Lands Beyond
LORE: The Minor Nations of the Frontier as of January 2523
While the vast majority of humanity lives under the specter of interstellar war and the machinations of Great Power astropolitics, many smaller nations have erupted on the fringe of settled space. These nations range from large industrialized powers to small backwaters, reasonable governments to insane dictatorships, and well connected members of interstellar society to isolated pariahs. This guide serves to introduce the casual WAYBOUND reader to several of these and their history, particularly where that history intersects with the intrigue and politics that drive the story of WAYBOUND.
It is easy to forget, in the age of interstellar human civilization, that space is big. Unfathomably, mind-bogglingly big. Hundreds of millions of humans have begun, lived, and ended their time on this mortal coil without ever coming within a light-year of Sol or Eridani. And space is dark. The tyranny of c and of the inverse-square law dictate that the uncanny realm of slipspace is the only way to get information from Point A to Point B. For those in a system big or important enough, relays are the closest thing to realtime comms out in the High Frontier. For everyone else, snail mail - shipborne data drives or crew word-of-mouth are the only ways to get a message out, to call for help. That is, if help is coming, if help can even arrive in time. And space is deadly. A hab breach that spoils a deep range colony’s food supply. An unexpected disease from local fauna. A chance encounter with one of the many all-too-human monsters that lurk far beyond the watchful eyes and wrathful guns of the United Nations and Federated Republics. That is, if they aren’t already on the payroll of the corporations who partition up their fiefdoms with impunity. The confluence of these three factors is that for those in the High Frontier, even the 26th Century is a dangerous, uncertain time. Colonies “go dark” from time to time. In many cases, the root cause is as mundane as the mail being late, or a relay needing regularly scheduled maintenance. Weeks or months later, the arbitrary, oft-blurred lines we call “Frontier civilization” are reconnected, the stream of data resumes, and that little flicker of light continues to burn. Not always.
For every Altair, Van Maanen, or Calvados, there are countless ghosts. Some are little more than an empty scattering of habitats on an otherwise-desolate world, their occupants having fled the corporate-run frontier life for more prosperous endeavors elsewhere. Others, from the abandoned radio telescope on Akrotiri and the lost souls from the brief conflict there, to the drifting derelict of the generation ship Rakesh Sharma, to the dozens of trade, exploration, and privateer vessels that the United States Coast Guard declares “reported missing, presumed lost with all hands”, will never see that light again. The light of human civilization is bright, but space is a dark place.
—Foreword, Cutterman: A Memoir, CDR Paul A. MacTaggart, U.S. Coast Guard (Ret.) (2509)
Why move to the Frontier?
The things that drove mankind beyond the comfortable Old Colonies and their industrialized worlds is largely the same things that drove them off Earth in the twenty-first century and to distant shores of the Earth many centuries prior— however, there is a significant twist. With the current state of interstellar strategic deterrence, hundreds of thousands of nuclear weapons on FTL-equipped missiles are in use to enforce a fragile peace between the UN and Minerva. The slipstream drive has become to many a ticket to escape the tyranny of the bomb. While in previous generations the dispersion to the colonies may have been spearheaded by ideological zealots, there is now a non-insignificant contingent of of planets and systems settled not just by the brave, but by the terrified. This has resulted in many of the most populous nations of the Frontier becoming societies that would be largely familiar to the average citizen of either superpower. On the other hand, many narrow interests have also staked their claim, especially in the High Frontier.
What’s so special about slipstream drives?
While the slipstream drive, humanity’s only successful method of FTL, has existed for hundreds of years, the benchmark for whether a power is truly a great power has remained the design and manufacture of these devices. The technology is immensely complex and scientifically difficult to design on the one hand and on the other requires a skilled workforce and the material resources to construct one. While nuclear weapons and their development remain a barometer to a country’s technological advancement, they are far more commonplace in the 2500s; and the distinction between tactical, which are largely used for ship-to-ship engagements, and strategic, which are used for interstellar deterrence, winds up falling back on a country’s ability to manufacture a miniaturized slipstream drive for its delivery vehicle, an even more difficult endeavor.
On Lost Colonies
Prior to the invention of the slipstream drive, many colony ships were launched under slower-than-light propulsion. The ‘Wave Zero’ colonists still on their way to other systems aboard were largely found en route and reintegrated into organized society after the advent of the slip drive; however in the early waves of FTL colonization, slipstream drives and navigation were both brand-new science that had a great deal of uncertainty and gray areas involved. Reports of long-lost early-slip colonists on the distant Frontier are not unheard of; most, however, have long died out, should they have been so lucky to have reached their destination. Speculation remains.
Primary Regions of Known Space
The Cradle— The region of space encompassing Sol and the first inhabited human colonies. This region is heavily developed and home to the vast majority of the human population. Largely dominated by the superpowers, the Cradle was largely settled in the first wave of FTL colonization following the advent of the slipstream drive.
Low Frontier— The region of space to the “galactic south” of Sol (as defined by the 2289 Zurich Accord on Astrography). Sitting below the Cradle on most 2D maps, the Low Frontier has been generally settled longer and is on average more developed than the High Frontier as a result of more favorable slipstream routes during early FTL expansion and the discovery of significant mineral wealth on many worlds of The Pavonis at the turn of the 25th century.
High Frontier— The region of space to the “galactic north” of Sol (as defined by the 2289 Zurich Accord on Astrography). Sitting above the Cradle on most 2D maps, the High Frontier is generally less developed and is currently in the process of being settled and industrialized by the superpowers and other capable factions. The alignment of the Cygni-Draconian slipstream current with the Eridian and Hyperian Currents in the latter half of the 25th century has made travel and settlement of the more distant portions of the High Frontier a financially lucrative desire. High-bandwidth, high-speed FTL communications infrastructure and reliable systems of law enforcement are few and far between in the High Frontier outside the most developed and populated systems. Above the High Frontier lurks the ‘Big Empty’ of the Draconis Gulf, a region curiously devoid of habitable worlds.
Notable Nations in the UN Sphere of Influence
United Pavonian Commonwealth
POPULATION SIZE: LARGE | LOCATION: PAVONIAN CURRENT (LOW FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2370s | FOUNDED: 2410s
ALIGNMENT: UNITED NATIONS (LOOSE), OFFICIALLY NON-ALIGNED, INTERSTELLAR SOVEREIGNTY CONCORD
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: STRATEGIC & TACTICAL
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: CAPABLE OF INDEPENDENT DEVELOPMENT & MANUFACTURE
The United Pavonian Commonwealth (UPC) is one of the three nations that resulted from Djajadi’s Rush, a period of rapid colonization and industrialization begun by the 2399 announcement by the Pavonis Expedition Exploration Commission (PEEC), a cartel of UN corporate entities intent on colonizing the Pavonis Current, that the region had a swath of habitable planets with plentiful deposits of sulfur and rhenium. Originally founded to give credence to the claims of several mining corporations, the UPC has become the largest nation outside the UN and Minerva— spread across seven star systems in Lower Pavonis— and enjoys good relations with both, even if it is frequently partial to the UN. Sandwiched between the UN’s Hydrian Assembly to the north and the FMR’s Malýkrok Republic to the south, the UPC is a trusted middleman for relationships between both the governments and economies of the UN and Minerva, and purchases arms from both while being dependent on neither. A stable parliamentary democracy with a robust economy, the UPC is known as a corporate haven with a decent standard of living. Protected by the Pavonis Self-Defense Forces, the fourth largest military in human space, Pavonis is the military might behind the Interstellar Sovereignty Concord, even if other members of the coalition frequently raise objections to the PSDF’s joint exercises with the UN and FMR’s militaries. UN naval policy bureaucrats have voiced a desire to secure stable support from the Pavonians in the event of a large-scale war with Minerva in order to expand planned deployments of experimental starship manufacturing technology to the less-inhabited worlds in the UPC.
Hydrian Assembly
POPULATION SIZE: MED-LARGE | LOCATION: PAVONIAN CURRENT (LOW FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2370s | FOUNDED: 2410s
ALIGNMENT: UNITED NATIONS (MEMBER STATE)
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: FEDERAL REPUBLIC
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: TACTICAL, UNDER UN STRATEGIC UMBRELLA
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON UN
One of the primary combatants of the Pavonis Current War (2448-2459), the Hydrian Assembly (HA) is, like the UPC, a former PEEC corpostate that has had moderate successes in establishing legitimate democratic government. Originally spread across both Upper Pavonis, its current location, and Lower Pavonis, the HA lost much of its territory to the Minervan military and to the ‘temporary protection’ of the ostensibly allied UPC during the Pavonis Current War, when the Hydrians attempted to defend their tenuous claims in Lower Pavonis by force of both their own arms and those of UN based security contractors. Following the war, the HA flocked to the security of the United Nations, as while many in Bradbury had called for the deployment of troops to fight the Minervans, the original charter that had granted the PEEC full autonomy in the region assumed all defensive responsibility into the PEEC’s constituent corporations. Joining the UN, Hydrian politicians assured, would tear up that agreement and surround the Hydrian people in the security blanket of the UNC and COMPMARFORCOM. Since their accession to the UN, the Hydrian Assembly has grown under the Union’s patronage into a modern industrial nation boasting a diversified economy and a robust military. They maintain icy relations with the UPC, as some nationalist elements in their southern neighbor have expressed interest in a united Pavonis as in the early days of the PEEC, but indifference in the formerly Hydrian systems of the UPC has resulted in this being viewed as little more than sabre rattling outside of the Pavonis.
Kingdom of Caerleon
POPULATION SIZE: MID | LOCATION: AQUILAN CURRENT (HIGH FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2370s | FOUNDED: 2390s
ALIGNMENT: UNITED NATIONS (PROTECTORATE)
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: NO
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON UN
A relatively recent addition to the UN’s sphere of influence, the Kingdom of Caerleon enjoyed a relative stability compared to many other High Frontier colonies until roughly thirty-five years ago. Founded by a savvy administrator later elevated to a ceremonial kingship by the colonists as a token of appreciation for a good job done managing the fledgeling colony, the monarchy originally developed as a joke but the figurehead has since become a staple of Caerleonite society. In the last thirty-five years, political polarization along the question of where the country’s loyalties lie in terms of the Third Cold War has meshed with gang violence and caused a culture of paramilitary standoffs that has undermined the country’s elections and hurt the formerly prosperous colony’s livelihoods. Many allege significant involvement of Minervan and UN intelligence services in the escalation of the country’s political violence, starting from an abortive Minervan political warfare campaign to try and prevent the colony’s accession to UN protectorate status in the late four-eighties. The current landscape of Caerleon’s paramilitary politics has additionally resulted in a growing wave of refugees in both nearby UN-aligned systems and UN systems in the Cradle. In early 2523, then-King Tobias Arcure was assassinated in the street by what appeared to be members of the pro-Minervan (and Minervan-backed) Popular Sovereignty Front, but were later revealed to have been clandestine operators of the Japanese Public Security Intelligence Agency acting on behalf of the UN Intelligence Community. The result has kicked off a new wave of popular furor, with the intended effect of turning the well-beloved Arcure into a martyr for the Blue cause having profoundly backfired. Civil unrest has ruled the country’s public square ever since the revelation by Minervan news in mid-2524, and the more militant of the paramilitaries have sought to solidify their presence as a permanent fixture of the Caerleonite political landscape, arguing that the very powers training and supplying them must be held at bay for the sake of the Caerleonite people.
Altair Holdings and Governance, plc
POPULATION SIZE: SMALL-MEDIUM | LOCATION: AQUILAN CURRENT (HIGH FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2310s | FOUNDED: 2350s | ACQUIRED: 2444
ALIGNMENT: UNITED NATIONS (PROTECTORATE)
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: CORPORATE REPUBLIC
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: FORMERLY, DIVESTED
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON UN
As early settlement efforts expanded across what would become the High Frontier, little suggested that it would be any less hospitable and lucrative than those systems to the galactic south of Sol. Naturally, as soon as it was possible for starships to reach one of the brightest stars in Earth’s night sky, pioneers ventured forth to settle it.
The immediate aftermath of the Minervan Revolution entailed an economic shock across the Frontier, as corporate backers scrambled to recover assets that might otherwise be lost to copycat revolutions. So it was that Altair found itself the foremost among many High Frontier systems suddenly left unsupervised, if not outright independent. Facing a crisis as the colony was not quite self-sufficient yet, Altair absorbed several smaller nearby colonies, “reorganizing” their industrial capabilities to ensure self-reliance for them all. When corporate investors tentatively returned in the 2360s, they found a stable society eager to advertise itself as the “Gateway to the High Frontier”. Built on this promise of wealth, Altair forged itself into an independent political and economic powerhouse. At its zenith in 2411, it would transform the modest economic bloc it had formed around itself into the Common Defense Union; an economic, social, and political pact that would bind the Frontier together against pirate and superpower alike.
Unfortunately, the foundations of Altair’s ascendancy were built on sand. High Frontier ventures running through Altair brought paltry returns whilst commanding astronomical prices on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. On August 9, 2428, a secret report to the Development Ministry was leaked to investors as part of a scheme to short sell over 200 separate stocks related to Altair. Within three weeks of the news reaching the system, confidence in the government had dropped from 57% to 2%, according to local polling.
In 2444, still burdened with an unsalvageable debt crisis and a wrecked economy, Altair became the largest state in history to sell its sovereignty to a holding company. This administration has brought a semblance of stability and modest growth to the citizens of Altair. (Prominent investors include Martian defense/consumer electronics giant Huntwell, Chinese entertainment conglomerate Tencent, and Imbrian pharmaceutical/energy drink titan BioDyne.) Nonetheless, in the capital city of Prospect, the shadows of abandoned skyscrapers still hang heavily over a despondent people whose remaining pride has prevented them from joining the CDU’s successor— solely because it does not belong to them.
Notable Nations in the FMR Sphere of Influence
Van Maanen
POPULATION SIZE: MID | LOCATION: BETWEEN THE CYGNI-DRACONIAN AND ERIDIAN CURRENTS (HIGH FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2410s | FOUNDED: 2460s
ALIGNMENT: MINERVAN (ASPIRING UNITARY REPUBLIC)
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: FEDERAL REPUBLIC
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: NO
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON FMR
A longtime outpost of Minerva that has only recently expanded beyond its roots as a Navy base, Van Maanen has long been the Minervan Navy’s home away from home. Home to the largest extraterritorial Minervan military base, yet still considerably smaller than the strongholds on Yangtze in Keid and Minerva itself, Van Maanen’s capitol world of Eindhoven is a habitable world with a considerable industrial sector that has sprung up in support of the Navy base. Naval Station Ardelan has been used by Minervan fleets operating in or transiting to the High Frontier as a fueling station, repair depot, and leave destination for decades, and has a reputation only second to Calvados for parting sailors with their paychecks.
While the legal ambiguity of Van Maanen’s status was seen as desirable for some time by local residents, a growing movement desiring full integration into the Minervan system of government— and legal recognition of the jurisdiction of Maanenite courts over frequently unruly sailors— has begun to gain steam over the last twenty years. Despite the popular support and Van Maanen checking all the boxes for Unitary Republichood, Van Maanen’s proximity to the disputed Cetan Triangle has led the Minervan government to see the annexation of the state into the FMR proper as a provocative act towards the United Nations— and has avoided broaching the topic until recently under the Riahi presidency.
Calvados Special Economic Zone
POPULATION SIZE: MID | LOCATION: URSINE-CANINE CURRENT (HIGH FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2390s | DESIGNATED: 2443
ALIGNMENT: MINERVAN UNITARY REPUBLIC OF QUESTIONABLE LOYALTY
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: UNDER FMR STRATEGIC UMBRELLA
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON FMR OR UN
Long the black sheep of the Minervan family, Calvados occupies a unique, privileged position in Minervan politics as a forum for economic and cultural exchange with the United Nations— at a comfortable distance, of course. The main gateway for UN goods into the Minervan common market, Calvados is run as a Special Administrative Region with unique economic regulation to enable near-frictionless trade across the border. Originally a resort world colonized by a French-Monegasque venture, the Calvadan government was sold to the Minervan Republics after failing to attract tourists en masse. Early business ventures seeking to restart the Calvadan economy included dangerously unregulated casinos skirting Minervan laws on gambling— if not completely ignoring them— and the export of local seafood as an exotic luxury. (While the latter failed, many of those early casinos remain.) However, the 2440s brought discoveries in slipstream trajectory optimization that made Calvados an astrographically desirable rest and refueling stop on long-duration voyages into the newly discovered wealth of the Ursine-Canine Current. The Calvadan economy subsequently blossomed serving as a trade hub for UN and Minervan colonies in the Ursine-Canine, and its designation as a Special Economic Zone in 2443 brought trade from UN systems in The Cradle, and while UN authorities alleged IP theft, Minervan regulatory bodies made it clear that any such challenge would have to be issued in a Minervan court. This was little deterrent to many Solar companies, though, as the massive and growing market on the Minervan side of the fence was too lucrative an offer to pass up. Calvados steadily evolved into a bastion for Minerva’s more rebellious political thinkers, and by the 2520s Calvados is known as a hotbed of laissez-faire economic policy and blue-internationalism’s only stronghold in Minervan territory. While Calvados is ostensibly treated under the same eligibility law as any other Unitary Republic for full Republican representation in the Consensus, many Calvadan firebrands assert that they will never be afforded such rights by the Minervan government due to their perceived political unreliability. While UN commentators allege that frequent Minervan troop rotations through Calvados is an attempt to prevent “dangerous ideas” from spreading among the ranks, the real reason lies in a much simpler problem: Marines’ paychecks frequently disappear into local casinos’ coffers.
Malýkrok Republic
(Commonly referred to as Minervan Pavonis)
POPULATION SIZE: MID | LOCATION: PAVONIAN CURRENT (LOW FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2400s | FOUNDED: 2425
ALIGNMENT: MINERVAN MEMBER REPUBLIC
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: PARLIAMENTARY REPUBLIC
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: STRATEGIC & TACTICAL AS PART OF FMR MILITARY
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON FMR
The first of Minerva’s major colonization projects on the distant Frontier, Malýkrok has a history written in blood. Initially a small collection of three systems in the Pavonis Current at the opening of the 25th century, with their capital Malýkrok on an exceptionally habitable world in Gliese 433, Malýkrok has become a heavily developed bastion of Minervan civilization on the Lower Frontier. Acceding as a Unitary Republic in 2425, Malýkrok clashed with neighboring UN-backed corpostates in the leadup to the Pavonis Current War, first diplomatically in an uneasy peace, and then openly in several flashpoints culminating in the incident at Idrissakunda in Gliese 1123, the aggressors and the nature of which remain contested to this day. What is not contested, though, is that whether started by the extremist Minervan settlers of Montpelier or the aggression of the PEEC’s hired guns, Raven’s Point Security Services, the result of the Outpost A67C skirmish was a brutal war that set fire to the whole Pavonis.
Malýkrok, however, would not break. A launching point for the Minervan counterattack and invasion of the Pavonis, Malýkrok itself remained largely insulated from the most brutal fighting, but sent many of its own to fight in jungles and tundras of faraway worlds. Many did not return. Malýkrok has a fiercely Minervan identity as a result— a claim to the national spirit tried just as much in fire as that of the homeworld. Now a center of Minervan industry, Malýkrok, once living in a bitter peace with their other Pavonian neighbors, has begun to slowly begun to rebuild ties with their northern neighbors as a distinctly pan-Pavonian identity has begun to emerge among the youth of Minervan Pavonis. This is speculated by some Minervan analysts to be the result of concerted influence operations and savvy investment in culture by the United Pavonian Commonwealth. The UPC denies these allegations.
Notable Non-Aligned Nations
Interstellar Sovereignty Concord
POPULATION SIZE: N/A | LOCATION: DISTRIBUTED
FOUNDED: 2480s
ALIGNMENT: NON-ALIGNED
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: TREATY ORGANIZATION
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: UNDER PURVIEW OF MEMBER STATES
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: UNDER PURVIEW OF MEMBER STATES
The birth of the Federated Minervan Republics and the consolidation of the United Nations has left the vast majority of humanity split between two overwhelming political powers. Over the generations since, millions have ventured forth across the stars hoping to live lives that would never be possible within the borders of those colossal states. The outbreak of war in the Pavonis validated the fears of many that the political powers were a direct threat to those lives. In the trepidatious environment of the war’s closing, the independent nations of the frontier chose to bind themselves together against this threat.
It was initially envisioned that the ISC would be spread across two military regions, with the relatively advanced and battle-hardened armed forces of the UPC providing security in the Low Frontier, and Marusa-Sao likewise holding the High Frontier. Both states would pursue strategic nuclear programs to ensure that both major powers would have to think twice before any attempt against them. Unfortunately, the fall of Marusa-Sao to Johannes Kemmer after only two years left the UPC to uphold systems far beyond its capability to reasonably protect.
Both Bradbury and New Ruacnoc view the ISC as more an annoyance than a true rival, but it nonetheless holds sufficient military power and political influence to keep them out of their backyard. As the security situation across the Frontier deteriorates once more, many have been left to question whether the ISC can back up the lofty promises it has made.
Federated Republics of Orion
POPULATION SIZE: MED-LARGE | LOCATION: URSINE-CANINE REPUBLIC (HIGH FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2300s | FOUNDED: 20s
ALIGNMENT: INTERSTELLAR SOVEREIGNTY CONCORD
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: MINERVAN-STYLE CONSENSUS DEMOCRACY
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: TACTICAL, UNDER UPC STRATEGIC UMBRELLA
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: CAPABLE OF INDEPENDENT MANUFACTURE OF LICENSED DESIGNS
Even before the horror of Martyr’s Day, the flames of the Minervan Revolution had spread across the stars to other, similarly disaffected colonies. In the lower Cygni-Draconian Current, the efforts of many inspired by Minerva’s success coalesced into the Federated Republics of Orion. Modeled directly on the ideals and constitution of the new Minervan state, Orion spent the next decades building up its economy and political stability in a bid to be annexed into the FMR. These efforts came to a horrified end when they saw the brutality of the war waged in Pavonis by their Minervan ‘brothers’.
As the war drew to a close, the leadership of the FRO sought its counterparts in the UPC and Marusa-Sao to create an organization to militarily and politically defend the rights of minor states, as a more ideologically sound successor to Altair’s failed Common Defense Union. Since then, though a junior partner to the UPC in terms of military strength, the ISC has looked to Orion as its political guiding light. Domestically, it has retained a constitutional settlement similar to Minerva’s prior to the mid-2400s ascendancy of the Presidency, as its smaller size has enabled a more function Consensus. Its political culture is markedly less militaristic in nature, a point of pride for its citizenry as their government continues to be a voice for peace in an increasingly bellicose astropolitical environment.
The FRO’s diplomatic corps frequently punches above its weight, and while Orion is not particularly well-liked by either Mars or Minerva, it is respected. Orionese diplomats had a large hand— along with counterparts from the UPC— in brokering the chain of meetings that led to convocation of the 2490-91 Landigal Summits on Arms Reduction.
Spitzerian Republic of New Athens
POPULATION SIZE: MID | LOCATION: URSINE-CANINE CURRENT (LOW FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2370s | FOUNDED: 2453
ALIGNMENT: INTERSTELLAR SOVEREIGNTY CONCORD
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: SPITZERIAN DEMOCRACY
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: TACTICAL PURCHASED FROM UPC, UNDER UPC STRATEGIC UMBRELLA
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON UPC, UN, OR FMR
The generation of turmoil surrounding the Pavonis Current War led in many parts to a re-evaluation of the economic and political norms under which humanity had labored since the 20th century. Perhaps the most popular of the newly-proposed sociopolitical models was that of Irene Spitzer. Born on Ganymede and building her livelihood in the Tranquility Republic on the Moon, she was left unimpressed with how capitalism and liberal democracy were applied in the 24th century. Her attempts to pitch her new model of democratic governance for the modern age earned her widespread attention but not the ears of any government in either the UN or Minervan Republics.
The rising distress and disgust at both powers’ actions in the Pavonis afforded her the opportunity to implement her model on a grand scale. In 2453, colonists in the lower Ursine-Canine Current declared the galaxy’s first “Spitzerian Republic”, and invited her to aid in its administration. Quickly, she became the foremost leader of the republic, as only she had full insight into the complicated mechanisms of its political economy and economic politics. Today, though functional, the precedent generated by her involvement has resulted in “the most just, direct, modern, and considerate form of government known to mankind” becoming dependent on domineering political sages.
Five Republics of Gibraltar
POPULATION SIZE: SMALL | LOCATION: CYGNI-DRACONIAN CURRENT (HIGH FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2370s | CURRENT STATES FOUNDED: 2428
ALIGNMENT: 3 STATES ALIGNED TO ISC, MINERVAN AND UN SUPPORT ALLEGED TO OTHER TWO
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: DIVIDED BETWEEN 5 COMPETING STATES
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: NO
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON UPC, UN, OR FMR
When Altair came into its own as the “Gateway to the Frontier”, it desired to spread its influence beyond the Aquilan into the neighboring Cygni-Draconian Current. The difficulty of navigating this far-flung current had so far prevented any substantive efforts to chart and settle its systems. Gibraltar would, as the 24th century drew to a close, become the Gateway’s gateway to the current, with Altair investing heavily into developing infrastructure at multiple points across the system, including 28 settlements scattered across Zborov, its only habitable world.
Where the collapse of Altair’s frontier scheme had dealt a near-mortal blow to its own state, the government of Gibraltar was vaporized instantaneously. Political power soon devolved to small militia factions, which coalesced into five rival governments, each claiming legitimate descent from the original colonial authorities. The population was likely only spared total destruction by the fact that none of the factions had the military capabilities to effectively oppose the others. As UN and Minervan influences expanded in the high frontier following the Pavonis Current War, their involvement briefly escalated the standoff into outright planetary warfare. In 2471, three of the states managed to achieve a peace agreement in service of obtaining the security of the ISC, and they have since been perpetually a decade away from organizing a more permanent planetary union. The ISC has attempted to isolate the remaining holdout states, but peace continues to elude the system.
Interstellar Association of Resort Worlds
POPULATION SIZE: SMALL | LOCATION: DISTRIBUTED
SETTLED: VARIES | FOUNDED: 2490s
ALIGNMENT: NON-ALIGNED
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: CORPORATE INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: NO
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON UPC, UN, OR FMR
Perhaps the most odd of the frontier’s corporatocracies, given its age and unique system of “government”, the Interstellar Association of Resort Worlds is, for all intents and purposes, an elaborate and ill-disguised Ponzi scheme. The brain-child of Imbrian ilmenite billionaire (and prince in exile) Faisal Al Saud, the Association is made up of several resort and pleasure worlds that in the early 2480s were on the verge of total collapse, a compound of several issues including shoddy infrastructure, corruption, crime, and sheer distance from the Cradle. Al Saud recognised that the worlds were all but-certain to fail, even with new investors, but the situation presented an opportunity… for those with keen business sense like himself.
Approaching the world’s owners, he proposed a radical plan: Merge into a single “company”, publicly pledge to pool their money to work for the benefit of each other’s operation, and grant every new visitor to a member of this “Association” a share in the company, and a plot of land on each world, which would inevitably rise in value as new members came aboard. The Interstellar Association would be an exclusive club, made up of the richest and most powerful in the UN, Minerva, and beyond, providing the very latest in luxury and pleasurable experience.
Today, the Interstellar Association is one of the bigger companies listed on the Imbrian Stock market, though amidst the woes and rumours of imminent war some investors have sought to pull out, only to discover that the “company” is not in fact a company but a uniquely structured investment fund in which Faisal Al Saud and the original members of the Association control the majority of the funds.
Pariah States
The Most Serene Principality of Marusa-Sao
(Commonly referred to as Kemmeria or the Kemmerian Principality)
POPULATION SIZE: MID | LOCATION: BEYOND THE CYGNI-DRACONIAN CURRENT (HIGH FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2310s | FOUNDED: 2350s | GOVERNMENT OVERTHROWN: 2460s
ALIGNMENT: PARIAH ENJOYING UNWILLING ECONOMIC TIES TO UN
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY (DE JURE)/PRIVATE MILITARY DICTATORSHIP (DE FACTO)
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: TACTICAL, STRATEGIC UNDER DEVELOPMENT
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: CAPABLE OF INDEPENDENT DEVELOPMENT & MANUFACTURE
Originally the furthest flung of humanity’s early colonies, Marusa-Sao was settled in a fleeting moment of opportunity where the presently unnamed slipstream current the garden planet sat in was in close conjunction to Sol’s Hyperian Current. A constitutional monarchy in much the same vein as the later Caerleon, the early settlers sided with the UN during the Minervan War of Independence, and subsequently pursued military and political ties with the organization under its New Charter System. When the currents shifted in 2384, Marusa-Sao became a considerably more difficult trek— and the country began a whole-of-society effort to achieve industrial autarky, as the shipments of materials and goods the relatively advanced Marusan economy needed to stay solvent had drastically skyrocketed in price. They achieved their goal, but in the intervening years, a scourge of piracy erupted where rogues with armed civilian ships would exploit this desperation by ransoming inbound shipments for exorbitant sums; military partnerships with the UN folding following a loss of the Marusan populace’s confidence in the ability— or desire— of the Blue forces to protect the distant system. Accordingly, the Marusans began a public-private military buildup, relaxing laws to incentivize offworlding of private military companies while also poaching prominent technologists from Sol and Epsilon Eridani’s military industry with the help of sympathetic investors.
For the next few decades, Marusa-Sao would be the supply backbone of the High Frontier, politically partnering with Altair until their collapse in 2428. Following the Altair Crash, Marusa-Sao was left as the dominant political, economic, and military force in a devastated High Frontier, and the Marusan flag became more a symbol of the private security contractors who wore it than the state itself. During the Pavonis Current War, Marusan royal officials intervened to prevent the involvement of Marusa-based PMCs in the conduct of the war, leading to the loss of several lucrative contracts for numerous security companies. This was the beginning of the end.
Elevated to the throne in 2439, King Ilias II Evangelatos reflected a popular fear of the growing power that the PMCs had in and over Marusan society. A sympathizer to the grassroots movement “Our Security Now! Not One Gun for Hire!”, Ilias consulted with similarly minded friends among the elite of Marusan society, the founding visionaries of the ISC, and the heads of several PMCs before unveiling his Plan for the Nationalization of Marusan Security and his intention to support the creation of the Interstellar Sovereignty Concord in 2458, one year before the end of the Pavonis Current War.
The Pavonis War coming to a close— long a desire of King Ilias— was also his undoing. While the heads of many of the smaller PMCs that not had a chance to solicit bids for contracts in the Pavonis before the crackdown hit were largely in agreement with the Plan, several major PMCs that had been financially harmed by his reign colluded behind the scenes to build support to overthrow the Monarchy. Entreating the leadership of Johannes Kemmer, a notorious Luxembourgish mercenary who left bodies and atrocities in his wake across the Pavonis during the War, the rogue PMCs of Marusa-Sao pretended to cooperate with the Plan until 2462, when they convinced the Royal Army to take over several of their outposts on far-flung colonies that had hired their services to allow them to return their forces for Nationalization and standardization training in the Royal Army. The coup was short, sharp, and bloody. King Ilias and his family were ordered executed by Kemmer’s Raven’s Point PMC when it became apparent that they would not go along with the coup, but a conscientious contractor enabled the king’s wife and children to escape while Ilias himself refused to flee the country. Instead he chose to face his sentence, famously saying to his executioners “…you have taken the state, but you cannot take the people.”
Modern Marusa-Sao, or ‘Kemmeria’ as it is commonly referred to, is a state ruled by fear. Disappearances are common. The Senate, once the heart of political power in the country now largely exists as a theatrical release valve for public unrest. This has not deterred foreign investors, who see the regime’s crypto-fascist autarky as an improvement over the lesser stability of Imbrian laissez-faire capitalism. The New Marusa has, under Johannes’ son Norbert, become a thriving tourist attraction for the ultra-wealthy and those who wish to pretend to be, funding megaprojects like the construction of a Bishop Ring orbital habitat off the backs of oppressed citizenry. The regime has continued to expand its military to ward off both the UN and Minerva, who initially intended to intervene militarily but failed to agree on a workable plan before the status quo solidified. The liberation of Marusa remains popular in both Sol and Epsilon Eridani, but remains a backburner issue in both polities.
While rumors continue to spread about the excesses of Marusan government, including their exploration further into their Current than their original three systems, they have not shared the results of any such surveys with the rest of settled space, if such expeditions have even occured.
The people and the Royals continue to resist as a country, and military, in exile. A small resistance force, comprised of the remnants of the Royal Army onworld, continue to subvert the regime by sabotage. Cultural resistance to the regime is widespread, led by artists and writers tied to the underground Church. They have come to the understanding that help will not be coming from beyond the stars. This has not broken their resolve.
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
POPULATION SIZE: VERY SMALL | LOCATION: URSINE-CANINE CURRENT (HIGH FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2390s | FOUNDED: 2390s
ALIGNMENT: PARIAH
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: UNITARY SOCIALIST REPUBLIC (DE JURE)/PERSONALIST INFLUENCER AUTOCRACY (DE FACTO)
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: UNDER DEVELOPMENT
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON UPC, UN, OR FMR
Students of 20th-Century history might understandably have some questions upon finding the red banner of a long-gone socialist superpower flying in the far reaches of settled space, but the answers are just as absurd as they might expect.
The state that would become the USSR was founded by a small sect of disillusioned Minervan communists who, believing all other leftist movements to be corrupted by liberalism, retreated to the edge of the world to keep their dream alive. In the decades since, it has garnered a semi-legendary reputation amongst the chronically online left as a home for the truest of the true believers. The reason for the adoption of the name and imagery of the extinct Earth nation stems from decades of infighting which began almost immediately after its founding and ended in 2464, when the Stalinist faction of the government finally succeeded in purging everyone except for themselves from the state. Intending to continue the old Soviet leader’s policy of Socialism In One Country, the people of the USSR have toiled away at grand ambitions of becoming the first truly communist state, to the rest of the galaxy’s occasional amusement and horror alike. Life in the USSR, as one might expect for such a distant and reclusive state, is austere at the best of times. Efforts to achieve autarky have broadly been unsuccessful, with the nation still relying heavily on imported machinery to support crude mining operations. Most of its trade is conducted with the UPC, a consequence of the latter’s general willingness to sell to anybody who can cough up the money, while sanctions imposed by the UN and Minerva force them to engage in a range of illegal ventures to source more advanced products like medicines and industrial algorithms.
While most nearby states are hardly concerned by the USSR’s presence, this is not universally true. Owing to their historical memory of competition against the first USSR, powerful UN member states like the USA and China have expressed deep concern at its reappearance in the Frontier, and have therefore deployed an arguably excessive amount of UNIC resources to try and discover the Soviets’ true intentions.
Other Places of Interest
Eta Cassiopeiae
POPULATION SIZE: SMALL | LOCATION: CYGNI-DRACONIAN CURRENT (HIGH FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2500s (UN), 2510s (FMR)
ALIGNMENT: SPLIT
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: VARIOUS
Eta Cassiopeiae is a system ‘split down the middle’, with presence from both the UN and the FMR marking an uneasy coexistence in the deep reaches of the High Frontier. Astrographically proximate to Marusa-Sao, and generally used by both sides to keep tabs on their unruly neighbor, the system has seen modest development and uneven competition as the UN settled a planet which initially appeared to be Earthlike but proved to be much more desolate after landing, where the Minervan colony in the system met with opposite fortunes. The system’s peace was briefly disrupted in 2513 when Minervan intelligence checking on the activities of the UN in the backwater system found that the UNC had installed a prototype for the JSPR (Joint Slipstream Prediction and Ranging) Generation II sensor arrays on Eta Cassiopeiae III that could be used to map the movements of Minervan forces in the High Frontier. This led to the establishment of a permanent Minervan Navy presence in the system— presumably to destroy the facility if push comes to shove— and the UNC has responded in kind. So far, the naval buildup has lowered the frequency of Kemmerite raids on the colonies.
The Marble
POPULATION SIZE: UNINHABITED | LOCATION: OPHICHUAN CURRENT (HIGH FRONTIER)
DISCOVERED: 2495 | EXPLOITATION BEGUN: 2509
The Marble is an astrological curiosity in the Ophichuan Current, a perfectly smooth and spherical ball of pure iron that sits in the void between star systems. Since its discovery it has fascinated explorers, scientists, and astrological conspiracy theorists as to its origins. The most popular scientific consensus is that it is the remnants of a planetary core, but, as the conspiracists like to point out, the rest of the planet, its mantle and crust, have long disappeared. Other popular hypotheses include a rogue planetoid that long ago flew too close to a sun, or an as of yet undiscovered astrological phenomena. Since its discovery, it has been turned into a mining site, much to the chagrin of the international scientific community. The site is currently run by the Lushan Minerals Corporation, which has tenuous links to Kemmeria and the UPC.
Always great to hear more about the world of Waybound, but another USSR wasn't on my bingo card..
Fun read! It's quite fun to think about all the smaller fellas