabber>

=== Dreg Folklore ===
Dregs have constructed a rich tapestry of legendary folk figures, some of which are simply of note while others can be considered tales intended to teach a lesson through the failures or successes of another real figure. While large parts of the folklore are embellished, it is often the case that every story’s primary beats are largely true, immortalising significant dregs in the imaginations of children and adults alike. Some figures are folk heroes, standing defiant against the corporations and the gangs to try and bring dregs into a new era, while others are villains and cautionary tales about what power does to a person. The vast majority, however, are simply interesting figures that have some moral behind their story, their fates ultimately doing little for the cause of the dregs except providing stories to entertain and educate the next generation. The requirements to become a folk figure are murky to say the least, but the most famous typically have the most outrageous stories, to the point that some are doubted to have existed at all.
Some famous folk heroes include:

<Tabber>
|-|David Insurgent=
Nicknamed for his revolutionary tendencies, David is believed to have been the first to draw blood against corporate mercenaries during the Thermostat Revolution. A native of Faroe, David was already well known for his combat related prosthetics and had a reputation for fair pricing and skilled craftsmanship. Most stories surrounding him take this angle, portraying him as an honest man turned revolutionary leader, ultimately betrayed by Little Mojisola in exchange for a sum of money that varies story to story.
|-|Mairo Oku Mpu=
Also known as Mairo Diver, she is a sort of living legend within the ECA, hero to dregs and horror story to corporate network security. While technically not quite a folk hero, due to her living status, she is so embroiled in myth and misinformation due to her secretive life that she has become entirely separate to her legend. Confirmed actions include leaking Zavodskoi Interstellar body-camera footage of war crimes committed by the corporation, releasing documents detailing the unethical nature of Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals test subject selection, and the destruction of an Idris server farm. However, the folk lore version of her can commit acts that are dubious if even possible through traditional hacking methods, while often emphasising her whimsical nature contrasted against her numerous warrants for arrest in all major nations. She is rumoured to reside in an abandoned space station with her co-conspirators and romantic partners, plural.
|-|Old Toyin=
Famous for one act and one act only, Old Toyin is both a hero and a cautionary tale of what happens when one stands up against the criminal syndicates that dominate the dreg world. While some take her story to be an example of what happens when an old dreg is underestimated, many take it as a warning to expect war if one attacks these gangs. Old Toyin’s story typically goes as such: Old Toyin had lived in her sector of her kowloon for almost her entire life, to the point that nobody on her corridor remembered when she moved in. One day, a group of the Three Star Syndicate demanded that she move out of her home, so that they may turn it into a gambling parlour. Old Toyin refused, stating they would have to kill her to get that property from her. After some arguing, the gangsters left, promising to return with more men. In this time, Old Toyin prepared dinner for her infirm neighbour, said goodbye to her grandson and turned her room into what could qualify as a fortress. By the time the gangsters returned, she had armed herself with a borrowed rifle and walled herself into the room with the help of her neighbours, having a handful of holes to fire out at the gangsters through. Details of the gun fight differ, but the death toll of the gangsters before they demolished the wall and killed Old Toyin is always two digits in all accounts. Almost all accounts emphasise that despite her age and bravery, she was spared no mercy and killed just as brutally as a young dreg would have been.
|-|Shock Namkoisse=
A famous singer and advocate for dreg freedom, Namkoisse is often a stand-in for stories that were very unlikely to have actually been him. His role in dreg culture is as the hero everybody can love, and documentation of his real life is often dreary in comparison to his folklore existence. Namkoisse has been confirmed to have organised illegal raves inside corporate offices, his claim to fame, and ultimately was charged and jailed for his actions. His trial was a show trial, intended to show the dreg population what happens to rebels, but instead it immortalised him as he read a prepared speech on the witness podium and openly criticised the language and methodology of the court. He has since become the symbol of social rebellion against corporations, and many an aspiring musician have copied his illegal raves in his honour.
</Tabber>

More sparingly is the use of folk villains, usually cautionary tales intended to warn others against considering corporate affiliation. In particular is a famous story that almost every dreg knows:<blockquote>Malcolm Oyibo is not so much a figure with a consistent story more than a stock character, a villain that fills the void in the collective memory of dreg folklore when telling the story of a more obscure hero. Malcolm is more of a series of characteristics that make for a villain to the story, inconsistent and often not even in the same job twice. He may be a quartermaster one day, or a mercenary the next, or maybe even a CEO. The important part is that he is a backstabber and a foreigner that desperately seeks to be accepted by his corporate overlords, a rather naked allegory for the view of dregs on reinstated.</blockquote>And finally come a unique aspect of dreg folklore, at least in terms of modern folklore: legendary locations. These locations may range from safe-havens for the most wanted of Epsilon Eridani’s underworld to rumoured paradises of workers’ rights within the very borders of the hell scape that is Aegir’s moon. Some of these locations include:

* The Killing Floor: Bar and pilgrimage site for any starry eyed revolutionary, rumoured to be the favourite haunt of David Insurgent and many of the Thermostat Revolutionaries. Today it stands as a monument and tourist trap for the revolutionary undercurrent that slowly meanders through dreg culture. The folklore version, however, is a hive of revolutionary activity in which the intellectuals of dreg liberation come to exchange ideas.
* Haven: A simple and descriptive name, Haven is a rumoured squat within a corporate hab block that is so well defended that it is functionally a microstate within Eridanian territory. Some call it an ongoing revolution, while others describe it more as the only truly neutral ground for major figures to meet without worrying about being assassinated.

* The Office: An ironic name for possibly the most secure and brutal prison in the Orion Spur. The Office is rumoured to have every defence imaginable, from air defences to closing wall traps to laser grids closing cells off, only the hardest and most dangerous the Spur has to offer are supposedly housed here. Outsiders often believe The Office is actually many prisons amalgamated into a single prison in the collective consciousness of dregs.

[[Category: Lore]]

Eridani Corporate Alliance

2024-02-06T00:31:41Z

Monty: Added tajaran and unathi specifics

The Eridani Corporate Alliance, often referred to as Eridani for short, is a series of relatively independent Solarian systems that enjoy almost total economic and relative military freedom from the rest of the alliance of states that forms Sol. Eridani can instead be considered a form of special economic zone that exists due to its convenience for the rest of the Spur, which in turn allows the corporations within to largely skirt past criticisms of their human rights violations and caste system by virtue of being economically beneficial to the rest of the Orion Spur.

== History ==
Originally sold for the purposes of establishing a port and warehouse to [[Charon Shipping Services]] in 2203, initial surveys of Epsilon Eridani appeared grim for profit. Only one planet was confirmed to have existed, the gas giant Aegir with a sole moon. While another planet was theorised, upon arrival this was proven not to be the case, however a much more important discovery was made by the Charon Eridani Fleet: The moon of Aegir was, in fact, habitable. A rudimentary biosphere had led to an atmosphere equivalent to the top of a tall mountain, ever-so-slightly thinner than average.

With this discovery came immediate colonisation by Charon, who in turn contacted numerous notable corporations with the intent to sell plots of land, mineral rights and shipping services. Many historians theorise that this was done in an attempt to legitimise the relative newcomer to space amongst its new peers, as well as create ties that would form the foundation of the new system’s unique status in Spur-level politics.

While initially colonised with the intent to be owned by Charon Shipping Services, the growing corporatocracy quickly found itself growing too large and complex for a single, relatively junior corporation to effectively manage. While logistics may have been the speciality of Charon, they lacked the political clout or hard power to enforce their claim upon the planet. In their place, and to avoid the minor skirmishes between security forces related to various corporations that were beginning to erupt in 2228, The Council of Eight was formed. This council of eight positions, dictated by the ownership of regions of land on the moon of Aegir, became the de-facto government for the planetoid.

Over time, The Council of Eight has had a series of small scale wars erupt between corporations for the seats of power in which it contains, with vast swathes of land being economically repurposed in arbitrary treaties that the inhabitants had little to no say in. To combat this turmoil, eventually The Council of Eight elected that positions are eternal, and may only be opened through either purchase or the forced removal of a seat by a unanimous vote of all other council seats. The last time the seats changed was in 2490, giving the largely run-down southern arctic region of District 8 to Einstein Engines. This transfer was met with controversy from much of the dreg population, with fears of the heating infrastructure going even further unmaintained under new leadership leading to a borderline revolution.

During what is now referred to as the Thermostat Revolution, the transfer of power between Einstein Engines and Zeng-Hu collapsed due to the total lack of military power owned by either corporation. In an attempt to prevent the budding revolution from potentially spreading further, the corporations that made up The Council of Eight put aside their differences temporarily, redirecting every mercenary group under their employment to suppress riots, arrest organisers and violently put down the revolution in such a manner that any non-corporate entity would be brought up on various human rights violations. Following this, The Council of Eight voted unanimously to create a semi-regulated body for the employment of mercenaries, who in times of no-contract would act as the de-facto military for the Eridanus Cluster.<blockquote>''“The modern Eridani Corporate Alliance is not too alien from the Corporate Alliance of the past, in a form of simultaneous stagnation and inflation. The more things change, the more entrenched certain conventions become; dregs remain the oppressed underclass, corporates remain in splendour and the corporations that influence every aspect of life become nations unto the worker. The Thermostat Revolution may soon become a distant memory, rather than a cultural touchstone of the Dreg Worker.” - Julian Bertrand, Philosopher and Economist, 2540''</blockquote>

== Government ==
Eridani’s government is largely represented by the Council of Eight - Eight representatives from various megacorporations. Each seat in the Council is tied to a sector, which the chairman’s corporation has full control over. While discussions have been made in the past to expand the number of sectors, this naturally has not come to fruition out of fears of decreased power on the moon. Each sector has also been given an informal name to make conversation easier. Currently, each sector is assigned to the following corporations:

'''Sector 1''' (Luxembourg) - [[Idris Incorporated]]

'''Sector 2''' (Canaria) - [[Hephaestus Industries]]

'''Sector 3''' (Monaco) - Idris Incorporated

'''Sector 4''' (Panama) - [[Charon Shipping Services]]

'''Sector 5''' (Trinidad) - Hephaestus Industries

'''Sector 6''' (Grenada) - EPMC - [[Zavodskoi Interstellar]] joint venture

'''Sector 7''' (Seychelles) - [[Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals]]

'''Sector 8''' (Faroe) - Einstein Engines

== Sectors ==
Due to Epsilon Eridani’s long history of being terraformed and shaped to the whims of the colonists, the vast majority of the moon has similar streets and architecture styles. Industrial land seamlessly mixes with offices and apartments with very little rhyme or reason to much of it in regions where there is a high dreg population, meanwhile corporates enjoy well organised and sectioned off districts dedicated to work or leisure that stretch for kilometres. Despite this, each sector has a unique reputation and general environment that both the under and upper classes would be able to notice.

<tabber>
|-|Luxembourg and Canaria=
The twin capitals of Eridani, it is subject to being the “baseline” of people’s ideas of Eridani as a whole. Tall office blocks stretch into the sky, connected by walkways. The smog is so irreversibly powerful that windows do not open except in older buildings that were made before corporate regulations governing smog contamination were put in place. Dregs face a similar conundrum while living in the underground caverns of the sector, formerly mining operations. Here, shanty towns and pools of acidic chemical runoff characterise a rough life for dregs. Criminal gangs will occasionally surface to commit crimes in corporate territory before retreating.
|-|Monaco=
One of the major centres of tourism in Epsilon Eridani. The reputation of the moon of Aegir has spread far and wide throughout the Orion Spur, and with it comes tourists seeking to confirm or deny the rumours of the planet. Idris has transformed this region into a vast tourist haven, a cloying and romanticised version of the public perception of Eridani. In the eyes of tourists visiting Monaco, it is said that anything goes, and all manner of services, products and monuments can be found so long as you look hard enough. For the families there are the glamorous, bizarre and outright gimmicky tourist attractions of the main streets, immediately outside the hotels and surrounded by the dazzling lights of advertising, neon signs and flying billboards that pollute the sky with the incessant need to call attention to products. For the faux-bohemian, however, Idris has not neglected their wants, with an entire carefully managed and well patrolled dreg “slum” for them to visit. complete with faux dive bars and carefully managed waste in the road, any tourist that were to visit this sector would come out feeling as if they had seen the real Eridani, without ever having gone within 100 miles of actual danger, serving double time as a tourist attraction and smokescreen to the plight of the dregs. In amongst the splendour of the main tourist region and the artificial roughness of the disdainfully named “Dreg Village” comes what many actually visit Eridani for, the so-called Epsilon High-way. A single multi-mile long stretch of drugs, drink and vice arcs across the centre of Monaco, capturing the attention of passers by with graphic depictions of what products they offer.
|-|Panama=
This sector is one of the lesser talked about areas, having little importance other than as a docking station for large ships and cargo. The underground hosts an extremely large and dense network of warehouses, and one of the densest populations of dregs in Epsilon Eridani in order to staff it. Despite this, subsidiaries of Charon Shipping Services are still likely to bring workers in from outside of the region due to a general distrust of undermotivated dregs around valuable cargo. The sector is characterised by hostile wildlife in slums and streets alike, with a species of cross-bred rat being known to attack small children if left unattended. The environment itself is famously windy, the narrow corridors of buildings acting as wind tunnels that cause dangerous gales during storms. Instead of fixing this, wind shelters the size of a 21st century bus shelter have been installed along roads to shelter in during wind storms. Due to these factors, the region has been not so affectionately named “The Hurricane” by dregs who live there.
|-|Trinidad=
Located directly next to Panama, Trinidad is the industrial heart of the Eridani Corporate Council. The surface is smeared with refineries belching smog into the sky as underground rail transports produced goods to and from the warehouses of Panama. Mirroring its sister sector, Trinidad has a majority dreg population that lives in squalor around the factories they work in, either in shanty towns constructed between buildings or company towns that work on scrip pay and slum-like conditions. Many observers theorise that these company towns are a method of control that has prevented further workers rights movements from truly taking off in the system, forcing dregs to risk their food supply alongside their homes in order to take any form of industrial action. In comparison, reinstated and corporate managers are allowed to make use of the extensive rail network underneath this region, letting them arrive directly at their workplace with little to no exposure to the outside smog or squalid conditions of their subordinates.
|-|Grenada=
Forged in an agreement created by the lacking political capital of Zavodskoi Interstellar and the sudden need for a centralised base of operations for the newly developed Eridani Private Military Corporation, the formerly underdeveloped region of Grenada has developed over the past hundred years into a hub for weapons production, military training and electronic warfare development. The vast majority of the population are either reinstated, corporate or from outside of the system. While the region is technically contested between numerous mercenary groups, it has become possibly the safest region in Eridani, following the “Clean Front Door” doctrine of mercenary groups. Quality of life is higher here than the majority of Eridani, if still notably lower than the living standards of much of the Orion Spur.
|-|Seychelles=
The science and research hub of Epsilon Eridani, Seychelles boasts the environment of being carved into the ice of the Northern Pole of the moon. While other regions may feel as if they are tunnels between the large skyscrapers, Seychelles is quite literally made of tunnels to survive the cold environment outside of them. With an average surface temperature of -40 degrees celsius on the surface, the cold air is ideal for running the server farms required for 26th century research and saves immense money on cooling. These tunnels are little more than bare, carved stone in many places, however closer to the universities that litter this region of the moon metal plating has been installed so as to not offend the sensibilities of the students and researchers. Dregs, primarily making up the staffing of the day to day running of these facilities, face an entirely different conundrum. Heating is not universal to all tunnels, and while corporates may enjoy a steady 20 degrees celsius all year round, abandoned tunnels inhabited by the dregs face an average temperature of -10 degrees C and can plummet to -40 in the event of a breach.
|-|Faroe=
A recent acquisition, Faroe is in an unusual position compared to other sectors of Eridani. Despite the incredibly small number of manual labour positions, the sector has a large dreg population remaining from the period before Einstein Engines’ ownership of the sector. The vast majority of these dregs are homeless, living in communes situated within abandoned ex-Zeng Hu facilities making a living either selling scrap parts to pay for heating or scavenging for heating sources that still have valid DRM. Being the data centre of the communications giant’s Sol presence, Faroe takes advantage of the Southern Pole’s equally low temperatures to cool server racks for data farming and processing. The prior factors mix into a cocktail that results in Faroe being the centre of cyber-crime in Epsilon Eridani, with disenfranchised dregs who possess the necessary skills selling corporate secrets across all sectors after gathering data from in-person access to Einstein Engines servers. This culture of hacking has birthed legends of dreg folklore, including the infamous hacker Mairo Oku Mpu, who gained attention in 2587 for leaking classified Zavodskoi surveillance data.
|-|The Stations=
Outside of the populated moon is an uncontrolled span of stations all across the Eridanus Cluster. These stations do not come under the Council of Eight and are laws unto themselves unless otherwise stated. The vast majority of these stations are owned by megacorporations and their subsidiaries, but older stations may be sold to individuals or simply stolen by groups with the intent to start their own enterprises. Stations therefore come in all shapes and sizes, serving different purposes and being governed under different policies. The common thread connecting every station, however, is their precarious position in the system. While stations may be officially owned by megacorporations or small private enterprises, hostile takeovers and piracy run rampant in the far less militarised regions of the Eridanus Constellation, and refugees fleeing from one station to another is not an uncommon sight anywhere in the Constellation.

One of the major industries of the stations is resource extraction, either with skiffs designed to scoop gases from gas giants across the many systems or miner drones intended to pick every last mineral out of the asteroid belts of said gas giants. Other stations provide services such as rest stops, refuelling and repairs, with many artisanal shipyards making their home in Eridani with the intent to avoid copyright laws or heavy taxation implemented by corporate controlled governments to suppress competition. Of course, for any economic hub that is sprawling and decentralised, there is crime. Pirates and extortion rings run rampant, forming a noticeable percent of the GDP of Eridani as they refuel in less-than-reputable stations and take advantage of the low police and military presence to commit piracy, making use of Bluespace Interdictors in order to violently jerk ships out of bluespace travel and into dead space, shaking them down for the contents of their cargo hold before running away.

Due to the age of some of these stations, a noticeable population of offworlders exist of both the dreg and corporate variety. Roughly a quarter of the stations that exist in these systems are older than effective gravity generation, and as such either operate on the rotating wheel method of gravity generation or simply are free-floating. This makes a cottage industry of station tourism available to offworlders across the spur, run mostly by enterprising individuals and corporates who wish to strike out and start a “new” business under the Idris banner, in some ways making Eridani one of the most popular tourist locations with offworlders across the spur. Many of the dreg offworlders often consider themselves more offworlder than dreg, leading to many a cultural clash when meeting with dregs from gravity-laden stations.
</tabber>

== Housing ==
The commonly studied marvel of Eridanian engineering is the Corporate Habitation Block, referred to as “Habs” for short. Where regulation does not exist, convention thrives, and one can find convention to have taken a tight grip onto the common Hab. A mixture of office building, residential housing and commercial venture, the average corporate worker may never have to leave their specific block for their entire life, assuming they never have to attend an important meeting. The average habitation block consists of a floor by floor plan spread out over the largest plot of land that the construction company could purchase, sometimes at the cost of existing structures. While a lower floor may be a series of residential pods for data input specialists, secretaries and the other numerous rabble of the lowest echelons of the corporate ladder, and the floor above it the offices in which they infest during the rat race, the centre levels may become livable two, perhaps even three room apartments made cheap by their less than desirable position directly under nightclub or over the top of the ever-loud server rooms of the office corporate machine. Naturally, the palatial penthouses, adjacent to indoor gardens, community gyms and even having the rare luxury of natural sunlight weaving between the lattices of the complimentary air-vehicle garage sold inclusive, being the most coveted and expensive examples of Eridanian housing, are reserved for the most elite of the corporate world. Regional managers, CEOs’ second homes, the functional royalty of the corporate state which has been built across Eridani.

Lesser known to the outside world, but infamous to those aware of the true realities of Eridani, are the varieties of slums across the moon of Aegir. Most commonly are semi-permanent mountains of structures, stacked one atop the other in what can only be described as a game of jenga played with mortar and steel, affectionately nicknamed “Kowloons” after a 20th century structure of an almost identical nature. These structures occupy plots of land in which the ownership is either entirely disputed or the original owner cannot be located, providing safety from private property laws by virtue of angered parties either not existing or being too-long tied into legal battles to care about what is currently on the land. These structures are even denser than the densest of Habs, with entire families living in single rooms and businesses that pull separate functions at different times of day. Schools may become casinos at night, or restaurants may operate as a dentist during the day. The layout of these buildings can only be described as a rats’ nest, with narrow and winding tunnels leading deep within the artificially lit structure so far that it is not unheard of for outsiders to never be seen again after entering, presumed either dead or kidnapped. While living conditions may be of sub-human quality, there is a sense of community in these slums that is not experienced in corporate housing, and some reinstated dregs may privately express that they miss this sense of community. This community will not always last, however, and it is not unheard of for communities to be split apart by raids, entire slums emptied in weeks in order to facilitate the construction of future corporate housing or factories.

Other dregs take a more radical approach to housing, opting to occupy empty higher-tier apartments en-masse instead of risking the crime, disease and squalor of the slums. These squatters are almost always those with the least to lose, either a part of gangs or outright unemployed, and often form the vanguard that establishes longer lasting squats-turned-communities. This is much riskier for longevity compared to the slum, with squats often being cleared by corporate security in a matter of months. These squats have been known to last years, however, and some even decades, as veritable fortresses under siege deep within corporate territory. Some of these squats have entered the annals of dreg folklore, becoming rumoured safe havens or dens of legendary outlaws.

== Society ==

=== Work ===
Eridani forms what can only be described as a culture of pure work, with one’s job being the centre of their existence regardless of caste or class. Eridanians exist to work, and every aspect of culture is related back to the creation of value, the creation of wealth specifically. In the case of corporates, this is taken much more directly and manifests in hobbies having to be monetised, stress relief being a weak excuse for enjoying but a select few societally shared hobbies, and every waking hour is expected to be taken in the pursuit of wealth and power to some extent. This is less so in the case of dregs and some reinstated, who are more likely to take leisure in activities but are forced more by circumstances to monetise hobbies they hold actual skill in simply to make ends meet. Work culture in Eridani is considered toxic by the vast majority of the Spur, and even the most hardline of bootstrap mentality may baulk at the hours, or the absolute lack of overtime pay.

=== A Caste System ===
The one thing that everybody knows about the Eridanus Constellation is the system of classification that is functionally a caste system, wherein the status of “Corporate Citizen” is only granted to those who are employed by the corporations or client corporations of the Council of Eight.Those who are citizens enjoy full rights within the Eridani Corporate Council, however few those actually are, but this is dependent entirely on their remaining employed without more than a month’s gap between jobs at any point. Those who fail to stay employed in an office job are stripped of their citizenship, and if they choose to remain residents shall become of an entirely lower caste, forced to work in manual labour or not at all. This secondary caste are known as dregs, and while having the official name of non-citizens, their nickname holds much more power as both a derogatory term amongst corporates and a term of personal pride and empowerment amongst dregs. It is not uncommon for dregs to quote the immortal words from the trial of Shock Namkoisse, “I’m a dreg, you call me one behind my back, call me one to my face[...]”, when referred to as a “non-citizen”.

Between the corporate and the dreg is the reinstated, a somewhat temporary or probationary period between going back from dreg to corporate. People may be reinstated in two ways, becoming the conduit between management and the ground floor workers, typically as workplace managers or secretaries, or through coming under direct employment of a member of the corporate class. While the former may simply be a career in being a shift manager or foreman, the latter is on a much higher risk-reward relationship, with reinstated employees of corporates often being their personal mercenaries and wetworks teams of their employers. While reinstated “goons” may take much more risk, they have the potential to make great gains with their employer, and many find themselves retiring into comfy security management positions under their employer should they survive.

<Tabber>
|-|Corporate Citizens=
Referred to as corporates by the vast majority, citizens enjoy the most rights out of any of their fellow Eridanians. Their citizenship is tied entirely to their work, and as such a unique work culture persists, described by some as horrific in nature. The most major tenet, and the most famous, is the cutthroat nature of office politics within corporate culture, both metaphorically and literally. While at the lowest levels the likelihood of promotion is almost entirely tied to hours worked, eventually worked hours plateau in effectiveness and the only method of upwards movement is conspiracy, sabotage or loyalty to another person who excels in these fields. The highest echelons of corporate life have only ever achieved their positions through climbing a blood soaked ladder all the way to the top, and more often than not have added their fair share of blood to the rungs. Despite this, the status of the lowest corporates should not be confused with the situation of the highest up corporates, and to an extent lower on the corporate ladder is almost entirely devoid of bloodshed outside of the most ambitious of candidates, even if this difference is not normally recognised by those who have not lived within the corporate lifestyle of Eridani.

Corporate life is often defined as long periods of work punctuated by rest and burnout, and this is by-and-large true for the low to middle echelons, with working hours reaching 12 hours a day on the regular and breaks being few and far between. These long working hours have led to an increasingly ready-made lifestyle amongst corporate citizens, with many basic skills being reduced to hobbies or sold in premade end results. Stimulant abuse is one of the leading causes of non-violent death in the Eridanus Cluster. Despite all of this, control of one’s life does not only extend to work, and corporates often end up seeing themselves criticised for not spending their limited time calling family, or taking part in the handful of hobbies that are seen as acceptable for bonding with fellow co-workers. While familial relations are not exactly close by the standards of the rest of the spur, they are usually the closest relationship that corporates will have while living within the borders of Eridani. Relationships are usually relegated to the workplace otherwise, with romantic relationships often quickly turning to marriage for added benefits from the employer, as well as the ability to finally talk privately with a person without arousing suspicion. The divorce rate in Eridani is 65%.

Hobbies-wise, corporates only have a handful of cultural touchstones they share, primarily football (soccer) as games can be discussed in the office as an icebreaker, as well as video games, crosswords and drinking for pleasure. The final one is the most important, with much of Eridanian free time being spent heading to the bar with their coworkers and attempting to drink one another under the table, with the expectation that everybody stay at least as long as their manager, who in turn is expected to stay for as long as they can still walk home, ending in a standoff situation with their co-workers.

Corporates are heavily augmented, with the first augments often being tracheal implants intended to make breathing easier in the stagnant air of the lower floors of their hab block easier. Largely, augments are subsidised by their employer, ranging from ocular implants to improve productivity to typing-optimised prosthetic hands intended to avoid the drop in productivity of RSI before it can even begin, augments that can’t be removed are docked from the final paycheck when an employee leaves the company. The relationship with their roboticist is the most crucial one that a corporate can have, not only because they must truly trust their roboticist to avoid assassination while under the knife, but also due to a true cultural belief that anybody who you trust with your body is a friend. While some anthropologists theorise that this is a result of such isolation in corporate culture that even casual relationships become strong, others theorise that it may be instead a result of cultural bleedover from dregs who were reinstated into corporate life.
|-|Reinstated=
As with all things, the relationship between dregs and corporates is not black and white, and there are those who have ambitions to escape the slums and become corporates, either believing that even a coffin hotel is better than their current living conditions or that they can advance to middle management or even beyond. These people are referred to as “reinstated”, typically with varying levels of venom from dregs and varying levels of disdain from higher up corporates.

Reinstateds are the intermediate period between a dreg and a corporate, being treated as a trial period in which they prove their loyalty to the corporation over their former communities. There are two methods in which this can be done, through either being promoted to a position that connects corporate management to the working dreg population such as supervisor, or through taking advantage of their dubious societal position to become effectively personal mercenaries for a corporate, on the understanding that they will be given a position immediately under their corporate sponsor once their position is no longer of use. The former is much more common than the latter, however covert work is far from uncommon as a method of reinstatement.

The more mundane of the two is naturally a promotion. Positions of power are usually only handed to dregs on the understanding that they are already of an exceptional loyalty to the company, rather than out of competence in their role. Promotions may range from managerial positions over other manual labourers to secretaries to document mules, typically positions at the absolute bottom of the corporate ladder, if still on the corporate ladder at all compared to their former position. These positions are typically the least popular in their workplace, either being seen as beneath their corporate colleagues or as sell-outs and potential rats by dreg subordinates. These attitudes lead to the majority of attempted reinstatements failing, with this path of reinstatement often exposing even the most stoic of dregs’ breaking points as they lose the vast majority of their friends and even family, that which had been so important to them before, to their ambitions. Failed reinstatements are often forgiven, however, and regularly return to a comfortable familiarity. Some anthropologists theorise that this is the true cause of the lack of class mobility, rather than the architecture of the system itself.

Standard reinstatement is not entirely negative, however, and successful reinstatements often find themselves office celebrities, invited to their managers’ parties to entertain guests with novel skills such as cooking for guests from scratch, mixing cocktails and anecdotes of slum life. Many describe their early career as being more of a circus, and yet the most advantageous position of their lives as they are granted the opportunity to network with much more powerful individuals and potentially secure a promotion before the novelty of their existence wears off.

There is, however, a faster method of climbing ranks without needing to be explicitly subservient or working in an unpopular position, all at the cost of a much higher risk to life. This is the world of corporate covert operations, typically referred to as “wet works”, in which reinstated are held to a contract on the understanding that they will help their sponsor advance their career at any cost. Depending on one’s sponsor, this could be any illicit job from bodyguard to hacker to thief to assassin. The system typically follows the format that the reinstated in question will be a member of their sponsor’s entourage up until either their sponsor dismisses them and recruits them into their corporate team, or their sponsor dies and they are sent back to square one. These wet works teams often never truly retire, being called back in to assist with their former sponsor’s problems under pain of the acts they committed during their tenure being revealed to their new manager, however accepting these callings will almost always result in promotion. This lifestyle is often considered by many to be that of only the most ambitious potential corporates, those who have no interest in bowing down and who crave only the power of position.

Historically, before EPMC took over at the functional police force of the ECA, wet works reinstated filled the role of enforcers for the will of the corporate holders of the region, tackling potential revolutionary groups and crime syndicates that were causing trouble for their sponsors in surgical strikes. Famously, the personal bodyguards of the Einstein Engines representative to the Corporate Alliance were reinstated from Faroe who foiled an assassination attempt.
|-|Dregs=
Despite being a largely service based economy, The Eridani Corporate Alliance requires immense amounts of manual labour to maintain food security, cleanliness and internal manufacturing. To fill this niche, the dreg caste makes up roughly half of the planet’s population according to censuses, but estimates from humanitarian organisations claim that the population is more on the end of 60 to 65% of the planet’s population, when accounting for the internal dreg economy. A combination of extreme deprivation, more people than jobs and an almost total lack of patrols from EPMC peacekeepers has led to the vast majority of the economy within dreg settlements being under the control of organised crime. Be the shop owned by these organisations, or simply forced to pay protection money, there is not a lot of land that is independent of these pseudo-governmental syndicates within a typical Kowloon, not even accommodation. Despite this criminal incentive for profit, a loyal population benefits these gangs infinitely more, and as such living conditions are usually more spacious than the low-level corporate coffin hotels, instead having enough room for a bed, wardrobe and perhaps some shelves, even if bathrooms and toilets are shared to a hallway or even a floor.

The day-to-day life of a dreg can be considered rather varied in comparison to the average 8 to 10 worker of Epsilon Eridani, however this should not be confused with comfort or freedom. Variety comes in problems, primarily lacking work but also sudden loss of power at home, oxygenators breaking or food running out faster than expected. All of these can send a dreg out to purchase, scavenge or steal the necessary parts and equipment to solve their problems, leading to either reliance on the local gangs to pull them out of trouble in exchange for favours, or interaction with the rich barter economy that has formed in the place of sufficient wealth to support a community. In rare cases, some communities have abolished currency entirely and collectivised their resources, instead relying on the community to solve issues, however, this is more of an exception than a rule, with some crediting the cultural osmosis of the “Take care of number one” attitude of corporates permeating into dreg culture for this. This unpredictable lifestyle has created an unusual gap between dreg ages, either dying in their mid-20s from industrial or gang-land related accidents or dying of age related causes in their early 60s, with very little in between. This unusual gap has caused a sort of reverence of older dregs, who are seen as wiser and more capable for having managed to break the 25+ mark.

Unlike the reserved lifestyles of the corporate suits, dregs are known to form close families of either blood family or found family. Family comes before all in dreg communities, and it’s not uncommon for extended family up to one’s cousin to live under the same roof in compound-like shanty homes. These homes might consist of a central living room as well as personal rooms around the edges, with families eating in the courtyard. The only thing that could possibly even hope to match family bonds are community bonds, with even gangs typically helping their immediate community regardless of their known brutality. Recruitment for gangs happens most often inside of these community bubbles as a result.

Dregs are typically louder and more outspoken than their corporate counterparts, where “spilling honesties” is considered perfectly acceptable so long as it wasn’t done with malice in mind. This can make dregs seem extremely blunt to outsiders, and can lead to misunderstandings outside of Eridani space. A typical dreg conversation will consist of a lot of shouting, arm gestures and teasing, with playful violence not entirely being ruled out. This makes dreg conversations in their native language look like an argument to outsiders, even corporates may struggle to interpret friendliness properly facing these odds.

Similarly to corporates, dregs will usually take their augmentation seriously, having an even closer bond to their roboticist and rarely picking a new one unless it would be geographically impossible to return. Due to the large amount of outward migration by dregs, this attitude is fairly well known in roboticist circles and is regarded with either charm or suspicion, depending on the attitude of the roboticist. Dregs are sometimes described as “overfamiliar” outside of Eridani space.
</Tabber>

== Augmentation ==

=== Corporate Augments ===
Cybernetic modification is an integral part of Eridani’s cultural ideal. Simple tracheal augments are usually the first and the mildest step into augmentation, as they are needed for a lot of people to simply survive with Eridani’s thoroughly polluted air. Having other bionic enhancements is considered a symbol of wealth and prestige. Most electronics in the Federation are specifically designed to interact with augmented eyes – but they are also very functional on their own. A typical Eridanian eye implant can completely replace, or even surpass, a typical hand terminal in functionality – being used to browse the Extranet, communicate on chat relays, and more. As is typical for Eridanian technology, it is also swarmed with ads and is proven to constantly send data about the user’s activity to advertisers, making them somewhat unpopular outside the Federation. Augmentation is so tailored to the workplace in corporate society that people often find difficulty retraining if made redundant, as their augments will have to be replaced in order to suit their new job title. This adds a steep financial barrier to changing professions, and works to prevent upwards mobility without corporate sponsors. In extreme examples, hands may be given an extra finger in order to increase typing speed on legacy systems, at the cost of removing much of their dexterity for other tasks such as handwriting. These augments are often removed by the time the corporate citizens are able to find work outside of Eridani, being seen as too unsightly and off putting to clients. In some cases, synthskin is a requirement for reassignment to certain regions of the spur.

=== Dreg Augments ===
Dreg societies take the Eridanian fascination with augmentation technology to an extreme. While a typical Corporate may have no more than an augmented respiratory system, bionic eyes and a few neural implants, a Dreg may maim themselves to replace their flesh with superior, more durable metal – often at the expense of looking presentable. Sleek eye augmentations are removed from former workers by barely qualified surgeons to be replaced with crude prosthetics that do not aim to imitate the human form, but to simply provide functionality – often being, for example, completely filled with one colour, or having coloured scleras. The more brave may opt into removing their limbs for a metal replacement, which is often made “in the house”, with lower quality parts but higher maintainability. Dregs in general are largely proponents of “right to repair” when it comes to prosthetics, shunning branded augments in favour of ones that can be repaired at home or by their favourite roboticist. Function over form is another one of the more unusual ideologies of dreg augmentation, with dregs often caring little about how attractive their augments are so long as they outperform their original limb. As such, dreg roboticists have gained a rightful reputation for making insane or seemingly random choices with their parts lists that give their augments a unique charm, creating a niche market of enthusiasts who share a mindset. Within dreg circles, however, reputation is all, and dreg roboticists can go down within the rich folklore of dregs should they perform their best, amongst names such as David Insurgent and Amiyu Wires. A dreg that can perform augmentation installation could expect to see a large amount of business on this stereotype alone should they open a workshop once out of Epsilon Eridani.

== Eridani Life ==

=== Food ===
Eridanian cuisine has a wrongfully gained reputation of being extremely soy based, to the point of caricatures of Eridanian figures often depicting them holding some form of soy based product. Despite this stereotype, this is not entirely true. While Eridanian cuisine as a whole typically makes heavy use of soy based products, other ingredients make up as much of a staple of the Eridanian diet as much as soy does. Plantains, tofu, farmed fish, squash, beans and rice are all staple ingredients of Eridanian cuisine due to their ease of growth in a hydroponics heavy society. A major method of cooking is frying in nut oil, with Eridanians being known to fry anything that can fit in the pan and even some things that can’t, being served with the ever-present soy.

Some famous dishes from Eridani include:

* Puff-puffs, a fried dough ball with a crunchier outside than a donut. These are typically cooked in a pool of oil at the bottom of a pan, however the Eridanian version differs from tradition by adding ground ginger instead of the traditional pepper. Whether it’s acceptable to dip puff-puffs in synthetic cream is still a subject of fierce debate amongst all Eridanians akin to the debates over pineapple on pizza.
* Fufu dumplings with soup, the dumplings are made of pounded plantains and shaped into a ball to be served alongside soup. The soups might contain any number of vegetables, but traditional meats from their earth counterparts are replaced with shrimp, tofu or cod.
* Joloff rice, long grain rice fried in groundnut oil with tomatoes, onions and hot peppers. Again fish and meat substitutes make an appearance here. The dish is a favourite amongst all due to the ease of cooking and the fact that it can be made in one pot.
* Sushi, raw and prepared fish laid atop cooked rice. While a staple of many planets, Eridanian sushi has gained a life of its own, often being created with rare and expensive ingredients grown in the hydroponics and fish farms of the planet. As a cultural export, however, Eridanian sushi rather fails at the term sushi, as the entire affair is deep fat fried. This unusual and controversial perversion of sushi is often blamed upon dregs, who are believed to fry anything if they have oil.

Of course, not all food is made the same in Eridani. While dregs’ communal lifestyle allows them to make the food in a more traditional style with ingredients bought in bulk to save money or grown in stolen hydroponics setups, corporates often spend so much of their day at work that it’s preferred to buy their meals either ready or pre-prepared from a machine. Learning to prepare ingredients, for this reason, is often a skill that makes reinstated very popular amongst their colleagues. One major difference is the quantities of meat substitutes available between dregs and corporates, with corporates often eating triple or even quadruple the serving of expensive goods like fish compared to their dreg counterparts, and malnourishment being rife within dreg living due to the relatively small portions of key proteins being stretched over such long time periods.

Fast food chains exist that are also exclusive to Eridani, such as Shrimp Republic, a location that can be found in almost any Eridanian food court or habitation block. The ingredients often consist of some form of fried shrimp as well as various kinds of skewered foods for easy and enjoyable eating.

=== Music ===
Corporate music is considerably more well documented than dreg music when it comes to what is popular, the data algorithms gathering all instances of listening as well as attention spans to songs to form the perfect bands to be fed to the public en-masse. As a bizarre by-product of this feedback loop of attention, two major genres have emerged in Epsilon Eridani, at least amongst the citizens. Club music is one of the most popular Eridanian music genres, being their greatest cultural export and the most listened to genre amongst corporates due to the after work clubbing culture of corporates. Famous artists include Cricket, a DJ known for their use of repetitive but catchy melodies, and DJ Andrex, more famous for their surprisingly fluent lyrical content for club music. The other famous genre is group pop, entirely powered by algorithms and chart ratings, group pop bands usually consist of people who barely know one another working together to make music with help from their managers. These groups are extremely prone to splitting up, giving gossip magazines plenty of content to work off of and forming the basis of how names in the scene are passed around. It is said that you aren’t a group pop musician until your face is on the front of a magazine without your consent.

On the other end of the spectrum, dregs have taken to two more stereotypical favourite genres for an underclass, rap and punk. Both genres tend to focus on life in Dreg society, either the massive amounts of death and poverty, or blaming the system they live in for said death and poverty. While the two genres rarely mix, it isn’t uncommon for them to share lyrical patterns and chord progression. Generally, Eridanian punk is unusual from other genres of punk due to its heavy usage of distortion pedals, electronic instruments and synthesisers. Punk bands in Eridani last for years at a time, but are known to have extremely messy breakups when they get famous, assuming they ever leave their extremely localised sphere of influence. Eridanian rappers on the other hand tend to make a large spectacle of themselves once their music leaves their sphere of influence, hoping to get famous outside of Eridani and hopefully be able to escape. Kizee and Nitrogod are a famous pair of rappers from Seychelles whose music has escaped the constellation’s sphere of influence into the wider Orion Spur, lent largely to them by their aggressive sound and theme of general inequality and the hypocrisy of the wealthy invading their spaces to amuse themselves.

=== Movies ===
Movies and films in Eridani are a fairly insular market, with specific tastes of the local audience being received middlingly outside of the systems and vice versa. This is credited in large part to the prolific use of market analysis to write scripts, to the point that some movies are almost entirely algorithmically generated. Some of the more famous rules of these algorithms that always feature include:

* Anti-corporate activity should always result in the demise of the anti-corporate
* Non-citizen dregs may only appear as antagonists, sympathy is allowed in cases of redemption at the end of the production
* The protagonist should not show any form of anti-corporate sentiment, except when portraying their darkest hour
* Members of corporations may only be shown as villains in the event that they are acting against the best interests of the corporation

These restrictive rules have led to a series of set movie genres that are guaranteed to succeed within the borders of the ECA, and at least break even outside of it: Corporate dramas, action movies starring PMCs as the protagonists and adaptations of literature already popular within the ECA.

The unpopular content of these films has created another industry within dreg society however: Independent Movies. These are films created independent of the Idris subsidiary studios that dominate the industry in the ECA and are often created with the express purpose of defying these algorithmic and borderline propagandistic productions. Largely these are made by expelled movie crews and first generation dregs, who have the skills to make passable cinema with the limited equipment they have access to, however these existing skills can only do so much to push past the technical limitations of their existence. These films rarely see much viewing outside of dreg cinemas and communities, largely seen as oddities to be enjoyed by a cult following of outsiders who often take technical difficulties as artistic choices. These films often tackle the problems of daily dreg life, but can also be seen as indulgent power fantasy enjoyed by a downtrodden populace attempting to escape the realities of dreg living. The most popular of these types of film centre around well known dreg folklore figures, their story and their message to the downtrodden.

=== Language ===
The closest language the Corporate Alliance has to an official language is Tradeband, used to ease business transactions. It is the most used language in the workplace and typically any resident of the Eridanus Constellation can speak it well enough to conduct their job in Tradeband. This is not the only language in the Alliance however, and almost any human language can be spoken by at least a handful of people. Tourists often find it easier to ask for directions in the ECA as opposed to any other region sheerly on the odds that they bump into somebody that speaks their native language. On the other side of the coin, dregs stubbornly create their own culture to counter the corporate one, speaking Freespeak and similar other languages in their own society and typically only using Tradeband in corporate owned workplaces. This comes across as antiquated to outsiders, but is often viewed by dregs as a result of their highly independence seeking nature.

Dregs also speak a strange form of Freespeak that can only be described as a thieves’ cant, known as Spitting Proper. Spoken almost exclusively by dregs with ties to the criminal syndicates, the closest comparison one can make to a 21<sup>st</sup> century language would be Polari, and it holds a similar history, being used to mask discussions of criminal activity, grow fellowship amongst its speakers and hide information from anybody that may be eavesdropping. Spoken fluently by the criminal underbelly, it is near impenetrable to outsiders outside of famous words like “knab”. To an extent, most dreg teenagers speak enough of it with the intent to hide what they’re doing from their parents, assuming (often wrongfully) that their parents cannot Spit Proper.
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|+"Spitting Proper" Common Terms
!Word
!Meaning
|-
|Boss
|Insult, akin to calling your superior by a royal title.
|-
|Chief
|Respectful term for the person in charge.
|-
|Suit
|Corporate.
|-
|Fek
|Fuck. Works the same way.
|-
|Clacker
|Asshole. Insult and bodypart.
|-
|Drongo
|Idiot.
|-
|Biz
|Shit, in the sense of "I'm not doing that shit" or "[...] and shit like that"
|-
|Tick
|Sec (second). e.g "Just a tick"
|-
|Wrong boots
|Someone who is transgender. “Born in the wrong shoes” meaning born in the wrong body. '''''Not a derogatory term.'''''
|-
|Am/Ami/Amino
|Partner/boy/girlfriend. Romantic in nature.
|-
|Bov/Bovino
|Best friend.
|-
|Krok
|Outsider/non-dreg
|-
|Knab
|"Guy". Can refer to anyone.
|-
|Heavy
|Hired muscle. "Who's the heavy?"
|-
|Extra
|Hacker. Comes from hackers often being treated as unnecessary by inexperienced teams.
|-
|Mask
|Inside man.
|-
|Fixer
|Person who arranges for jobs. They may collect information, arrange meetings and find extra members for a crew.
|-
|Cashie
|Salesman, usually illicit.
|-
|Patcher
|Doctor of any kind, but usually used for ones that don't tell police about their patients.
|-
|Wrencher
|Engineer.
|-
|Robowrencher
|Roboticist, usually augmentation specialists.
|-
|Helmet
|Mercenary or police. Typically used to refer to mercenaries that take police work, rather than all mercenaries.
|-
|Gun
|General mercenary, regardless of if they use a gun.
|-
|Debt
|Job.
|-
|Cark
|Die, not murdered.
|-
|Creased
|Murdered.
|-
|Crease
|To murder.
|-
|Map
|Understand.
|-
|Tool
|Fix something.
|-
|Scroll
|Watch something happen.
|-
|Spit
|Speak.
|-
|Gab
|To have a conversation.
|-
|Scribble
|Write.
|-
|Riccy
|Rich. Sometimes derogatory, often used to describe a target for robbery.
|-
|Band
|Gang.
|-
|Banded
|Married.
|-
|Sniffer
|Brown-noser. Somebody who sucks up to authority.
|-
|Tail
|Related to the term rat. An informant.
|-
|Affirmed
|Understood, yes.
|-
|Running your/their trail
|Following you/somebody. Not necessarily bad.
|-
|Palm
|Steal.
|-
|Knock
|Beat up or damage.
|-
|Ice/Arctic
|Cool.
|-
|Sign the dots
|Get arrested.
|-
|In my turf
|In your face, breaking personal space.
|-
|Slacks
|Dregs who associate with suits. Derogatory term for reinstated.
|}

== Non-Humans ==
<Tabber>
|-|Tajaran Refugees=
Largely comprised of refugees who fled the immediate aftermath of the Azunali Revolution, the Tajara Diaspora on Eridani is almost entirely dregs, with a handful of later-reinstated individuals. These groups live in largely segregated communities, partly through choice and partly due to the circumstances of their mass migration. Culturally similar to dregs, they still hold the idea of Sadani in regard, seeing it as a survival guide to the rugged and unpredictable lives led in the system. Many tajara born in Eridani speak their ancestral languages poorly, instead being fluent in Tradeband or Freespeak, depending on their circumstances. Being such a tight knit community, with many forming their own tribes on the planet, there are some Kowloons on Aegir that consist entirely of tajarans, often of varying origins. Their version of freespeak is less guttural, with R sounds rolled to ease their biology. Particularly zealous believers of Sadani end up spending their days as little better than conmen, trying to find a quick "innovation" in the criminal underground, giving tajarans a general regard by dregs as untrustworthy but useful.
|-|Yzali Tech Princes=
In the past, exiled Tech-Princes arrived in Monaco with considerable wealth and immediately found a home among the cutthroat world of Eridani suits. While some work across the system, they have found a special niche in Monaco and blitzed their way to dominate the industry after spending years carefully studying human psychology.

None in the galaxy can match the glamor and sheen of a tourist district owned by a Tech-Prince, which they have called "Transcends". The entire district is meticulously crafted to evoke the feeling of nostalgia and energy of youth. The music you hear pumped through the streets is the generic and familiar chopped up to be psychedelia and hypnotic, bringing snippets of songs you've heard long ago repackaged with an upbeat sheen.

Monuments, hotels, and malls are arranged and built to evoke a dream-like feel while remaining comfortingly familiar. A Transcend present a utopia, with every single piece of brickwork exploding with optimism and excess. When you walk down the street, no matter where you look, anything and everything is possible - but at the same time, everything is so simple. Arcades are bursting with natural plants like jungles that cover the lobby; reflecting pools are illuminated with soft pinks and purples; and nanomeshes draped over the district's domes simulate the eternal sunshine of the beach - and entire beaches are built in miniature, with warm waters and free drinks.

To keep the emotional and aesthetic allure of simplicity mixed with possibility, there is no cost to anything inside a Transcend. They make their money by subscription fees, with stiff payments covering a weekly or monthly stay.

As careful as the enterprises are, there is still an emptiness beneath the glimmering lights and nostalgia. The experience of visiting a Transcend is hypnotic and can be extremely addictive. Many wayward visitors have lost their entire life savings desperately trying to keep their nostalgic dreamscape alive.
This is made worse by the exits from the Transcend - the bright, cheerful exit doors lead into tunnels that gradually become gray and plastered with advertisements, graffiti, posters, and simulated sounds of industry, traffic, and irritating white noise playing just beneath normal human hearing. Reintroduction to the normal, the mundane, is made as unpleasant and heartbreaking as possible - and every few steps, there's another door with that glowing neon sign of a smiling couple looking down at you, encouraging you to come back and feel happiness again. Don't you want to be happy? Don't you want to Transcend?

|-|More to come=
other stuff
</Tabber>

=== Dreg Folklore ===
Dregs have constructed a rich tapestry of legendary folk figures, some of which are simply of note while others can be considered tales intended to teach a lesson through the failures or successes of another real figure. While large parts of the folklore are embellished, it is often the case that every story’s primary beats are largely true, immortalising significant dregs in the imaginations of children and adults alike. Some figures are folk heroes, standing defiant against the corporations and the gangs to try and bring dregs into a new era, while others are villains and cautionary tales about what power does to a person. The vast majority, however, are simply interesting figures that have some moral behind their story, their fates ultimately doing little for the cause of the dregs except providing stories to entertain and educate the next generation. The requirements to become a folk figure are murky to say the least, but the most famous typically have the most outrageous stories, to the point that some are doubted to have existed at all.
Some famous folk heroes include:

<Tabber>
|-|David Insurgent=
Nicknamed for his revolutionary tendencies, David is believed to have been the first to draw blood against corporate mercenaries during the Thermostat Revolution. A native of Faroe, David was already well known for his combat related prosthetics and had a reputation for fair pricing and skilled craftsmanship. Most stories surrounding him take this angle, portraying him as an honest man turned revolutionary leader, ultimately betrayed by Little Mojisola in exchange for a sum of money that varies story to story.
|-|Mairo Oku Mpu=
Also known as Mairo Diver, she is a sort of living legend within the ECA, hero to dregs and horror story to corporate network security. While technically not quite a folk hero, due to her living status, she is so embroiled in myth and misinformation due to her secretive life that she has become entirely separate to her legend. Confirmed actions include leaking Zavodskoi Interstellar body-camera footage of war crimes committed by the corporation, releasing documents detailing the unethical nature of Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals test subject selection, and the destruction of an Idris server farm. However, the folk lore version of her can commit acts that are dubious if even possible through traditional hacking methods, while often emphasising her whimsical nature contrasted against her numerous warrants for arrest in all major nations. She is rumoured to reside in an abandoned space station with her co-conspirators and romantic partners, plural.
|-|Old Toyin=
Famous for one act and one act only, Old Toyin is both a hero and a cautionary tale of what happens when one stands up against the criminal syndicates that dominate the dreg world. While some take her story to be an example of what happens when an old dreg is underestimated, many take it as a warning to expect war if one attacks these gangs. Old Toyin’s story typically goes as such: Old Toyin had lived in her sector of her kowloon for almost her entire life, to the point that nobody on her corridor remembered when she moved in. One day, a group of the Three Star Syndicate demanded that she move out of her home, so that they may turn it into a gambling parlour. Old Toyin refused, stating they would have to kill her to get that property from her. After some arguing, the gangsters left, promising to return with more men. In this time, Old Toyin prepared dinner for her infirm neighbour, said goodbye to her grandson and turned her room into what could qualify as a fortress. By the time the gangsters returned, she had armed herself with a borrowed rifle and walled herself into the room with the help of her neighbours, having a handful of holes to fire out at the gangsters through. Details of the gun fight differ, but the death toll of the gangsters before they demolished the wall and killed Old Toyin is always two digits in all accounts. Almost all accounts emphasise that despite her age and bravery, she was spared no mercy and killed just as brutally as a young dreg would have been.
|-|Shock Namkoisse=
A famous singer and advocate for dreg freedom, Namkoisse is often a stand-in for stories that were very unlikely to have actually been him. His role in dreg culture is as the hero everybody can love, and documentation of his real life is often dreary in comparison to his folklore existence. Namkoisse has been confirmed to have organised illegal raves inside corporate offices, his claim to fame, and ultimately was charged and jailed for his actions. His trial was a show trial, intended to show the dreg population what happens to rebels, but instead it immortalised him as he read a prepared speech on the witness podium and openly criticised the language and methodology of the court. He has since become the symbol of social rebellion against corporations, and many an aspiring musician have copied his illegal raves in his honour.
</Tabber>

More sparingly is the use of folk villains, usually cautionary tales intended to warn others against considering corporate affiliation. In particular is a famous story that almost every dreg knows:<blockquote>Malcolm Oyibo is not so much a figure with a consistent story more than a stock character, a villain that fills the void in the collective memory of dreg folklore when telling the story of a more obscure hero. Malcolm is more of a series of characteristics that make for a villain to the story, inconsistent and often not even in the same job twice. He may be a quartermaster one day, or a mercenary the next, or maybe even a CEO. The important part is that he is a backstabber and a foreigner that desperately seeks to be accepted by his corporate overlords, a rather naked allegory for the view of dregs on reinstated.</blockquote>And finally come a unique aspect of dreg folklore, at least in terms of modern folklore: legendary locations. These locations may range from safe-havens for the most wanted of Epsilon Eridani’s underworld to rumoured paradises of workers’ rights within the very borders of the hell scape that is Aegir’s moon. Some of these locations include:

* The Killing Floor: Bar and pilgrimage site for any starry eyed revolutionary, rumoured to be the favourite haunt of David Insurgent and many of the Thermostat Revolutionaries. Today it stands as a monument and tourist trap for the revolutionary undercurrent that slowly meanders through dreg culture. The folklore version, however, is a hive of revolutionary activity in which the intellectuals of dreg liberation come to exchange ideas.
* Haven: A simple and descriptive name, Haven is a rumoured squat within a corporate hab block that is so well defended that it is functionally a microstate within Eridanian territory. Some call it an ongoing revolution, while others describe it more as the only truly neutral ground for major figures to meet without worrying about being assassinated.

* The Office: An ironic name for possibly the most secure and brutal prison in the Orion Spur. The Office is rumoured to have every defence imaginable, from air defences to closing wall traps to laser grids closing cells off, only the hardest and most dangerous the Spur has to offer are supposedly housed here. Outsiders often believe The Office is actually many prisons amalgamated into a single prison in the collective consciousness of dregs.

[[Category: Lore]]

Charon Shipping Services

2024-02-05T21:59:02Z

Monty: FINISHED

{{OrgBox|name=Charon Shipping Services|image=CharonLogo.png|hq=The Floating Garden, Damascus II|motto=نقل الحریه
"Shipping Freedom"|founded=2109|major=Freight, Phoron Operations, Mining|minor=Robotics|affiliates=[[Republic of Elyra]]
[[Zavodskoi Interstellar]]|rivals=[[Hephaestus Industries]]|theme=553737}}Originating in what is now modern day Istanbul, Charon Shipping Services began as a purely earth-bound venture in the Greco-Turkish Economic Zone some time around 2109, originally named Styx Logistics. Gathering significant capital through a series of hostile takeovers, they eventually absorbed a fledging bluespace freight company, taking to the stars in 2200 to test a series of ships, before successfully purchasing a contract to take on the colonisation efforts of Epsilon Eridani. Despite being so early to the market, Styx Logistics failed to properly capitalise on the potential of interstellar shipping, and the market remained much more diverse than other markets for quite some time. As the company was on its last legs, an Elyran consortium appealed the government in 2296 to take over Styx Logistics' considerable number of exclusivity contracts, resulting in a hostile takeover in 2297. It is believed that this hostile takeover was motivated by a sense of Elyran nationalism, and anger that the nation did not yet have its own true megacorporation. Following this acquisition, the company was rebranded to what is now the largest shipping congolomerate in the entire Orion Spur, being the governmental favourite logistics company for mining, freight and contract-manufacture of robots.

== What do they do? ==
<Tabber>
|-|Purple Gold=
Charon Shipping Services, despite the name, is one of the leading companies in Elyra's biggest industry. Taking a lion's share of the phoron contracts made available, they have garnered an extremely effective and experienced mining force to be used in all variety of resource extraction across the Orion Spur. Charon miners often report issues going from mining in such bountiful conditions as the extremely pure Phoron deposits of Elyra to the much more feasible and average purities of other nations. Working conditions for miners are about average for the Spur, with some notable improvements in Elyran sites, at least for citizens. NCPs often see intensive use in the more gruelling jobs, especially in high-risk sites, and rarely work with anything except the most expendable of equipment.
|-|Freight Fast=
The bread and butter of the corporation, their mining operations have been vertically integrated with shipping to take the minerals directly to the customer. The shipping network is the most extensive in the Orion Spur, making use of large-scale - and sometimes exclusive rights to - shipping corridors to move as much cargo as quickly as possible. This cargo may not always arrive in one piece, customers often report that rough handling conditions lead to their package taking some variety of damage, and it seems like every week there's a new exposé regarding the damage caused by underpaid NCP workers.
|-|Others' Automatons=
Despite not actually owning any designs, being the favourite corporation of the Elyran government grants Charon certain contracting privileges that let them enter the robotics market with absolutely zero experience. Charon engineers started off by effectively having a shuttle of Charon recruiters go around Elyra grabbing any half-baked robotics student and gathering them into a workshop to repair licensed designs. It has, in the last thirty years, become a much more professional affair, with reforms making the repair and manufacture of other companies' designs on license much easier. Despite this, the reputation of being rough and ready precedes them, and Charon's robotics specialists will always be seen as doing slightly subpar work.
</Tabber>

== Corporate Culture ==
Ever since their purchase by a variety of nationalist investors, Charon Shipping Services' priorities are heavily aligned with the priorities and beliefs of the [[Republic of Elyra]]. Given that the company is effectively nationalised, or at least closely tied to the government in a strange monopolistic sense, one can often use the policy changes of Charon to predict the practical effects of how a law in Elyra will be received. Employees, regardless of nationality, are treated as if they are representing the best of Elyra, and as such are often heavily chastised for any explicit views regarding Non-Citizen Persons, Elyran Sovereignty and criticism of Elyran debauchery laws. While not official policy, it is well known that debauchery laws are considered heavily during promotions, and employees who are looking to improve their status with their manager often quit at least one vice or learn to keep it hidden.

Regarding this, public facing image has always been important, and very frequently Charon harks back to earthen days and especially West Asian history when choosing their architecture, and nothing quite expresses this as much as the headquarters of Charon Shipping Services: The Floating Garden of [http://unip.herma.moe/index.php/Republic_of_Elyra#Damascus_II Damascus II]. Consisting of the latest in Elyran hover technology, the building is less of a building and more of a series of bridges connecting floating offices, meeting rooms and recreational areas. Milling between all of this is a swarm of potted plants, vines and various exotic flora, all meticulously maintained and cared for by an army of gardeners who wear a strange mix of traditional Arab patterns on hologram clothing. The architecture itself is almost Babylonian, and the entire structure is a clear homage to the Hanging Gardens of that self-same extinct nation.

In terms of service, Charon has always and will always prioritise speed of service over quality or safety. While they take measures to avoid damages where they can, it is not uncommon for fragile parts to arrive damaged or broken, and the notoriously difficult refund process is the whisper of nightmares amongst corporate accountants, with some companies having individuals dedicated to purely dealing with issuing Charon customer complaints. Despite these damages, the speed of the service is so great that many are willing to undertake such a risk in order to have their package arrive weeks or even months earlier, depending on the distances being travelled. This emphasis of speed is felt throughout the company, with even miners being "scrambled" to their shifts akin to fighter pilots.

== Relationships ==
<blockquote>"Charon is the Republic, and the Republic is Charon. Our national pride depends upon them." - Farid Kartal, Prime Minister of the Republic of Elyra, on why Charon Shipping Services requires such a large subsidy on their latest mining operation, 2587</blockquote>The previous statement is a perfect summary of the relationship between [[Republic of Elyra|The Republic of Elyra]] and Charon Shipping Services. The corporation has become the pride of the Elyran people, especially since their control over so many nations' logistics gives them a position in which they can threaten the livelihoods of those who criticise their treatment of NCPs. Charon money has made Elyra rich, and they are often offered first pickings in newly discovered phoron fields or open contracts for shipping and logistics. Charon is the Elyran company, plain and simple, and the government has more than simply the economy invested in keeping Charon afloat, to the point that even the most unprofitable or unnecessary venture may be subsidised or funded.<blockquote>"Charon Shipping Services denies all allegations of stifling delivery speeds within the United Nations Interstellar Protectorate. Accusations of punishment regarding the Protectorate's stance on sheltering Non-Citizen Person so-called 'refugees' are entirely baseless." - Mahir el-Amini, PR Spokesperson of Charon Shipping Services, at a UNIP hearing regarding corporate overreach, 2542</blockquote>Of all of the interstellar nations that interact with corporations on a regular basis, [[United Nations Interstellar Protectorate|The United Nations Interstellar Protectorate]] is by far the one with the most issues taken against Charon Shipping Services. This is primarily in regards to the notably slower shipping speeds and safety rates within the Protectorate. While many within the Protectorate consider this an act of spite levelled against the Solar nation dating back all the way to the Elyran Revolution, Charon has always denied such, and maintain that UNIP anti-corporate measures prevent them from operating effectively.<blockquote>"Frigate UNCV Manticore, this is Cruiser ZIV Tempest, stand down and allow freighter ESV Antalya to pass this checkpoint unsearched. They are carrying diplomatic cargo under the protection of Zavodskoi Interstellar" - Capt. Zarya Volkova, Zavodskoi Interstellar Ship Captain, escorting a Charon Shipping Services freighter through a UNIP blockade, 2543</blockquote>When discussing a positive working relationship, some would consider the employment of [[Zavodskoi Interstellar]] as Charon Shipping Services' primary escort outside of Elyra as a blueprint for what one should strive for. The corporations have worked strongly together for over a century, with Zavodskoi even making it a point of pride that they have never failed a mission escorting a Charon freighter through dangerous territory. The key to this relationship, as it turns out, is overwhelming firepower, and to bribe any pirates into avoiding Charon freighters that are under Zavodskoi protection. This carrot and stick relationship suits the pair quite well, with Charon's carrot being the lucrative number of escorts required and Zavodskoi's stick being the revocation of protection should Charon ever alter the deal.
[[Category:Lore]]

Charon Shipping Services

2024-01-30T21:12:56Z

Monty: Added lore tag

Originating in what is now modern day Istanbul, Charon Shipping Services began as a purely earth-bound venture in the Greco-Turkish Economic Zone some time around 2109, originally named Styx Logistics. Gathering significant capital through a series of hostile takeovers, they eventually absorbed a fledging bluespace freight company, taking to the stars in 2200 to test a series of ships, before successfully purchasing a contract to take on the colonisation efforts of Epsilon Eridani. Despite being so early to the market, Styx Logistics failed to properly capitalise on the potential of interstellar shipping, and the market remained much more diverse than other markets for quite some time. As the company was on its last legs, an Elyran consortium appealed the government in 2296 to take over Styx Logistics' considerable number of exclusivity contracts, resulting in a hostile takeover in 2297. It is believed that this hostile takeover was motivated by a sense of Elyran nationalism, and anger that the nation did not yet have its own true megacorporation. Following this acquisition, the company was rebranded to what is now the largest shipping congolomerate in the entire Orion Spur, being the governmental favourite logistics company for mining, freight and contract-manufacture of robots.

== What do they do? ==
<Tabber>
|-|Purple Gold=
Charon Shipping Services, despite the name, is one of the leading companies in Elyra's biggest industry. Taking a lion's share of the phoron contracts made available, they have garnered an extremely effective and experienced mining force to be used in all variety of resource extraction across the Orion Spur. Charon miners often report issues going from mining in such bountiful conditions as the extremely pure Phoron deposits of Elyra to the much more feasible and average purities of other nations. Working conditions for miners are about average for the Spur, with some notable improvements in Elyran sites, at least for citizens. NCPs often see intensive use in the more gruelling jobs, especially in high-risk sites, and rarely work with anything except the most expendable of equipment.
|-|Freight Fast=
The bread and butter of the corporation, their mining operations have been vertically integrated with shipping to take the minerals directly to the customer. The shipping network is the most extensive in the Orion Spur, making use of large-scale - and sometimes exclusive rights to - shipping corridors to move as much cargo as quickly as possible. This cargo may not always arrive in one piece, customers often report that rough handling conditions lead to their package taking some variety of damage, and it seems like every week there's a new exposé regarding the damage caused by underpaid NCP workers.
|-|Others' Automatons=
Despite not actually owning any designs, being the favourite corporation of the Elyran government grants Charon certain contracting privileges that let them enter the robotics market with absolutely zero experience. Charon engineers started off by effectively having a shuttle of Charon recruiters go around Elyra grabbing any half-baked robotics student and gathering them into a workshop to repair licensed designs. It has, in the last thirty years, become a much more professional affair, with reforms making the repair and manufacture of other companies' designs on license much easier. Despite this, the reputation of being rough and ready precedes them, and Charon's robotics specialists will always be seen as doing slightly subpar work.
</Tabber>
[[Category:Lore]]

Eridani Corporate Alliance

2024-01-30T21:11:41Z

Monty: Fixed zeng's link

The Eridani Corporate Alliance, often referred to as Eridani for short, is a series of relatively independent Solarian systems that enjoy almost total economic and relative military freedom from the rest of the alliance of states that forms Sol. Eridani can instead be considered a form of special economic zone that exists due to its convenience for the rest of the Spur, which in turn allows the corporations within to largely skirt past criticisms of their human rights violations and caste system by virtue of being economically beneficial to the rest of the Orion Spur.

== History ==
Originally sold for the purposes of establishing a port and warehouse to [[Charon Shipping Services]] in 2203, initial surveys of Epsilon Eridani appeared grim for profit. Only one planet was confirmed to have existed, the gas giant Aegir with a sole moon. While another planet was theorised, upon arrival this was proven not to be the case, however a much more important discovery was made by the Charon Eridani Fleet: The moon of Aegir was, in fact, habitable. A rudimentary biosphere had led to an atmosphere equivalent to the top of a tall mountain, ever-so-slightly thinner than average.

With this discovery came immediate colonisation by Charon, who in turn contacted numerous notable corporations with the intent to sell plots of land, mineral rights and shipping services. Many historians theorise that this was done in an attempt to legitimise the relative newcomer to space amongst its new peers, as well as create ties that would form the foundation of the new system’s unique status in Spur-level politics.

While initially colonised with the intent to be owned by Charon Shipping Services, the growing corporatocracy quickly found itself growing too large and complex for a single, relatively junior corporation to effectively manage. While logistics may have been the speciality of Charon, they lacked the political clout or hard power to enforce their claim upon the planet. In their place, and to avoid the minor skirmishes between security forces related to various corporations that were beginning to erupt in 2228, The Council of Eight was formed. This council of eight positions, dictated by the ownership of regions of land on the moon of Aegir, became the de-facto government for the planetoid.

Over time, The Council of Eight has had a series of small scale wars erupt between corporations for the seats of power in which it contains, with vast swathes of land being economically repurposed in arbitrary treaties that the inhabitants had little to no say in. To combat this turmoil, eventually The Council of Eight elected that positions are eternal, and may only be opened through either purchase or the forced removal of a seat by a unanimous vote of all other council seats. The last time the seats changed was in 2490, giving the largely run-down southern arctic region of District 8 to Einstein Engines. This transfer was met with controversy from much of the dreg population, with fears of the heating infrastructure going even further unmaintained under new leadership leading to a borderline revolution.

During what is now referred to as the Thermostat Revolution, the transfer of power between Einstein Engines and Zeng-Hu collapsed due to the total lack of military power owned by either corporation. In an attempt to prevent the budding revolution from potentially spreading further, the corporations that made up The Council of Eight put aside their differences temporarily, redirecting every mercenary group under their employment to suppress riots, arrest organisers and violently put down the revolution in such a manner that any non-corporate entity would be brought up on various human rights violations. Following this, The Council of Eight voted unanimously to create a semi-regulated body for the employment of mercenaries, who in times of no-contract would act as the de-facto military for the Eridanus Cluster.<blockquote>''“The modern Eridani Corporate Alliance is not too alien from the Corporate Alliance of the past, in a form of simultaneous stagnation and inflation. The more things change, the more entrenched certain conventions become; dregs remain the oppressed underclass, corporates remain in splendour and the corporations that influence every aspect of life become nations unto the worker. The Thermostat Revolution may soon become a distant memory, rather than a cultural touchstone of the Dreg Worker.” - Julian Bertrand, Philosopher and Economist, 2540''</blockquote>

== Government ==
Eridani’s government is largely represented by the Council of Eight - Eight representatives from various megacorporations. Each seat in the Council is tied to a sector, which the chairman’s corporation has full control over. While discussions have been made in the past to expand the number of sectors, this naturally has not come to fruition out of fears of decreased power on the moon. Each sector has also been given an informal name to make conversation easier. Currently, each sector is assigned to the following corporations:

'''Sector 1''' (Luxembourg) - [[Idris Incorporated]]

'''Sector 2''' (Canaria) - [[Hephaestus Industries]]

'''Sector 3''' (Monaco) - Idris Incorporated

'''Sector 4''' (Panama) - [[Charon Shipping Services]]

'''Sector 5''' (Trinidad) - Hephaestus Industries

'''Sector 6''' (Grenada) - EPMC - [[Zavodskoi Interstellar]] joint venture

'''Sector 7''' (Seychelles) - [[Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals]]

'''Sector 8''' (Faroe) - Einstein Engines

== Sectors ==
Due to Epsilon Eridani’s long history of being terraformed and shaped to the whims of the colonists, the vast majority of the moon has similar streets and architecture styles. Industrial land seamlessly mixes with offices and apartments with very little rhyme or reason to much of it in regions where there is a high dreg population, meanwhile corporates enjoy well organised and sectioned off districts dedicated to work or leisure that stretch for kilometres. Despite this, each sector has a unique reputation and general environment that both the under and upper classes would be able to notice.

<tabber>
|-|Luxembourg and Canaria=
The twin capitals of Eridani, it is subject to being the “baseline” of people’s ideas of Eridani as a whole. Tall office blocks stretch into the sky, connected by walkways. The smog is so irreversibly powerful that windows do not open except in older buildings that were made before corporate regulations governing smog contamination were put in place. Dregs face a similar conundrum while living in the underground caverns of the sector, formerly mining operations. Here, shanty towns and pools of acidic chemical runoff characterise a rough life for dregs. Criminal gangs will occasionally surface to commit crimes in corporate territory before retreating.
|-|Monaco=
One of the major centres of tourism in Epsilon Eridani. The reputation of the moon of Aegir has spread far and wide throughout the Orion Spur, and with it comes tourists seeking to confirm or deny the rumours of the planet. Idris has transformed this region into a vast tourist haven, a cloying and romanticised version of the public perception of Eridani. In the eyes of tourists visiting Monaco, it is said that anything goes, and all manner of services, products and monuments can be found so long as you look hard enough. For the families there are the glamorous, bizarre and outright gimmicky tourist attractions of the main streets, immediately outside the hotels and surrounded by the dazzling lights of advertising, neon signs and flying billboards that pollute the sky with the incessant need to call attention to products. For the faux-bohemian, however, Idris has not neglected their wants, with an entire carefully managed and well patrolled dreg “slum” for them to visit. complete with faux dive bars and carefully managed waste in the road, any tourist that were to visit this sector would come out feeling as if they had seen the real Eridani, without ever having gone within 100 miles of actual danger, serving double time as a tourist attraction and smokescreen to the plight of the dregs. In amongst the splendour of the main tourist region and the artificial roughness of the disdainfully named “Dreg Village” comes what many actually visit Eridani for, the so-called Epsilon High-way. A single multi-mile long stretch of drugs, drink and vice arcs across the centre of Monaco, capturing the attention of passers by with graphic depictions of what products they offer.
|-|Panama=
This sector is one of the lesser talked about areas, having little importance other than as a docking station for large ships and cargo. The underground hosts an extremely large and dense network of warehouses, and one of the densest populations of dregs in Epsilon Eridani in order to staff it. Despite this, subsidiaries of Charon Shipping Services are still likely to bring workers in from outside of the region due to a general distrust of undermotivated dregs around valuable cargo. The sector is characterised by hostile wildlife in slums and streets alike, with a species of cross-bred rat being known to attack small children if left unattended. The environment itself is famously windy, the narrow corridors of buildings acting as wind tunnels that cause dangerous gales during storms. Instead of fixing this, wind shelters the size of a 21st century bus shelter have been installed along roads to shelter in during wind storms. Due to these factors, the region has been not so affectionately named “The Hurricane” by dregs who live there.
|-|Trinidad=
Located directly next to Panama, Trinidad is the industrial heart of the Eridani Corporate Council. The surface is smeared with refineries belching smog into the sky as underground rail transports produced goods to and from the warehouses of Panama. Mirroring its sister sector, Trinidad has a majority dreg population that lives in squalor around the factories they work in, either in shanty towns constructed between buildings or company towns that work on scrip pay and slum-like conditions. Many observers theorise that these company towns are a method of control that has prevented further workers rights movements from truly taking off in the system, forcing dregs to risk their food supply alongside their homes in order to take any form of industrial action. In comparison, reinstated and corporate managers are allowed to make use of the extensive rail network underneath this region, letting them arrive directly at their workplace with little to no exposure to the outside smog or squalid conditions of their subordinates.
|-|Grenada=
Forged in an agreement created by the lacking political capital of Zavodskoi Interstellar and the sudden need for a centralised base of operations for the newly developed Eridani Private Military Corporation, the formerly underdeveloped region of Grenada has developed over the past hundred years into a hub for weapons production, military training and electronic warfare development. The vast majority of the population are either reinstated, corporate or from outside of the system. While the region is technically contested between numerous mercenary groups, it has become possibly the safest region in Eridani, following the “Clean Front Door” doctrine of mercenary groups. Quality of life is higher here than the majority of Eridani, if still notably lower than the living standards of much of the Orion Spur.
|-|Seychelles=
The science and research hub of Epsilon Eridani, Seychelles boasts the environment of being carved into the ice of the Northern Pole of the moon. While other regions may feel as if they are tunnels between the large skyscrapers, Seychelles is quite literally made of tunnels to survive the cold environment outside of them. With an average surface temperature of -40 degrees celsius on the surface, the cold air is ideal for running the server farms required for 26th century research and saves immense money on cooling. These tunnels are little more than bare, carved stone in many places, however closer to the universities that litter this region of the moon metal plating has been installed so as to not offend the sensibilities of the students and researchers. Dregs, primarily making up the staffing of the day to day running of these facilities, face an entirely different conundrum. Heating is not universal to all tunnels, and while corporates may enjoy a steady 20 degrees celsius all year round, abandoned tunnels inhabited by the dregs face an average temperature of -10 degrees C and can plummet to -40 in the event of a breach.
|-|Faroe=
A recent acquisition, Faroe is in an unusual position compared to other sectors of Eridani. Despite the incredibly small number of manual labour positions, the sector has a large dreg population remaining from the period before Einstein Engines’ ownership of the sector. The vast majority of these dregs are homeless, living in communes situated within abandoned ex-Zeng Hu facilities making a living either selling scrap parts to pay for heating or scavenging for heating sources that still have valid DRM. Being the data centre of the communications giant’s Sol presence, Faroe takes advantage of the Southern Pole’s equally low temperatures to cool server racks for data farming and processing. The prior factors mix into a cocktail that results in Faroe being the centre of cyber-crime in Epsilon Eridani, with disenfranchised dregs who possess the necessary skills selling corporate secrets across all sectors after gathering data from in-person access to Einstein Engines servers. This culture of hacking has birthed legends of dreg folklore, including the infamous hacker Mairo Oku Mpu, who gained attention in 2587 for leaking classified Zavodskoi surveillance data.
|-|The Stations=
Outside of the populated moon is an uncontrolled span of stations all across the Eridanus Cluster. These stations do not come under the Council of Eight and are laws unto themselves unless otherwise stated. The vast majority of these stations are owned by megacorporations and their subsidiaries, but older stations may be sold to individuals or simply stolen by groups with the intent to start their own enterprises. Stations therefore come in all shapes and sizes, serving different purposes and being governed under different policies. The common thread connecting every station, however, is their precarious position in the system. While stations may be officially owned by megacorporations or small private enterprises, hostile takeovers and piracy run rampant in the far less militarised regions of the Eridanus Constellation, and refugees fleeing from one station to another is not an uncommon sight anywhere in the Constellation.

One of the major industries of the stations is resource extraction, either with skiffs designed to scoop gases from gas giants across the many systems or miner drones intended to pick every last mineral out of the asteroid belts of said gas giants. Other stations provide services such as rest stops, refuelling and repairs, with many artisanal shipyards making their home in Eridani with the intent to avoid copyright laws or heavy taxation implemented by corporate controlled governments to suppress competition. Of course, for any economic hub that is sprawling and decentralised, there is crime. Pirates and extortion rings run rampant, forming a noticeable percent of the GDP of Eridani as they refuel in less-than-reputable stations and take advantage of the low police and military presence to commit piracy, making use of Bluespace Interdictors in order to violently jerk ships out of bluespace travel and into dead space, shaking them down for the contents of their cargo hold before running away.

Due to the age of some of these stations, a noticeable population of offworlders exist of both the dreg and corporate variety. Roughly a quarter of the stations that exist in these systems are older than effective gravity generation, and as such either operate on the rotating wheel method of gravity generation or simply are free-floating. This makes a cottage industry of station tourism available to offworlders across the spur, run mostly by enterprising individuals and corporates who wish to strike out and start a “new” business under the Idris banner, in some ways making Eridani one of the most popular tourist locations with offworlders across the spur. Many of the dreg offworlders often consider themselves more offworlder than dreg, leading to many a cultural clash when meeting with dregs from gravity-laden stations.
</tabber>

== Housing ==
The commonly studied marvel of Eridanian engineering is the Corporate Habitation Block, referred to as “Habs” for short. Where regulation does not exist, convention thrives, and one can find convention to have taken a tight grip onto the common Hab. A mixture of office building, residential housing and commercial venture, the average corporate worker may never have to leave their specific block for their entire life, assuming they never have to attend an important meeting. The average habitation block consists of a floor by floor plan spread out over the largest plot of land that the construction company could purchase, sometimes at the cost of existing structures. While a lower floor may be a series of residential pods for data input specialists, secretaries and the other numerous rabble of the lowest echelons of the corporate ladder, and the floor above it the offices in which they infest during the rat race, the centre levels may become livable two, perhaps even three room apartments made cheap by their less than desirable position directly under nightclub or over the top of the ever-loud server rooms of the office corporate machine. Naturally, the palatial penthouses, adjacent to indoor gardens, community gyms and even having the rare luxury of natural sunlight weaving between the lattices of the complimentary air-vehicle garage sold inclusive, being the most coveted and expensive examples of Eridanian housing, are reserved for the most elite of the corporate world. Regional managers, CEOs’ second homes, the functional royalty of the corporate state which has been built across Eridani.

Lesser known to the outside world, but infamous to those aware of the true realities of Eridani, are the varieties of slums across the moon of Aegir. Most commonly are semi-permanent mountains of structures, stacked one atop the other in what can only be described as a game of jenga played with mortar and steel, affectionately nicknamed “Kowloons” after a 20th century structure of an almost identical nature. These structures occupy plots of land in which the ownership is either entirely disputed or the original owner cannot be located, providing safety from private property laws by virtue of angered parties either not existing or being too-long tied into legal battles to care about what is currently on the land. These structures are even denser than the densest of Habs, with entire families living in single rooms and businesses that pull separate functions at different times of day. Schools may become casinos at night, or restaurants may operate as a dentist during the day. The layout of these buildings can only be described as a rats’ nest, with narrow and winding tunnels leading deep within the artificially lit structure so far that it is not unheard of for outsiders to never be seen again after entering, presumed either dead or kidnapped. While living conditions may be of sub-human quality, there is a sense of community in these slums that is not experienced in corporate housing, and some reinstated dregs may privately express that they miss this sense of community. This community will not always last, however, and it is not unheard of for communities to be split apart by raids, entire slums emptied in weeks in order to facilitate the construction of future corporate housing or factories.

Other dregs take a more radical approach to housing, opting to occupy empty higher-tier apartments en-masse instead of risking the crime, disease and squalor of the slums. These squatters are almost always those with the least to lose, either a part of gangs or outright unemployed, and often form the vanguard that establishes longer lasting squats-turned-communities. This is much riskier for longevity compared to the slum, with squats often being cleared by corporate security in a matter of months. These squats have been known to last years, however, and some even decades, as veritable fortresses under siege deep within corporate territory. Some of these squats have entered the annals of dreg folklore, becoming rumoured safe havens or dens of legendary outlaws.

== Society ==

=== Work ===
Eridani forms what can only be described as a culture of pure work, with one’s job being the centre of their existence regardless of caste or class. Eridanians exist to work, and every aspect of culture is related back to the creation of value, the creation of wealth specifically. In the case of corporates, this is taken much more directly and manifests in hobbies having to be monetised, stress relief being a weak excuse for enjoying but a select few societally shared hobbies, and every waking hour is expected to be taken in the pursuit of wealth and power to some extent. This is less so in the case of dregs and some reinstated, who are more likely to take leisure in activities but are forced more by circumstances to monetise hobbies they hold actual skill in simply to make ends meet. Work culture in Eridani is considered toxic by the vast majority of the Spur, and even the most hardline of bootstrap mentality may baulk at the hours, or the absolute lack of overtime pay.

=== A Caste System ===
The one thing that everybody knows about the Eridanus Constellation is the system of classification that is functionally a caste system, wherein the status of “Corporate Citizen” is only granted to those who are employed by the corporations or client corporations of the Council of Eight.Those who are citizens enjoy full rights within the Eridani Corporate Council, however few those actually are, but this is dependent entirely on their remaining employed without more than a month’s gap between jobs at any point. Those who fail to stay employed in an office job are stripped of their citizenship, and if they choose to remain residents shall become of an entirely lower caste, forced to work in manual labour or not at all. This secondary caste are known as dregs, and while having the official name of non-citizens, their nickname holds much more power as both a derogatory term amongst corporates and a term of personal pride and empowerment amongst dregs. It is not uncommon for dregs to quote the immortal words from the trial of Shock Namkoisse, “I’m a dreg, you call me one behind my back, call me one to my face[...]”, when referred to as a “non-citizen”.

Between the corporate and the dreg is the reinstated, a somewhat temporary or probationary period between going back from dreg to corporate. People may be reinstated in two ways, becoming the conduit between management and the ground floor workers, typically as workplace managers or secretaries, or through coming under direct employment of a member of the corporate class. While the former may simply be a career in being a shift manager or foreman, the latter is on a much higher risk-reward relationship, with reinstated employees of corporates often being their personal mercenaries and wetworks teams of their employers. While reinstated “goons” may take much more risk, they have the potential to make great gains with their employer, and many find themselves retiring into comfy security management positions under their employer should they survive.

<Tabber>
|-|Corporate Citizens=
Referred to as corporates by the vast majority, citizens enjoy the most rights out of any of their fellow Eridanians. Their citizenship is tied entirely to their work, and as such a unique work culture persists, described by some as horrific in nature. The most major tenet, and the most famous, is the cutthroat nature of office politics within corporate culture, both metaphorically and literally. While at the lowest levels the likelihood of promotion is almost entirely tied to hours worked, eventually worked hours plateau in effectiveness and the only method of upwards movement is conspiracy, sabotage or loyalty to another person who excels in these fields. The highest echelons of corporate life have only ever achieved their positions through climbing a blood soaked ladder all the way to the top, and more often than not have added their fair share of blood to the rungs. Despite this, the status of the lowest corporates should not be confused with the situation of the highest up corporates, and to an extent lower on the corporate ladder is almost entirely devoid of bloodshed outside of the most ambitious of candidates, even if this difference is not normally recognised by those who have not lived within the corporate lifestyle of Eridani.

Corporate life is often defined as long periods of work punctuated by rest and burnout, and this is by-and-large true for the low to middle echelons, with working hours reaching 12 hours a day on the regular and breaks being few and far between. These long working hours have led to an increasingly ready-made lifestyle amongst corporate citizens, with many basic skills being reduced to hobbies or sold in premade end results. Stimulant abuse is one of the leading causes of non-violent death in the Eridanus Cluster. Despite all of this, control of one’s life does not only extend to work, and corporates often end up seeing themselves criticised for not spending their limited time calling family, or taking part in the handful of hobbies that are seen as acceptable for bonding with fellow co-workers. While familial relations are not exactly close by the standards of the rest of the spur, they are usually the closest relationship that corporates will have while living within the borders of Eridani. Relationships are usually relegated to the workplace otherwise, with romantic relationships often quickly turning to marriage for added benefits from the employer, as well as the ability to finally talk privately with a person without arousing suspicion. The divorce rate in Eridani is 65%.

Hobbies-wise, corporates only have a handful of cultural touchstones they share, primarily football (soccer) as games can be discussed in the office as an icebreaker, as well as video games, crosswords and drinking for pleasure. The final one is the most important, with much of Eridanian free time being spent heading to the bar with their coworkers and attempting to drink one another under the table, with the expectation that everybody stay at least as long as their manager, who in turn is expected to stay for as long as they can still walk home, ending in a standoff situation with their co-workers.

Corporates are heavily augmented, with the first augments often being tracheal implants intended to make breathing easier in the stagnant air of the lower floors of their hab block easier. Largely, augments are subsidised by their employer, ranging from ocular implants to improve productivity to typing-optimised prosthetic hands intended to avoid the drop in productivity of RSI before it can even begin, augments that can’t be removed are docked from the final paycheck when an employee leaves the company. The relationship with their roboticist is the most crucial one that a corporate can have, not only because they must truly trust their roboticist to avoid assassination while under the knife, but also due to a true cultural belief that anybody who you trust with your body is a friend. While some anthropologists theorise that this is a result of such isolation in corporate culture that even casual relationships become strong, others theorise that it may be instead a result of cultural bleedover from dregs who were reinstated into corporate life.
|-|Reinstated=
As with all things, the relationship between dregs and corporates is not black and white, and there are those who have ambitions to escape the slums and become corporates, either believing that even a coffin hotel is better than their current living conditions or that they can advance to middle management or even beyond. These people are referred to as “reinstated”, typically with varying levels of venom from dregs and varying levels of disdain from higher up corporates.

Reinstateds are the intermediate period between a dreg and a corporate, being treated as a trial period in which they prove their loyalty to the corporation over their former communities. There are two methods in which this can be done, through either being promoted to a position that connects corporate management to the working dreg population such as supervisor, or through taking advantage of their dubious societal position to become effectively personal mercenaries for a corporate, on the understanding that they will be given a position immediately under their corporate sponsor once their position is no longer of use. The former is much more common than the latter, however covert work is far from uncommon as a method of reinstatement.

The more mundane of the two is naturally a promotion. Positions of power are usually only handed to dregs on the understanding that they are already of an exceptional loyalty to the company, rather than out of competence in their role. Promotions may range from managerial positions over other manual labourers to secretaries to document mules, typically positions at the absolute bottom of the corporate ladder, if still on the corporate ladder at all compared to their former position. These positions are typically the least popular in their workplace, either being seen as beneath their corporate colleagues or as sell-outs and potential rats by dreg subordinates. These attitudes lead to the majority of attempted reinstatements failing, with this path of reinstatement often exposing even the most stoic of dregs’ breaking points as they lose the vast majority of their friends and even family, that which had been so important to them before, to their ambitions. Failed reinstatements are often forgiven, however, and regularly return to a comfortable familiarity. Some anthropologists theorise that this is the true cause of the lack of class mobility, rather than the architecture of the system itself.

Standard reinstatement is not entirely negative, however, and successful reinstatements often find themselves office celebrities, invited to their managers’ parties to entertain guests with novel skills such as cooking for guests from scratch, mixing cocktails and anecdotes of slum life. Many describe their early career as being more of a circus, and yet the most advantageous position of their lives as they are granted the opportunity to network with much more powerful individuals and potentially secure a promotion before the novelty of their existence wears off.

There is, however, a faster method of climbing ranks without needing to be explicitly subservient or working in an unpopular position, all at the cost of a much higher risk to life. This is the world of corporate covert operations, typically referred to as “wet works”, in which reinstated are held to a contract on the understanding that they will help their sponsor advance their career at any cost. Depending on one’s sponsor, this could be any illicit job from bodyguard to hacker to thief to assassin. The system typically follows the format that the reinstated in question will be a member of their sponsor’s entourage up until either their sponsor dismisses them and recruits them into their corporate team, or their sponsor dies and they are sent back to square one. These wet works teams often never truly retire, being called back in to assist with their former sponsor’s problems under pain of the acts they committed during their tenure being revealed to their new manager, however accepting these callings will almost always result in promotion. This lifestyle is often considered by many to be that of only the most ambitious potential corporates, those who have no interest in bowing down and who crave only the power of position.

Historically, before EPMC took over at the functional police force of the ECA, wet works reinstated filled the role of enforcers for the will of the corporate holders of the region, tackling potential revolutionary groups and crime syndicates that were causing trouble for their sponsors in surgical strikes. Famously, the personal bodyguards of the Einstein Engines representative to the Corporate Alliance were reinstated from Faroe who foiled an assassination attempt.
|-|Dregs=
Despite being a largely service based economy, The Eridani Corporate Alliance requires immense amounts of manual labour to maintain food security, cleanliness and internal manufacturing. To fill this niche, the dreg caste makes up roughly half of the planet’s population according to censuses, but estimates from humanitarian organisations claim that the population is more on the end of 60 to 65% of the planet’s population, when accounting for the internal dreg economy. A combination of extreme deprivation, more people than jobs and an almost total lack of patrols from EPMC peacekeepers has led to the vast majority of the economy within dreg settlements being under the control of organised crime. Be the shop owned by these organisations, or simply forced to pay protection money, there is not a lot of land that is independent of these pseudo-governmental syndicates within a typical Kowloon, not even accommodation. Despite this criminal incentive for profit, a loyal population benefits these gangs infinitely more, and as such living conditions are usually more spacious than the low-level corporate coffin hotels, instead having enough room for a bed, wardrobe and perhaps some shelves, even if bathrooms and toilets are shared to a hallway or even a floor.

The day-to-day life of a dreg can be considered rather varied in comparison to the average 8 to 10 worker of Epsilon Eridani, however this should not be confused with comfort or freedom. Variety comes in problems, primarily lacking work but also sudden loss of power at home, oxygenators breaking or food running out faster than expected. All of these can send a dreg out to purchase, scavenge or steal the necessary parts and equipment to solve their problems, leading to either reliance on the local gangs to pull them out of trouble in exchange for favours, or interaction with the rich barter economy that has formed in the place of sufficient wealth to support a community. In rare cases, some communities have abolished currency entirely and collectivised their resources, instead relying on the community to solve issues, however, this is more of an exception than a rule, with some crediting the cultural osmosis of the “Take care of number one” attitude of corporates permeating into dreg culture for this. This unpredictable lifestyle has created an unusual gap between dreg ages, either dying in their mid-20s from industrial or gang-land related accidents or dying of age related causes in their early 60s, with very little in between. This unusual gap has caused a sort of reverence of older dregs, who are seen as wiser and more capable for having managed to break the 25+ mark.

Unlike the reserved lifestyles of the corporate suits, dregs are known to form close families of either blood family or found family. Family comes before all in dreg communities, and it’s not uncommon for extended family up to one’s cousin to live under the same roof in compound-like shanty homes. These homes might consist of a central living room as well as personal rooms around the edges, with families eating in the courtyard. The only thing that could possibly even hope to match family bonds are community bonds, with even gangs typically helping their immediate community regardless of their known brutality. Recruitment for gangs happens most often inside of these community bubbles as a result.

Dregs are typically louder and more outspoken than their corporate counterparts, where “spilling honesties” is considered perfectly acceptable so long as it wasn’t done with malice in mind. This can make dregs seem extremely blunt to outsiders, and can lead to misunderstandings outside of Eridani space. A typical dreg conversation will consist of a lot of shouting, arm gestures and teasing, with playful violence not entirely being ruled out. This makes dreg conversations in their native language look like an argument to outsiders, even corporates may struggle to interpret friendliness properly facing these odds.

Similarly to corporates, dregs will usually take their augmentation seriously, having an even closer bond to their roboticist and rarely picking a new one unless it would be geographically impossible to return. Due to the large amount of outward migration by dregs, this attitude is fairly well known in roboticist circles and is regarded with either charm or suspicion, depending on the attitude of the roboticist. Dregs are sometimes described as “overfamiliar” outside of Eridani space.
</Tabber>

== Augmentation ==

=== Corporate Augments ===
Cybernetic modification is an integral part of Eridani’s cultural ideal. Simple tracheal augments are usually the first and the mildest step into augmentation, as they are needed for a lot of people to simply survive with Eridani’s thoroughly polluted air. Having other bionic enhancements is considered a symbol of wealth and prestige. Most electronics in the Federation are specifically designed to interact with augmented eyes – but they are also very functional on their own. A typical Eridanian eye implant can completely replace, or even surpass, a typical hand terminal in functionality – being used to browse the Extranet, communicate on chat relays, and more. As is typical for Eridanian technology, it is also swarmed with ads and is proven to constantly send data about the user’s activity to advertisers, making them somewhat unpopular outside the Federation. Augmentation is so tailored to the workplace in corporate society that people often find difficulty retraining if made redundant, as their augments will have to be replaced in order to suit their new job title. This adds a steep financial barrier to changing professions, and works to prevent upwards mobility without corporate sponsors. In extreme examples, hands may be given an extra finger in order to increase typing speed on legacy systems, at the cost of removing much of their dexterity for other tasks such as handwriting. These augments are often removed by the time the corporate citizens are able to find work outside of Eridani, being seen as too unsightly and off putting to clients. In some cases, synthskin is a requirement for reassignment to certain regions of the spur.

=== Dreg Augments ===
Dreg societies take the Eridanian fascination with augmentation technology to an extreme. While a typical Corporate may have no more than an augmented respiratory system, bionic eyes and a few neural implants, a Dreg may maim themselves to replace their flesh with superior, more durable metal – often at the expense of looking presentable. Sleek eye augmentations are removed from former workers by barely qualified surgeons to be replaced with crude prosthetics that do not aim to imitate the human form, but to simply provide functionality – often being, for example, completely filled with one colour, or having coloured scleras. The more brave may opt into removing their limbs for a metal replacement, which is often made “in the house”, with lower quality parts but higher maintainability. Dregs in general are largely proponents of “right to repair” when it comes to prosthetics, shunning branded augments in favour of ones that can be repaired at home or by their favourite roboticist. Function over form is another one of the more unusual ideologies of dreg augmentation, with dregs often caring little about how attractive their augments are so long as they outperform their original limb. As such, dreg roboticists have gained a rightful reputation for making insane or seemingly random choices with their parts lists that give their augments a unique charm, creating a niche market of enthusiasts who share a mindset. Within dreg circles, however, reputation is all, and dreg roboticists can go down within the rich folklore of dregs should they perform their best, amongst names such as David Insurgent and Amiyu Wires. A dreg that can perform augmentation installation could expect to see a large amount of business on this stereotype alone should they open a workshop once out of Epsilon Eridani.

== Eridani Life ==

=== Food ===
Eridanian cuisine has a wrongfully gained reputation of being extremely soy based, to the point of caricatures of Eridanian figures often depicting them holding some form of soy based product. Despite this stereotype, this is not entirely true. While Eridanian cuisine as a whole typically makes heavy use of soy based products, other ingredients make up as much of a staple of the Eridanian diet as much as soy does. Plantains, tofu, farmed fish, squash, beans and rice are all staple ingredients of Eridanian cuisine due to their ease of growth in a hydroponics heavy society. A major method of cooking is frying in nut oil, with Eridanians being known to fry anything that can fit in the pan and even some things that can’t, being served with the ever-present soy.

Some famous dishes from Eridani include:

* Puff-puffs, a fried dough ball with a crunchier outside than a donut. These are typically cooked in a pool of oil at the bottom of a pan, however the Eridanian version differs from tradition by adding ground ginger instead of the traditional pepper. Whether it’s acceptable to dip puff-puffs in synthetic cream is still a subject of fierce debate amongst all Eridanians akin to the debates over pineapple on pizza.
* Fufu dumplings with soup, the dumplings are made of pounded plantains and shaped into a ball to be served alongside soup. The soups might contain any number of vegetables, but traditional meats from their earth counterparts are replaced with shrimp, tofu or cod.
* Joloff rice, long grain rice fried in groundnut oil with tomatoes, onions and hot peppers. Again fish and meat substitutes make an appearance here. The dish is a favourite amongst all due to the ease of cooking and the fact that it can be made in one pot.
* Sushi, raw and prepared fish laid atop cooked rice. While a staple of many planets, Eridanian sushi has gained a life of its own, often being created with rare and expensive ingredients grown in the hydroponics and fish farms of the planet. As a cultural export, however, Eridanian sushi rather fails at the term sushi, as the entire affair is deep fat fried. This unusual and controversial perversion of sushi is often blamed upon dregs, who are believed to fry anything if they have oil.

Of course, not all food is made the same in Eridani. While dregs’ communal lifestyle allows them to make the food in a more traditional style with ingredients bought in bulk to save money or grown in stolen hydroponics setups, corporates often spend so much of their day at work that it’s preferred to buy their meals either ready or pre-prepared from a machine. Learning to prepare ingredients, for this reason, is often a skill that makes reinstated very popular amongst their colleagues. One major difference is the quantities of meat substitutes available between dregs and corporates, with corporates often eating triple or even quadruple the serving of expensive goods like fish compared to their dreg counterparts, and malnourishment being rife within dreg living due to the relatively small portions of key proteins being stretched over such long time periods.

Fast food chains exist that are also exclusive to Eridani, such as Shrimp Republic, a location that can be found in almost any Eridanian food court or habitation block. The ingredients often consist of some form of fried shrimp as well as various kinds of skewered foods for easy and enjoyable eating.

=== Music ===
Corporate music is considerably more well documented than dreg music when it comes to what is popular, the data algorithms gathering all instances of listening as well as attention spans to songs to form the perfect bands to be fed to the public en-masse. As a bizarre by-product of this feedback loop of attention, two major genres have emerged in Epsilon Eridani, at least amongst the citizens. Club music is one of the most popular Eridanian music genres, being their greatest cultural export and the most listened to genre amongst corporates due to the after work clubbing culture of corporates. Famous artists include Cricket, a DJ known for their use of repetitive but catchy melodies, and DJ Andrex, more famous for their surprisingly fluent lyrical content for club music. The other famous genre is group pop, entirely powered by algorithms and chart ratings, group pop bands usually consist of people who barely know one another working together to make music with help from their managers. These groups are extremely prone to splitting up, giving gossip magazines plenty of content to work off of and forming the basis of how names in the scene are passed around. It is said that you aren’t a group pop musician until your face is on the front of a magazine without your consent.

On the other end of the spectrum, dregs have taken to two more stereotypical favourite genres for an underclass, rap and punk. Both genres tend to focus on life in Dreg society, either the massive amounts of death and poverty, or blaming the system they live in for said death and poverty. While the two genres rarely mix, it isn’t uncommon for them to share lyrical patterns and chord progression. Generally, Eridanian punk is unusual from other genres of punk due to its heavy usage of distortion pedals, electronic instruments and synthesisers. Punk bands in Eridani last for years at a time, but are known to have extremely messy breakups when they get famous, assuming they ever leave their extremely localised sphere of influence. Eridanian rappers on the other hand tend to make a large spectacle of themselves once their music leaves their sphere of influence, hoping to get famous outside of Eridani and hopefully be able to escape. Kizee and Nitrogod are a famous pair of rappers from Seychelles whose music has escaped the constellation’s sphere of influence into the wider Orion Spur, lent largely to them by their aggressive sound and theme of general inequality and the hypocrisy of the wealthy invading their spaces to amuse themselves.

=== Movies ===
Movies and films in Eridani are a fairly insular market, with specific tastes of the local audience being received middlingly outside of the systems and vice versa. This is credited in large part to the prolific use of market analysis to write scripts, to the point that some movies are almost entirely algorithmically generated. Some of the more famous rules of these algorithms that always feature include:

* Anti-corporate activity should always result in the demise of the anti-corporate
* Non-citizen dregs may only appear as antagonists, sympathy is allowed in cases of redemption at the end of the production
* The protagonist should not show any form of anti-corporate sentiment, except when portraying their darkest hour
* Members of corporations may only be shown as villains in the event that they are acting against the best interests of the corporation

These restrictive rules have led to a series of set movie genres that are guaranteed to succeed within the borders of the ECA, and at least break even outside of it: Corporate dramas, action movies starring PMCs as the protagonists and adaptations of literature already popular within the ECA.

The unpopular content of these films has created another industry within dreg society however: Independent Movies. These are films created independent of the Idris subsidiary studios that dominate the industry in the ECA and are often created with the express purpose of defying these algorithmic and borderline propagandistic productions. Largely these are made by expelled movie crews and first generation dregs, who have the skills to make passable cinema with the limited equipment they have access to, however these existing skills can only do so much to push past the technical limitations of their existence. These films rarely see much viewing outside of dreg cinemas and communities, largely seen as oddities to be enjoyed by a cult following of outsiders who often take technical difficulties as artistic choices. These films often tackle the problems of daily dreg life, but can also be seen as indulgent power fantasy enjoyed by a downtrodden populace attempting to escape the realities of dreg living. The most popular of these types of film centre around well known dreg folklore figures, their story and their message to the downtrodden.

=== Language ===
The closest language the Corporate Alliance has to an official language is Tradeband, used to ease business transactions. It is the most used language in the workplace and typically any resident of the Eridanus Constellation can speak it well enough to conduct their job in Tradeband. This is not the only language in the Alliance however, and almost any human language can be spoken by at least a handful of people. Tourists often find it easier to ask for directions in the ECA as opposed to any other region sheerly on the odds that they bump into somebody that speaks their native language. On the other side of the coin, dregs stubbornly create their own culture to counter the corporate one, speaking Freespeak and similar other languages in their own society and typically only using Tradeband in corporate owned workplaces. This comes across as antiquated to outsiders, but is often viewed by dregs as a result of their highly independence seeking nature.

Dregs also speak a strange form of Freespeak that can only be described as a thieves’ cant, known as Spitting Proper. Spoken almost exclusively by dregs with ties to the criminal syndicates, the closest comparison one can make to a 21<sup>st</sup> century language would be Polari, and it holds a similar history, being used to mask discussions of criminal activity, grow fellowship amongst its speakers and hide information from anybody that may be eavesdropping. Spoken fluently by the criminal underbelly, it is near impenetrable to outsiders outside of famous words like “knab”. To an extent, most dreg teenagers speak enough of it with the intent to hide what they’re doing from their parents, assuming (often wrongfully) that their parents cannot Spit Proper.
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|+"Spitting Proper" Common Terms
!Word
!Meaning
|-
|Boss
|Insult, akin to calling your superior by a royal title.
|-
|Chief
|Respectful term for the person in charge.
|-
|Suit
|Corporate.
|-
|Fek
|Fuck. Works the same way.
|-
|Clacker
|Asshole. Insult and bodypart.
|-
|Drongo
|Idiot.
|-
|Biz
|Shit, in the sense of "I'm not doing that shit" or "[...] and shit like that"
|-
|Tick
|Sec (second). e.g "Just a tick"
|-
|Wrong boots
|Someone who is transgender. “Born in the wrong shoes” meaning born in the wrong body. '''''Not a derogatory term.'''''
|-
|Am/Ami/Amino
|Partner/boy/girlfriend. Romantic in nature.
|-
|Bov/Bovino
|Best friend.
|-
|Krok
|Outsider/non-dreg
|-
|Knab
|"Guy". Can refer to anyone.
|-
|Heavy
|Hired muscle. "Who's the heavy?"
|-
|Extra
|Hacker. Comes from hackers often being treated as unnecessary by inexperienced teams.
|-
|Mask
|Inside man.
|-
|Fixer
|Person who arranges for jobs. They may collect information, arrange meetings and find extra members for a crew.
|-
|Cashie
|Salesman, usually illicit.
|-
|Patcher
|Doctor of any kind, but usually used for ones that don't tell police about their patients.
|-
|Wrencher
|Engineer.
|-
|Robowrencher
|Roboticist, usually augmentation specialists.
|-
|Helmet
|Mercenary or police. Typically used to refer to mercenaries that take police work, rather than all mercenaries.
|-
|Gun
|General mercenary, regardless of if they use a gun.
|-
|Debt
|Job.
|-
|Cark
|Die, not murdered.
|-
|Creased
|Murdered.
|-
|Crease
|To murder.
|-
|Map
|Understand.
|-
|Tool
|Fix something.
|-
|Scroll
|Watch something happen.
|-
|Spit
|Speak.
|-
|Gab
|To have a conversation.
|-
|Scribble
|Write.
|-
|Riccy
|Rich. Sometimes derogatory, often used to describe a target for robbery.
|-
|Band
|Gang.
|-
|Banded
|Married.
|-
|Sniffer
|Brown-noser. Somebody who sucks up to authority.
|-
|Tail
|Related to the term rat. An informant.
|-
|Affirmed
|Understood, yes.
|-
|Running your/their trail
|Following you/somebody. Not necessarily bad.
|-
|Palm
|Steal.
|-
|Knock
|Beat up or damage.
|-
|Ice/Arctic
|Cool.
|-
|Sign the dots
|Get arrested.
|-
|In my turf
|In your face, breaking personal space.
|-
|Slacks
|Dregs who associate with suits. Derogatory term for reinstated.
|}

=== Dreg Folklore ===
Dregs have constructed a rich tapestry of legendary folk figures, some of which are simply of note while others can be considered tales intended to teach a lesson through the failures or successes of another real figure. While large parts of the folklore are embellished, it is often the case that every story’s primary beats are largely true, immortalising significant dregs in the imaginations of children and adults alike. Some figures are folk heroes, standing defiant against the corporations and the gangs to try and bring dregs into a new era, while others are villains and cautionary tales about what power does to a person. The vast majority, however, are simply interesting figures that have some moral behind their story, their fates ultimately doing little for the cause of the dregs except providing stories to entertain and educate the next generation. The requirements to become a folk figure are murky to say the least, but the most famous typically have the most outrageous stories, to the point that some are doubted to have existed at all.
Some famous folk heroes include:

<Tabber>
|-|David Insurgent=
Nicknamed for his revolutionary tendencies, David is believed to have been the first to draw blood against corporate mercenaries during the Thermostat Revolution. A native of Faroe, David was already well known for his combat related prosthetics and had a reputation for fair pricing and skilled craftsmanship. Most stories surrounding him take this angle, portraying him as an honest man turned revolutionary leader, ultimately betrayed by Little Mojisola in exchange for a sum of money that varies story to story.
|-|Mairo Oku Mpu=
Also known as Mairo Diver, she is a sort of living legend within the ECA, hero to dregs and horror story to corporate network security. While technically not quite a folk hero, due to her living status, she is so embroiled in myth and misinformation due to her secretive life that she has become entirely separate to her legend. Confirmed actions include leaking Zavodskoi Interstellar body-camera footage of war crimes committed by the corporation, releasing documents detailing the unethical nature of Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals test subject selection, and the destruction of an Idris server farm. However, the folk lore version of her can commit acts that are dubious if even possible through traditional hacking methods, while often emphasising her whimsical nature contrasted against her numerous warrants for arrest in all major nations. She is rumoured to reside in an abandoned space station with her co-conspirators and romantic partners, plural.
|-|Old Toyin=
Famous for one act and one act only, Old Toyin is both a hero and a cautionary tale of what happens when one stands up against the criminal syndicates that dominate the dreg world. While some take her story to be an example of what happens when an old dreg is underestimated, many take it as a warning to expect war if one attacks these gangs. Old Toyin’s story typically goes as such: Old Toyin had lived in her sector of her kowloon for almost her entire life, to the point that nobody on her corridor remembered when she moved in. One day, a group of the Three Star Syndicate demanded that she move out of her home, so that they may turn it into a gambling parlour. Old Toyin refused, stating they would have to kill her to get that property from her. After some arguing, the gangsters left, promising to return with more men. In this time, Old Toyin prepared dinner for her infirm neighbour, said goodbye to her grandson and turned her room into what could qualify as a fortress. By the time the gangsters returned, she had armed herself with a borrowed rifle and walled herself into the room with the help of her neighbours, having a handful of holes to fire out at the gangsters through. Details of the gun fight differ, but the death toll of the gangsters before they demolished the wall and killed Old Toyin is always two digits in all accounts. Almost all accounts emphasise that despite her age and bravery, she was spared no mercy and killed just as brutally as a young dreg would have been.
|-|Shock Namkoisse=
A famous singer and advocate for dreg freedom, Namkoisse is often a stand-in for stories that were very unlikely to have actually been him. His role in dreg culture is as the hero everybody can love, and documentation of his real life is often dreary in comparison to his folklore existence. Namkoisse has been confirmed to have organised illegal raves inside corporate offices, his claim to fame, and ultimately was charged and jailed for his actions. His trial was a show trial, intended to show the dreg population what happens to rebels, but instead it immortalised him as he read a prepared speech on the witness podium and openly criticised the language and methodology of the court. He has since become the symbol of social rebellion against corporations, and many an aspiring musician have copied his illegal raves in his honour.
</Tabber>

More sparingly is the use of folk villains, usually cautionary tales intended to warn others against considering corporate affiliation. In particular is a famous story that almost every dreg knows:<blockquote>Malcolm Oyibo is not so much a figure with a consistent story more than a stock character, a villain that fills the void in the collective memory of dreg folklore when telling the story of a more obscure hero. Malcolm is more of a series of characteristics that make for a villain to the story, inconsistent and often not even in the same job twice. He may be a quartermaster one day, or a mercenary the next, or maybe even a CEO. The important part is that he is a backstabber and a foreigner that desperately seeks to be accepted by his corporate overlords, a rather naked allegory for the view of dregs on reinstated.</blockquote>And finally come a unique aspect of dreg folklore, at least in terms of modern folklore: legendary locations. These locations may range from safe-havens for the most wanted of Epsilon Eridani’s underworld to rumoured paradises of workers’ rights within the very borders of the hell scape that is Aegir’s moon. Some of these locations include:

* The Killing Floor: Bar and pilgrimage site for any starry eyed revolutionary, rumoured to be the favourite haunt of David Insurgent and many of the Thermostat Revolutionaries. Today it stands as a monument and tourist trap for the revolutionary undercurrent that slowly meanders through dreg culture. The folklore version, however, is a hive of revolutionary activity in which the intellectuals of dreg liberation come to exchange ideas.
* Haven: A simple and descriptive name, Haven is a rumoured squat within a corporate hab block that is so well defended that it is functionally a microstate within Eridanian territory. Some call it an ongoing revolution, while others describe it more as the only truly neutral ground for major figures to meet without worrying about being assassinated.

* The Office: An ironic name for possibly the most secure and brutal prison in the Orion Spur. The Office is rumoured to have every defence imaginable, from air defences to closing wall traps to laser grids closing cells off, only the hardest and most dangerous the Spur has to offer are supposedly housed here. Outsiders often believe The Office is actually many prisons amalgamated into a single prison in the collective consciousness of dregs.

[[Category: Lore]]

Eridani Corporate Alliance

2024-01-30T21:09:56Z

Monty: /* Government */ Added corporation links

The Eridani Corporate Alliance, often referred to as Eridani for short, is a series of relatively independent Solarian systems that enjoy almost total economic and relative military freedom from the rest of the alliance of states that forms Sol. Eridani can instead be considered a form of special economic zone that exists due to its convenience for the rest of the Spur, which in turn allows the corporations within to largely skirt past criticisms of their human rights violations and caste system by virtue of being economically beneficial to the rest of the Orion Spur.

== History ==
Originally sold for the purposes of establishing a port and warehouse to [[Charon Shipping Services]] in 2203, initial surveys of Epsilon Eridani appeared grim for profit. Only one planet was confirmed to have existed, the gas giant Aegir with a sole moon. While another planet was theorised, upon arrival this was proven not to be the case, however a much more important discovery was made by the Charon Eridani Fleet: The moon of Aegir was, in fact, habitable. A rudimentary biosphere had led to an atmosphere equivalent to the top of a tall mountain, ever-so-slightly thinner than average.

With this discovery came immediate colonisation by Charon, who in turn contacted numerous notable corporations with the intent to sell plots of land, mineral rights and shipping services. Many historians theorise that this was done in an attempt to legitimise the relative newcomer to space amongst its new peers, as well as create ties that would form the foundation of the new system’s unique status in Spur-level politics.

While initially colonised with the intent to be owned by Charon Shipping Services, the growing corporatocracy quickly found itself growing too large and complex for a single, relatively junior corporation to effectively manage. While logistics may have been the speciality of Charon, they lacked the political clout or hard power to enforce their claim upon the planet. In their place, and to avoid the minor skirmishes between security forces related to various corporations that were beginning to erupt in 2228, The Council of Eight was formed. This council of eight positions, dictated by the ownership of regions of land on the moon of Aegir, became the de-facto government for the planetoid.

Over time, The Council of Eight has had a series of small scale wars erupt between corporations for the seats of power in which it contains, with vast swathes of land being economically repurposed in arbitrary treaties that the inhabitants had little to no say in. To combat this turmoil, eventually The Council of Eight elected that positions are eternal, and may only be opened through either purchase or the forced removal of a seat by a unanimous vote of all other council seats. The last time the seats changed was in 2490, giving the largely run-down southern arctic region of District 8 to Einstein Engines. This transfer was met with controversy from much of the dreg population, with fears of the heating infrastructure going even further unmaintained under new leadership leading to a borderline revolution.

During what is now referred to as the Thermostat Revolution, the transfer of power between Einstein Engines and Zeng-Hu collapsed due to the total lack of military power owned by either corporation. In an attempt to prevent the budding revolution from potentially spreading further, the corporations that made up The Council of Eight put aside their differences temporarily, redirecting every mercenary group under their employment to suppress riots, arrest organisers and violently put down the revolution in such a manner that any non-corporate entity would be brought up on various human rights violations. Following this, The Council of Eight voted unanimously to create a semi-regulated body for the employment of mercenaries, who in times of no-contract would act as the de-facto military for the Eridanus Cluster.<blockquote>''“The modern Eridani Corporate Alliance is not too alien from the Corporate Alliance of the past, in a form of simultaneous stagnation and inflation. The more things change, the more entrenched certain conventions become; dregs remain the oppressed underclass, corporates remain in splendour and the corporations that influence every aspect of life become nations unto the worker. The Thermostat Revolution may soon become a distant memory, rather than a cultural touchstone of the Dreg Worker.” - Julian Bertrand, Philosopher and Economist, 2540''</blockquote>

== Government ==
Eridani’s government is largely represented by the Council of Eight - Eight representatives from various megacorporations. Each seat in the Council is tied to a sector, which the chairman’s corporation has full control over. While discussions have been made in the past to expand the number of sectors, this naturally has not come to fruition out of fears of decreased power on the moon. Each sector has also been given an informal name to make conversation easier. Currently, each sector is assigned to the following corporations:

'''Sector 1''' (Luxembourg) - [[Idris Incorporated]]

'''Sector 2''' (Canaria) - [[Hephaestus Industries]]

'''Sector 3''' (Monaco) - Idris Incorporated

'''Sector 4''' (Panama) - [[Charon Shipping Services]]

'''Sector 5''' (Trinidad) - Hephaestus Industries

'''Sector 6''' (Grenada) - EPMC - [[Zavodskoi Interstellar]] joint venture

'''Sector 7''' (Seychelles) - [[Zeng Hu Pharmaceuticals]]

'''Sector 8''' (Faroe) - Einstein Engines

== Sectors ==
Due to Epsilon Eridani’s long history of being terraformed and shaped to the whims of the colonists, the vast majority of the moon has similar streets and architecture styles. Industrial land seamlessly mixes with offices and apartments with very little rhyme or reason to much of it in regions where there is a high dreg population, meanwhile corporates enjoy well organised and sectioned off districts dedicated to work or leisure that stretch for kilometres. Despite this, each sector has a unique reputation and general environment that both the under and upper classes would be able to notice.

<tabber>
|-|Luxembourg and Canaria=
The twin capitals of Eridani, it is subject to being the “baseline” of people’s ideas of Eridani as a whole. Tall office blocks stretch into the sky, connected by walkways. The smog is so irreversibly powerful that windows do not open except in older buildings that were made before corporate regulations governing smog contamination were put in place. Dregs face a similar conundrum while living in the underground caverns of the sector, formerly mining operations. Here, shanty towns and pools of acidic chemical runoff characterise a rough life for dregs. Criminal gangs will occasionally surface to commit crimes in corporate territory before retreating.
|-|Monaco=
One of the major centres of tourism in Epsilon Eridani. The reputation of the moon of Aegir has spread far and wide throughout the Orion Spur, and with it comes tourists seeking to confirm or deny the rumours of the planet. Idris has transformed this region into a vast tourist haven, a cloying and romanticised version of the public perception of Eridani. In the eyes of tourists visiting Monaco, it is said that anything goes, and all manner of services, products and monuments can be found so long as you look hard enough. For the families there are the glamorous, bizarre and outright gimmicky tourist attractions of the main streets, immediately outside the hotels and surrounded by the dazzling lights of advertising, neon signs and flying billboards that pollute the sky with the incessant need to call attention to products. For the faux-bohemian, however, Idris has not neglected their wants, with an entire carefully managed and well patrolled dreg “slum” for them to visit. complete with faux dive bars and carefully managed waste in the road, any tourist that were to visit this sector would come out feeling as if they had seen the real Eridani, without ever having gone within 100 miles of actual danger, serving double time as a tourist attraction and smokescreen to the plight of the dregs. In amongst the splendour of the main tourist region and the artificial roughness of the disdainfully named “Dreg Village” comes what many actually visit Eridani for, the so-called Epsilon High-way. A single multi-mile long stretch of drugs, drink and vice arcs across the centre of Monaco, capturing the attention of passers by with graphic depictions of what products they offer.
|-|Panama=
This sector is one of the lesser talked about areas, having little importance other than as a docking station for large ships and cargo. The underground hosts an extremely large and dense network of warehouses, and one of the densest populations of dregs in Epsilon Eridani in order to staff it. Despite this, subsidiaries of Charon Shipping Services are still likely to bring workers in from outside of the region due to a general distrust of undermotivated dregs around valuable cargo. The sector is characterised by hostile wildlife in slums and streets alike, with a species of cross-bred rat being known to attack small children if left unattended. The environment itself is famously windy, the narrow corridors of buildings acting as wind tunnels that cause dangerous gales during storms. Instead of fixing this, wind shelters the size of a 21st century bus shelter have been installed along roads to shelter in during wind storms. Due to these factors, the region has been not so affectionately named “The Hurricane” by dregs who live there.
|-|Trinidad=
Located directly next to Panama, Trinidad is the industrial heart of the Eridani Corporate Council. The surface is smeared with refineries belching smog into the sky as underground rail transports produced goods to and from the warehouses of Panama. Mirroring its sister sector, Trinidad has a majority dreg population that lives in squalor around the factories they work in, either in shanty towns constructed between buildings or company towns that work on scrip pay and slum-like conditions. Many observers theorise that these company towns are a method of control that has prevented further workers rights movements from truly taking off in the system, forcing dregs to risk their food supply alongside their homes in order to take any form of industrial action. In comparison, reinstated and corporate managers are allowed to make use of the extensive rail network underneath this region, letting them arrive directly at their workplace with little to no exposure to the outside smog or squalid conditions of their subordinates.
|-|Grenada=
Forged in an agreement created by the lacking political capital of Zavodskoi Interstellar and the sudden need for a centralised base of operations for the newly developed Eridani Private Military Corporation, the formerly underdeveloped region of Grenada has developed over the past hundred years into a hub for weapons production, military training and electronic warfare development. The vast majority of the population are either reinstated, corporate or from outside of the system. While the region is technically contested between numerous mercenary groups, it has become possibly the safest region in Eridani, following the “Clean Front Door” doctrine of mercenary groups. Quality of life is higher here than the majority of Eridani, if still notably lower than the living standards of much of the Orion Spur.
|-|Seychelles=
The science and research hub of Epsilon Eridani, Seychelles boasts the environment of being carved into the ice of the Northern Pole of the moon. While other regions may feel as if they are tunnels between the large skyscrapers, Seychelles is quite literally made of tunnels to survive the cold environment outside of them. With an average surface temperature of -40 degrees celsius on the surface, the cold air is ideal for running the server farms required for 26th century research and saves immense money on cooling. These tunnels are little more than bare, carved stone in many places, however closer to the universities that litter this region of the moon metal plating has been installed so as to not offend the sensibilities of the students and researchers. Dregs, primarily making up the staffing of the day to day running of these facilities, face an entirely different conundrum. Heating is not universal to all tunnels, and while corporates may enjoy a steady 20 degrees celsius all year round, abandoned tunnels inhabited by the dregs face an average temperature of -10 degrees C and can plummet to -40 in the event of a breach.
|-|Faroe=
A recent acquisition, Faroe is in an unusual position compared to other sectors of Eridani. Despite the incredibly small number of manual labour positions, the sector has a large dreg population remaining from the period before Einstein Engines’ ownership of the sector. The vast majority of these dregs are homeless, living in communes situated within abandoned ex-Zeng Hu facilities making a living either selling scrap parts to pay for heating or scavenging for heating sources that still have valid DRM. Being the data centre of the communications giant’s Sol presence, Faroe takes advantage of the Southern Pole’s equally low temperatures to cool server racks for data farming and processing. The prior factors mix into a cocktail that results in Faroe being the centre of cyber-crime in Epsilon Eridani, with disenfranchised dregs who possess the necessary skills selling corporate secrets across all sectors after gathering data from in-person access to Einstein Engines servers. This culture of hacking has birthed legends of dreg folklore, including the infamous hacker Mairo Oku Mpu, who gained attention in 2587 for leaking classified Zavodskoi surveillance data.
|-|The Stations=
Outside of the populated moon is an uncontrolled span of stations all across the Eridanus Cluster. These stations do not come under the Council of Eight and are laws unto themselves unless otherwise stated. The vast majority of these stations are owned by megacorporations and their subsidiaries, but older stations may be sold to individuals or simply stolen by groups with the intent to start their own enterprises. Stations therefore come in all shapes and sizes, serving different purposes and being governed under different policies. The common thread connecting every station, however, is their precarious position in the system. While stations may be officially owned by megacorporations or small private enterprises, hostile takeovers and piracy run rampant in the far less militarised regions of the Eridanus Constellation, and refugees fleeing from one station to another is not an uncommon sight anywhere in the Constellation.

One of the major industries of the stations is resource extraction, either with skiffs designed to scoop gases from gas giants across the many systems or miner drones intended to pick every last mineral out of the asteroid belts of said gas giants. Other stations provide services such as rest stops, refuelling and repairs, with many artisanal shipyards making their home in Eridani with the intent to avoid copyright laws or heavy taxation implemented by corporate controlled governments to suppress competition. Of course, for any economic hub that is sprawling and decentralised, there is crime. Pirates and extortion rings run rampant, forming a noticeable percent of the GDP of Eridani as they refuel in less-than-reputable stations and take advantage of the low police and military presence to commit piracy, making use of Bluespace Interdictors in order to violently jerk ships out of bluespace travel and into dead space, shaking them down for the contents of their cargo hold before running away.

Due to the age of some of these stations, a noticeable population of offworlders exist of both the dreg and corporate variety. Roughly a quarter of the stations that exist in these systems are older than effective gravity generation, and as such either operate on the rotating wheel method of gravity generation or simply are free-floating. This makes a cottage industry of station tourism available to offworlders across the spur, run mostly by enterprising individuals and corporates who wish to strike out and start a “new” business under the Idris banner, in some ways making Eridani one of the most popular tourist locations with offworlders across the spur. Many of the dreg offworlders often consider themselves more offworlder than dreg, leading to many a cultural clash when meeting with dregs from gravity-laden stations.
</tabber>

== Housing ==
The commonly studied marvel of Eridanian engineering is the Corporate Habitation Block, referred to as “Habs” for short. Where regulation does not exist, convention thrives, and one can find convention to have taken a tight grip onto the common Hab. A mixture of office building, residential housing and commercial venture, the average corporate worker may never have to leave their specific block for their entire life, assuming they never have to attend an important meeting. The average habitation block consists of a floor by floor plan spread out over the largest plot of land that the construction company could purchase, sometimes at the cost of existing structures. While a lower floor may be a series of residential pods for data input specialists, secretaries and the other numerous rabble of the lowest echelons of the corporate ladder, and the floor above it the offices in which they infest during the rat race, the centre levels may become livable two, perhaps even three room apartments made cheap by their less than desirable position directly under nightclub or over the top of the ever-loud server rooms of the office corporate machine. Naturally, the palatial penthouses, adjacent to indoor gardens, community gyms and even having the rare luxury of natural sunlight weaving between the lattices of the complimentary air-vehicle garage sold inclusive, being the most coveted and expensive examples of Eridanian housing, are reserved for the most elite of the corporate world. Regional managers, CEOs’ second homes, the functional royalty of the corporate state which has been built across Eridani.

Lesser known to the outside world, but infamous to those aware of the true realities of Eridani, are the varieties of slums across the moon of Aegir. Most commonly are semi-permanent mountains of structures, stacked one atop the other in what can only be described as a game of jenga played with mortar and steel, affectionately nicknamed “Kowloons” after a 20th century structure of an almost identical nature. These structures occupy plots of land in which the ownership is either entirely disputed or the original owner cannot be located, providing safety from private property laws by virtue of angered parties either not existing or being too-long tied into legal battles to care about what is currently on the land. These structures are even denser than the densest of Habs, with entire families living in single rooms and businesses that pull separate functions at different times of day. Schools may become casinos at night, or restaurants may operate as a dentist during the day. The layout of these buildings can only be described as a rats’ nest, with narrow and winding tunnels leading deep within the artificially lit structure so far that it is not unheard of for outsiders to never be seen again after entering, presumed either dead or kidnapped. While living conditions may be of sub-human quality, there is a sense of community in these slums that is not experienced in corporate housing, and some reinstated dregs may privately express that they miss this sense of community. This community will not always last, however, and it is not unheard of for communities to be split apart by raids, entire slums emptied in weeks in order to facilitate the construction of future corporate housing or factories.

Other dregs take a more radical approach to housing, opting to occupy empty higher-tier apartments en-masse instead of risking the crime, disease and squalor of the slums. These squatters are almost always those with the least to lose, either a part of gangs or outright unemployed, and often form the vanguard that establishes longer lasting squats-turned-communities. This is much riskier for longevity compared to the slum, with squats often being cleared by corporate security in a matter of months. These squats have been known to last years, however, and some even decades, as veritable fortresses under siege deep within corporate territory. Some of these squats have entered the annals of dreg folklore, becoming rumoured safe havens or dens of legendary outlaws.

== Society ==

=== Work ===
Eridani forms what can only be described as a culture of pure work, with one’s job being the centre of their existence regardless of caste or class. Eridanians exist to work, and every aspect of culture is related back to the creation of value, the creation of wealth specifically. In the case of corporates, this is taken much more directly and manifests in hobbies having to be monetised, stress relief being a weak excuse for enjoying but a select few societally shared hobbies, and every waking hour is expected to be taken in the pursuit of wealth and power to some extent. This is less so in the case of dregs and some reinstated, who are more likely to take leisure in activities but are forced more by circumstances to monetise hobbies they hold actual skill in simply to make ends meet. Work culture in Eridani is considered toxic by the vast majority of the Spur, and even the most hardline of bootstrap mentality may baulk at the hours, or the absolute lack of overtime pay.

=== A Caste System ===
The one thing that everybody knows about the Eridanus Constellation is the system of classification that is functionally a caste system, wherein the status of “Corporate Citizen” is only granted to those who are employed by the corporations or client corporations of the Council of Eight.Those who are citizens enjoy full rights within the Eridani Corporate Council, however few those actually are, but this is dependent entirely on their remaining employed without more than a month’s gap between jobs at any point. Those who fail to stay employed in an office job are stripped of their citizenship, and if they choose to remain residents shall become of an entirely lower caste, forced to work in manual labour or not at all. This secondary caste are known as dregs, and while having the official name of non-citizens, their nickname holds much more power as both a derogatory term amongst corporates and a term of personal pride and empowerment amongst dregs. It is not uncommon for dregs to quote the immortal words from the trial of Shock Namkoisse, “I’m a dreg, you call me one behind my back, call me one to my face[...]”, when referred to as a “non-citizen”.

Between the corporate and the dreg is the reinstated, a somewhat temporary or probationary period between going back from dreg to corporate. People may be reinstated in two ways, becoming the conduit between management and the ground floor workers, typically as workplace managers or secretaries, or through coming under direct employment of a member of the corporate class. While the former may simply be a career in being a shift manager or foreman, the latter is on a much higher risk-reward relationship, with reinstated employees of corporates often being their personal mercenaries and wetworks teams of their employers. While reinstated “goons” may take much more risk, they have the potential to make great gains with their employer, and many find themselves retiring into comfy security management positions under their employer should they survive.

<Tabber>
|-|Corporate Citizens=
Referred to as corporates by the vast majority, citizens enjoy the most rights out of any of their fellow Eridanians. Their citizenship is tied entirely to their work, and as such a unique work culture persists, described by some as horrific in nature. The most major tenet, and the most famous, is the cutthroat nature of office politics within corporate culture, both metaphorically and literally. While at the lowest levels the likelihood of promotion is almost entirely tied to hours worked, eventually worked hours plateau in effectiveness and the only method of upwards movement is conspiracy, sabotage or loyalty to another person who excels in these fields. The highest echelons of corporate life have only ever achieved their positions through climbing a blood soaked ladder all the way to the top, and more often than not have added their fair share of blood to the rungs. Despite this, the status of the lowest corporates should not be confused with the situation of the highest up corporates, and to an extent lower on the corporate ladder is almost entirely devoid of bloodshed outside of the most ambitious of candidates, even if this difference is not normally recognised by those who have not lived within the corporate lifestyle of Eridani.

Corporate life is often defined as long periods of work punctuated by rest and burnout, and this is by-and-large true for the low to middle echelons, with working hours reaching 12 hours a day on the regular and breaks being few and far between. These long working hours have led to an increasingly ready-made lifestyle amongst corporate citizens, with many basic skills being reduced to hobbies or sold in premade end results. Stimulant abuse is one of the leading causes of non-violent death in the Eridanus Cluster. Despite all of this, control of one’s life does not only extend to work, and corporates often end up seeing themselves criticised for not spending their limited time calling family, or taking part in the handful of hobbies that are seen as acceptable for bonding with fellow co-workers. While familial relations are not exactly close by the standards of the rest of the spur, they are usually the closest relationship that corporates will have while living within the borders of Eridani. Relationships are usually relegated to the workplace otherwise, with romantic relationships often quickly turning to marriage for added benefits from the employer, as well as the ability to finally talk privately with a person without arousing suspicion. The divorce rate in Eridani is 65%.

Hobbies-wise, corporates only have a handful of cultural touchstones they share, primarily football (soccer) as games can be discussed in the office as an icebreaker, as well as video games, crosswords and drinking for pleasure. The final one is the most important, with much of Eridanian free time being spent heading to the bar with their coworkers and attempting to drink one another under the table, with the expectation that everybody stay at least as long as their manager, who in turn is expected to stay for as long as they can still walk home, ending in a standoff situation with their co-workers.

Corporates are heavily augmented, with the first augments often being tracheal implants intended to make breathing easier in the stagnant air of the lower floors of their hab block easier. Largely, augments are subsidised by their employer, ranging from ocular implants to improve productivity to typing-optimised prosthetic hands intended to avoid the drop in productivity of RSI before it can even begin, augments that can’t be removed are docked from the final paycheck when an employee leaves the company. The relationship with their roboticist is the most crucial one that a corporate can have, not only because they must truly trust their roboticist to avoid assassination while under the knife, but also due to a true cultural belief that anybody who you trust with your body is a friend. While some anthropologists theorise that this is a result of such isolation in corporate culture that even casual relationships become strong, others theorise that it may be instead a result of cultural bleedover from dregs who were reinstated into corporate life.
|-|Reinstated=
As with all things, the relationship between dregs and corporates is not black and white, and there are those who have ambitions to escape the slums and become corporates, either believing that even a coffin hotel is better than their current living conditions or that they can advance to middle management or even beyond. These people are referred to as “reinstated”, typically with varying levels of venom from dregs and varying levels of disdain from higher up corporates.

Reinstateds are the intermediate period between a dreg and a corporate, being treated as a trial period in which they prove their loyalty to the corporation over their former communities. There are two methods in which this can be done, through either being promoted to a position that connects corporate management to the working dreg population such as supervisor, or through taking advantage of their dubious societal position to become effectively personal mercenaries for a corporate, on the understanding that they will be given a position immediately under their corporate sponsor once their position is no longer of use. The former is much more common than the latter, however covert work is far from uncommon as a method of reinstatement.

The more mundane of the two is naturally a promotion. Positions of power are usually only handed to dregs on the understanding that they are already of an exceptional loyalty to the company, rather than out of competence in their role. Promotions may range from managerial positions over other manual labourers to secretaries to document mules, typically positions at the absolute bottom of the corporate ladder, if still on the corporate ladder at all compared to their former position. These positions are typically the least popular in their workplace, either being seen as beneath their corporate colleagues or as sell-outs and potential rats by dreg subordinates. These attitudes lead to the majority of attempted reinstatements failing, with this path of reinstatement often exposing even the most stoic of dregs’ breaking points as they lose the vast majority of their friends and even family, that which had been so important to them before, to their ambitions. Failed reinstatements are often forgiven, however, and regularly return to a comfortable familiarity. Some anthropologists theorise that this is the true cause of the lack of class mobility, rather than the architecture of the system itself.

Standard reinstatement is not entirely negative, however, and successful reinstatements often find themselves office celebrities, invited to their managers’ parties to entertain guests with novel skills such as cooking for guests from scratch, mixing cocktails and anecdotes of slum life. Many describe their early career as being more of a circus, and yet the most advantageous position of their lives as they are granted the opportunity to network with much more powerful individuals and potentially secure a promotion before the novelty of their existence wears off.

There is, however, a faster method of climbing ranks without needing to be explicitly subservient or working in an unpopular position, all at the cost of a much higher risk to life. This is the world of corporate covert operations, typically referred to as “wet works”, in which reinstated are held to a contract on the understanding that they will help their sponsor advance their career at any cost. Depending on one’s sponsor, this could be any illicit job from bodyguard to hacker to thief to assassin. The system typically follows the format that the reinstated in question will be a member of their sponsor’s entourage up until either their sponsor dismisses them and recruits them into their corporate team, or their sponsor dies and they are sent back to square one. These wet works teams often never truly retire, being called back in to assist with their former sponsor’s problems under pain of the acts they committed during their tenure being revealed to their new manager, however accepting these callings will almost always result in promotion. This lifestyle is often considered by many to be that of only the most ambitious potential corporates, those who have no interest in bowing down and who crave only the power of position.

Historically, before EPMC took over at the functional police force of the ECA, wet works reinstated filled the role of enforcers for the will of the corporate holders of the region, tackling potential revolutionary groups and crime syndicates that were causing trouble for their sponsors in surgical strikes. Famously, the personal bodyguards of the Einstein Engines representative to the Corporate Alliance were reinstated from Faroe who foiled an assassination attempt.
|-|Dregs=
Despite being a largely service based economy, The Eridani Corporate Alliance requires immense amounts of manual labour to maintain food security, cleanliness and internal manufacturing. To fill this niche, the dreg caste makes up roughly half of the planet’s population according to censuses, but estimates from humanitarian organisations claim that the population is more on the end of 60 to 65% of the planet’s population, when accounting for the internal dreg economy. A combination of extreme deprivation, more people than jobs and an almost total lack of patrols from EPMC peacekeepers has led to the vast majority of the economy within dreg settlements being under the control of organised crime. Be the shop owned by these organisations, or simply forced to pay protection money, there is not a lot of land that is independent of these pseudo-governmental syndicates within a typical Kowloon, not even accommodation. Despite this criminal incentive for profit, a loyal population benefits these gangs infinitely more, and as such living conditions are usually more spacious than the low-level corporate coffin hotels, instead having enough room for a bed, wardrobe and perhaps some shelves, even if bathrooms and toilets are shared to a hallway or even a floor.

The day-to-day life of a dreg can be considered rather varied in comparison to the average 8 to 10 worker of Epsilon Eridani, however this should not be confused with comfort or freedom. Variety comes in problems, primarily lacking work but also sudden loss of power at home, oxygenators breaking or food running out faster than expected. All of these can send a dreg out to purchase, scavenge or steal the necessary parts and equipment to solve their problems, leading to either reliance on the local gangs to pull them out of trouble in exchange for favours, or interaction with the rich barter economy that has formed in the place of sufficient wealth to support a community. In rare cases, some communities have abolished currency entirely and collectivised their resources, instead relying on the community to solve issues, however, this is more of an exception than a rule, with some crediting the cultural osmosis of the “Take care of number one” attitude of corporates permeating into dreg culture for this. This unpredictable lifestyle has created an unusual gap between dreg ages, either dying in their mid-20s from industrial or gang-land related accidents or dying of age related causes in their early 60s, with very little in between. This unusual gap has caused a sort of reverence of older dregs, who are seen as wiser and more capable for having managed to break the 25+ mark.

Unlike the reserved lifestyles of the corporate suits, dregs are known to form close families of either blood family or found family. Family comes before all in dreg communities, and it’s not uncommon for extended family up to one’s cousin to live under the same roof in compound-like shanty homes. These homes might consist of a central living room as well as personal rooms around the edges, with families eating in the courtyard. The only thing that could possibly even hope to match family bonds are community bonds, with even gangs typically helping their immediate community regardless of their known brutality. Recruitment for gangs happens most often inside of these community bubbles as a result.

Dregs are typically louder and more outspoken than their corporate counterparts, where “spilling honesties” is considered perfectly acceptable so long as it wasn’t done with malice in mind. This can make dregs seem extremely blunt to outsiders, and can lead to misunderstandings outside of Eridani space. A typical dreg conversation will consist of a lot of shouting, arm gestures and teasing, with playful violence not entirely being ruled out. This makes dreg conversations in their native language look like an argument to outsiders, even corporates may struggle to interpret friendliness properly facing these odds.

Similarly to corporates, dregs will usually take their augmentation seriously, having an even closer bond to their roboticist and rarely picking a new one unless it would be geographically impossible to return. Due to the large amount of outward migration by dregs, this attitude is fairly well known in roboticist circles and is regarded with either charm or suspicion, depending on the attitude of the roboticist. Dregs are sometimes described as “overfamiliar” outside of Eridani space.
</Tabber>

== Augmentation ==

=== Corporate Augments ===
Cybernetic modification is an integral part of Eridani’s cultural ideal. Simple tracheal augments are usually the first and the mildest step into augmentation, as they are needed for a lot of people to simply survive with Eridani’s thoroughly polluted air. Having other bionic enhancements is considered a symbol of wealth and prestige. Most electronics in the Federation are specifically designed to interact with augmented eyes – but they are also very functional on their own. A typical Eridanian eye implant can completely replace, or even surpass, a typical hand terminal in functionality – being used to browse the Extranet, communicate on chat relays, and more. As is typical for Eridanian technology, it is also swarmed with ads and is proven to constantly send data about the user’s activity to advertisers, making them somewhat unpopular outside the Federation. Augmentation is so tailored to the workplace in corporate society that people often find difficulty retraining if made redundant, as their augments will have to be replaced in order to suit their new job title. This adds a steep financial barrier to changing professions, and works to prevent upwards mobility without corporate sponsors. In extreme examples, hands may be given an extra finger in order to increase typing speed on legacy systems, at the cost of removing much of their dexterity for other tasks such as handwriting. These augments are often removed by the time the corporate citizens are able to find work outside of Eridani, being seen as too unsightly and off putting to clients. In some cases, synthskin is a requirement for reassignment to certain regions of the spur.

=== Dreg Augments ===
Dreg societies take the Eridanian fascination with augmentation technology to an extreme. While a typical Corporate may have no more than an augmented respiratory system, bionic eyes and a few neural implants, a Dreg may maim themselves to replace their flesh with superior, more durable metal – often at the expense of looking presentable. Sleek eye augmentations are removed from former workers by barely qualified surgeons to be replaced with crude prosthetics that do not aim to imitate the human form, but to simply provide functionality – often being, for example, completely filled with one colour, or having coloured scleras. The more brave may opt into removing their limbs for a metal replacement, which is often made “in the house”, with lower quality parts but higher maintainability. Dregs in general are largely proponents of “right to repair” when it comes to prosthetics, shunning branded augments in favour of ones that can be repaired at home or by their favourite roboticist. Function over form is another one of the more unusual ideologies of dreg augmentation, with dregs often caring little about how attractive their augments are so long as they outperform their original limb. As such, dreg roboticists have gained a rightful reputation for making insane or seemingly random choices with their parts lists that give their augments a unique charm, creating a niche market of enthusiasts who share a mindset. Within dreg circles, however, reputation is all, and dreg roboticists can go down within the rich folklore of dregs should they perform their best, amongst names such as David Insurgent and Amiyu Wires. A dreg that can perform augmentation installation could expect to see a large amount of business on this stereotype alone should they open a workshop once out of Epsilon Eridani.

== Eridani Life ==

=== Food ===
Eridanian cuisine has a wrongfully gained reputation of being extremely soy based, to the point of caricatures of Eridanian figures often depicting them holding some form of soy based product. Despite this stereotype, this is not entirely true. While Eridanian cuisine as a whole typically makes heavy use of soy based products, other ingredients make up as much of a staple of the Eridanian diet as much as soy does. Plantains, tofu, farmed fish, squash, beans and rice are all staple ingredients of Eridanian cuisine due to their ease of growth in a hydroponics heavy society. A major method of cooking is frying in nut oil, with Eridanians being known to fry anything that can fit in the pan and even some things that can’t, being served with the ever-present soy.

Some famous dishes from Eridani include:

* Puff-puffs, a fried dough ball with a crunchier outside than a donut. These are typically cooked in a pool of oil at the bottom of a pan, however the Eridanian version differs from tradition by adding ground ginger instead of the traditional pepper. Whether it’s acceptable to dip puff-puffs in synthetic cream is still a subject of fierce debate amongst all Eridanians akin to the debates over pineapple on pizza.
* Fufu dumplings with soup, the dumplings are made of pounded plantains and shaped into a ball to be served alongside soup. The soups might contain any number of vegetables, but traditional meats from their earth counterparts are replaced with shrimp, tofu or cod.
* Joloff rice, long grain rice fried in groundnut oil with tomatoes, onions and hot peppers. Again fish and meat substitutes make an appearance here. The dish is a favourite amongst all due to the ease of cooking and the fact that it can be made in one pot.
* Sushi, raw and prepared fish laid atop cooked rice. While a staple of many planets, Eridanian sushi has gained a life of its own, often being created with rare and expensive ingredients grown in the hydroponics and fish farms of the planet. As a cultural export, however, Eridanian sushi rather fails at the term sushi, as the entire affair is deep fat fried. This unusual and controversial perversion of sushi is often blamed upon dregs, who are believed to fry anything if they have oil.

Of course, not all food is made the same in Eridani. While dregs’ communal lifestyle allows them to make the food in a more traditional style with ingredients bought in bulk to save money or grown in stolen hydroponics setups, corporates often spend so much of their day at work that it’s preferred to buy their meals either ready or pre-prepared from a machine. Learning to prepare ingredients, for this reason, is often a skill that makes reinstated very popular amongst their colleagues. One major difference is the quantities of meat substitutes available between dregs and corporates, with corporates often eating triple or even quadruple the serving of expensive goods like fish compared to their dreg counterparts, and malnourishment being rife within dreg living due to the relatively small portions of key proteins being stretched over such long time periods.

Fast food chains exist that are also exclusive to Eridani, such as Shrimp Republic, a location that can be found in almost any Eridanian food court or habitation block. The ingredients often consist of some form of fried shrimp as well as various kinds of skewered foods for easy and enjoyable eating.

=== Music ===
Corporate music is considerably more well documented than dreg music when it comes to what is popular, the data algorithms gathering all instances of listening as well as attention spans to songs to form the perfect bands to be fed to the public en-masse. As a bizarre by-product of this feedback loop of attention, two major genres have emerged in Epsilon Eridani, at least amongst the citizens. Club music is one of the most popular Eridanian music genres, being their greatest cultural export and the most listened to genre amongst corporates due to the after work clubbing culture of corporates. Famous artists include Cricket, a DJ known for their use of repetitive but catchy melodies, and DJ Andrex, more famous for their surprisingly fluent lyrical content for club music. The other famous genre is group pop, entirely powered by algorithms and chart ratings, group pop bands usually consist of people who barely know one another working together to make music with help from their managers. These groups are extremely prone to splitting up, giving gossip magazines plenty of content to work off of and forming the basis of how names in the scene are passed around. It is said that you aren’t a group pop musician until your face is on the front of a magazine without your consent.

On the other end of the spectrum, dregs have taken to two more stereotypical favourite genres for an underclass, rap and punk. Both genres tend to focus on life in Dreg society, either the massive amounts of death and poverty, or blaming the system they live in for said death and poverty. While the two genres rarely mix, it isn’t uncommon for them to share lyrical patterns and chord progression. Generally, Eridanian punk is unusual from other genres of punk due to its heavy usage of distortion pedals, electronic instruments and synthesisers. Punk bands in Eridani last for years at a time, but are known to have extremely messy breakups when they get famous, assuming they ever leave their extremely localised sphere of influence. Eridanian rappers on the other hand tend to make a large spectacle of themselves once their music leaves their sphere of influence, hoping to get famous outside of Eridani and hopefully be able to escape. Kizee and Nitrogod are a famous pair of rappers from Seychelles whose music has escaped the constellation’s sphere of influence into the wider Orion Spur, lent largely to them by their aggressive sound and theme of general inequality and the hypocrisy of the wealthy invading their spaces to amuse themselves.

=== Movies ===
Movies and films in Eridani are a fairly insular market, with specific tastes of the local audience being received middlingly outside of the systems and vice versa. This is credited in large part to the prolific use of market analysis to write scripts, to the point that some movies are almost entirely algorithmically generated. Some of the more famous rules of these algorithms that always feature include:

* Anti-corporate activity should always result in the demise of the anti-corporate
* Non-citizen dregs may only appear as antagonists, sympathy is allowed in cases of redemption at the end of the production
* The protagonist should not show any form of anti-corporate sentiment, except when portraying their darkest hour
* Members of corporations may only be shown as villains in the event that they are acting against the best interests of the corporation

These restrictive rules have led to a series of set movie genres that are guaranteed to succeed within the borders of the ECA, and at least break even outside of it: Corporate dramas, action movies starring PMCs as the protagonists and adaptations of literature already popular within the ECA.

The unpopular content of these films has created another industry within dreg society however: Independent Movies. These are films created independent of the Idris subsidiary studios that dominate the industry in the ECA and are often created with the express purpose of defying these algorithmic and borderline propagandistic productions. Largely these are made by expelled movie crews and first generation dregs, who have the skills to make passable cinema with the limited equipment they have access to, however these existing skills can only do so much to push past the technical limitations of their existence. These films rarely see much viewing outside of dreg cinemas and communities, largely seen as oddities to be enjoyed by a cult following of outsiders who often take technical difficulties as artistic choices. These films often tackle the problems of daily dreg life, but can also be seen as indulgent power fantasy enjoyed by a downtrodden populace attempting to escape the realities of dreg living. The most popular of these types of film centre around well known dreg folklore figures, their story and their message to the downtrodden.

=== Language ===
The closest language the Corporate Alliance has to an official language is Tradeband, used to ease business transactions. It is the most used language in the workplace and typically any resident of the Eridanus Constellation can speak it well enough to conduct their job in Tradeband. This is not the only language in the Alliance however, and almost any human language can be spoken by at least a handful of people. Tourists often find it easier to ask for directions in the ECA as opposed to any other region sheerly on the odds that they bump into somebody that speaks their native language. On the other side of the coin, dregs stubbornly create their own culture to counter the corporate one, speaking Freespeak and similar other languages in their own society and typically only using Tradeband in corporate owned workplaces. This comes across as antiquated to outsiders, but is often viewed by dregs as a result of their highly independence seeking nature.

Dregs also speak a strange form of Freespeak that can only be described as a thieves’ cant, known as Spitting Proper. Spoken almost exclusively by dregs with ties to the criminal syndicates, the closest comparison one can make to a 21<sup>st</sup> century language would be Polari, and it holds a similar history, being used to mask discussions of criminal activity, grow fellowship amongst its speakers and hide information from anybody that may be eavesdropping. Spoken fluently by the criminal underbelly, it is near impenetrable to outsiders outside of famous words like “knab”. To an extent, most dreg teenagers speak enough of it with the intent to hide what they’re doing from their parents, assuming (often wrongfully) that their parents cannot Spit Proper.
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|+"Spitting Proper" Common Terms
!Word
!Meaning
|-
|Boss
|Insult, akin to calling your superior by a royal title.
|-
|Chief
|Respectful term for the person in charge.
|-
|Suit
|Corporate.
|-
|Fek
|Fuck. Works the same way.
|-
|Clacker
|Asshole. Insult and bodypart.
|-
|Drongo
|Idiot.
|-
|Biz
|Shit, in the sense of "I'm not doing that shit" or "[...] and shit like that"
|-
|Tick
|Sec (second). e.g "Just a tick"
|-
|Wrong boots
|Someone who is transgender. “Born in the wrong shoes” meaning born in the wrong body. '''''Not a derogatory term.'''''
|-
|Am/Ami/Amino
|Partner/boy/girlfriend. Romantic in nature.
|-
|Bov/Bovino
|Best friend.
|-
|Krok
|Outsider/non-dreg
|-
|Knab
|"Guy". Can refer to anyone.
|-
|Heavy
|Hired muscle. "Who's the heavy?"
|-
|Extra
|Hacker. Comes from hackers often being treated as unnecessary by inexperienced teams.
|-
|Mask
|Inside man.
|-
|Fixer
|Person who arranges for jobs. They may collect information, arrange meetings and find extra members for a crew.
|-
|Cashie
|Salesman, usually illicit.
|-
|Patcher
|Doctor of any kind, but usually used for ones that don't tell police about their patients.
|-
|Wrencher
|Engineer.
|-
|Robowrencher
|Roboticist, usually augmentation specialists.
|-
|Helmet
|Mercenary or police. Typically used to refer to mercenaries that take police work, rather than all mercenaries.
|-
|Gun
|General mercenary, regardless of if they use a gun.
|-
|Debt
|Job.
|-
|Cark
|Die, not murdered.
|-
|Creased
|Murdered.
|-
|Crease
|To murder.
|-
|Map
|Understand.
|-
|Tool
|Fix something.
|-
|Scroll
|Watch something happen.
|-
|Spit
|Speak.
|-
|Gab
|To have a conversation.
|-
|Scribble
|Write.
|-
|Riccy
|Rich. Sometimes derogatory, often used to describe a target for robbery.
|-
|Band
|Gang.
|-
|Banded
|Married.
|-
|Sniffer
|Brown-noser. Somebody who sucks up to authority.
|-
|Tail
|Related to the term rat. An informant.
|-
|Affirmed
|Understood, yes.
|-
|Running your/their trail
|Following you/somebody. Not necessarily bad.
|-
|Palm
|Steal.
|-
|Knock
|Beat up or damage.
|-
|Ice/Arctic
|Cool.
|-
|Sign the dots
|Get arrested.
|-
|In my turf
|In your face, breaking personal space.
|-
|Slacks
|Dregs who associate with suits. Derogatory term for reinstated.
|}

=== Dreg Folklore ===
Dregs have constructed a rich tapestry of legendary folk figures, some of which are simply of note while others can be considered tales intended to teach a lesson through the failures or successes of another real figure. While large parts of the folklore are embellished, it is often the case that every story’s primary beats are largely true, immortalising significant dregs in the imaginations of children and adults alike. Some figures are folk heroes, standing defiant against the corporations and the gangs to try and bring dregs into a new era, while others are villains and cautionary tales about what power does to a person. The vast majority, however, are simply interesting figures that have some moral behind their story, their fates ultimately doing little for the cause of the dregs except providing stories to entertain and educate the next generation. The requirements to become a folk figure are murky to say the least, but the most famous typically have the most outrageous stories, to the point that some are doubted to have existed at all.
Some famous folk heroes include:

<Tabber>
|-|David Insurgent=
Nicknamed for his revolutionary tendencies, David is believed to have been the first to draw blood against corporate mercenaries during the Thermostat Revolution. A native of Faroe, David was already well known for his combat related prosthetics and had a reputation for fair pricing and skilled craftsmanship. Most stories surrounding him take this angle, portraying him as an honest man turned revolutionary leader, ultimately betrayed by Little Mojisola in exchange for a sum of money that varies story to story.
|-|Mairo Oku Mpu=
Also known as Mairo Diver, she is a sort of living legend within the ECA, hero to dregs and horror story to corporate network security. While technically not quite a folk hero, due to her living status, she is so embroiled in myth and misinformation due to her secretive life that she has become entirely separate to her legend. Confirmed actions include leaking Zavodskoi Interstellar body-camera footage of war crimes committed by the corporation, releasing documents detailing the unethical nature of Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals test subject selection, and the destruction of an Idris server farm. However, the folk lore version of her can commit acts that are dubious if even possible through traditional hacking methods, while often emphasising her whimsical nature contrasted against her numerous warrants for arrest in all major nations. She is rumoured to reside in an abandoned space station with her co-conspirators and romantic partners, plural.
|-|Old Toyin=
Famous for one act and one act only, Old Toyin is both a hero and a cautionary tale of what happens when one stands up against the criminal syndicates that dominate the dreg world. While some take her story to be an example of what happens when an old dreg is underestimated, many take it as a warning to expect war if one attacks these gangs. Old Toyin’s story typically goes as such: Old Toyin had lived in her sector of her kowloon for almost her entire life, to the point that nobody on her corridor remembered when she moved in. One day, a group of the Three Star Syndicate demanded that she move out of her home, so that they may turn it into a gambling parlour. Old Toyin refused, stating they would have to kill her to get that property from her. After some arguing, the gangsters left, promising to return with more men. In this time, Old Toyin prepared dinner for her infirm neighbour, said goodbye to her grandson and turned her room into what could qualify as a fortress. By the time the gangsters returned, she had armed herself with a borrowed rifle and walled herself into the room with the help of her neighbours, having a handful of holes to fire out at the gangsters through. Details of the gun fight differ, but the death toll of the gangsters before they demolished the wall and killed Old Toyin is always two digits in all accounts. Almost all accounts emphasise that despite her age and bravery, she was spared no mercy and killed just as brutally as a young dreg would have been.
|-|Shock Namkoisse=
A famous singer and advocate for dreg freedom, Namkoisse is often a stand-in for stories that were very unlikely to have actually been him. His role in dreg culture is as the hero everybody can love, and documentation of his real life is often dreary in comparison to his folklore existence. Namkoisse has been confirmed to have organised illegal raves inside corporate offices, his claim to fame, and ultimately was charged and jailed for his actions. His trial was a show trial, intended to show the dreg population what happens to rebels, but instead it immortalised him as he read a prepared speech on the witness podium and openly criticised the language and methodology of the court. He has since become the symbol of social rebellion against corporations, and many an aspiring musician have copied his illegal raves in his honour.
</Tabber>

More sparingly is the use of folk villains, usually cautionary tales intended to warn others against considering corporate affiliation. In particular is a famous story that almost every dreg knows:<blockquote>Malcolm Oyibo is not so much a figure with a consistent story more than a stock character, a villain that fills the void in the collective memory of dreg folklore when telling the story of a more obscure hero. Malcolm is more of a series of characteristics that make for a villain to the story, inconsistent and often not even in the same job twice. He may be a quartermaster one day, or a mercenary the next, or maybe even a CEO. The important part is that he is a backstabber and a foreigner that desperately seeks to be accepted by his corporate overlords, a rather naked allegory for the view of dregs on reinstated.</blockquote>And finally come a unique aspect of dreg folklore, at least in terms of modern folklore: legendary locations. These locations may range from safe-havens for the most wanted of Epsilon Eridani’s underworld to rumoured paradises of workers’ rights within the very borders of the hell scape that is Aegir’s moon. Some of these locations include:

* The Killing Floor: Bar and pilgrimage site for any starry eyed revolutionary, rumoured to be the favourite haunt of David Insurgent and many of the Thermostat Revolutionaries. Today it stands as a monument and tourist trap for the revolutionary undercurrent that slowly meanders through dreg culture. The folklore version, however, is a hive of revolutionary activity in which the intellectuals of dreg liberation come to exchange ideas.
* Haven: A simple and descriptive name, Haven is a rumoured squat within a corporate hab block that is so well defended that it is functionally a microstate within Eridanian territory. Some call it an ongoing revolution, while others describe it more as the only truly neutral ground for major figures to meet without worrying about being assassinated.

* The Office: An ironic name for possibly the most secure and brutal prison in the Orion Spur. The Office is rumoured to have every defence imaginable, from air defences to closing wall traps to laser grids closing cells off, only the hardest and most dangerous the Spur has to offer are supposedly housed here. Outsiders often believe The Office is actually many prisons amalgamated into a single prison in the collective consciousness of dregs.

[[Category: Lore]]

Charon Shipping Services

2024-01-30T21:07:08Z

Monty: Created page with "Originating in what is now modern day Istanbul, Charon Shipping Services began as a purely earth-bound venture in the Greco-Turkish Economic Zone some time around 2109, originally named Styx Logistics. Gathering significant capital through a series of hostile takeovers, they eventually absorbed a fledging bluespace freight company, taking to the stars in 2200 to test a series of ships, before successfully purchasing a contract to take on the colonisation efforts of Epsil..."

Eridani Corporate Alliance

2024-01-30T20:09:36Z

Monty: /* History */ Link to Charon Shipping Services

The Eridani Corporate Alliance, often referred to as Eridani for short, is a series of relatively independent Solarian systems that enjoy almost total economic and relative military freedom from the rest of the alliance of states that forms Sol. Eridani can instead be considered a form of special economic zone that exists due to its convenience for the rest of the Spur, which in turn allows the corporations within to largely skirt past criticisms of their human rights violations and caste system by virtue of being economically beneficial to the rest of the Orion Spur.

== History ==
Originally sold for the purposes of establishing a port and warehouse to [[Charon Shipping Services]] in 2203, initial surveys of Epsilon Eridani appeared grim for profit. Only one planet was confirmed to have existed, the gas giant Aegir with a sole moon. While another planet was theorised, upon arrival this was proven not to be the case, however a much more important discovery was made by the Charon Eridani Fleet: The moon of Aegir was, in fact, habitable. A rudimentary biosphere had led to an atmosphere equivalent to the top of a tall mountain, ever-so-slightly thinner than average.

With this discovery came immediate colonisation by Charon, who in turn contacted numerous notable corporations with the intent to sell plots of land, mineral rights and shipping services. Many historians theorise that this was done in an attempt to legitimise the relative newcomer to space amongst its new peers, as well as create ties that would form the foundation of the new system’s unique status in Spur-level politics.

While initially colonised with the intent to be owned by Charon Shipping Services, the growing corporatocracy quickly found itself growing too large and complex for a single, relatively junior corporation to effectively manage. While logistics may have been the speciality of Charon, they lacked the political clout or hard power to enforce their claim upon the planet. In their place, and to avoid the minor skirmishes between security forces related to various corporations that were beginning to erupt in 2228, The Council of Eight was formed. This council of eight positions, dictated by the ownership of regions of land on the moon of Aegir, became the de-facto government for the planetoid.

Over time, The Council of Eight has had a series of small scale wars erupt between corporations for the seats of power in which it contains, with vast swathes of land being economically repurposed in arbitrary treaties that the inhabitants had little to no say in. To combat this turmoil, eventually The Council of Eight elected that positions are eternal, and may only be opened through either purchase or the forced removal of a seat by a unanimous vote of all other council seats. The last time the seats changed was in 2490, giving the largely run-down southern arctic region of District 8 to Einstein Engines. This transfer was met with controversy from much of the dreg population, with fears of the heating infrastructure going even further unmaintained under new leadership leading to a borderline revolution.

During what is now referred to as the Thermostat Revolution, the transfer of power between Einstein Engines and Zeng-Hu collapsed due to the total lack of military power owned by either corporation. In an attempt to prevent the budding revolution from potentially spreading further, the corporations that made up The Council of Eight put aside their differences temporarily, redirecting every mercenary group under their employment to suppress riots, arrest organisers and violently put down the revolution in such a manner that any non-corporate entity would be brought up on various human rights violations. Following this, The Council of Eight voted unanimously to create a semi-regulated body for the employment of mercenaries, who in times of no-contract would act as the de-facto military for the Eridanus Cluster.<blockquote>''“The modern Eridani Corporate Alliance is not too alien from the Corporate Alliance of the past, in a form of simultaneous stagnation and inflation. The more things change, the more entrenched certain conventions become; dregs remain the oppressed underclass, corporates remain in splendour and the corporations that influence every aspect of life become nations unto the worker. The Thermostat Revolution may soon become a distant memory, rather than a cultural touchstone of the Dreg Worker.” - Julian Bertrand, Philosopher and Economist, 2540''</blockquote>

== Government ==
Eridani’s government is largely represented by the Council of Eight - Eight representatives from various megacorporations. Each seat in the Council is tied to a sector, which the chairman’s corporation has full control over. While discussions have been made in the past to expand the number of sectors, this naturally has not come to fruition out of fears of decreased power on the moon. Each sector has also been given an informal name to make conversation easier. Currently, each sector is assigned to the following corporations:

'''Sector 1''' (Luxembourg) - Idris Incorporated

'''Sector 2''' (Canaria) - Hephaestus Industries

'''Sector 3''' (Monaco) - Idris Incorporated

'''Sector 4''' (Panama) - Charon Shipping Services

'''Sector 5''' (Trinidad) - Hephaestus Industries

'''Sector 6''' (Grenada) - EPMC - Zavodskoi Interstellar joint venture

'''Sector 7''' (Seychelles) - Zeng Hu Pharmaceuticals

'''Sector 8''' (Faroe) - Einstein Engines

== Sectors ==
Due to Epsilon Eridani’s long history of being terraformed and shaped to the whims of the colonists, the vast majority of the moon has similar streets and architecture styles. Industrial land seamlessly mixes with offices and apartments with very little rhyme or reason to much of it in regions where there is a high dreg population, meanwhile corporates enjoy well organised and sectioned off districts dedicated to work or leisure that stretch for kilometres. Despite this, each sector has a unique reputation and general environment that both the under and upper classes would be able to notice.

<tabber>
|-|Luxembourg and Canaria=
The twin capitals of Eridani, it is subject to being the “baseline” of people’s ideas of Eridani as a whole. Tall office blocks stretch into the sky, connected by walkways. The smog is so irreversibly powerful that windows do not open except in older buildings that were made before corporate regulations governing smog contamination were put in place. Dregs face a similar conundrum while living in the underground caverns of the sector, formerly mining operations. Here, shanty towns and pools of acidic chemical runoff characterise a rough life for dregs. Criminal gangs will occasionally surface to commit crimes in corporate territory before retreating.
|-|Monaco=
One of the major centres of tourism in Epsilon Eridani. The reputation of the moon of Aegir has spread far and wide throughout the Orion Spur, and with it comes tourists seeking to confirm or deny the rumours of the planet. Idris has transformed this region into a vast tourist haven, a cloying and romanticised version of the public perception of Eridani. In the eyes of tourists visiting Monaco, it is said that anything goes, and all manner of services, products and monuments can be found so long as you look hard enough. For the families there are the glamorous, bizarre and outright gimmicky tourist attractions of the main streets, immediately outside the hotels and surrounded by the dazzling lights of advertising, neon signs and flying billboards that pollute the sky with the incessant need to call attention to products. For the faux-bohemian, however, Idris has not neglected their wants, with an entire carefully managed and well patrolled dreg “slum” for them to visit. complete with faux dive bars and carefully managed waste in the road, any tourist that were to visit this sector would come out feeling as if they had seen the real Eridani, without ever having gone within 100 miles of actual danger, serving double time as a tourist attraction and smokescreen to the plight of the dregs. In amongst the splendour of the main tourist region and the artificial roughness of the disdainfully named “Dreg Village” comes what many actually visit Eridani for, the so-called Epsilon High-way. A single multi-mile long stretch of drugs, drink and vice arcs across the centre of Monaco, capturing the attention of passers by with graphic depictions of what products they offer.
|-|Panama=
This sector is one of the lesser talked about areas, having little importance other than as a docking station for large ships and cargo. The underground hosts an extremely large and dense network of warehouses, and one of the densest populations of dregs in Epsilon Eridani in order to staff it. Despite this, subsidiaries of Charon Shipping Services are still likely to bring workers in from outside of the region due to a general distrust of undermotivated dregs around valuable cargo. The sector is characterised by hostile wildlife in slums and streets alike, with a species of cross-bred rat being known to attack small children if left unattended. The environment itself is famously windy, the narrow corridors of buildings acting as wind tunnels that cause dangerous gales during storms. Instead of fixing this, wind shelters the size of a 21st century bus shelter have been installed along roads to shelter in during wind storms. Due to these factors, the region has been not so affectionately named “The Hurricane” by dregs who live there.
|-|Trinidad=
Located directly next to Panama, Trinidad is the industrial heart of the Eridani Corporate Council. The surface is smeared with refineries belching smog into the sky as underground rail transports produced goods to and from the warehouses of Panama. Mirroring its sister sector, Trinidad has a majority dreg population that lives in squalor around the factories they work in, either in shanty towns constructed between buildings or company towns that work on scrip pay and slum-like conditions. Many observers theorise that these company towns are a method of control that has prevented further workers rights movements from truly taking off in the system, forcing dregs to risk their food supply alongside their homes in order to take any form of industrial action. In comparison, reinstated and corporate managers are allowed to make use of the extensive rail network underneath this region, letting them arrive directly at their workplace with little to no exposure to the outside smog or squalid conditions of their subordinates.
|-|Grenada=
Forged in an agreement created by the lacking political capital of Zavodskoi Interstellar and the sudden need for a centralised base of operations for the newly developed Eridani Private Military Corporation, the formerly underdeveloped region of Grenada has developed over the past hundred years into a hub for weapons production, military training and electronic warfare development. The vast majority of the population are either reinstated, corporate or from outside of the system. While the region is technically contested between numerous mercenary groups, it has become possibly the safest region in Eridani, following the “Clean Front Door” doctrine of mercenary groups. Quality of life is higher here than the majority of Eridani, if still notably lower than the living standards of much of the Orion Spur.
|-|Seychelles=
The science and research hub of Epsilon Eridani, Seychelles boasts the environment of being carved into the ice of the Northern Pole of the moon. While other regions may feel as if they are tunnels between the large skyscrapers, Seychelles is quite literally made of tunnels to survive the cold environment outside of them. With an average surface temperature of -40 degrees celsius on the surface, the cold air is ideal for running the server farms required for 26th century research and saves immense money on cooling. These tunnels are little more than bare, carved stone in many places, however closer to the universities that litter this region of the moon metal plating has been installed so as to not offend the sensibilities of the students and researchers. Dregs, primarily making up the staffing of the day to day running of these facilities, face an entirely different conundrum. Heating is not universal to all tunnels, and while corporates may enjoy a steady 20 degrees celsius all year round, abandoned tunnels inhabited by the dregs face an average temperature of -10 degrees C and can plummet to -40 in the event of a breach.
|-|Faroe=
A recent acquisition, Faroe is in an unusual position compared to other sectors of Eridani. Despite the incredibly small number of manual labour positions, the sector has a large dreg population remaining from the period before Einstein Engines’ ownership of the sector. The vast majority of these dregs are homeless, living in communes situated within abandoned ex-Zeng Hu facilities making a living either selling scrap parts to pay for heating or scavenging for heating sources that still have valid DRM. Being the data centre of the communications giant’s Sol presence, Faroe takes advantage of the Southern Pole’s equally low temperatures to cool server racks for data farming and processing. The prior factors mix into a cocktail that results in Faroe being the centre of cyber-crime in Epsilon Eridani, with disenfranchised dregs who possess the necessary skills selling corporate secrets across all sectors after gathering data from in-person access to Einstein Engines servers. This culture of hacking has birthed legends of dreg folklore, including the infamous hacker Mairo Oku Mpu, who gained attention in 2587 for leaking classified Zavodskoi surveillance data.
|-|The Stations=
Outside of the populated moon is an uncontrolled span of stations all across the Eridanus Cluster. These stations do not come under the Council of Eight and are laws unto themselves unless otherwise stated. The vast majority of these stations are owned by megacorporations and their subsidiaries, but older stations may be sold to individuals or simply stolen by groups with the intent to start their own enterprises. Stations therefore come in all shapes and sizes, serving different purposes and being governed under different policies. The common thread connecting every station, however, is their precarious position in the system. While stations may be officially owned by megacorporations or small private enterprises, hostile takeovers and piracy run rampant in the far less militarised regions of the Eridanus Constellation, and refugees fleeing from one station to another is not an uncommon sight anywhere in the Constellation.

One of the major industries of the stations is resource extraction, either with skiffs designed to scoop gases from gas giants across the many systems or miner drones intended to pick every last mineral out of the asteroid belts of said gas giants. Other stations provide services such as rest stops, refuelling and repairs, with many artisanal shipyards making their home in Eridani with the intent to avoid copyright laws or heavy taxation implemented by corporate controlled governments to suppress competition. Of course, for any economic hub that is sprawling and decentralised, there is crime. Pirates and extortion rings run rampant, forming a noticeable percent of the GDP of Eridani as they refuel in less-than-reputable stations and take advantage of the low police and military presence to commit piracy, making use of Bluespace Interdictors in order to violently jerk ships out of bluespace travel and into dead space, shaking them down for the contents of their cargo hold before running away.

Due to the age of some of these stations, a noticeable population of offworlders exist of both the dreg and corporate variety. Roughly a quarter of the stations that exist in these systems are older than effective gravity generation, and as such either operate on the rotating wheel method of gravity generation or simply are free-floating. This makes a cottage industry of station tourism available to offworlders across the spur, run mostly by enterprising individuals and corporates who wish to strike out and start a “new” business under the Idris banner, in some ways making Eridani one of the most popular tourist locations with offworlders across the spur. Many of the dreg offworlders often consider themselves more offworlder than dreg, leading to many a cultural clash when meeting with dregs from gravity-laden stations.
</tabber>

== Housing ==
The commonly studied marvel of Eridanian engineering is the Corporate Habitation Block, referred to as “Habs” for short. Where regulation does not exist, convention thrives, and one can find convention to have taken a tight grip onto the common Hab. A mixture of office building, residential housing and commercial venture, the average corporate worker may never have to leave their specific block for their entire life, assuming they never have to attend an important meeting. The average habitation block consists of a floor by floor plan spread out over the largest plot of land that the construction company could purchase, sometimes at the cost of existing structures. While a lower floor may be a series of residential pods for data input specialists, secretaries and the other numerous rabble of the lowest echelons of the corporate ladder, and the floor above it the offices in which they infest during the rat race, the centre levels may become livable two, perhaps even three room apartments made cheap by their less than desirable position directly under nightclub or over the top of the ever-loud server rooms of the office corporate machine. Naturally, the palatial penthouses, adjacent to indoor gardens, community gyms and even having the rare luxury of natural sunlight weaving between the lattices of the complimentary air-vehicle garage sold inclusive, being the most coveted and expensive examples of Eridanian housing, are reserved for the most elite of the corporate world. Regional managers, CEOs’ second homes, the functional royalty of the corporate state which has been built across Eridani.

Lesser known to the outside world, but infamous to those aware of the true realities of Eridani, are the varieties of slums across the moon of Aegir. Most commonly are semi-permanent mountains of structures, stacked one atop the other in what can only be described as a game of jenga played with mortar and steel, affectionately nicknamed “Kowloons” after a 20th century structure of an almost identical nature. These structures occupy plots of land in which the ownership is either entirely disputed or the original owner cannot be located, providing safety from private property laws by virtue of angered parties either not existing or being too-long tied into legal battles to care about what is currently on the land. These structures are even denser than the densest of Habs, with entire families living in single rooms and businesses that pull separate functions at different times of day. Schools may become casinos at night, or restaurants may operate as a dentist during the day. The layout of these buildings can only be described as a rats’ nest, with narrow and winding tunnels leading deep within the artificially lit structure so far that it is not unheard of for outsiders to never be seen again after entering, presumed either dead or kidnapped. While living conditions may be of sub-human quality, there is a sense of community in these slums that is not experienced in corporate housing, and some reinstated dregs may privately express that they miss this sense of community. This community will not always last, however, and it is not unheard of for communities to be split apart by raids, entire slums emptied in weeks in order to facilitate the construction of future corporate housing or factories.

Other dregs take a more radical approach to housing, opting to occupy empty higher-tier apartments en-masse instead of risking the crime, disease and squalor of the slums. These squatters are almost always those with the least to lose, either a part of gangs or outright unemployed, and often form the vanguard that establishes longer lasting squats-turned-communities. This is much riskier for longevity compared to the slum, with squats often being cleared by corporate security in a matter of months. These squats have been known to last years, however, and some even decades, as veritable fortresses under siege deep within corporate territory. Some of these squats have entered the annals of dreg folklore, becoming rumoured safe havens or dens of legendary outlaws.

== Society ==

=== Work ===
Eridani forms what can only be described as a culture of pure work, with one’s job being the centre of their existence regardless of caste or class. Eridanians exist to work, and every aspect of culture is related back to the creation of value, the creation of wealth specifically. In the case of corporates, this is taken much more directly and manifests in hobbies having to be monetised, stress relief being a weak excuse for enjoying but a select few societally shared hobbies, and every waking hour is expected to be taken in the pursuit of wealth and power to some extent. This is less so in the case of dregs and some reinstated, who are more likely to take leisure in activities but are forced more by circumstances to monetise hobbies they hold actual skill in simply to make ends meet. Work culture in Eridani is considered toxic by the vast majority of the Spur, and even the most hardline of bootstrap mentality may baulk at the hours, or the absolute lack of overtime pay.

=== A Caste System ===
The one thing that everybody knows about the Eridanus Constellation is the system of classification that is functionally a caste system, wherein the status of “Corporate Citizen” is only granted to those who are employed by the corporations or client corporations of the Council of Eight.Those who are citizens enjoy full rights within the Eridani Corporate Council, however few those actually are, but this is dependent entirely on their remaining employed without more than a month’s gap between jobs at any point. Those who fail to stay employed in an office job are stripped of their citizenship, and if they choose to remain residents shall become of an entirely lower caste, forced to work in manual labour or not at all. This secondary caste are known as dregs, and while having the official name of non-citizens, their nickname holds much more power as both a derogatory term amongst corporates and a term of personal pride and empowerment amongst dregs. It is not uncommon for dregs to quote the immortal words from the trial of Shock Namkoisse, “I’m a dreg, you call me one behind my back, call me one to my face[...]”, when referred to as a “non-citizen”.

Between the corporate and the dreg is the reinstated, a somewhat temporary or probationary period between going back from dreg to corporate. People may be reinstated in two ways, becoming the conduit between management and the ground floor workers, typically as workplace managers or secretaries, or through coming under direct employment of a member of the corporate class. While the former may simply be a career in being a shift manager or foreman, the latter is on a much higher risk-reward relationship, with reinstated employees of corporates often being their personal mercenaries and wetworks teams of their employers. While reinstated “goons” may take much more risk, they have the potential to make great gains with their employer, and many find themselves retiring into comfy security management positions under their employer should they survive.

<Tabber>
|-|Corporate Citizens=
Referred to as corporates by the vast majority, citizens enjoy the most rights out of any of their fellow Eridanians. Their citizenship is tied entirely to their work, and as such a unique work culture persists, described by some as horrific in nature. The most major tenet, and the most famous, is the cutthroat nature of office politics within corporate culture, both metaphorically and literally. While at the lowest levels the likelihood of promotion is almost entirely tied to hours worked, eventually worked hours plateau in effectiveness and the only method of upwards movement is conspiracy, sabotage or loyalty to another person who excels in these fields. The highest echelons of corporate life have only ever achieved their positions through climbing a blood soaked ladder all the way to the top, and more often than not have added their fair share of blood to the rungs. Despite this, the status of the lowest corporates should not be confused with the situation of the highest up corporates, and to an extent lower on the corporate ladder is almost entirely devoid of bloodshed outside of the most ambitious of candidates, even if this difference is not normally recognised by those who have not lived within the corporate lifestyle of Eridani.

Corporate life is often defined as long periods of work punctuated by rest and burnout, and this is by-and-large true for the low to middle echelons, with working hours reaching 12 hours a day on the regular and breaks being few and far between. These long working hours have led to an increasingly ready-made lifestyle amongst corporate citizens, with many basic skills being reduced to hobbies or sold in premade end results. Stimulant abuse is one of the leading causes of non-violent death in the Eridanus Cluster. Despite all of this, control of one’s life does not only extend to work, and corporates often end up seeing themselves criticised for not spending their limited time calling family, or taking part in the handful of hobbies that are seen as acceptable for bonding with fellow co-workers. While familial relations are not exactly close by the standards of the rest of the spur, they are usually the closest relationship that corporates will have while living within the borders of Eridani. Relationships are usually relegated to the workplace otherwise, with romantic relationships often quickly turning to marriage for added benefits from the employer, as well as the ability to finally talk privately with a person without arousing suspicion. The divorce rate in Eridani is 65%.

Hobbies-wise, corporates only have a handful of cultural touchstones they share, primarily football (soccer) as games can be discussed in the office as an icebreaker, as well as video games, crosswords and drinking for pleasure. The final one is the most important, with much of Eridanian free time being spent heading to the bar with their coworkers and attempting to drink one another under the table, with the expectation that everybody stay at least as long as their manager, who in turn is expected to stay for as long as they can still walk home, ending in a standoff situation with their co-workers.

Corporates are heavily augmented, with the first augments often being tracheal implants intended to make breathing easier in the stagnant air of the lower floors of their hab block easier. Largely, augments are subsidised by their employer, ranging from ocular implants to improve productivity to typing-optimised prosthetic hands intended to avoid the drop in productivity of RSI before it can even begin, augments that can’t be removed are docked from the final paycheck when an employee leaves the company. The relationship with their roboticist is the most crucial one that a corporate can have, not only because they must truly trust their roboticist to avoid assassination while under the knife, but also due to a true cultural belief that anybody who you trust with your body is a friend. While some anthropologists theorise that this is a result of such isolation in corporate culture that even casual relationships become strong, others theorise that it may be instead a result of cultural bleedover from dregs who were reinstated into corporate life.
|-|Reinstated=
As with all things, the relationship between dregs and corporates is not black and white, and there are those who have ambitions to escape the slums and become corporates, either believing that even a coffin hotel is better than their current living conditions or that they can advance to middle management or even beyond. These people are referred to as “reinstated”, typically with varying levels of venom from dregs and varying levels of disdain from higher up corporates.

Reinstateds are the intermediate period between a dreg and a corporate, being treated as a trial period in which they prove their loyalty to the corporation over their former communities. There are two methods in which this can be done, through either being promoted to a position that connects corporate management to the working dreg population such as supervisor, or through taking advantage of their dubious societal position to become effectively personal mercenaries for a corporate, on the understanding that they will be given a position immediately under their corporate sponsor once their position is no longer of use. The former is much more common than the latter, however covert work is far from uncommon as a method of reinstatement.

The more mundane of the two is naturally a promotion. Positions of power are usually only handed to dregs on the understanding that they are already of an exceptional loyalty to the company, rather than out of competence in their role. Promotions may range from managerial positions over other manual labourers to secretaries to document mules, typically positions at the absolute bottom of the corporate ladder, if still on the corporate ladder at all compared to their former position. These positions are typically the least popular in their workplace, either being seen as beneath their corporate colleagues or as sell-outs and potential rats by dreg subordinates. These attitudes lead to the majority of attempted reinstatements failing, with this path of reinstatement often exposing even the most stoic of dregs’ breaking points as they lose the vast majority of their friends and even family, that which had been so important to them before, to their ambitions. Failed reinstatements are often forgiven, however, and regularly return to a comfortable familiarity. Some anthropologists theorise that this is the true cause of the lack of class mobility, rather than the architecture of the system itself.

Standard reinstatement is not entirely negative, however, and successful reinstatements often find themselves office celebrities, invited to their managers’ parties to entertain guests with novel skills such as cooking for guests from scratch, mixing cocktails and anecdotes of slum life. Many describe their early career as being more of a circus, and yet the most advantageous position of their lives as they are granted the opportunity to network with much more powerful individuals and potentially secure a promotion before the novelty of their existence wears off.

There is, however, a faster method of climbing ranks without needing to be explicitly subservient or working in an unpopular position, all at the cost of a much higher risk to life. This is the world of corporate covert operations, typically referred to as “wet works”, in which reinstated are held to a contract on the understanding that they will help their sponsor advance their career at any cost. Depending on one’s sponsor, this could be any illicit job from bodyguard to hacker to thief to assassin. The system typically follows the format that the reinstated in question will be a member of their sponsor’s entourage up until either their sponsor dismisses them and recruits them into their corporate team, or their sponsor dies and they are sent back to square one. These wet works teams often never truly retire, being called back in to assist with their former sponsor’s problems under pain of the acts they committed during their tenure being revealed to their new manager, however accepting these callings will almost always result in promotion. This lifestyle is often considered by many to be that of only the most ambitious potential corporates, those who have no interest in bowing down and who crave only the power of position.

Historically, before EPMC took over at the functional police force of the ECA, wet works reinstated filled the role of enforcers for the will of the corporate holders of the region, tackling potential revolutionary groups and crime syndicates that were causing trouble for their sponsors in surgical strikes. Famously, the personal bodyguards of the Einstein Engines representative to the Corporate Alliance were reinstated from Faroe who foiled an assassination attempt.
|-|Dregs=
Despite being a largely service based economy, The Eridani Corporate Alliance requires immense amounts of manual labour to maintain food security, cleanliness and internal manufacturing. To fill this niche, the dreg caste makes up roughly half of the planet’s population according to censuses, but estimates from humanitarian organisations claim that the population is more on the end of 60 to 65% of the planet’s population, when accounting for the internal dreg economy. A combination of extreme deprivation, more people than jobs and an almost total lack of patrols from EPMC peacekeepers has led to the vast majority of the economy within dreg settlements being under the control of organised crime. Be the shop owned by these organisations, or simply forced to pay protection money, there is not a lot of land that is independent of these pseudo-governmental syndicates within a typical Kowloon, not even accommodation. Despite this criminal incentive for profit, a loyal population benefits these gangs infinitely more, and as such living conditions are usually more spacious than the low-level corporate coffin hotels, instead having enough room for a bed, wardrobe and perhaps some shelves, even if bathrooms and toilets are shared to a hallway or even a floor.

The day-to-day life of a dreg can be considered rather varied in comparison to the average 8 to 10 worker of Epsilon Eridani, however this should not be confused with comfort or freedom. Variety comes in problems, primarily lacking work but also sudden loss of power at home, oxygenators breaking or food running out faster than expected. All of these can send a dreg out to purchase, scavenge or steal the necessary parts and equipment to solve their problems, leading to either reliance on the local gangs to pull them out of trouble in exchange for favours, or interaction with the rich barter economy that has formed in the place of sufficient wealth to support a community. In rare cases, some communities have abolished currency entirely and collectivised their resources, instead relying on the community to solve issues, however, this is more of an exception than a rule, with some crediting the cultural osmosis of the “Take care of number one” attitude of corporates permeating into dreg culture for this. This unpredictable lifestyle has created an unusual gap between dreg ages, either dying in their mid-20s from industrial or gang-land related accidents or dying of age related causes in their early 60s, with very little in between. This unusual gap has caused a sort of reverence of older dregs, who are seen as wiser and more capable for having managed to break the 25+ mark.

Unlike the reserved lifestyles of the corporate suits, dregs are known to form close families of either blood family or found family. Family comes before all in dreg communities, and it’s not uncommon for extended family up to one’s cousin to live under the same roof in compound-like shanty homes. These homes might consist of a central living room as well as personal rooms around the edges, with families eating in the courtyard. The only thing that could possibly even hope to match family bonds are community bonds, with even gangs typically helping their immediate community regardless of their known brutality. Recruitment for gangs happens most often inside of these community bubbles as a result.

Dregs are typically louder and more outspoken than their corporate counterparts, where “spilling honesties” is considered perfectly acceptable so long as it wasn’t done with malice in mind. This can make dregs seem extremely blunt to outsiders, and can lead to misunderstandings outside of Eridani space. A typical dreg conversation will consist of a lot of shouting, arm gestures and teasing, with playful violence not entirely being ruled out. This makes dreg conversations in their native language look like an argument to outsiders, even corporates may struggle to interpret friendliness properly facing these odds.

Similarly to corporates, dregs will usually take their augmentation seriously, having an even closer bond to their roboticist and rarely picking a new one unless it would be geographically impossible to return. Due to the large amount of outward migration by dregs, this attitude is fairly well known in roboticist circles and is regarded with either charm or suspicion, depending on the attitude of the roboticist. Dregs are sometimes described as “overfamiliar” outside of Eridani space.
</Tabber>

== Augmentation ==

=== Corporate Augments ===
Cybernetic modification is an integral part of Eridani’s cultural ideal. Simple tracheal augments are usually the first and the mildest step into augmentation, as they are needed for a lot of people to simply survive with Eridani’s thoroughly polluted air. Having other bionic enhancements is considered a symbol of wealth and prestige. Most electronics in the Federation are specifically designed to interact with augmented eyes – but they are also very functional on their own. A typical Eridanian eye implant can completely replace, or even surpass, a typical hand terminal in functionality – being used to browse the Extranet, communicate on chat relays, and more. As is typical for Eridanian technology, it is also swarmed with ads and is proven to constantly send data about the user’s activity to advertisers, making them somewhat unpopular outside the Federation. Augmentation is so tailored to the workplace in corporate society that people often find difficulty retraining if made redundant, as their augments will have to be replaced in order to suit their new job title. This adds a steep financial barrier to changing professions, and works to prevent upwards mobility without corporate sponsors. In extreme examples, hands may be given an extra finger in order to increase typing speed on legacy systems, at the cost of removing much of their dexterity for other tasks such as handwriting. These augments are often removed by the time the corporate citizens are able to find work outside of Eridani, being seen as too unsightly and off putting to clients. In some cases, synthskin is a requirement for reassignment to certain regions of the spur.

=== Dreg Augments ===
Dreg societies take the Eridanian fascination with augmentation technology to an extreme. While a typical Corporate may have no more than an augmented respiratory system, bionic eyes and a few neural implants, a Dreg may maim themselves to replace their flesh with superior, more durable metal – often at the expense of looking presentable. Sleek eye augmentations are removed from former workers by barely qualified surgeons to be replaced with crude prosthetics that do not aim to imitate the human form, but to simply provide functionality – often being, for example, completely filled with one colour, or having coloured scleras. The more brave may opt into removing their limbs for a metal replacement, which is often made “in the house”, with lower quality parts but higher maintainability. Dregs in general are largely proponents of “right to repair” when it comes to prosthetics, shunning branded augments in favour of ones that can be repaired at home or by their favourite roboticist. Function over form is another one of the more unusual ideologies of dreg augmentation, with dregs often caring little about how attractive their augments are so long as they outperform their original limb. As such, dreg roboticists have gained a rightful reputation for making insane or seemingly random choices with their parts lists that give their augments a unique charm, creating a niche market of enthusiasts who share a mindset. Within dreg circles, however, reputation is all, and dreg roboticists can go down within the rich folklore of dregs should they perform their best, amongst names such as David Insurgent and Amiyu Wires. A dreg that can perform augmentation installation could expect to see a large amount of business on this stereotype alone should they open a workshop once out of Epsilon Eridani.

== Eridani Life ==

=== Food ===
Eridanian cuisine has a wrongfully gained reputation of being extremely soy based, to the point of caricatures of Eridanian figures often depicting them holding some form of soy based product. Despite this stereotype, this is not entirely true. While Eridanian cuisine as a whole typically makes heavy use of soy based products, other ingredients make up as much of a staple of the Eridanian diet as much as soy does. Plantains, tofu, farmed fish, squash, beans and rice are all staple ingredients of Eridanian cuisine due to their ease of growth in a hydroponics heavy society. A major method of cooking is frying in nut oil, with Eridanians being known to fry anything that can fit in the pan and even some things that can’t, being served with the ever-present soy.

Some famous dishes from Eridani include:

* Puff-puffs, a fried dough ball with a crunchier outside than a donut. These are typically cooked in a pool of oil at the bottom of a pan, however the Eridanian version differs from tradition by adding ground ginger instead of the traditional pepper. Whether it’s acceptable to dip puff-puffs in synthetic cream is still a subject of fierce debate amongst all Eridanians akin to the debates over pineapple on pizza.
* Fufu dumplings with soup, the dumplings are made of pounded plantains and shaped into a ball to be served alongside soup. The soups might contain any number of vegetables, but traditional meats from their earth counterparts are replaced with shrimp, tofu or cod.
* Joloff rice, long grain rice fried in groundnut oil with tomatoes, onions and hot peppers. Again fish and meat substitutes make an appearance here. The dish is a favourite amongst all due to the ease of cooking and the fact that it can be made in one pot.
* Sushi, raw and prepared fish laid atop cooked rice. While a staple of many planets, Eridanian sushi has gained a life of its own, often being created with rare and expensive ingredients grown in the hydroponics and fish farms of the planet. As a cultural export, however, Eridanian sushi rather fails at the term sushi, as the entire affair is deep fat fried. This unusual and controversial perversion of sushi is often blamed upon dregs, who are believed to fry anything if they have oil.

Of course, not all food is made the same in Eridani. While dregs’ communal lifestyle allows them to make the food in a more traditional style with ingredients bought in bulk to save money or grown in stolen hydroponics setups, corporates often spend so much of their day at work that it’s preferred to buy their meals either ready or pre-prepared from a machine. Learning to prepare ingredients, for this reason, is often a skill that makes reinstated very popular amongst their colleagues. One major difference is the quantities of meat substitutes available between dregs and corporates, with corporates often eating triple or even quadruple the serving of expensive goods like fish compared to their dreg counterparts, and malnourishment being rife within dreg living due to the relatively small portions of key proteins being stretched over such long time periods.

Fast food chains exist that are also exclusive to Eridani, such as Shrimp Republic, a location that can be found in almost any Eridanian food court or habitation block. The ingredients often consist of some form of fried shrimp as well as various kinds of skewered foods for easy and enjoyable eating.

=== Music ===
Corporate music is considerably more well documented than dreg music when it comes to what is popular, the data algorithms gathering all instances of listening as well as attention spans to songs to form the perfect bands to be fed to the public en-masse. As a bizarre by-product of this feedback loop of attention, two major genres have emerged in Epsilon Eridani, at least amongst the citizens. Club music is one of the most popular Eridanian music genres, being their greatest cultural export and the most listened to genre amongst corporates due to the after work clubbing culture of corporates. Famous artists include Cricket, a DJ known for their use of repetitive but catchy melodies, and DJ Andrex, more famous for their surprisingly fluent lyrical content for club music. The other famous genre is group pop, entirely powered by algorithms and chart ratings, group pop bands usually consist of people who barely know one another working together to make music with help from their managers. These groups are extremely prone to splitting up, giving gossip magazines plenty of content to work off of and forming the basis of how names in the scene are passed around. It is said that you aren’t a group pop musician until your face is on the front of a magazine without your consent.

On the other end of the spectrum, dregs have taken to two more stereotypical favourite genres for an underclass, rap and punk. Both genres tend to focus on life in Dreg society, either the massive amounts of death and poverty, or blaming the system they live in for said death and poverty. While the two genres rarely mix, it isn’t uncommon for them to share lyrical patterns and chord progression. Generally, Eridanian punk is unusual from other genres of punk due to its heavy usage of distortion pedals, electronic instruments and synthesisers. Punk bands in Eridani last for years at a time, but are known to have extremely messy breakups when they get famous, assuming they ever leave their extremely localised sphere of influence. Eridanian rappers on the other hand tend to make a large spectacle of themselves once their music leaves their sphere of influence, hoping to get famous outside of Eridani and hopefully be able to escape. Kizee and Nitrogod are a famous pair of rappers from Seychelles whose music has escaped the constellation’s sphere of influence into the wider Orion Spur, lent largely to them by their aggressive sound and theme of general inequality and the hypocrisy of the wealthy invading their spaces to amuse themselves.

=== Movies ===
Movies and films in Eridani are a fairly insular market, with specific tastes of the local audience being received middlingly outside of the systems and vice versa. This is credited in large part to the prolific use of market analysis to write scripts, to the point that some movies are almost entirely algorithmically generated. Some of the more famous rules of these algorithms that always feature include:

* Anti-corporate activity should always result in the demise of the anti-corporate
* Non-citizen dregs may only appear as antagonists, sympathy is allowed in cases of redemption at the end of the production
* The protagonist should not show any form of anti-corporate sentiment, except when portraying their darkest hour
* Members of corporations may only be shown as villains in the event that they are acting against the best interests of the corporation

These restrictive rules have led to a series of set movie genres that are guaranteed to succeed within the borders of the ECA, and at least break even outside of it: Corporate dramas, action movies starring PMCs as the protagonists and adaptations of literature already popular within the ECA.

The unpopular content of these films has created another industry within dreg society however: Independent Movies. These are films created independent of the Idris subsidiary studios that dominate the industry in the ECA and are often created with the express purpose of defying these algorithmic and borderline propagandistic productions. Largely these are made by expelled movie crews and first generation dregs, who have the skills to make passable cinema with the limited equipment they have access to, however these existing skills can only do so much to push past the technical limitations of their existence. These films rarely see much viewing outside of dreg cinemas and communities, largely seen as oddities to be enjoyed by a cult following of outsiders who often take technical difficulties as artistic choices. These films often tackle the problems of daily dreg life, but can also be seen as indulgent power fantasy enjoyed by a downtrodden populace attempting to escape the realities of dreg living. The most popular of these types of film centre around well known dreg folklore figures, their story and their message to the downtrodden.

=== Language ===
The closest language the Corporate Alliance has to an official language is Tradeband, used to ease business transactions. It is the most used language in the workplace and typically any resident of the Eridanus Constellation can speak it well enough to conduct their job in Tradeband. This is not the only language in the Alliance however, and almost any human language can be spoken by at least a handful of people. Tourists often find it easier to ask for directions in the ECA as opposed to any other region sheerly on the odds that they bump into somebody that speaks their native language. On the other side of the coin, dregs stubbornly create their own culture to counter the corporate one, speaking Freespeak and similar other languages in their own society and typically only using Tradeband in corporate owned workplaces. This comes across as antiquated to outsiders, but is often viewed by dregs as a result of their highly independence seeking nature.

Dregs also speak a strange form of Freespeak that can only be described as a thieves’ cant, known as Spitting Proper. Spoken almost exclusively by dregs with ties to the criminal syndicates, the closest comparison one can make to a 21<sup>st</sup> century language would be Polari, and it holds a similar history, being used to mask discussions of criminal activity, grow fellowship amongst its speakers and hide information from anybody that may be eavesdropping. Spoken fluently by the criminal underbelly, it is near impenetrable to outsiders outside of famous words like “knab”. To an extent, most dreg teenagers speak enough of it with the intent to hide what they’re doing from their parents, assuming (often wrongfully) that their parents cannot Spit Proper.
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|+"Spitting Proper" Common Terms
!Word
!Meaning
|-
|Boss
|Insult, akin to calling your superior by a royal title.
|-
|Chief
|Respectful term for the person in charge.
|-
|Suit
|Corporate.
|-
|Fek
|Fuck. Works the same way.
|-
|Clacker
|Asshole. Insult and bodypart.
|-
|Drongo
|Idiot.
|-
|Biz
|Shit, in the sense of "I'm not doing that shit" or "[...] and shit like that"
|-
|Tick
|Sec (second). e.g "Just a tick"
|-
|Wrong boots
|Someone who is transgender. “Born in the wrong shoes” meaning born in the wrong body. '''''Not a derogatory term.'''''
|-
|Am/Ami/Amino
|Partner/boy/girlfriend. Romantic in nature.
|-
|Bov/Bovino
|Best friend.
|-
|Krok
|Outsider/non-dreg
|-
|Knab
|"Guy". Can refer to anyone.
|-
|Heavy
|Hired muscle. "Who's the heavy?"
|-
|Extra
|Hacker. Comes from hackers often being treated as unnecessary by inexperienced teams.
|-
|Mask
|Inside man.
|-
|Fixer
|Person who arranges for jobs. They may collect information, arrange meetings and find extra members for a crew.
|-
|Cashie
|Salesman, usually illicit.
|-
|Patcher
|Doctor of any kind, but usually used for ones that don't tell police about their patients.
|-
|Wrencher
|Engineer.
|-
|Robowrencher
|Roboticist, usually augmentation specialists.
|-
|Helmet
|Mercenary or police. Typically used to refer to mercenaries that take police work, rather than all mercenaries.
|-
|Gun
|General mercenary, regardless of if they use a gun.
|-
|Debt
|Job.
|-
|Cark
|Die, not murdered.
|-
|Creased
|Murdered.
|-
|Crease
|To murder.
|-
|Map
|Understand.
|-
|Tool
|Fix something.
|-
|Scroll
|Watch something happen.
|-
|Spit
|Speak.
|-
|Gab
|To have a conversation.
|-
|Scribble
|Write.
|-
|Riccy
|Rich. Sometimes derogatory, often used to describe a target for robbery.
|-
|Band
|Gang.
|-
|Banded
|Married.
|-
|Sniffer
|Brown-noser. Somebody who sucks up to authority.
|-
|Tail
|Related to the term rat. An informant.
|-
|Affirmed
|Understood, yes.
|-
|Running your/their trail
|Following you/somebody. Not necessarily bad.
|-
|Palm
|Steal.
|-
|Knock
|Beat up or damage.
|-
|Ice/Arctic
|Cool.
|-
|Sign the dots
|Get arrested.
|-
|In my turf
|In your face, breaking personal space.
|-
|Slacks
|Dregs who associate with suits. Derogatory term for reinstated.
|}

=== Dreg Folklore ===
Dregs have constructed a rich tapestry of legendary folk figures, some of which are simply of note while others can be considered tales intended to teach a lesson through the failures or successes of another real figure. While large parts of the folklore are embellished, it is often the case that every story’s primary beats are largely true, immortalising significant dregs in the imaginations of children and adults alike. Some figures are folk heroes, standing defiant against the corporations and the gangs to try and bring dregs into a new era, while others are villains and cautionary tales about what power does to a person. The vast majority, however, are simply interesting figures that have some moral behind their story, their fates ultimately doing little for the cause of the dregs except providing stories to entertain and educate the next generation. The requirements to become a folk figure are murky to say the least, but the most famous typically have the most outrageous stories, to the point that some are doubted to have existed at all.
Some famous folk heroes include:

<Tabber>
|-|David Insurgent=
Nicknamed for his revolutionary tendencies, David is believed to have been the first to draw blood against corporate mercenaries during the Thermostat Revolution. A native of Faroe, David was already well known for his combat related prosthetics and had a reputation for fair pricing and skilled craftsmanship. Most stories surrounding him take this angle, portraying him as an honest man turned revolutionary leader, ultimately betrayed by Little Mojisola in exchange for a sum of money that varies story to story.
|-|Mairo Oku Mpu=
Also known as Mairo Diver, she is a sort of living legend within the ECA, hero to dregs and horror story to corporate network security. While technically not quite a folk hero, due to her living status, she is so embroiled in myth and misinformation due to her secretive life that she has become entirely separate to her legend. Confirmed actions include leaking Zavodskoi Interstellar body-camera footage of war crimes committed by the corporation, releasing documents detailing the unethical nature of Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals test subject selection, and the destruction of an Idris server farm. However, the folk lore version of her can commit acts that are dubious if even possible through traditional hacking methods, while often emphasising her whimsical nature contrasted against her numerous warrants for arrest in all major nations. She is rumoured to reside in an abandoned space station with her co-conspirators and romantic partners, plural.
|-|Old Toyin=
Famous for one act and one act only, Old Toyin is both a hero and a cautionary tale of what happens when one stands up against the criminal syndicates that dominate the dreg world. While some take her story to be an example of what happens when an old dreg is underestimated, many take it as a warning to expect war if one attacks these gangs. Old Toyin’s story typically goes as such: Old Toyin had lived in her sector of her kowloon for almost her entire life, to the point that nobody on her corridor remembered when she moved in. One day, a group of the Three Star Syndicate demanded that she move out of her home, so that they may turn it into a gambling parlour. Old Toyin refused, stating they would have to kill her to get that property from her. After some arguing, the gangsters left, promising to return with more men. In this time, Old Toyin prepared dinner for her infirm neighbour, said goodbye to her grandson and turned her room into what could qualify as a fortress. By the time the gangsters returned, she had armed herself with a borrowed rifle and walled herself into the room with the help of her neighbours, having a handful of holes to fire out at the gangsters through. Details of the gun fight differ, but the death toll of the gangsters before they demolished the wall and killed Old Toyin is always two digits in all accounts. Almost all accounts emphasise that despite her age and bravery, she was spared no mercy and killed just as brutally as a young dreg would have been.
|-|Shock Namkoisse=
A famous singer and advocate for dreg freedom, Namkoisse is often a stand-in for stories that were very unlikely to have actually been him. His role in dreg culture is as the hero everybody can love, and documentation of his real life is often dreary in comparison to his folklore existence. Namkoisse has been confirmed to have organised illegal raves inside corporate offices, his claim to fame, and ultimately was charged and jailed for his actions. His trial was a show trial, intended to show the dreg population what happens to rebels, but instead it immortalised him as he read a prepared speech on the witness podium and openly criticised the language and methodology of the court. He has since become the symbol of social rebellion against corporations, and many an aspiring musician have copied his illegal raves in his honour.
</Tabber>

More sparingly is the use of folk villains, usually cautionary tales intended to warn others against considering corporate affiliation. In particular is a famous story that almost every dreg knows:<blockquote>Malcolm Oyibo is not so much a figure with a consistent story more than a stock character, a villain that fills the void in the collective memory of dreg folklore when telling the story of a more obscure hero. Malcolm is more of a series of characteristics that make for a villain to the story, inconsistent and often not even in the same job twice. He may be a quartermaster one day, or a mercenary the next, or maybe even a CEO. The important part is that he is a backstabber and a foreigner that desperately seeks to be accepted by his corporate overlords, a rather naked allegory for the view of dregs on reinstated.</blockquote>And finally come a unique aspect of dreg folklore, at least in terms of modern folklore: legendary locations. These locations may range from safe-havens for the most wanted of Epsilon Eridani’s underworld to rumoured paradises of workers’ rights within the very borders of the hell scape that is Aegir’s moon. Some of these locations include:

* The Killing Floor: Bar and pilgrimage site for any starry eyed revolutionary, rumoured to be the favourite haunt of David Insurgent and many of the Thermostat Revolutionaries. Today it stands as a monument and tourist trap for the revolutionary undercurrent that slowly meanders through dreg culture. The folklore version, however, is a hive of revolutionary activity in which the intellectuals of dreg liberation come to exchange ideas.
* Haven: A simple and descriptive name, Haven is a rumoured squat within a corporate hab block that is so well defended that it is functionally a microstate within Eridanian territory. Some call it an ongoing revolution, while others describe it more as the only truly neutral ground for major figures to meet without worrying about being assassinated.

* The Office: An ironic name for possibly the most secure and brutal prison in the Orion Spur. The Office is rumoured to have every defence imaginable, from air defences to closing wall traps to laser grids closing cells off, only the hardest and most dangerous the Spur has to offer are supposedly housed here. Outsiders often believe The Office is actually many prisons amalgamated into a single prison in the collective consciousness of dregs.

[[Category: Lore]]

NanoTrasen

2024-01-30T17:32:31Z

Monty: Forgot Zeng lmao

{{OrgBox|name=NanoTrasen|image=NanotrasenLogo.png|hq=The Brick, Tau Ceti, [[UNIP]]|motto=Depth Over Breadth|founded=2168|major=Bluespace Research
Data Farming
Electronics Manufacture|minor=Food Delivery
Online Gambling|affiliates=[[UNIP]]
[[Zeng Hu Pharmaceuticals]]|rivals=[[Idris Incorporated]]|theme=183854}}[[File:NanotrasenLogo.png|thumb|The logo of the Nanotrasen corporation, designed in 2300 as a part of the new century rebrandings.]]Founded in 2168 by an initial consortium of parties that stood to gain from bluespace's discovery, Nanotrasen has since become the leading name in Bluespace related research, applying it to computers and electronics of all varieties. While initially a research corporation tied to other, Earthly corporations, they have since shed their ties to such small-scale interests and become a megacorporation whose concerns affect the entire Orion Spur. Nowadays, they are part research giant, part manufacturing giant and full time entertainment extraordinaires.

== What do they do? ==
<Tabber>
|-|Electronics=
The biggest claim to fame that Nanotrasen hold is their advanced computers. Making use of bluespace principles and trace amounts of phoron, Nanotrasen has managed to corner a market for computers that still follow Moore's Law, and their chips are used in the vast majority of modern electronics. Nanotrasen's computers have become so ubiquitous that their logo is present in almost every device's default background, and their systems are often treated as the industry standard for everything from communications to integrated computers.
|-|Big Data=
This domination of communications and technology has given Nanotrasen a very lucrative business, one that was practically thrown into their laps: data harvesting. The company has servers established all over the Orion Spur for gathering seemingly random and assorted data from all of their services, processing it to look for patterns and then selling it to the highest bidder. Whether it be the purchasing habits of Biesellite males aged 18 to 23 or the activism and political beliefs of Himean immigrants, Nanotrasen has the important data to act upon ready for a price.
|-|A Gambling Empire=
So what does a company do with the most ubiquitous electronics in the market and the best data to understand the psychology of consumerism do? Start an online gambling empire, naturally. Making use of research supported by Nanotrasen data gathering, in co-operation with Zeng-Hu psychologists, Nanotrasen controls a large portion of the online gambling market through a wide variety of websites covering every game of every planet and nation and species. The money that pays out on a human's blackjack win in Biesel could have come from a Tajaran's loss betting on the Velhalktai while sitting in a shuttle in Skrellian space. This massive share of the gambling market has drawn the ire of Idris, and regularly leads to lawsuits and counter-suits arguing over gambling technologies.
|-|Dinner To Your Door=
Further ingratiating themselves into a rivalry with Idris, Nanotrasen released an app onto any device with a Nanotrasen chip for ordering food from nearby "ghost-kitchen" restaurants to your door. Created after their merger with Getmore Food Company in 2398, the app is called "StellarBite™️" and can deliver the same recipe to anywhere in the Orion Spur assuming service reaches. Despite having no actual storefront, the expansive and regionalised menu is wildly popular with the general public and there are even online guides on fooling the app into giving you regional dishes when on other planets. Despite controversies over the payment of delivery drivers and the use of flying drones sometimes damaging meals in transit, the app remains a steadfast part of Biesel culture and stays firmly installed on almost every device sold by Nanotrasen to this day.
|-|Political Ambitions=
Data and investment give Nanotrasen one more major client: governments. Through acts of "philanthropy" and political favours to the correct candidates over the last circa 300 years, Nanotrasen has become a major power in UNIP politics, effectively being the entire reason that Biesel maintains its semi-autonomous status within the Protectorate and also the major force behind its extreme economic development. With so much money tied into Biesel, Nanotrasen has become an almost defacto government for the area, sometimes having even more power than the actual Biesellite government.
</Tabber>

== Corporate Culture ==
Despite being so long ago, Nanotrasen very much holds onto its research lab origins, believing that the next big breakthrough is what should define one's career. While the manufacturing and catering aspects of the company are relatively unaffected by this, and mostly just manifest this belief through a generic culture of achieving better numbers at one's station, every other aspect of the company genuinely believes that if their career does not result in a big change in how the company operates that they are a failure. This has resulted in a highly competitive work environment, in which it is common to see people stressing near the end of their contracts that they might not have achieved enough to be able to happily retire. At some levels of the company, there are humans in their eighties or even nineties still slaving away at research hoping to find their career defining breakthrough.

This culture of excellence could not be enforced, however, without a much darker side to it. While employees are almost entirely promoted on skill and their value to the company, that value is not only calculated by their work ethic or ability. Another way to pad an otherwise mediocre promotion opportunity is to show loyalty through action: reporting coworkers who have bad work ethic. Serving important data to supervisors, either through spying or trawling social media, as well as proving when a fellow employee is holding back important research data to gun for a promotion has helped to create an almost paranoid feeling within the labs of Nanotrasen.

The politics is not just coincidental. With Nanotrasen's fingers being in every pie in Biesel, their money is incredibly tied to one region of the Orion Spur. This means that any Biesel concern is a Nanotrasen concern, and Nanotrasen employees are given small amounts of stock to be worried for their portfolios if Biesel has any issue. As far as most employees see it, regardless of their nationality, Biesel's problem is their problem.

== Relationships ==

=== United Nations Interstellar Protectorate ===
Nanotrasen is Biesel, and Biesel is Nanotrasen. When discussing Nanotrasen's relationship with The Protectorate, one would need only look at the amount of leverage they have been granted in Biesel, allowing The Protectorate to have an incredibly economically productive cash-cow to milk for their new and expanding ambitions. The existence of Biesel and its infinitely growing wealth has given Nanotrasen a highly positive, influential position with UNIP, and made their working relationship something symbiotic.

=== Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals ===
Being aligned in their shared fields of research, Nanotrasen and Zeng-Hu often make an effort to work together on large projects, especially ones of a mechanical and medical nature. Huge amounts of machinery that was designed with Zeng-Hu expertise is actually manufactured using Nanotrasen computers and Nanotrasen manufacturing plants. Where Zeng-Hu provides knowledge of the natural world, Nanotrasen bends it to its will in order to make their discoveries useful. Anti-corporate propaganda often makes use of drawings of the logos of these corporations kissing, insinuating the functional monopoly of their close co-operation.

=== Idris Incorporated ===
Idris and Nanotrasen's relationship is proof that two companies can be eternally suing one another and yet still survive. A rivalry like no other, Idris has never taken kindly to Nanotrasen encroaching on the markets that make up their entire existence, and has made extensive use of both their ballooned legal team and hostile policy influencing to try and run Nanotrasen out of prospective territories. Some people might describe their relationship as the longest slap-fight in human history, with both corporations even going so far as to, when one corporation sponsors one sports team, the other will sponsor their rival sports team out of spite.
[[Category:Lore]]

NanoTrasen

2024-01-30T17:31:09Z

Monty: Filled in the NT organistion box

{{OrgBox|name=NanoTrasen|image=NanotrasenLogo.png|hq=The Brick, Tau Ceti, [[UNIP]]|motto=Depth Over Breadth|founded=2168|major=Bluespace Research
Data Farming
Electronics Manufacture|minor=Food Delivery
Online Gambling|affiliates=[[UNIP]]|rivals=[[Idris Incorporated]]|theme=183854}}[[File:NanotrasenLogo.png|thumb|The logo of the Nanotrasen corporation, designed in 2300 as a part of the new century rebrandings.]]Founded in 2168 by an initial consortium of parties that stood to gain from bluespace's discovery, Nanotrasen has since become the leading name in Bluespace related research, applying it to computers and electronics of all varieties. While initially a research corporation tied to other, Earthly corporations, they have since shed their ties to such small-scale interests and become a megacorporation whose concerns affect the entire Orion Spur. Nowadays, they are part research giant, part manufacturing giant and full time entertainment extraordinaires.

== What do they do? ==
<Tabber>
|-|Electronics=
The biggest claim to fame that Nanotrasen hold is their advanced computers. Making use of bluespace principles and trace amounts of phoron, Nanotrasen has managed to corner a market for computers that still follow Moore's Law, and their chips are used in the vast majority of modern electronics. Nanotrasen's computers have become so ubiquitous that their logo is present in almost every device's default background, and their systems are often treated as the industry standard for everything from communications to integrated computers.
|-|Big Data=
This domination of communications and technology has given Nanotrasen a very lucrative business, one that was practically thrown into their laps: data harvesting. The company has servers established all over the Orion Spur for gathering seemingly random and assorted data from all of their services, processing it to look for patterns and then selling it to the highest bidder. Whether it be the purchasing habits of Biesellite males aged 18 to 23 or the activism and political beliefs of Himean immigrants, Nanotrasen has the important data to act upon ready for a price.
|-|A Gambling Empire=
So what does a company do with the most ubiquitous electronics in the market and the best data to understand the psychology of consumerism do? Start an online gambling empire, naturally. Making use of research supported by Nanotrasen data gathering, in co-operation with Zeng-Hu psychologists, Nanotrasen controls a large portion of the online gambling market through a wide variety of websites covering every game of every planet and nation and species. The money that pays out on a human's blackjack win in Biesel could have come from a Tajaran's loss betting on the Velhalktai while sitting in a shuttle in Skrellian space. This massive share of the gambling market has drawn the ire of Idris, and regularly leads to lawsuits and counter-suits arguing over gambling technologies.
|-|Dinner To Your Door=
Further ingratiating themselves into a rivalry with Idris, Nanotrasen released an app onto any device with a Nanotrasen chip for ordering food from nearby "ghost-kitchen" restaurants to your door. Created after their merger with Getmore Food Company in 2398, the app is called "StellarBite™️" and can deliver the same recipe to anywhere in the Orion Spur assuming service reaches. Despite having no actual storefront, the expansive and regionalised menu is wildly popular with the general public and there are even online guides on fooling the app into giving you regional dishes when on other planets. Despite controversies over the payment of delivery drivers and the use of flying drones sometimes damaging meals in transit, the app remains a steadfast part of Biesel culture and stays firmly installed on almost every device sold by Nanotrasen to this day.
|-|Political Ambitions=
Data and investment give Nanotrasen one more major client: governments. Through acts of "philanthropy" and political favours to the correct candidates over the last circa 300 years, Nanotrasen has become a major power in UNIP politics, effectively being the entire reason that Biesel maintains its semi-autonomous status within the Protectorate and also the major force behind its extreme economic development. With so much money tied into Biesel, Nanotrasen has become an almost defacto government for the area, sometimes having even more power than the actual Biesellite government.
</Tabber>

== Corporate Culture ==
Despite being so long ago, Nanotrasen very much holds onto its research lab origins, believing that the next big breakthrough is what should define one's career. While the manufacturing and catering aspects of the company are relatively unaffected by this, and mostly just manifest this belief through a generic culture of achieving better numbers at one's station, every other aspect of the company genuinely believes that if their career does not result in a big change in how the company operates that they are a failure. This has resulted in a highly competitive work environment, in which it is common to see people stressing near the end of their contracts that they might not have achieved enough to be able to happily retire. At some levels of the company, there are humans in their eighties or even nineties still slaving away at research hoping to find their career defining breakthrough.

This culture of excellence could not be enforced, however, without a much darker side to it. While employees are almost entirely promoted on skill and their value to the company, that value is not only calculated by their work ethic or ability. Another way to pad an otherwise mediocre promotion opportunity is to show loyalty through action: reporting coworkers who have bad work ethic. Serving important data to supervisors, either through spying or trawling social media, as well as proving when a fellow employee is holding back important research data to gun for a promotion has helped to create an almost paranoid feeling within the labs of Nanotrasen.

The politics is not just coincidental. With Nanotrasen's fingers being in every pie in Biesel, their money is incredibly tied to one region of the Orion Spur. This means that any Biesel concern is a Nanotrasen concern, and Nanotrasen employees are given small amounts of stock to be worried for their portfolios if Biesel has any issue. As far as most employees see it, regardless of their nationality, Biesel's problem is their problem.

== Relationships ==

=== United Nations Interstellar Protectorate ===
Nanotrasen is Biesel, and Biesel is Nanotrasen. When discussing Nanotrasen's relationship with The Protectorate, one would need only look at the amount of leverage they have been granted in Biesel, allowing The Protectorate to have an incredibly economically productive cash-cow to milk for their new and expanding ambitions. The existence of Biesel and its infinitely growing wealth has given Nanotrasen a highly positive, influential position with UNIP, and made their working relationship something symbiotic.

=== Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals ===
Being aligned in their shared fields of research, Nanotrasen and Zeng-Hu often make an effort to work together on large projects, especially ones of a mechanical and medical nature. Huge amounts of machinery that was designed with Zeng-Hu expertise is actually manufactured using Nanotrasen computers and Nanotrasen manufacturing plants. Where Zeng-Hu provides knowledge of the natural world, Nanotrasen bends it to its will in order to make their discoveries useful. Anti-corporate propaganda often makes use of drawings of the logos of these corporations kissing, insinuating the functional monopoly of their close co-operation.

=== Idris Incorporated ===
Idris and Nanotrasen's relationship is proof that two companies can be eternally suing one another and yet still survive. A rivalry like no other, Idris has never taken kindly to Nanotrasen encroaching on the markets that make up their entire existence, and has made extensive use of both their ballooned legal team and hostile policy influencing to try and run Nanotrasen out of prospective territories. Some people might describe their relationship as the longest slap-fight in human history, with both corporations even going so far as to, when one corporation sponsors one sports team, the other will sponsor their rival sports team out of spite.
[[Category:Lore]]

NanoTrasen

2024-01-26T03:15:24Z

Monty: Added logo

[[File:NanotrasenLogo.png|thumb|The logo of the Nanotrasen corporation, designed in 2300 as a part of the new century rebrandings.]]
Founded in 2168 by an initial consortium of parties that stood to gain from bluespace's discovery, Nanotrasen has since become the leading name in Bluespace related research, applying it to computers and electronics of all varieties. While initially a research corporation tied to other, Earthly corporations, they have since shed their ties to such small-scale interests and become a megacorporation whose concerns affect the entire Orion Spur. Nowadays, they are part research giant, part manufacturing giant and full time entertainment extraordinaires.

== What do they do? ==
<Tabber>
|-|Electronics=
The biggest claim to fame that Nanotrasen hold is their advanced computers. Making use of bluespace principles and trace amounts of phoron, Nanotrasen has managed to corner a market for computers that still follow Moore's Law, and their chips are used in the vast majority of modern electronics. Nanotrasen's computers have become so ubiquitous that their logo is present in almost every device's default background, and their systems are often treated as the industry standard for everything from communications to integrated computers.
|-|Big Data=
This domination of communications and technology has given Nanotrasen a very lucrative business, one that was practically thrown into their laps: data harvesting. The company has servers established all over the Orion Spur for gathering seemingly random and assorted data from all of their services, processing it to look for patterns and then selling it to the highest bidder. Whether it be the purchasing habits of Biesellite males aged 18 to 23 or the activism and political beliefs of Himean immigrants, Nanotrasen has the important data to act upon ready for a price.
|-|A Gambling Empire=
So what does a company do with the most ubiquitous electronics in the market and the best data to understand the psychology of consumerism do? Start an online gambling empire, naturally. Making use of research supported by Nanotrasen data gathering, in co-operation with Zeng-Hu psychologists, Nanotrasen controls a large portion of the online gambling market through a wide variety of websites covering every game of every planet and nation and species. The money that pays out on a human's blackjack win in Biesel could have come from a Tajaran's loss betting on the Velhalktai while sitting in a shuttle in Skrellian space. This massive share of the gambling market has drawn the ire of Idris, and regularly leads to lawsuits and counter-suits arguing over gambling technologies.
|-|Dinner To Your Door=
Further ingratiating themselves into a rivalry with Idris, Nanotrasen released an app onto any device with a Nanotrasen chip for ordering food from nearby "ghost-kitchen" restaurants to your door. Created after their merger with Getmore Food Company in 2398, the app is called "StellarBite™️" and can deliver the same recipe to anywhere in the Orion Spur assuming service reaches. Despite having no actual storefront, the expansive and regionalised menu is wildly popular with the general public and there are even online guides on fooling the app into giving you regional dishes when on other planets. Despite controversies over the payment of delivery drivers and the use of flying drones sometimes damaging meals in transit, the app remains a steadfast part of Biesel culture and stays firmly installed on almost every device sold by Nanotrasen to this day.
|-|Political Ambitions=
Data and investment give Nanotrasen one more major client: governments. Through acts of "philanthropy" and political favours to the correct candidates over the last circa 300 years, Nanotrasen has become a major power in UNIP politics, effectively being the entire reason that Biesel maintains its semi-autonomous status within the Protectorate and also the major force behind its extreme economic development. With so much money tied into Biesel, Nanotrasen has become an almost defacto government for the area, sometimes having even more power than the actual Biesellite government.
</Tabber>

== Corporate Culture ==
Despite being so long ago, Nanotrasen very much holds onto its research lab origins, believing that the next big breakthrough is what should define one's career. While the manufacturing and catering aspects of the company are relatively unaffected by this, and mostly just manifest this belief through a generic culture of achieving better numbers at one's station, every other aspect of the company genuinely believes that if their career does not result in a big change in how the company operates that they are a failure. This has resulted in a highly competitive work environment, in which it is common to see people stressing near the end of their contracts that they might not have achieved enough to be able to happily retire. At some levels of the company, there are humans in their eighties or even nineties still slaving away at research hoping to find their career defining breakthrough.

This culture of excellence could not be enforced, however, without a much darker side to it. While employees are almost entirely promoted on skill and their value to the company, that value is not only calculated by their work ethic or ability. Another way to pad an otherwise mediocre promotion opportunity is to show loyalty through action: reporting coworkers who have bad work ethic. Serving important data to supervisors, either through spying or trawling social media, as well as proving when a fellow employee is holding back important research data to gun for a promotion has helped to create an almost paranoid feeling within the labs of Nanotrasen.

The politics is not just coincidental. With Nanotrasen's fingers being in every pie in Biesel, their money is incredibly tied to one region of the Orion Spur. This means that any Biesel concern is a Nanotrasen concern, and Nanotrasen employees are given small amounts of stock to be worried for their portfolios if Biesel has any issue. As far as most employees see it, regardless of their nationality, Biesel's problem is their problem.

== Relationships ==

=== United Nations Interstellar Protectorate ===
Nanotrasen is Biesel, and Biesel is Nanotrasen. When discussing Nanotrasen's relationship with The Protectorate, one would need only look at the amount of leverage they have been granted in Biesel, allowing The Protectorate to have an incredibly economically productive cash-cow to milk for their new and expanding ambitions. The existence of Biesel and its infinitely growing wealth has given Nanotrasen a highly positive, influential position with UNIP, and made their working relationship something symbiotic.

=== Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals ===
Being aligned in their shared fields of research, Nanotrasen and Zeng-Hu often make an effort to work together on large projects, especially ones of a mechanical and medical nature. Huge amounts of machinery that was designed with Zeng-Hu expertise is actually manufactured using Nanotrasen computers and Nanotrasen manufacturing plants. Where Zeng-Hu provides knowledge of the natural world, Nanotrasen bends it to its will in order to make their discoveries useful. Anti-corporate propaganda often makes use of drawings of the logos of these corporations kissing, insinuating the functional monopoly of their close co-operation.

=== Idris Incorporated ===
Idris and Nanotrasen's relationship is proof that two companies can be eternally suing one another and yet still survive. A rivalry like no other, Idris has never taken kindly to Nanotrasen encroaching on the markets that make up their entire existence, and has made extensive use of both their ballooned legal team and hostile policy influencing to try and run Nanotrasen out of prospective territories. Some people might describe their relationship as the longest slap-fight in human history, with both corporations even going so far as to, when one corporation sponsors one sports team, the other will sponsor their rival sports team out of spite.
[[Category:Lore]]

File:NanotrasenLogo.png

2024-01-26T03:14:15Z

Monty:

The logo for the corporation Nanotrasen

NanoTrasen

2024-01-26T03:10:22Z

Monty: Added lore tag

Founded in 2168 by an initial consortium of parties that stood to gain from bluespace's discovery, Nanotrasen has since become the leading name in Bluespace related research, applying it to computers and electronics of all varieties. While initially a research corporation tied to other, Earthly corporations, they have since shed their ties to such small-scale interests and become a megacorporation whose concerns affect the entire Orion Spur. Nowadays, they are part research giant, part manufacturing giant and full time entertainment extraordinaires.

== What do they do? ==
<Tabber>
|-|Electronics=
The biggest claim to fame that Nanotrasen hold is their advanced computers. Making use of bluespace principles and trace amounts of phoron, Nanotrasen has managed to corner a market for computers that still follow Moore's Law, and their chips are used in the vast majority of modern electronics. Nanotrasen's computers have become so ubiquitous that their logo is present in almost every device's default background, and their systems are often treated as the industry standard for everything from communications to integrated computers.
|-|Big Data=
This domination of communications and technology has given Nanotrasen a very lucrative business, one that was practically thrown into their laps: data harvesting. The company has servers established all over the Orion Spur for gathering seemingly random and assorted data from all of their services, processing it to look for patterns and then selling it to the highest bidder. Whether it be the purchasing habits of Biesellite males aged 18 to 23 or the activism and political beliefs of Himean immigrants, Nanotrasen has the important data to act upon ready for a price.
|-|A Gambling Empire=
So what does a company do with the most ubiquitous electronics in the market and the best data to understand the psychology of consumerism do? Start an online gambling empire, naturally. Making use of research supported by Nanotrasen data gathering, in co-operation with Zeng-Hu psychologists, Nanotrasen controls a large portion of the online gambling market through a wide variety of websites covering every game of every planet and nation and species. The money that pays out on a human's blackjack win in Biesel could have come from a Tajaran's loss betting on the Velhalktai while sitting in a shuttle in Skrellian space. This massive share of the gambling market has drawn the ire of Idris, and regularly leads to lawsuits and counter-suits arguing over gambling technologies.
|-|Dinner To Your Door=
Further ingratiating themselves into a rivalry with Idris, Nanotrasen released an app onto any device with a Nanotrasen chip for ordering food from nearby "ghost-kitchen" restaurants to your door. Created after their merger with Getmore Food Company in 2398, the app is called "StellarBite™️" and can deliver the same recipe to anywhere in the Orion Spur assuming service reaches. Despite having no actual storefront, the expansive and regionalised menu is wildly popular with the general public and there are even online guides on fooling the app into giving you regional dishes when on other planets. Despite controversies over the payment of delivery drivers and the use of flying drones sometimes damaging meals in transit, the app remains a steadfast part of Biesel culture and stays firmly installed on almost every device sold by Nanotrasen to this day.
|-|Political Ambitions=
Data and investment give Nanotrasen one more major client: governments. Through acts of "philanthropy" and political favours to the correct candidates over the last circa 300 years, Nanotrasen has become a major power in UNIP politics, effectively being the entire reason that Biesel maintains its semi-autonomous status within the Protectorate and also the major force behind its extreme economic development. With so much money tied into Biesel, Nanotrasen has become an almost defacto government for the area, sometimes having even more power than the actual Biesellite government.
</Tabber>

== Corporate Culture ==
Despite being so long ago, Nanotrasen very much holds onto its research lab origins, believing that the next big breakthrough is what should define one's career. While the manufacturing and catering aspects of the company are relatively unaffected by this, and mostly just manifest this belief through a generic culture of achieving better numbers at one's station, every other aspect of the company genuinely believes that if their career does not result in a big change in how the company operates that they are a failure. This has resulted in a highly competitive work environment, in which it is common to see people stressing near the end of their contracts that they might not have achieved enough to be able to happily retire. At some levels of the company, there are humans in their eighties or even nineties still slaving away at research hoping to find their career defining breakthrough.

This culture of excellence could not be enforced, however, without a much darker side to it. While employees are almost entirely promoted on skill and their value to the company, that value is not only calculated by their work ethic or ability. Another way to pad an otherwise mediocre promotion opportunity is to show loyalty through action: reporting coworkers who have bad work ethic. Serving important data to supervisors, either through spying or trawling social media, as well as proving when a fellow employee is holding back important research data to gun for a promotion has helped to create an almost paranoid feeling within the labs of Nanotrasen.

The politics is not just coincidental. With Nanotrasen's fingers being in every pie in Biesel, their money is incredibly tied to one region of the Orion Spur. This means that any Biesel concern is a Nanotrasen concern, and Nanotrasen employees are given small amounts of stock to be worried for their portfolios if Biesel has any issue. As far as most employees see it, regardless of their nationality, Biesel's problem is their problem.

== Relationships ==

=== United Nations Interstellar Protectorate ===
Nanotrasen is Biesel, and Biesel is Nanotrasen. When discussing Nanotrasen's relationship with The Protectorate, one would need only look at the amount of leverage they have been granted in Biesel, allowing The Protectorate to have an incredibly economically productive cash-cow to milk for their new and expanding ambitions. The existence of Biesel and its infinitely growing wealth has given Nanotrasen a highly positive, influential position with UNIP, and made their working relationship something symbiotic.

=== Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals ===
Being aligned in their shared fields of research, Nanotrasen and Zeng-Hu often make an effort to work together on large projects, especially ones of a mechanical and medical nature. Huge amounts of machinery that was designed with Zeng-Hu expertise is actually manufactured using Nanotrasen computers and Nanotrasen manufacturing plants. Where Zeng-Hu provides knowledge of the natural world, Nanotrasen bends it to its will in order to make their discoveries useful. Anti-corporate propaganda often makes use of drawings of the logos of these corporations kissing, insinuating the functional monopoly of their close co-operation.

=== Idris Incorporated ===
Idris and Nanotrasen's relationship is proof that two companies can be eternally suing one another and yet still survive. A rivalry like no other, Idris has never taken kindly to Nanotrasen encroaching on the markets that make up their entire existence, and has made extensive use of both their ballooned legal team and hostile policy influencing to try and run Nanotrasen out of prospective territories. Some people might describe their relationship as the longest slap-fight in human history, with both corporations even going so far as to, when one corporation sponsors one sports team, the other will sponsor their rival sports team out of spite.
[[Category:Lore]]

NanoTrasen

2024-01-26T03:09:37Z

Monty: Created page with "Founded in 2168 by an initial consortium of parties that stood to gain from bluespace's discovery, Nanotrasen has since become the leading name in Bluespace related research, applying it to computers and electronics of all varieties. While initially a research corporation tied to other, Earthly corporations, they have since shed their ties to such small-scale interests and become a megacorporation whose concerns affect the entire Orion Spur. Nowadays, they are part resea..."

User:Monty/Sandbox

2024-01-26T01:37:49Z

Monty:

This is the sandbox, stop peanut gallerying or I'll throw sand in your eyes

Founded in 2168 by an initial consortium of parties that stood to gain from bluespace's discovery, Nanotrasen has since become the leading name in Bluespace related research, applying it to computers and electronics of all varieties. While initially a research corporation tied to other, Earthly corporations, they have since shed their ties to such small-scale interests and become a megacorporation whose concerns affect the entire Orion Spur. Nowadays, they are part research giant, part manufacturing giant and full time entertainment extraordinaires.

== What do they do? ==
<Tabber>
|-|Electronics=
The biggest claim to fame that Nanotrasen hold is their advanced computers. Making use of bluespace principles and trace amounts of phoron, Nanotrasen has managed to corner a market for computers that still follow Moore's Law, and their chips are used in the vast majority of modern electronics. Nanotrasen's computers have become so ubiquitous that their logo is present in almost every device's default background, and their systems are often treated as the industry standard for everything from communications to integrated computers.
|-|Big Data=
This domination of communications and technology has given Nanotrasen a very lucrative business, one that was practically thrown into their laps: data harvesting. The company has servers established all over the Orion Spur for gathering seemingly random and assorted data from all of their services, processing it to look for patterns and then selling it to the highest bidder. Whether it be the purchasing habits of Biesellite males aged 18 to 23 or the activism and political beliefs of Himean immigrants, Nanotrasen has the important data to act upon ready for a price.
|-|A Gambling Empire=
So what does a company do with the most ubiquitous electronics in the market and the best data to understand the psychology of consumerism do? Start an online gambling empire, naturally. Making use of research supported by Nanotrasen data gathering, in co-operation with Zeng-Hu psychologists, Nanotrasen controls a large portion of the online gambling market through a wide variety of websites covering every game of every planet and nation and species. The money that pays out on a human's blackjack win in Biesel could have come from a Tajaran's loss betting on the Velhalktai while sitting in a shuttle in Skrellian space. This massive share of the gambling market has drawn the ire of Idris, and regularly leads to lawsuits and counter-suits arguing over gambling technologies.
|-|Dinner To Your Door=
Further ingratiating themselves into a rivalry with Idris, Nanotrasen released an app onto any device with a Nanotrasen chip for ordering food from nearby "ghost-kitchen" restaurants to your door. Created after their merger with Getmore Food Company in 2398, the app is called "StellarBite™️" and can deliver the same recipe to anywhere in the Orion Spur assuming service reaches. Despite having no actual storefront, the expansive and regionalised menu is wildly popular with the general public and there are even online guides on fooling the app into giving you regional dishes when on other planets. Despite controversies over the payment of delivery drivers and the use of flying drones sometimes damaging meals in transit, the app remains a steadfast part of Biesel culture and stays firmly installed on almost every device sold by Nanotrasen to this day.
|-|Political Ambitions=
Data and investment give Nanotrasen one more major client: governments. Through acts of "philanthropy" and political favours to the correct candidates over the last circa 300 years, Nanotrasen has become a major power in UNIP politics, effectively being the entire reason that Biesel maintains its semi-autonomous status within the Protectorate and also the major force behind its extreme economic development. With so much money tied into Biesel, Nanotrasen has become an almost defacto government for the area, sometimes having even more power than the actual Biesellite government.
</Tabber>

== Corporate Culture ==
Despite being so long ago, Nanotrasen very much holds onto its research lab origins, believing that the next big breakthrough is what should define one's career. While the manufacturing and catering aspects of the company are relatively unaffected by this, and mostly just manifest this belief through a generic culture of achieving better numbers at one's station, every other aspect of the company genuinely believes that if their career does not result in a big change in how the company operates that they are a failure. This has resulted in a highly competitive work environment, in which it is common to see people stressing near the end of their contracts that they might not have achieved enough to be able to happily retire. At some levels of the company, there are humans in their eighties or even nineties still slaving away at research hoping to find their career defining breakthrough.

This culture of excellence could not be enforced, however, without a much darker side to it. While employees are almost entirely promoted on skill and their value to the company, that value is not only calculated by their work ethic or ability. Another way to pad an otherwise mediocre promotion opportunity is to show loyalty through action: reporting coworkers who have bad work ethic. Serving important data to supervisors, either through spying or trawling social media, as well as proving when a fellow employee is holding back important research data to gun for a promotion has helped to create an almost paranoid feeling within the labs of Nanotrasen.

The politics is not just coincidental. With Nanotrasen's fingers being in every pie in Biesel, their money is incredibly tied to one region of the Orion Spur. This means that any Biesel concern is a Nanotrasen concern, and Nanotrasen employees are given small amounts of stock to be worried for their portfolios if Biesel has any issue. As far as most employees see it, regardless of their nationality, Biesel's problem is their problem.

== Relationships ==

=== United Nations Interstellar Protectorate ===
Nanotrasen is Biesel, and Biesel is Nanotrasen. When discussing Nanotrasen's relationship with The Protectorate, one would need only look at the amount of leverage they have been granted in Biesel, allowing The Protectorate to have an incredibly economically productive cash-cow to milk for their new and expanding ambitions. The existence of Biesel and its infinitely growing wealth has given Nanotrasen a highly positive, influential position with UNIP, and made their working relationship something symbiotic.

=== Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals ===
Being aligned in their shared fields of research, Nanotrasen and Zeng-Hu often make an effort to work together on large projects, especially ones of a mechanical and medical nature. Huge amounts of machinery that was designed with Zeng-Hu expertise is actually manufactured using Nanotrasen computers and Nanotrasen manufacturing plants. Where Zeng-Hu provides knowledge of the natural world, Nanotrasen bends it to its will in order to make their discoveries useful. Anti-corporate propaganda often makes use of drawings of the logos of these corporations kissing, insinuating the functional monopoly of their close co-operation.

=== Idris Incorporated ===
Idris and Nanotrasen's relationship is proof that two companies can be eternally suing one another and yet still survive. A rivalry like no other, Idris has never taken kindly to Nanotrasen encroaching on the markets that make up their entire existence, and has made extensive use of both their ballooned legal team and hostile policy influencing to try and run Nanotrasen out of prospective territories. Some people might describe their relationship as the longest slap-fight in human history, with both corporations even going so far as to, when one corporation sponsors one sports team, the other will sponsor their rival sports team out of spite.

User:Monty/Sandbox

2024-01-25T23:46:43Z

Monty:

User:Monty/Sandbox

2024-01-02T23:24:19Z

Monty:

Eridani Corporate Alliance

2023-12-17T20:45:16Z

Monty: typo fixed

The Eridani Corporate Alliance, often referred to as Eridani for short, is a series of relatively independent Solarian systems that enjoy almost total economic and relative military freedom from the rest of the alliance of states that forms Sol. Eridani can instead be considered a form of special economic zone that exists due to its convenience for the rest of the Spur, which in turn allows the corporations within to largely skirt past criticisms of their human rights violations and caste system by virtue of being economically beneficial to the rest of the Orion Spur.

== History ==
Originally sold for the purposes of establishing a port and warehouse to Charon Shipping Services in 2203, initial surveys of Epsilon Eridani appeared grim for profit. Only one planet was confirmed to have existed, the gas giant Aegir with a sole moon. While another planet was theorised, upon arrival this was proven not to be the case, however a much more important discovery was made by the Charon Eridani Fleet: The moon of Aegir was, in fact, habitable. A rudimentary biosphere had led to an atmosphere equivalent to the top of a tall mountain, ever-so-slightly thinner than average.

With this discovery came immediate colonisation by Charon, who in turn contacted numerous notable corporations with the intent to sell plots of land, mineral rights and shipping services. Many historians theorise that this was done in an attempt to legitimise the relative newcomer to space amongst its new peers, as well as create ties that would form the foundation of the new system’s unique status in Spur-level politics.

While initially colonised with the intent to be owned by Charon Shipping Services, the growing corporatocracy quickly found itself growing too large and complex for a single, relatively junior corporation to effectively manage. While logistics may have been the speciality of Charon, they lacked the political clout or hard power to enforce their claim upon the planet. In their place, and to avoid the minor skirmishes between security forces related to various corporations that were beginning to erupt in 2228, The Council of Eight was formed. This council of eight positions, dictated by the ownership of regions of land on the moon of Aegir, became the de-facto government for the planetoid.

Over time, The Council of Eight has had a series of small scale wars erupt between corporations for the seats of power in which it contains, with vast swathes of land being economically repurposed in arbitrary treaties that the inhabitants had little to no say in. To combat this turmoil, eventually The Council of Eight elected that positions are eternal, and may only be opened through either purchase or the forced removal of a seat by a unanimous vote of all other council seats. The last time the seats changed was in 2490, giving the largely run-down southern arctic region of District 8 to Einstein Engines. This transfer was met with controversy from much of the dreg population, with fears of the heating infrastructure going even further unmaintained under new leadership leading to a borderline revolution.

During what is now referred to as the Thermostat Revolution, the transfer of power between Einstein Engines and Zeng-Hu collapsed due to the total lack of military power owned by either corporation. In an attempt to prevent the budding revolution from potentially spreading further, the corporations that made up The Council of Eight put aside their differences temporarily, redirecting every mercenary group under their employment to suppress riots, arrest organisers and violently put down the revolution in such a manner that any non-corporate entity would be brought up on various human rights violations. Following this, The Council of Eight voted unanimously to create a semi-regulated body for the employment of mercenaries, who in times of no-contract would act as the de-facto military for the Eridanus Cluster.<blockquote>''“The modern Eridani Corporate Alliance is not too alien from the Corporate Alliance of the past, in a form of simultaneous stagnation and inflation. The more things change, the more entrenched certain conventions become; dregs remain the oppressed underclass, corporates remain in splendour and the corporations that influence every aspect of life become nations unto the worker. The Thermostat Revolution may soon become a distant memory, rather than a cultural touchstone of the Dreg Worker.” - Julian Bertrand, Philosopher and Economist, 2540''</blockquote>

== Government ==
Eridani’s government is largely represented by the Council of Eight - Eight representatives from various megacorporations. Each seat in the Council is tied to a sector, which the chairman’s corporation has full control over. While discussions have been made in the past to expand the number of sectors, this naturally has not come to fruition out of fears of decreased power on the moon. Each sector has also been given an informal name to make conversation easier. Currently, each sector is assigned to the following corporations:

'''Sector 1''' (Luxembourg) - Idris Incorporated

'''Sector 2''' (Canaria) - Hephaestus Industries

'''Sector 3''' (Monaco) - Idris Incorporated

'''Sector 4''' (Panama) - Charon Shipping Services

'''Sector 5''' (Trinidad) - Hephaestus Industries

'''Sector 6''' (Grenada) - EPMC - Zavodskoi Interstellar joint venture

'''Sector 7''' (Seychelles) - Zeng Hu Pharmaceuticals

'''Sector 8''' (Faroe) - Einstein Engines

== Sectors ==
Due to Epsilon Eridani’s long history of being terraformed and shaped to the whims of the colonists, the vast majority of the moon has similar streets and architecture styles. Industrial land seamlessly mixes with offices and apartments with very little rhyme or reason to much of it in regions where there is a high dreg population, meanwhile corporates enjoy well organised and sectioned off districts dedicated to work or leisure that stretch for kilometres. Despite this, each sector has a unique reputation and general environment that both the under and upper classes would be able to notice.

<tabber>
|-|Luxembourg and Canaria=
The twin capitals of Eridani, it is subject to being the “baseline” of people’s ideas of Eridani as a whole. Tall office blocks stretch into the sky, connected by walkways. The smog is so irreversibly powerful that windows do not open except in older buildings that were made before corporate regulations governing smog contamination were put in place. Dregs face a similar conundrum while living in the underground caverns of the sector, formerly mining operations. Here, shanty towns and pools of acidic chemical runoff characterise a rough life for dregs. Criminal gangs will occasionally surface to commit crimes in corporate territory before retreating.
|-|Monaco=
One of the major centres of tourism in Epsilon Eridani. The reputation of the moon of Aegir has spread far and wide throughout the Orion Spur, and with it comes tourists seeking to confirm or deny the rumours of the planet. Idris has transformed this region into a vast tourist haven, a cloying and romanticised version of the public perception of Eridani. In the eyes of tourists visiting Monaco, it is said that anything goes, and all manner of services, products and monuments can be found so long as you look hard enough. For the families there are the glamorous, bizarre and outright gimmicky tourist attractions of the main streets, immediately outside the hotels and surrounded by the dazzling lights of advertising, neon signs and flying billboards that pollute the sky with the incessant need to call attention to products. For the faux-bohemian, however, Idris has not neglected their wants, with an entire carefully managed and well patrolled dreg “slum” for them to visit. complete with faux dive bars and carefully managed waste in the road, any tourist that were to visit this sector would come out feeling as if they had seen the real Eridani, without ever having gone within 100 miles of actual danger, serving double time as a tourist attraction and smokescreen to the plight of the dregs. In amongst the splendour of the main tourist region and the artificial roughness of the disdainfully named “Dreg Village” comes what many actually visit Eridani for, the so-called Epsilon High-way. A single multi-mile long stretch of drugs, drink and vice arcs across the centre of Monaco, capturing the attention of passers by with graphic depictions of what products they offer.
|-|Panama=
This sector is one of the lesser talked about areas, having little importance other than as a docking station for large ships and cargo. The underground hosts an extremely large and dense network of warehouses, and one of the densest populations of dregs in Epsilon Eridani in order to staff it. Despite this, subsidiaries of Charon Shipping Services are still likely to bring workers in from outside of the region due to a general distrust of undermotivated dregs around valuable cargo. The sector is characterised by hostile wildlife in slums and streets alike, with a species of cross-bred rat being known to attack small children if left unattended. The environment itself is famously windy, the narrow corridors of buildings acting as wind tunnels that cause dangerous gales during storms. Instead of fixing this, wind shelters the size of a 21st century bus shelter have been installed along roads to shelter in during wind storms. Due to these factors, the region has been not so affectionately named “The Hurricane” by dregs who live there.
|-|Trinidad=
Located directly next to Panama, Trinidad is the industrial heart of the Eridani Corporate Council. The surface is smeared with refineries belching smog into the sky as underground rail transports produced goods to and from the warehouses of Panama. Mirroring its sister sector, Trinidad has a majority dreg population that lives in squalor around the factories they work in, either in shanty towns constructed between buildings or company towns that work on scrip pay and slum-like conditions. Many observers theorise that these company towns are a method of control that has prevented further workers rights movements from truly taking off in the system, forcing dregs to risk their food supply alongside their homes in order to take any form of industrial action. In comparison, reinstated and corporate managers are allowed to make use of the extensive rail network underneath this region, letting them arrive directly at their workplace with little to no exposure to the outside smog or squalid conditions of their subordinates.
|-|Grenada=
Forged in an agreement created by the lacking political capital of Zavodskoi Interstellar and the sudden need for a centralised base of operations for the newly developed Eridani Private Military Corporation, the formerly underdeveloped region of Grenada has developed over the past hundred years into a hub for weapons production, military training and electronic warfare development. The vast majority of the population are either reinstated, corporate or from outside of the system. While the region is technically contested between numerous mercenary groups, it has become possibly the safest region in Eridani, following the “Clean Front Door” doctrine of mercenary groups. Quality of life is higher here than the majority of Eridani, if still notably lower than the living standards of much of the Orion Spur.
|-|Seychelles=
The science and research hub of Epsilon Eridani, Seychelles boasts the environment of being carved into the ice of the Northern Pole of the moon. While other regions may feel as if they are tunnels between the large skyscrapers, Seychelles is quite literally made of tunnels to survive the cold environment outside of them. With an average surface temperature of -40 degrees celsius on the surface, the cold air is ideal for running the server farms required for 26th century research and saves immense money on cooling. These tunnels are little more than bare, carved stone in many places, however closer to the universities that litter this region of the moon metal plating has been installed so as to not offend the sensibilities of the students and researchers. Dregs, primarily making up the staffing of the day to day running of these facilities, face an entirely different conundrum. Heating is not universal to all tunnels, and while corporates may enjoy a steady 20 degrees celsius all year round, abandoned tunnels inhabited by the dregs face an average temperature of -10 degrees C and can plummet to -40 in the event of a breach.
|-|Faroe=
A recent acquisition, Faroe is in an unusual position compared to other sectors of Eridani. Despite the incredibly small number of manual labour positions, the sector has a large dreg population remaining from the period before Einstein Engines’ ownership of the sector. The vast majority of these dregs are homeless, living in communes situated within abandoned ex-Zeng Hu facilities making a living either selling scrap parts to pay for heating or scavenging for heating sources that still have valid DRM. Being the data centre of the communications giant’s Sol presence, Faroe takes advantage of the Southern Pole’s equally low temperatures to cool server racks for data farming and processing. The prior factors mix into a cocktail that results in Faroe being the centre of cyber-crime in Epsilon Eridani, with disenfranchised dregs who possess the necessary skills selling corporate secrets across all sectors after gathering data from in-person access to Einstein Engines servers. This culture of hacking has birthed legends of dreg folklore, including the infamous hacker Mairo Oku Mpu, who gained attention in 2587 for leaking classified Zavodskoi surveillance data.
|-|The Stations=
Outside of the populated moon is an uncontrolled span of stations all across the Eridanus Cluster. These stations do not come under the Council of Eight and are laws unto themselves unless otherwise stated. The vast majority of these stations are owned by megacorporations and their subsidiaries, but older stations may be sold to individuals or simply stolen by groups with the intent to start their own enterprises. Stations therefore come in all shapes and sizes, serving different purposes and being governed under different policies. The common thread connecting every station, however, is their precarious position in the system. While stations may be officially owned by megacorporations or small private enterprises, hostile takeovers and piracy run rampant in the far less militarised regions of the Eridanus Constellation, and refugees fleeing from one station to another is not an uncommon sight anywhere in the Constellation.

One of the major industries of the stations is resource extraction, either with skiffs designed to scoop gases from gas giants across the many systems or miner drones intended to pick every last mineral out of the asteroid belts of said gas giants. Other stations provide services such as rest stops, refuelling and repairs, with many artisanal shipyards making their home in Eridani with the intent to avoid copyright laws or heavy taxation implemented by corporate controlled governments to suppress competition. Of course, for any economic hub that is sprawling and decentralised, there is crime. Pirates and extortion rings run rampant, forming a noticeable percent of the GDP of Eridani as they refuel in less-than-reputable stations and take advantage of the low police and military presence to commit piracy, making use of Bluespace Interdictors in order to violently jerk ships out of bluespace travel and into dead space, shaking them down for the contents of their cargo hold before running away.

Due to the age of some of these stations, a noticeable population of offworlders exist of both the dreg and corporate variety. Roughly a quarter of the stations that exist in these systems are older than effective gravity generation, and as such either operate on the rotating wheel method of gravity generation or simply are free-floating. This makes a cottage industry of station tourism available to offworlders across the spur, run mostly by enterprising individuals and corporates who wish to strike out and start a “new” business under the Idris banner, in some ways making Eridani one of the most popular tourist locations with offworlders across the spur. Many of the dreg offworlders often consider themselves more offworlder than dreg, leading to many a cultural clash when meeting with dregs from gravity-laden stations.
</tabber>

== Housing ==
The commonly studied marvel of Eridanian engineering is the Corporate Habitation Block, referred to as “Habs” for short. Where regulation does not exist, convention thrives, and one can find convention to have taken a tight grip onto the common Hab. A mixture of office building, residential housing and commercial venture, the average corporate worker may never have to leave their specific block for their entire life, assuming they never have to attend an important meeting. The average habitation block consists of a floor by floor plan spread out over the largest plot of land that the construction company could purchase, sometimes at the cost of existing structures. While a lower floor may be a series of residential pods for data input specialists, secretaries and the other numerous rabble of the lowest echelons of the corporate ladder, and the floor above it the offices in which they infest during the rat race, the centre levels may become livable two, perhaps even three room apartments made cheap by their less than desirable position directly under nightclub or over the top of the ever-loud server rooms of the office corporate machine. Naturally, the palatial penthouses, adjacent to indoor gardens, community gyms and even having the rare luxury of natural sunlight weaving between the lattices of the complimentary air-vehicle garage sold inclusive, being the most coveted and expensive examples of Eridanian housing, are reserved for the most elite of the corporate world. Regional managers, CEOs’ second homes, the functional royalty of the corporate state which has been built across Eridani.

Lesser known to the outside world, but infamous to those aware of the true realities of Eridani, are the varieties of slums across the moon of Aegir. Most commonly are semi-permanent mountains of structures, stacked one atop the other in what can only be described as a game of jenga played with mortar and steel, affectionately nicknamed “Kowloons” after a 20th century structure of an almost identical nature. These structures occupy plots of land in which the ownership is either entirely disputed or the original owner cannot be located, providing safety from private property laws by virtue of angered parties either not existing or being too-long tied into legal battles to care about what is currently on the land. These structures are even denser than the densest of Habs, with entire families living in single rooms and businesses that pull separate functions at different times of day. Schools may become casinos at night, or restaurants may operate as a dentist during the day. The layout of these buildings can only be described as a rats’ nest, with narrow and winding tunnels leading deep within the artificially lit structure so far that it is not unheard of for outsiders to never be seen again after entering, presumed either dead or kidnapped. While living conditions may be of sub-human quality, there is a sense of community in these slums that is not experienced in corporate housing, and some reinstated dregs may privately express that they miss this sense of community. This community will not always last, however, and it is not unheard of for communities to be split apart by raids, entire slums emptied in weeks in order to facilitate the construction of future corporate housing or factories.

Other dregs take a more radical approach to housing, opting to occupy empty higher-tier apartments en-masse instead of risking the crime, disease and squalor of the slums. These squatters are almost always those with the least to lose, either a part of gangs or outright unemployed, and often form the vanguard that establishes longer lasting squats-turned-communities. This is much riskier for longevity compared to the slum, with squats often being cleared by corporate security in a matter of months. These squats have been known to last years, however, and some even decades, as veritable fortresses under siege deep within corporate territory. Some of these squats have entered the annals of dreg folklore, becoming rumoured safe havens or dens of legendary outlaws.

== Society ==

=== Work ===
Eridani forms what can only be described as a culture of pure work, with one’s job being the centre of their existence regardless of caste or class. Eridanians exist to work, and every aspect of culture is related back to the creation of value, the creation of wealth specifically. In the case of corporates, this is taken much more directly and manifests in hobbies having to be monetised, stress relief being a weak excuse for enjoying but a select few societally shared hobbies, and every waking hour is expected to be taken in the pursuit of wealth and power to some extent. This is less so in the case of dregs and some reinstated, who are more likely to take leisure in activities but are forced more by circumstances to monetise hobbies they hold actual skill in simply to make ends meet. Work culture in Eridani is considered toxic by the vast majority of the Spur, and even the most hardline of bootstrap mentality may baulk at the hours, or the absolute lack of overtime pay.

=== A Caste System ===
The one thing that everybody knows about the Eridanus Constellation is the system of classification that is functionally a caste system, wherein the status of “Corporate Citizen” is only granted to those who are employed by the corporations or client corporations of the Council of Eight.Those who are citizens enjoy full rights within the Eridani Corporate Council, however few those actually are, but this is dependent entirely on their remaining employed without more than a month’s gap between jobs at any point. Those who fail to stay employed in an office job are stripped of their citizenship, and if they choose to remain residents shall become of an entirely lower caste, forced to work in manual labour or not at all. This secondary caste are known as dregs, and while having the official name of non-citizens, their nickname holds much more power as both a derogatory term amongst corporates and a term of personal pride and empowerment amongst dregs. It is not uncommon for dregs to quote the immortal words from the trial of Shock Namkoisse, “I’m a dreg, you call me one behind my back, call me one to my face[...]”, when referred to as a “non-citizen”.

Between the corporate and the dreg is the reinstated, a somewhat temporary or probationary period between going back from dreg to corporate. People may be reinstated in two ways, becoming the conduit between management and the ground floor workers, typically as workplace managers or secretaries, or through coming under direct employment of a member of the corporate class. While the former may simply be a career in being a shift manager or foreman, the latter is on a much higher risk-reward relationship, with reinstated employees of corporates often being their personal mercenaries and wetworks teams of their employers. While reinstated “goons” may take much more risk, they have the potential to make great gains with their employer, and many find themselves retiring into comfy security management positions under their employer should they survive.

<Tabber>
|-|Corporate Citizens=
Referred to as corporates by the vast majority, citizens enjoy the most rights out of any of their fellow Eridanians. Their citizenship is tied entirely to their work, and as such a unique work culture persists, described by some as horrific in nature. The most major tenet, and the most famous, is the cutthroat nature of office politics within corporate culture, both metaphorically and literally. While at the lowest levels the likelihood of promotion is almost entirely tied to hours worked, eventually worked hours plateau in effectiveness and the only method of upwards movement is conspiracy, sabotage or loyalty to another person who excels in these fields. The highest echelons of corporate life have only ever achieved their positions through climbing a blood soaked ladder all the way to the top, and more often than not have added their fair share of blood to the rungs. Despite this, the status of the lowest corporates should not be confused with the situation of the highest up corporates, and to an extent lower on the corporate ladder is almost entirely devoid of bloodshed outside of the most ambitious of candidates, even if this difference is not normally recognised by those who have not lived within the corporate lifestyle of Eridani.

Corporate life is often defined as long periods of work punctuated by rest and burnout, and this is by-and-large true for the low to middle echelons, with working hours reaching 12 hours a day on the regular and breaks being few and far between. These long working hours have led to an increasingly ready-made lifestyle amongst corporate citizens, with many basic skills being reduced to hobbies or sold in premade end results. Stimulant abuse is one of the leading causes of non-violent death in the Eridanus Cluster. Despite all of this, control of one’s life does not only extend to work, and corporates often end up seeing themselves criticised for not spending their limited time calling family, or taking part in the handful of hobbies that are seen as acceptable for bonding with fellow co-workers. While familial relations are not exactly close by the standards of the rest of the spur, they are usually the closest relationship that corporates will have while living within the borders of Eridani. Relationships are usually relegated to the workplace otherwise, with romantic relationships often quickly turning to marriage for added benefits from the employer, as well as the ability to finally talk privately with a person without arousing suspicion. The divorce rate in Eridani is 65%.

Hobbies-wise, corporates only have a handful of cultural touchstones they share, primarily football (soccer) as games can be discussed in the office as an icebreaker, as well as video games, crosswords and drinking for pleasure. The final one is the most important, with much of Eridanian free time being spent heading to the bar with their coworkers and attempting to drink one another under the table, with the expectation that everybody stay at least as long as their manager, who in turn is expected to stay for as long as they can still walk home, ending in a standoff situation with their co-workers.

Corporates are heavily augmented, with the first augments often being tracheal implants intended to make breathing easier in the stagnant air of the lower floors of their hab block easier. Largely, augments are subsidised by their employer, ranging from ocular implants to improve productivity to typing-optimised prosthetic hands intended to avoid the drop in productivity of RSI before it can even begin, augments that can’t be removed are docked from the final paycheck when an employee leaves the company. The relationship with their roboticist is the most crucial one that a corporate can have, not only because they must truly trust their roboticist to avoid assassination while under the knife, but also due to a true cultural belief that anybody who you trust with your body is a friend. While some anthropologists theorise that this is a result of such isolation in corporate culture that even casual relationships become strong, others theorise that it may be instead a result of cultural bleedover from dregs who were reinstated into corporate life.
|-|Reinstated=
As with all things, the relationship between dregs and corporates is not black and white, and there are those who have ambitions to escape the slums and become corporates, either believing that even a coffin hotel is better than their current living conditions or that they can advance to middle management or even beyond. These people are referred to as “reinstated”, typically with varying levels of venom from dregs and varying levels of disdain from higher up corporates.

Reinstateds are the intermediate period between a dreg and a corporate, being treated as a trial period in which they prove their loyalty to the corporation over their former communities. There are two methods in which this can be done, through either being promoted to a position that connects corporate management to the working dreg population such as supervisor, or through taking advantage of their dubious societal position to become effectively personal mercenaries for a corporate, on the understanding that they will be given a position immediately under their corporate sponsor once their position is no longer of use. The former is much more common than the latter, however covert work is far from uncommon as a method of reinstatement.

The more mundane of the two is naturally a promotion. Positions of power are usually only handed to dregs on the understanding that they are already of an exceptional loyalty to the company, rather than out of competence in their role. Promotions may range from managerial positions over other manual labourers to secretaries to document mules, typically positions at the absolute bottom of the corporate ladder, if still on the corporate ladder at all compared to their former position. These positions are typically the least popular in their workplace, either being seen as beneath their corporate colleagues or as sell-outs and potential rats by dreg subordinates. These attitudes lead to the majority of attempted reinstatements failing, with this path of reinstatement often exposing even the most stoic of dregs’ breaking points as they lose the vast majority of their friends and even family, that which had been so important to them before, to their ambitions. Failed reinstatements are often forgiven, however, and regularly return to a comfortable familiarity. Some anthropologists theorise that this is the true cause of the lack of class mobility, rather than the architecture of the system itself.

Standard reinstatement is not entirely negative, however, and successful reinstatements often find themselves office celebrities, invited to their managers’ parties to entertain guests with novel skills such as cooking for guests from scratch, mixing cocktails and anecdotes of slum life. Many describe their early career as being more of a circus, and yet the most advantageous position of their lives as they are granted the opportunity to network with much more powerful individuals and potentially secure a promotion before the novelty of their existence wears off.

There is, however, a faster method of climbing ranks without needing to be explicitly subservient or working in an unpopular position, all at the cost of a much higher risk to life. This is the world of corporate covert operations, typically referred to as “wet works”, in which reinstated are held to a contract on the understanding that they will help their sponsor advance their career at any cost. Depending on one’s sponsor, this could be any illicit job from bodyguard to hacker to thief to assassin. The system typically follows the format that the reinstated in question will be a member of their sponsor’s entourage up until either their sponsor dismisses them and recruits them into their corporate team, or their sponsor dies and they are sent back to square one. These wet works teams often never truly retire, being called back in to assist with their former sponsor’s problems under pain of the acts they committed during their tenure being revealed to their new manager, however accepting these callings will almost always result in promotion. This lifestyle is often considered by many to be that of only the most ambitious potential corporates, those who have no interest in bowing down and who crave only the power of position.

Historically, before EPMC took over at the functional police force of the ECA, wet works reinstated filled the role of enforcers for the will of the corporate holders of the region, tackling potential revolutionary groups and crime syndicates that were causing trouble for their sponsors in surgical strikes. Famously, the personal bodyguards of the Einstein Engines representative to the Corporate Alliance were reinstated from Faroe who foiled an assassination attempt.
|-|Dregs=
Despite being a largely service based economy, The Eridani Corporate Alliance requires immense amounts of manual labour to maintain food security, cleanliness and internal manufacturing. To fill this niche, the dreg caste makes up roughly half of the planet’s population according to censuses, but estimates from humanitarian organisations claim that the population is more on the end of 60 to 65% of the planet’s population, when accounting for the internal dreg economy. A combination of extreme deprivation, more people than jobs and an almost total lack of patrols from EPMC peacekeepers has led to the vast majority of the economy within dreg settlements being under the control of organised crime. Be the shop owned by these organisations, or simply forced to pay protection money, there is not a lot of land that is independent of these pseudo-governmental syndicates within a typical Kowloon, not even accommodation. Despite this criminal incentive for profit, a loyal population benefits these gangs infinitely more, and as such living conditions are usually more spacious than the low-level corporate coffin hotels, instead having enough room for a bed, wardrobe and perhaps some shelves, even if bathrooms and toilets are shared to a hallway or even a floor.

The day-to-day life of a dreg can be considered rather varied in comparison to the average 8 to 10 worker of Epsilon Eridani, however this should not be confused with comfort or freedom. Variety comes in problems, primarily lacking work but also sudden loss of power at home, oxygenators breaking or food running out faster than expected. All of these can send a dreg out to purchase, scavenge or steal the necessary parts and equipment to solve their problems, leading to either reliance on the local gangs to pull them out of trouble in exchange for favours, or interaction with the rich barter economy that has formed in the place of sufficient wealth to support a community. In rare cases, some communities have abolished currency entirely and collectivised their resources, instead relying on the community to solve issues, however, this is more of an exception than a rule, with some crediting the cultural osmosis of the “Take care of number one” attitude of corporates permeating into dreg culture for this. This unpredictable lifestyle has created an unusual gap between dreg ages, either dying in their mid-20s from industrial or gang-land related accidents or dying of age related causes in their early 60s, with very little in between. This unusual gap has caused a sort of reverence of older dregs, who are seen as wiser and more capable for having managed to break the 25+ mark.

Unlike the reserved lifestyles of the corporate suits, dregs are known to form close families of either blood family or found family. Family comes before all in dreg communities, and it’s not uncommon for extended family up to one’s cousin to live under the same roof in compound-like shanty homes. These homes might consist of a central living room as well as personal rooms around the edges, with families eating in the courtyard. The only thing that could possibly even hope to match family bonds are community bonds, with even gangs typically helping their immediate community regardless of their known brutality. Recruitment for gangs happens most often inside of these community bubbles as a result.

Dregs are typically louder and more outspoken than their corporate counterparts, where “spilling honesties” is considered perfectly acceptable so long as it wasn’t done with malice in mind. This can make dregs seem extremely blunt to outsiders, and can lead to misunderstandings outside of Eridani space. A typical dreg conversation will consist of a lot of shouting, arm gestures and teasing, with playful violence not entirely being ruled out. This makes dreg conversations in their native language look like an argument to outsiders, even corporates may struggle to interpret friendliness properly facing these odds.

Similarly to corporates, dregs will usually take their augmentation seriously, having an even closer bond to their roboticist and rarely picking a new one unless it would be geographically impossible to return. Due to the large amount of outward migration by dregs, this attitude is fairly well known in roboticist circles and is regarded with either charm or suspicion, depending on the attitude of the roboticist. Dregs are sometimes described as “overfamiliar” outside of Eridani space.
</Tabber>

== Augmentation ==

=== Corporate Augments ===
Cybernetic modification is an integral part of Eridani’s cultural ideal. Simple tracheal augments are usually the first and the mildest step into augmentation, as they are needed for a lot of people to simply survive with Eridani’s thoroughly polluted air. Having other bionic enhancements is considered a symbol of wealth and prestige. Most electronics in the Federation are specifically designed to interact with augmented eyes – but they are also very functional on their own. A typical Eridanian eye implant can completely replace, or even surpass, a typical hand terminal in functionality – being used to browse the Extranet, communicate on chat relays, and more. As is typical for Eridanian technology, it is also swarmed with ads and is proven to constantly send data about the user’s activity to advertisers, making them somewhat unpopular outside the Federation. Augmentation is so tailored to the workplace in corporate society that people often find difficulty retraining if made redundant, as their augments will have to be replaced in order to suit their new job title. This adds a steep financial barrier to changing professions, and works to prevent upwards mobility without corporate sponsors. In extreme examples, hands may be given an extra finger in order to increase typing speed on legacy systems, at the cost of removing much of their dexterity for other tasks such as handwriting. These augments are often removed by the time the corporate citizens are able to find work outside of Eridani, being seen as too unsightly and off putting to clients. In some cases, synthskin is a requirement for reassignment to certain regions of the spur.

=== Dreg Augments ===
Dreg societies take the Eridanian fascination with augmentation technology to an extreme. While a typical Corporate may have no more than an augmented respiratory system, bionic eyes and a few neural implants, a Dreg may maim themselves to replace their flesh with superior, more durable metal – often at the expense of looking presentable. Sleek eye augmentations are removed from former workers by barely qualified surgeons to be replaced with crude prosthetics that do not aim to imitate the human form, but to simply provide functionality – often being, for example, completely filled with one colour, or having coloured scleras. The more brave may opt into removing their limbs for a metal replacement, which is often made “in the house”, with lower quality parts but higher maintainability. Dregs in general are largely proponents of “right to repair” when it comes to prosthetics, shunning branded augments in favour of ones that can be repaired at home or by their favourite roboticist. Function over form is another one of the more unusual ideologies of dreg augmentation, with dregs often caring little about how attractive their augments are so long as they outperform their original limb. As such, dreg roboticists have gained a rightful reputation for making insane or seemingly random choices with their parts lists that give their augments a unique charm, creating a niche market of enthusiasts who share a mindset. Within dreg circles, however, reputation is all, and dreg roboticists can go down within the rich folklore of dregs should they perform their best, amongst names such as David Insurgent and Amiyu Wires. A dreg that can perform augmentation installation could expect to see a large amount of business on this stereotype alone should they open a workshop once out of Epsilon Eridani.

== Eridani Life ==

=== Food ===
Eridanian cuisine has a wrongfully gained reputation of being extremely soy based, to the point of caricatures of Eridanian figures often depicting them holding some form of soy based product. Despite this stereotype, this is not entirely true. While Eridanian cuisine as a whole typically makes heavy use of soy based products, other ingredients make up as much of a staple of the Eridanian diet as much as soy does. Plantains, tofu, farmed fish, squash, beans and rice are all staple ingredients of Eridanian cuisine due to their ease of growth in a hydroponics heavy society. A major method of cooking is frying in nut oil, with Eridanians being known to fry anything that can fit in the pan and even some things that can’t, being served with the ever-present soy.

Some famous dishes from Eridani include:

* Puff-puffs, a fried dough ball with a crunchier outside than a donut. These are typically cooked in a pool of oil at the bottom of a pan, however the Eridanian version differs from tradition by adding ground ginger instead of the traditional pepper. Whether it’s acceptable to dip puff-puffs in synthetic cream is still a subject of fierce debate amongst all Eridanians akin to the debates over pineapple on pizza.
* Fufu dumplings with soup, the dumplings are made of pounded plantains and shaped into a ball to be served alongside soup. The soups might contain any number of vegetables, but traditional meats from their earth counterparts are replaced with shrimp, tofu or cod.
* Joloff rice, long grain rice fried in groundnut oil with tomatoes, onions and hot peppers. Again fish and meat substitutes make an appearance here. The dish is a favourite amongst all due to the ease of cooking and the fact that it can be made in one pot.
* Sushi, raw and prepared fish laid atop cooked rice. While a staple of many planets, Eridanian sushi has gained a life of its own, often being created with rare and expensive ingredients grown in the hydroponics and fish farms of the planet. As a cultural export, however, Eridanian sushi rather fails at the term sushi, as the entire affair is deep fat fried. This unusual and controversial perversion of sushi is often blamed upon dregs, who are believed to fry anything if they have oil.

Of course, not all food is made the same in Eridani. While dregs’ communal lifestyle allows them to make the food in a more traditional style with ingredients bought in bulk to save money or grown in stolen hydroponics setups, corporates often spend so much of their day at work that it’s preferred to buy their meals either ready or pre-prepared from a machine. Learning to prepare ingredients, for this reason, is often a skill that makes reinstated very popular amongst their colleagues. One major difference is the quantities of meat substitutes available between dregs and corporates, with corporates often eating triple or even quadruple the serving of expensive goods like fish compared to their dreg counterparts, and malnourishment being rife within dreg living due to the relatively small portions of key proteins being stretched over such long time periods.

Fast food chains exist that are also exclusive to Eridani, such as Shrimp Republic, a location that can be found in almost any Eridanian food court or habitation block. The ingredients often consist of some form of fried shrimp as well as various kinds of skewered foods for easy and enjoyable eating.

=== Music ===
Corporate music is considerably more well documented than dreg music when it comes to what is popular, the data algorithms gathering all instances of listening as well as attention spans to songs to form the perfect bands to be fed to the public en-masse. As a bizarre by-product of this feedback loop of attention, two major genres have emerged in Epsilon Eridani, at least amongst the citizens. Club music is one of the most popular Eridanian music genres, being their greatest cultural export and the most listened to genre amongst corporates due to the after work clubbing culture of corporates. Famous artists include Cricket, a DJ known for their use of repetitive but catchy melodies, and DJ Andrex, more famous for their surprisingly fluent lyrical content for club music. The other famous genre is group pop, entirely powered by algorithms and chart ratings, group pop bands usually consist of people who barely know one another working together to make music with help from their managers. These groups are extremely prone to splitting up, giving gossip magazines plenty of content to work off of and forming the basis of how names in the scene are passed around. It is said that you aren’t a group pop musician until your face is on the front of a magazine without your consent.

On the other end of the spectrum, dregs have taken to two more stereotypical favourite genres for an underclass, rap and punk. Both genres tend to focus on life in Dreg society, either the massive amounts of death and poverty, or blaming the system they live in for said death and poverty. While the two genres rarely mix, it isn’t uncommon for them to share lyrical patterns and chord progression. Generally, Eridanian punk is unusual from other genres of punk due to its heavy usage of distortion pedals, electronic instruments and synthesisers. Punk bands in Eridani last for years at a time, but are known to have extremely messy breakups when they get famous, assuming they ever leave their extremely localised sphere of influence. Eridanian rappers on the other hand tend to make a large spectacle of themselves once their music leaves their sphere of influence, hoping to get famous outside of Eridani and hopefully be able to escape. Kizee and Nitrogod are a famous pair of rappers from Seychelles whose music has escaped the constellation’s sphere of influence into the wider Orion Spur, lent largely to them by their aggressive sound and theme of general inequality and the hypocrisy of the wealthy invading their spaces to amuse themselves.

=== Movies ===
Movies and films in Eridani are a fairly insular market, with specific tastes of the local audience being received middlingly outside of the systems and vice versa. This is credited in large part to the prolific use of market analysis to write scripts, to the point that some movies are almost entirely algorithmically generated. Some of the more famous rules of these algorithms that always feature include:

* Anti-corporate activity should always result in the demise of the anti-corporate
* Non-citizen dregs may only appear as antagonists, sympathy is allowed in cases of redemption at the end of the production
* The protagonist should not show any form of anti-corporate sentiment, except when portraying their darkest hour
* Members of corporations may only be shown as villains in the event that they are acting against the best interests of the corporation

These restrictive rules have led to a series of set movie genres that are guaranteed to succeed within the borders of the ECA, and at least break even outside of it: Corporate dramas, action movies starring PMCs as the protagonists and adaptations of literature already popular within the ECA.

The unpopular content of these films has created another industry within dreg society however: Independent Movies. These are films created independent of the Idris subsidiary studios that dominate the industry in the ECA and are often created with the express purpose of defying these algorithmic and borderline propagandistic productions. Largely these are made by expelled movie crews and first generation dregs, who have the skills to make passable cinema with the limited equipment they have access to, however these existing skills can only do so much to push past the technical limitations of their existence. These films rarely see much viewing outside of dreg cinemas and communities, largely seen as oddities to be enjoyed by a cult following of outsiders who often take technical difficulties as artistic choices. These films often tackle the problems of daily dreg life, but can also be seen as indulgent power fantasy enjoyed by a downtrodden populace attempting to escape the realities of dreg living. The most popular of these types of film centre around well known dreg folklore figures, their story and their message to the downtrodden.

=== Language ===
The closest language the Corporate Alliance has to an official language is Tradeband, used to ease business transactions. It is the most used language in the workplace and typically any resident of the Eridanus Constellation can speak it well enough to conduct their job in Tradeband. This is not the only language in the Alliance however, and almost any human language can be spoken by at least a handful of people. Tourists often find it easier to ask for directions in the ECA as opposed to any other region sheerly on the odds that they bump into somebody that speaks their native language. On the other side of the coin, dregs stubbornly create their own culture to counter the corporate one, speaking Freespeak and similar other languages in their own society and typically only using Tradeband in corporate owned workplaces. This comes across as antiquated to outsiders, but is often viewed by dregs as a result of their highly independence seeking nature.

Dregs also speak a strange form of Freespeak that can only be described as a thieves’ cant, known as Spitting Proper. Spoken almost exclusively by dregs with ties to the criminal syndicates, the closest comparison one can make to a 21<sup>st</sup> century language would be Polari, and it holds a similar history, being used to mask discussions of criminal activity, grow fellowship amongst its speakers and hide information from anybody that may be eavesdropping. Spoken fluently by the criminal underbelly, it is near impenetrable to outsiders outside of famous words like “knab”. To an extent, most dreg teenagers speak enough of it with the intent to hide what they’re doing from their parents, assuming (often wrongfully) that their parents cannot Spit Proper.
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|+"Spitting Proper" Common Terms
!Word
!Meaning
|-
|Boss
|Insult, akin to calling your superior by a royal title.
|-
|Chief
|Respectful term for the person in charge.
|-
|Suit
|Corporate.
|-
|Fek
|Fuck. Works the same way.
|-
|Clacker
|Asshole. Insult and bodypart.
|-
|Drongo
|Idiot.
|-
|Biz
|Shit, in the sense of "I'm not doing that shit" or "[...] and shit like that"
|-
|Tick
|Sec (second). e.g "Just a tick"
|-
|Wrong boots
|Someone who is transgender. “Born in the wrong shoes” meaning born in the wrong body. '''''Not a derogatory term.'''''
|-
|Am/Ami/Amino
|Partner/boy/girlfriend. Romantic in nature.
|-
|Bov/Bovino
|Best friend.
|-
|Krok
|Outsider/non-dreg
|-
|Knab
|"Guy". Can refer to anyone.
|-
|Heavy
|Hired muscle. "Who's the heavy?"
|-
|Extra
|Hacker. Comes from hackers often being treated as unnecessary by inexperienced teams.
|-
|Mask
|Inside man.
|-
|Fixer
|Person who arranges for jobs. They may collect information, arrange meetings and find extra members for a crew.
|-
|Cashie
|Salesman, usually illicit.
|-
|Patcher
|Doctor of any kind, but usually used for ones that don't tell police about their patients.
|-
|Wrencher
|Engineer.
|-
|Robowrencher
|Roboticist, usually augmentation specialists.
|-
|Helmet
|Mercenary or police. Typically used to refer to mercenaries that take police work, rather than all mercenaries.
|-
|Gun
|General mercenary, regardless of if they use a gun.
|-
|Debt
|Job.
|-
|Cark
|Die, not murdered.
|-
|Creased
|Murdered.
|-
|Crease
|To murder.
|-
|Map
|Understand.
|-
|Tool
|Fix something.
|-
|Scroll
|Watch something happen.
|-
|Spit
|Speak.
|-
|Gab
|To have a conversation.
|-
|Scribble
|Write.
|-
|Riccy
|Rich. Sometimes derogatory, often used to describe a target for robbery.
|-
|Band
|Gang.
|-
|Banded
|Married.
|-
|Sniffer
|Brown-noser. Somebody who sucks up to authority.
|-
|Tail
|Related to the term rat. An informant.
|-
|Affirmed
|Understood, yes.
|-
|Running your/their trail
|Following you/somebody. Not necessarily bad.
|-
|Palm
|Steal.
|-
|Knock
|Beat up or damage.
|-
|Ice/Arctic
|Cool.
|-
|Sign the dots
|Get arrested.
|-
|In my turf
|In your face, breaking personal space.
|-
|Slacks
|Dregs who associate with suits. Derogatory term for reinstated.
|}

=== Dreg Folklore ===
Dregs have constructed a rich tapestry of legendary folk figures, some of which are simply of note while others can be considered tales intended to teach a lesson through the failures or successes of another real figure. While large parts of the folklore are embellished, it is often the case that every story’s primary beats are largely true, immortalising significant dregs in the imaginations of children and adults alike. Some figures are folk heroes, standing defiant against the corporations and the gangs to try and bring dregs into a new era, while others are villains and cautionary tales about what power does to a person. The vast majority, however, are simply interesting figures that have some moral behind their story, their fates ultimately doing little for the cause of the dregs except providing stories to entertain and educate the next generation. The requirements to become a folk figure are murky to say the least, but the most famous typically have the most outrageous stories, to the point that some are doubted to have existed at all.
Some famous folk heroes include:

<Tabber>
|-|David Insurgent=
Nicknamed for his revolutionary tendencies, David is believed to have been the first to draw blood against corporate mercenaries during the Thermostat Revolution. A native of Faroe, David was already well known for his combat related prosthetics and had a reputation for fair pricing and skilled craftsmanship. Most stories surrounding him take this angle, portraying him as an honest man turned revolutionary leader, ultimately betrayed by Little Mojisola in exchange for a sum of money that varies story to story.
|-|Mairo Oku Mpu=
Also known as Mairo Diver, she is a sort of living legend within the ECA, hero to dregs and horror story to corporate network security. While technically not quite a folk hero, due to her living status, she is so embroiled in myth and misinformation due to her secretive life that she has become entirely separate to her legend. Confirmed actions include leaking Zavodskoi Interstellar body-camera footage of war crimes committed by the corporation, releasing documents detailing the unethical nature of Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals test subject selection, and the destruction of an Idris server farm. However, the folk lore version of her can commit acts that are dubious if even possible through traditional hacking methods, while often emphasising her whimsical nature contrasted against her numerous warrants for arrest in all major nations. She is rumoured to reside in an abandoned space station with her co-conspirators and romantic partners, plural.
|-|Old Toyin=
Famous for one act and one act only, Old Toyin is both a hero and a cautionary tale of what happens when one stands up against the criminal syndicates that dominate the dreg world. While some take her story to be an example of what happens when an old dreg is underestimated, many take it as a warning to expect war if one attacks these gangs. Old Toyin’s story typically goes as such: Old Toyin had lived in her sector of her kowloon for almost her entire life, to the point that nobody on her corridor remembered when she moved in. One day, a group of the Three Star Syndicate demanded that she move out of her home, so that they may turn it into a gambling parlour. Old Toyin refused, stating they would have to kill her to get that property from her. After some arguing, the gangsters left, promising to return with more men. In this time, Old Toyin prepared dinner for her infirm neighbour, said goodbye to her grandson and turned her room into what could qualify as a fortress. By the time the gangsters returned, she had armed herself with a borrowed rifle and walled herself into the room with the help of her neighbours, having a handful of holes to fire out at the gangsters through. Details of the gun fight differ, but the death toll of the gangsters before they demolished the wall and killed Old Toyin is always two digits in all accounts. Almost all accounts emphasise that despite her age and bravery, she was spared no mercy and killed just as brutally as a young dreg would have been.
|-|Shock Namkoisse=
A famous singer and advocate for dreg freedom, Namkoisse is often a stand-in for stories that were very unlikely to have actually been him. His role in dreg culture is as the hero everybody can love, and documentation of his real life is often dreary in comparison to his folklore existence. Namkoisse has been confirmed to have organised illegal raves inside corporate offices, his claim to fame, and ultimately was charged and jailed for his actions. His trial was a show trial, intended to show the dreg population what happens to rebels, but instead it immortalised him as he read a prepared speech on the witness podium and openly criticised the language and methodology of the court. He has since become the symbol of social rebellion against corporations, and many an aspiring musician have copied his illegal raves in his honour.
</Tabber>

More sparingly is the use of folk villains, usually cautionary tales intended to warn others against considering corporate affiliation. In particular is a famous story that almost every dreg knows:<blockquote>Malcolm Oyibo is not so much a figure with a consistent story more than a stock character, a villain that fills the void in the collective memory of dreg folklore when telling the story of a more obscure hero. Malcolm is more of a series of characteristics that make for a villain to the story, inconsistent and often not even in the same job twice. He may be a quartermaster one day, or a mercenary the next, or maybe even a CEO. The important part is that he is a backstabber and a foreigner that desperately seeks to be accepted by his corporate overlords, a rather naked allegory for the view of dregs on reinstated.</blockquote>And finally come a unique aspect of dreg folklore, at least in terms of modern folklore: legendary locations. These locations may range from safe-havens for the most wanted of Epsilon Eridani’s underworld to rumoured paradises of workers’ rights within the very borders of the hell scape that is Aegir’s moon. Some of these locations include:

* The Killing Floor: Bar and pilgrimage site for any starry eyed revolutionary, rumoured to be the favourite haunt of David Insurgent and many of the Thermostat Revolutionaries. Today it stands as a monument and tourist trap for the revolutionary undercurrent that slowly meanders through dreg culture. The folklore version, however, is a hive of revolutionary activity in which the intellectuals of dreg liberation come to exchange ideas.
* Haven: A simple and descriptive name, Haven is a rumoured squat within a corporate hab block that is so well defended that it is functionally a microstate within Eridanian territory. Some call it an ongoing revolution, while others describe it more as the only truly neutral ground for major figures to meet without worrying about being assassinated.

* The Office: An ironic name for possibly the most secure and brutal prison in the Orion Spur. The Office is rumoured to have every defence imaginable, from air defences to closing wall traps to laser grids closing cells off, only the hardest and most dangerous the Spur has to offer are supposedly housed here. Outsiders often believe The Office is actually many prisons amalgamated into a single prison in the collective consciousness of dregs.

Khazsanii

2023-11-07T05:05:53Z

Monty: /* Tribe Versus Nation */ Try two, ignore the word The when linking

Surviving the harsh winters and inhospitable tundras of the continent of Nalmir are the nomadic tribes known as the Khazsanii, a non-unified series of tribes whose way of life is thought to pre-date settlement by over a thousand years. While a hard and dangerous life, the Khazsanii have formed a tightly-bound community and sense of identity through their lifestyle, seeing nomadism as the last refuge of the tribe from the encroaching royal, republican and alien powers alike, and they are willing to defend this refuge with their lives if necessary.

== Server-Relevant Information ==
'''This section will summarise some of the behaviours and pieces of information that are most typical of a Tajaran raised in a Khazsanii tribe who would be seen in the server’s setting. These are not hard rules, however they are highly advised to be loosely followed for the sake of a coherent story.'''

* Nomads typically do not engage in Suns Worship, instead worshipping the older faith of the Firdrist Pantheon. Very often, Suns Worship is viewed as the faith of the colonising powers, and the structure of the religion is anti-nomadic due to its centralised clergy.

* Nomads treat Nozhata as a sacred animal, being the key to life when exploring the vast tundras of their inhabited continent. This animal has become their unofficial symbol for this reason.

* Nomad groups are their own tribes, rather than inter-tribal. A nomad will have spent much of their life around their tribe. Some nomad tribes are created from groups of exiles, becoming a sort of found family rather than an ancient tribe.
* Due to their incredibly insular nature, many nomads are unfamiliar with alien customs, to the point that they can rarely even glean from stereotypes. This can seem hostile at first, but they often acclimatise after some time in space.
* Some Nomads come from a space-faring tribe instead, usually a single ship or a small fleet. Space-farers are much more likely to be understanding of various alien cultures and may even have taken in some xenos as their own. These nomads often replace the Nozhata with a bluespace drive as their symbol.

== Tribe Versus Nation ==
Generally speaking, nomads do not live a peaceful existence. It would be considered unusual for a nomad to have never gotten into a firefight on behalf of their tribe, and it is often the fact that tribes will have armoured and motorised sleds alongside their traditional ones intended to provide convoy protection. This militant attitude to their lifestyle is typically front and foremost in anti-tribal propaganda, especially on television, with nomads often being represented as grizzled combat veterans and heretics.

<tabber>
|-|Conflict With The Kingdom=
Nomads' most common enemy are colonisers from the Royal Port of Crevus, a naval base originally intended to protect fishing ships from pirates that has become an entire settlement and intended jumping off point for the monarchy’s ambitions of empire in the undeveloped continent of Nalmir. Crevans often attack nomads that stay in one camp for too long, and nomads often return the favour to Crevan settlements when found. The result is a brutal guerilla war in which the Royal Navy has been forced to use their marines as bodyguards for settlers, attempting seek-and-destroy missions on nomads. These missions are often airborne, seeking nomad convoys in the area and destroying them with extreme prejudice.
|-|Republican Border Skirmishes=
The [[Free Tajara Republic]] is far from innocent in terms of crimes against the Khazsanii, their expansion into the coastal regions of the southern arctic circle beginning to destroy the ancestral fishing holes and trade routes that allowed nomads to maintain contact with the settled world. A vast fence and checkpoint system, often nicknamed Revolution’s Death, prevents nomads from entering the borders of the nation without paying a toll and announcing their presence. While erected in the name of supposedly defending the republic from a southern assault, many nomads view it as a way to force them into a more settled life. This typically ends in border skirmishes, sabotage to the fences and incredible amounts of smuggling, with some nomad groups seeing their illegal entry as an excuse to begin smuggling arms and goods in and out of the border without tax or regulation.
|-|The Stars Are No Paradise=
Even in space, nomads often face trouble with nations. While ancient prejudices and cultural erasure are often left behind, the new challenge becomes acceptance from the spacefaring nations. Nomad ships and fleets often find that being under neither a Kingdom or Republic banner creates bureaucratic issues that many law-abiding stations and planetary shuttle ports will not bother dealing with. Instead, spacer nomads often rely on criminal and piracy-inclined stations for supplies and work, giving them a dreadful reputation as sell-swords and extralegal ships for hire. The legacy of smuggling supplies over the FTR's border only continues into space.
</tabber>

== Nomadic Governments ==
[[File:Nozhata Khazsanii Flag.png|alt=A black flag with two white diamonds diagonally offset from one another in the bottom left hand side. A white diagonal line crosses from the top left to the bottom right corner. From the bottom right corner another white line shoots out towards the top-centre of the flag. The two white lines are connected by an inversely diagonal white line that goes between them.|thumb|The flag of the Nozhata Khazsanii. Two diamonds represent the two suns that the nomads travel under, while the triangle represents the blade of the sleds they survive through.]]
Tribal politics is a complex matter, as no two tribes can agree on all terms, nor may even be aware of one another’s existence. This means that one cannot simply classify a general rule for what a tribe’s politics are or what even individual members within tribes might think. Every tribe has different wants, needs and methods for getting these things, and while some are more diplomatic than others, violence is never off of the table for these groups.

This has begun to change, however, with the Nozhata Khazsanii (Basic translation: Packmule Nomads). A loose confederation of tribes, their symbol is a black flag with two diamond shaped stars and a contrasting triangle, representing the two suns overhead and the blade of their sleds. Largely a military alliance of tribes, the Nozhata Khazsanii have been labelled a terrorist organisation by the Sacred Kingdom for their use of extreme violence against Crevan settlers, forcing them out of their villages and into the tundra as the buildings are burnt to the ground. The Nozhata Khazsanii’s common argument for these tactics is that it is a measured response against the constant aerial attacks that their caravans have faced.

== A Unique Culture ==
The culture of nomads has often been described as ancient by outsiders, who feel a connection to a deeper ancestral history when interacting. In a way, this is true, with the oldest faith and oldest language spoken on Azunal both being prevalent only in nomad tribes. Their worship of the Firdrist Pantheon is possibly the longest-lasting aspect of Tajara history, with multiple gods dedicated entirely to nomadic culture. Their version of Ornadi is also highly unique to the royal version spoken by nobility on the continent of Vahtul, likely more connected to the ancient roots of the language but also highly prone to tribal dialects and mannerisms.

The centrepoint for nomadic culture is the nozhata, a creature that can best be described as a six-legged polar-bear turned into a pack animal. Being a source of mobility, warm clothing, emergency food and even fertiliser for newly-planted crops, this creature has become the symbol of the nomadic cultures. To describe it as merely a symbol could be considered an understatement, instead a more applicable term would be sacred. The mistreatment or death of a nozhata is considered a great stain on a nomad’s legacy, and in extreme cases may even see a nomad expelled from their community.

Tajara memorialism also has adapted to the mobile lifestyle of nomads. Instead of writing on vast stone walls underground, nomads take their memorials with them on their sleds. The outside of every sled is intricately decorated with artwork, names and legacies, stories told as art, generations painted on the side of their home. These sleds are the most valuable possessions of the tribe, and the loss of a sled outside of an uncontrollable accident is seen as a high crime only worthy of punishment by exile, the ceremony mourning the loss of the sled as a former member becomes no more than the snow on the ground. This memorial tradition goes even further for certain members of the tribe, with the most significant and important of those who were a part of the tribe being remembered through performance arts, re-enacting their greatest moments around great bonfires to the delight of the crowds. Some of this spoken history is rumoured to be hundreds of years old, and so accurate that historians will approach ancient tribes looking for information.

== Beyond Azunal ==
Among some Khazsanii, an idea has taken hold that brings with it the understanding that their way of life on Azunal will soon come to an end, as the nations encroach further and further on their territory. There is a way out, however, for those tribes willing to take the leap and abandon Azunal entirely. These spacefaring nomads have been a growing portion of the population since after the revolution, and their new environment provides an entirely different set of challenges. Acquiring spacecraft is one particularly difficult task, even after a tribe sells everything they have. Whether it’s one large ship or several smaller ships travelling together, these Tajara are often forced to buy the cheapest ships available from whoever is willing to sell to them, leading to an eclectic mix of ships from all species and all shapes and sizes.

On these ships, the traditions that have defined the Khazsanii for generations take on entirely new meanings. In lieu of the Nozhata, the ship’s FTL drive has taken on the significance once ascribed to the animal. The rest of the ship is treated like the sleds of their planetbound counterparts, with halls covered in art, elaborate tales, and memorials to the dead. Exteriors often bear an image or symbol of Semketna, the Firdrist deity of space travel. A significant portion of ships in these fleets are not equipped with reliable gravity generators, leading to a demographic of Offworlder Tajara not too dissimilar from humanity’s own.

Despite the change in environment, the tribes go about their lives as they once did, roaming vast distances and gathering resources when needed, but now with the bounty of entire star systems at their disposal, at least in theory. In practice, the fleets, which stay close to inhabited space out of necessity, are often accused of illegally gathering resources in owned systems, and may also find themselves gambling on whether or not a space station will deny them docking permission. They are not completely isolated, though, and are usually able to find someone willing to aid them in most places. Some nomadic humans and Zakkeran Unathi even find themselves travelling alongside these Tajara, often being treated as friends passing by, but those who stay for at least a year are frequently able to become members of the tribe.

Khazsanii

2023-11-07T05:05:21Z

Monty: /* Tribe Versus Nation */ Fixed spelling, linked page

Surviving the harsh winters and inhospitable tundras of the continent of Nalmir are the nomadic tribes known as the Khazsanii, a non-unified series of tribes whose way of life is thought to pre-date settlement by over a thousand years. While a hard and dangerous life, the Khazsanii have formed a tightly-bound community and sense of identity through their lifestyle, seeing nomadism as the last refuge of the tribe from the encroaching royal, republican and alien powers alike, and they are willing to defend this refuge with their lives if necessary.

== Server-Relevant Information ==
'''This section will summarise some of the behaviours and pieces of information that are most typical of a Tajaran raised in a Khazsanii tribe who would be seen in the server’s setting. These are not hard rules, however they are highly advised to be loosely followed for the sake of a coherent story.'''

* Nomads typically do not engage in Suns Worship, instead worshipping the older faith of the Firdrist Pantheon. Very often, Suns Worship is viewed as the faith of the colonising powers, and the structure of the religion is anti-nomadic due to its centralised clergy.

* Nomads treat Nozhata as a sacred animal, being the key to life when exploring the vast tundras of their inhabited continent. This animal has become their unofficial symbol for this reason.

* Nomad groups are their own tribes, rather than inter-tribal. A nomad will have spent much of their life around their tribe. Some nomad tribes are created from groups of exiles, becoming a sort of found family rather than an ancient tribe.
* Due to their incredibly insular nature, many nomads are unfamiliar with alien customs, to the point that they can rarely even glean from stereotypes. This can seem hostile at first, but they often acclimatise after some time in space.
* Some Nomads come from a space-faring tribe instead, usually a single ship or a small fleet. Space-farers are much more likely to be understanding of various alien cultures and may even have taken in some xenos as their own. These nomads often replace the Nozhata with a bluespace drive as their symbol.

== Tribe Versus Nation ==
Generally speaking, nomads do not live a peaceful existence. It would be considered unusual for a nomad to have never gotten into a firefight on behalf of their tribe, and it is often the fact that tribes will have armoured and motorised sleds alongside their traditional ones intended to provide convoy protection. This militant attitude to their lifestyle is typically front and foremost in anti-tribal propaganda, especially on television, with nomads often being represented as grizzled combat veterans and heretics.

<tabber>
|-|Conflict With The Kingdom=
Nomads' most common enemy are colonisers from the Royal Port of Crevus, a naval base originally intended to protect fishing ships from pirates that has become an entire settlement and intended jumping off point for the monarchy’s ambitions of empire in the undeveloped continent of Nalmir. Crevans often attack nomads that stay in one camp for too long, and nomads often return the favour to Crevan settlements when found. The result is a brutal guerilla war in which the Royal Navy has been forced to use their marines as bodyguards for settlers, attempting seek-and-destroy missions on nomads. These missions are often airborne, seeking nomad convoys in the area and destroying them with extreme prejudice.
|-|Republican Border Skirmishes=
[[The Free Tajara Republic]] is far from innocent in terms of crimes against the Khazsanii, their expansion into the coastal regions of the southern arctic circle beginning to destroy the ancestral fishing holes and trade routes that allowed nomads to maintain contact with the settled world. A vast fence and checkpoint system, often nicknamed Revolution’s Death, prevents nomads from entering the borders of the nation without paying a toll and announcing their presence. While erected in the name of supposedly defending the republic from a southern assault, many nomads view it as a way to force them into a more settled life. This typically ends in border skirmishes, sabotage to the fences and incredible amounts of smuggling, with some nomad groups seeing their illegal entry as an excuse to begin smuggling arms and goods in and out of the border without tax or regulation.
|-|The Stars Are No Paradise=
Even in space, nomads often face trouble with nations. While ancient prejudices and cultural erasure are often left behind, the new challenge becomes acceptance from the spacefaring nations. Nomad ships and fleets often find that being under neither a Kingdom or Republic banner creates bureaucratic issues that many law-abiding stations and planetary shuttle ports will not bother dealing with. Instead, spacer nomads often rely on criminal and piracy-inclined stations for supplies and work, giving them a dreadful reputation as sell-swords and extralegal ships for hire. The legacy of smuggling supplies over the FTR's border only continues into space.
</tabber>

== Nomadic Governments ==
[[File:Nozhata Khazsanii Flag.png|alt=A black flag with two white diamonds diagonally offset from one another in the bottom left hand side. A white diagonal line crosses from the top left to the bottom right corner. From the bottom right corner another white line shoots out towards the top-centre of the flag. The two white lines are connected by an inversely diagonal white line that goes between them.|thumb|The flag of the Nozhata Khazsanii. Two diamonds represent the two suns that the nomads travel under, while the triangle represents the blade of the sleds they survive through.]]
Tribal politics is a complex matter, as no two tribes can agree on all terms, nor may even be aware of one another’s existence. This means that one cannot simply classify a general rule for what a tribe’s politics are or what even individual members within tribes might think. Every tribe has different wants, needs and methods for getting these things, and while some are more diplomatic than others, violence is never off of the table for these groups.

This has begun to change, however, with the Nozhata Khazsanii (Basic translation: Packmule Nomads). A loose confederation of tribes, their symbol is a black flag with two diamond shaped stars and a contrasting triangle, representing the two suns overhead and the blade of their sleds. Largely a military alliance of tribes, the Nozhata Khazsanii have been labelled a terrorist organisation by the Sacred Kingdom for their use of extreme violence against Crevan settlers, forcing them out of their villages and into the tundra as the buildings are burnt to the ground. The Nozhata Khazsanii’s common argument for these tactics is that it is a measured response against the constant aerial attacks that their caravans have faced.

== A Unique Culture ==
The culture of nomads has often been described as ancient by outsiders, who feel a connection to a deeper ancestral history when interacting. In a way, this is true, with the oldest faith and oldest language spoken on Azunal both being prevalent only in nomad tribes. Their worship of the Firdrist Pantheon is possibly the longest-lasting aspect of Tajara history, with multiple gods dedicated entirely to nomadic culture. Their version of Ornadi is also highly unique to the royal version spoken by nobility on the continent of Vahtul, likely more connected to the ancient roots of the language but also highly prone to tribal dialects and mannerisms.

The centrepoint for nomadic culture is the nozhata, a creature that can best be described as a six-legged polar-bear turned into a pack animal. Being a source of mobility, warm clothing, emergency food and even fertiliser for newly-planted crops, this creature has become the symbol of the nomadic cultures. To describe it as merely a symbol could be considered an understatement, instead a more applicable term would be sacred. The mistreatment or death of a nozhata is considered a great stain on a nomad’s legacy, and in extreme cases may even see a nomad expelled from their community.

Tajara memorialism also has adapted to the mobile lifestyle of nomads. Instead of writing on vast stone walls underground, nomads take their memorials with them on their sleds. The outside of every sled is intricately decorated with artwork, names and legacies, stories told as art, generations painted on the side of their home. These sleds are the most valuable possessions of the tribe, and the loss of a sled outside of an uncontrollable accident is seen as a high crime only worthy of punishment by exile, the ceremony mourning the loss of the sled as a former member becomes no more than the snow on the ground. This memorial tradition goes even further for certain members of the tribe, with the most significant and important of those who were a part of the tribe being remembered through performance arts, re-enacting their greatest moments around great bonfires to the delight of the crowds. Some of this spoken history is rumoured to be hundreds of years old, and so accurate that historians will approach ancient tribes looking for information.

== Beyond Azunal ==
Among some Khazsanii, an idea has taken hold that brings with it the understanding that their way of life on Azunal will soon come to an end, as the nations encroach further and further on their territory. There is a way out, however, for those tribes willing to take the leap and abandon Azunal entirely. These spacefaring nomads have been a growing portion of the population since after the revolution, and their new environment provides an entirely different set of challenges. Acquiring spacecraft is one particularly difficult task, even after a tribe sells everything they have. Whether it’s one large ship or several smaller ships travelling together, these Tajara are often forced to buy the cheapest ships available from whoever is willing to sell to them, leading to an eclectic mix of ships from all species and all shapes and sizes.

On these ships, the traditions that have defined the Khazsanii for generations take on entirely new meanings. In lieu of the Nozhata, the ship’s FTL drive has taken on the significance once ascribed to the animal. The rest of the ship is treated like the sleds of their planetbound counterparts, with halls covered in art, elaborate tales, and memorials to the dead. Exteriors often bear an image or symbol of Semketna, the Firdrist deity of space travel. A significant portion of ships in these fleets are not equipped with reliable gravity generators, leading to a demographic of Offworlder Tajara not too dissimilar from humanity’s own.

Despite the change in environment, the tribes go about their lives as they once did, roaming vast distances and gathering resources when needed, but now with the bounty of entire star systems at their disposal, at least in theory. In practice, the fleets, which stay close to inhabited space out of necessity, are often accused of illegally gathering resources in owned systems, and may also find themselves gambling on whether or not a space station will deny them docking permission. They are not completely isolated, though, and are usually able to find someone willing to aid them in most places. Some nomadic humans and Zakkeran Unathi even find themselves travelling alongside these Tajara, often being treated as friends passing by, but those who stay for at least a year are frequently able to become members of the tribe.

Free Tajara Republic

2023-11-07T05:00:41Z

Monty: Created page with "The Free Tajara Republic, often abbreviated to FTR, is a representative democracy that spawned in the fires of revolution against the monarchy. Declaring independence as a single entity in 2516, the cause of the revolution is still hotly debated by historians. While small, the young republic has much support from extraplanetary entities, especially corporations, and has been able to carve out a place on the galactic stage for itself. Despite a ceasefire being signed..."

The Free [[Tajara]] Republic, often abbreviated to FTR, is a representative democracy that spawned in the fires of revolution against the monarchy. Declaring independence as a single entity in 2516, the cause of the revolution is still hotly debated by historians. While small, the young republic has much support from extraplanetary entities, especially corporations, and has been able to carve out a place on the galactic stage for itself. Despite a ceasefire being signed in 2518, they are still technically at war with the [[Sacred Azunal Kingdom]], which labels them as an insurgent state and does not recognise their sovereignty.

== Server-Relevant Information ==
'''This section will summarise some of the behaviours and pieces of information that are most typical of a Tajaran from the Free Tajara Republic who would be seen in the server’s setting. These are not hard rules, however they are highly advised to be loosely followed for the sake of a coherent story.'''

* Republican Tajara are the most familiar with human customs, understanding the difference in cultural context and perhaps even accepting certain gestures such as handshakes. They are still likely to find refusing a cigarette rude, due to the variety of humans that typically exist in the republic.

* These Tajara often speak one human language, usually Basic but sometimes Freespeak if they are in politically active circles. Despite this openness to learning alien languages, they will shun Ornadi as the language of monarchists and corrupt clergy, considering only an academic language. A tajaran that speaks Ornadi aloud will typically be treated similarly to a human that speaks Latin aloud.

* There is very rarely a charitable assumption of humanity from a Republican Tajaran, instead they often assume that humans are greedy, and usually either businessmen or mercenaries.

== Economy ==
In an almost total contrast to the Sacred Azunal Kingdom, the economy of the republic is the most advanced on the planet, making use of numerous alien-made technologies and exporting vast amounts of raw materials and small manufactured goods at cheap prices. The bursting wealth of the republic is often pointed to by corporate economists as an example of how corporate influence can help an economy grow and improve the lives of a nation’s inhabitants, however more cynical economists claim that the young nation will never grow past its primary and secondary industries and forever remain the cash-cow of corporate interests.

The rapid economic miracle of the Free Tajara Republic can be largely attributed to the work of corporations, who swiftly moved into the region to offer economic and military services in exchange for raw resource rights and factories. It is said that for every Republican soldier, there are four corporate mercenaries. This symbiotic relationship quickly blossomed but has recently plateaued as the vast majority of existing resources within the tiny republic’s borders have begun to be exploited, forcing them to look elsewhere for expansion.

The most important of these resources is a small reserve of phoron contained within the southern border region of the republic, nearing the arctic circle. This reserve is currently the exclusive right of the republic to exploit, having signed a treaty giving them 50 years of these rights when the field was discovered in 2548. With the expiry of this treaty looming over the horizon, many government-backed mining corporations are attempting to scout the rest of this field so that they may open mines before foreign corporations can muscle them out. It is the general assumption of most that this sole, dangerous resource is the reason that both the Sacred Kingdom and the wider corporate powers have not taken the region by force, as the super-fuel is too easily weaponised for a swift resolution.

The Tajaran insistence on innovation has not been lost, however, even with so many foreign products flooding the market. Tuner businesses are one of the major industries of the republic, taking foreign-made products and improving them, either in artisanal tinkers’ shops or in massive factories that swap out parts for ones made locally. These tuned products are not always superior, in fact many could be considered side-grades that use locally-patented technologies instead of the alien technologies the products were designed for. Most commonly, tesla engines will be put inside of civilian vehicles to replace their internal combustion engines or battery-packs.

== The Revolution ==
<blockquote>''“To claim that the revolution of 2516 was merely the birth of the Free Republic would be to do its impact a total injustice. It was not simply a political event, so much as a socio-cultural explosion created when a culture that believed itself the most innovative possible meets a group of war-mongers whose technological capacity put them comparatively in the stone-age.” - Yabka Teramika, Contemporary Tajaran Historian, 2582''</blockquote>The revolution in 2516 that birthed the Free Tajara Republic was a complicated event. Originally starting as a revolt of a group of nobility of whom viewed themselves as enlightened against a regressive monarch, it was quickly inherited and co-opted by a new cause: democracy. This new cause was far more popular with the common public and educated elite alike, becoming a key factor that motivated the revolution’s fervour. What this has created, however, is a very large divide in the politics of the average politician and the politics of the average person, especially as government officials are often former nobility.

The average Tajaran, and therefore the public facing image of the republic to many, could only be described as an ardent warhawk. The belief typically goes that no Tajaran is free until every Tajaran is free, and this must be achieved by any means necessary up to and including war. The traditions and practices of the nobility are seen as backwards and counter-revolutionary, and in some ways the anti-noble sentiment can be seen as going too far, shunning acts such as reading literature or speaking Ornadi. Small peasant revolts often receive massive public support in the form of demands for military aid and partying in the streets.

The average politician, however, often has to face a far uglier reality. The republic is simply too small for any war at scale. While the occasional border skirmish goes well, largely due to the help of mercenaries and corporate air power, the fledgling nation simply cannot support a war for more than a few months, and certainly not occupy large gains in territory. Instead they resort to symbolic acts, decrying counter-revolutionaries and declaring military readiness acts that do little. In the midst of this behaviour, they often perform many of their noble-heritage traditions in private, quietly contacting Priests of Rensa for blessings and speaking Ornadi to their families. This often ends in public controversy, with politicians who declare plans to outlaw Ornadi or curb the powers of the Suns Worship Church having their private matters exposed by the press.

== Politics ==
Republican politics can be defined as a battle of showing off one’s revolutionary spirit versus one’s ability to prevent a war that would totally destroy the nation. While the forward-facing image of the republic’s parliament, known as the Ahkazu, is of a crowd of hollering and sabre-rattling Tajara in formal clothing declaring war on the counter-revolution and demanding acts be done against wreckers and subversives; the reality is a desperate struggle of old-guard politicians from the revolution reaping the consequences of a thousand hyper-localised parties who all mean their sabre-rattling with sincerity.

A party might consist of five members from a tribe, elected on tribal lines with little national policy but way too much policy related to their specific region of the nation. It might also be a more generalist national party, one that forms coalitions with these small and local parties to appeal to both tribes and to the tribe-less, directing the nation. While the former are often new politicians, of whom are young bulls that are gunning for war with the kingdom to “continue the revolution”, the latter are often experienced politicians who have had time to realise that their best scenario would be gradual border expansion or the encouragement of revolution elsewhere in the Sacred Kingdom.

At one time, there may be up to 3100 political parties vying for the limited 1000 seats within the Ahkazu. Many politicians will spend their entire career not being elected, their tribe not being influential enough to directly control a seat or their position not being radical enough for the largely performative populace. A popular move for politicians with weak careers is to convert from Suns Worship to the Firdrist Pantheon, loudly renouncing any and all ties to the state religion of the monarchy and often having news clips show them devoutly attending Firdrist temples.

User:Monty/Sandbox

2023-11-07T04:58:53Z

Monty: /* Politics */

This is the sandbox, stop peanut gallerying or I'll throw sand in your eyes

The Free [[Tajara]] Republic, often abbreviated to FTR, is a representative democracy that spawned in the fires of revolution against the monarchy. Declaring independence as a single entity in 2516, the cause of the revolution is still hotly debated by historians. While small, the young republic has much support from extraplanetary entities, especially corporations, and has been able to carve out a place on the galactic stage for itself. Despite a ceasefire being signed in 2518, they are still technically at war with the [[Sacred Azunal Kingdom]], which labels them as an insurgent state and does not recognise their sovereignty.

== Server-Relevant Information ==
'''This section will summarise some of the behaviours and pieces of information that are most typical of a Tajaran from the Free Tajara Republic who would be seen in the server’s setting. These are not hard rules, however they are highly advised to be loosely followed for the sake of a coherent story.'''

* Republican Tajara are the most familiar with human customs, understanding the difference in cultural context and perhaps even accepting certain gestures such as handshakes. They are still likely to find refusing a cigarette rude, due to the variety of humans that typically exist in the republic.

* These Tajara often speak one human language, usually Basic but sometimes Freespeak if they are in politically active circles. Despite this openness to learning alien languages, they will shun Ornadi as the language of monarchists and corrupt clergy, considering only an academic language. A tajaran that speaks Ornadi aloud will typically be treated similarly to a human that speaks Latin aloud.

* There is very rarely a charitable assumption of humanity from a Republican Tajaran, instead they often assume that humans are greedy, and usually either businessmen or mercenaries.

== Economy ==
In an almost total contrast to the Sacred Azunal Kingdom, the economy of the republic is the most advanced on the planet, making use of numerous alien-made technologies and exporting vast amounts of raw materials and small manufactured goods at cheap prices. The bursting wealth of the republic is often pointed to by corporate economists as an example of how corporate influence can help an economy grow and improve the lives of a nation’s inhabitants, however more cynical economists claim that the young nation will never grow past its primary and secondary industries and forever remain the cash-cow of corporate interests.

The rapid economic miracle of the Free Tajara Republic can be largely attributed to the work of corporations, who swiftly moved into the region to offer economic and military services in exchange for raw resource rights and factories. It is said that for every Republican soldier, there are four corporate mercenaries. This symbiotic relationship quickly blossomed but has recently plateaued as the vast majority of existing resources within the tiny republic’s borders have begun to be exploited, forcing them to look elsewhere for expansion.

The most important of these resources is a small reserve of phoron contained within the southern border region of the republic, nearing the arctic circle. This reserve is currently the exclusive right of the republic to exploit, having signed a treaty giving them 50 years of these rights when the field was discovered in 2548. With the expiry of this treaty looming over the horizon, many government-backed mining corporations are attempting to scout the rest of this field so that they may open mines before foreign corporations can muscle them out. It is the general assumption of most that this sole, dangerous resource is the reason that both the Sacred Kingdom and the wider corporate powers have not taken the region by force, as the super-fuel is too easily weaponised for a swift resolution.

The Tajaran insistence on innovation has not been lost, however, even with so many foreign products flooding the market. Tuner businesses are one of the major industries of the republic, taking foreign-made products and improving them, either in artisanal tinkers’ shops or in massive factories that swap out parts for ones made locally. These tuned products are not always superior, in fact many could be considered side-grades that use locally-patented technologies instead of the alien technologies the products were designed for. Most commonly, tesla engines will be put inside of civilian vehicles to replace their internal combustion engines or battery-packs.

== The Revolution ==
<blockquote>''“To claim that the revolution of 2516 was merely the birth of the Free Republic would be to do its impact a total injustice. It was not simply a political event, so much as a socio-cultural explosion created when a culture that believed itself the most innovative possible meets a group of war-mongers whose technological capacity put them comparatively in the stone-age.” - Yabka Teramika, Contemporary Tajaran Historian, 2582''</blockquote>The revolution in 2516 that birthed the Free Tajara Republic was a complicated event. Originally starting as a revolt of a group of nobility of whom viewed themselves as enlightened against a regressive monarch, it was quickly inherited and co-opted by a new cause: democracy. This new cause was far more popular with the common public and educated elite alike, becoming a key factor that motivated the revolution’s fervour. What this has created, however, is a very large divide in the politics of the average politician and the politics of the average person, especially as government officials are often former nobility.

The average Tajaran, and therefore the public facing image of the republic to many, could only be described as an ardent warhawk. The belief typically goes that no Tajaran is free until every Tajaran is free, and this must be achieved by any means necessary up to and including war. The traditions and practices of the nobility are seen as backwards and counter-revolutionary, and in some ways the anti-noble sentiment can be seen as going too far, shunning acts such as reading literature or speaking Ornadi. Small peasant revolts often receive massive public support in the form of demands for military aid and partying in the streets.

The average politician, however, often has to face a far uglier reality. The republic is simply too small for any war at scale. While the occasional border skirmish goes well, largely due to the help of mercenaries and corporate air power, the fledgling nation simply cannot support a war for more than a few months, and certainly not occupy large gains in territory. Instead they resort to symbolic acts, decrying counter-revolutionaries and declaring military readiness acts that do little. In the midst of this behaviour, they often perform many of their noble-heritage traditions in private, quietly contacting Priests of Rensa for blessings and speaking Ornadi to their families. This often ends in public controversy, with politicians who declare plans to outlaw Ornadi or curb the powers of the Suns Worship Church having their private matters exposed by the press.

== Politics ==
Republican politics can be defined as a battle of showing off one’s revolutionary spirit versus one’s ability to prevent a war that would totally destroy the nation. While the forward-facing image of the republic’s parliament, known as the Ahkazu, is of a crowd of hollering and sabre-rattling Tajara in formal clothing declaring war on the counter-revolution and demanding acts be done against wreckers and subversives; the reality is a desperate struggle of old-guard politicians from the revolution reaping the consequences of a thousand hyper-localised parties who all mean their sabre-rattling with sincerity.

A party might consist of five members from a tribe, elected on tribal lines with little national policy but way too much policy related to their specific region of the nation. It might also be a more generalist national party, one that forms coalitions with these small and local parties to appeal to both tribes and to the tribe-less, directing the nation. While the former are often new politicians, of whom are young bulls that are gunning for war with the kingdom to “continue the revolution”, the latter are often experienced politicians who have had time to realise that their best scenario would be gradual border expansion or the encouragement of revolution elsewhere in the Sacred Kingdom.

At one time, there may be up to 3100 political parties vying for the limited 1000 seats within the Ahkazu. Many politicians will spend their entire career not being elected, their tribe not being influential enough to directly control a seat or their position not being radical enough for the largely performative populace. A popular move for politicians with weak careers is to convert from Suns Worship to the Firdrist Pantheon, loudly renouncing any and all ties to the state religion of the monarchy and often having news clips show them devoutly attending Firdrist temples.

User:Monty/Sandbox

2023-11-07T04:36:49Z

Monty: /* The Revolution */

User:Monty/Sandbox

2023-11-07T04:30:32Z

Monty:

This is the sandbox, stop peanut gallerying or I'll throw sand in your eyes

The Free [[Tajara]] Republic, often abbreviated to FTR, is a representative democracy that spawned in the fires of revolution against the monarchy. Declaring independence as a single entity in 2516, the cause of the revolution is still hotly debated by historians. While small, the young republic has much support from extraplanetary entities, especially corporations, and has been able to carve out a place on the galactic stage for itself. Despite a ceasefire being signed in 2518, they are still technically at war with the [[Sacred Azunal Kingdom]], which labels them as an insurgent state and does not recognise their sovereignty.

== Server-Relevant Information ==
'''This section will summarise some of the behaviours and pieces of information that are most typical of a Tajaran from the Free Tajara Republic who would be seen in the server’s setting. These are not hard rules, however they are highly advised to be loosely followed for the sake of a coherent story.'''

* Republican Tajara are the most familiar with human customs, understanding the difference in cultural context and perhaps even accepting certain gestures such as handshakes. They are still likely to find refusing a cigarette rude, due to the variety of humans that typically exist in the republic.

* These Tajara often speak one human language, usually Basic but sometimes Freespeak if they are in politically active circles. Despite this openness to learning alien languages, they will shun Ornadi as the language of monarchists and corrupt clergy, considering only an academic language. A tajaran that speaks Ornadi aloud will typically be treated similarly to a human that speaks Latin aloud.

* There is very rarely a charitable assumption of humanity from a Republican Tajaran, instead they often assume that humans are greedy, and usually either businessmen or mercenaries.

== Economy ==
In an almost total contrast to the Sacred Azunal Kingdom, the economy of the republic is the most advanced on the planet, making use of numerous alien-made technologies and exporting vast amounts of raw materials and small manufactured goods at cheap prices. The bursting wealth of the republic is often pointed to by corporate economists as an example of how corporate influence can help an economy grow and improve the lives of a nation’s inhabitants, however more cynical economists claim that the young nation will never grow past its primary and secondary industries and forever remain the cash-cow of corporate interests.

The rapid economic miracle of the Free Tajara Republic can be largely attributed to the work of corporations, who swiftly moved into the region to offer economic and military services in exchange for raw resource rights and factories. It is said that for every Republican soldier, there are four corporate mercenaries. This symbiotic relationship quickly blossomed but has recently plateaued as the vast majority of existing resources within the tiny republic’s borders have begun to be exploited, forcing them to look elsewhere for expansion.

The most important of these resources is a small reserve of phoron contained within the southern border region of the republic, nearing the arctic circle. This reserve is currently the exclusive right of the republic to exploit, having signed a treaty giving them 50 years of these rights when the field was discovered in 2548. With the expiry of this treaty looming over the horizon, many government-backed mining corporations are attempting to scout the rest of this field so that they may open mines before foreign corporations can muscle them out. It is the general assumption of most that this sole, dangerous resource is the reason that both the Sacred Kingdom and the wider corporate powers have not taken the region by force, as the super-fuel is too easily weaponised for a swift resolution.

The Tajaran insistence on innovation has not been lost, however, even with so many foreign products flooding the market. Tuner businesses are one of the major industries of the republic, taking foreign-made products and improving them, either in artisanal tinkers’ shops or in massive factories that swap out parts for ones made locally. These tuned products are not always superior, in fact many could be considered side-grades that use locally-patented technologies instead of the alien technologies the products were designed for. Most commonly, tesla engines will be put inside of civilian vehicles to replace their internal combustion engines or battery-packs.

== The Revolution ==
<blockquote>''“To claim that the revolution of 2516 was merely the birth of the Free Republic would be to do its impact a total injustice. It was not simply a political event, so much as a socio-cultural explosion created when a culture that believed itself the most innovative possible meets a group of war-mongers whose technological capacity put them comparatively in the stone-age.” - , Contemporary Tajaran Historian, 2582''</blockquote>The revolution in 2516 that birthed the Free Tajara Republic was a complicated event. Originally starting as a revolt of a group of nobility of whom viewed themselves as enlightened against a regressive monarch, it was quickly inherited and co-opted by a new cause: democracy. This new cause was far more popular with the common public and educated elite alike, becoming a key factor that motivated the revolution’s fervour. What this has created, however, is a very large divide in the politics of the average politician and the politics of the average person, especially as government officials are often former nobility.

The average Tajaran, and therefore the public facing image of the republic to many, could only be described as an ardent warhawk. The belief typically goes that no Tajaran is free until every Tajaran is free, and this must be achieved by any means necessary up to and including war. The traditions and practices of the nobility are seen as backwards and counter-revolutionary, and in some ways the anti-noble sentiment can be seen as going too far, shunning acts such as reading literature or speaking Ornadi. Small peasant revolts often receive massive public support in the form of demands for military aid and partying in the streets.

The average politician, however, often has to face a far uglier reality. The republic is simply too small for any war at scale. While the occasional border skirmish goes well, largely due to the help of mercenaries and corporate air power, the fledgling nation simply cannot support a war for more than a few months, and certainly not occupy large gains in territory. Instead they resort to symbolic acts, decrying counter-revolutionaries and declaring military readiness acts that do little. In the midst of this behaviour, they often perform many of their noble-heritage traditions in private, quietly contacting Priests of Rensa for blessings and speaking Ornadi to their families. This often ends in public controversy, with politicians who declare plans to outlaw Ornadi or curb the powers of the Suns Worship Church having their private matters exposed by the press.

== Politics ==

User:Monty/Sandbox

2023-11-07T04:25:48Z

Monty: Replaced content with "This is the sandbox, stop peanut gallerying or I'll throw sand in your eyes The Free Tajara Republic, often abbreviated to FTR, is a representative democracy that spawned in the fires of revolution against the monarchy. Declaring independence as a single entity in 2516, the cause of the revolution is still hotly debated by historians. While small, the young republic has much support from extraplanetary entities, especially corporations, and has been able to carve ou..."

This is the sandbox, stop peanut gallerying or I'll throw sand in your eyes

The Free Tajara Republic, often abbreviated to FTR, is a representative democracy that spawned in the fires of revolution against the monarchy. Declaring independence as a single entity in 2516, the cause of the revolution is still hotly debated by historians. While small, the young republic has much support from extraplanetary entities, especially corporations, and has been able to carve out a place on the galactic stage for itself. Despite a ceasefire being signed in 2518, they are still technically at war with the Sacred Azunal Kingdom, which labels them as an insurgent state and does not recognise their sovereignty.

== Server-Relevant Information ==
'''This section will summarise some of the behaviours and pieces of information that are most typical of a Tajaran from the Free Tajara Republic who would be seen in the server’s setting. These are not hard rules, however they are highly advised to be loosely followed for the sake of a coherent story.'''

Sacred Azunal Kingdom

2023-11-07T04:13:59Z

Monty: Completed page

The Sacred Azunal Kingdom, often abbreviated to the SAK, is an elective theocratic monarchy that spans the vast majority of the main continent of Azunal. It is the oldest major power of the tripolar political system that inhabits the planet. The current monarch is the 2490 born Valeska Kalem, whose regressive technological policies and continuation of the policy of tribal assimilation are credited as the major reasons for the revolution by the Free Tajara Republic. The kingdom at the lower levels is entirely feudal, with noble families and influential clergy acting as district governors, and the average Tajaran is most likely to be a peasant serf or city labourer.

== Server Relevant Information ==
'''This section will summarise some of the behaviours and pieces of information that are most typical of a Tajaran from the Sacred Kingdom who would be seen in the server’s setting. These are not hard rules, however they are highly advised to be loosely followed for the sake of a coherent story.'''

*Nobility, if seen on the server, would be petty rather than influential. The culture of excellence that surrounds the Tajara nobility creates a large demand for nobles to inhabit high ranking or influential roles if they do choose to leave Azunal space, lest they be subject to estrangement or disinheritance. Suggested jobs are paper-work heavy command roles, leadership roles such as captaincy or Head of Security, or “dignified” roles in scientific fields.
*Peasants that leave the planet are often sending money home, living in poverty relative to their coworkers in order to send enough money home that their family or tribe may be able to cover their tithe.
*Ornadi would only be spoken by nobility or clergy, with the exception of the servants of nobility which may speak enough to do their jobs. This is largely because of the seemingly sacred status of Ornadi as a language.
*Sacred Kingdom Tajara are typically very unfamiliar with common human gestures, taking an offered handshake as rude, albeit without reacting violently, and seeing refusing cigarettes as rude, if they even offer a non-Tajaran a cigarette.
*Both nobility and peasant alike are very prone to falling for common stereotypes about non-Tajarans, having become accustomed to the stock personalities of aliens in Tajara television. The major stereotypes are as follows:
**humans are greedy and manipulative, always willing to stab another in the back for power;
**unathi are primitive religious zealots who worship any suitably impressive superior as a god;
**dionae are just plants, barely sentient and able to mimic speech to feed off of other species;
**skrell are smug and technologically advanced, but often blind to the “truth” due to their over-reliance on science;
**IPCs are the slaves of humanity, coming for the average Tajaran’s job and maybe even their life;
**and Vaurca are creepy, mindless drones that have very little between the ears.

== Economy ==
The economy of the Sacred Kingdom is a floundering, backwards, feudal economy that largely depends on noble-to-noble rule in how a region performs. Almost the entire economy is dedicated to agriculture or the extraction of raw resources, usually in ways that are considered wildly inefficient by contemporary standards. This is punctuated by the industrialisation of cities with up to date factory equipment on loan or payment plan from human and skrellian space, creating a jarring contrast between the newly-motorised farming and cobbled streets of the countryside and the black tarmac, shuttle ports and sleek steel buildings of the city centres, which in turn give way to brick and slate buildings on the outskirts.

The average kingdom Tajaran is versed in either farming, mining or mechanical work, as these are the large industries of the kingdom in which a commoner with little-to-no education is able to follow in. While medicine is seen as a profession for all, it is largely kept to the clergy due to their ability to read and write, with travelling “experimental” doctors being a cottage industry that helps to fill the gap in remote communities. However, pharmaceutical research is an incredibly new field on Azunal that has not reached the SAK.

The working conditions of the average kingdom Tajaran worker largely depends on their liege lord, who often bases their industrial needs of their lands on how much money or influence they can extract. Workers who have worked under indebted nobles often find their hours longer and their quotas harder to reach.

== The Nobility ==
The nobility of the SAK are both what keep it together and often the major challenge that a new ruler must face when coming to the throne. Noble hierarchies are chaotically designed, often being vassals or having many of their own, and it can vary from noble family to noble family how many other families and territories are above or below them in the chain. There are no explicit titles given, however some families are more able to influence their liege than others by the nature of their existence.

Generally speaking, the nobility has been resistant to change, in some instances quite literally tearing up tarmac roads and attacking surveyors attempting to change the lands they own. While this is not universal, the vast majority of the original noble families that were a part of the group that formed the FTR took their technologically and socially progressive ideas with them when they revolted, leaving the remaining nobility begrudgingly modernising in order to keep up or pay their debts.

The clergy, after a certain stage, also become nobility, inheriting the lands that their predecessors owned alongside the responsibilities and debts. This status as nobility places them directly under the king, and is typically used as a reward for backing the current monarchy and giving them the mandate of the Two Suns.

== The Commoners ==
Commoner is a general term for labourers and peasants, both of whom are what modern human society would consider working class. These groups have a variety of backgrounds as they make up the majority of the population, filling all manner of trades and vocations, but less-so white collar work outside of small office roles such as clerks.

Peasants are rural workers, typically farmers and their related fields. Some are miners, but not nearly as many, as the traditional farming methods employed by Tajara typically are only for feeding communities, not exporting food.

Labourers are city workers, often found in factories and mills. They have much more familiarity with modern technologies than their peasant kin, but only in the context of work, and many return home from electrically powered factories, that deal in industrial quantities never before seen on the planet of Azunal, to wood-fire heated homes of stone brick and tile roof and spring bed with a sheet for a blanket.

Commoners as a rule are generally hard working but poorly educated, being seen as stupid by the average Spur resident, and often seek entertainment in television, holo-shows and cinema over books, music or hobbies. They often care little for modern luxuries, not out of philosophy or belief, but simply because there is often too much reading involved for them to bother with modern consumerism, instead sending the savings home to tribe or family.

== Detribalisation ==
While tribes are incredibly important to the average Tajaran in newly conquered lands of the SAK, they are much less so in the core lands. This gradual erosion of tribal values has created the attitude in the nobility that tribes are nothing but trouble, and should be eradicated. This is achieved, by and large, through the undermining of tribal characteristics, especially through outlawing more explicit traditions or assimilating them as “Azunali” traditions rather than their explicit tribal ones. Another major tool is the linguistic assimilation of tribal languages, forcing younger Tajara to learn Yapudi and Oponi rather than spend time immersed in their own languages, going to the lengths of declaring tribal languages as dialects of Yapudi so that they can disregard them in courts and legal proceedings. As television has become a major part of Tajara culture, the forcing out of tribal languages has become much easier, with children often speaking Yapudi over the language of their parents. In the most extreme cases, stubborn or rebellious elders may be imprisoned or deposed by overarching authorities in order to trim their power and stop them from keeping the spirit of the tribe alive, however this is rare and often unfavourable compared to the option of simply inserting a play into the local theatre that mocks or satirises the trouble-maker, undermining them.

This policy sees very little interstellar condemnation, as it is often too subtle for many powers to really care about. The creation of a monoculture is often seen as a result of being brought so rapidly into the modern age while censorship exists, rather than what it is, a concerted effort to quell dissent through a lack of independent cultural identity. The unfortunate truth is that this type of action simply doesn’t make for good news engagement, and having the press on one’s side is the most important part of resisting an effort such as this.

Sacred Azunal Kingdom

2023-11-07T04:11:40Z

Monty: Created page with "The Sacred Azunal Kingdom, often abbreviated to the SAK, is an elective theocratic monarchy that spans the vast majority of the main continent of Azunal. It is the oldest major power of the tripolar political system that inhabits the planet. The current monarch is the 2490 born Valeska Kalem, whose regressive technological policies and continuation of the policy of tribal assimilation are credited as the major reasons for the revolution by the Free Tajara Republic. The k..."

Eridani Corporate Alliance

2023-11-07T03:19:55Z

Monty: /* Dreg Folklore */ Added Shock Namkoisse's tale, forgot to do that when making the page

The Eridani Corporate Alliance, often referred to as Eridani for short, is a series of relatively independent Solarian systems that enjoy almost total economic and relative military freedom from the rest of the alliance of states that forms Sol. Eridani can instead be considered a form of special economic zone that exists due to its convenience for the rest of the Spur, which in turn allows the corporations within to largely skirt past criticisms of their human rights violations and caste system by virtue of being economically beneficial to the rest of the Orion Spur.

== History ==
Originally sold for the purposes of establishing a port and warehouse to Charon Shipping Services in 2203, initial surveys of Epsilon Eridani appeared grim for profit. Only one planet was confirmed to have existed, the gas giant Aegir with a sole moon. While another planet was theorised, upon arrival this was proven not to be the case, however a much more important discovery was made by the Charon Eridani Fleet: The moon of Aegir was, in fact, habitable. A rudimentary biosphere had led to an atmosphere equivalent to the top of a tall mountain, ever-so-slightly thinner than average.

With this discovery came immediate colonisation by Charon, who in turn contacted numerous notable corporations with the intent to sell plots of land, mineral rights and shipping services. Many historians theorise that this was done in an attempt to legitimise the relative newcomer to space amongst its new peers, as well as create ties that would form the foundation of the new system’s unique status in Spur-level politics.

While initially colonised with the intent to be owned by Charon Shipping Services, the growing corporatocracy quickly found itself growing too large and complex for a single, relatively junior corporation to effectively manage. While logistics may have been the speciality of Charon, they lacked the political clout or hard power to enforce their claim upon the planet. In their place, and to avoid the minor skirmishes between security forces related to various corporations that were beginning to erupt in 2228, The Council of Eight was formed. This council of eight positions, dictated by the ownership of regions of land on the moon of Aegir, became the de-facto government for the planetoid.

Over time, The Council of Eight has had a series of small scale wars erupt between corporations for the seats of power in which it contains, with vast swathes of land being economically repurposed in arbitrary treaties that the inhabitants had little to no say in. To combat this turmoil, eventually The Council of Eight elected that positions are eternal, and may only be opened through either purchase or the forced removal of a seat by a unanimous vote of all other council seats. The last time the seats changed was in 2490, giving the largely run-down southern arctic region of District 8 to Einstein Engines. This transfer was met with controversy from much of the dreg population, with fears of the heating infrastructure going even further unmaintained under new leadership leading to a borderline revolution.

During what is now referred to as the Thermostat Revolution, the transfer of power between Einstein Engines and Zeng-Hu collapsed due to the total lack of military power owned by either corporation. In an attempt to prevent the budding revolution from potentially spreading further, the corporations that made up The Council of Eight put aside their differences temporarily, redirecting every mercenary group under their employment to suppress riots, arrest organisers and violently put down the revolution in such a manner that any non-corporate entity would be brought up on various human rights violations. Following this, The Council of Eight voted unanimously to create a semi-regulated body for the employment of mercenaries, who in times of no-contract would act as the de-facto military for the Eridanus Cluster.<blockquote>''“The modern Eridani Corporate Alliance is not too alien from the Corporate Alliance of the past, in a form of simultaneous stagnation and inflation. The more things change, the more entrenched certain conventions become; dregs remain the oppressed underclass, corporates remain in splendour and the corporations that influence every aspect of life become nations unto the worker. The Thermostat Revolution may soon become a distant memory, rather than a cultural touchstone of the Dreg Worker.” - Julian Bertrand, Philosopher and Economist, 2540''</blockquote>

== Government ==
Eridani’s government is largely represented by the Council of Eight - Eight representatives from various megacorporations. Each seat in the Council is tied to a sector, which the chairman’s corporation has full control over. While discussions have been made in the past to expand the number of sectors, this naturally has not come to fruition out of fears of decreased power on the moon. Each sector has also been given an informal name to make conversation easier. Currently, each sector is assigned to the following corporations:

'''Sector 1''' (Luxembourg) - Idris Incorporated

'''Sector 2''' (Canaria) - Hephaestus Industries

'''Sector 3''' (Monaco) - Idris Incorporated

'''Sector 4''' (Panama) - Charon Shipping Services

'''Sector 5''' (Trinidad) - Hephaestus Industries

'''Sector 6''' (Grenada) - EPMC - Zavodskoi Interstellar joint venture

'''Sector 7''' (Seychelles) - Zeng Hu Pharmaceuticals

'''Sector 8''' (Faroe) - Einstein Engines

== Sectors ==
Due to Epsilon Eridani’s long history of being terraformed and shaped to the whims of the colonists, the vast majority of the moon has similar streets and architecture styles. Industrial land seamlessly mixes with offices and apartments with very little rhyme or reason to much of it in regions where there is a high dreg population, meanwhile corporates enjoy well organised and sectioned off districts dedicated to work or leisure that stretch for kilometres. Despite this, each sector has a unique reputation and general environment that both the under and upper classes would be able to notice.

<tabber>
|-|Luxembourg and Canaria=
The twin capitals of Eridani, it is subject to being the “baseline” of people’s ideas of Eridani as a whole. Tall office blocks stretch into the sky, connected by walkways. The smog is so irreversibly powerful that windows do not open except in older buildings that were made before corporate regulations governing smog contamination were put in place. Dregs face a similar conundrum while living in the underground caverns of the sector, formerly mining operations. Here, shanty towns and pools of acidic chemical runoff characterise a rough life for dregs. Criminal gangs will occasionally surface to commit crimes in corporate territory before retreating.
|-|Monaco=
One of the major centres of tourism in Epsilon Eridani. The reputation of the moon of Aegir has spread far and wide throughout the Orion Spur, and with it comes tourists seeking to confirm or deny the rumours of the planet. Idris has transformed this region into a vast tourist haven, a cloying and romanticised version of the public perception of Eridani. In the eyes of tourists visiting Monaco, it is said that anything goes, and all manner of services, products and monuments can be found so long as you look hard enough. For the families there are the glamorous, bizarre and outright gimmicky tourist attractions of the main streets, immediately outside the hotels and surrounded by the dazzling lights of advertising, neon signs and flying billboards that pollute the sky with the incessant need to call attention to products. For the faux-bohemian, however, Idris has not neglected their wants, with an entire carefully managed and well patrolled dreg “slum” for them to visit. complete with faux dive bars and carefully managed waste in the road, any tourist that were to visit this sector would come out feeling as if they had seen the real Eridani, without ever having gone within 100 miles of actual danger, serving double time as a tourist attraction and smokescreen to the plight of the dregs. In amongst the splendour of the main tourist region and the artificial roughness of the disdainfully named “Dreg Village” comes what many actually visit Eridani for, the so-called Epsilon High-way. A single multi-mile long stretch of drugs, drink and vice arcs across the centre of Monaco, capturing the attention of passers by with graphic depictions of what products they offer.
|-|Panama=
This sector is one of the lesser talked about areas, having little importance other than as a docking station for large ships and cargo. The underground hosts an extremely large and dense network of warehouses, and one of the densest populations of dregs in Epsilon Eridani in order to staff it. Despite this, subsidiaries of Charon Shipping Services are still likely to bring workers in from outside of the region due to a general distrust of undermotivated dregs around valuable cargo. The sector is characterised by hostile wildlife in slums and streets alike, with a species of cross-bred rat being known to attack small children if left unattended. The environment itself is famously windy, the narrow corridors of buildings acting as wind tunnels that cause dangerous gales during storms. Instead of fixing this, wind shelters the size of a 21st century bus shelter have been installed along roads to shelter in during wind storms. Due to these factors, the region has been not so affectionately named “The Hurricane” by dregs who live there.
|-|Trinidad=
Located directly next to Panama, Trinidad is the industrial heart of the Eridani Corporate Council. The surface is smeared with refineries belching smog into the sky as underground rail transports produced goods to and from the warehouses of Panama. Mirroring its sister sector, Trinidad has a majority dreg population that lives in squalor around the factories they work in, either in shanty towns constructed between buildings or company towns that work on scrip pay and slum-like conditions. Many observers theorise that these company towns are a method of control that has prevented further workers rights movements from truly taking off in the system, forcing dregs to risk their food supply alongside their homes in order to take any form of industrial action. In comparison, reinstated and corporate managers are allowed to make use of the extensive rail network underneath this region, letting them arrive directly at their workplace with little to no exposure to the outside smog or squalid conditions of their subordinates.
|-|Grenada=
Forged in an agreement created by the lacking political capital of Zavodskoi Interstellar and the sudden need for a centralised base of operations for the newly developed Eridani Private Military Corporation, the formerly underdeveloped region of Grenada has developed over the past hundred years into a hub for weapons production, military training and electronic warfare development. The vast majority of the population are either reinstated, corporate or from outside of the system. While the region is technically contested between numerous mercenary groups, it has become possibly the safest region in Eridani, following the “Clean Front Door” doctrine of mercenary groups. Quality of life is higher here than the majority of Eridani, if still notably lower than the living standards of much of the Orion Spur.
|-|Seychelles=
The science and research hub of Epsilon Eridani, Seychelles boasts the environment of being carved into the ice of the Northern Pole of the moon. While other regions may feel as if they are tunnels between the large skyscrapers, Seychelles is quite literally made of tunnels to survive the cold environment outside of them. With an average surface temperature of -40 degrees celsius on the surface, the cold air is ideal for running the server farms required for 26th century research and saves immense money on cooling. These tunnels are little more than bare, carved stone in many places, however closer to the universities that litter this region of the moon metal plating has been installed so as to not offend the sensibilities of the students and researchers. Dregs, primarily making up the staffing of the day to day running of these facilities, face an entirely different conundrum. Heating is not universal to all tunnels, and while corporates may enjoy a steady 20 degrees celsius all year round, abandoned tunnels inhabited by the dregs face an average temperature of -10 degrees C and can plummet to -40 in the event of a breach.
|-|Faroe=
A recent acquisition, Faroe is in an unusual position compared to other sectors of Eridani. Despite the incredibly small number of manual labour positions, the sector has a large dreg population remaining from the period before Einstein Engines’ ownership of the sector. The vast majority of these dregs are homeless, living in communes situated within abandoned ex-Zeng Hu facilities making a living either selling scrap parts to pay for heating or scavenging for heating sources that still have valid DRM. Being the data centre of the communications giant’s Sol presence, Faroe takes advantage of the Southern Pole’s equally low temperatures to cool server racks for data farming and processing. The prior factors mix into a cocktail that results in Faroe being the centre of cyber-crime in Epsilon Eridani, with disenfranchised dregs who possess the necessary skills selling corporate secrets across all sectors after gathering data from in-person access to Einstein Engines servers. This culture of hacking has birthed legends of dreg folklore, including the infamous hacker Mairo Oku Mpu, who gained attention in 2587 for leaking classified Zavodskoi surveillance data.
|-|The Stations=
Outside of the populated moon is an uncontrolled span of stations all across the Eridanus Cluster. These stations do not come under the Council of Eight and are laws unto themselves unless otherwise stated. The vast majority of these stations are owned by megacorporations and their subsidiaries, but older stations may be sold to individuals or simply stolen by groups with the intent to start their own enterprises. Stations therefore come in all shapes and sizes, serving different purposes and being governed under different policies. The common thread connecting every station, however, is their precarious position in the system. While stations may be officially owned by megacorporations or small private enterprises, hostile takeovers and piracy run rampant in the far less militarised regions of the Eridanus Constellation, and refugees fleeing from one station to another is not an uncommon sight anywhere in the Constellation.

One of the major industries of the stations is resource extraction, either with skiffs designed to scoop gases from gas giants across the many systems or miner drones intended to pick every last mineral out of the asteroid belts of said gas giants. Other stations provide services such as rest stops, refuelling and repairs, with many artisanal shipyards making their home in Eridani with the intent to avoid copyright laws or heavy taxation implemented by corporate controlled governments to suppress competition. Of course, for any economic hub that is sprawling and decentralised, there is crime. Pirates and extortion rings run rampant, forming a noticeable percent of the GDP of Eridani as they refuel in less-than-reputable stations and take advantage of the low police and military presence to commit piracy, making use of Bluespace Interdictors in order to violently jerk ships out of bluespace travel and into dead space, shaking them down for the contents of their cargo hold before running away.

Due to the age of some of these stations, a noticeable population of offworlders exist of both the dreg and corporate variety. Roughly a quarter of the stations that exist in these systems are older than effective gravity generation, and as such either operate on the rotating wheel method of gravity generation or simply are free-floating. This makes a cottage industry of station tourism available to offworlders across the spur, run mostly by enterprising individuals and corporates who wish to strike out and start a “new” business under the Idris banner, in some ways making Eridani one of the most popular tourist locations with offworlders across the spur. Many of the dreg offworlders often consider themselves more offworlder than dreg, leading to many a cultural clash when meeting with dregs from gravity-laden stations.
</tabber>

== Housing ==
The commonly studied marvel of Eridanian engineering is the Corporate Habitation Block, referred to as “Habs” for short. Where regulation does not exist, convention thrives, and one can find convention to have taken a tight grip onto the common Hab. A mixture of office building, residential housing and commercial venture, the average corporate worker may never have to leave their specific block for their entire life, assuming they never have to attend an important meeting. The average habitation block consists of a floor by floor plan spread out over the largest plot of land that the construction company could purchase, sometimes at the cost of existing structures. While a lower floor may be a series of residential pods for data input specialists, secretaries and the other numerous rabble of the lowest echelons of the corporate ladder, and the floor above it the offices in which they infest during the rat race, the centre levels may become livable two, perhaps even three room apartments made cheap by their less than desirable position directly under nightclub or over the top of the ever-loud server rooms of the office corporate machine. Naturally, the palatial penthouses, adjacent to indoor gardens, community gyms and even having the rare luxury of natural sunlight weaving between the lattices of the complimentary air-vehicle garage sold inclusive, being the most coveted and expensive examples of Eridanian housing, are reserved for the most elite of the corporate world. Regional managers, CEOs’ second homes, the functional royalty of the corporate state which has been built across Eridani.

Lesser known to the outside world, but infamous to those aware of the true realities of Eridani, are the varieties of slums across the moon of Aegir. Most commonly are semi-permanent mountains of structures, stacked one atop the other in what can only be described as a game of jenga played with mortar and steel, affectionately nicknamed “Kowloons” after a 20th century structure of an almost identical nature. These structures occupy plots of land in which the ownership is either entirely disputed or the original owner cannot be located, providing safety from private property laws by virtue of angered parties either not existing or being too-long tied into legal battles to care about what is currently on the land. These structures are even denser than the densest of Habs, with entire families living in single rooms and businesses that pull separate functions at different times of day. Schools may become casinos at night, or restaurants may operate as a dentist during the day. The layout of these buildings can only be described as a rats’ nest, with narrow and winding tunnels leading deep within the artificially lit structure so far that it is not unheard of for outsiders to never be seen again after entering, presumed either dead or kidnapped. While living conditions may be of sub-human quality, there is a sense of community in these slums that is not experienced in corporate housing, and some reinstated dregs may privately express that they miss this sense of community. This community will not always last, however, and it is not unheard of for communities to be split apart by raids, entire slums emptied in weeks in order to facilitate the construction of future corporate housing or factories.

Other dregs take a more radical approach to housing, opting to occupy empty higher-tier apartments en-masse instead of risking the crime, disease and squalor of the slums. These squatters are almost always those with the least to lose, either a part of gangs or outright unemployed, and often form the vanguard that establishes longer lasting squats-turned-communities. This is much riskier for longevity compared to the slum, with squats often being cleared by corporate security in a matter of months. These squats have been known to last years, however, and some even decades, as veritable fortresses under siege deep within corporate territory. Some of these squats have entered the annals of dreg folklore, becoming rumoured safe havens or dens of legendary outlaws.

== Society ==

=== Work ===
Eridani forms what can only be described as a culture of pure work, with one’s job being the centre of their existence regardless of caste or class. Eridanians exist to work, and every aspect of culture is related back to the creation of value, the creation of wealth specifically. In the case of corporates, this is taken much more directly and manifests in hobbies having to be monetised, stress relief being a weak excuse for enjoying but a select few societally shared hobbies, and every waking hour is expected to be taken in the pursuit of wealth and power to some extent. This is less so in the case of dregs and some reinstated, who are more likely to take leisure in activities but are forced more by circumstances to monetise hobbies they hold actual skill in simply to make ends meet. Work culture in Eridani is considered toxic by the vast majority of the Spur, and even the most hardline of bootstrap mentality may baulk at the hours, or the absolute lack of overtime pay.

=== A Caste System ===
The one thing that everybody knows about the Eridanus Constellation is the system of classification that is functionally a caste system, wherein the status of “Corporate Citizen” is only granted to those who are employed by the corporations or client corporations of the Council of Eight.Those who are citizens enjoy full rights within the Eridani Corporate Council, however few those actually are, but this is dependent entirely on their remaining employed without more than a month’s gap between jobs at any point. Those who fail to stay employed in an office job are stripped of their citizenship, and if they choose to remain residents shall become of an entirely lower caste, forced to work in manual labour or not at all. This secondary caste are known as dregs, and while having the official name of non-citizens, their nickname holds much more power as both a derogatory term amongst corporates and a term of personal pride and empowerment amongst dregs. It is not uncommon for dregs to quote the immortal words from the trial of Shock Namkoisse, “I’m a dreg, you call me one behind my back, call me one to my face[...]”, when referred to as a “non-citizen”.

Between the corporate and the dreg is the reinstated, a somewhat temporary or probationary period between going back from dreg to corporate. People may be reinstated in two ways, becoming the conduit between management and the ground floor workers, typically as workplace managers or secretaries, or through coming under direct employment of a member of the corporate class. While the former may simply be a career in being a shift manager or foreman, the latter is on a much higher risk-reward relationship, with reinstated employees of corporates often being their personal mercenaries and wetworks teams of their employers. While reinstated “goons” may take much more risk, they have the potential to make great gains with their employer, and many find themselves retiring into comfy security management positions under their employer should they survive.

<Tabber>
|-|Corporate Citizens=
Referred to as corporates by the vast majority, citizens enjoy the most rights out of any of their fellow Eridanians. Their citizenship is tied entirely to their work, and as such a unique work culture persists, described by some as horrific in nature. The most major tenet, and the most famous, is the cutthroat nature of office politics within corporate culture, both metaphorically and literally. While at the lowest levels the likelihood of promotion is almost entirely tied to hours worked, eventually worked hours plateau in effectiveness and the only method of upwards movement is conspiracy, sabotage or loyalty to another person who excels in these fields. The highest echelons of corporate life have only ever achieved their positions through climbing a blood soaked ladder all the way to the top, and more often than not have added their fair share of blood to the rungs. Despite this, the status of the lowest corporates should not be confused with the situation of the highest up corporates, and to an extent lower on the corporate ladder is almost entirely devoid of bloodshed outside of the most ambitious of candidates, even if this difference is not normally recognised by those who have not lived within the corporate lifestyle of Eridani.

Corporate life is often defined as long periods of work punctuated by rest and burnout, and this is by-and-large true for the low to middle echelons, with working hours reaching 12 hours a day on the regular and breaks being few and far between. These long working hours have led to an increasingly ready-made lifestyle amongst corporate citizens, with many basic skills being reduced to hobbies or sold in premade end results. Stimulant abuse is one of the leading causes of non-violent death in the Eridanus Cluster. Despite all of this, control of one’s life does not only extend to work, and corporates often end up seeing themselves criticised for not spending their limited time calling family, or taking part in the handful of hobbies that are seen as acceptable for bonding with fellow co-workers. While familial relations are not exactly close by the standards of the rest of the spur, they are usually the closest relationship that corporates will have while living within the borders of Eridani. Relationships are usually relegated to the workplace otherwise, with romantic relationships often quickly turning to marriage for added benefits from the employer, as well as the ability to finally talk privately with a person without arousing suspicion. The divorce rate in Eridani is 65%.

Hobbies-wise, corporates only have a handful of cultural touchstones they share, primarily football (soccer) as games can be discussed in the office as an icebreaker, as well as video games, crosswords and drinking for pleasure. The final one is the most important, with much of Eridanian free time being spent heading to the bar with their coworkers and attempting to drink one another under the table, with the expectation that everybody stay at least as long as their manager, who in turn is expected to stay for as long as they can still walk home, ending in a standoff situation with their co-workers.

Corporates are heavily augmented, with the first augments often being tracheal implants intended to make breathing easier in the stagnant air of the lower floors of their hab block easier. Largely, augments are subsidised by their employer, ranging from ocular implants to improve productivity to typing-optimised prosthetic hands intended to avoid the drop in productivity of RSI before it can even begin, augments that can’t be removed are docked from the final paycheck when an employee leaves the company. The relationship with their roboticist is the most crucial one that a corporate can have, not only because they must truly trust their roboticist to avoid assassination while under the knife, but also due to a true cultural belief that anybody who you trust with your body is a friend. While some anthropologists theorise that this is a result of such isolation in corporate culture that even casual relationships become strong, others theorise that it may be instead a result of cultural bleedover from dregs who were reinstated into corporate life.
|-|Reinstated=
As with all things, the relationship between dregs and corporates is not black and white, and there are those who have ambitions to escape the slums and become corporates, either believing that even a coffin hotel is better than their current living conditions or that they can advance to middle management or even beyond. These people are referred to as “reinstated”, typically with varying levels of venom from dregs and varying levels of disdain from higher up corporates.

Reinstateds are the intermediate period between a dreg and a corporate, being treated as a trial period in which they prove their loyalty to the corporation over their former communities. There are two methods in which this can be done, through either being promoted to a position that connects corporate management to the working dreg population such as supervisor, or through taking advantage of their dubious societal position to become effectively personal mercenaries for a corporate, on the understanding that they will be given a position immediately under their corporate sponsor once their position is no longer of use. The former is much more common than the latter, however covert work is far from uncommon as a method of reinstatement.

The more mundane of the two is naturally a promotion. Positions of power are usually only handed to dregs on the understanding that they are already of an exceptional loyalty to the company, rather than out of competence in their role. Promotions may range from managerial positions over other manual labourers to secretaries to document mules, typically positions at the absolute bottom of the corporate ladder, if still on the corporate ladder at all compared to their former position. These positions are typically the least popular in their workplace, either being seen as beneath their corporate colleagues or as sell-outs and potential rats by dreg subordinates. These attitudes lead to the majority of attempted reinstatements failing, with this path of reinstatement often exposing even the most stoic of dregs’ breaking points as they lose the vast majority of their friends and even family, that which had been so important to them before, to their ambitions. Failed reinstatements are often forgiven, however, and regularly return to a comfortable familiarity. Some anthropologists theorise that this is the true cause of the lack of class mobility, rather than the architecture of the system itself.

Standard reinstatement is not entirely negative, however, and successful reinstatements often find themselves office celebrities, invited to their managers’ parties to entertain guests with novel skills such as cooking for guests from scratch, mixing cocktails and anecdotes of slum life. Many describe their early career as being more of a circus, and yet the most advantageous position of their lives as they are granted the opportunity to network with much more powerful individuals and potentially secure a promotion before the novelty of their existence wears off.

There is, however, a faster method of climbing ranks without needing to be explicitly subservient or working in an unpopular position, all at the cost of a much higher risk to life. This is the world of corporate covert operations, typically referred to as “wet works”, in which reinstated are held to a contract on the understanding that they will help their sponsor advance their career at any cost. Depending on one’s sponsor, this could be any illicit job from bodyguard to hacker to thief to assassin. The system typically follows the format that the reinstated in question will be a member of their sponsor’s entourage up until either their sponsor dismisses them and recruits them into their corporate team, or their sponsor dies and they are sent back to square one. These wet works teams often never truly retire, being called back in to assist with their former sponsor’s problems under pain of the acts they committed during their tenure being revealed to their new manager, however accepting these callings will almost always result in promotion. This lifestyle is often considered by many to be that of only the most ambitious potential corporates, those who have no interest in bowing down and who crave only the power of position.

Historically, before EPMC took over at the functional police force of the ECA, wet works reinstated filled the role of enforcers for the will of the corporate holders of the region, tackling potential revolutionary groups and crime syndicates that were causing trouble for their sponsors in surgical strikes. Famously, the personal bodyguards of the Einstein Engines representative to the Corporate Alliance were reinstated from Faroe who foiled an assassination attempt.
|-|Dregs=
Despite being a largely service based economy, The Eridani Corporate Alliance requires immense amounts of manual labour to maintain food security, cleanliness and internal manufacturing. To fill this niche, the dreg caste makes up roughly half of the planet’s population according to censuses, but estimates from humanitarian organisations claim that the population is more on the end of 60 to 65% of the planet’s population, when accounting for the internal dreg economy. A combination of extreme deprivation, more people than jobs and an almost total lack of patrols from EPMC peacekeepers has led to the vast majority of the economy within dreg settlements being under the control of organised crime. Be the shop owned by these organisations, or simply forced to pay protection money, there is not a lot of land that is independent of these pseudo-governmental syndicates within a typical Kowloon, not even accommodation. Despite this criminal incentive for profit, a loyal population benefits these gangs infinitely more, and as such living conditions are usually more spacious than the low-level corporate coffin hotels, instead having enough room for a bed, wardrobe and perhaps some shelves, even if bathrooms and toilets are shared to a hallway or even a floor.

The day-to-day life of a dreg can be considered rather varied in comparison to the average 8 to 10 worker of Epsilon Eridani, however this should not be confused with comfort or freedom. Variety comes in problems, primarily lacking work but also sudden loss of power at home, oxygenators breaking or food running out faster than expected. All of these can send a dreg out to purchase, scavenge or steal the necessary parts and equipment to solve their problems, leading to either reliance on the local gangs to pull them out of trouble in exchange for favours, or interaction with the rich barter economy that has formed in the place of sufficient wealth to support a community. In rare cases, some communities have abolished currency entirely and collectivised their resources, instead relying on the community to solve issues, however, this is more of an exception than a rule, with some crediting the cultural osmosis of the “Take care of number one” attitude of corporates permeating into dreg culture for this. This unpredictable lifestyle has created an unusual gap between dreg ages, either dying in their mid-20s from industrial or gang-land related accidents or dying of age related causes in their early 60s, with very little in between. This unusual gap has caused a sort of reverence of older dregs, who are seen as wiser and more capable for having managed to break the 25+ mark.

Unlike the reserved lifestyles of the corporate suits, dregs are known to form close families of either blood family or found family. Family comes before all in dreg communities, and it’s not uncommon for extended family up to one’s cousin to live under the same roof in compound-like shanty homes. These homes might consist of a central living room as well as personal rooms around the edges, with families eating in the courtyard. The only thing that could possibly even hope to match family bonds are community bonds, with even gangs typically helping their immediate community regardless of their known brutality. Recruitment for gangs happens most often inside of these community bubbles as a result.

Dregs are typically louder and more outspoken than their corporate counterparts, where “spilling honesties” is considered perfectly acceptable so long as it wasn’t done with malice in mind. This can make dregs seem extremely blunt to outsiders, and can lead to misunderstandings outside of Eridani space. A typical dreg conversation will consist of a lot of shouting, arm gestures and teasing, with playful violence not entirely being ruled out. This makes dreg conversations in their native language look like an argument to outsiders, even corporates may struggle to interpret friendliness properly facing these odds.

Similarly to corporates, dregs will usually take their augmentation seriously, having an even closer bond to their roboticist and rarely picking a new one unless it would be geographically impossible to return. Due to the large amount of outward migration by dregs, this attitude is fairly well known in roboticist circles and is regarded with either charm or suspicion, depending on the attitude of the roboticist. Dregs are sometimes described as “overfamiliar” outside of Eridani space.
</Tabber>

== Augmentation ==

=== Corporate Augments ===
Cybernetic modification is an integral part of Eridani’s cultural ideal. Simple tracheal augments are usually the first and the mildest step into augmentation, as they are needed for a lot of people to simply survive with Eridani’s thoroughly polluted air. Having other bionic enhancements is considered a symbol of wealth and prestige. Most electronics in the Federation are specifically designed to interact with augmented eyes – but they are also very functional on their own. A typical Eridanian eye implant can completely replace, or even surpass, a typical hand terminal in functionality – being used to browse the Extranet, communicate on chat relays, and more. As is typical for Eridanian technology, it is also swarmed with ads and is proven to constantly send data about the user’s activity to advertisers, making them somewhat unpopular outside the Federation. Augmentation is so tailored to the workplace in corporate society that people often find difficulty retraining if made redundant, as their augments will have to be replaced in order to suit their new job title. This adds a steep financial barrier to changing professions, and works to prevent upwards mobility without corporate sponsors. In extreme examples, hands may be given an extra finger in order to increase typing speed on legacy systems, at the cost of removing much of their dexterity for other tasks such as handwriting. These augments are often removed by the time the corporate citizens are able to find work outside of Eridani, being seen as too unsightly and off putting to clients. In some cases, synthskin is a requirement for reassignment to certain regions of the spur.

=== Dreg Augments ===
Dreg societies take the Eridanian fascination with augmentation technology to an extreme. While a typical Corporate may have no more than an augmented respiratory system, bionic eyes and a few neural implants, a Dreg may maim themselves to replace their flesh with superior, more durable metal – often at the expense of looking presentable. Sleek eye augmentations are removed from former workers by barely qualified surgeons to be replaced with crude prosthetics that do not aim to imitate the human form, but to simply provide functionality – often being, for example, completely filled with one colour, or having coloured scleras. The more brave may opt into removing their limbs for a metal replacement, which is often made “in the house”, with lower quality parts but higher maintainability. Dregs in general are largely proponents of “right to repair” when it comes to prosthetics, shunning branded augments in favour of ones that can be repaired at home or by their favourite roboticist. Function over form is another one of the more unusual ideologies of dreg augmentation, with dregs often caring little about how attractive their augments are so long as they outperform their original limb. As such, dreg roboticists have gained a rightful reputation for making insane or seemingly random choices with their parts lists that give their augments a unique charm, creating a niche market of enthusiasts who share a mindset. Within dreg circles, however, reputation is all, and dreg roboticists can go down within the rich folklore of dregs should they perform their best, amongst names such as David Insurgent and Amiyu Wires. A dreg that can perform augmentation installation could expect to see a large amount of business on this stereotype alone should they open a workshop once out of Epsilon Eridani.

== Eridani Life ==

=== Food ===
Eridanian cuisine has a wrongfully gained reputation of being extremely soy based, to the point of caricatures of Eridanian figures often depicting them holding some form of soy based product. Despite this stereotype, this is not entirely true. While Eridanian cuisine as a whole typically makes heavy use of soy based products, other ingredients make up as much of a staple of the Eridanian diet as much as soy does. Plantains, tofu, farmed fish, squash, beans and rice are all staple ingredients of Eridanian cuisine due to their ease of growth in a hydroponics heavy society. A major method of cooking is frying in nut oil, with Eridanians being known to fry anything that can fit in the pan and even some things that can’t, being served with the ever-present soy.

Some famous dishes from Eridani include:

* Puff-puffs, a fried dough ball with a crunchier outside than a donut. These are typically cooked in a pool of oil at the bottom of a pan, however the Eridanian version differs from tradition by adding ground ginger instead of the traditional pepper. Whether it’s acceptable to dip puff-puffs in synthetic cream is still a subject of fierce debate amongst all Eridanians akin to the debates over pineapple on pizza.
* Fufu dumplings with soup, the dumplings are made of pounded plantains and shaped into a ball to be served alongside soup. The soups might contain any number of vegetables, but traditional meats from their earth counterparts are replaced with shrimp, tofu or cod.
* Joloff rice, long grain rice fried in groundnut oil with tomatoes, onions and hot peppers. Again fish and meat substitutes make an appearance here. The dish is a favourite amongst all due to the ease of cooking and the fact that it can be made in one pot.
* Sushi, raw and prepared fish laid atop cooked rice. While a staple of many planets, Eridanian sushi has gained a life of its own, often being created with rare and expensive ingredients grown in the hydroponics and fish farms of the planet. As a cultural export, however, Eridanian sushi rather fails at the term sushi, as the entire affair is deep fat fried. This unusual and controversial perversion of sushi is often blamed upon dregs, who are believed to fry anything if they have oil.

Of course, not all food is made the same in Eridani. While dregs’ communal lifestyle allows them to make the food in a more traditional style with ingredients bought in bulk to save money or grown in stolen hydroponics setups, corporates often spend so much of their day at work that it’s preferred to buy their meals either ready or pre-prepared from a machine. Learning to prepare ingredients, for this reason, is often a skill that makes reinstated very popular amongst their colleagues. One major difference is the quantities of meat substitutes available between dregs and corporates, with corporates often eating triple or even quadruple the serving of expensive goods like fish compared to their dreg counterparts, and malnourishment being rife within dreg living due to the relatively small portions of key proteins being stretched over such long time periods.

Fast food chains exist that are also exclusive to Eridani, such as Shrimp Republic, a location that can be found in almost any Eridanian food court or habitation block. The ingredients often consist of some form of fried shrimp as well as various kinds of skewered foods for easy and enjoyable eating.

=== Music ===
Corporate music is considerably more well documented than dreg music when it comes to what is popular, the data algorithms gathering all instances of listening as well as attention spans to songs to form the perfect bands to be fed to the public en-masse. As a bizarre by-product of this feedback loop of attention, two major genres have emerged in Epsilon Eridani, at least amongst the citizens. Club music is one of the most popular Eridanian music genres, being their greatest cultural export and the most listened to genre amongst corporates due to the after work clubbing culture of corporates. Famous artists include Cricket, a DJ known for their use of repetitive but catchy melodies, and DJ Andrex, more famous for their surprisingly fluent lyrical content for club music. The other famous genre is group pop, entirely powered by algorithms and chart ratings, group pop bands usually consist of people who barely know one another working together to make music with help from their managers. These groups are extremely prone to splitting up, giving gossip magazines plenty of content to work off of and forming the basis of how names in the scene are passed around. It is said that you aren’t a group pop musician until your face is on the front of a magazine without your consent.

On the other end of the spectrum, dregs have taken to two more stereotypical favourite genres for an underclass, rap and punk. Both genres tend to focus on life in Dreg society, either the massive amounts of death and poverty, or blaming the system they live in for said death and poverty. While the two genres rarely mix, it isn’t uncommon for them to share lyrical patterns and chord progression. Generally, Eridanian punk is unusual from other genres of punk due to its heavy usage of distortion pedals, electronic instruments and synthesisers. Punk bands in Eridani last for years at a time, but are known to have extremely messy breakups when they get famous, assuming they ever leave their extremely localised sphere of influence. Eridanian rappers on the other hand tend to make a large spectacle of themselves once their music leaves their sphere of influence, hoping to get famous outside of Eridani and hopefully be able to escape. Kizee and Nitrogod are a famous pair of rappers from Seychelles whose music has escaped the constellation’s sphere of influence into the wider Orion Spur, lent largely to them by their aggressive sound and theme of general inequality and the hypocrisy of the wealthy invading their spaces to amuse themselves.

=== Movies ===
Movies and films in Eridani are a fairly insular market, with specific tastes of the local audience being received middlingly outside of the systems and vice versa. This is credited in large part to the prolific use of market analysis to write scripts, to the point that some movies are almost entirely algorithmically generated. Some of the more famous rules of these algorithms that always feature include:

* Anti-corporate activity should always result in the demise of the anti-corporate
* Non-citizen dregs may only appear as antagonists, sympathy is allowed in cases of redemption at the end of the production
* The protagonist should not show any form of anti-corporate sentiment, except when portraying their darkest hour
* Members of corporations may only be shown as villains in the event that they are acting against the best interests of the corporation

These restrictive rules have led to a series of set movie genres that are guaranteed to succeed within the borders of the ECA, and at least break even outside of it: Corporate dramas, action movies starring PMCs as the protagonists and adaptations of literature already popular within the ECA.

The unpopular content of these films has created another industry within dreg society however: Independent Movies. These are films created independent of the Idris subsidiary studios that dominate the industry in the ECA and are often created with the express purpose of defying these algorithmic and borderline propagandistic productions. Largely these are made by expelled movie crews and first generation dregs, who have the skills to make passable cinema with the limited equipment they have access to, however these existing skills can only do so much to push past the technical limitations of their existence. These films rarely see much viewing outside of dreg cinemas and communities, largely seen as oddities to be enjoyed by a cult following of outsiders who often take technical difficulties as artistic choices. These films often tackle the problems of daily dreg life, but can also be seen as indulgent power fantasy enjoyed by a downtrodden populace attempting to escape the realities of dreg living. The most popular of these types of film centre around well known dreg folklore figures, their story and their message to the downtrodden.

=== Language ===
The closest language the Corporate Alliance has to an official language is Tradeband, used to ease business transactions. It is the most used language in the workplace and typically any resident of the Eridanus Constellation can speak it well enough to conduct their job in Tradeband. This is not the only language in the Alliance however, and almost any human language can be spoken by at least a handful of people. Tourists often find it easier to ask for directions in the ECA as opposed to any other region sheerly on the odds that they bump into somebody that speaks their native language. On the other side of the coin, dregs stubbornly create their own culture to counter the corporate one, speaking Freespeak and similar other languages in their own society and typically only using Tradeband in corporate owned workplaces. This comes across as antiquated to outsiders, but is often viewed by dregs as a result of their highly independence seeking nature.

Dregs also speak a strange form of Freespeak that can only be described as a thieves’ cant, known as Spitting Proper. Spoken almost exclusively by dregs with ties to the criminal syndicates, the closest comparison one can make to a 21<sup>st</sup> century language would be Polari, and it holds a similar history, being used to mask discussions of criminal activity, grow fellowship amongst its speakers and hide information from anybody that may be eavesdropping. Spoken fluently by the criminal underbelly, it is near impenetrable to outsiders outside of famous words like “knab”. To an extent, most dreg teenagers speak enough of it with the intent to hide what they’re doing from their parents, assuming (often wrongfully) that their parents cannot Spit Proper.
{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|+"Spitting Proper" Common Terms
!Word
!Meaning
|-
|Boss
|Insult, akin to calling your superior by a royal title.
|-
|Chief
|Respectful term for the person in charge.
|-
|Suit
|Corporate.
|-
|Fek
|Fuck. Works the same way.
|-
|Clacker
|Asshole. Insult and bodypart.
|-
|Drongo
|Idiot.
|-
|Biz
|Shit, in the sense of "I'm not doing that shit" or "[...] and shit like that"
|-
|Tick
|Sec (second). e.g "Just a tick"
|-
|Wrong boots
|Someone who is transgender. “Born in the wrong shoes” meaning born in the wrong body. '''''Not a derogatory term.'''''
|-
|Am/Ami/Amino
|Partner/boy/girlfriend. Romantic in nature.
|-
|Bov/Bovino
|Best friend.
|-
|Krok
|Outsider/non-dreg
|-
|Knab
|"Guy". Can refer to anyone.
|-
|Heavy
|Hired muscle. "Who's the heavy?"
|-
|Extra
|Hacker. Comes from hackers often being treated as unnecessary by inexperienced teams.
|-
|Mask
|Inside man.
|-
|Fixer
|Person who arranges for jobs. They may collect information, arrange meetings and find extra members for a crew.
|-
|Cashie
|Salesman, usually illicit.
|-
|Patcher
|Doctor of any kind, but usually used for ones that don't tell police about their patients.
|-
|Wrencher
|Engineer.
|-
|Robowrencher
|Roboticist, usually augmentation specialists.
|-
|Helmet
|Mercenary or police. Typically used to refer to mercenaries that take police work, rather than all mercenaries.
|-
|Gun
|General mercenary, regardless of if they use a gun.
|-
|Debt
|Job.
|-
|Cark
|Die, not murdered.
|-
|Creased
|Murdered.
|-
|Crease
|To murder.
|-
|Map
|Understand.
|-
|Tool
|Fix something.
|-
|Scroll
|Watch something happen.
|-
|Spit
|Speak.
|-
|Gab
|To have a conversation.
|-
|Scribble
|Write.
|-
|Riccy
|Rich. Sometimes derogatory, often used to describe a target for robbery.
|-
|Band
|Gang.
|-
|Banded
|Married.
|-
|Sniffer
|Brown-noser. Somebody who sucks up to authority.
|-
|Tail
|Related to the term rat. An informant.
|-
|Affirmed
|Understood, yes.
|-
|Running you/their trail
|Following you/somebody. Not necessarily bad.
|-
|Palm
|Steal.
|-
|Knock
|Beat up or damage.
|-
|Ice/Arctic
|Cool.
|-
|Sign the dots
|Get arrested.
|-
|In my turf
|In your face, breaking personal space.
|-
|Slacks
|Dregs who associate with suits. Derogatory term for reinstated.
|}

=== Dreg Folklore ===
Dregs have constructed a rich tapestry of legendary folk figures, some of which are simply of note while others can be considered tales intended to teach a lesson through the failures or successes of another real figure. While large parts of the folklore are embellished, it is often the case that every story’s primary beats are largely true, immortalising significant dregs in the imaginations of children and adults alike. Some figures are folk heroes, standing defiant against the corporations and the gangs to try and bring dregs into a new era, while others are villains and cautionary tales about what power does to a person. The vast majority, however, are simply interesting figures that have some moral behind their story, their fates ultimately doing little for the cause of the dregs except providing stories to entertain and educate the next generation. The requirements to become a folk figure are murky to say the least, but the most famous typically have the most outrageous stories, to the point that some are doubted to have existed at all.
Some famous folk heroes include:

<Tabber>
|-|David Insurgent=
Nicknamed for his revolutionary tendencies, David is believed to have been the first to draw blood against corporate mercenaries during the Thermostat Revolution. A native of Faroe, David was already well known for his combat related prosthetics and had a reputation for fair pricing and skilled craftsmanship. Most stories surrounding him take this angle, portraying him as an honest man turned revolutionary leader, ultimately betrayed by Little Mojisola in exchange for a sum of money that varies story to story.
|-|Mairo Oku Mpu=
Also known as Mairo Diver, she is a sort of living legend within the ECA, hero to dregs and horror story to corporate network security. While technically not quite a folk hero, due to her living status, she is so embroiled in myth and misinformation due to her secretive life that she has become entirely separate to her legend. Confirmed actions include leaking Zavodskoi Interstellar body-camera footage of war crimes committed by the corporation, releasing documents detailing the unethical nature of Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals test subject selection, and the destruction of an Idris server farm. However, the folk lore version of her can commit acts that are dubious if even possible through traditional hacking methods, while often emphasising her whimsical nature contrasted against her numerous warrants for arrest in all major nations. She is rumoured to reside in an abandoned space station with her co-conspirators and romantic partners, plural.
|-|Old Toyin=
Famous for one act and one act only, Old Toyin is both a hero and a cautionary tale of what happens when one stands up against the criminal syndicates that dominate the dreg world. While some take her story to be an example of what happens when an old dreg is underestimated, many take it as a warning to expect war if one attacks these gangs. Old Toyin’s story typically goes as such: Old Toyin had lived in her sector of her kowloon for almost her entire life, to the point that nobody on her corridor remembered when she moved in. One day, a group of the Three Star Syndicate demanded that she move out of her home, so that they may turn it into a gambling parlour. Old Toyin refused, stating they would have to kill her to get that property from her. After some arguing, the gangsters left, promising to return with more men. In this time, Old Toyin prepared dinner for her infirm neighbour, said goodbye to her grandson and turned her room into what could qualify as a fortress. By the time the gangsters returned, she had armed herself with a borrowed rifle and walled herself into the room with the help of her neighbours, having a handful of holes to fire out at the gangsters through. Details of the gun fight differ, but the death toll of the gangsters before they demolished the wall and killed Old Toyin is always two digits in all accounts. Almost all accounts emphasise that despite her age and bravery, she was spared no mercy and killed just as brutally as a young dreg would have been.
|-|Shock Namkoisse=
A famous singer and advocate for dreg freedom, Namkoisse is often a stand-in for stories that were very unlikely to have actually been him. His role in dreg culture is as the hero everybody can love, and documentation of his real life is often dreary in comparison to his folklore existence. Namkoisse has been confirmed to have organised illegal raves inside corporate offices, his claim to fame, and ultimately was charged and jailed for his actions. His trial was a show trial, intended to show the dreg population what happens to rebels, but instead it immortalised him as he read a prepared speech on the witness podium and openly criticised the language and methodology of the court. He has since become the symbol of social rebellion against corporations, and many an aspiring musician have copied his illegal raves in his honour.
</Tabber>

More sparingly is the use of folk villains, usually cautionary tales intended to warn others against considering corporate affiliation. In particular is a famous story that almost every dreg knows:<blockquote>Malcolm Oyibo is not so much a figure with a consistent story more than a stock character, a villain that fills the void in the collective memory of dreg folklore when telling the story of a more obscure hero. Malcolm is more of a series of characteristics that make for a villain to the story, inconsistent and often not even in the same job twice. He may be a quartermaster one day, or a mercenary the next, or maybe even a CEO. The important part is that he is a backstabber and a foreigner that desperately seeks to be accepted by his corporate overlords, a rather naked allegory for the view of dregs on reinstated.</blockquote>And finally come a unique aspect of dreg folklore, at least in terms of modern folklore: legendary locations. These locations may range from safe-havens for the most wanted of Epsilon Eridani’s underworld to rumoured paradises of workers’ rights within the very borders of the hell scape that is Aegir’s moon. Some of these locations include:

* The Killing Floor: Bar and pilgrimage site for any starry eyed revolutionary, rumoured to be the favourite haunt of David Insurgent and many of the Thermostat Revolutionaries. Today it stands as a monument and tourist trap for the revolutionary undercurrent that slowly meanders through dreg culture. The folklore version, however, is a hive of revolutionary activity in which the intellectuals of dreg liberation come to exchange ideas.
* Haven: A simple and descriptive name, Haven is a rumoured squat within a corporate hab block that is so well defended that it is functionally a microstate within Eridanian territory. Some call it an ongoing revolution, while others describe it more as the only truly neutral ground for major figures to meet without worrying about being assassinated.

* The Office: An ironic name for possibly the most secure and brutal prison in the Orion Spur. The Office is rumoured to have every defence imaginable, from air defences to closing wall traps to laser grids closing cells off, only the hardest and most dangerous the Spur has to offer are supposedly housed here. Outsiders often believe The Office is actually many prisons amalgamated into a single prison in the collective consciousness of dregs.