Eridani Corporate Alliance

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.

“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

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.

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.