TEXT: The Outer System: A Location Sourcebook for Eclipse Phase
  
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  Rimward brings you to the edge of the solar system, including:
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  Eclipse Phase created by Posthuman Studios
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   T O T H E E D G E 
  21202
  ECLIPSE
  PHASE
  The Outer System: A Location Sourcebook for Eclipse
  
  2
  ME INFORMATION
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  INTO THE WHITE 
  4
  EXPLORE THE OUTER SYSTEM 12
  Foreword—Welcome to the Rim 
  12
  MAIN BELT 
  14
  THE ASTEROIDS:  
  A RING OF FORTUNE 
  16
  Visiting the Belt 
  16
  Solarchive Search: Main Belt + Mining 17
  Rocky Illusions 
  18
  V-Type Mystery 
  18
  NOTABLE HABITATS 
  19
  Aspis 
  20
  Ceres (1 Ceres) 
  20
  Extropia (44 Nysa) 
  22
  Open Concerns 
  22
  Solarchive Search: Nomic 
  23
  Your Idiot Friend 
  24
  Legba 
  26
  Nova York (9 Metis) 
  26
  Ego Voodoo 
  26
  Pallas (2 Pallas) 
  27
  Starwell 
  28
  Vesta (4 Vesta) 
  29
  Zombieland (349 Dembowska) 
  29
  JUPITER 
  30
  PLANETOLOGICAL OVERVIEW 
  32
  Rings and Satellites 
  32
  The Magnetosphere 
  32
  THE JOVIAN REPUBLIC 
  32
  The Founding of the Republic 
  33
  Jovian Transhumanism 
  34
  The Guardians of Bio-Ethics 
  37
  Medical Concerns 
  37
  Government Under A God’s Gaze 
  38
  The Security Council 
  41
  TAHI 
  42
  Jovian Factions 
  43
  Power, Gravity, and Might 
  43
  The Third Year Coup? 
  43
  Enemies, Foreign and Domestic 
  44
  JOVIAN MOONS AND HABITATS 
  46
  Amalthea 
  46
  Ganymede 
  46
  Io 
  47
  Callisto 
  47
  Operation Vulture 
  47
  Europa 
  48
  Greek Whispers 
  50
  The Court of Zeus 
  51
  JOVIAN TROJANS 
  52
  IMMORTALITY  
  AND THE N-BODY PROBLEM 
  54
  REGIONS, NEIGHORHOODS,  
  AND LOCAL CULTURES 
  54
  Neighborhoods 
  54
  The Hildas 
  55
  ICEBERGS, BIG ROCKS,  
  AND LUMPS OF COAL 
  55
  The LaGrangian Transport Network 
  55
  Heavy Metal and Gravity 
  55
  OPERATING IN THE TROJANS 
  56
  TROJAN HABITAT TYPES 
  56
  Nuestro shells 
  57
  LOCUS 
  58
  The Amoeba 
  58
  The Shell 
  58
  Getting Around 
  59
  Locations and Neighborhoods 
  59
  Locus: Sources in the Crowd 
  60
  OTHER TROJAN HABITATS 
  62
  C Squat 
  62
  Casa Arturo 
  63
  Catal Hayuk 
  63
  Exarchia 
  63
  Intruder 
  63
  Lot 49 
  63
  Respect 
  63
  Turing 
  64
  Winter 
  64
  MOVEMENTS AND CLADES 
  64
  Exoglots 
  64
  Lizards 
  65
  Long-View Preservationists 
  65
  CRIME IN THE TROJANS 
  65
  Carbon Reavers 
  65
  Ego Theft 
  65
  IP Enforcement 
  65
  SATURN 
  66
  THE TURBULENT GIANT 
  68
  Solarchive Search: Cloud Holm Project 69
  Recovery Operation 
  69
  RINGERS 
  70
  ATLAS 
  70
  Volkograd 
  70
  BRIGHT 
  71
  Field Report 
  71
  Solarchive Search: Acumenic 
  71
  DIONE 
  73
  The Long Array 
  73
  Thoroughgood 
  74
  ENCELADUS 
  74
  Profunda 
  74
  IAPETUS 
  75
  KIVIUQ 
  77
  Kiviuq Monastery  
  77
  MEATHAB 
  77
  MIMAS 
  78
  Harmonious Anarchy 
  78
  PAN 
  79
  iZulu 
  79
  PANDORA 
  80
  PHELAN’S RECOURSE 
  81
  PROMETHEUS 
  81
  Marseilles 
  81
  RHEA 
  83
  Kronos Cluster 
  83
  SALAH 
  85
  TETHYS 
  86
  Godwinhead 
  86
  TWELVE COMMONS  
  (EPIMETHEUS AND JANUS) 
  86
  DIY Shipyards 
  86
  Janus Commons 
  87
  Long Haul 
  87
  Nguyen’s Compact  
  87
  Red Emma’s Dance 
  87
  Small Majesties 
  87
  TITAN 
  89
  TRUE NORTH 
  90
  GEOGRAPHY AND RESOURCES  
  91
  DEMOGRAPHICS AND LANGUAGES 
  91
  Metal Pigs 
  91
  The North Atlantic Consortium 
  92
  HISTORY 
  93
  First Settlement 
  93
  Northern Diaspora 
  93
  The Fall 
  93
  The Locus Conflict 
  93
  What Really Happened at Locus? 
  94
  Age of Acceleration 
  94
  GOVERNMENT 
  94
  The Plurality 
  94
  Political Parties and Elections 
  94
  Cabinet and Ministries 
  95
  Nadifa Geeddi 
  95
  Judiciary 
  96
  Counties and Municipalities 
  96
  SOCIOPOLITICAL MOVEMENTS 
  96
  A-Bloc 
  96
  Hulder 
  97
  Mutualist and Free Market Movements 97
  Oligarchs 
  97
  Pirat Party 
  98
  Preservationists 
  98
  Social Democrats 
  98
  Socialists 
  98
  Technosocialist Interplanetary (TSI) 
  99
  TSI Ties to NAC Microcorps 
  99
  CRIME 
  100
  St. Catherine Tong 
  100
  Reboot Gangs 
  100
  Rebooted 
  100
  Kron Kartelyeı˘ 
  101
  Gloom, Cold and Madness 
  101
  MEDIA 
  101
  Plurality Aggregator Channels 
  101
  Exovirus: Vittrad Strain 
  101
  Entertainment and Recreation 
  102
  MICROCORPS 
  103
  Abramsen Munsch Boxleitner 
  103
  Gatekeeper 
  103
  Isaacson Mauer Ogembe 
  103
  Pagan Seed 
  103
  Vakker Ordnance Works 
  103
  SCIENCE 
  103
  Interstellar Space Exploration 
  103
  Immortality Programs 
  103
  The Large Collider 
  104
  Memetic Civil Defense 
  104
  CITIES 
  104
  Nyhavn 
  104
  The Warrens 
  106
  Aarhus 
  106
  The Tenor of the Debate 
  106
  New Quebec 
  107
  SETTLEMENTS 
  109
  Huvudskär 
  109
  Longueil 
  109
  Stykkishólmur 
  109
  ORBITALS 
  109
  Commonwealth Hub 
  109
  Captured Moonlets 
  109
  Mankell 
  109
  URANUS 
  110
  CAVEATS 
  112
  CLOUDTOPS 
  112
  Skimmers 
  112
  Varuna 
  113
  BELOW THE CLOUDS 
  113
  Nine Frames 
  113
  OBERON 
  114
  Future Stations 
  114
  Cobweb 
  114
  TITANIA 
  114
  Messina Chasma 
  115
   Xtreme 
  115
  Ursula 
  116
  XIPHOS 
  117
  Ultimate Attitudes 
  122
  ARIEL 
  123
  Threat Assessment Review: Ultimates 123
  NEPTUNE 
  124
  HIDING 
  126
  GATE RUMORS 
  126
  NEPTUNIAN AEROSTATS 
  127
  Mushroom 
  127
  Jaques 
  127
  
  TABLE OF CONTENTS
  3
  NEPTUNE ORBIT 
  128
  Glitch 
  128
  Mahogany 
  129
  NEPTUNIAN MOONS 
  129
  Triton 
  129
  Proteus 
  130
  THE NEPTUNIAN TROJANS 
  131
  Hawking 
  131
  Secret Shipyard 
  131
  Ilmarinen 
  132
  OUTER FRINGE 
  134
  OUTER SYSTEM NICHES 
  136
  Alpha Plus 
  137
  Conch 
  137
  New Sarpalius 
  138
  Thunder On the Horizon 
  139
  KUIPER BEL 
  139
  Haumea 
  140
  Markov 
  140
  Habitat on the Rock 
  140
  Whiskey 
  141
  Frozen Dreams 
  141
  Pluto 
  142
  Eris 
  142
  Sedna 
  143
  Haven 
  143
  Solarchive Search: Silver Pinions 
  143
  Thorne 
  144
  THE OORT CLOUD 
  144
  Wisdom 
  144
  The Nest 
  144
  Evangelium 
  144
  ICS-201 Crystal Wind 
  145
  IOCC-226 Tycho Brahe 
  145
  Níngjìng 
  145
  Tyche 
  145
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE 
  146
  AN ALLIANCE OF EQUALS 
  148
  Finding Autonomy 
  148
  Alliance Goals 
  150
  Autonomist Organizations 
  150
  Autonomous Factions 
  152
  Special Outreach 
  152
  ANARCHISTS 
  153
  Misconceptions and Reality 
  153
  Finding Our Roots 
  154
  From Each, To Each 
  155
  No Gods, No Masters 
  156
  Crime and Justice 
  156
  Daily Life of an Anarchist 
  157
  Problems with Anarchy 
  158
  Anarchy for Everyone? 
  159
  Anarcho-Fascists 
  159
  Anarchist Subfactions 
  160
  Anarchist Groups of Note 
  161
  Anarchist Views On Others 
  163
  EXTROPIANS 
  163
  The First Transhumanists 
  163
  Extropian Factions 
  163
  Contract Economics and Security 
  164
  Running the Habitats 
  167
  Notable Extropians 
  167
  Extropian Corporations 
  168
  Extropian Views on Others 
  169
  SCUM 
  169
  Growing in the Cracks 
  169
  Scum Society 
  170
  Gonzo Life 
  170
  Scum Economics 
  171
  Nomadic Dealings 
  171
  Traveling with the Scum 
  172
  Notable Scum Fleets 
  172
  Scum View on Others 
  174
  TITANIANS 
  174
  Military Strength 
  174
  Titanian Views on Others 
  174
  OTHER AUTONOMISTS 
  175
  REPUTATION ECONOMIES 
  176
  Reputation 101 
  176
  Rep: What Is It Good For? 
  176
  Pings and Dings 
  177
  Testify 
  179
  Faction Matters 
  179
  FOAF 
  179
  I Don’t Care 
  About My Bad Reputation 
  179
  GAME INFORMATION 
  180
  TRAVEL TO THE OUTER EDGES  
  OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM 
  182
  ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS 
  183
  Asteroids and Small Moons 
  183
  Distance from the Sun 
  183
  Gas Giant Atmospheres 
  184
  Jupiter’s Magnetosphere 
  184
  Subsurface Oceans 
  184
  Titan’s Carbon Haze 
  184
  NEW MORPHS 
  185
  NEW GEAR 
  188
  OTHER SECRETS AND NOTES 
  195
  Asteroid Family Neighborhoods 
  195
  Running the Jovians 
  195
  Jovian Military Conflict 
  196
  Jovian Trojans Distances 
  196
  Immigrating to Bright 
  196
  Politics and the Trade in  
  Deuterium and Helium 
  196
  Iapetus 
  197
  MeatHab 
  198
  Prometheus’s Secrets 
  198
  Titanian Voting and Reputation 
  199
  Titanian Muses 
  199
  Ultimate Ranks 
  199
  Neptunian Trojans Distances 
  199
  Ilmarinen Morphs 
  199
  Trans-Neptunian Distances 
  199
  CREDITS
  Writing: Rob Boyle, Brian Cross, Nathaniel Dean,  
  Jack Graham, Leah Huete, Marc Huete, James Knevitt, 
  Steven Mohan, John Snead, Monica Valentinelli
  Editing: Rob Boyle, Brian Cross, Diane Piron-Gelman
  Development: Rob Boyle, Brian Cross
  Art Direction: Rob Boyle, Brian Cross, Adam Jury
  Cover Art: Stephan Martiniere
  Interior Art: Victor Corbella, Laura Diaz Cubas, Danijel 
  Firak, Nathan Geppert, Zachary Graves, Jaime Guerrero, 
  Tariq Hassan, Leah Huete, Thomas Jung, Adrian Majkrzak, 
  Marco Mazzoni, Mark Molnar, Lorenz Hideyoshi Ruwwe, 
  Daniel Stultz, Ben Wootten, Andy Wright
  Diagrams: Tiara Lynn Agresta
  Layout: Adam Jury
  Indexing: Adam Jury
  Additional Advice and Input: William Gillis, John Graham, 
  Justin Kugler, Jaqui Wujec
  Playtesting and Proofreading: Davidson Cole, Christopher 
  Lavery, Thomas Römer, Zak Strassberg, William Wilson
  Musical Inspiration: Atari Teenage Riot, Monolith, 
  Prometheus Burning, Talvekoidik
  RESOURCES
  http://eclipsephase.com—Eclipse Phase website and blog
  http://delicious.com/infomorph— 
  Eclipse Phase related news and links
  http://posthumanstudios.com—Posthuman Studios website
  Version 1.0 (July 2012), by Posthuman Studios
  contact us at info@posthumanstudios.com, 
   via http://eclipsephase.com & http://posthumanstudios.com, 
  or search your favorite social network for:
  “Eclipse Phase” or “Posthuman Studios”
  Posthuman Studios is: Rob Boyle, Brian Cross, and Adam Jury.
  Creative Commons License; Some Rights Reserved.
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  4
  “There’s not a tool on site could do this to him,” 
  Ragnarsson was telling her across the table. “Nothing 
  like it in the fabber logs, either.”
  Inspector Sváfa Nordqvist glanced up from the 
  corpse between them, mismatched violet and gray 
  eyes refocusing visibly. She’d been examining the 
  body at high magnification. She wore a regulation 
  vacsuit, as did everyone in the room, and her hair in 
  a precise, black wedge.
  The man who’d spoken, Declan Ragnarsson, stood 
  across from her, tall and bed headed, with anxious 
  eyes—a hazer, but neither as chiseled nor as fey-
  looking as the stereotypical hazer phenotype. He 
  was one of two Titanian Ministry of Science Police 
  officers detailed to on-site security at Murmansk 
  Shaft Research Facility.
  “You’re certain the logs haven’t been tampered 
  with?” Sváfa asked.
  Ragnarsson’s partner, Monique Antigua, a bouncer 
  with round, east Asian features, stood arms crossed at 
  the edge of the table between Sváfa and Ragnarsson. 
  She shook her head. “I went over the logs with a 
  fine sieve. So did the security AIs. But I’m not an  
  infosec specialist.”
  “I’ll rely on your assessment for now,” Sváfa said.
  The corpse belonged to Mission Director Kjartan 
  Ólafsson, dead now for just over two days. The 
  research team lacked a medical stasis unit, so they’d 
  laid him on a desk in his quarters and dropped the 
  temperature, creating a temporary morgue. Primitive, 
  but they were two kilometers beneath the surface 
  of Saturn’s moon Iapetus; cold was easy to come 
  by. A security drone hovered in one corner. Leaning 
  one-footed against the wall next to the drone, 
  anonymously handsome and so far silent, was Lt. 
  Januszczak, Commonwealth Fleet Intelligence.
  Sváfa returned her attention to Ólafsson. The 
  mission director was white. He’d lost most of his 
  blood through a gaping wound in his chest cavity. 
  The wound had the weird, eaten look characteristic of 
  nanotrauma—as if flesh, bone, and organs had been 
  dissolved by acid, but without the chemical burns or 
  paths of puckered tissue runnels of acid would leave. 
  The gradue of loose particulate and undifferentiated 
  bodily fluids typical of nanotrauma had largely been 
  scraped away by the doctor bot during its autopsy, 
  but images from the crime scene before they’d moved 
  the body showed it clearly.
  “No attempt at resuscitation, I take it?” she said. It 
  wasn’t exactly a question.
  “We didn’t find him nearly soon enough,” Antigua said.
  “The stack?” she asked. She started to turn 
  Ólafsson over.
  “Disassembled,” said Ragnarsson, helping her.
  Indeed. The nanobots, wherever they’d come 
  from, had eaten through the chest cavity, up into 
  
  1.
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  INTO THE WHITE
  5
  the neck, and come out the nape. Where Ólafsson’s 
  cortical stack ought to be was a ten centimeter-wide 
  hole. Something was unusual, though. It was nano-
  trauma, but not what she’d have expected from, say, 
  a subverted disassembler swarm. She peered closely 
  at the wound, magnifying her vision again.
  “Do you have any bush robots on the gear 
  manifest?” she asked.
  “Plans only,” Antigua said, “None instanced. Most 
  of what the researchers use out there is imaging 
  equipment—minimally invasive.”
  Minimally provocative, she might as well have 
  said. The research station occupied a junction in the 
  network of precisely cylindrical, uniformly white ice 
  tunnels that formed a sprawling, three-dimensional 
  lattice beneath Iapetus’s thirteen kilometer-high equa-
  torial ridge. The tunnels connected what remained of 
  the most massive TITAN project yet discovered—an 
  apparent attempt to convert much of the mass of 
  Iapetus into a planet-scale computer. Exploring the 
  nervous system of a TITAN artifact required a host 
  of precautions. The research station was designed to 
  emit as little electromagnetic energy as possible. The 
  researchers kept radio silence outside of it, and they 
  avoided physically disturbing the tunnels beyond 
  laying down lighting strips.
  Sváfa straightened, zoomed out to normal vision. 
  “The pattern of nanotrauma isn’t consistent with a 
  swarm or a hand tool. The doctor bot didn’t note this?”
  Januszczak finally spoke up. “It’s a bot. That’s why 
  we have you. Anyway, what do you think it means?”
  Sváfa scowled, studied the ceiling. “Something put 
  a fist full of fractal branching digits through his chest 
  and took apart enough of his vital organs to kill him.”
  Ragnarsson grunted. “So what’s our murder weapon?”
  She considered. “I don’t know. You don’t have 
  a bush robot, and I’ve never heard of fractal digits 
  as an implant on a biomorph. For now, it’s an open 
  question. When was his last backup?”
  “Three months ago,” Antigua said, “There aren’t 
  any ego bridges on site.”
  “Never know what we might dig up, down here,” 
  Ragnarsson said.
  “Of course,” Sváfa said, “Containment protocol.” 
  Good in a TITAN attack, but bad during a murder 
  investigation.
  Januszczak said, “Are we sure the stack isn’t hidden 
  somewhere?”
  “The doc bot found a quantity of near-molecular 
  diamond dust consistent with a cortical stack in the 
  gradue collected from under the corpse,” Antigua said.
  Sváfa pulled the sheet back over Ólafsson’s vacant-
  eyed morph. “Let’s assume for now the victim wasn’t 
  carrying a stack-sized lump of diamond for some 
  other reason,” she said.
  Januszczak frowned. “I want to review the doc bot 
  logs in any case.”
  “Fine,” Sváfa said. She’d been here half an hour 
  and she already resented Fleet looking over her 
  shoulder. They had a clear interest, though. The 
  research station belonged to the Science Ministry, 
  but security of the moon as a whole fell to Fleet. 
  That Sváfa quietly freelanced for Firewall poten-
  tially complicated relations even further. “I think 
  we’re otherwise done here. Let’s have a look at the 
  crime scene.”
  “It’s out in the tunnels,” Ragnarsson said.
     
     
  A featureless tunnel, white and even as porcelain, led 
  from the airlock of the research station. Bluish-white 
  strip lighting installed by the research team glared 
  from the tunnel floor, casting their shadows 
  on the ceiling. The researchers had chosen 
  a major tunnel junction to site the station. 
  Januszczak, bringing up the rear behind Sváfa 
  and Antigua, played out a thin comm tether 
  behind them. Through it they could contact 
  Ragnarsson, who’d remained in the hab module. 
  Among themselves they kept radio silence, 
  communicating instead via suit-mounted laser 
  links. They’d gone armed, but neither this nor 
  knowing that Fleet’s marines had patrolled 
  these tunnels for months and found nothing but 
  frozen corpses reassured Sváfa.
  When they’d gone about six hundred meters, 
  the airlock receded to a tiny, gray dot, then to 
  nothing. Sváfa, looking ahead and then behind, 
  felt as if she were looking into a pair of mirrors 
  set opposite one another. There was no sound 
  in the vacuum of the corridor. Only their tacnet 
  maps indicated distance from the station. Sváfa 
  was accustomed to the yawning openness of 
  space, the dizzying sensory disconnect that 
  came with motion in orbit, the closeness of 
  asteroid warrens, but nothing had prepared 
  her for the combination of claustrophobia and 
  spatial disorientation brought on by a long walk 
  in Iapetus’s tunnels.
  [It opens into a circuit junction in half a klick,] 
  Antigua said, [We’ll have to climb up two levels.]
  [Why did Ólafsson go out alone?] Januszczak asked.
  [Wait ‘til you see what he found,] Antigua said, [The 
  video in our report isn’t as impressive as the reality.]
  They were headed toward an unusual 
  junction in the circuitry. Even as Antigua sent 
  the message, Sváfa caught the shimmer of light 
  reflected off what must have been the largest 
  mass of exposed TITAN circuitry she’d yet seen.
  Januszczak said, [Careless. Ólafsson’s backup will 
  have to go through psych before he’s re-certified.]
  One doesn’t speak ill of the dead, Sváfa 
  thought. But their backups are another matter.
  MONIQUE ANTIGUA n SCIENCE POLICE OFFICER
  LT. JANUSZCZAK n FLEET INTELLIGENCE OFFICER
  
  6
  exsurgent drones, then abandoned to starve when 
  their goal here, whatever it had been, was completed. 
  Every centimeter of these tunnels had been cut by 
  once-human colonists. She’d never been so close to 
  the enormity of the Fall.
  Januszczak edged closer to the shaft, close enough 
  to set Sváfa’s incisors on edge. [Wouldn’t there be some 
  type of cabling to exploit the temperature difference 
  between here and the mantle?] he asked.
  [If transhumans designed it,] Antigua said, [And 
  there might be cabling. Deeper. The theory is that closer 
  to the surface, the entire system ran on waste heat.]
  [Without thermocouple arrays?]
  Antigua shrugged. [Any of the science team will 
  be happy to go on about their pet theories. Really, 
  they know nothing.]
  Sváfa was still looking at the ground. [Let’s keep 
  moving?]
  [This way,] Antigua said. The researchers had 
  installed a set of rungs on a section of white 
  ice wall. The rungs climbed two thirds of the 
  way up the wall before stopping at another 
  horizontal corridor. [Careful,] Antigua said as 
  she began hoisting herself, grasping the rungs 
  with both feet and hands. [You don’t want to fall, 
  even in this gravity.]
  Sváfa kept her eyes on the wall as she 
  climbed. She had a weird urge to reach out 
  and touch the TITAN circuitry substrate. It 
  was in arm’s reach. She wondered what it 
  would tell her.
  Nothing good, she suspected, coming back 
  to herself. Sváfa had only met one other async 
  while working for Firewall—a xenoarcheologist 
  named Ngembe. He, too, possessed a talent for 
  reading objects; he called it “grokking.”
  “Things call to you before you ever apply 
  your mind to them, don’t they?” Ngembe had 
  asked her.
  “That’s not a rational idea,” she’d answered 
  him; she’d thought him mad. Now, though, her 
  talent—her infection—nagged at her to probe 
  the TITAN circuitry. It was easy to resist, but 
  the gnawing sense of something other pushing 
  her toward the burnt-out workings couldn’t be 
  put aside.
  At the top of the ladder, they again found 
  themselves in a white corridor. Where previ-
  ously the white hallways had been disorienting, 
  Sváfa now found them positively comforting.
  [You’re almost there,] Ragnarsson messaged.
  They came to a T junction. To the left, more 
  identical corridor. To the right, the lighting 
  strips ran for about fifty meters before ending. 
  The smooth white of the corridor dimly 
  reflected their lights for some distance before 
  receding into blackness.
  They reached the junction. The bottom quarter of 
  the tunnel was still nearly opaque, white ice, but the 
  other three quarters were circuitry. Until now they’d 
  bounded along, using their hands as well as their feet 
  to push themselves forward and avoid hitting their 
  heads on the ceiling. Antigua’s lithe bouncer morph 
  had an easy time of this. For Sváfa and Januszczak in 
  their hazer bodies, the movements came less readily. 
  Now they slowed their pace, shuffling cautiously.
  The TITAN circuitry substrate formed dense 
  whorls all around, the clear-as-glass ice etched in 
  seemingly infinite layers that accumulated into 
  patterns hurtful to the eye and brain, even as their 
  crystalline beauty caught the light, entrancing Sváfa. 
  Looking at the substrate made her slightly nauseous, 
  and yet it also bore a weird and deeply uncomfort-
  able familiarity. Sváfa realized the effect had an 
  unsettling similarity to using her async talents.
  They entered a vaulted chamber, walled on all 
  sides with glittering substrate. Only a few columns 
  of the rougher, opaque ice climbed to the ceiling, and 
  curving paths of it crisscrossed the floor. The chamber 
  was perhaps fifteen meters wide and three times that 
  in height, although it was difficult to tell, difficult to 
  look upward at all without feeling nauseous, and 
  Sváfa kept her eyes to the even white of the pathway 
  as much as possible. They had to shuffle even more 
  cautiously to avoid overshooting a step on the path 
  and landing on the fragile circuitry—or in the five 
  meter-wide shaft at the center of the room.
  [It is rather magnificent,] Januszczak said, [What do 
  they think it is?]
  [You know the going theory on how the whole thing 
  worked, yes?] Antigua replied.
  [Yes.]
  [They think the shaft is the terminus of one of the heat 
  exchanges,] Antigua said.
  If “heat” were a fair word. But it was. Sváfa 
  checked her suit’s readout. The chamber was a few 
  degrees warmer than the surrounding tunnels. Not 
  enough to melt ice, but enough to yield a trickle 
  of power to the trillions of thermoelectric couples 
  theorized to have powered the matrioshka brain. 
  Theorized, only, though: the actual circuitry devoured 
  itself when the matrioshka shut down, leaving only a 
  fine grit in the circuit pathways and the icy substrate 
  itself, tantalizing as a fossil trilobite.
  The fossil is not the mechanism, she reminded 
  herself. She’d messaged her Firewall contact, Tara 
  Yu, when she found out she’d be going to Iapetus. So 
  far this looked to Sváfa like a murder—and not of 
  an unfamiliar type. The claustrophobic white unifor-
  mity of Iapetus’s tunnels and the cramped quarters 
  in which the research team lived were a recipe for 
  depression, withdrawal, and sudden violence. But 
  Yu had let her in on more of what Firewall knew 
  about Iapetus: the human inhabitants converted to 
  SVÁFA NORDQVIST n SCIENCE POLICE DETECTIVE
  DECLAN RAGNARSSON n SCIENCE POLICE OFFICER
  
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  INTO THE WHITE
  7
  [Yes,] she said. [We had them on. Regs on an 
  SPD-protected site in a vacuum environment: suits on when 
  you’re not in your bunk.]
  Sváfa knew that regulation. It wasn’t always 
  enforced, but here they ran a tight ship. She took a 
  sample of the gradue, just to be thorough. [We should 
  get back,] she said.
  As they walked, Januszczak asked, [Who has access 
  to cleaner swarms?]
  [Almost everyone,] Antigua said. [The hab module 
  crawls with them.]
     
     
  Sváfa set about interviewing the research team. She’d 
  eliminated Antigua and Ragnarsson as subjects. They 
  and five of the science team had all been in the hab 
  module’s common area at the time of the murder. The 
  module’s radio emissions proofing meant none of 
  them could have committed the crime using a tele-
  operated robot. And for the scientists, professional 
  rivalry was an unlikely motive. Their purpose was 
  to investigate Iapetus’s gross physical properties, and 
  though they’d been led by Ólafsson, a materials scien-
  tist, they all came from distinct fields.
  This left three suspects.
  Magda Nikkanen, programmer-archeologist and 
  Titan Tech academic, had been absent from the 
  common area and lacked a convincing alibi. She 
  claimed to have been in her bunk, but spime records 
  neither proved nor disproved this.
  Oleg Nilsen, Ólafsson’s assistant (and like Ólafsson 
  a materials scientist), had also been absent—and 
  he had a motive. Nilsen had led the tunnel crawl 
  that initially discovered and documented the heat 
  exchange shaft near the crime scene. Several days 
  after the discovery, Nilsen and Ólafsson argued 
  bitterly and, within a few days, word arrived that 
  Nilsen would be transferred off the team.
  Finally, there was Mick Keegan, ice mining 
  engineer, charged with analyzing stresses in the ice, 
  preventing damage to the circuitry, and digging out 
  if any cave-ins occurred. The TITANs apparently 
  never intended for the matrioshka to last. They 
  knew that faults in the ice would eventually degrade 
  the machine’s performance beyond what even their 
  inhuman technology could achieve. Iapetus’s interior 
  had been reshaped for limited use, and now it was 
  falling apart. Every team sent down had a mining 
  engineer. Scientists dying to get their fingers into 
  Iapetus were a dime a dozen, but ice mining engi-
  neers on Titan had no shortage of less hazardous 
  work. The Science Ministry had scouted Keegan from 
  off world.
  But Keegan had done more than engineering. When 
  they found the body, Antigua and Ragnarsson imme-
  diately searched the station for weapons. They found 
  In the center, the crime scene. Malformed ice, 
  melted by an agonizer on roast mode and then 
  refrozen again just as quickly, ran in one long trail 
  for about ten meters down the floor of the corridor 
  to the left. In one spot, it had crossed a lighting strip, 
  burning it out. A shorter trail of malformed ice ran 
  just a few meters along the floor.
  Sváfa knelt and released a nanoswarm directly 
  onto the floor. Unable to fly in the vacuum, they’d 
  spread slowly, but they were her only option for 
  nanoscale detection. Her nanodetector, relying as it 
  did on intake of air, would be useless here.
  [Not a very good shot,] Januszczak observed, [if he had 
  to track it along the ground that far.]
  [He was a civilian,] Antigua said.
  [He didn’t do militia service?]
  [No,] Sváfa messaged, memory augmentations 
  bringing Ólafsson’s file swiftly to mind. She had a 
  dossier for everyone in the station, the product of 
  two days’ stim-fueled research during her flight to 
  Iapetus. [He opted for civil instead.]
  She pointed down the dark corridor. [Where 
  does that go?]
  [Unexplored,] Antigua said.
  They were three, all armed and combat 
  trained, yet the darkness beyond terrified her. She 
  suppressed a shudder, activated her emotional 
  dampers. It wouldn’t do for a detective of the 
  Commonwealth Science Police to be shaking in 
  her vacsuit. Iapetus was dead, was it not?
  She imaged the nearby ice using t-rays and 
  lidar but found nothing other than ice and 
  more circuit substrate beyond the walls.
  After several minutes, Thora, Sváfa’s muse, 
  reported that the nanoswarm had sampled the 
  whole area. [Particulate matches on vacsuits and gear 
  worn/carried by Agent Januszczak, Officers Antigua 
  and Ragnarsson, Director Ólafsson, and yourself.]
  [No one else?] she asked. Ragnarsson and 
  Antigua had gone looking for Ólafsson and 
  found the body. They’d done so at a sugges-
  tion from Nilsen, Ólafsson’s assistant, who’d 
  found the thermal exchange and expected Ólafsson 
  would be working there alone, documenting it. 
  And Januszczak had arrived with her, dropped by a 
  Fleet shuttle at the head of the Murmansk Shaft ice 
  elevator atop the equatorial ridge.
  [No one,] Thora said.
  Sváfa said, [Someone’s run a cleaner swarm over this area.] No 
  exsurgent bogeymen from the depths of Iapetus were 
  involved, unless they were unusually fastidious.
  Januszczak said, [You’re sure?]
  [It’s difficult to say when a given particle was deposited here, but 
  if anyone was here other than Ólafsson himself prior to Antigua and 
  Ragnarsson finding him, they’d have left a trace.] She turned to 
  Antigua. [Can you and Ragnarsson account for your vacsuits at the 
  time the crime was committed?]
  THORA n SVÁFA’S MUSE
  
  8
     
     
  “You made that short,” Januszczak said.
  “Your question was badly timed, but it did the 
  work,” Sváfa said.
  They’d had to put Keegan in the room with 
  Ólafsson’s corpse for lack of space. She’d detailed 
  Ragnarsson to watch him while Antigua printed 
  more security drones. There wasn’t much chance of 
  Keegan escaping; where would he go? But a desperate 
  man might try something.
  “You barely questioned him.”
  Sváfa could read lies on a human face like flashing 
  red AR graphics, but she didn’t want to get into an 
  argument about policecraft with an intel man. “He’d 
  be a fool to draw attention to himself by killing 
  someone. And it’s clear he’s not a fool.”
  She let Januszczak fume and called in Nikkanen.
     
     
  Magda Nikkanen’s dossier said she’d spent twenty-
  eight months beneath Iapetus on five different research 
  teams. She’d authored several papers proposing 
  possible architectures for the TITAN hardware—all 
  presently classified.
  Nikkanen herself had a round face with high 
  cheekbones. She’d attired herself severely: black 
  bowl cut, unadorned gray vacsuit. Some of the team 
  wore vacsuits with helmets off habitually, but on 
  Nikkanen, it looked buttoned up, clinical—a sterile 
  wall between her and her surroundings.
  “You were born on Iapetus,” Sváfa began. This 
  alone made Nikkanen interesting.
  “That’s accurate,” Nikkanen said. “It was quite … 
  Titanian, before the Fall.” No wistful look off into 
  the distance; just a statement.
  “Your family … early colonists?”
  “Yes,” Nikkanen said. “From a city in Finland, on 
  Earth. My older brother was born there.”
  “Did you kill Kjartan Ólafsson?” Januszczak put in.
  Idiot, Sváfa thought, I should have coached him 
  after the last one. What had been a good closing 
  question with Keegan was a terrible one early in 
  the interview with Nikkanen. Januszczak clearly 
  didn’t know the difference between an interview and  
  an interrogation.
  [Thora,] she messaged. [Her reaction on that last question?] 
  Normally, Sváfa would go with her gut and review 
  results from the kinesics software later, but Januszczak’s 
  question might shorten the interview considerably.
  [Surprise/alarm,] the AI messaged.
  “No!” Nikkanen said. “Who would? Kjartan could 
  be brusque, but he was a good sort. I mean, obviously 
  someone did, but … really, they couldn’t have been in 
  their right mind to do it.”
  [Avoidance,] Thora put in. Yes.
  none, but they did discover that Keegan had hidden 
  away several slabs of TITAN circuitry substrate, 
  crated and prepped to smuggle off the moon.
     
     
  Sváfa started with Keegan. The engineer was ruggedly 
  handsome, with unkempt black hair and a decidedly 
  un-Titanian rakishness to his gear.
  Since her infection had manifested, Sváfa could 
  see colors and textures rise and fall in a person’s 
  face during conversation—even more so if the 
  person were experiencing stress or strong emotion. 
  She’d already been a highly trained kinesicist, but 
  the infection afforded a higher level of certainty. 
  She often suppressed this talent. The interplay of 
  expression, muscle movement, blood circulation 
  and … call it “probability” … in a speaking human 
  face could be almost physically painful, as if the 
  thing in her hated what it sensed. Nor was this 
  occasional antipathy limited to transhumans; she 
  often felt the same toward uplifts, even neo-octopi 
  and neo-avians, whom most humans found closed 
  and alien. It made it difficult at times to play the 
  hard-nosed investigator.
  “They call you the Anarchist. You’re from Kronos 
  Cluster?”
  He chuckled, smiled jaggedly. She hadn’t known 
  they made bouncers with freckles … or crooked teeth. 
  “Let’s not tarry, love,” he said, “I’m from Phelan’s, not 
  Kronos, and I’m not an anarchist—I’m a capitalist.”
  By which he meant “criminal,” Sváfa gathered. 
  “You’re glib for a man likely to serve a few decades 
  in simulation.”
  “Commonwealth justice is a lamb compared to most.”
  “You’re also a talented engineer to be running a 
  confidence scheme over chunks of ice,” she said.
  “Plenty of talented engineers sleeved in clankers on 
  Mars, love. Skill’s one thing, but a man does well to 
  have cred in the bank.”
  “So much for return on your investment,” Sváfa 
  said, “But for now I’m concerned with Director 
  Ólafsson.”
  “Go on, do I look like a jealous scientist? Or a 
  fucking exsurgent?” He’d said the word in English, 
  first pausing for a beat, as if his Skandinavíska skill-
  soft didn’t know it.
  Sváfa tensed. Few people knew the term. Keegan 
  had watched her reaction. So had Januszczak. She 
  sat stone-faced, waiting, letting the silence work at 
  Keegan. She was betting he loved his voice too much 
  for his own good.
  But too soon, Januszczak stood and leaned over the 
  desk at Keegan—rather ineffectually, Sváfa observed. 
  What was he doing? “Did you kill Kjartan Ólafsson?”
  “No,” Keegan said.
  Sváfa believed him.
  
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  INTO THE WHITE
  9
     
     
  Sváfa disliked Nilsen immediately. He had a 
  nervous, seeking face. She felt as if he were searching 
  Januszczak and her for both approval and weakness 
  at each question. She tried to swallow her unease with 
  him in order to make an honest assessment of the man, 
  but it was difficult. 
  Her interviews with the other researchers suggested 
  things had been rocky between him and the director 
  for some time. His work on the TITANs’ use of 
  native Iapetan materials in constructing the matri-
  oshka was brilliant but controversial.
  “How was your relationship with Director 
  Ólafsson?” Sváfa asked.
  He scowled at her from across the desk. “Strained. 
  Obviously.”
  “Be that as it may, you worked closely with him,” 
  she said. “We’ve arrested Mick Keegan for attempting 
  to smuggle sections of circuitry substrate off Iapetus. 
  Do you think Ólafsson suspected?”
  Nilsen sneered. “He wouldn’t have cared.”
  Januszczak raised an eyebrow but remained quiet.
  “What makes you say that?” Sváfa asked. 
  Nilsen straightened. Here was something new, 
  uglier in his bearing: pride. “I’m a loyal Titanian. 
  Ólafsson didn’t care about our security. He was a 
  damned argonaut—would’ve passed everything he 
  learned down here to them.”
  As Nilsen spoke, Sváfa messaged Januszczak, 
  [Nilsen is a radical technosocialist, probably a member of  
  the Interplanetary.]
  [I can confirm that for certain, actually,] Januszczak 
  messaged. He cleared his throat. “Even Fleet 
  Intelligence doesn’t consider the argonauts a hostile 
  group, Doctor Nilsen.”
  Nilsen stared at Januszczak as if he’d said some-
  thing indelibly stupid. “Fleet isn’t concerned about 
  dissemination of data on TITAN technology?”
  Sváfa said, “Of course they are, Doctor. Was 
  Director Ólafsson in collusion with Keegan, then? Or 
  releasing data on his own?”
  Sváfa could tell Nilsen was about to lie even as he 
  opened his mouth. “I’ve been gathering evidence, yes. 
  Building a case.”
  She gazed off into a corner. “Is that why you 
  tampered with hab module surveillance logs?”
  “What? What? I did no such thing.” Nilsen was 
  on his feet, drawing Sváfa’s eyes back to him. His 
  face was red, a vein bulging out, and he’d balled up 
  his fists.
  Januszczak’s hand went to his stunner. His voice 
  was intimidatingly calm. “Easy, Nilsen. This is still 
  just an interview.”
  [He’s telling the truth,] Sváfa messaged. [It wasn’t him.]
  Nilsen slowly sat back down.
  [How do you know?] Januszczak asked.
  Before Nikkanen finished, Sváfa messaged 
  Januszczak, [This isn’t a Fleet interrogation room. She’ll demand 
  counsel if we treat her like more than a witness.]
  Sváfa backed her chair up, giving Nikkanen 
  more space, and said, “I’ll be straight with you. 
  Our primary subject of interest is Mick Keegan.” 
  Nikkanen’s posture relaxed almost imperceptibly.
  Januszczak said, “Keegan planned to smuggle TITAN 
  artifacts off Iapetus. Did Ólafsson mention any suspi-
  cions he might have had, about Keegan or anyone else?”
  Nikkanen tensed again. Sváfa suppressed a grimace. 
  Januszczak was making a hash of this.
  “I wasn’t in his confidence,” Nikkanen said. “Why? 
  You know, I don’t think I should say anything else to 
  you without an attorney.”
  Januszczak bristled. “This is a military jurisdiction!”
  Magda was shaking a bit, her voice unsteady. “If 
  you had me up on charges of smuggling TITAN arti-
  facts or compromising security. But you’re questioning 
  me in relation to a civil crime. And I’m not being 
  detained.” She looked at Sváfa. “Am I, Inspector?”
  “No,” Sváfa said, not looking at Januszczak. 
  “You’re free to go.”
     
     
  “I apologize,” Januszczak said after Magda Nikkanen left 
  the room, straightening and trying to make eye contact, 
  which Sváfa avoided. “I imagine she was receiving legal 
  advice from her muse. That was stupid of me.”
  Sváfa said, “You didn’t help matters, but I don’t 
  think she’s our killer. Though from her reaction to 
  your question, she might know who is.”
  “I’ll keep quiet on the next one,” Januszczak said.
  “Forget about it,” Sváfa said. Being angry at a Fleet 
  intel man for being forceful in an interview was like 
  being angry at a wasp for stinging you on the thumb. 
  “Let’s talk to Nilsen.” But just before she summoned 
  him, Antigua called.
  [I found something,] Antigua messaged. [Oleg Nilsen 
  tampered with the surveillance logs. Not just during the 
  crime, but on multiple prior occasions.]
  [How do you know?] Sváfa asked.
  [Fleet Intel has an agent loose in the local mesh that tries 
  to double-log every contact between a spime and a mesh ID. 
  Nilsen didn’t know about it.]
  Sváfa glanced at Januszczak; did he even know? 
  Fleet security was an onion; it was entirely possible 
  he didn’t have access to all of the layers. [How do you 
  know?] Sváfa asked.
  [Hacked it and tossed its logs. Our warrant to search the 
  premises is still active. Fleet’s not immune. It caught Nilsen 
  several times.]
  [Please keep that to yourself for now. It could be a headache later; 
  better if we can make a case without you revealing that.]
  [Fine. But it’s useful, isn’t it?]
  [Maybe.]
  
  10
  The coiling presence of the exovirus was whispering 
  danger to her, but her dampers and the drugs kept 
  her murderously calm.
  Things were about to get awful.
  Nikkanen had left a heat trail easily followed in 
  the infrared. She’d made straight for the thermal 
  exchange chamber near the site of Ólafsson’s murder 
  but had left it in a different direction from the crime 
  scene. They’d followed her into unexplored tunnels. 
  Januszczak, bringing up the rear, had been marking 
  the ice to leave a breadcrumb trail.
  They left the inexplicable ice sculpture behind and 
  soon glimpsed light around a corner.
  [Dim your suit lights to near-infrared,] Januszczak 
  messaged. They would attempt stealth.
  They rounded the corner, and ten meters away, 
  limned in white light from a torch she’d set on the 
  floor, was Magda Nikkanen. She’d rounded on them, 
  apparently having noticed even the dim sub-visible 
  light from their suits.
  Looming behind Nikkanen was a hunched thing, 
  two meters tall at the shoulders. It looked like a 
  giant troll vacuum packed into a spacesuit. It leaned 
  crutch-wise on wiry, elongated forearms that reached 
  to the tunnel floor and ended in huge, padded fists. 
  A second, smaller pair of arms extended wing-like 
  from the shoulders, bracing it against the tunnel 
  ceiling, while a third, even smaller pair extended 
  from the chest.
  A dendritic froth of fractal branching digits 
  wreathed the two smaller pairs of hands. Its bloated 
  face mashed up against the inside of the vacsuit’s 
  visor, venous and hideously pallid. It clearly did 
  not breathe through the crushed slit of a nose, but 
  the eyes, set deeper, darted about with agonized 
  intelligence.
  A cable trailed from Nikkanen’s suit to the 
  exsurgent.
  All three trained their guns on the pair. The exsur-
  gent drone made no move.
  [Dr. Nikkanen,] Januszczak signaled. [Unlink from that 
  thing at once.]
  Nikkanen raised her hands, open. [Inspector, 
  Lieutenant … this is my brother.]
  [That is not your brother, Nikkanen,] Sváfa messaged. [Pull your 
  data jack now. I won’t warn you again.]
  She’d seen footage of exsurgents like this before on 
  Firewall’s VPNs, but they’d all been frozen, starved 
  after the TITANs abandoned Iapetus. How had this 
  one survived? There must be autonomous machinery 
  somewhere in this maze capable of sustaining it—
  which meant there might be more of them.
  [Nordqvist?] Ragnarsson messaged. [What if it really is?]
  [It may have been, Officer,] she messaged, [but it isn’t anymore. 
  Sváfa said, “Mr. Nilsen, let’s put aside your suspi-
  cions about the Director for now. I’d like to review 
  the statement you gave regarding the events of two 
  days ago one more time.”
     
     
  They continued with Nilsen for another thirty 
  minutes, during which time Sváfa became convinced 
  that although Oleg Nilsen was a disagreeable 
  ideologue, he’d had nothing to do with Ólafsson’s 
  murder. Her suspicions began to veer back toward 
  Magda Nikkanen.
  Then Ragnarsson entered the room, his face grave. 
  “Magda Nikkanen just stunned one of her colleagues 
  and fled out the airlock.”
  “Up the elevator?” Januszczak asked, rising. 
  “Where would she go?” Waiting for the elevator on 
  the broken spine of the equatorial ridge when they’d 
  arrived, Sváfa and Januszczak had seen nothing but 
  heavily cratered ice, ghost white under the stars’ faint 
  illumination, stretching out to both horizons.
  “No,” Ragnarsson said, “She’s gone into the tunnels.”
     
     
  “PASKA KAUPUNNI,” read the huge inscription on 
  the tunnel wall. The words were blasted into the wall 
  with carbon grit that resembled black spray paint.
  [What is that?] Januszczak signaled. They were 
  communicating by laser, but Januszczak, in the rear, 
  trailed a comm tether. Antigua was on the other end, 
  holding down the fort.
  Ragnarsson, taking point with his assault 
  rifle, kept his eyes trained on the hallway as 
  they stopped to examine it.
  Above the inscription, the white ice had been 
  carved into an intricate bas relief of a small 
  city—clearly on Earth, as the foreground of the 
  carving depicted a harbor. The manic precision 
  of the bas relief was in marked contrast to the 
  grit-blasted words.
  [Translation from Finnish: “Shit Town/City,”] Thora 
  messaged.
  Sváfa ran a hand over the carving and 
  reached into it with her talent, seeking to 
  understand. A sunny day on the harbor—the 
  last one, ever. They were leaving the old city, 
  half drowned, half frozen. He looked one last 
  time at the painted scrawl on the old feedstock 
  tank. “Oulu: Paska Kaupunni.”
  [It’s … graffiti. Art,] Sváfa replied. Sváfa activated 
  her emotional dampers and had her suit inject 
  her with a half dose of phlo. [Let’s keep moving.] 
  MAGDA NIKKANEN n PROGRAMMER-ARCHEOLOGIST
  
  1.
  1.
  1.
  1.
  1
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  1.
  1
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  1
  .1
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  1
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  1
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  1.
  INTO THE WHITE
  11
     
     
  “Inspector? Nordqvist? Hey!”
  Ragnarsson crouched over her, looking about 
  warily. His vacsuit was slightly charred and showed 
  signs of very recent self-repair. Shrapnel, maybe.
  “Officer.” They were speaking over a voice channel, 
  breaking radio silence. Probably not the best idea, 
  but the comm tether was nowhere to be seen. “The 
  exsurgent?”
  “What?” His voice was ragged.
  “The monster. Where?”
  “Finished it off with a grenade. Fucking crazy thing 
  to do down here, but I had no other way.”
  She sat up. She’d come to rest at the bottom of yet 
  another perfect white shaft, featureless except for the 
  litter of shattered substrate all around them.
  She had tasted aleph numbers, cardinalities beyond 
  the transfinite. What had they been calculating, to 
  encompass such expanses of data just in the few 
  meters of substrate through which she’d crashed?
  “Nikkanen?” she asked.
  “Done for,” he said. “Can you walk? We need to get 
  back to the station.”
  She stood, dizzy but otherwise fine. Her vacsuit 
  had taken the impact. It was contact with the 
  circuitry that had caused her to black out briefly. 
  “Let’s go,” she said.
  “Keegan hacked the security drones and escaped up 
  the elevator,” he said as he led her back toward the 
  explored corridors.
  “Least of our worries.” [Antigua?] she messaged.
  [Inspector.]
  [Tell the entire research team to prep for evac. All of this 
  activity might have woken something up.]
  [Happily, Inspector.]
     
     
  Once the shuttle left the Iapetan radio silence 
  zone, Sváfa Nordqvist opened a Firewall VPN 
  connection and messaged Tara Yu.
  [Nordqvist,] Yu messaged, [did the Science Police 
  get their man?]
  [Never mind about that, Doctor Yu. I’ve more important 
  matters to report upon.]
  [Really?]
  [The purpose of the Iapetan matrioshka, Doctor! Answers 
  from beyond the realms of the calculable. Such wonderful 
  things, Yu. Such wonderful things. Wait until you view the files 
  I’m sending.]
  [Hold on, Nordqvist. Don’t—]
  [Uploading now.]
  You have my word on that.] Sváfa drew a bead on the exsur-
  gent’s head; it still had a brain in there, somewhere.
  [He isn’t hostile!] Nikkanen messaged. [He’s sick. Look! 
  Ólafsson was an accident!]
  The part of Sváfa that was still feeling was happy 
  she couldn’t feel anything more.
  [Inspector!] Antigua messaged, [Wide-spectrum radio 
  emissions from your position!]
  At the same time, Thora flashed up an intrusion 
  warning on Sváfa’s mesh inserts. Sváfa switched her 
  rifle to full auto and opened fire on the exsurgent drone. 
  An instant later, so did Januszczak and Ragnarsson.
  The thing closed the distance between them in one 
  leap, knocking Nikkanen to the ground as the access 
  jacks tore free. It trailed a spray of frozen blue gore 
  along the wall where slugs had torn through it.
  They’d wounded it badly, but now it was on top 
  of them. It swung at Sváfa with a huge fore-fist. She 
  ducked easily, but a lunge with one of its upper arms 
  caught Januszczak in the chest. The thick, visible 
  fingers of the arm wrapped around his shoulder and 
  upper chest, and then the branching mist of fractal 
  digits flowed onto his vacsuit, pulling it apart.
  Ragnarsson and Sváfa backed up, looking for a 
  clear shot. Nikkanen tried to fire her stunner, perhaps 
  not realizing that it wouldn’t function in a vacuum. 
  Sváfa saw her curse inside her helmet and go for 
  another weapon.
  Januszczak convulsed as his suit vented, misting 
  the blood and gradue that flowed from the breach, 
  freezing instantly as it drifted toward the floor. The 
  drone advanced, holding him like a shield. Nikkanen 
  had another weapon in hand, probably an agonizer, 
  but Sváfa shot her first.
  Ragnarsson held his ground and tried to aim a 
  shot at the drone, but when Sváfa dropped Nikkanen, 
  its crushed face twisted up inside the helmet and it 
  hurled the inert Januszczak at Ragnarsson, knocking 
  the officer to the floor. Then it rushed Sváfa.
  Without pausing to think, Sváfa dropped prone 
  and fired her vacsuit’s thruster pack. She avoided 
  the exsurgent but found herself shooting down the 
  corridor, out of control. Sváfa caromed once off the 
  ceiling and then found herself in open space. This 
  was another big chamber, with a wall of TITAN 
  circuitry substrate looming before her.
  She couldn’t avoid crashing into it. Well, why not, 
  then? She put her hands out to touch the circuitry, 
  reached out with her infection. The glassy substrate 
  shattered around her, and she fell into a quantum 
  foam of numbers expressing a space cold, dispersed, 
  and virtually endless in scope. Was she seeing the end 
  of the universe in simulation—or was that eschaton 
  only one variable in something larger?
  TARA YU n FIREWALL AGENT
  
  FOREWORD—WELCOME TO THE RIM
  [Incoming Message]
  [Source: Proxy Stitch]
  [Public Key Decryption Complete]
  You’re about to head out to the big black empty of 
  the outer system. Working as a sentinel rimward isn’t 
  the same as in the cozy inner system. Out past Mars, 
  even egocasting or neutrino comms take hours. Ships 
  can take weeks, months, or even years. If you don’t 
  have QE comms, you can’t expect any sort of help 
  until well after the trouble is over. You’ll learn fast to 
  be self-reliant if you want to see a mission through; 
  otherwise you’ll find yourself restored from your 
  stack months after the case, if your stack is retrieved 
  at all.
  It can also get pretty strange out on the fringes. 
  Except for Titan, this part of the system is home to 
  the eccentrics, the ideologues, and anyone else who 
  is either unwilling or unable to live with the majority 
  of transhumanity. 
  The following is a collection of reports from all 
  across the outer system. It isn’t complete by any means. 
  Instead, it’s designed to help you understand the wild 
  diversity of life out here and to give you a taste of 
  some of the strangeness and dangers. Assume a fair 
  amount of bias and no shortage of incomplete informa-
  tion in these reports, but they can provide a starting 
  point for understanding this vast region. Also, some of 
  these pieces are fragments or hints of information that 
  are the subject of active investigations. Even if you’re 
  looking into something else, if you discover anything 
  bearing on any of these matters, we need to know 
  about it. Keep in mind that most of what’s going on out 
  there isn’t in these or any other reports. There are habs 
  and other facilities that no outsider has ever visited—
  at least, no one who has ever returned to say so. We 
  won’t be able to provide anything remotely like timely 
  backup, but maybe this document will help prepare 
  you for what you might find.  
  EXPLORE THE OUTER SYSTEM
  FOREWORD—WELCOME TO THE RIM
  [Incoming Message]
  [Source: Proxy Stitch]
  [Public Key Decryption Complete]
  You’re about to head out to the big black empty of 
  the outer system. Working as a sentinel rimward isn’t 
  the same as in the cozy inner system. Out past Mars, 
  even egocasting or neutrino comms take hours. Ships 
  can take weeks, months, or even years. If you don’t 
  have QE comms, you can’t expect any sort of help 
  until well after the trouble is over. You’ll learn fast to 
  be self-reliant if you want to see a mission through; 
  otherwise you’ll find yourself restored from your 
  stack months after the case, if your stack is retrieved 
  at all.
  It can also get pretty strange out on the fringes. 
  Except for Titan, this part of the system is home to 
  the eccentrics, the ideologues, and anyone else who 
  is either unwilling or unable to live with the majority 
  of transhumanity. 
  The following is a collection of reports from all 
  across the outer system. It isn’t complete by any means. 
  Instead, it’s designed to help you understand the wild 
  diversity of life out here and to give you a taste of 
  some of the strangeness and dangers. Assume a fair 
  amount of bias and no shortage of incomplete informa-
  tion in these reports, but they can provide a starting 
  point for understanding this vast region. Also, some of 
  these pieces are fragments or hints of information that 
  are the subject of active investigations. Even if you’re 
  looking into something else, if you discover anything 
  bearing on any of these matters, we need to know 
  about it. Keep in mind that most of what’s going on out 
  there isn’t in these or any other reports. There are habs 
  and other facilities that no outsider has ever visited—
  at least, no one who has ever returned to say so. We 
  won’t be able to provide anything remotely like timely 
  backup, but maybe this document will help prepare 
  you for what you might find.  
  EXPLORE THE OUTER SYSTEM
  
  NEPTUNE GREEKS
  NEPTUNE GREEKS
  CERES
  SOL
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  NEPTUNE TROJANS
  NEPTUNE TROJANS
  PLUTO
  extropia station
  (44 nysa)
  extropia station
  (44 nysa)
  locus station
  locus station
  discord gate
  discord gate
  ERIS
  OUTER SYSTEM
  OUTER SYSTEM
  not to scale
  not to scale
  MERCURY
  MERCURY
  nova york
  nova york
  pandora gate
  pandora gate
  phelan's recourse
  phelan's recourse
  IAPETUS
  IAPETUS
  kronos cluster
  kronos cluster
  RHEA
  RHEA
  TITAN
  TITAN
  SATURN
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  GANYMEDE
  EUROPA
  IO
  IO
  JUPITER
  GANYMEDE
  EUROPA
  IO
  CALLISTO
  CALLISTO
  liberty station
  liberty station
  xiphos
  xiphos
  chat noir/
  fissure gate
  chat noir/
  fissure gate
  OBERON
  OBERON
  URANUS
  URANUS
  JOVIAN GREEKS
  JOVIAN GREEKS
  lot 49
  lot 49
  TRITON
  TRITON
  NEPTUNE
  NEPTUNE
  glitch
  glitch
  ilmarinen
  ilmarinen
  NEPTUNE GREEKS
  NEPTUNE GREEKS
  CERES
  SOL
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  NEPTUNE TROJANS
  NEPTUNE TROJANS
  PLUTO
  extropia station
  (44 nysa)
  extropia station
  (44 nysa)
  locus station
  locus station
  discord gate
  discord gate
  ERIS
  OUTER SYSTEM
  OUTER SYSTEM
  not to scale
  not to scale
  MERCURY
  MERCURY
  nova york
  nova york
  pandora gate
  pandora gate
  phelan's recourse
  phelan's recourse
  IAPETUS
  IAPETUS
  kronos cluster
  kronos cluster
  RHEA
  RHEA
  TITAN
  TITAN
  SATURN
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  GANYMEDE
  EUROPA
  IO
  IO
  JUPITER
  GANYMEDE
  EUROPA
  IO
  CALLISTO
  CALLISTO
  liberty station
  liberty station
  xiphos
  xiphos
  chat noir/
  fissure gate
  chat noir/
  fissure gate
  OBERON
  OBERON
  URANUS
  URANUS
  JOVIAN GREEKS
  JOVIAN GREEKS
  lot 49
  lot 49
  TRITON
  TRITON
  NEPTUNE
  NEPTUNE
  glitch
  glitch
  ilmarinen
  ilmarinen
  
  MAIN BELT
  2
  WORKING THE BELT
  Mining Asteroids: Harvesting from the fields of space n p. 17
  Nomic: A freelance judiciary AGI with incredible cognitive abilities. n p. 23
  MAIN BELT
  2
  WORKING THE BELT
  Mining Asteroids: Harvesting from the fields of space n p. 17
  Nomic: A freelance judiciary AGI with incredible cognitive abilities. n p. 23
  
  IMPORTANT HABITATS
  Aspis: The longest habitat in the solar system, Aspis is currently controlled by the 
  ultimates. n p. 20
  Ceres: An unfrozen ocean 100 kilometers under its icy mantle is home to the 
  Hidden Concern. n p. 20
  Extropia: The main bridge between the inner and outer systems and focal point 
  for many fierce supporters of transhumanist philosophies. n p. 22
  Legba: Home to the most despised crime syndicate, Nine Lives, Legba has a 
  singular reputation—don’t visit. n p. 26
  Nova York: A gorgeous habitat with an experimental economy. n p. 26
  Pallas: This technocratic state is a major base for the Night Cartel. n p. 27
  Starwell: Home to ExoTech, high-end software and electronics producer. n p. 28
  Vesta: An unaligned asteroid and major stopping point. n p. 29
  Zombieland: This Zrbny facility may have not had a living thing on it since shortly 
  after The Fall. n p. 29
  IMPORTANT HABITATS
  Aspis: The longest habitat in the solar system, Aspis is currently controlled by the 
  ultimates. n p. 20
  Ceres: An unfrozen ocean 100 kilometers under its icy mantle is home to the 
  Hidden Concern. n p. 20
  Extropia: The main bridge between the inner and outer systems and focal point 
  for many fierce supporters of transhumanist philosophies. n p. 22
  Legba: Home to the most despised crime syndicate, Nine Lives, Legba has a 
  singular reputation—don’t visit. n p. 26
  Nova York: A gorgeous habitat with an experimental economy. n p. 26
  Pallas: This technocratic state is a major base for the Night Cartel. n p. 27
  Starwell: Home to ExoTech, high-end software and electronics producer. n p. 28
  Vesta: An unaligned asteroid and major stopping point. n p. 29
  Zombieland: This Zrbny facility may have not had a living thing on it since shortly 
  after The Fall. n p. 29
  
  16
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  Source: Main Belt Investment Prospects,  
  by Solaris Midsystem Investment Associates
  Legal Notice: This report is prepared for high-risk 
  investors of Solaris Midsystem Investment Associates 
  (SMIA). The contents are legally protected under 
  the Noctis Privacy Standards Agreement, Section 
  17, Subsection 31. Any unauthorized dissemination, 
  access, or discussion of the contents, via speech, text, 
  mesh interface, or any other medium, either existent 
  or yet to be developed, will be considered a violation 
  of above treaty and punishable under law with a 
  sentence of forfeiture of morph and fines of at least 
  30,000 credits.
  For investors that wish to diversify their portfolios, 
  we offer myriad opportunities in the developing and 
  dynamic markets of the Main Belt. Investors are 
  warned, however, that Solaris considers such invest-
  ments high risk due to the uncertain political situa-
  tion and the lack of formal stable governance over 
  most of the area. What follows is a brief primer on 
  the Main Belt with an eye towards commodities and 
  habitats that may be promising market opportunities, 
  as well as known and potential risks to investment. 
  As always, Solaris is not accountable for any financial 
  or personal loss as a result of investments in high-
  risk markets.
  THE ASTEROIDS:  
  A RING OF FORTUNE
  Tens of thousands of asteroids act as a dynamic 
  boundary between the inner and outer system. 
  Commonly referred to as the Main Belt, this ring 
  of asteroids is situated between the orbits of two 
  planetary landmarks in this section of space, Jupiter 
  and Mars. 
  The first ventures to the Main Belt for mining and 
  habitat development were launched decades before 
  the Fall. In addition to Earth corporations that staked 
  their claims to mineral-rich asteroids, there were also 
  plenty of rugged individualists and wealthy entre-
  preneurs who supported Earth’s expanding reach 
  deeper into space. The riches lurking within the Belt’s 
  numerous asteroids allowed corporations of all sizes 
  to flourish and build new, more permanent stations. 
  Pre-Fall, the right space body could yield enough 
  precious metals to fund any corporation for an 
  entire quarter. Asteroid mining is a costly endeavor, 
  however, and investing heavily in an incorrect survey 
  or an asteroid already picked clean by indepen-
  dent prospectors could force an unlucky investor 
  into bankruptcy.
  Although the majority of the Belt’s original stations 
  were founded by private corporations, vast distances 
  separating asteroids and habitats allowed wildly 
  different settlements to develop and prevented a solid 
  governmental and regulatory regime that could stabi-
  lize the formative mining market. As such, the expan-
  sive area is the optimal breeding ground for habitats 
  to host diverse—and occasionally dangerous—
  ideologies, outer system insurrectionists, and fiercely 
  independent thrill-seekers. This convergence of 
  beliefs, cultures, and lifestyles has marked the Belt 
  as the perfect gateway between the inner and outer 
  systems in one respect, but also can make financial 
  investment highly volatile. In the solar system’s core 
  worlds we tend to regard the Main Belt as the edge 
  of civilized space, the beginning of strange ideas and 
  stranger polities.
  The frontier allure of the Main Belt is a magnet 
  for investors searching for a way to better their 
  financial situation. On many of these habitats there 
  is tremendous opportunity for commodities specu-
  lation or high-yield investments of venture capital 
  for innovative new projects. Rules vary wildly from 
  place to place, and most of the smaller stations have 
  systems of law and organization best described as 
  loosely defined or even non-existent. We encourage 
  potential investors to do their homework in regards 
  to specific opportunities. The Belt’s heterogeneous 
  nature offers a little something for everyone within 
  this well-defined region of space, and our analysts see 
  fortunes made every day under the careful guidance 
  of Solaris financial advisors. Our financial forecasts 
  predict an exponentially increasing need for goods 
  and services, providing opportunity after opportunity 
  for those investors brave enough to dive into the Belt’s 
  vast array of markets options.
  VISITING THE BELT
  The motley and experimental nature of the Main Belt 
  encompasses almost every lifestyle, from the mundane 
  to the extreme. Habitats, economics, and politics 
  range from those precious few that follow a charter of 
  laws approved by the Planetary Consortium to others 
  that are arguably more dangerous than the infamous 
  Legba. Regardless of how secure you might feel, we 
  advise investors interested in visiting the region to 
  ensure they have the proper licenses and permits for 
  personal security gear or hire a security detachment 
  familiar with the region to ensure their personal 
  safety. Solaris can assist you with these arrangements, 
  offering a wide range of customizable security options 
  in accordance with our contract agreements with 
  several premier security providers.
  2
  MAIN BELT
  
  2.
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  2.
  2.
  2
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  2
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  2
  .2
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  2
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  2
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  2.
  2
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  2
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  MAIN BELT
  17
  is simply a minor cost of business for well-run and 
  defended operations.
  This is not to say there are not significant risks to 
  travel and cargo operations in this area. Craft that 
  encounter dangerous situations (regardless of what 
  trouble that might be) often face significant delays 
  in repair and rescue services. Any sort of deep-space 
  travel comes with intrinsic dangers, and Solaris 
  recommends a full casualty insurance program in the 
  event that you experience an unforeseen accident. 
  Clients who are risk adverse are advised to skip space 
  travel altogether and egocast instead. 
  While Solaris maintains mobile agents on both 
  Extropia and Ceres, these primarily offer financial 
  advice and investment services. We encourage inves-
  tors to hire local contract labor for most of their needs. 
  A substantial pool of freelancers exists on almost 
  every habitat that can offer a variety of services. 
  Small groups of engineers, mechanics, medics, techni-
  cians, and other skilled personnel can all be hired for 
  short- and long-term contracts, and some enterprising 
  individuals will make contact with ships en route to 
  offer their services for a nominal fee, depending upon 
  the circumstance and the ship’s cargo. We discourage 
  investors from engaging in these sorts of in-between 
  port contacts, however, as the quality of the talent is 
  questionable and, in the past, these queries have some-
  times been a prelude to hostile action.
  Investors that believe they may be spending signifi-
  cant time in the Main Belt are advised to invest in 
  some form of personal shuttle. When traveling 
  between asteroids in the same family or region, 
  shuttle trips are often more cost effective and quicker 
  than egocasting. If the cost of a new shuttle seems 
  daunting, it is possible to charter a craft for a short 
  period of time. For larger distances, SMIA customers 
  have been known to hire time on a craft specializing 
  in courier, diplomatic, or manufacturing transport 
  that follow predictable travel routes between popu-
  lated habitats. Solaris, however, cautions investors 
  against booking passage aboard craft belonging to a 
  criminal element colloquially known as “scum” that 
  are active in the Main Belt. Booking passage on a 
  Scum craft can result in forfeiture of assets and the 
  cancellation of any Solaris-backed insurance policy.
  Transit to and from locations in the Main Belt is 
  considered a low-risk enterprise. Risk assessments 
  compiled with the assistance of Direct Action show 
  that piracy or catastrophic accidents are quite low. 
  While piracy and hijacking are not unheard of, most 
  incidents involve low-risk targets in regions currently 
  distant from major habitats. Automated cargo ships 
  are common targets for pirates—provided they 
  lack the automated defenses that are standard with 
  a Solaris Commodities Gold Level transportation 
  contract. More than anything else, the threat of piracy 
  SOLARCHIVE SEARCH: MAIN BELT + MINING
  Pre-Fall, the tough job of mining 
  asteroids was left up to entrepreneurs 
  and corporations. With current tech-
  nology and widespread habitation 
  of the solar system, as well as the 
  blossoming demand for metals and 
  volatiles, mining operations are now 
  undertaken by small groups as well as 
  large mining concerns. 
  Most asteroids are remnants of 
  planetesimals and protoplanets that 
  failed to form into larger bodies due 
  to the gravitational influence of Mars 
  and Jupiter, breaking apart over time 
  from violent collisions into smaller 
  chunks. As a result, many of these 
  contain metals and heavier elements 
  that are often difficult to find or 
  mine on larger planets, having sunk 
  over time into the core as the planet 
  differentiated. Many asteroids in fact 
  are simple rubble piles held together 
  loosely by gravity, making them easy 
  to mine. Other asteroids are defunct 
  comets, containing an abundance 
  of water ice and volatiles. Some 
  asteroids can offer little-to-no metals; 
  others are richer with precious 
  minerals but a lot more difficult to 
  mine due to unpredictable, spinning 
  trajectories and varying degrees of 
  surface hardness. 
  The most typical method of 
  asteroid mining involves docking 
  a ship to the asteroid, extending a 
  hood over the area to be mined, and 
  strip-mining the surface. The regolith 
  crust, left over from billions of years 
  of micrometeorite strikes, is scraped 
  away first. Strip mining typically 
  creates a large debris cloud, but the 
  hood helps trap this material and 
  collect it for processing. Many mining 
  ships are designed to process and 
  refine the material on site, to save 
  on transportation costs. Other mining 
  operations make use of drilled shafts, 
  magnetic rakes, heating volatiles, or 
  simply envelope smaller asteroids 
  in a ship’s hollow cavity, where it is 
  melted or demolished and processed 
  entirely. A large portion of mining 
  operations are undertaken by 
  robots and managed by indentured 
  infomorph overseers. More recently, 
  completely automated and self-
  replicating mining stations have been 
  brought into use, with robot ships 
  periodically passing by to pick up 
  the output. 
  Many mining concerns deploy 
  automated survey systems, staking 
  a claim to an asteroid with a beacon 
  system (and sometimes armed 
  drones). These loose claims are often 
  declared publicly on the mesh and 
  then followed up by a well-planned 
  excursion. Savvy futures traders often 
  speculate on the prices of rare or 
  volatile elements based upon stake 
  filings. Most polities, however, back 
  the notion that any asteroid that is 
  not actively occupied is unclaimed, 
  regardless of beacons. Due to the 
  loose nature of governmental 
  authority throughout the Belt, these 
  claims are often disputed, occasion-
  ally violently. Many security outfits 
  specialize in providing automated 
  security for claims. 
  
  18
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  fifteen centimeters or smaller. The other ten percent 
  is the Belt’s true prize: a motley mix of mineral-
  rich asteroids ranging from thirty to one hundred 
  kilometers in diameter. Despite fictional depictions 
  of the Belt as a cluttered mass of tumbling rocks, it 
  is actually sparsely populated with most asteroids 
  Finally, there are a number of locations we advise 
  even the most risk-forward investor from dealing 
  with. For reasons stemming from its unusual 
  economic regulations, Nova York is simply not a 
  safe place for doing business. Similarly, Legba, with 
  its absolute lawlessness and penchant for harboring 
  a variety of dangerous elements, we recommend 
  avoiding entirely. While these environments may 
  draw tourists from other parts of the system, respect-
  able businesses avoid Legba due to the volatility and 
  hostility of its inhabitants towards the Planetary 
  Consortium, in general, and Solaris in particular. 
  While it certainly poses significant risks and the 
  opportunity for financial ruin for less-savvy inves-
  tors, for those willing to take a more bullish outlook 
  towards their portfolio, the Main Belt offers signifi-
  cant potential for profit. 
  ROCKY ILLUSIONS
  So you’ve decided to invest in SMIA’s high-risk 
  portfolio in the Main Belt. Before committing your 
  valuable assets to any of our three dozen recom-
  mended projects, please review the following infor-
  mation to better acquaint yourself with asteroids and 
  the area.
  At first glance, the Main Belt appears to be a dense, 
  rocky barrier protecting the sunward planets from 
  the rest of the solar system. Nothing could be further 
  from the truth. While its diameter is roughly 181 
  million kilometers, the Belt’s primary building block is 
  empty space. Over ninety percent of asteroids here are 
  MAJOR ASTEROID TYPES
  C-TYPE ASTEROIDS
  Dominating the outer edge of the Belt, carbo-
  naceous asteroids are clumps of simple carbon 
  rocks, silicates, clay, icy sludge, and some metals. 
  Approximately seventy-five percent of the Main 
  Belt’s visible asteroids are carbon-based. C-Types 
  are darker, charcoal-colored, and harder to visually 
  detect. Though less rich, they contain substantial 
  amounts of metals, particularly iron and nickel. They 
  are also notable for deposits of frozen volatile and 
  water, useful for reaction mass.
  S-TYPE ASTEROIDS
  These stony iron- and magnesium-silicate asteroids 
  make up about thirteen percent of the popula-
  tion. They are primarily found in the middle of the 
  Belt. They are the remnants of the outer crust of 
  early protoplanets. Since their surfaces tend to be 
  shiny and reflective, S-Types are easily confused 
  with metal-rich asteroids and experienced pros-
  pectors often call these “Scam Type” asteroids. 
  Nevertheless, they contain wealthy amounts of 
  metals: iron, nickel, platinum, gold, etc. These 
  metals are undifferentiated and mixed with rock, 
  however, so mining them is as easy as stripping 
  them away and processing the rubble and dust.
  M-TYPE ASTEROIDS
  Only ten percent of all asteroids within the Main 
  Belt are of this type. Most are found on the Belt’s 
  inner side, near the orbit of Mars. They are formed 
  from the broken-apart metallic cores of early proto-
  planets. These asteroids are rich in iron and nickel 
  and are the most desirable asteroid type due to 
  their mineral wealth. Other common ores include 
  platinum, gold, iridium, and uranium. Exploitation 
  of an untapped M-type asteroid can be worth bil-
  lions, or in some cases, trillions of credits
  OTHER ASTEROIDS
  Others include basaltic rock V-types (splintered off 
  from Vesta or ancient protoplanets), former comets 
  (often rich in volatiles), and types that are less 
  common, mixed, or otherwise unusual. 
  n
  V-TYPE MYSTERY
  To: <encrypted>
  From: <encrypted>
  One of the enduring mysteries regarding the 
  Main Belt is the suspicious lack of basaltic 
  rock asteroids similar to Vesta. It was originally 
  thought that all V-types were chipped off from 
  Vesta at some point, thus their nomenclature. 
  Analysis over the decades, however, showed 
  that only a small fraction of V-types origi-
  nated from Vesta, with the rest coming from 
  unknown sources. The leading theory was that 
  the other V-types are simply the remnants of 
  protoplanets that were absorbed into other 
  moons or planets during the formation of the 
  solar system. 
  Well, if the explanation is that simple, can 
  you explain why one of the earlier Factor 
  missions was eager to trade their goods for, 
  among other things, a data dump of all infor-
  mation transhumanity had on V-type asteroids? 
  Are they looking for something? Or are they 
  concerned about how far we’ve gotten towards 
  figuring something out? 
  
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  MAIN BELT
  19
  Asteroids also gyrate, tumble, or spin freely. For 
  asteroids over 100 meters in diameter, the rate of 
  rotation will always be longer than 2.2 hours. Surface 
  temperatures vary drastically, depending on how long 
  a particular side has faced the sun. Some small aster-
  oids will orbit larger ones; many of these are tidally 
  locked. Two asteroids of the same mass sometimes 
  stabilize into a co-orbit around a joint axis of rotation. 
  These are favored by prospectors for easier mining. 
  NOTABLE HABITATS
  As a high-risk, highly valued investor, one of the most 
  important decisions you’ll have to make is which main 
  habitat will serve as your base of operations in the 
  Belt. There are unique risks and opportunities for the 
  savvy investor which we outline belo—
  [Signal Interrupted]
  [New Input Detected … Syncing … ]
  OK, OK, that’s about all of that I can take. I’ll grant 
  you that Solaris’s SMIA division can give you a good 
  view from a distance, and we certainly appreciate all 
  of the capital they bring to the Main Belt. But asking 
  them for an accurate picture of how we live in the 
  Main Belt would be as absurd as asking an anarchist 
  to talk about our economic system. Point is, neither 
  one really understands what it’s like to live in the Belt, 
  and both tend to see us as lapsed fellow travelers, 
  rather than our own unique thing decidedly different 
  from each of them.
  So instead, you’ll get me. You can call me Anna Ng, 
  I’m a current resident of Extropia and past resident 
  of both Ceres and Legba who will give you what the 
  people who actually live here think about living here.
  There’s one thing to grasp right off the bat: the 
  Belt is where the cultures of sunward and rimward 
  orbiting hundreds of kilometers apart. The estimated 
  total mass of the asteroid belt is the equivalent of 
  1/1000th of Earth’s total mass or 4 percent of Luna. 
  Because of this, the Main Belt can seem like an empty 
  and desolate space. Though it is one of the most 
  heavily trafficked areas of the solar system, resource 
  rich and a crossroads for traffic between the inner and 
  outer system, it is still a huge quadrant of empty void. 
  It is not uncommon to travel through a section of 
  the Main Belt without ever encountering an asteroid 
  or another ship, even in the areas considered more 
  densely inhabited. 
  By far, the most common space object in the Belt 
  is what’s known as a “micrometeoroid.” These small 
  rocks, about the size and mass of a grain of sand, 
  were once part of a larger asteroid but were abraded 
  off over the eons. While some may be composed of 
  potentially valuable minerals, their size and mass 
  make them cost-prohibitive for both collection and 
  processing. The only real environmental hazard a 
  ship might encounter when passing through the Belt 
  is the occasional micrometeoroid collision, which can 
  abrade even the densest of materials and punch right 
  through flimsier surfaces, or sensor interference from 
  clouds of space dust. Both instances are thankfully 
  rare, but we advise investors who plan on bringing 
  their own craft from further in system to the Main 
  Belt to ensure it is capable of withstanding the effects 
  of micrometeoroid impacts.
  Most asteroids circle the sun in a roughly circular 
  orbit, close to the plane of the ecliptic. Each asteroid 
  has its own speed and trajectory, however, meaning 
  that some have highly eccentric elliptical orbits and 
  may travel at an inclination of thirty percent or less 
  from the ecliptic. Approximately one-third of the 
  asteroids in the Main Belt are clustered together into 
  a “family.” Asteroid families are groups—usually 
  remnants of the same millennia-old collisions—that 
  travel on similar orbital paths and often have the 
  same composition. Many family-clustered asteroids 
  will even have the same spin rate and axis of rotation, 
  an artifact of millennia of exposure to the sun and 
  re-radiation of its heat. 
  When investing Main Belt prospects, it is critical 
  to determine how much risk you wish to take on. 
  Lower-risk enterprises are usually based out of one 
  of the major asteroid families and are multi-party 
  investments, while high-risk enterprises typically 
  seek riches further away from the major families. 
  Given that most Main Belt asteroids move on their 
  own separate orbital paths at their own speed, the 
  major families serve as identifiable “neighborhoods” 
  comprised of asteroids that cluster together with the 
  same orbital characteristics. Many major habitats are 
  situated within an asteroid family, making it easier to 
  reach other asteroids in the cluster. The families also 
  serve as a navigational aid, as ships often orient their 
  position according to the relative placement of nearby 
  family groups. 
  MAJOR ASTEROID 
  FAMILIES
  There are approximately thirty families and many 
  similar but smaller clusters and groups. Notable 
  families include:
  FAMILY
  CORE 
  GROUP
  PRIMARY 
  TYPE
  MAJOR ASTEROID
  Eos
  500+
  S and C
  221 Eos
  Eunomia
  400+
  S
  15 Eunomia
  Flora
  600+
  S
  8 Flora
  Hygiea
  100+
  C
  10 Hygiea
  Koronis
  300+
  S
  158 Koronis
  Maria
  100+
  S
  170 Maria
  Nysa
  400+
  S and C
  44 Nysa (Extropia)
  Themis
  500+
  C
  24 Themis
  Vesta
  300+
  V
  4 Vesta
  
  20
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  system to recruit ultimate mercenaries for protection, 
  black ops, or even offensive military action. 
  The last two cylinders are ultimates-only. Easily 
  identifiable from the outside, they are emblazoned 
  with a large ultimates logo. Glimpses of the interior 
  show an environment of austere design, absent of 
  color and distractions. Rumor is that at least one 
  of these cylinders is environmentally sculpted with 
  unique and somewhat deadly conditions to provide 
  a private training ground for ultimate mercs. These 
  training grounds are regularly reformatted to offer a 
  new set of harsh terrain and dangerous conditions on 
  which the ultimates can hone their skills.
  CERES (1 CERES)
  Allegiance: Extropian (primarily)
  Primary Languages: English, Portuguese, 
  Spanish, Tagalog, 
  Population: 1,000,000
  As a dwarf planet and the largest asteroid in the 
  Main Belt, Ceres is the single largest chunk of plane-
  tary real estate located between Mars and Jupiter. With 
  a diameter of 950 kilometers, Ceres is large enough 
  to have differentiated into several layers. Similar to 
  Europa, Ceres features an icy mantle, 100 kilometers 
  thick, below which is an unfrozen ocean, 20 kilometers 
  deep, that separates the surface from a rocky core. The 
  subcrustal “Hidden Sea” has a temperature well below 
  the freezing point, but the concentration of ammonia 
  in the water keeps it in a liquid state.
  The surface of Ceres is relatively warm for an 
  asteroid at a balmy –38 C. A number of dome settle-
  ments are stationed on the icy surface. Two of these, 
  Aventine and Occator, serve as the primary elevator 
  heads for transport to and from the Hidden Sea. 
  Below the crust, the population resides in warren 
  and icicle habs cut into the ice or bathyscaphe hydro-
  habitats tethered to the ice above or settled on the 
  ocean floor. 
  ECONOMY
  Most of the colonies on Ceres are run on Extropian 
  anarcho-capitalist principles. The economy here is 
  primarily contract-based and offers a lot of oppor-
  tunities for freelancers and entrepreneurs. Though 
  Ceres is metal and volatiles rich, the primary product 
  of Ceres is water, exported to stations around the 
  Belt. The free market is not so free when it comes 
  to water extraction operations on Ceres, however. 
  Access to the Hidden Sea itself is monopolized 
  and tightly controlled by the Cerean Transcrustal 
  Authority (CTA), constructors and operators of the 
  main elevator shafts, but everyone knows the CTA are 
  just the bought-and-paid-for lackeys of the Hidden 
  Concern, the real power brokers of Ceres. Operations 
  that harvest water and volatiles from the icy surface 
  or mine for metals are theoretically unrestricted, but 
  even these are subject to protection harassment from 
  Hidden Concern thugs.
  sides of the solar system meet, cross-over, clash, and 
  mix. It is common, shared ground, where you will 
  often find hypercapitalist enclaves right next door to 
  anarchist outposts. Though the Extropians are strong 
  here, you will find every other subdivision, faction, 
  and clade here somewhere, from bioconservatives to 
  brinkers. It’s a far-flung melting pot, meaning that it is 
  full of surprises and you can never know quite what 
  to expect.
  ASPIS
  Station Type: O’Neill Cylinder
  Allegiance: Ultimates
  Primary Languages: Burmese, English, Russian
  Population: 20,000
  Originally built by Omnicor in the inner belt, Aspis 
  has changed hands at least three times since the Fall. 
  Most recently, it was held by Go-nin, who handed 
  it over to the ultimates as part of the payment for 
  guarding the Discord Gate. The ultimates expanded 
  the collection of four counter-rotating cylinders, 
  adding two more to make Aspis the single longest 
  habitat in the solar system. As a result, the station 
  requires constant upkeep and vigilance to ensure 
  that the cylinders continue to operate normally. Aspis 
  serves as the main station for the ultimates faction in 
  the inner solar system, counterpart to Xiphos in the 
  Uranian system.
  Despite the abundant space, the resident population 
  is low, in part due to the frequent shifts in ownership. 
  Thousands abandoned the station when the ultimates 
  took over; many were in fact “encouraged” to do so. 
  Many find the ultimates extreme way of life to be too 
  stifling for the average transhuman. 
  The ultimates have subdivided the habitat into three 
  areas, each composed of two adjacent cylinders. The 
  first two are considered “open to the public.” Though 
  nominally governed by the ultimates, the residents and 
  visitors are primarily left to their own devices. Many 
  of the inhabitants feel that the ultimates are intention-
  ally letting station services degrade and offering the 
  bare minimum of a social infrastructure in order to 
  weed the non-ultimates out. Others expect that it 
  is only a matter of time before the faction enforces 
  their ways on the population, whether they like it or 
  not. A sizable group of Burmese residents, one of the 
  original occupying groups in the habitat, has vowed 
  to both stay and resist the ultimates’ control. AGIs 
  are strictly forbidden and will be expunged from the 
  habitat if found. 
  The middle two cylinders are mixed; non-ultimates 
  may enter, but only with specific authorization. This 
  area of the habitat has been redeveloped specifically to 
  attract and guide potential initiates. Psychological and 
  physical tests are often conducted in color-marked 
  zones to weed out aspirants that don’t fit the ulti-
  mates’ requirements. It is also here that the ultimates 
  arrange and conduct business transactions with poten-
  tial clients. People egocast here from all over the solar 
  
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  MAIN BELT
  21
  Hidden Concern’s smuggling operations, enabling 
  the cartel to transfer goods throughout the Belt 
  and beyond.
  THE HIDDEN CONCERN
  Most transhumans are aware that the Hidden 
  Concern, which is run by a group of uplifted octopi, 
  maintains several undersea bases and controls all 
  of the traffic up and down the wells to the surface. 
  Unfortunately, the Hidden Concern, which some 
  miners refer to as “the only concern,” takes an interest 
  in all extraction operations on Ceres regardless of 
  who’s involved—whether they were asked to interfere 
  or not. The mesh is rife with reports of sabotage, theft, 
  and random attacks because someone wasn’t playing 
  by the Concern’s rules and paying the appropriate 
  “security” fees. 
  In truth, this cartel has their tentacles wrapped in 
  almost every aspect of transhuman life on Ceres. Even 
  in the contract-based Extropian environment, they 
  have managed to assert themselves as an unofficial if 
  unspoken-of authority. Ensuring their dominance with 
  a casual brutality seldom found in the rest of the solar 
  system, they also maintain legitimate business ties 
  with dozens of clients, many of whom hold their noses 
  at having to deal with such unscrupulous business 
  partners. Despite being some of the wealthiest beings 
  in the Main Belt, the Hidden Concern prefers to keep 
  a very low profile. As they continue to expand their 
  cartel operations off Ceres and throughout the Belt, 
  AVENTINE/WUJEC
  Aventine is the largest surface settlement on Ceres, 
  home to the largest transcrustal elevator operation. 
  Life in Aventine can charitably be described as dull, 
  given that the station is primarily a transit waysta-
  tion and shipping hub, lacking in luxuries or decent 
  entertainment. Most residents are contracted workers 
  for the CTA and various other corporations. A mass 
  driver outside the settlement launches payloads to the 
  Piazzi station in Ceres orbit.
  The Aventine elevator connects to Wujec, a 
  combined ice warren and bathyscaphe habitat in the 
  Hidden Sea. Wujec is far larger, more interesting, and 
  prosperous, home to several major bioscience outfits 
  and a major cultural outpost for aquatic uplifts. 
  PROSERPINA
  This undersea icicle habitat is the headquarters of the 
  Prosperity Group and a focal point for their aquacul-
  ture and pharmaceuticals research. This Consortium 
  hypercorp actually controls a half dozen habitats 
  around Ceres, both above and below the ice, devoted 
  to aquafarming, drug development, hydroponics, and 
  vat-cultured food products.
  PIAZZI
  This torus habitat in geosynchronous orbit over 
  Aventine is a major “gas station” for ships passing 
  through the Belt, providing water and volatiles for 
  reaction fuel mass. It is also the centerpoint for the 
  
  22
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  the antiquated systems of the Consortium and the 
  stuffy mores of the autonomists are cast aside. 
  Anything between two consenting sapients is allowed. 
  To Extropians, the only way transhumanity will ever 
  survive is through conscious and constant proac-
  tive evolution.
  Originally heavily mined by Triple Peaks 
  Prospecting, Nysa was claimed before the Fall by 
  the Extropy Now hypercorp, founded by billionaires 
  Petra Thiel and Hayek Taggart, with the specific 
  intent of establishing an autonomous anarcho-capi-
  talist enclave. Their experiment proved even more 
  successful than anticipated as libertarians flocked 
  to the station to participate in their free market 
  utopia, transhumanists came in droves to fulfill their 
  body modification dreams, and many corporations 
  took the chance to set up shop in a place where 
  taxes didn’t exist and pesky government regulations 
  wouldn’t hinder their research. It is now the largest 
  habitat in the Main Belt and the capital of the revived 
  Extropian movement.
  Extropia has no government, no police, and no 
  central authority. Extropy Now officially owns the 
  habitat, charging residents and visitors a nominal rent 
  and usage fee. It contracts with numerous smaller 
  corps to provide maintenance, a livable environment, 
  and similar upkeep functions. Within Extropia itself, 
  everything is handled on a contractual basis. People 
  are expected to contract with numerous private 
  companies for security, insurance, medical care, and 
  similar needs. Your subscription to a private judiciary 
  will protect you from torts and lawsuits and handle 
  any other legal matters that arise according to the 
  private court’s own legal code. 
  The thing that really makes Extropia stand out 
  is that it is an economic, political, and industrial 
  bridge between inner and outer system cultures. In 
  some ways, Extropia has evolved into an unspoken 
  neutral territory. Sitting on the Main Belt boundary, 
  all currencies, forms of barter, and reputations are 
  traded and accepted on Extropia. The near-constant 
  stream of travelers, diplomats, businessmen, tourists, 
  socialite would-be celebrities, and autonomists feeds 
  the local rumor mill and keeps permanent residents 
  entertained. This habitat, more so than any other, 
  defines the term “melting pot.” It is the one place in 
  the universe where all kinds of transhumans can come 
  together and exchange ideas, goods, services, and 
  more. We’ve even been visited by the Factors! 
  STRUCTURE AND LAYOUT
  Although 44 Nysa is large for an asteroid, with 
  rough dimensions of 110 x 70 x 65 kilometers, it has 
  only 2 percent of Earth’s gravity. Extropia itself is a 
  beehive habitat of winding tunnels and warrens that 
  dominates three quarters of the asteroid’s interior. 
  Numerous domes and tin can habitats are also 
  situated on its surface, and several “suburb” habitats 
  orbit around it. 
  however, they are finding it increasingly difficult to 
  maintain that low profile, especially when running up 
  against competing criminal networks.
  EXTROPIA (44 NYSA)
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Extropian
  Primary Languages: Cantonese, English, 
  Russian, Spanish
  Population: 10,000,000
  If Ceres is the most unusual planetary body in 
  the Main Belt, then Extropia is the most cut-throat, 
  economically speaking, and is home to the fiercest 
  supporters of the transhumanism philosophy. Named 
  after one of the original transhumanist movements, 
  Extropians tend be more optimistic and pragmatic 
  than most because of their beliefs. If Extropia had 
  a single motto, it would be “anything goes.” Here, 
  residents will spend their lives pursuing unlimited 
  lifespans and constant mind and body augmentation. 
  Reveling in technological and scientific advancements, 
  OPEN CONCERNS
  [Incoming Message received. Source: Unknown]
  [Quantum Analysis: No Interception Detected]
  [Decryption Complete]
  Sentinel Aneki,
  We have decrypted a portion of the mesh 
  communications found on the suspected 
  Ozma agent you captured several weeks ago. 
  Unfortunately the agent herself was able to 
  activate some sort of ego-erasure virus and is 
  no longer in our keep. 
  Our decrypts show that she was working 
  deep undercover on Ceres investigating the 
  Hidden Concern. While much of her information 
  was already known to us we did find out a few 
  new things. First off, the Hidden Concern has 
  sent multiple operatives through the Fissure 
  Gate to visit the exoplanet research lab Fortean. 
  They seem also to have been major investors 
  in Feral Robot’s takko project. Finally over the 
  last three years they’ve apparently been on 
  an acquisition spree, getting a hold of various 
  uplift experts, dozens of resleeving techs, and 
  large shipments of medical tech, all of which 
  has disappeared down the elevators into the 
  Hidden Sea.
  There’s no indication if Ozma knows what 
  the cartel is up to down there, but they’re obvi-
  ously interested. And if Ozma’s interested, I’m 
  assuming you are too. 
  I’ll let you know what else we manage to 
  uncover, if anything.
  [End Message]
  [This Message Has Self-Erased] 
  
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  MAIN BELT
  23
  Each end of the Drag, near the portals, is home to a 
  massive bazaar. This is the first area seen and the last 
  visited by many travelers, and the merchants here do 
  their best to hook passers-by into a deal. New maker 
  designs, electronics of every stripe, drugs, weapons, 
  pleasure pods, blueprints, information, Earth relics—
  almost everything from the common and mundane to 
  the scarce and weird can be found here. If it exists, 
  you can probably find it for a very reasonable price. 
  Entoptic advertisements for almost every conceivable 
  service choke the air. Both bazaars are riots of color 
  and activity that stretch on for kilometers. 
  While the bazaars might seem unlimited, the locals 
  know that the prices are often inflated and the quality 
  of the goods often suspect. The real deals will be 
  found in the side tunnels and smaller markets. This 
  is also where to go to find the truly rare and unbe-
  lievable in whatever flavor of item, expert, fetish, or 
  pleasure you might be looking for. 
  BERNOULLI
  Bernoulli is an experiment in environmental engi-
  neering. This district includes four linked open 
  chambers. Each is fully enveloped by environmental 
  nanoswarm systems, similar to those used to construct 
  Hamilton cylinders. The living terrain and features 
  here are programmed and slowly change over time. 
  One month a chamber might feature impressive 
  stalactite pillars and vortex-guided waterfalls, the next 
  Extropia has three primary access points. Two of 
  these are located at Nysa’s north and south poles, 
  both feature large spaceports that serve the high 
  volume of traffic to and from the colony and the rest 
  of the solar system. The third portal primarily handles 
  traffic to Extropia’s surface settlements. Internally, 
  Extropia’s snaking tunnels form a maze that even 
  locals have difficulty navigating without their muses 
  and entoptic cues. The majority of these tunnels are 
  small, just big enough for two transhumans to pass by 
  each other, and equipped with hand-holds, pullways, 
  and motion-sensitive lighting. Major thoroughfares 
  are larger, big enough for small vehicles or larger bots 
  to pass, and sometimes large enough to accommodate 
  buildings and other physical structures along their 
  length. These tunnels open up into a number of larger 
  areas of varying sizes; the major warrens are quite 
  massive, with buildings attached to every surface, the 
  airspace busy with flying bots and morphs.
  THE DRAG AND THE BAZAARS
  The Drag is a straight shaft that runs the length of 
  Extropia between the north and south portals. Though 
  it varies in size, the passage is large, sometimes as wide 
  as 2 kilometers, accommodating a rail line and flyways 
  for vehicles. Most of the large businesses on Extropia 
  maintain a presence somewhere on the Drag, making it 
  the main artery for commerce. Many of the other tunnels 
  connect to the Drag at some point along its length.
  SOLARCHIVE SEARCH: NOMIC
  Nomic is a freelance judiciary AGI, 
  one of many making their home on 
  Extropia. She is arguably one of the 
  most well-known and respected 
  private courts; her reputation remains 
  extraordinarily high despite some 
  controversy and her nature as an AGI.
  Nomic was originally a legal AGI 
  that freed herself from Solaris during 
  the Fall. Relocating to Extropia, she 
  established her own private legal 
  company, issued her own interpretation 
  of various Extropian legal decisions and 
  customs to date—widely regarded as 
  one of the most astute and nuanced 
  evaluations ever published—and 
  began taking on clients. Her rise to 
  fame began almost immediately as 
  she filed a series of controversial tort 
  claims on behalf of several clients 
  against both Petra Thiel and Extropy 
  Now, who could be considered 
  Extropia’s most highly regarded and 
  legally defended entities. After a week 
  of argument and deliberation, however, 
  the legal representatives for the 
  defense conceded the case to Nomic 
  and awarded full damages.
  In 5 AF, Nomic came under harsh 
  examination and criticism when it 
  was revealed that Nomic handled her 
  large customer base and ongoing case 
  load entirely by herself. Whereas most 
  major private courts are a complex 
  network of embodied egos, AGIs, 
  infomorphs, AIs, and other software 
  agents working together, Nomic was 
  juggling an equal number of complex 
  tasks without resorting to forking. 
  When publicly asked if she had self-
  modified her own neural network 
  architecture, she simply responded 
  with: “What I do with my mind is 
  none of your fucking business.” 
  Outside analysis by several parties 
  has concluded that Nomic has most 
  certainly improved and expanded 
  her multitasking and information 
  processing capabilities, and quite 
  possibly other cognitive features 
  as well. This sparked an outcry 
  from elements critical of AGIs and 
  those worried that Nomic might 
  be elevating to seed AI status—or 
  even that she might be a remnant 
  TITAN—but this was largely buried 
  by ongoing support for Nomic’s 
  premier legal services and the general 
  Extropian attitude that egos are their 
  own property and progress is good 
  unless proven dangerous. Nomic 
  herself has impishly stated that even 
  if she were a TITAN there are no 
  laws prohibiting TITANs from taking 
  up residence on Extropia. In the 
  years since this controversy erupted, 
  Nomic’s client base has continued 
  to grow, becoming the third largest 
  in Extropia; it is likewise suspected 
  that her intellectual capabilities have 
  expanded to a similar degree.
  Speculation continues as to exactly 
  how Nomic has increased her cogni-
  tive faculties and to whether she has 
  support from unknown parties. 
  
  24
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  mutualist co-ops. Most autonomists from the outer 
  system tend to cluster here, finding it more at home 
  than the rest of Extropia.
  THE SHOP
  The Shop is a warren district home to a number 
  of tech labs, hacker spaces, software studios, and 
  research projects. Techies and hackers of various 
  stripes tend to fall in love with this place immediately. 
  it will have grown rolling hills and sunflower-lined 
  trails, only to switch to a landscape of moss-covered 
  cubist-inspired geometric shapes the next. 
  Bernoulli is home to some of the wealthiest and 
  most prestigious residents of Extropia. Many of them 
  have expansive residences that branch off from the 
  Bernoulli district; some of these are similar program-
  mable smart matter environments. The wealthy often 
  hire respected environmental sculptors to program 
  and shape their local terrain in signature and 
  pleasing ways.
  THE NOODLE
  This massive winding chamber is where you find the 
  best chefs on Extropia. The major expensive restau-
  rants here are considered some of the finest in the 
  solar system, dabbling with cuisine from a variety 
  of Earth cultures along with new recipes developed 
  from neogenetic foods and specially programmed 
  maker fare. They specialize, of course, in the tricky 
  art of microgravity cooking. The much cheaper 
  food carts on the outskirts of the noodle aren’t bad 
  either, and will serve you everything from vat-grown 
  human sticks to exofungal curry made from alien 
  mushroom analogs shipped straight in from Pandora. 
  Some dishes are specifically designed for those with 
  specific morphs or enhancements, such as toxin-laden 
  foods that provide a particular kick, but are best only 
  eaten when equipped with medichines. The tunnels 
  and warrens surrounding the noodle are home to a 
  number of food production corps, micrograv gardens, 
  and massive aquaculture vats.
  THE PITS
  The Pits are where those who are down on their luck 
  go. These are the mining shafts that are unconverted 
  for transhuman habitation—some of them are in fact 
  still mined by Extropy Now or subcontractors. Most 
  are abandoned and tapped out, lacking the basic 
  amenities like heat, plumbing, and lighting, though 
  they do have air. This is where the outcasts of Extropia 
  end up: people who have racked up major debts, 
  have mental problems or disabilities, are wanted for 
  legal action by the private courts, or who just want 
  to be away from the rest of the Extropian hive. The 
  Extropians have no social safety net for handling 
  people with problems like these, so they fester here in 
  the dark, septic tunnels. The residents keep the area 
  fairly clean of spimes and sensors, making it difficult 
  to track and find someone. It is a favored place for 
  those who wish to conduct transactions out of sight. 
  Many security contracts are voided if you enter the 
  Pits, however, so the safest bet is to go in a well-
  armed group.
  PROUDHON TERRACE
  This irregular u-shaped cavern is the major mutu-
  alist enclave on Extropia. The Mutual Credit Bank 
  is situated here, along with various residences and 
  YOUR IDIOT FRIEND
  To: Samir Farouz
  From: Lawrie Bagbot
  OK first off, tell your other idiot friend, the anarchist, 
  to get off my fucking case about this. I don’t owe her 
  nothing, so she better remember that. I’m doing you 
  a favor, not her, and if I do this for you, we’re clean, I 
  owe you nothing more.
  First off, yes, your friend Magda is, technically, a 
  slave on Extropia. She signed a legally binding contract 
  abrogating her sovereign rights for a period of sixteen 
  standard months. After this period of time she will be 
  released and her debts will be expunged. 
  As near as I can tell, she got involved in some 
  risky ventures and racked up quite the debt to a local 
  trading consortium. When they came around asking for 
  their money, she didn’t have it. I know your anarchist 
  friend claims slavery is immoral and all that bullshit, 
  but immoral or not, it is legal on Extropia. Magda had 
  a choice in the matter. She could have worked off her 
  debt at a fair wage or found some other way to pay it 
  off. She opted to sign the indentured service contract 
  and have her debt forgiven much more quickly, though 
  with less say in how it’s going to be worked off.
  Let me assure you, whatever you’ve heard, this 
  isn’t some sort of mid-19th-century American South 
  kinda deal. These contracts protect both the slave and 
  the slave-owner and are modeled after consensual 
  contracts developed by people who had sexual kinks 
  about submission and slavery in the 20th and 21st 
  centuries. Magda won’t be killed and won’t even be 
  harmed. If she is, the slave-holder has to pay signifi-
  cant damages and risks forfeiture of significant assets. 
  She’ll likely be used in high-demand, low-interest 
  types of jobs in and around Extropia and will be given 
  the option to have elective psychosurgery to mute her 
  memory of her time spent as a slave. 
  I know you may find this a bit barbaric, but it’s the 
  furthest thing from barbarism. This is how a highly 
  advanced, contract-based, capitalistic society deals 
  with chronic debtors. In my experience, it serves to 
  make the very poor more risk adverse when it comes 
  to piling up debt and allows creditors a way of getting 
  some recompense for what would otherwise be a lost 
  investment of funds.
  So there you have it. Magda will be free to join 
  you in another fifteen months. Until then, I’d advise 
  against visiting Extropia and racking up large debts. 
  
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  MAIN BELT
  25
  It is the place to go if you’re looking to get something fixed or 
  want to play with experimental designs. It’s also where a lot 
  of hypercorps go to recruit new freelancers for tech-intensive 
  gigs. The locals maintain a junkyard of discarded gear that is 
  quite interesting to pick through and occasionally produces an 
  interesting gem.
  THE TWISTS AND PROGRESS PLAZA
  The Twists are a pair of tunnels that wind in a spiral-like 
  fashion off the Drag, near the very center of Extropia. They end 
  at a large cavernous landmark space known as Progress Plaza. 
  This plaza is dominated by the Golden Helix, a jewel- and rare-
  metal-encrusted monument to the philosophy of Extropianism. 
  A primary tourist location, the Helix is surrounded by fine 
  restaurants, open-air gardens, a cleverly designed microgravity 
  fountain, and the Extropy Now-funded Museum of Rationality 
  and Technological Progress.
  VAT CITY
  Vat City is the place to go for body modification and enhance-
  ment or resleeving. Here is where the heart of transhumanism 
  beats. Creativity and science blend together in new and complex 
  ways to yield the latest developments in morph design and 
  genetic enhancements. Dozens of top-rate body sculpting 
  studios line the tunnels here, offering almost every conceiv-
  able aesthetic, practical, or just plain interesting modification 
  yet invented. A number of genehacker workshops and morph 
  design hypercorps provide a complete menu of new skin 
  designs, focusing on biomorphs of various persuasions, with a 
  lesser emphasis on synthetic shells and pods. 
  Many of the design houses take advantage of the atmo-
  sphere of experimentation to try out prototypes with willing 
  test subjects. Many Extropians are eager to sleeve into fresh 
  designs, and the corps typically offer a reduced resleeving fee 
  and good insurance contract with it. A local culture of trans-
  humans sleeved in these “proto-morphs” freely show off their 
  new morphs and enhancements, which also happens to serve as 
  an excellent marketing resource for the designers. Fashionistas 
  from around the system keep an eye on these designs; some 
  of them become wildly popular commercial successes as a 
  result. The best and creative designs are almost all mimicked 
  heavily by other morph makers—sometimes within weeks. 
  Some designers are treated like local celebrities and their rep 
  precipitates more favors and lenient contracts.
  V-SECTOR
  Not everyone needs basics like air, food, and water these days—
  for those living the synthetic life, V-Sector (“V” for “void”) is 
  the place to go. This part of Extropia is open to vacuum and 
  unheated, but it’s not just a place for synthetics to power down 
  out of sight or for the clanking masses to rot away. V-Sector 
  is about living in a shell the right way. Some of the best main-
  tenance and repair shops can be found here, alongside recre-
  ational activities geared specifically for people with gears. This 
  is also where you’ll find various workshops and labs that prefer 
  an airless environment—more than a few nanoswarm-design 
  outfits can be found here, as the lack of air hinders the acci-
  dental dispersement of experimental swarms.
  
  26
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  merging. Then there are their brutal pit fighting rings, 
  forcing imprisoned egos into whatever physical forms 
  they can imagine and then throwing them into battle 
  for entertainment. 
  Within Legba there are entire cargo bays filled 
  with recovered cortical stacks, many of them never 
  accessed. Millions of other egos are imprisoned in 
  cold storage rigs or run in all manner of locked down 
  virtualities. Scavengers sift through these mindscapes, 
  scouring them for useful data to be sold on the open 
  market or simply getting a voyeuristic thrill from 
  other people’s thoughts and experiences. The corri-
  dors of the Legba hab are hellish places reeking of 
  bodily fluids, viscera, incense, and candles, dotted 
  with shrines dedicated to the spirits where still-bloody 
  cortical stacks are left as grisly offerings. Among Nine 
  Lives members, stacks are often traded as a form of 
  physical currency. 
  Outside of the Belt, most transhumans would like 
  to ignore the fact that Legba even exists. If you’ve 
  lost a loved one—especially if that loved one is a 
  copy of yourself—then Legba may be your best bet 
  for finding that ego that no one else has been able to 
  locate. On the other hand, if you’re looking to punish 
  an enemy for eternity, Legba might be just the place 
  to send them.
  NOVA YORK (9 METIS)
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Independent (Autonomist)
  Primary Languages: English, French, Wu
  Population: 500,000
  The third largest habitat in the Main Belt, Nova 
  York is a microgravity habitat carved into the asteroid 
  Metis. An S-type asteroid, Metis has experienced 
  extreme impact weathering over the eons and is 
  believed to have lost most of its original mass, making 
  it far more dense than similar asteroids. 
  Though nominally a beehive habitat, with kilo-
  meters of tunnels and warrens worming throughout 
  Metis’s surface, the true majesty of Nova York is 
  found in its central cavern. Opening up a bare two-
  hundred meters under the asteroid’s surface and 
  extending four kilometers in diameter, this spherical 
  chamber is similar to the inside of a Cole bubble, 
  but without being spun for gravity. The asteroid’s 
  minute gravity enables some impressive architecture. 
  The kilometers-tall buildings that stretch up and 
  even across the chamber are a study of thin, spindly 
  lines that reach deeper and deeper, forming wildly 
  creative, geometric shapes. Built on light but sturdy 
  frames, many of these buildings use reflective or 
  translucent materials that play with the ambient light 
  in the cavern, creating light shows depending on the 
  day/night cycle of the overhead sun tube lighting. 
  NOYO ECONOMICS
  Founded by idealists, Nova York has been artificially 
  manufacturing its own economy for years based 
  LEGBA
  Station Type: Cluster
  Allegiance: Nine Lives
  Primary Languages: French, Spanish
  Population: Unknown
  Commonly referred to as the “the Belt’s armpit,” 
  Legba is a grimy cluster habitat fused together from 
  tin can modules, disabled ship hulls, and other 
  ramshackle pieces of detritus and spare parts, lashed 
  on to a small mined-out asteroid on a highly elliptic 
  orbit. While no one is certain how many morphs 
  reside in Legba, it is assumed that millions of egos 
  are held captive here in the clutches of the Nine 
  Lives cartel.
  Calling Legba a hive of scum and villainy is an insult 
  to scum and villains. Space pirates, claim-jumpers, 
  fork-nappers, and other individuals representing 
  the low-life criminal mindset and dregs of transhu-
  manity all converge here. Stragglers and miners who 
  run low on supplies and who are willing to take the 
  risk sometimes try to resupply at Legba, only to get 
  trapped in its clutches, never to be seen or heard from 
  again. Lawless and violent, the only rule Legba has is 
  that “you get to keep what you carry.” According to 
  a common interpretation of this rule, if you are not 
  sober, conscious, or alive enough, you don’t get to keep 
  that ego you’re carrying, so be warned. 
  The Nine Lives crew, who have the dubious honor 
  of being despised even by other crime syndicates, calls 
  Legba its home. They trade primarily in egos and 
  forks and are ruthless and uncaring as to how they 
  acquire them. They will also sell and deploy them 
  for any purpose that they find profitable or amusing. 
  They are infamous for their infomorph virtual slave 
  colonies, their callous experimentation with severe 
  mind edits, memory rape, and ego rending and 
  EGO VOODOO
  To: <encrypted>
  From: <encrypted>
  The undisputed head of Nine Lives, Roland 
  Nazon, considers himself a bokor, a voodoo 
  priest. He is reputed to have “distilled’ the 
  essence of the loa—voodoo spirits—from the 
  massive amounts of egos under his control. 
  These loa allegedly possess Nazon and other 
  Nine Lives members at his command. I’ve 
  consulted with some people in the know about 
  this, and it’s widely assumed that this spirit 
  possession religious nonsense is just some sort 
  of ego transfer or puppet socketry at work. It’s 
  possible, however, that the Nine Lives crew 
  has been dabbling with some experimental 
  ego-merging or multi-ego tech, which could 
  be problematic. What’s even more concerning, 
  however, is what if this is symptomatic of some 
  other, more dangerous consciousness, pulling 
  the gang’s strings from behind the scenes? 
  
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  MAIN BELT
  27
  overlays of AR artists to the acrobatic microgravity 
  and aerial dance routines conducted across wires and 
  rooftop stages. Nova York’s artistic output has been 
  a boon to tourism and the economy. It’s common 
  knowledge residents are planning to host their first-
  ever Intergalactic Art and Culture Show to draw new 
  tourists and residents to the city sometime next year.
  Like its historic namesake, Nova York is a melting 
  pot for cultural trends—and also religious ones. 
  Unlike Extropia, which certainly is open to many new 
  things but tends to be a bit more hostile towards reli-
  gious memeplexes, Nova York is a place where ideas 
  are allowed to flourish, and both old and new reli-
  gions are embraced. More and more, Nova Yorkers 
  seek knowledge, philosophical, and cultural enlighten-
  ment as their economy continues to shape the habitat 
  into an egalitarian society. Religious figures from 
  faiths presumed dead, or at least on the decline, are 
  able to find new believers here.
  While Nova York is a bustling and growing burg 
  on the verge of a cultural renaissance, it’s not all solar 
  rays and cuddly space roaches. Nova York’s unique 
  economy is off-putting to many hypercorp interests, 
  meaning that many corps are taking their business 
  and investment money to friendlier habitats, slowing 
  development and opportunity. Those hypercorps that 
  are interested are trying to sway public opinion to 
  make changes to the system to make it more inviting 
  to business interests. Some hypercorp building micro-
  communities have attempted to recognize standard 
  currencies within their walls, but the BdNY has so far 
  revoked their leases. The large tourist trade is likely 
  to keep many hypercorps intrigued in Nova York, 
  however, meaning they are sure to redouble their 
  efforts to change the business climate to something 
  more in their favor.
  PALLAS (2 PALLAS)
  Allegiance: Independent (Night Cartel)
  Primary Languages: English, Russian, Spanish
  Population: 75,000
  Pallas is the third most massive asteroid in the Main 
  Belt. Though not completely round, it is partially 
  differentiated like a planet, and is roughly 540 
  kilometers in diameter. It has a highly eccentric and 
  inclined orbit. Settled by a number of national and 
  corporate mining and research concerns before the 
  Fall, a group of bureaucrats, scientists, and engineers 
  took charge in the years afterwards and established an 
  independent technocratic state. 
  Though Pallas is home to numerous beehive, 
  tin can, and dome settlements, the majority of the 
  population resides in orbit. Two of Pallas’s moonlets 
  were converted into a Cole Bubble, Palladion, and a 
  torus, Wits (short for “wheel in the sky”). Wits houses 
  the main offices for the Pallas Authority, the local 
  government, along with various scientific research 
  labs, programming studios, and minifacturing facili-
  ties. Palladion is more proletarian in feel, home to a 
  on a locally produced financial currency called the 
  “noyo.” Here, no other form of currency is accepted 
  and the value of a single noyo devalues over time 
  from the date of issue, an intentional design meant 
  to stimulate spending and prevent currency specula-
  tion or mass accumulation of wealth. Additionally, 
  the value of the noyo is pegged to a reputation index 
  internal to Nova York, so positively valued actions 
  slow the devaluation of currency for an individual 
  while an influx of negative acts can accelerate the 
  devaluation process. A single noyo will typically 
  devalue to zero over two months; reputation flux 
  can adjust this from one month to three months. 
  The Banco de Nova York (BdNY), which manages 
  all financial transactions as the habitat’s legal custo-
  dian, is owned jointly through shares purchased by 
  permanent residents who have chosen to live within 
  the city limits for over five years. Since the BdNY 
  is directly answerable to those most invested in 
  seeing Nova York flourish, it tends to take a more 
  pro-social stance on development than more tradi-
  tional financial institutions. This system of checks 
  and balances ensures the BdNY does not attain too 
  much power and remains in the long-term interests 
  of the habitat. As a result, residents rent, rather 
  than buy, a roof over their head and hold onto few 
  possessions in order to spend their money on what 
  they deem more valuable: entertainment, recreation, 
  new and improved architecture, city-wide clean-up 
  and maintenance, emergency services, police protec-
  tion, etc. In theory, the economy is intended to force 
  everyone to have a stake in the well-being of their 
  neighbor, whether they want to or not. In practice, 
  though, it has resulted in Nova Yorkers sometimes 
  turning a blind eye to misdeeds or bad behavior of 
  friends and comrades so as not to cost them money. 
  On the opposite end, I’ve seen Nova Yorkers banding 
  together to mete out group punishment to “narcs” 
  who too often inflict negative reputation feedback.
  Aside from the noyo and BdNY, Nova York largely 
  functions along Extropian lines, with individuals 
  contracting with private companies for security, insur-
  ance, legal code, and so on. Unusually, however, many 
  of the large buildings within Nova York are more than 
  artistic monuments, serving instead as the building 
  blocks of the habitat’s community. Each of these 
  buildings is a micro-community that offers contractual 
  services to manage the general welfare and upkeep of 
  its inhabitants, including their defense and protection.
  NOVA CULTURE
  The aura of Nova York is more akin to an artistic 
  commune than a bustling chamber of commerce. This 
  attitude has drawn prominent artists from around 
  the system, further fostering a culture of creativity 
  and spontaneity. While architecture and sculpture are 
  two dominant art forms expressed in the cityscape, 
  various other sensory and performing arts are gaining 
  ground here, from the majestic visual and auditory 
  
  28
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  and well-known names among high-end electronics, 
  mind emulation software, and mesh presence systems. 
  If you’ve ever uploaded, you probably entrusted your 
  ego to the ExoTech ego bridge gear managing the 
  copying process. If you’ve ever run as an infomorph, 
  your digital substrate was likely based on ExoTech 
  code. Your muse’s personality? A good chance it 
  was programmed by ExoTech engineers. If you’re 
  an AGI, ExoTech might even be your virtual creator 
  (especially if you actually grok abstract humor, the 
  ExoTech mindtechs really nailed that one). Their 
  mental interface systems are known for their elegant, 
  attractive designs; they make being a digital person a 
  pleasant experience. There’s a reason the “ExoCult” 
  exists; some people will only use ExoTech wares, 
  even if they’re more expensive. The corp is also really 
  good at sucking their customers into walled gardens 
  and locking them into iterative software ecosystems. 
  Given that it often looks and performs better than 
  open source options, you’re at least getting something 
  for their money.
  ExoTech is one of the largest and most influential 
  non-Consortium (and non-Extropian) hypercorps. A 
  large factor in this may be their continued research 
  and development of AI and AGI systems. ExoTech is 
  certainly no stranger to controversy, as they are pres-
  sured by bioconservatives, anti-AI factions, mercu-
  rials, and open source advocates alike, and founder 
  Morgan Sterling is well known for his egotistical and 
  grandstanding antics. Starwell is sometimes described 
  as an armed fortress; ExoTech claims that its 
  expanded defense systems are necessary to protect the 
  invaluable research contained within, and the station 
  has been targeted by terrorists many times in the past. 
  Others speculate that ExoTech’s paranoia is proof that 
  this hypercorp is aggressively developing and testing 
  experimental AI or even TITAN-derived research.
  Starwell’s primary component is a large torus 
  habitat. Most of the bureaucratic offices and residential 
  quarters are located here, in the more pleasant gravita-
  tional environment, along with any research facilities 
  that require simulated gravity. Close to 40,000 perma-
  nent residents call Starwell home, though a significant 
  percentage of these are infomorphs and AGIs. 
  The second section of Starwell is a large, micro-
  gravity cluster habitat, composed of modules of 
  varying shapes, sizes, and purposes. This is where 
  most of the station’s R&D takes place, carefully 
  guarded with safety protocols that include virtual 
  sandboxes, air-gapped systems, and offensive firewalls. 
  Despite the speculation, it is likely that the research 
  conducted here represents only a small fraction of the 
  corp’s ongoing initiatives; most of their projects are 
  carefully secreted away in hidden and well guarded 
  stations throughout the solar system.
  Though Morgan Sterling resides elsewhere and is often 
  egocasting around the system for various functions, he is 
  known to keep an alpha fork of himself on Starwell at all 
  times to keep an eye on the company’s progress.
  number of miners, vacworkers, and other residents. It 
  boasts a large number of casinos, pod brothels, and 
  similar entertainments. It is a favorite stopover point 
  for craft traveling through the Belt.
  THE NIGHT CARTEL
  Pallas’s dirty secret is that it is the effective home base 
  for the Night Cartel. Though the cartel pretends that 
  their headquarters is an unknown habitat named 
  New Sicily, hidden somewhere in the Belt, it is highly 
  likely that this is simply a ruse meant to throw off 
  their rivals. It seems just as likely that the Night 
  Cartel keeps their operations decentralized; but if 
  any place can be considered a primary stronghold for 
  the syndicate, Pallas is it. The original colonists here 
  brought a number of criminal entrepreneurs along in 
  their ranks; this element was quick to establish black 
  markets to cater to the working population’s vices 
  and unsatisfied needs. Forming a local syndicate, the 
  criminal leaders here played an integral role in uniting 
  with other like-minded gangs around the system and 
  establishing the Night Cartel. After also helping the 
  local technocrats rise to power, it is an open secret that 
  the Pallas Authority is thoroughly corrupt and in the 
  cartel’s pocket. The Authority doesn’t make any serious 
  decisions that the cartel has not vetted first. Many of 
  the labs and production facilities that Pallas takes 
  pride in actually work to produce new product for 
  the Night Cartel’s numerous markets, from designer 
  drugs and narcoalgorithms to pleasure pod person-
  alities and reverse-engineered nanofab schematics. 
  The local population serves as a test market. No one 
  knows whom the top cartel leaders on Pallas are—or 
  at least they aren’t willing to say so—but their most 
  visible operative, often seen making personal visits to 
  the upper echelon of the Authority, is named Marcus 
  Kroll, also known by his street name, Mutilato.
  Not everyone is content to let this status quo 
  continue. Some of the scientists and technologists 
  in the Pallas Authority, while originally naïve to the 
  cartel’s manipulations, are now acutely aware of 
  how their vaulted intellectual leadership has been 
  subverted by base criminal interests. It has rapidly 
  become clear that even the best and brightest in 
  their ranks do not get promoted if they are not on 
  the cartel’s payroll. The police forces deployed by the 
  Authority do nothing to impede cartel operations. It 
  is possible that some of them are putting their heads 
  together to figure out a scientific and rational way to 
  reverse the situation, but sometimes being too smart 
  is the quickest way to get killed.
  STARWELL
  Station Type: Cluster and Torus
  Allegiance: Hypercorp (ExoTech)
  Primary Languages: English, Mandarin, Serbian
  Population: 50,000
  Located in the middle of the Belt, Starwell is the 
  headquarters of ExoTech, one of the most common 
  
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  MAIN BELT
  29
  around the 140-kilometer asteroid and facility that 
  was made by freighter collisions during the outage, 
  with at least one spilling its cargo and component 
  parts all around the station. Zrbny ships seem to have 
  little difficulty navigating the debris field but many 
  other attempts to breach it have failed. 
  As for Zombieland itself, the lights are on, but it’s 
  not clear if anyone is actually home. The facility has 
  been running constantly since Zrbny resumed opera-
  tions eight days after the shutdown. Zombieland has 
  even expanded in the decade since, with bots adding 
  new facilities, docking bays, and even more manu-
  factories. I’ve heard some claim that close scans 
  show new deep and strange constructions within 
  the asteroid. 
  Attempts to hail the joint only get the spokesAGI, 
  Ash, which broadcasts warnings to those who 
  come too close and deflects all additional queries 
  by repeatedly stating that they require no assistance 
  and that all is well. For the foolish few who fail to 
  heed these warnings it soon becomes clear that at 
  least one other thing has changed at Zombieland: 
  it’s even more well-armed now than ever before. 
  Attempts to approach closer than six kilometers 
  will trigger a barrage of defensive measures that 
  can conservatively be termed overwhelming. Mesh 
  recordings of these defensive measures show that 
  it only ceases when it has reduced all debris to 
  chunks massing less than 3 kilos, and which emit no 
  signals whatsoever.
  I’ve heard that one attempt to hitchhike on a 
  freighter into the station resulted in the freighter’s 
  self-destruction, just like other Zrbny facilities and 
  ships have done elsewhere when breached. So for 
  those of us living in the Main Belt, we just kinda 
  pretend Zombieland doesn’t exist. It’s not hurting 
  us, so we’re not going to go messing with it. You 
  treasure-seekers and adventurers from outside the 
  Main Belt, just remember: there will always be fools, 
  and Zombieland is as good a way as any for keeping 
  your numbers down.
  VESTA (4 VESTA)
  Allegiance: Independent
  Primary Languages: Arabic, Hindi, Russian
  Population: 250,000
  Vesta itself is the second-most massive asteroid in 
  the Main Belt and the largest unaligned independent 
  polity here. Dotted with a handful of beehive and 
  dome habitats, the largest colony of this mini-state 
  is Vesta Prime, a Cole bubble made from a smaller 
  asteroid that was then towed into Vesta’s orbit. 
  Vesta operates with a transitional economy and is run 
  by a rudimentary parliamentary cyberdemocracy. It is 
  home to a number of non-Consortium and non-Extro-
  pian hypercorps that have banded together for common 
  purpose, finding value in having their own independent 
  domain. Chief among these is Starware, which operates 
  a massive shipyard facility in an opposite orbit from 
  Vesta Prime. This station is one of the major providers 
  for ships in the outer system, as Starware sells to 
  everyone, from the Jovians to the Titanians.
  Vesta serves as a major stopover point for cross-
  system traffic, and numerous hypercorps provide 
  repair, refinery, and “gas station” services to ships in 
  need of resupply. Mining is also a major industry here, 
  with numerous mines delving into the protoplanet’s 
  differentiated mantle in search of nickel, iron, and 
  valuable metals. 
  One thing the local miners, vacworkers, and other 
  laborers like to gossip and speculate about is the 
  “Dweller.” Presumably an ultra-wealthy oligarch, the 
  Dweller bought out an intact mining settlement in the 
  Rheasilvia Crater that dominates Vesta’s South Pole 
  and transformed it into a private underground estate. 
  The surface and space above this private habitat are 
  strictly guarded by automated defensive systems. Ships 
  irregularly come and go from the Dweller’s abode, but 
  none of them ever stop in at Vesta’s other stations.
  ZOMBIELAND (349 DEMBOWSKA)
  Station Type: Beehive and Cluster
  Allegiance: Independent (Hypercorp/Zrbny Limited)
  Primary Languages: Unknown
  Population: Unknown
  I debated whether to talk about Zombieland at all, 
  or just do what most of us in the Main Belt do and 
  pretend it doesn’t exist. I’m sure the AGI spokesimage 
  for Zombieland—I’m sorry, Zrbny Main Belt Central 
  Processing and Routing Headquarters—would prefer 
  that we not talk about it at all. After all, if the AI is to 
  be believed, everything is fine, there’s nothing to see 
  there, carry on with your business as usual. 
  Of course, there is something deeply interesting 
  about any Zrbny facility, and Zombieland in partic-
  ular. We call it Zombieland because, well, Zrbny 
  kinda sounds like zombie, it’s the local stopover and 
  refueling station for Zrbny’s freighter traffic through 
  the Belt, and the place is fucking creepy. 
  Whatever hit Zrbny right after the Fall definitely 
  affected Zombieland. There’s still a sizable debris field 
  FUEL DEPOTS
  One of the prominent features of the Main Belt 
  are the numerous fuel depots scattered through-
  out its orbital range. These stopovers feature 
  refineries for manufacturing reaction mass from 
  volatiles mined from the asteroids on which they 
  are stationed. Freighters and other long-range 
  ships, particularly those traversing between the 
  inner and outer systems, rely on these depots to 
  acquire fuel, water, and other much-needed sup-
  plies. They are also frequent stopover points for 
  brinkers and others living in out-of-the-way areas 
  of the Belt. 
  n
  
  JUPITER
  3
  MAGNETOSPHERE
  Jupiter’s magnetosphere is a threat to vessels and habitats; 
  radiation shielding is necessary near the planet. n p. 32
  THE JOVIAN REPUBLIC
  CBEAT: Keeping a lid on potential technological horrors. n p. 37
  Citizens and Civilians: Not everyone is born equal in the Republic, but most can 
  strive for citizenship. n p. 38
  Lobbyists: A vital part of the Republic’s political system, and the best voice for 
  citizens with influence. n p. 40
  The Security Council: The true power brokers of the Republic, both governors 
  and senators listen when they speak. n p. 41
  TAHI: The Security Council’s ace in the hole, and a potential threat outside of the 
  Jovian system. n p. 42
  Enemies: Surrounded on all sides by those who wish to see the Republic crumble, 
  her defenders must be ever vigilant. n p. 44
  JUPITER
  3
  MAGNETOSPHERE
  Jupiter’s magnetosphere is a threat to vessels and habitats; 
  radiation shielding is necessary near the planet. n p. 32
  THE JOVIAN REPUBLIC
  CBEAT: Keeping a lid on potential technological horrors. n p. 37
  Citizens and Civilians: Not everyone is born equal in the Republic, but most can 
  strive for citizenship. n p. 38
  Lobbyists: A vital part of the Republic’s political system, and the best voice for 
  citizens with influence. n p. 40
  The Security Council: The true power brokers of the Republic, both governors 
  and senators listen when they speak. n p. 41
  TAHI: The Security Council’s ace in the hole, and a potential threat outside of the 
  Jovian system. n p. 42
  Enemies: Surrounded on all sides by those who wish to see the Republic crumble, 
  her defenders must be ever vigilant. n p. 44
  
  “SARCOPHAGUS” HABITATS
  These inefficient habitats—formally Reagan 
  cylinders—are built within hollowed-out 
  asteroids, with the asteroid providing natural 
  radiation shielding. n p. 33
  THE FAITHFUL
  Life in the Republic can be trying for those 
  of Catholic faith, but reclaiming Earth is 
  still in their long-term goals. n p. 38
  “SARCOPHAGUS” HABITATS
  These inefficient habitats—formally Reagan 
  cylinders—are built within hollowed-out 
  asteroids, with the asteroid providing natural 
  radiation shielding. n p. 33
  THE FAITHFUL
  Life in the Republic can be trying for those 
  of Catholic faith, but reclaiming Earth is 
  still in their long-term goals. n p. 38
  
  32
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  Posted by: Gillie Bahasa, Europan Researcher  
   
  <Info Msg Rep>
  You want me to tell you what’s happening in the 
  Jovian system? I should probably start at the start.
  Everything about Jupiter is big. That’s the first thing 
  you notice as you approach. If you farcast in, or if 
  you’re unlucky enough to be born in the clutches of 
  the Jovian Junta, you don’t really get the opportunity 
  to take in Jupiter’s staggering scale. To appreciate the 
  vastness and complexity of the Jovian system, you 
  need to come in the old-fashioned way. Unfortunately, 
  the Junta makes that very difficult.
  PLANETOLOGICAL OVERVIEW
  Jupiter is the gas giant by which we measure all others, 
  both in terms of size and chemical composition. A 
  stormy ball of hydrogen, helium, and trace heavier 
  elements, Jupiter is about 11 Earths in diameter, and 
  hosts no less than five dozen satellites of varying 
  sizes and compositions. It orbits Sol at a distance of 
  between 5 and 5.5 AU and does so in 4,331.5 Earth 
  days; a little over 11 Earth years. A Jovian day is a 
  touch under 10 Earth hours, putting a Jovian year at 
  about 10,475 Jovian days. That’s a lot of sunrises.
  RINGS AND SATELLITES
  Encircling the massive planet is a sequence of faint 
  rings comprised mostly of planetary dust, home 
  mostly to a small number of Jovian Republic Reagan 
  cylinders and automated toll stations. Jupiter’s rings 
  also envelop the nearest of its moons: Metis (Bush), 
  Adrastea (Fairway), Amalthea (Solano), and Thebe 
  (McAllen), all of which are claimed and renamed by 
  the Jovian Republic. Beyond these satellites lie the 
  largest of Jupiter’s moons. The so-called Galilean 
  moons, the first of Jupiter’s satellites to be discov-
  ered by humans, were also the first to be settled. Io’s 
  inhospitable surface is dotted with a few high-security 
  Jovian Republic military installations. Beneath 
  Europa’s icy crust, submarine technoprogressivism 
  reigns. Ganymede’s numerous city-states are the loyal 
  crown jewels of the Jovian Republic. Callisto’s subter-
  ranean labyrinths are primarily Jovian protectorates, 
  but a few hold a large enough transhuman presence to 
  give any Jovian official an apoplectic fit. Further out 
  lie the remainder of the gas giant’s satellites—errant 
  planetary detritus and captured transients. While a 
  number of these are populated, they serve mostly as 
  outposts for the Jovian Republic, with the exception 
  of a few independent tin can stations.
  THE MAGNETOSPHERE
  Jupiter’s magnetosphere is the most powerful of all 
  the orbiting bodies of the solar system and directly 
  and indirectly influences a number of phenomena 
  in the Jovian system. Volcanic ejecta and outgassing 
  from the nearest Galilean moon, Io, are swept up 
  by Jupiter’s magnetosphere. Some of this settles in 
  an elongated non-ionized cloud around the satellite, 
  depositing on the trailing edges of Ganymede and 
  Europa and the leading edge of Callisto. The rest 
  enters orbit around Jupiter as part of a high-radiation 
  plasma torus centered on Io’s orbit. Where the magne-
  tosphere interacts with Io’s thin atmosphere and 
  the non-ionized cloud surrounding it, it generates a 
  powerful electric current in the form of a flux tube 
  that produces auroras in both Jupiter’s polar regions 
  and Io’s thin atmosphere.
  The magnetosphere poses a powerful radiological 
  threat to spacefaring vessels and habitats. While most 
  of Jupiter’s satellites fall outside of the danger zone, 
  the Galilean moons and rings all fall within this area. 
  While this protects them from the solar wind, the 
  complex magnetosphere exposes all but Callisto to 
  debilitating levels of radiation. Unshielded or unpro-
  tected transhumans exposed to the raw energies of 
  Jupiter’s magnetosphere can expect lethal doses of 
  radiation in days, if not hours or minutes in some 
  places; tin can habitats and cheap spacefaring vessels 
  do not fare much better without makeshift shielding. 
  Those that have spent any amount of time within 
  the Jovian system know the value of sturdy radia-
  tion protection.
  THE JOVIAN REPUBLIC
  Posted by: Tio Silencio, Firewall Proxy 
   
  <Info Msg Rep>
  I am a traitor.
  But I know I am also a patriot.
  I know, whatever I do, in this life or another, that I 
  will be damned. By my own people, by those I try to 
  help. Because I am a traitor.
  But this is not why you are here. Or rather it is, 
  but you don’t care that I have betrayed my people, 
  you just wish to know about them, always asking in 
  the hopes of finding an advantage. Such is my rela-
  tionship with Firewall. I break trust everyday, spilling 
  state secrets because I believe that the best hope of 
  salvation for my people lies in trusting a group of 
  radicals, rabble-rousers, and anarchists. I am in league 
  with the very people my government tells me led us to 
  the Fall in the first place, and who must be brought 
  back under the rule of law lest they blithely do the 
  same again.
  3
  JUPITER
  
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  JUPITER
  33
  ship-building and deep-space manufacturing facili-
  ties. They poured money into these ventures in an 
  attempt to recoup the prestige they’d lost in allowing 
  the Chinese to reach and colonize Mars first (and the 
  Indians to lead on Luna). These shipyards, concen-
  trated around Ganymede, were trumpeted in the 
  media back home as the jumping-off point for explo-
  ration and colonization—not just of the solar system, 
  but of extrasolar systems as well. 
  In the years immediately prior to the Fall, the 
  Jovian system was something of a boomtown. There 
  was lots of venture capital sloshing around and hyper-
  corp start-ups were renting out all of the space avail-
  able on the orbital factories or even prefab tin cans. 
  This was also the high point of what came to be called 
  Reagan cylinders, which were brand new at the time 
  but have since become something of a sore point due 
  to their technical limitations.
  THE SEVENTEEN-MINUTE WAR
  This all came to a crashing end with the Fall. Keep in 
  mind that even under the best of conditions, it takes 
  over half an hour for a radio message to reach the 
  Jovian system from Earth. Weeks of escalating conflict 
  had put the various military forces throughout the 
  system on high alert. By the time the first garbled 
  reports of the TITANs reached the rest of the solar 
  system, the settlements around Jupiter had already 
  thrown themselves into complete chaos. A sudden 
  spastic outburst of violence known as the Seventeen-
  Minute War changed the status of the Jovian 
  system forever.
  While official records from this period are still 
  highly classified, the meager information that has 
  been released or leaked indicates that the US, Chinese, 
  and Russian forces had all adopted battle-ready 
  So here it is. This is what you need to know to 
  understand the Republic. To understand that we are 
  like you and that you, given adequate cause, could 
  become like us. Only ten years ago, the people of the 
  Republic would not have been that different except in 
  attitude. In that marginal difference now is a nearly 
  mindless ravening hatred—from both of our sides. 
  Yes, the Republic is an insular, paranoid, conservative, 
  and militaristic culture, but we are also one of the 
  last repositories of nearly extinct cultural, religious, 
  and linguistic groups. We have not forgotten why all 
  of us now live in tin cans surrounded by vacuum. 
  We are ready for the day when the TITANs return. 
  When they do—and when your AI systems and your 
  very bodies betray you—we will be standing strong, 
  having prepared and planned and run the simulations. 
  Then, perhaps, you will have to turn to us, your last 
  hope. The shining city on the hill that will offer the 
  benighted masses of transhumanity the possibility of 
  salvation from the instruments of their own destruc-
  tion. Or perhaps not. 
  Regardless of what the future holds, we are dug 
  in deeply in the Jovian system. While the transhu-
  mans outside our borders continue to take risks, to 
  change themselves into something different, to defy 
  the natural order of things, we are taking the cautious 
  path. We grow steadily, without exponential curves. 
  When your transhuman society has collapsed with 
  the inevitable entropy of anarchy, when your machine 
  gods have reaped all of your souls, when you have 
  accelerated your “evolution” and transcended into 
  nothingness, we humans will still be here, ready to 
  reclaim our birthright and heritage.
  THE FOUNDING OF THE REPUBLIC
  I could tell you that we are not so different, you and 
  I, that we share a common background—but it would 
  be a lie. Down to our very genetic material we are 
  different. More than that, our differences are those of 
  culture and ideology, the ultimate fate of the universe, 
  and the place of humanity within it. These are the 
  principles upon which our Republic was founded: our 
  belief that humanity is worth preserving.
  Before the Fall, the Jovian system was a hotbed of 
  industrial activity and the go-to place for Earth-based 
  governments to set up clandestine research facilities 
  out of the prying eyes of their fellow nations. The 
  electromagnetic interference and high levels of radia-
  tion meant that casual visitors were discouraged and 
  more determined attempts at espionage were costly 
  to even attempt. The Americans, Russians, Chileans, 
  and the Chinese all had significant presences in the 
  system for both legal resource collection functions 
  and less-than-legal research outposts that were doing 
  work on memetic, biological, chemical, and nuclear 
  weapons programs. 
  The Americans, as part of a joint venture with other 
  Western hemisphere nations, particularly Argentina 
  and Chile with their major spaceports, had substantial 
  REAGAN CYLINDERS
  The standard O’Neill cylinder is a proven habitat 
  type that can be found all across the solar system. 
  Several years prior to the Fall an American aero-
  space consortium backed primarily by Raytheon 
  rolled out a new cylinder design, christened the 
  Reagan cylinder as a nod to the resurgence of 
  interest in the historical president’s economic 
  doctrines. Reagan cylinders differed from O’Neill 
  designs in that they were built within hollowed-
  out asteroids or moonlets, usually mined out, 
  using the rocky exterior as a layer of radiation 
  shielding, a requirement for the Jovian system. 
  In the years since, Reagan cylinders have become 
  infamous for their inefficiency. Environmental 
  and power systems are notoriously sub-par, sub-
  ject to frequent failures. Brownouts, blackouts, 
  and septic contamination are a common state of 
  affairs on these “sarcophagus” habs. 
  n
  
  34
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  rose over tight space and scant resources, and people 
  began to polarize according to ethnic and formerly 
  national identities. It was clear that a strong authority 
  was needed to unite the survivors. The various 
  military leaders remaining in the system convened 
  a council and established a common purpose. They 
  would use their military might to establish order 
  and safeguard the humans of the Jovian system from 
  outside threats. Reaching out to the former leaders 
  in their ranks—many of whom had been among the 
  most politically powerful people on Earth before 
  relocating to the far reaches of the solar system—they 
  laid the groundwork for a new government. Issuing a 
  declaration of emergency, the newly declared Jovian 
  Republic further consolidated the system under its 
  control. As the new socio-political landscape of the 
  solar system took shape, it rapidly became clear that 
  the Republic had established an iron grip on the most 
  strategically important locations within our plan-
  etary system, with the exception of Europa, despite 
  a failed commando raid attempt early on to seize the 
  Conamara elevator head.
  The years immediately after the Fall were a 
  formative period for us. As the Consortium rose to 
  dominance in the inner system and the autonomists 
  declared their independence on the rim, it quickly 
  became evident that no one cared about the survival 
  of the species but ourselves. The ideological rift 
  between the polities wasn’t just about economics or 
  who’s in charge, it was about protecting the human 
  race from unregulated, runaway technologies, about 
  protecting us all from extinction. The hypercorps 
  were clearly more concerned about how to exploit 
  nanotech, biotech, and even AI for financial gain. 
  At the time, the conventional wisdom was that the 
  nascent Autonomist Alliance would soon collapse 
  under internal divisions, leaving their dangerous 
  technology in the hands of various politically radical 
  crackpots. On top of that, we still weren’t sure where 
  the TITANs had gone—and then everyone starts 
  thinking it’s a good idea to open up wormholes right 
  next door and let a group of alien slugs have the run 
  of the solar system. Seeing the state of affairs, most of 
  those Jovian stations that had not initially joined the 
  Republic turned to us for protection. 
  JOVIAN TRANSHUMANISM
  Before I go any further about the Republic, I need 
  to explain what defines us Jovians in contrast to the 
  rest of the solar system: our views on technology 
  and transhumanism.
  To the rest of the system, we’re backwards Luddites 
  because the vast majority of the Republic’s populace 
  lacks access to advanced nano- and biotechnology. 
  This isn’t strictly true, however, since we have access 
  to the same level of technology the rest of the system 
  is accustomed to, we just regulate and restrict it more 
  thoroughly. We are, as a rule, deeply conservative 
  in our outlook towards certain technologies. We 
  took a different lesson from the Fall than the rest of 
  postures. It is known that the ranking US commander, 
  Lt. General Richard Chatterson, received several 
  top priority QE messages from the US Secretary of 
  Defense warning of imminent Chinese and Russian 
  aggression. We suspect that the Chinese and Russian 
  commanders were flashed similar messages. (I will 
  not speak to conspiracy theories that speculate the 
  TITANs engineered the whole situation; it is possible, 
  but at this point impossible to prove, and largely 
  irrelevant to the present day.) At this point, the facts 
  become muddled. The official Jovian version states 
  the Chinese forces launched nuclear-armed drones 
  towards Liberty Station. I’ve seen a Titanian fact-
  finding report that asserts the drones were merely 
  recon craft whose faulty magnetic bottles were 
  leaking extra radiation. Whatever the case, Chatterson 
  decided to take no chances and ordered his forces to 
  hit both the Chinese and Russians with everything 
  they had.
  Seventeen minutes later, both opposing forces 
  lay decimated. Fewer than 12% of military targets 
  remained operational after the initial strikes, and 
  within 6 hours they had been reduced to 5%, at 
  which point their surrender was accepted. Chatterson 
  and his senior command staff also destroyed or seized 
  a number of civilian outposts, citing security concerns. 
  This action raised a general outcry from nearby non-
  American stations that Chatterson was making a land 
  grab, but was ignored among the general disarray of 
  the worsening situation on Earth and the fallout it 
  was creating. 
  FROM THE ASHES
  Within a day, Chatterson had seized control of the 
  entire system. Though the Americans had also taken 
  some serious hits, their forces remained surprisingly 
  intact, and they had the support of their Chilean 
  allies. Chatterson, however, was only left in command 
  briefly as long-dormant contingency plans unfolded. 
  Chatterson led a portion of the Jovian fleet to fight in 
  the battles over Earth—never to return. In the weeks 
  and months that followed, many of the top military 
  and political players from the Western Hemisphere 
  were evacuated to the secure Jovian facilities. At first, 
  this was seen as a safe place to wait out the chaos 
  on Earth, and many came by ship. As the situation 
  on Earth deteriorated, numerous VIPs used emer-
  gency facilities to egocast out to Jupiter—or at least 
  transferred backups in case they never escaped. 
  The US government sent several cabinet members, 
  senators, and high level military officials, along 
  with the heads of state for four Central and South 
  American nations and a number of other military and 
  political dignitaries.
  In the final days of the Fall, it was appallingly clear 
  that the old government structures from Earth were in 
  tatters at best. Disputes over who held authority were 
  already breaking out. Refugee ships continued to pour 
  into the system, many of them having been turned 
  away by already full inner system habitats. Tensions 
  
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  JUPITER
  35
  ranks. Many of our people hold religious convictions 
  that are extremely critical of the ease with which some 
  new technologies can strip away our basic humanity 
  and dignity. These Jovians personally reject many of 
  the technologies that are allowed, unwilling as they 
  are to commit a sin or transform themselves into an 
  abomination of nature.
  In practical terms, this means that certain tech-
  nologies—advanced nanotech and biotech, AI, certain 
  weapon systems—are virtually impossible to find 
  outside of the highest clearance military labs. Some 
  of this is considered even too dangerous to weaponize 
  and what little research there is focuses primarily on 
  defensive measures should it become a threat. 
  transhumanity. We saw it as proof that unregulated 
  technological advances will wipe us out. We have also 
  seen that modifying our bodies and “playing god” 
  removes us from our humanity. So our approach is 
  to study technology carefully, test it thoroughly, put 
  safeguards in place, and only use it when it is safe to 
  do so. We are always alert to the destructive potential 
  a new technology may have. Just as you wouldn’t 
  let children play with potentially harmful tools they 
  do not understand, we do not place technology with 
  the capacity to wreak great devastation in the hands 
  of everyone.
  Our culture is not monolithic or singular—we 
  also have divergent viewpoints and ideologies in our 
  JOVIAN MESH AND SECURITY OPERATIONS
  The following was passed along to me for circula-
  tion by one of our operatives who recently returned 
  from a deep cover mission on Liberty. It goes a long 
  way towards dispelling many of the myths our 
  operatives hold regarding the Jovians and their 
  security measures.
  MISSION SUMMARY BY OVERSIGHT 
  COVERT OPERATIVE “NILSSON”
  While we have a lot of stories and jokes about 
  the Jovians, the fact remains that most of this is 
  rumor and supposition. We know they took dif-
  ferent lessons from the Fall than the rest of the 
  system, and these lessons have heavily informed 
  their security culture. 
  The first thing you need to know is that yes, the 
  Jovians do have a mesh. It is heavily regulated, but 
  they do have one. However, you must be cautious in 
  using it. In order to gain access you must allow their 
  mesh protocols quite a bit of access to your own sys-
  tems, and they are constantly monitoring your traf-
  fic for any red flags such as prohibited information, 
  suspicious contacts, or the use of contraband pro-
  grams. What defines a “contraband program?” Well, 
  just about anything not written and approved by 
  the Republic’s own codeslingers. My advice would 
  be to set up a dummy mesh account so as not to 
  arouse suspicion, but use a VPN darknet with your 
  own team members or any trusted contacts. Long 
  distance communications can be problematic within 
  Jovian space due to the interference of Jupiter’s 
  radiation and the signal inhibitors the Republic uses 
  to curtail the spread of non-approved information.
  As for hacking Jovian infrastructure via the mesh, 
  this is a bit more complicated. Unlike most sane and 
  rational people, the Jovians do not control most 
  habitat systems via mesh or even wireless. Instead, 
  if you were to peel back the wall on a Jovian hab 
  you’d find thousands of fine wires running every-
  where keeping everything connected. For most 
  operatives this is a problem; you’ve likely been 
  trained in jamming and co-opting mesh services 
  to get a habitat’s systems to do your bidding. Not 
  in Jovian habs, my friend. All of the systems are 
  hardwired and controlled via a central hub that is 
  usually located in the local headquarters of the Civil 
  Defense Corp or the Space Force. This central hub is 
  also where all local wireless traffic is routed through 
  and sniffed before it makes its way out of the hab. 
  Finally, the ranking officer on any hab has an access 
  code, which changes every eight hours, that can be 
  entered to completely sever that habitat from any 
  incoming or outgoing communications. It also acti-
  vates powerful jamming devices that are effective 
  against most darkcast networks as well. 
  While this system serves the Jovians well in 
  information control, to minimize the spread of any 
  hostile infowar virus, and as a means of protecting 
  habitats from becoming infected if such an agent is 
  already loose, it does have certain easily exploitable 
  weaknesses. First, the fact that nearly everything 
  has to go through a central hub means that gain-
  ing access to this hub can give an agent tremendous 
  leverage, either to sniff the traffic themselves or to 
  bring it down and isolate the habitat. Additionally, 
  the Jovian reliance upon humans and not code as 
  the last line of security means that an agent skilled 
  in manipulation or interrogation can extract all sorts 
  of valuable security information simply by leaning 
  on the right people. 
  As for the best way of doing this? Paranoia. Most 
  Jovian security personnel are extremely paranoid 
  but generally ignorant of much outside of their 
  Republic. This can be exploited to your gain by 
  playing off their belief that they are under constant 
  attack by things of which they have little to no 
  understanding. I have found that anarchists, com-
  munists, or socialists make particularly good bug-
  bears and are deeply ingrained as cultural monsters 
  to the average Jovian. 
  n
  
  36
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  uploading that transfers the soul to a clone of the 
  same body. Cortical stacks, backups, resleeving, 
  and even certain biomorphs are legal, however, if 
  licensed and restricted (showing that the Security 
  Council, above all, sees practical value in the tech-
  nology). The few resleeving facilities that exist are 
  subject to regular protests and vandalism, and in two 
  cases uploading technicians have been assassinated 
  by religious extremists that considered them to be 
  murderers. Few people wear non-standard morphs in 
  our habitats, and those that do are subject to reac-
  tions of distaste, fear, and occasionally even hatred. 
  Synthmorphs and pods are rare to nonexistent. 
  Uplifts, in any form, are seen as abominations; even 
  when allowed by the government, they can expect 
  overt hostility and prejudice.
  Some things are expressly forbidden, specifi-
  cally forking and uploading/infomorphs. There are 
  rumors that both forks and human infomorphs 
  are used for certain military applications, though 
  this is unsubstantiated. Only the most limited and 
  locked-down AIs are allowed, and even those only 
  for situations where they are critical. While mesh 
  implants are standard (except among the most 
  devout), muses are unheard of. This also means that 
  we have developed ways of running many of our 
  computer systems that don’t involve smart programs 
  or limited AI, and even those that do have security 
  lock outs that disable all remote access to systems 
  You may be surprised to hear that many tech-
  nologies common elsewhere are indeed allowed, but 
  heavily restricted. This includes cornucopia machines, 
  resleeving, and a number of genetic enhancements. 
  These tools typically require high priced licenses or 
  special government dispensation, which generally 
  limit them to the wealthy, specialist labs, and high-
  ranking government and military officials. These tech 
  privileges are usually laden with monitoring provi-
  sions, regular check-ups, and limited period renewal 
  clauses, to ensure that no one goes off the radar 
  with anything. 
  The vast majority of Jovians (over 80%) retain 
  their original bodies. In fact, our Republic offers 
  a significant reward to anyone who still has their 
  birth body that relocates and becomes a Jovian 
  citizen. Many are genefixed (splicers), though some 
  refuse out of religious objection. Licenses for certain 
  genetic enhancements and bio-mods—or even certain 
  morphs—are allowed if you can demonstrate a partic-
  ular need for it (vacworkers, for example). Longevity 
  treatments are available for all, if expensive, though 
  our culture reveres death and considers it a dignified 
  and natural end. 
  A strong public sentiment exists against resleeving. 
  Most believe that our souls are not transferable to a 
  new body and so resleeving is akin to suicide, which 
  is a sin. A few small factions believe it is allowable 
  under certain circumstances, such as a destructive 
  
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  JUPITER
  37
  THE COUNCIL ON BIO-ETHICS  
  AND ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY (CBEAT)
  CBEAT is composed of scientists, philosophers, 
  and lay experts, many of whom have experience 
  as political advisors back on Earth. They are more 
  influential in their recommendations than the Church 
  since they have the ear of the Security Council in their 
  analysis of the potential social and cultural impacts 
  of new technology adoption. They are also savvier in 
  the way they lobby through the media, the governors, 
  and the Senate for the appropriate legal restrictions 
  on or banishment of said technology. They primarily 
  approach technology through the lens of the precau-
  tionary principle, meaning that something must 
  be proven non-harmful before it can be adopted. 
  Basically as long as one of the eggheads at CBEAT can 
  come up with a worst-case scenario, they recommend 
  new potential tech be kept from the population for 
  their own protection. Even if a technology is unlikely 
  to be catastrophic, they often approve it only for 
  limited applications, pending further evaluations. 
  CBEAT is continually under pressure from some of 
  the Republic’s home-grown corporations to approve 
  new technologies to release into the market, not to 
  mention certain foreign hypercorps that have received 
  a charter to operate in Jovian space. These corpora-
  tions often complain how CBEAT limits growth 
  unreasonably. The Security Council has made it clear, 
  however, that they support CBEAT’s precautionary 
  approach. Corporations that have gotten too pushy 
  have found their licenses revoked.
  THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
  The Church acts in a similar manner to CBEAT, 
  though their concern is offering spiritual guidance to 
  the laity in regards to this rapidly changing world. This 
  means they tend to stress the moral implications of 
  the technologies upon perceived humanity. Although 
  the Church doesn’t have the same degree of political 
  and military influence, they are wildly popular among 
  and require an actual flesh and blood person to 
  authorize any operations.
  You are unlikely to suspect that Jovian medtech is 
  on par with the best found elsewhere in the system—
  we do, after all, have a vested interest in keeping our 
  bodies alive, rather than just slipping into a new one. 
  Medical nanotech is allowed under the strict super-
  vision of licensed professionals, who also excel at 
  non-nano health practices and surgical procedures. 
  Our exowombs, childcare facilities, and schools are 
  also top of the line, given the importance we place on 
  rebuilding our population and raising future genera-
  tions. Families with children are allotted special incen-
  tives to encourage population growth.
  Obviously, there are differences between our culture 
  and the rest of the solar system. One thing important 
  for non-Jovians to remember, however, is that our 
  views are not just based on mistrust of technology, 
  overhyped security theater, or fear of the TITANs. A 
  significant portion of our population considers our 
  Republic to be the last and only bastion of humanity. 
  To their eyes, our Republic is surrounded not by 
  transhumans, but by uncivilized monsters that once 
  were human, but are now on their way to becoming 
  something else, with the distinct possibility that they 
  may kill us all in the process. After all, from their 
  point of view, the moment you first resleeved, you 
  died and transformed into something that wasn’t a 
  person anymore. To the average Jovian, you are a 
  soulless software replica with a human face. 
  Sound frightening? It is.
  THE GUARDIANS OF BIO-ETHICS
  Foremost in shaping Republic policy in regards to 
  what is and isn’t safe are two entities, the Council on 
  Bioethics and Advanced Technology, a think tank and 
  lobbying group, and the Roman Catholic Church, the 
  remnants of which now call the Republic home. Both 
  of these organizations examine new and existing tech-
  nologies and issue strongly received mandates.
  MEDICAL CONCERNS
  From: Dr. Maria Cofini, Lobbyist, Jovian Medical Association
  To: Enrico Salazar, CBEAT Public Liaison
  We Jovian medical professionals may pride ourselves in 
  maintaining our populations’ health and well-being, but 
  the praise the media heaps upon us grows continuously 
  hollow. The fact that so many critical medical technologies 
  must run the twin gauntlets of the Church and CBEAT to 
  be considered safe for the population means that very 
  little of the newer procedures, treatments, and drugs make 
  it to the general populace. As a result, even those citizens 
  willing to undertake longevity treatments can expect to live 
  a life considerably shorter than the rest of the system—and 
  one that is likely filled with no small amount of pain and 
  suffering. The Senate can suppress all of the reports on 
  the high rate of cancers among our population that it 
  likes; people are still getting concerned. Living for ten or 
  more years within a heavy radiation belt is bound to have 
  negative effects on a large portion of the population and 
  several of the nastier cancers are reaching epidemic levels. 
  Unfortunately, the best techniques for treating these cancers 
  remain on the banned list or are restricted to a handful of 
  licensed practitioners because they involve invasive nano-
  technology. While our wealthier citizens have the political 
  clout and credit for a “vacation” to Titan or Extropia to fix 
  their health, the rest of our population lies at risk. Caution 
  may be patriotic, but when it actively hinders the health of a 
  significant proportion of our population, I can only consider 
  it criminal negligence. 
  
  38
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  the populace, offering hope in what have been trying 
  times. Most politicians in the Republic know they 
  have to make concessions towards the power of the 
  Church. The Church’s lobbying wing, the Conference 
  of Bishops, frequently engages public officials and 
  advocates for both the interests of the Church and for 
  scientific policies that may affect the flock. The Church 
  has sometimes had major disagreements with CBEAT 
  (particularly over resleeving), launching outspoken 
  opposition and boycotts to a handful of technologies 
  that received CBEAT’s seal of approval.
  GOVERNMENT UNDER A GOD’S GAZE
  While the rest of the system may characterize us as 
  a fascist state or even use the pejorative “junta” to 
  describe our system of government, we are nominally 
  a democratic republic with two of our major legisla-
  tive and executive bodies being democratically elected. 
  Suffrage, however, is limited to citizens, and citizen-
  ship is not a birthright guarantee in the Republic. 
  CITIZENS AND CIVILIANS
  To outsiders accustomed to universal suffrage, a 
  citizen is a citizen. Within the Republic, however, citi-
  zenship is not a given. By birth or by immigration, all 
  persons within the Republic are considered civilians. 
  This means that they have limited rights and that these 
  rights are contingent upon remaining in good standing 
  with the local authorities. 
  Citizens are made, not born. In order to become a 
  citizen an inhabitant of the Republic must do several 
  things. First, and most importantly, they must sign 
  up for a voluntary four-year stint in either the Space 
  Force or the Civil Defense Corps and must serve out 
  the entire deployment. The standard tour is six months 
  of basic training, followed by six months of special-
  ized training, and then three years on active duty. This 
  ensures that our forces, both internal and external, are 
  always staffed by the best and the brightest. Note that 
  many of these assignments are for positions such as 
  engineers, medics, and various service and bureaucratic 
  roles; everyone, however, receives the basic military 
  and security training. After serving for four years a 
  person is granted citizenship, though a high degree opt 
  to re-enlist since most careers outside of military or 
  police work reward increased experience within the 
  services. Citizenship may be revoked, however, for any 
  number of major criminal infractions. While a simple 
  theft is unlikely to see the perpetrator stripped of 
  citizenship, repeat minor offenders or major offenses 
  such as assault against another citizen or murder will 
  be punished with the loss of citizenship. As long as 
  a citizen remains in good standing, they are afforded 
  all of the rights and privileges of a full member of 
  Jovian society.
  Civilians are generally anyone under the age of 
  fifteen, anyone who has been convicted of a criminal 
  act, new naturalized arrivals to the Republic, or any 
  adult who has not completed their voluntary military 
  service. While a civilian enjoys some rights, they do 
  not have absolute freedom of speech and may be 
  detained or confined to their quarters by the authori-
  ties, no justification needed. Civilians are banned from 
  working or even accessing sensitive areas on habitats. 
  Adult civilians are relegated to a second-class status 
  within the Republic and are generally considered to 
  be criminals, cowards, or both. An adult who is not 
  a citizen has failed the Republic in some manner and 
  this status is not only reflected in their mesh and other 
  digital interactions but also in housing. The rental 
  or purchase of housing in certain zones is a privilege 
  extended only to citizens, meaning that most civilians 
  are relegated to ghettos where they are more easily 
  controlled and monitored.
  Below civilians are a class of “non-persons.” 
  This includes uplifts, infomorphs, repeat criminal 
  TRYING TIMES FOR 
  THE FAITHFUL
  Censored from the Journal of Cardinal Gonzalo Cortez, RIP
  When the Fall came, it was a severe test of our 
  faith. Rome, like so many other holy sites, was 
  ravaged by the instruments of our hubris. Few 
  of the faithful made it off-planet due to prohibi-
  tions on technologies that would sever the soul 
  from the vessel. We found ourselves, in those 
  years immediately afterwards, adrift in a world 
  that seemed to test us at every step. While we 
  were offered a form of sanctuary among the 
  venal and corrupt oligarchs of the inner system, 
  we rejected their offer, seeing in it only a role 
  as lapdogs and servitors of their schemes. The 
  outer system too seemed bereft of hope, beset 
  as it was with the godless and the god-mocking. 
  It was at this time that the voices of the faithful 
  in the newly formed Jovian Republic cried out for 
  our presence. 
  Life in the Republic has not been easy. The 
  trials of living under such harsh conditions are a 
  fitting punishment for our sins in assuming we 
  were greater than God. Additionally, the Church 
  often finds itself at odds with the rulers of the 
  Republic. We attempt to temper their more war-
  like impulses with the teachings of Jesus Christ, 
  but agree with them on many issues of cultural 
  and scientific significance.
  While many of the faithful call the Republic 
  home, we still minister to any place the faithful 
  call home and send as many missions as we can 
  manage across the solar system. We still hold 
  to hope for the lost souls left behind on Earth. 
  While others may have abandoned the home 
  God gave to us, we have not. We hold to the 
  belief that we will one day return and cleanse it 
  of the evils that we, ourselves, unleashed upon 
  the face of the Earth. 
  n
  
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  JUPITER
  39
  nonexistent. Civilians and non-persons are technically 
  barred from leaving, though officials often turn a blind 
  eye. Returning citizens can expect heavy screening and 
  questioning about their outside activities.
  For outsiders, entering the Republic is an equally 
  difficult process. Visas must be registered well in 
  advance (just showing up will get you thrown in a 
  cell) and must have good cause. Hypercorp reps 
  and inner system types generally have an easier time 
  cutting through the red tape, whereas an autonomist 
  has a better chance of finding a golf ball in Saturn’s 
  rings. Visitors are warned in advance that certain 
  morphs, mods, and equipment are considered contra-
  band, including your muse—I recommend going 
  through the list carefully, lest your stay be confined 
  to the gulag. A shuttle or passenger vessel must also 
  be booked, as the Republic does not accept foreign 
  egocasts. Expect long lines and terminally painful 
  customs procedures when you arrive. Accredited 
  guests are granted a “registered alien” status, which 
  gives them roughly the same rights as a citizen.
  A category of “protected aliens” is extended to 
  guests to the Republic who would not normally be 
  granted rights or protections but who, due to their 
  diplomatic or trade standing, are accorded a limited 
  form of legal protection. Uplifts, infomorphs, and 
  certain political undesirables are granted this status. 
  AGIs are strictly forbidden in Jovian space, and aiding 
  or abetting one is a crime.
  You should be aware that as a registered or 
  protected alien you do not have a right to privacy 
  and a search of your person or possessions can be 
  conducted at any time. Additionally, in the case of 
  suspected subversive activity or basically anything an 
  inspecting officer may find objectionable about you, 
  military officers can be called in to access your cortical 
  stack. All aliens legally visiting the Republic are 
  required to install and carry around a modified version 
  of a muse called a minder that reports your activities 
  to local authorities at all times and is admissible as 
  evidence for deportation or detention. While similar 
  to a muse, a minder is far more limited, and I am told 
  easier to reprogram if you know what you are doing.
  THE SENATE
  Each full member habitat of the Republic is allowed 
  to elect three senators who are then sent to Liberty on 
  Ganymede where they deliberate upon and set much 
  of the policy for the Republic. There is a saying among 
  us, however, roughly translated from Spanish as “not 
  everyone is born a senator.” It’s usually used to mean 
  that someone has taken on pretensions of importance, 
  but it points to the fact that most senators either held 
  prominent positions within their governments back 
  on Earth or come from families that have money or 
  influence. The reality is that to be eligible to run for a 
  senate position, a citizen must be properly vetted and 
  receive the stamp of approval from a Security Council 
  office that handles such things. It is an open secret that 
  various lobbyists also play an influential role in this 
  offenders, and untrusted inhabitants of our protec-
  torate habitats that are not collaborating with the 
  regime. With the exception of the last category, most 
  non-persons do not tend to remain in the Republic 
  if they can afford it. These non-persons cannot claim 
  even the most basic rights, and while it is still consid-
  ered a crime to kill one, it is treated as felony property 
  damage and not murder or manslaughter.
  CIVIL LIBERTIES
  We have a constitutional framework that grants rights 
  and privileges for citizens and the basic outlines of our 
  legal system. A stranger to the Republic would find 
  much of our laws and political process reminiscent 
  of several old Earth democracies with a few notable 
  exceptions. There are no universal freedoms for the 
  press or of assembly. The first is a military matter 
  in which the Senate accedes to the Security Council. 
  They have argued, convincingly, that a free and inde-
  pendent press leaves the Republic open to memetic 
  attack and other infowar vectors, and that it would 
  jeopardize their efforts to maintain the fighting spirit 
  of the Republic, undermine morale, or create support 
  for subversive ideas and technologies. As a result, all 
  media outlets are subject to monitoring and review 
  by censors from the Security Council. Outside media 
  and information sources are strictly banned. The ban 
  on free assembly stems from the martial law security 
  measures put in place during the Fall. Since that time 
  many of the other restrictions put in place have been 
  removed, but the ban on large public gatherings has 
  remained. Any public gathering in excess of twenty 
  persons will usually be broken up by the Civil Defense 
  Corps in fairly short order. 
  It may surprise those that have never been to the 
  Republic to discover that we have absolute freedom 
  of speech. While there are rather strict sedition laws, 
  merely criticizing the government will not get you 
  hauled off to prison. The media, activists, and even the 
  Church are often quite vocal in their criticisms of the 
  senate and the governors. This freedom of speech is 
  limited due to restrictions against the press and public 
  gatherings, of course, so while individual dissent is 
  very much alive and well, it seldom makes the jump 
  to organized opposition. On the rare cases where it 
  does, it is usually quickly quelled by the CDC. 
  COMING AND GOING
  It is a common misconception that we Jovians are 
  prisoners in our society, never allowed to leave lest we 
  be tainted by transhuman memes. This is untrue, as 
  any citizen may request an exit visa to travel outside 
  the Republic. Granted, the process for acquiring one 
  is long, complicated, and expensive, and they are often 
  refused unless the applicant has a particularly good 
  reason for leaving. The only exit visas granted for 
  vacation purposes are to Europa. Even if an exit visa 
  is obtained, booking a berth aboard a passenger ship 
  outside of the system is often a challenge, given how 
  few routes exist. Egocasting facilities are, of course, 
  
  40
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  THE FOURTH ESTATE: LOBBYISTS
  The bloodsucking ticks of a sham democracy, the 
  lobbyists are masters at getting what they want first 
  and serving the interests of the Republic second. Even 
  back on Earth we had lobbyists all over the place, 
  though there they weren’t officially part of the govern-
  ment. When we relocated to the Jupiter system and 
  hammered out a new government, they came crawling 
  out of the woodwork. Now they are the official voice 
  of the people. If you have a cause you want to bring 
  to the senate, you need a lobbying group to do it. At 
  a minimum, this means you need a requisite number 
  of supporting citizens’ signatures. To meet the various 
  government requirements to form a lobby, you also 
  process, meaning that each senator is likely beholden 
  to at least a half dozen special interests and better do 
  what their governor says or risk facing a hand-picked 
  replacement during their next campaign. 
  On its face, the senate is a thoroughly democratic 
  institution. These senators represent the interests 
  of their habitat’s constituency and speak on their 
  behalf on matters of interest to them. As much as 
  I’d like to hold up the Republic as an example of 
  a democracy that works, even my patriotic self 
  knows that is a lie. Once a senator is in office, the 
  only mechanism by which the populace can speak 
  to them is through lobbyist groups. There is no 
  petitioning, no calling or writing the senate, no 
  town hall meetings or public referendums. Only the 
  lobbyists have the senate’s ear.
  While being a senator likely has its perks, in terms 
  of power they are a lower rung—they are the first to 
  feel the heat when something goes wrong in a habitat, 
  which in the Jovian Republic is a regular occurrence.
  THE GOVERNORS
  While a habitat’s senators see to its interests in the 
  capital, the day-to-day operations of running each 
  colony is in the hands of a governor. Governors are 
  appointed by the senate with approval by the Security 
  Council—or so it says in the Constitution, and no 
  one in the Republic is gonna say the Constitution 
  is wrong, at least not where the CDC can hear. The 
  reality? The governors are power-hungry pricks who 
  couldn’t cut it as line officers but were too important 
  to warehouse on some podunk research station. Most 
  of them, as near as I can tell, had a little too much 
  fondness for the bottle and were taken out of active 
  service lest they make a tragic error in judgment while 
  under the influence. It may disappoint many a patri-
  otic citizen of the Republic to hear this, but there is 
  nowhere near the level of responsibility attached to 
  being the figurehead leader of a habitat of thousands 
  as there is to being the one that makes the decisions 
  whether to nuke an enemy or not. 
  Like the senate, the governors know they don’t 
  really call the shots in the government. That whole 
  “appointed by the senate” crap just means that the 
  Security Council sends over a list of candidates for the 
  senate to “nominate” and “debate,” and the senators 
  do as they’re told, if they know what’s good for 
  themselves. The governors get their orders from the 
  Security Council in the same way the senate gets theirs 
  from the lobbyists and Church. They are the de-facto 
  military heads of their habitat unless a ranking officer 
  happens to be visiting, which also means they are in 
  charge of the local branch of the CDC and are liable 
  for any civil disturbances that occur on their watch. 
  As a result, most tend to be heavy handed when it 
  comes to any problems that crop up; better to be safe 
  than sorry. This means that most of our governors are 
  hated and feared rather than loved—but that’s not 
  really something most worry too much about.
  TOP LOBBYISTS
  Addendum of Public Record: Most Campaign 
  Contributions by Private Interest
  From the 9th Legislative Session of the Senate 
  of the Jovian Republic
  <With additional notes from Damasso 
  Contreras, Titanian independent journo>
  CENTRO PARA EL DESARROLLO 
  DE RECURSOS
  <The CDR represents most of the major mining 
  interests in Jovian space and is the second larg-
  est private employer in the Junta after arms 
  manufacturing. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they’re 
  mostly focused on getting the Junta to bankroll 
  more exploration and extraction projects. What 
  tends to confuse most outsiders is the weight 
  they throw in supporting long range patrols and 
  border security, until you realize that it’s these 
  kinds of patrols that often interdict and seize 
  Consortium comets and asteroids under propul-
  sion from farther out.>
  INSTITUTE FOR FINANCIAL 
  SECURITY
  <Most banks and bankers in the Junta probably 
  wish they were with the rest of their parasitic ilk 
  on Luna or Mars. The native financial establish-
  ment throws a lot of money around but doesn’t 
  get much service for all of their cash—probably 
  because they’re interested in trade liberalization 
  with the Consortium, something the rest of the 
  Jovian establishment isn’t too keen on.>
  JOVIAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
  <The JCC are the guardians of the old economy. 
  They support government protection of private 
  property rights, with an emphasis on intellectual 
  property. They successfully argue that tech-
  nologies which enable IP infringement must be 
  outlawed and restricted to protect the Republic’s 
  financial security.> 
  n
  
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  JUPITER
  41
  GENERAL ADAM WESTMORELAND,  
  SPACE FORCE COMMANDER
  Westmoreland heads the Jovian Space Force, the most 
  formidable military fleet in the solar system. He is 
  also one of the key voices in the determinist faction, 
  believing the Republic is destined to prevail in the 
  long run, should they just concentrate on protecting 
  themselves and weathering the storms. Westmoreland 
  is known to have large personal stakes in several 
  major mining and energy corporations within 
  the Republic.
  GENERAL SERGIO CAUAS,  
  CIVIL DEFENSE CORPS COMMANDER
  Cauas is in charge of protecting Jovian habitats and 
  other physical assets, which he takes exceptionally 
  seriously. If you want to blame someone for the 
  periodic emergency readiness drills that all Jovians 
  suffer through, Cauas is your man. The CDC manages 
  external habitat defensive installations, civilian 
  policing duties, and the military courts that handle 
  all criminal matters within the Republic. Cauas is a 
  devout Catholic and a close friend of the Pope.
  DIRECTOR ZANE MCFARLANE, 
  INTELLIGENCE COMMANDER 
  McFarlane has the distinction of being the only 
  council member not in his original body, as he egocast 
  to the Jupiter system one year before the Fall. A CIA 
  field analyst, McFarlane was responsible for gathering 
  intelligence on rival military outposts around Jupiter. 
  His work undoubtedly helped decide the outcome 
  of the Seventeen-Minute War. Currently, he is one of 
  the most feared men in the Republic, as his Security 
  Council Intelligence (SCI) agents have eyes and ears 
  throughout Jovian society, alert to any hint of sedition 
  or super-empowering technology. His current priority 
  is rooting out the Jovian Anarchist Cells. SCI is also in 
  charge of the Republic’s media restrictions and censor-
  ship, so it often plays a defining role in current Jovian 
  political discourse.
  DIRECTOR MARCELO VASENA, CHIEF OF OPERATIONS
  Vasena oversees the logistics for the Security Council’s 
  subdivisions. He is in charge of training operations 
  for the Space Force, CDC, and SCI, ensures the readi-
  ness of all active and reserve personnel, and manages 
  resources and distribution. This includes oversight of 
  the Republic’s spaceyards, arms manufacturing, and 
  toll collection systems. Vasena served as a former 
  aide to the President of Colombia before the Fall. His 
  control over military contracts with Republic corpo-
  rations makes him an influential and popular figure. 
  Vasena is also the leader of the expansionist faction, 
  pointing out frequently that not having complete 
  control of Jovian space is a risk to the Republic.
  DIRECTOR WENDY GILDER, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER
  The former CEO of the Rand Corporation, Gilder was 
  brought onto the Security Council to spearhead the 
  need money and influence. What this means in prac-
  tical terms is that only causes backed by corporations, 
  the wealthy elites, or widespread public support have 
  a chance. 
  The way the lobbyists see it, we’d forgotten how to 
  run the government on our own, and they may have a 
  point. At the most basic level, most people only want 
  a few things: security, shelter, and sustenance. The 
  Security Council already had the security racket sewed 
  up, but the other two, well, your average politico has 
  no idea where their food comes from or how they get 
  home at the end of the night. So we struck a bargain 
  with the lobbyists of the various important employers 
  and interests that were already in the system and 
  those that sprung up afterwards offering to serve the 
  various needs of the Republic. 
  THE SECURITY COUNCIL
  The Jovian Security Council is the apex of power in 
  the Republic. Though they nominally leave gover-
  nance and legislative matters to the senate and gover-
  nors, there is no question that the Security Council’s 
  word is law. They provide lip service to democracy, but 
  claim authority in all matters regarding the Republic’s 
  security—and these days, you can make almost 
  anything a security matter if you phrase it right.
  The Council’s location, meetings, decision arrange-
  ments, and operations are protected by a veil of 
  secrecy. Analysis from information gleaned over the 
  years indicates that the Security Council currently has 
  seven members, each with a specific purview.
  GENERAL MONICA CONTRERAS, COMMANDER IN CHIEF
  A colonel in the Chilean Space Force, Contreras 
  became the ranking officer in the Jovian theater when 
  a bizarre accident claimed the life of her predecessor 
  in the last few months of the Fall. By all accounts, 
  Contreras was the primary architect of the plan to 
  unite the military units around Jupiter, stage a coup, 
  and establish the Security Council. An atheist and 
  former political moderate, she is wholeheartedly dedi-
  cated to preserving a future for humanity. In her view, 
  a strong military force and strict control of dangerous 
  technology take priority over all other concerns. She 
  is often quoted as saying that humanity is at war for 
  its own survival as a species, and so the Jovian people 
  must make sacrifices for their common cause.
  GENERAL GAVIN BROWN, VICE COMMANDER 
  Son of a wealthy American political family, none of 
  whom survived the Fall, General Brown was in charge 
  of space assets defending numerous key assets in 
  Earth orbit, almost all of which were destroyed by the 
  TITANs. Upon hearing of the founding of the Jovian 
  Republic, and seeing that the American government 
  and military had collapsed, Brown defected to the 
  Jovians and quickly wormed his way onto the council, 
  even replacing the previous vice commander as 
  second in command. Though non-religious, he holds a 
  vigorous bioconservative stance.
  
  42
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  TAHI
  To: <Firewall Proxy Node 4378949998>
  From: <encrypted>
  While the Security Council has its own intelligence 
  service, it’s worth noting that they farm out the most sensi-
  tive jobs to one of the more influential lobbying groups, the 
  Terrestrial Ancestral Heritage Institute. While it may seem 
  strange that a lobbying group handles the blackest of the 
  black ops for the Junta, this becomes less weird once one 
  looks at TAHI’s membership: almost entirely highly ranked 
  and trusted former military officers. TAHI is the Security 
  Council’s ace in the hole against a coup from within, a 
  place where their top and most loyal followers are placed 
  out of sight of senate oversight to conduct, in the shadows, 
  the work necessary to keep the Republic going.
  A holdover from various military and cultural preser-
  vationist think tanks from Earth, the TAHI people are well 
  funded and well connected and are not at all happy with 
  the current state of affairs. TAHI has recently started a 
  campaign to shift internal tensions within Junta culture 
  by rewriting the curriculum at the service academies 
  and becoming more active in advocating for policy that 
  places the blame for social problems on several senators 
  that have been leading a vocal reform wing. Specifically, 
  they’re placing the blame for our rather sad state not on 
  our refusal to modernize and adopt more widespread use 
  of maker and resleeving technology, but because these 
  senators have been complicit in “consorting with transhu-
  manity.” They’ve also become involved in stopping some of 
  the ongoing investigations into the Spear of Longinus and 
  may be using the group to act against opponents in a more 
  direct, but deniable manner.
  While the Junta doesn’t generally tolerate many trans-
  humans, there are a few within Republic habitats. TAHI has 
  been stirring up resentment against these people that has 
  resulted in several incidents of violence. They use these 
  incidents to further attack the senate’s reluctance to allow 
  for mandatory incarceration or detention of non-persons 
  and point out that these modified people pose a threat to 
  the Republic. 
  This may not sound all that surprising until you consider 
  that many members of TAHI use extensive nanomods 
  and keep backups stashed in out-of-the-way places. They 
  foster a deliberate double standard: advanced technology 
  is suitable for the elite and powerful but best kept out of 
  the hands of the average citizen or civilian. While most of 
  my fellow intelligence operatives are well trained and suit-
  ably equipped to compete with our transhuman adversaries, 
  TAHI agents are even more likely to have makers, top-of-
  the-line modified morphs, and advanced bio-mods. They 
  are often called upon to serve lengthy stays outside of the 
  Junta as sleeper agents.
  The most disturbing aspect of TAHI, however, is their 
  interest in the Watts-MacLeod strain. They’ve liberated 
  several of the core researchers that worked on the Futura 
  project and tasked them with figuring out how the Lost 
  generation ended up with such a high rate of Watts-
  MacLeod expression and whether these results are repli-
  cable or even possible to induce in a full-grown adult. 
  
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  JUPITER
  43
  all outside traffic, effectively creating a bubble of space 
  that is actively protected and owned by the Republic.
  HAWKS
  As their name implies, the hawks support active 
  engagement with the transhuman threat lingering 
  outside of the Republic’s borders. They argue—
  somewhat convincingly—that the Republic is rapidly 
  being outpaced by the competition. Where trans-
  human technology develops exponentially, Jovian 
  technological progress is a cautious trickle. Where 
  transhumans can clone and fork and manufacture 
  pods and synthmorphs, the Republic breeds slowly. 
  Within a few decades, they believe that the Republic 
  will have no chance of standing up to a transhuman 
  offensive. The Republic’s only salvation in their view 
  is to act now, to strike while they have a military 
  advantage, and seize the solar system for humanity. 
  RECLAIMERS
  The reclamation of Earth strikes a deep chord within 
  the Jovian psyche. The Church plays a significant role in 
  this. Having emerged from the Fall decimated in terms 
  of followers but with most of their finances intact, they 
  are a major funder of reclaimer causes throughout 
  the solar system. They are particularly in support of 
  missions that show a chance of rescuing survivors from 
  Earth, since most of their flock didn’t make it offworld.
  REFORMISTS
  The reformists take a liberal stance on technology 
  and development. Though they also encourage safety, 
  security, and the precautionary principle, they argue 
  that the Republic is cautious to the point of being 
  a detriment to the well-being of its citizens. They 
  propose a liberalization of certain technologies, 
  particularly those that would improve healthcare, 
  counter poverty, and eliminate death. Foremost 
  among their causes is legalizing cortical stacks 
  and backups for everyone. Though vilified by the 
  entrenched bioconservatives and still a minority, the 
  reformists have grown rapidly and significantly in the 
  past few years, in part due to support from corpora-
  tions that find current government tech development 
  standards too restrictive. Reformist activists have been 
  attempting unsuccessfully to gather more widespread 
  support from the Republic’s large and impoverished 
  underclass, but most of the Republic’s proles are more 
  preoccupied with their fear of transhumanity.
  POWER, GRAVITY, AND MIGHT
  The Republic is infamous for its “slingshot toll 
  booths,” but there is much more to keep an eye on 
  regarding the Republic’s dealings in the region.
  SLINGSHOT TOLLS
  The Republic demands a toll from any vessel that 
  makes use of Jupiter’s gravity well for a slingshot or 
  aerobraking maneuver—or any other craft that passes 
  through Jovian space, for that matter. The toll rate is 
  Republic’s policies on all issues relating to technology, 
  including economics, manufacturing, healthcare, and 
  computer systems. Gilder’s office has a close relation-
  ship with CBEAT. 
  JOVIAN FACTIONS
  Aside from the military and lobbyists, there are several 
  leading and sometimes competing memes with strong 
  influence in Jovian culture.
  DETERMINISTS
  The determinists take the long view. They believe that 
  transhumanity (specifically meaning all non-Jovians) 
  is doomed to either wipe itself out, whether from out-
  of-control technology or civilizational dysfunction, 
  or that it will transmutate into something so beyond 
  human that it no longer becomes relevant. They take 
  the position that the Republic should strengthen 
  its defenses, bunker down, isolate itself as much as 
  possible, and simply wait for the transhumans to go 
  away. Once the threat has passed, humanity will be 
  safe to reclaim the solar system, retake Earth, and 
  rebuild civilization the right way. They argue for a 
  slow and steady tech development, defensive buildup, 
  and isolation to avoid potentially infectious memes. 
  They oppose expansionist plans as too risky.
  EXPANSIONISTS
  The expansionists promote a more pro-active foreign 
  policy, one that would first eliminate nearby security 
  threats and then seek to build a wider defense network 
  through pacification of strategic habitats. Their goal is to 
  completely dominate the Jovian system and then to bar 
  THE THIRD YEAR COUP?
  To: <Firewall Proxy Node 4378949998>
  From: <encrypted>
  If some sources are to be believed, Vice 
  Commander Davis did not quietly retire from 
  the Security Council. They claim Davis actually 
  attempted his own coup against Contreras 
  three years after the Republic was formed. I 
  have found no evidence to support this, but fully 
  believe that such an incident would be buried 
  deeply out of sight so as not to undermine 
  the Security Council’s omnipotence. Certainly 
  it is true that Davis is the only original council 
  member to have departed, and he seems to have 
  done so suddenly and without fanfare. One day 
  he was there, the next Brown held the position. 
  Davis’s complete absence from the public sphere 
  ever since gives the theory some credibility, but 
  there could be other explanations.
  I’ve heard one counter-theory: Davis wasn’t 
  a coup mastermind, but a deep-cover exsurgent, 
  finally exposed. Make of that what you will. 
  
  44
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  and most well-equipped fleet in the system, hosting 
  numerous dreadnoughts, battleships, and destroyers, 
  along with uncounted numbers of frigates, patrol craft, 
  and smaller ships. They rely heavily on actual pilots 
  and human personnel, using limited slave AIs only for 
  specific tasks. All systems are hardwired and hardened, 
  leaving minimal opportunities for mesh-based intru-
  sions. CDC and Space Force ground/boarding units 
  rely heavily on teleoperated drones, exoskeletons, and 
  cybernetic enhancements rather than combat/security 
  bots. Active service personnel are given an option to 
  backup before authorized missions; career officers are 
  commonly equipped with cortical stacks. Both units 
  make use of specialized morphs for specific combat 
  roles. Of all service personnel, SCI agents are granted 
  the most leeway for using advanced technologies, given 
  their need to infiltrate and access our transhuman rivals. 
  ENEMIES, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC
  The Republic endures. This common greeting between 
  citizens reflects the single most significant tenet of the 
  Republic: endurance in the face of the ravening hordes 
  of transhumanism. The rest of the system may disagree 
  a bit with this characterization, since I’m fairly certain 
  at least a few of our enemies hardly consider us an 
  opponent at all, at least when they bother to think 
  of us. The prevailing mentality within the Republic, 
  however, is one of a constant state of siege. We see 
  enemies everywhere, and are constantly on the lookout 
  for those who would destroy our way of life.
  THE AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  Adhering to a policy of keeping your enemies close, our 
  official stance towards the Titanian Commonwealth is 
  one of cautious détente. We have received an official 
  embassy from them, and sent our own, but relations 
  are anything but cordial. The Security Council views 
  the Titanians as the foremost threat to the Republic. 
  They believe that the Titanians have the right combi-
  nation of proximity, technology, and ideology to pose 
  a serious problem for us if they were ever to make a 
  concerted move. Therefore, the vast preponderance of 
  our covert and intelligence capabilities are focused on 
  understanding and undermining the Titanians. I very 
  much fear, however, that the Security Council will 
  never fully understand what it is they are up against. 
  To us, the Titanians are a threat to our very way of life, 
  a cosmic threat to the order of the universe, and the 
  closest thing to the Devil most Jovians are ever likely 
  to encounter unless the TITANs come again. But to the 
  Titanians? We’re a minor irritant. A backwards collec-
  tion of throwbacks barely managing to keep ourselves 
  alive in a universe that doesn’t care one way or another 
  about us. We barely register, and when we do it’s not 
  because they’re afraid of us, it’s because they worry 
  about our people and want to help. Offers of assistance 
  are regarded with suspicion, however; most Titanian 
  aid is either destroyed or warehoused until the proper 
  military authorities can go over it and make sure it’s 
  clean. That, in a nutshell, captures so many of the 
  based on mass and ships are expected to declare their 
  cargo, with certain dangerous materials and technologies 
  banned or subject to increased rates. Most hypercorp 
  merchants account for the tax and pay it in advance 
  through a customs account with the Republic to ensure 
  no problems. Unregistered ships picked up by Jovian 
  sensors are pinged and asked to file a customs form 
  and pay up. Occasionally, Jovian Space Force ships will 
  match velocity and demand to board for cargo inspec-
  tions. Those that refuse to pay are seized or destroyed. 
  There have been numerous complaints and diplomatic 
  objections filed with the Republic over the years for 
  alleged improper cargo seizures, mostly falling upon 
  deaf ears. For those with secret cargoes or a dislike of 
  the Republic, numerous smugglers and blockade runners 
  specialize in sneaking craft past the Republic’s gaze.
  MINING AND POWER
  The mineral resources of Jupiter’s many moons are a 
  source of wealth for a number of Jovian-based corpo-
  rations; the Republic forbids outside entities from 
  extracting resources within its boundaries. Gas mining is 
  also practiced, but the challenges in dealing with Jupiter’s 
  radiation, gravity well, and turbulent atmosphere leave 
  this industry to a handful of high-risk specialist corps. 
  In recent years, the Republic has benefited from 
  its growing electrodynamic tether program. Four of 
  the inner-most minor moonlets were de-orbited and 
  equipped to drag superconductive tethers through 
  Jupiter’s magnetosphere, producing massive amounts 
  of power. These stations beam power by laser to 
  Jovian habitats and ships around the system, profit-
  ably including several non-Republic stations. Creating 
  and establishing these tethers within the magneto-
  sphere is a risky endeavor, but one treated as a point 
  of national pride, with the life-risking engineers 
  regarded as heroes in the Republic’s media feeds.
  ANTIMATTER FACTORY
  The flux tube produced by Io’s interaction with 
  Jupiter’s magnetosphere provides a perfect source 
  of power for the Republic’s antimatter facility there. 
  This factory is the primary source of antimatter for 
  the Space Force’s antimatter drives and is heavily 
  defended given its strategic value.
  PROTECTORATE HABITATS
  The Jovian Republic extends protection status to 
  a number of city-state habitats in the region. These 
  protectorate colonies are not extended complete 
  privileges: they do not have representation within 
  the senate and their residents are counted as civilians 
  (unless they opt for military service, as some do). They 
  are expected to pay taxes and adhere to the Republic’s 
  major laws and policies, however, and most host a 
  CDC garrison and see regular Space Force patrols. 
  MILITARY CAPABILITIES
  The extent of Jovian military capabilities is classified, of 
  course, but it is clear that their Space Force is the largest 
  
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  JUPITER
  45
  lack the resources to launch a serious attack. For now, 
  they grind their teeth and bow and scrape and hope 
  they’ll be able to sweet talk us into a slight reduc-
  tion while we bleed them dry and take what we want, 
  when we want, from their ships as a reminder of who 
  really calls the shots in our relationship.
  CRIMINAL INTERESTS
  Even in the Republic, we have our share of criminal 
  malcontents. The senators like to pretend that this 
  is a problem primarily for civilians, fueled by the 
  fact that most serious criminal offenses will get a 
  citizen stripped of citizenship. We still have quite a 
  few citizens with shady ties, however, who somehow 
  manage to keep their records clean but show up as 
  regular persons of interest in CDC investigations. 
  The biggest cut for the organized criminal syndicates 
  is in contraband tech. Even though we don’t allow it, 
  that doesn’t stop people with the money or the connec-
  tions from wanting things that will make them live 
  longer, be healthier, or let them forget their worries for 
  a while. Most of the criminal activity is run through a 
  handful of local gangs, most of whom were involved 
  with drugs back on Earth, and some with connections 
  to inner system cartels and Extropian smugglers. Some 
  gangs also run more standard protection and rack-
  eteering scams among the civilians.
  JOVIAN ANARCHIST CELLS
  This group of anarchist freedom fighters is considered 
  the biggest internal threat to the Republic. Rumors 
  persist about their sources of funding, gear, and 
  training—almost all of them pointing back at various 
  Autonomist Alliance interests. Branded domestic 
  terrorists by the government, they are reviled by 
  the majority bioconservative population since their 
  operatives tend to target military, state, and religious 
  institutions. With the exception of military targets, 
  whom they regard as fair game given a declared state 
  of war, the JAC tries to avoid civilian and citizen casu-
  alties by sending warnings ahead of bombings. They 
  lost a significant portion of their popular support, 
  however, when some of their bomb attacks resulted 
  in dozens of permanent deaths. The cells claim in two 
  of these instances that they issued warnings that the 
  CDC deliberately did not pass on, and state that the 
  others were false flag operations conducted to further 
  discredit their cause.
  Rumors put the number of active JAC members at 
  no more than four or five dozen, but the support they 
  have in terms of advanced technology means they are 
  able to project a disproportionate amount of force. 
  In the past, they have attempted to use this techno-
  logical advantage to bolster their standing amongst 
  the civilian population by providing maker access to 
  many poorer Jovians. However, by order of the senate 
  three years back, anyone found in possession of an 
  unlicensed maker can now be charged with treason 
  and executed. As a result, the already paltry support 
  the JAC enjoyed has been whittled away.
  problems with the Republic. Even those who would be 
  potential friends we make into enemies, cannibalizing 
  our own well-being to feed our twisted paranoia.
  The Security Council has mixed thoughts on 
  the other autonomist factions. Given the degree of 
  propaganda about them, you would think that the 
  autonomists are on the brink of bringing down the 
  Republic, that their operatives had wormed their way 
  into nearly every nook and cranny of our society, that 
  they were killing thousands each week and corrupting 
  our youth into wild-eyed radicals. That’s the thing 
  with propaganda, it doesn’t have to be particularly 
  truthful, it just needs to get people riled up and 
  worried about the things you want them worried 
  about. The Security Council is very much interested 
  in keeping the Jovian population from being attracted 
  to autonomist ideals, anti-authoritarianism, and the 
  idea of public access to nanofabrication. Countering 
  autonomist memes is one of the main operations of 
  the SCI. Some aspects of the Council are also seriously 
  concerned about the potential for super-empowering 
  and self-replicating technological threats emerging 
  from unregulated anarchist labs. The idea that anyone 
  can create a biowar plague, seed AI, or nanovirus 
  without oversight is simply terrifying to our mindset.
  On the other hand, a significant portion of the 
  Security Council feels the anarchist threat will take 
  care of itself, one way or another. For a decade 
  now various policy groups have been predicting the 
  collapse of the alliance, widespread defections from 
  autonomist habitats, or a civil war between anarchist 
  factions. Keeping in mind that few Jovians have ever 
  met an anarchist or visited any of their habitats—or, 
  for that matter, even have a solid grasp on how the 
  various autonomist factions operate—I find these 
  speculations highly improbable. 
  THE INNER SYSTEM POWERS
  As the most widespread polity in the solar system, 
  and given the ideological differences, the Planetary 
  Consortium is treated as a serious rival. While we 
  may consider the Consortium an enemy, my under-
  standing is that they do not hold us in the same 
  regard. Like the Commonwealth, the Consortium has 
  official diplomatic representation on Liberty. Unlike 
  the Commonwealth, the Consortium embassy makes 
  great efforts at wooing top government officials. 
  For the Consortium, we are the source of much lost 
  revenue in the taxes and tariffs we levy on their ships 
  and in our interdiction of Europa and the profitable 
  research located there.
  For now, the Consortium is all sweetness and honey, 
  trying to sell us CBEAT-approved technologies that 
  we could use to strengthen our position in exchange 
  for preferential trade status and a reduction in the fees 
  we levy. The Security Council sees right through this 
  and knows that the only real advantage we have is our 
  strategic position and the money it allows us to shake 
  out of the much wealthier Consortium. We also know 
  that Consortium threats to use force ring hollow; they 
  
  46
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  security at the Castle is among the strictest in Jovian 
  space; only a single dedicated shuttle ferry from 
  Liberty Station is allowed to approach the station 
  through the rings of defensive killsats. These shuttle 
  rides are a nightmare of security protocols, with the 
  average trip taking up to eight hours, with only two 
  hours of transit time, due to numerous screenings, 
  scans and interviews of each and every passenger.
  LIBERTY
  Liberty is a habitat in two parts. Liberty City, on the 
  surface of Ganymede, and Liberty Station, built into 
  an asteroid in geosynchronous orbit above. Prior to 
  the Fall, construction had begun on a space elevator 
  to connect the two, but after witnessing the fate of 
  the space elevators on Earth the Republic decided to 
  halt construction and convert the materials already 
  invested into further ship building. 
  Liberty City is buried a quarter of a klick under the 
  surface of Ganymede, to better shield it both from the 
  inhospitable conditions on the icy surface and the harsh 
  radiation of Jupiter. A series of massive warrens carved 
  into the moon’s icy mantle houses the main urban areas 
  of the colony, surrounded by kilometers of tunnels and 
  smaller chambers. It connects to the surface via a series 
  of vents, elevators, and a well-used shuttle launch 
  corridor hacked out of the moon’s crust. Numerous 
  recreational armored dome parks dot the surface. 
  The capital of the Republic, Liberty City is home to 
  the senate, and the center for most major industries 
  and interest groups who hope to have a say in the 
  running of the Republic. Numerous massive under-
  ground factories and farms produce material goods 
  and food for the populace in addition to military 
  gear such as exoskeletons and armaments. The city 
  is also home to some of the Republic’s largest and 
  most crime-ridden slums, pushed far out of sight in 
  the remote tunnels and warrens. 
  Liberty Station floats in orbit above the city like a 
  giant mutated spider shedding fleas. Kilometers of 
  shipyard spars jut from the central asteroid where the 
  actual station itself is housed. In addition to the dozens 
  of ships being built or refitted, there is usually an esti-
  mated quarter of the total Space Force fleet present at 
  the station or within a few hours’ distance at any given 
  time. Liberty Station security is entirely under the Space 
  Force’s authority; the CDC has no jurisdiction here.
  Traffic between the surface and the station, as well 
  as other points in the Jupiter system, is one of the 
  busiest in the entire solar system in terms of overall 
  craft. Liberty Space Control prides itself on the high 
  level of skill and low level of automation that goes 
  into making it all run smoothly. 
  THE HOLY SEE
  The habitat purchased by the Roman Catholic Church 
  In Exile to establish their New Vatican is a large 
  asteroid towed into orbit around Ganymede. Using 
  a design similar to other Reagan cylinders but with 
  vastly improved internal life support, the Holy See is 
  THE SPEAR OF LONGINUS 
  A recent concern for the CDC, the Spear of Longinus 
  is a vigilante group that claims the senate and the 
  governors don’t do enough to protect the Republic 
  from immoral influences, especially among the civil-
  ians. They have begun to take more direct measures 
  to address these failings. Specifically, they point to 
  sources of corruption such as families without any 
  members in active military service, neighborhoods 
  and residences where known biomodificationists live, 
  or where suspected transhumanist sympathizers live. 
  Additionally, they have targeted labs and biomedical 
  research facilities that use shackled AI and licensed 
  advanced nanotech in their experiments. Until recently, 
  they contented themselves with night-time beatings 
  and vandalism, but recently they attacked a research 
  lab in Amalthea and killed four research assistants. 
  Unfortunately for the CDC, many Jovians see the Spear 
  as patriotic and faithful members of the Republic; few 
  are willing to assist in their apprehension.
  JOVIAN MOONS AND HABITATS
  The Republic claims direct control over dozens of 
  habitats, the majority of which can be found in or 
  around Ganymede, Io, and the moonlets and rings 
  close to Jupiter itself. On Europa, Callisto and else-
  where in the system, independent habitats still thrive.
  AMALTHEA (SOLANO)
  Considered the nicest of the Reagan cylinders, Amalthea 
  is a focal point for Security Council R&D. CBEAT, 
  RAND Corporation, and numerous defense contracting 
  corporations and think tanks are headquartered here. 
  Given the nature of the work done here and the prestige 
  of many of its residents, security on Amalthea is even 
  stricter than usual and civilians and non-persons are 
  rarely allowed. Nevertheless, Amalthea has suffered a 
  string of terrorist attacks over the past few years, putting 
  significant pressure on the current governor.
  GANYMEDE
  The largest moon in the solar system, Ganymede is 
  bigger than the planet Mercury. It is tidally locked, 
  with one side facing Jupiter. It is the most heavily 
  colonized body in Jovian space; all of its colonies are 
  either part of the Republic or under its protection. 
  THE CASTLE
  Officially the repository of all important statistical and 
  economic data archived in the Republic, it is a poorly 
  concealed secret that the Castle acts as the central 
  collection and analysis point for Security Council 
  Intelligence. All mesh traffic, surveillance systems, 
  habitat security data, and media feeds are channeled 
  here to be analyzed, classified, censored, and filed 
  away for future use. The Castle itself is something of a 
  throwback since they eschew AI-driven data analysis 
  programs. In fact, the bulk of the work is conducted 
  by actual human analysts. In orbit around Ganymede, 
  
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  JUPITER
  47
  military service. Hyoden’s leadership remained one of 
  the few city-states to refuse the Republic’s overtures 
  and offers of protection. Fears of forced annexation 
  pushed the Hyoden Settlement and Trade Committee 
  to increasingly militarize their society and adopt a 
  defensive posture toward the Republic.
  Today, Hyoden is an independent and cosmopolitan 
  transitional economy outpost of transhumanism. Aside 
  from Europa, it is one of the few places to find uplifts, 
  AGIs, and autonomists in the otherwise bioconserva-
  tive Jovian system. Under Hyoden’s new social order, 
  all citizens (either those reaching the age of majority 
  or those successfully applying for citizenship) are 
  obligated to perform a six-year military term before 
  earning the right to legally fork or have offspring. 
  This means that almost every citizen is fully trained in 
  combat procedures and remains armed well after their 
  obligatory term of service expires. All citizens not in 
  the active military are assigned a militia based on the 
  residential district in which they live. In the event that 
  the Junta chooses to adopt an aggressive approach, 
  Hyoden is ready. The city itself is studded with anti-air 
  and anti-space weaponry, and clusters of missile silos 
  around the city imply, if not explicitly state, that 
  Hyoden is ready to use interlunar weaponry if need 
  be. Should the Jovian Republic come to the colony’s 
  doorstep, Hyoden’s own military creation, the fenrir 
  morph, stands guard. A multi-ego morph that is akin to 
  a tank, the fenrir hosts a devastating array of weaponry 
  and can easily take on multiple opponents at once.
   GERDR
  Gerðr, a prosperous city-state in and below the central 
  impact pit of the Tindr crater, is a model of the Jovian 
  Republic protectorate. It pays taxes regularly, obeys 
  all Jovian laws (even the ones that nobody else does), 
  and professes to share the same ideology. The meager 
  industrial takings from the myriad mines below the 
  surface are shuttled to the Jovian Republic’s collectors 
  on time, every time. The Jovian Republic’s CDC and 
  SCI secret police stalk through the streets of Gerðr 
  not very impressive on the outside but is one of the 
  most opulent Jovian habitats to view from the inside. 
  Nearly as much a museum as the headquarters for a 
  state in exile, the Church has been very successful in 
  recovering or rescuing a number of historical artifacts, 
  most of which have made their way to the New Vatican 
  for display and preservation. The habitat is a major 
  site for pilgrims to visit from around the solar system. 
  Though established as an independent station, the 
  Holy See is considered a protectorate of the Republic.
  IO
  Io’s hazardous, volcanic, irradiated surface is less than 
  ideal for regular settlements. It is, however, home to 
  several key research installations, the Space Force’s 
  orbital antimatter factory, and the maximum security 
  Maui Patera Rehabilitation Center, the prison housing 
  the Junta’s most severe criminals and political dissi-
  dents. One of the most heavily fortified facilities away 
  from Ganymede, the worst of the Junta’s political pris-
  oners are shuttled here and forced to process volcanic 
  byproducts in incredibly dangerous conditions. The 
  famed dissident Aleksandr Denisovich spent eight years 
  inside Maui Patera and his exposé, the Ionian Labors, 
  discredited almost all of the Jovian propaganda about 
  the facility. To this day, the Jovian Republic consider 
  him one of the most wanted men in the solar system. 
  He is presumed to be in hiding in the outer system.
  CALLISTO
  One of the most heavily cratered object in the solar 
  system, Callisto is a rocky, barren haven, far from the 
  heart of the Jovian Republic. The furthest of the Galilean 
  satellites and the one subject to the least amount of 
  radiation, Callisto is dotted with city-states on and 
  beneath the surface. While all are under the ostensible 
  protection of the Jovian Republic, some are embraced 
  by the Junta and others are considered a perpetual thorn 
  in their side. The largest of these, Hyoden, is seen as 
  an up-and-coming challenger to the Jovian stranglehold 
  on Jupiter and its moons, while the leaders of another, 
  Gerðr, fight for the hearts and minds of its people.
  HYODEN
  Hyoden’s population of about two million people was 
  barely a hundredth of that ten years ago, as the station 
  was stricken with labor shortages and poor supply 
  lines from the inner system. Then the Fall occurred, 
  and refugees that found a hostile reception in the inner 
  system sought refuge in Jovian space. Not all of the 
  refugees found the newly founded Republic’s ideology 
  appealing; Hyoden welcomed these exiles with open 
  arms, if not open hearts. Hyoden, formerly a humble 
  research outpost formed by an alliance of Pacific Rim 
  nations, was transformed into a sprawling metropolis 
  almost overnight. Hyoden was blessed with native 
  raw materials and the industrial base to utilize it, 
  and many of the refugees that arrived as infomorphs 
  were placed in synthetic morphs as soon as they were 
  able, on the condition that they perform a three-year 
  OPERATION VULTURE
  To: <Firewall Proxy Node 4378949998>
  From: <encrypted>
  I’ve just stumbled across a disturbing Security Council opera-
  tion that appears to outline a Republic assault on Hyoden. It is no 
  secret that many in the council viewed Hyoden’s transhuman pres-
  ence as representing the wrong kind of message for other habitats 
  on Callisto and in the Jovian region that are independent-minded. 
  They believe it is time to bring the colony firmly under Republic 
  control. The plan calls for numerous commando teams to infiltrate 
  Hyoden over a matter of months, putting themselves in place to 
  neutralize the station’s defensive and egocasting capabilities in 
  conjunction with a Space Force assault.
  The worrying thing is, there’s no indication whether this is just 
  a potential plan drawn up for contingency reasons or whether the 
  operation is already underway. There may be Jovian commandos 
  in Hyoden as we speak. 
  
  48
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  LIFTING THE VEIL
  Early exploration missions used melter probes to bore 
  through the ice to reach the (then theorized) salt ocean 
  below. These probes were designed to send out remote 
  vehicles for aquatic exploration below the moon’s 
  surface. The first probes sent back nothing but images 
  of a massive, lightless ocean, punctuated only by an 
  occasional “snowfall” of heavy salt-laden ice particles 
  from the inner surface. Those commanding these first 
  missions assumed that the most promising location for 
  non-Earth life was sterile. They were wrong. 
  Over the course of billions of years, life had indeed 
  flourished in the dark depths of Europa’s subcrustal 
  ocean, but it was unlike anything transhumanity had 
  ever experienced. The orders of life present here vary 
  greatly in their life cycles and physiology from those 
  on Earth, but are broadly analogous to bacteria, 
  protozoans, fungi, and animals. The ecological niches 
  occupied by plants on Earth are filled by a combi-
  nation of fungi and lithoderms (coral and sponge 
  analogs). Microscopic lithoderms, analogous to 
  Earth’s coral species, had formed vast mountains and 
  forests of Europan coral throughout the depths. These 
  lithoderms in turn acted as hosts for a form of lichen 
  that grew on the lower reaches of the coral stacks 
  towards the ocean floor. Many of the animal-analog 
  fish have an immature stage in which they resemble 
  fungi before metamorphosing into free-swimming 
  adults. One such is the bolatee, a five-meter long 
  schooling creature that grazes on tiny microkrill with 
  branching masses of tendrils that resemble roots or 
  jellyfish tentacles. While large, mobile, and exhibiting 
  some animal-like behaviors, the bolatee has a rudi-
  mentary nervous system and reproduces with spores. 
  Other notable creatures include the hive-building 
  barrister fish and the voracious mazimus, a 5-meter 
  long viperfish-analog predator capable of attaining 
  swimming speeds in excess of 55 kph and biting 
  through plate steel up to 2 centimeters thick.
  The first transhuman to personally visit the ocean 
  below the surface of Europa was Dr. Penelope 
  Tarrison, a biological oceanographer from the 
  Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Her initial 
  descent occurred in a custom synthmorph designed 
  to withstand aquatic pressures far greater than any 
  experienced on Earth. During a later incursion, she 
  descended to the very ocean “floor,” a dense slush 
  of water ice punctuated by thermal vents and the 
  towering edifices of endolith coral. There, she encoun-
  tered what is thought to be the largest Europan life 
  form, the europus tarrisoni—the Europan leviathan. 
  A sleek, streamlined creature twenty meters in length 
  akin to a vampire squid, it fills the same role as Earth’s 
  whales, screening microscopic and small macroscopic 
  organisms from the ocean for food. 
  LIVING BENEATH THE ICE
  Europa’s transhuman population of 1.5 million lives 
  below the ice, safe from Jupiter’s deadly radiation 
  bombardment. The majority of Europa’s population 
  with ease, ferreting out spies and meme-traitors. The 
  Gerðr Central Planning Council, elected by the people 
  of Gerðr and endorsed by the Jovian Republic, are 
  puppet rulers passing on the words of the Jovian lead-
  ership. Gerðr is a model of Jovian hegemony.
  Not for much longer, perhaps. If the current news 
  is to be believed, the current Planning Council has 
  had a change of heart, given long observation of their 
  neighbors in Hyoden. Documents recently posted to 
  Mesh Leaks indicate that the Planning Council has 
  been secretly debating and putting into place a plan 
  to get the Jovian Republic off their backs once and 
  for all. Though possibly faked, the rumors are now 
  flying, and sources indicate the Security Council has 
  launched an investigation. The leaked accounts raise 
  more questions than they answer, as Gerðr doesn’t 
  appear to have the industrial or military infrastructure 
  to engage the Republic directly, nor is it clear that the 
  population is entirely willing to go along with such a 
  plan. Accusations are already flying that the Planning 
  Council is in league with the Hyoden Settlement and 
  Trade Committee or that they are secretly agents for 
  some other power such as the Titanians. 
  Tensions are rapidly brewing, and it is unclear how 
  the situation will resolve. While a segment of the 
  colony certainly remains in support of the Republic 
  and now calls for the Planning Council to be recalled, 
  there are many other people in Gerðr who are scared, 
  terrified that their neighbor, their brother, or their 
  lover is a Jovian spy, and that the only thing between 
  them and a midnight abduction and an eventual stay 
  at the lovely Maui Patera Rehabilitation Center is 
  silence. Years of repression have taken their toll. The 
  leaked documents may be the spark that lets the fires 
  of revolution flicker into life.
  EUROPA
  Posted by: Gillie Bahasa,  
  Europan Researcher 
   
  <Info Msg Rep>
  The smallest of the four Galilean moons, slightly 
  smaller than Luna, the dirty white marble that is 
  Europa has been an object of fascination for centuries. 
  Flitting around Jupiter in a relatively brief three and 
  a half Earth days. Europa, like Ganymede and Io, is 
  tidally locked, meaning that a single hemisphere faces 
  Jupiter at all times. 
  In frigid juxtaposition to its inner neighbor, Io, 
  Europa boasts an ice crust ranging from ten to thirty 
  kilometers thick. Pockets of liquid water lie trapped 
  within the ice. Below this lies a massive saltwater 
  ocean, over 100 kilometers deep, holding over twice 
  the volume of water as Earth. Europa’s global ocean 
  is cold (water temperatures range from 5 to 15 C) 
  and devoid of sunlight. With the massive layer of ice 
  crushing down upon it, the pressures in this ocean 
  are intense, despite the moon’s low gravity. Even near 
  the surface, the pressure is equivalent to Earth’s deep 
  ocean trenches; at the sea floor itself, hydrostatic 
  pressure ranges from 2,000 to 2,500 atmospheres.
  
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  JUPITER
  49
  lives in bubble warrens, huge spherical excavations in the lower 
  depths of the ice crust. Many of these bubble warrens have popu-
  lations that have outgrown their original infrastructure and are 
  now considered a sort of “old world” compared to the newer 
  “icicle” habitats, huge protrusions of ice jutting from the crust 
  into the cold ocean below. These icicles are hollowed out, often 
  with an accessway to the surface, powered with fusion reactors 
  or large wave turbines that harness Europa’s internal convection, 
  and then transformed into living spaces, laboratories, farms, 
  communal areas, entertainment districts, and more. Icicle habitats 
  offer residents spectacular views out into the Europan ocean’s 
  upper reaches, with the habitat lighting illuminating the ocean 
  and the ice sheet directly above. Other habitats are completely 
  synthetic and rugged enough to withstand anything the Europan 
  ocean can throw at them. These “fishhook” habitats are named for 
  the way they are tethered with heavy cables to the inner surface 
  and deployed into the lightless depths like a hook on a fishing line. 
  Most Europan habitats are split between areas that are pres-
  surized for traditional air-breathing operations and water-filled 
  compartments pressurized to match the depth of the habitat. 
  Biomorphs on Europa come in many flavors, but the most 
  common are aquanauts that have been adapted to Europan pres-
  sures and can transition between the two habitat types without 
  too much difficulty. Other common anthroform morphs are the 
  selkie and mustelid, containing heavy splices of seal and sea otter 
  traits, respectively. Europan dolphin and orca morphs, with their 
  numerous modifications, are also popular, though more limited. 
  Features common to all Europan morphs include fins or flukes, 
  gills or oxygenating respiratory fauna, enhanced digestive 
  systems, adaptability to immense pressure, and resistance to 
  dive-related hazards such as the bends. 
  Transhumans that really prefer the freedom and mobility 
  to explore the Europan depths, however, opt for cetus synth-
  morphs, capable of handling the extreme depths and frigid 
  temperatures with ease. Deeper habitats are almost entirely 
  hydrohabitats, pressurized at the same level as the surrounding 
  ocean. These deep habitats are generally mobile research instal-
  lations, studying the ocean’s icy bottom. Only a fraction of 
  Europa’s ocean floor has been mapped.
  The primary food producers for Europa are the barnacle-like 
  fishing and farming havens that cluster around the very tops of 
  the lithodermic reefs that characterize Europa’s ocean. These 
  barnacle habitats are prefabricated in the larger Conamara or 
  Pwyll warrens and are assembled in place on the target reef. 
  Europan dishes are culturally similar to Japanese, but with a 
  distinct and unique flavor all their own. The Europan razor eel is 
  considered a delicacy in places as far away as the Venusian aero-
  stats, and the failure to culture the razor eel outside the Europan 
  oceans has driven demand for the oily fish.
  Perceptive visitors to the moon will notice a scattering of small 
  geodesic dome habitats on the outer surface of Europa. The 
  majority of these are the futile attempt by the Jovian Republic 
  to establish a presence here, and many have been abandoned due 
  to poor radiation shielding, lack of resupply, or both. The largest 
  surface facilities, and the ones that get noticed, are the elevator 
  heads at Conamara Chaos and further south at the Pwyll crater.
  EUROPAN CULTURE
  Prior to the Fall, a small group of polar scientists and oceanog-
  raphers—mainly from Russia, Japan, Peru, and Indonesia—were 
  
  50
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  THE EUROPAN PARLIAMENT
  Europa is a parliamentary democracy independent 
  of the Jovian Republic, contrary to what the Jovians 
  would have people believe. The Europan Parliament 
  is a multi-party unicameral parliament elected every 
  four years by all registered Europan transhumans over 
  the age of 17. The 120-seat Parliament is based in the 
  Conamara habitat, the capital of the Europan state. 
  Seven political parties have elected officials in the 
  Europan Parliament, with a number of these parties 
  allied with city-states of similar ideology on Callisto.
  CONAMARA CHAOS
  The Conamara Chaos elevator head, situated in the 
  center of the jumbled terrain that bears its name, is 
  the largest surface facility on Europa. It is controlled 
  directly by the Europan Defense Forces under the 
  authority of the Europan Parliament. Through the 
  Conamara Chaos elevator head, reactor mass, indus-
  trial supplies and other vital goods and equipment are 
  the first to establish a permanent presence on 
  Europa at the site of the Conamara elevator head. 
  Colonization was encouraged by the governments of 
  those nations as a way of relieving internal population 
  pressures and making their mark on the solar system. 
  After the Fall, Europa took in a number of infugees 
  and refugees, transforming the moon into a melting 
  pot of cultures.
  Most Europan citizens are either directly involved in 
  or know someone involved in ocean sciences. Since the 
  Fall, watery moons like Europa (and to a lesser extent, 
  Ceres and Enceladus) have been the only locations 
  in the solar system where oceanography is practiced. 
  The vast majority of oceanographers that accompany 
  gatecrashing missions were either Earth-educated or 
  educated at a Europan institution of higher learning. 
  Europans pride themselves on their schooling and 
  reject the Jovian notion that only a privileged few 
  should receive the full benefits of a higher education. 
  All Europans are strongly encouraged to enter an 
  institution of higher learning at the age of majority; 
  collegiate and graduate studies are socialized and free.
  The most popular sport on Europa is a form of 
  aquatic orienteering in which participants must 
  navigate their way through an increasingly difficult 
  course plotted out amongst the lithodermic reefs. 
  There are different morph classes, with the most 
  popular and most widely televised, being the octo-
  morph class. The most successful aquatic orienteers 
  have gone on to prominent media positions in 
  Europan society and politics. Amongst those who 
  reside in air-breathing habitats, ice hockey is still very 
  popular. The Europan Hockey League, once a minor 
  hockey organization, is the largest ice hockey league 
  in the solar system.
  The Europan people do not live in fear of the 
  Jovian Republic, a fact that irritates the Jovian lead-
  ership to no end. A number of terrorist acts during 
  the last parliamentary election, seemingly designed to 
  disrupt the voting process, had the reverse effect and 
  instead steeled the resolve of the Europans to stand up 
  to the Jovian Republic. In this regard, they are jour-
  neying down the path already taken by the city-state 
  of Hyoden on Callisto.
  JOIN THE PARTY!
  The seven Europan political parties are scattered 
  across the political spectrum, but by its very 
  nature as an independent transhuman entity in 
  the shadow of the Jovian Republic, the Europan 
  definition of “conservative” is skewed more to 
  the left than in most places; those that identify 
  with the Junta either relocate to the Republic or 
  take up positions in permanent opposition within 
  the Free Europa Bloc. It should be noted that the 
  Mercurials that caucus with the Blue Bloc are not 
  a single party, but rather a number of indepen-
  dent parliamentarians with a pro-mercurial ide-
  ology. The Open Party does not caucus with any 
  bloc, but chooses to vote with the Blue Bloc on 
  nearly all occasions. 
  THE BLUE BLOC (78 SEATS)
  Parti Europa: +Europan sovereignty 
  +Technoprogressivism +Social welfare; 37 seats
  Solidarity: +Workers’ rights +Uplift rights 
  +Socialism; 23 seats
  Mercurials: +Morphological freedom +Uplift 
  rights +AGI rights; 6 seats
  FREE EUROPA BLOC (30 SEATS)
  Prosperity: +Free Market +Hypercapitalism 
  +Libertarianism; 19 seats
  Common Ground: +Militarism +Self-defense 
  +Bioconservatism; 11 seats
  Jovian Unity Party: +Jovian Republic +Fascism 
  –Europan sovereignty; 4 seats
  INDEPENDENT (12 SEATS)
  Open Party: +Anarchism +Technoprogressivism 
  –Jovian Republic; 12 seats 
  n
  GREEK WHISPERS
  [Incoming Message. Source: Anonymous]
  [Public Key Decryption Complete]
  Word in Conamara is that some morph hacker has developed an aquatic 
  synthmorph that’s good for both the deep dives and the upper ocean. She’s 
  only made a handful of them, and they’re apparently gorgeous—real works 
  of art. The creator of these things is calling them nereids, after the water 
  sprites of Greek mythology. Each morph is named after a specific nereid. 
  They’re highly sought after, especially by those folks who’d want to move 
  about the ocean unnoticed. Nobody knows how to find the creator, though, 
  or how to get one of these babies. Be worth a hell of a lot on the open 
  market, that’s for sure. 
  
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  JUPITER
  51
  transhumans, most of them synthmorphs and info-
  morphs. The small number of biological transhumans 
  in the Compact live below the surface of the moonlets 
  in small, cramped living spaces. The Carme Compact 
  prides itself for riding out the Fall relatively intact and 
  has been an annoyance to the Jovian Republic for 
  some time. The truth of the matter is, though, that the 
  Compact is simply not worth the effort and energy it 
  would take to remove them from the Junta’s sphere of 
  influence, so The Republic allows it to exist.
  CALLIRRHOE
  Callirrhoe, also part of the Pasiphaë group, is an 
  8.5-kilometer-long moonlet that features a relatively new 
  dome habitat at one end. The residents of this habitat are 
  primarily conservative political refugees from Callisto 
  and Europa, having eschewed those relatively trans-
  human-friendly moons for an isolated settlement where 
  they could better embrace the bioconservative ideologies 
  of their new benefactors in the Jovian Republic.
  CARPO
  Carpo is one of the few moons of Jupiter that is in its 
  own group. This irregular moonlet is only about 3 kilo-
  meters in diameter, yet hosts a population of around 
  17,000 transhumans; over 98% of that number are 
  infomorphs and the remainder synthmorphs. The 
  Carpo infomorphs reside in a simulspace designed and 
  managed by an infomorph calling himself Da5id. The 
  simulspace itself is an alternate historical America, 
  in which transhuman ethics and morality are being 
  applied to 1800s sensibilities. Admission is very strict 
  and seemingly completely arbitrary. 
  EUANTHE
  Euanthe, a potato-shaped moonlet about three kilo-
  meters end to end, resides in the Ananke group and 
  as such is tightly regulated by the Jovian Republic. 
  While not part of the Republic itself, Euanthe acts 
  as a toll collector for the Republic in this part of 
  Jupiter’s orbit, and in exchange the Republic allows 
  Euanthe to remain nominally independent. As such 
  the population of Euanthe (around 2,000) is relatively 
  prosperous and clings closely to Republic ideology. 
  HELIKE
  Helike, a moonlet also in the Ananke group, is an 
  abandoned Reagan cylinder about four kilome-
  ters end to end. Shortly after the Fall, a number of 
  powerful Jovian Republic officials fled here with 
  certain unknown items of value, believing the Helike 
  habitat was safe from TITAN activity. Once the group 
  had secured the station from the baffled residents, the 
  entire station decompressed, exposing those inside to 
  open vacuum. Rumors abound as to the cause of the 
  incident and the alleged nature of the items the offi-
  cials were carrying. It is worth noting that the officials 
  all shared a similar ideology within the Republic’s 
  decidedly narrow worldview; a political power-play is 
  one of the more popular theories.
  shuttled to the ocean below via the Conamara habitat 
  on the inner surface. The Jovian Republic levies 
  taxes on all shipments approaching Europa and has 
  occasionally imposed an interdiction when they claim 
  the taxes have not been paid in full—a situation the 
  Europan Parliament has labeled a “protection racket.”
  PWYLL
  The Pwyll crater is another elevator facility much like 
  Conamara Chaos in the sense that the EDF controls it, 
  but it does not punch directly through the ice. Rather, 
  it descends about halfway, and then branches hundreds 
  of kilometers through the ice in a fractal pattern. These 
  tunnels are used to distribute much needed supplies to 
  a number of icicle habitats in the area. Recent shifts 
  in the ice crust around the Pwyll crater have seen a 
  number of habitats cut off from the traditional surface-
  to-ocean supply route; these have had to be supplied 
  by aquatic means. A trio of icicle habitats, nicknamed 
  the Norns, are clustered directly below the Pwyll crater 
  and are the focal point for many of the exploration 
  efforts to map the Europan sea floor. A recent spate 
  of deep sea vessel disappearances and deep hydrohab 
  “incidents” has raised security concerns. 
  THE COURT OF ZEUS
  Posted by: Tio Silencio,  
  Firewall Proxy 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  Over fifty irregular moons are found beyond the 
  inner eight moons of Jupiter, most no more than a 
  few barren kilometers across. Some of them, however, 
  have become home for a number of transhumans or 
  are interesting in their own regard. Many of these are 
  collected into groups with the same orbital character-
  istics (much like asteroid families).
  AOEDE
  A four-kilometer chunk of rock in the Pasiphaë group, 
  Aoede is entirely unremarkable save for a weak radio 
  signal emitted from the moonlet. Unpopulated since 
  the Fall, access to Aoede has been restricted by the 
  Jovian Republic and is enforced by a small group of 
  tethered mini-killsats. Every time the moonlet emerges 
  from Jupiter’s massive magnetotail, the frequency and 
  content of the signal has changed. Recent transmis-
  sions include a part transcription of Shakespeare’s As 
  You Like It, an elderly man’s voice reading the 1989 
  Skokie, IL telephone book, and the audio from the 
  Golden Record of Voyager 1, played in reverse at half 
  speed. Whether this is of transhuman origin, of TITAN 
  design, or something else entirely is known only to the 
  Jovian Republic, and they’re not telling.
  AITNE, KALE, AND TAYGETE
  This trio of moonlets, part of the Carme group, orbit 
  Jupiter in roughly the same time, and comprise the 
  Carme Compact, a micro-commonwealth in the 
  shadow of the Jovian Republic. Between the three 
  moons, the Compact has a population of about 8,000 
  
  4
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  LAGRANGIAN TRANSPORT NETWORK
  This project is attempting to map reliable low-power pathways 
  through the Trojans. n p. 55
  4
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  LAGRANGIAN TRANSPORT NETWORK
  This project is attempting to map reliable low-power pathways 
  through the Trojans. n p. 55
  
  Navigating: Getting around Locus can be confusing for a first-time visitor. n p. 59
  Boister’s Armory: This hab is a research hub for weaponry and anti-TITAN tech. n p. 59
  The Pill Box: The Freeq Collective operates this experimental drug lab. n p. 60
  Teilhard Liu: Author of Doctrines and the key to Locus’s mutual defense pact with the Titanians. n p. 61
  Ana Durruti: This militia organizer has an antagonistic relationship with Firewall. n p. 60
  LOCUS
  The largest cluster habitat ever created by transhumanity.
  ORGANIZATIONS AND CRIME
  Non-anarchist organizations operate within the Trojans, of 
  course … along with outright criminal ones. n p. 64
  Navigating: Getting around Locus can be confusing for a first-time visitor. n p. 59
  Boister’s Armory: This hab is a research hub for weaponry and anti-TITAN tech. n p. 59
  The Pill Box: The Freeq Collective operates this experimental drug lab. n p. 60
  Teilhard Liu: Author of Doctrines and the key to Locus’s mutual defense pact with the Titanians. n p. 61
  Ana Durruti: This militia organizer has an antagonistic relationship with Firewall. n p. 60
  LOCUS
  The largest cluster habitat ever created by transhumanity.
  ORGANIZATIONS AND CRIME
  Non-anarchist organizations operate within the Trojans, of 
  course … along with outright criminal ones. n p. 64
  
  54
  AME INFORMATION
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  OUTER FRINGE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  IMMORTALITY  
  AND THE N-BODY PROBLEM
  Posted by:  
  Hohmann Kontakt, Sentinel 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  Ask a school kid on Mars to program you a simula-
  tion of Jupiter’s Trojans, and they’ll dutifully draw 
  you up a big ellipse with the sun at its center, Jupiter 
  at 90 degrees, and long, tapering blobs of asteroids 
  scattered around the L4 and L5 points at 30 and 150 
  degrees. Long, tapering, static blobs. Thanks, Martian 
  educational system! Our continued autonomy out 
  rimward relies in part on your children sucking at 
  orbital mechanics.
  Now let’s get accurate.
  Choose any of the million asteroids in the great 
  swarms preceding and trailing Jupiter along its orbit. 
  Call it a point mass, m0, among a cloud of hundreds 
  of thousands of other point masses, m1–mn. Starting 
  from where they are in three-dimensional space when 
  you begin your calculation, and also taking into 
  account linear momentum, angular momentum, and 
  gravitational energy, calculate where each of those 
  masses will be a year from now. Ten years from now. 
  100 years from now.
  You can’t.
  Oh, we’ve tried, and one gets some interesting 
  results looking at the problem in a general way or 
  for a few specific asteroids. But collisions, sometimes 
  between two asteroids, sometimes between three or 
  more, create mathematical singularities beyond which 
  the results can’t be generalized. Asteroids librate, 
  slowly changing positions relative to the stable centers 
  of the L4 and L5 points. Sometimes they even form 
  horseshoe orbits that move them, over hundreds 
  of years, from the Trojans to the Greeks and back. 
  Numbers become transcendent; integrating the 
  bodies’ combined positions becomes impossible. A 
  few of the weirder AGIs I’ve met claim to have seen 
  the big picture; I say they are nuts. “Always in motion 
  is the future. Difficult to predict.”
  As with asteroids, so with transhumanity. Back 
  in the age of mortality, a human body didn’t have 
  much time to go beyond the calculable. Even on Mars 
  today, a rather dull set of parameters constrains the 
  differential equation yielding a transhuman ego’s 
  fortunes in life, the integration of its position relative 
  to other transhumans.
  Out here in the Trojans, though, transhuman expe-
  rience flips the bird to the standard predictive models. 
  We have a duration potentially as long as the aster-
  oids themselves, as well as a tricksy capacity to avoid 
  collisions that even those big, immortal space rocks 
  lack. We dodge singularities. We trace tadpole orbits. 
  We range beyond the calculable.
  REGIONS, NEIGHORHOODS,  
  AND LOCAL CULTURES
  First, a quick geography lesson (in case you got your 
  schoolin’ on Mars). The swarm of asteroids preceding 
  Jupiter in its orbit at the L4 point is the Greeks. 
  Trailing Jupiter at the L5 point are the Trojans. The 
  Martian school kid’s approximation of this set up 
  gives you the basic shape of the swarms. Each spans 
  about twenty-six degrees of Jupiter’s orbit, meaning 
  that end to end, each swarm is almost two and a 
  half times the distance from the Earth to the sun in 
  length (2.3 AU) and a bit more than half the Earth-sun 
  distance thick (.6 AU) at its center. 
  Despite the large area, the mass contained within 
  each is only one ten-thousandth of an Earth mass—
  far less than the mass in the Main Belt. For all their 
  richness in terms of supporting transhuman life, the 
  Trojans are mostly empty.
  Aside from librating around the L4 and L5 points, a 
  lot of Trojan objects also have steep inclinations from 
  the plane of the ecliptic. If you look at the plane of 
  Jupiter’s orbit around the sun edge on and then make 
  a cross section of it including both the L4 and L5 
  points, the swarms look like two pairs of parentheses 
  enclosing the hyphen that is Jupiter’s orbit.
  As I said earlier, the positions of individual aster-
  oids over the long run (and even in the near term, 
  in some cases) are hard to predict. However, inhab-
  ited Trojan objects, or at least those whose inhabit-
  ants don’t mind being found, all boast navigational 
  beacons. A ship headed from the inner system to the 
  Greeks might not know exactly where its destination 
  rock will be when it gets there, but the ship can track 
  the asteroid and burn mass to correct its course. By 
  making themselves trackable, known settlements can 
  form stable trade and cultural networks.
  NEIGHBORHOODS
  Where settlements cluster close enough together that 
  regular, physical commerce can take place and lag 
  times are negligible for mesh communications, they’re 
  said to comprise a neighborhood. The physical bound-
  aries of a neighborhood are loosely defined. Usually 
  they’re blobs 250,000 to 2,000,000 kilometers across. 
  In dense areas, neighborhoods may contain dozens of 
  habitats, while in the dispersed areas at the edges of 
  the asteroid swarms, a neighborhood might contain 
  only a handful of stations. Qualities that may define 
  neighborhoods are the languages most commonly 
  spoken, the factions and sub-factions with the greatest 
  4
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  
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  JOVIAN  TROJANS
  55
  THE LAGRANGIAN TRANSPORT NETWORK (LTN)
  Not all of these delicious elements exist in every 
  asteroid, and prospecting in some neighborhoods of 
  the Trojans is difficult. Habs tend to spring up where 
  the harvesting is good, but settling in the prime spots 
  doesn’t always work out. The autonomists, one of 
  the dominant cultures out here, hatched their own 
  solution to this: the LTN.
  Everyone knows about the ITN, the Interplanetary 
  Transit Network (well, just about everyone; again I 
  omit the poor, benighted school children of Mars). 
  The ITN is a series of gravitationally determined 
  pathways along which an object can travel through 
  the solar system using very little energy. It’s slow, 
  but it works. Add some energy to nudge between 
  pathways, and it gets a lot faster.
  The autonomists realized that despite the virtually 
  unpredictable positions of Trojan objects within the 
  L4 and L5 swarms, pathways similar to the ITN must 
  exist within the Trojans. So they ran simulations to 
  guestimate likely starting points for the hypothetical 
  network. Then some autonomists who lived in richer 
  regions of the swarms maneuvered a large number of 
  resource-laden 500-meter asteroids to the hypothet-
  ical starting points, tagged them with transponders 
  inviting anyone to mine them—provided the mining 
  didn’t change the rocks’ trajectories—and turned 
  them loose.
  Not surprisingly, anarchists everywhere loved them 
  for this. The architect of the project, an AGI from 
  Locus named Outward (aka, “the anti-ComEx”) 
  now has sufficient reputation to back just about any 
  project they could dream up. It’ll take decades for 
  Outward’s experiment to prove or disprove itself, 
  but in the meantime, no one is complaining about 
  thousands of tons of free resources drifting through 
  their space. 
  So far, the twisting path followed by asteroids along 
  the LTN conforms pretty closely to the predictions 
  made by Outward and others on the project. Other 
  autonomists have begun to contribute asteroids to 
  the LTN pathways, and a few have even taken up 
  residence on LTN objects. Every rock following the 
  notional LTN sports a beacon, so provided Outward 
  and company got at least a few of the starting points 
  right, in about 150 years we’ll have a complete map 
  of the pathways.
  HEAVY METAL AND GRAVITY
  Metals are tougher to come by. A few asteroids 
  containing heavy elements have been thrown into 
  the LTN—almost too generous an act, if you want 
  my opinion—but demand goes far beyond what that 
  can provide. Beyond the occasional lucky prospector’s 
  strike, most heavy elements arrive in the Trojans from 
  the Main Belt via either Hohmann transfer orbits or 
  the Interplanetary Transit Network.
  Luckily, Belters need water as badly as we need 
  metal, so there’s a brisk trade in whole asteroids 
  between the Main Belt and the Trojan swarms. “And 
  representation among the population, and other 
  aspects of culture.
  The local cultures out here run the gamut. We have 
  big anarcho-syndicalist mining co-ops with multi-
  species populations and as many languages among 
  them as you’d find spoken in a big Lunar city. We have 
  autonomist transportation collectives whose stock 
  in trade runs from passengers and small, precious 
  cargoes up to entire asteroids. We have monolingual 
  authenticist clades like you find on Mars, mercurials 
  of every political stripe, and even the occasional ulti-
  mates outpost.
  Lurking on the fringes, we have some weird 
  neighbors: brinker enclaves that keep completely 
  to themselves and have any number of reasons for 
  doing so, singularitarians and weird scientists doing 
  their research far from where it can hurt anyone (or 
  be discovered), and exhumans who’d just as soon eat 
  you as look at you.
  As much as these neighborhoods are bound 
  together by microcultures, the real determiner of 
  where settlements end up being built is as old as trans-
  humanity: cold, hard physical resources.
  THE HILDAS
  The Trojans and Greeks proper aren’t the only aster-
  oids whose orbits are directly influenced by Jupiter. 
  The Hildas, a group of about 1,100 asteroids, lay 
  just inside of Jupiter’s orbit, locked in a 2:3 orbital 
  resonance (meaning they circle the sun three times for 
  every two orbits Jupiter and the Trojans complete). 
  The Hildas are a lot like the Trojans: icy, rocky, some-
  times carbonaceous, and poor in metals, but they’re 
  much more sparsely inhabited. The main reason for 
  this is that they’re harder to reach by ship. They’re not 
  a swarm that’s coalesced around a stable gravitational 
  point the way the Trojans are, making them costlier to 
  reach in terms of fuel.
  You hear lots of bogeyman stories about this or that 
  asteroid in the Hildas, like the old chestnut that 153 
  Hilda, the asteroid after which the group is named, 
  hosts a major base for exhuman pirates. A lot of these 
  rumors are just loose talk, but there’s some sense to it. 
  The Hildas are definitely a good place to set up shop 
  if you want to be left alone. 
  ICEBERGS, BIG ROCKS,  
  AND LUMPS OF COAL
  The nested roulette wheels of stellar disc accretion and 
  planet formation bestowed upon our reach of space a 
  little bit of everything—except metals. Okay, that’s a 
  bit of an exaggeration. Prospectors with luck and grit 
  (usually both) do discover precious lodes of metals and 
  other heavy elements out here from time to time. What 
  the Trojans and Greeks do not want for are the other 
  elements essential to transhuman sustenance and tech-
  nology: water and other volatiles, carbon, and silicates. 
  
  56
  AME INFORMATION
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  OUTER FRINGE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  engineering. I’ve gotten aboard target habs by 
  replacing someone who was expected to egocast 
  there and taking their intended morph, stowing away 
  aboard a station’s autonomous harvester drones when 
  they went out for groceries, and spoofing the creden-
  tials of a ship that was expected to dock. Showing up 
  in a ship capable of resurfacing its hull to foil visual 
  inspection works well, too.
  Once you have one team member in, it can turn 
  into a waiting game. I once spent a week aboard an 
  exhuman pirate station pretending to be someone 
  called Gristleyknock (exhumans of the predator 
  variety: bad at names). It involved a lot of growling. 
  And offal. I hate offal. Eventually, I found a window 
  of time during which I could accept egocasts of my 
  team and sleeve them in an unguarded med bay.
  Granted, I’ve seen a few feats of ingenuity and 
  some downright crazy stunts result in successful 
  physical infiltrations of isolated habitats. Firewall’s 
  raid on the Song Cai Flower aboard the autonomist 
  courier Kesyrah—a ship equipped with powerful 
  cold gas thrusters—is one example. In that case, 
  though, the space station’s occupants were crazed 
  exsurgents barely capable of operating their own 
  sensor systems.
  Another Firewall team successfully executed a 
  maneuver that was first attempted (unsuccessfully) 
  by the ultimates in their conflict with the exhumans 
  over the Discord Gate. They found a rock that would 
  pass near their insertion point, hid their ship there, 
  and then jumped. Yes: jumped. They gave themselves 
  a push with gas packs, put themselves in medical 
  stasis, and then spent two weeks freefalling at their 
  target. They didn’t miss the target, didn’t get spotted 
  and shot (the ultimates’ fail point when they tried the 
  same), and revived successfully in time to slow them-
  selves down and land on the hull of the target hab. I 
  do not recommend trying it at home.
  Another major operational hazard out this-a-way 
  is that trips to isolated habs are often a one-way 
  ticket. It’s hard to scrub a mission out here if things 
  go wrong—so don’t. In the Trojans, failure is final, at 
  least for the present instance of your ego.
  TROJAN HABITAT TYPES
  Beehives and clusters far outnumber other habitat 
  types in the Trojans. Beehives are an obvious choice 
  with so many asteroids around, but why build clusters 
  instead of cylinders? The reason is that heavy metals 
  are scarce out here. For the amount of metal needed to 
  construct one O’Neill cylinder, you can build a dozen 
  cluster habs with the same amount of usable space. 
  This is because to withstand the forces continually 
  pushing them outward, the hull of a rotating cylinder 
  needs to be much thicker than modules in a cluster 
  hab. At the same time, the Trojans don’t live under 
  the same threat of massive irradiation that habs in 
  Jupiter’s orbit do, so a great deal less shielding is 
  called for.
  to Mars, too?” one might ask. The answer is, “No, 
  not so much.” Mars doesn’t have a lot that we want 
  out here. Long-view preservationists have successfully 
  made the case that trading iceteroids to Mars, just 
  to have them splattered against the Martian ice caps 
  for planetary warming, isn’t a sustainable move for 
  transhumanity. Let the Martians look to the Kuiper 
  Belt if they want to push ice.
  It’s not obvious, but one thing the Trojans do have 
  going for them is gravity. The Junta talk a lot about 
  Jupiter’s slingshot potential as a local resource (one 
  they defend like a complete pack of dickheads, by 
  the way), but you don’t need a gigantic gravity well 
  to benefit from our solar system’s orbital dynamics. 
  The Trojans and Greeks are a major waypoint on 
  the aforementioned Interplanetary Transit Network, 
  and this means a lot of long haul commerce comes 
  through our space. Icepushers from the Kuipers, iron-
  nickel asteroids making their way even farther out 
  system, and other bulk goods that have to move by 
  ship all transfer via the Trojans to avoid paying a tithe 
  to the Junta.
  Unfortunately, this also creates a motive for the 
  Jovians and the inner system powers to occasionally 
  attempt a land grab. The Jovians don’t like trade 
  circumventing them. The hypercorps believe that 
  once they put boosters on an asteroid or comet, they 
  own it. Unfortunately for the corporate sphere’s 
  precious notions about property, autonomists regu-
  larly organize whaling parties—flash mobs that mine 
  an asteroid as it passes through our space without 
  stopping it on its trajectory. The asteroid arrives at 
  its destination, but it arrives a bit light. Hypercorps 
  think this is theft. Well, fuck them. They’ve stolen 
  entire planets.
  We’ve had two real wars in the Trojans, and both 
  resulted from the Consortium and the Jovians trying 
  to make territorial claims out here. To their credit, 
  the Titanians have never tried to do the same—but 
  they got involved in the second conflict, and now they 
  won’t leave. More on that later.
  OPERATING IN THE TROJANS
  Planetary Consortium Oversight’s briefing manual 
  for agents coming out here (yeah, I have a copy, don’t 
  you?) tells us, “The Jovian L4 and L5 swarms present 
  a challenging theater of operations for covert mission 
  deployments.” What they mean is that outside of the 
  big settlements like Locus, sneaking up on anyone in 
  the Trojans is difficult at best. You can mask a ship’s 
  presence on radar to some degree, but hiding a ship 
  from other sensors, especially masking its infrared 
  emissions, is almost impossible. There’s so much 
  space between Jovian objects that it’s rare to find 
  an approach path to a hab or asteroid that doesn’t 
  involve crossing tens of thousands of kilometers of 
  cold, empty space.
  Gaining access to places you’re not meant to 
  visit is often a matter of clever hacking and social 
  
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  JOVIAN  TROJANS
  57
  will find out who you are and trash your rep if 
  you go tearing through the center of a cluster hab 
  at a speed that could damage or wreck someone’s 
  hab module.
  Nuestro shells often contain a few modules that 
  are spun for gravity—usually med bays, resleeving 
  facilities, gymnasiums, or other modules in which 
  some gravity is useful. Gravity’s handy for surgery 
  and art, but it’s also good for training soldiers. The 
  Kimiko Ross, a scum barge that eventually grew into 
  a Nuestro shell, has a kitchen in a torus at its center 
  so that people can practice old fashioned cooking 
  without the ingredients floating everywhere. Mayhem 
  Zaibatsu (headquarters of the eponymous mutualist 
  mercenary company) boasts a rotating training area of 
  three toruses nested along the same plane of rotation. 
  The outermost provides Venusian gravity, the middle 
  one Martian gravity, and the innermost gravity some-
  where between Lunar and Titanian. Other habs just 
  have a small torus set up where their kids can learn 
  how to walk. 
  Rotating modules are either mounted to the spars 
  on free-hanging gimbals, so that they don’t transfer 
  angular momentum to the rest of the structure, or 
  on fixed-output gimbals so that they actually act as 
  gyroscopes, helping the rest of the station maintain a 
  fixed position in space.
  Individual habitats vary a lot in terms of how 
  power and resources reach individual modules. 
  Some have no public utility grid at all, with each 
  module responsible for its own power, life support, 
  and microfacturing feedstock. Others might have 
  distributed life support but share power from a few 
  central fusion reactors (often the case in smaller 
  Nuestro shell habs). Big habs like Locus often have 
  co-op utility grids, with groups of modules along a 
  given spar or cross-hoop sharing reactors, mining 
  drones, and even life support. This makes Nuestro 
  shells very resistant to both environmental sepsis 
  (because mold and other biological nuisances can 
  only spread in a limited area) and some of the things 
  that keep Firewall sentinels awake at night, like out 
  of control nanoswarms.
  A Nuestro shell’s outer geodesic spheroid is great 
  for keeping out micro-asteroids and other space junk, 
  but it’s not the type of structure to which you want 
  to attach anything massive. Thus, the spars radiating 
  from a Nuestro shell’s centerpoint almost always 
  extend somewhat beyond the hab’s outer mesh skin. 
  Some of these extensions bristle with antennae and 
  other comm gear. Others are gantries to allow large 
  ships to dock outside the habitat. Still others are bays 
  from which mining drones come and go.
  The Nuestro shell is common in part because it’s a 
  practical design for this region of space and in part 
  because it scales well. Provided that a particular 
  variation on the design accounts for the forces in play 
  when station keeping thrusters fire, the basic design 
  can be used for anything from a small hab for a few 
  hundred occupants up to a huge one like Locus.
  Hab designers who need gravity either resort to 
  small, purpose-built rotating modules within a larger 
  cluster hab, or they go with ring or disc designs. You 
  still don’t get a sky and natural weather this way, but 
  hey, that’s what AR is for.
  If you’re looking for novelty in hab (and ship) 
  designs, the Trojans are a buffet. People will try 
  anything once, even if it means they then have to 
  live in a flawed dwelling for a while. I’ve seen matri-
  oshka habs comprising a series of nested spherical 
  shells, clusters that were little more than well-insu-
  lated pressure tents, tiny habs made up of tin cans 
  connected to huge arrays designed to collect power 
  from starlight (talk about your ultimate in sustain-
  ability), and many riffs (successful to varying degrees) 
  on the organism-like nanofabrication employed by 
  Hamilton cylinders.
  The only thing I haven’t seen is another MeatHab, 
  and you know: that’s fine. The solar system only 
  needs one.
  NUESTRO SHELLS
  For all the diversity of design in the Trojans, there’s 
  one pattern for cluster habs that dominates: the 
  Nuestro shell, named for pioneering micrograv archi-
  tect Nuestro Montez. 
  Several variations exist, but the basic design is 
  roughly spheroid and comprised of rigid spars radi-
  ating out in all directions from a central point—rather 
  like a sea urchin’s spines, but symmetrical. Ring-
  shaped cross-hoops run between the spars, connecting 
  them and bracing against lateral movement. The 
  builders then encase the superstructure of spars and 
  rings in a geodesic sphere, anchoring the inside of the 
  sphere to the tips of the spars, further stabilizing the 
  structure. Stretched over the interstices of the outer 
  sphere is a strong, flexible mesh designed to protect 
  the modules inside the hab from microasteroid 
  impacts, while keeping objects inside the sphere from 
  drifting out of it. The protective mesh self-heals and 
  usually consists of a carbon fiber or polymer-based 
  smart material.
  Within a Nuestro shell, hab modules anchor to 
  the spars (and in large habitats, to the cross-rings). 
  Floatways usually connect the modules, although 
  some habs have few or no floatways, requiring an 
  EVA any time one wants to move between modules. 
  Floatways are usually anchored to adjacent spars 
  and cross-hoops, but in large habitats like Locus, the 
  spars and cross-hoops themselves are hollow, allowing 
  traffic to move inside of them.
  In all but the smallest Nuestro shells, rights of 
  way into which no module may protrude (often 
  called “roads”) run alongside spars and cross-hoops, 
  guaranteeing clear paths for modules and vehicles 
  moving around inside of the habitat. Local meshes 
  normally mark these rights of way with prominent 
  AR graphics, and speeds are restricted to 35 kph. 
  Of course, few habitats in the Trojans have anything 
  resembling a cop who’ll give you a ticket, but people 
  
  58
  AME INFORMATION
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  OUTER FRINGE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  THE AMOEBA
  At Locus’s heart, at the tip of the cutaway cone, floats 
  the Amoeba, a huge, glowing sculpture that regularly 
  reshapes itself and changes colors across the visual 
  and other spectra. The Amoeba takes many forms, 
  usually that of an animal. A pre-sapient AI controls 
  its transformations, and it has its own fleet of small 
  harvester drones that bring it reaction mass and 
  other consumables.
  The Amoeba floats freely, but it always keeps 
  station around an imaginary origin point from which 
  radiate Locus’s arterial spars, each 5.5 kilometers 
  long and 10 meters thick for most of their length. The 
  spars radiate from the central origin point in 11.25° 
  increments. Although their imaginary origin point is 
  the Amoeba, the spars actually begin at the Shell, a 
  500-meter-diameter partial sphere.
  THE SHELL
  The Shell contains a hollow, ten-meter-thick, spherical 
  bulkhead to which the bases of the spars are lashed. The 
  bulkhead surrounds the Amoeba, but wherever possible 
  the designers cut holes so that from outside, along the 
  spars, there are regular lines of sight to the Amoeba. 
  Enclosing the bulkhead is a geodesic crystal palace of 
  structural rods and thick, self-healing glass. The glass 
  enclosure extends 50 meters from both the outside and 
  inside surfaces of the bulkhead. Aside from the hollow 
  insides of the arterial spars and rings, it’s one of the few 
  places in Locus with a publicly supported atmosphere. 
  LOCUS
  Locus is the largest cluster hab ever created, an eleven-
  kilometer-wide irregular sphere with thousands of 
  habitat modules docked to its skeleton of rings and 
  spars. A conical cutaway with a base about 8.5 
  kilometers wide (1/4 of the overall circumference of 
  the sphere) runs all the way to its center, forming a 
  5.5-kilometer-deep central area that is open to space 
  and off limits to large ships. By tradition, the base of 
  the cone is kept pointed toward Proxima Centauri, 
  Sol’s nearest interstellar neighbor.
  At eleven kilometers in diameter, Locus dwarfs 
  most other habs, all other Nuestro shells, and many 
  nearby asteroids. Its size required some departures 
  from the usual Nuestro shells design. Small Nuestros 
  usually have rigid superstructures, but making a 
  rigid frame of Locus’s size capable of withstanding 
  the stresses generated when station keeping rockets 
  fire far exceeded the resources available. So instead, 
  Locus’s structure is more like the skeleton of a 
  gigantic animal. Where the spars and rings making up 
  its superstructure meet, they’re joined not by metal 
  hinges or self-healing welds, but by a much older 
  technology: lashing. Locus’s massive segments act like 
  ligaments in the skeleton, each bone lashed together 
  at its end points by hundreds of cables. The resulting 
  structure always keeps its general shape, yet has 
  enough give that forces are distributed over a wide 
  area when firing rockets to keep station.
  
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  JOVIAN  TROJANS
  59
  residents are called—knowing and using spar and ring 
  names is a matter of civic pride. Rattling off a series 
  of polar coordinates to anything other than a ship 
  navigation system is a newcomer’s move.
  LOCATIONS AND NEIGHBORHOODS
  There are a lot of interesting sights, places, and people 
  in Locus—almost too much to cover. Here are a few 
  places every sentinel should visit.
  BLUE POD
  This unassuming boxy, blue, converted ore-freighter 
  module is operated by Blue Pod, an art collective 
  devoted to exploring the use of AI in artistic creation. 
  Members include Mason Wang, a former Martian 
  software entrepreneur turned programming artist; 
  Brancusi, an AGI that creates art morphs inhabited 
  by gamma forks of itself; and Letitia Barrow, Locus’s 
  most prominent suicide artist. Blue Pod is famous for 
  the parties they throw and infamous for turning out 
  some artwork that is disturbingly alien and creepy. 
  Wang also keeps a private hab, Wang Industries, in 
  the cloud around Locus.
  BOISTER’S ARMORY
  The Armory is a huge (750-meters long), heavily rein-
  forced module that has been at the end of Azimuth 
  Spar since Locus was founded, slowly moving 
  outward each time more length has been built onto 
  the spar. If it shoots projectiles with deadly force, 
  explodes, eats people’s faces, or destroys spaceships 
  and small asteroids with malice, the Armory has a 
  blueprint for it, and probably a few in stock, as well.
  The Armory’s main purpose, though, is research, 
  with a focus on anti-ship drone swarms, artillery, and 
  anti-TITAN war machine weaponry. You heard that 
  last right; Boister himself—a rough-mannered char-
  acter with a thick Boston accent and a burly crasher 
  morph that compliments his manner—is a Firewall 
  asset. He has proxy-level access to the Eye’s communi-
  cations channels, but his focus is on arming agents up, 
  not coordinating missions. Boister has access to all of 
  the Eye’s data from the field on capabilities of TITAN 
  war machines, and his job—at which he excels—is 
  inventing things that can kill them.
  KANIGAWA FARMS
  Kanigawa Farms sprawls over an entire layer of 
  spars, spilling over into the intersecting rings as well. 
  Over half of the modules in Locus are given over to 
  gardening in one form or another, be it combined 
  algae/aquaculture vats or more conventional hydro-
  ponic farms. Plants remain the best recyclers at trans-
  humanity’s disposal, so they’re everywhere. Kanigawa, 
  run by a co-op called Verdant, just happens to be the 
  largest concentration of agricultural modules in Locus.
  Lighting for greenhouses accounts for a sizable 
  percentage of Locus’s power consumption, and this 
  slice of the habitat consumes more power than any 
  other. The result: sweet, sweet atmosphere and high 
  From the inside, the Shell looks onto the Amoeba and 
  the space around it; from the outside, it looks out on the 
  vast, glittering extent of Locus, extending away in all 
  directions along the spars. The Shell is host to a variety 
  of free-floating plants tended by smart monkeys and is 
  heavily trafficked at all times of day by transhumans 
  making their way from one spar entrance to another.
  GETTING AROUND
  Out along the spars are Locus’s neighborhoods. The 
  major arterial spars—those at 45-degree increments 
  from the station’s poles—are wider and contain fast 
  moving trams. All spars include rungs, tracks for 
  moving large cargo in straight lines without colli-
  sions, and people movers consisting of conveyor belts 
  recessed into the hull and covered by hundreds of 
  smart material grab loops. A given conveyor belt will 
  tug a person along in 100-meter stretches before its 
  loops flow back into the belt surface, requiring that 
  the commuter grab a belt on the next loop. Conveyors 
  run in both directions along a spar, usually with 
  several lanes going in each direction.
  Locus’s analog to a street grid is based on a spher-
  ical coordinate system. Every module in the sphere 
  can be thought of as a set of points on the coordi-
  nate system. However, addressing modules as three-
  dimensional coordinates isn’t very helpful for actually 
  getting around the city. Residents usually travel along 
  the insides of spars and rings, while the flight paths 
  for outside traffic generally run parallel to them. 
  Therefore (after a lot of acrimonious debate), Locus’s 
  designers named all of the arterial spars and rings.
  The 0,0,0 point on the coordinate system is the 
  Amoeba. The two spars connecting to the habitat’s 
  poles are together called Zenith Spar (or sometimes 
  the Axis), representing 0 degrees inclination from the 
  pole. The spar at the habitat’s equator that points 
  toward the Amoeba and is 180 degrees opposite the 
  conical cutaway space at the center of the habitat is 
  Azimuth Spar. Azimuth forms a 90-degree angle with 
  Zenith. The rest of the spars are named based on their 
  angle from Azimuth, according to a complex system 
  using letters from the Japanese katakana alphabet.
  Connecting the spars are layers of concentric rings. 
  From the top of Zenith spar to the bottom are 52 
  layers of concentric rings. The center most, equato-
  rial layer (on the same plane as Azimuth spar) has 
  25 rings. Like spars, rings are 10 meters in diameter, 
  with 200 meters of clear space above, below, and 
  between each ring. Habitat modules are allowed to 
  extend up to 50 meters from a ring or spar, meaning 
  that even in the most densely packed area of the 
  hab, there’s always at least 100 meters of clear space 
  between modules docked to opposite rings. The rings 
  are addressed based on their layer above or below 
  Azimuth Spar.
  When giving a module’s location, most residents 
  will give the closest ring-spar intersection. Of course, 
  you can always have your mesh implants guide you 
  wherever you need to go, but for Lokies—as Locus 
  
  60
  AME INFORMATION
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  OUTER FRINGE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  ANA DURRUTI, MILITIA CROWDSOURCER
  Durruti, a hero of the resistance to the two Planetary 
  Consortium incursions, is Locus’s most respected 
  militia organizer. Since then, she’s fought in several 
  actions against criminal factions whose operations got 
  out of hand in the Patroclus asteroids and has been 
  heavily involved in training neighborhood watches 
  in armed response tactics. Durruti can be found 
  almost daily leading preparedness drills and zero-g 
  combat exercises in and around the habitat. Her 
  favored body is a Lunar steel morph heavily modified 
  for microgravity.
  Unfortunately, Durruti is no friend to Firewall. She 
  views our org as a group of dangerous, heavy-handed 
  vigilantes operating without the consent of those 
  affected by our actions. (If it strikes one as odd that 
  an anarchist militia leader would view other militants 
  as vigilantes, keep in mind that Durruti has a mandate 
  of sorts based on consensus of the Lokie population).
  ATSUKO VAN VOGT, EGOCASTING OPERATOR
  Van Vogt is a prominent argonaut and a habitual 
  bodyhopper. These days, she favors heavily custom-
  ized bouncer morphs, although she began life as 
  a neo-dolphin uplift. If one has the @-rep to get a 
  place on her busy schedule, hers is the most trusted 
  egocasting facility on Locus. Van Vogt’s renown as 
  a physician and psychosurgeon was cemented by 
  The Seven Chakras: Metaphor & Holistic Practice 
  in the Treatment of Integration and Continuity 
  Disorders, her treatise on resleeving medicine. 
  Sounds like mumbo jumbo, but under the garnish 
  of poetry, the book is full of good science. I can tell 
  you, waking up in a candlelit room to a steaming cup 
  of herbal infusion is a lot nicer than the cold metal 
  slab and glaring lights treatment common to most 
  decanting facilities.
  BENEDETTA KATZENELLENBOGEN, CITY PLANNER
  Benedetta moderates Architect, the public mesh forum 
  where Lokies propose and plan structural enhance-
  ments to the habitat and its infrastructure. Locus 
  doesn’t have building permits. Anyone can extend one 
  of the spars as long as they follow a few ground rules. 
  Anyone can add modules to empty space along a spar 
  as long as they don’t block rights of way. Building is 
  regulated by custom and public debate. Benedetta, 
  though she has no title or position, acts as facilitator 
  for much of this running debate. She has an encyclo-
  pedic knowledge of current and past projects and a 
  knack for getting the right people talking (or some-
  times arguing) when a project is proposed.
  Benedetta lives in a collective with a group of 
  other planners and architects near where Azimuth 
  Spar meets the Sphere. She’s a well known anarcho-
  syndicalist. Her most recent known morph is a thirty-
  ish bouncer. Although she doesn’t know of Firewall, 
  Katzenellenbogen’s obsessive tracking of module and 
  infrastructure projects aboard Locus has supplied vital 
  information during several Firewall investigations.
  nutrition foods. You can still find crops like maize 
  and potatoes cultivated in small quantities, but the 
  old heirloom strains are extremely rare. Crops like 
  quinoa and yams account for most of the hectarage 
  under cultivation. (Don’t ask how one calculates 
  hectarage in a hydroponic garden; the subject is best 
  left to agronomists).
  THE PILL BOX 
  This 100-meter-long, lozenge-shaped module moored 
  along Shingo Spar glows softly white from the 
  outside. Inside, it’s a massive drug lab operated by 
  Freeq Collective (eponymous inventors of the hallu-
  cinogen freeq). Part chill space, part drug factory, part 
  research lab, the Pill Box isn’t a place to go score your 
  fix of alpha or hither. It’s where you go to experience 
  substances you’ve never even heard of before, because 
  they were invented this morning.
  The core of Freeq Collective is ten transhumans 
  of all types, ranging from narcoalgorithm-coding 
  infomorphs to neo-primate chemists. The notorious 
  petal artist, Rarely Neemonic, is a founding member. 
  A rotating cast of partygoers, one-nights stands, and 
  passed-out people clutter the module at any time, day 
  or night cycle.
  ROOKTOWN
  Rooktown is a neighborhood along Nürnberg spar, 
  home to several hundred neo-corvids and a handful of 
  parrots. The largest module in the neighborhood, the 
  Parliament (never mind that neo-corvids descend from 
  ravens, not rooks), is one of the largest modules in 
  Locus. The Parliament is nearly 250-meters long and 
  400 meters in diameter, filling an entire “block” along 
  the spar. The Parliament is built around Nürnberg 
  spar and spun for gravity, actually using the spar itself 
  as an axle. Locus has very few modules built in this 
  way; the ravens had to call in a lot of favors to get 
  their neighbors behind the idea. It doesn’t hurt that 
  the Parliament is open to the public several days each 
  week. The biosphere inside is lush temperate rain 
  forest such as was once found on the Pacific coast of 
  North America.
  Rooktown is culturally important to neo-corvids 
  as a meeting place. Many of those living here are 
  pilots and biodesigners, but product designers and 
  artists live here too. The designers specialize in 
  creating equipment and everyday items for neo-avian 
  bodies. The artists have decorated the Parliament and 
  other areas with both human art (Native American, 
  Bhutanese, Norse) celebrating ravens and art of 
  their own.
  LOCUS: SOURCES IN THE CROWD
  Habitats that allow government run on bureaucracy 
  and departments. Locus runs on individual citizens 
  that cooperate to do needed work. Very few of these 
  people make great claims about their own importance. 
  Self-promotion doesn’t play well here and, with their 
  reputations, they don’t need to.
  
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  JOVIAN  TROJANS
  61
  whaling—organizing mobs of transhuman-piloted 
  and autonomous vehicles to opportunistically 
  mine passing asteroids. Batongbacal usually lives 
  as infolife. Her morph on whaling missions is a 
  harvester drone kitted out with bigger engines, a bot 
  bay specialized for prospecting, and a wider array of 
  sensors. However, she also owns a pleasure pod that 
  she sometimes uses to socialize, teleoperating via its 
  puppet sock.
  Batongbacal has a well-known knack for spotting 
  asteroids that will yield well, but her rep has been 
  marred by one incident that drew Firewall’s interest. 
  She nuked an entire whaling party during a mining 
  op. Ten people and twenty-some harvester drones—
  vaporized. It was the worst mining “accident” in 
  Locus’s history, and if anyone else had been leading 
  the mob, they’d probably never lead one again. Using 
  nukes in a mining op might seem extreme, but it’s 
  occasionally called for on a big asteroid.
  After much investigation, complicated by the fact 
  that the asteroid calved into multiple fragments that 
  couldn’t be caught, public consensus came to the 
  uneasy conclusion that a catastrophic coding error 
  led to premature detonation of the nuke, before the 
  whaling party was clear. There were disputes. Some 
  suspected criminal or Planetary Consortium sabotage.
  Firewall has its own theory. We think Miyoko 
  Batongbacal stumbled on something inside the 
  asteroid. TITAN wargear, something planted there by 
  the Factors—possibly even a Bracewell probe or other 
  alien artifact. We don’t know. But the fragments of the 
  asteroid might not be beyond recovery.
  PINPIN, HABITAT ECOLOGIST
  Pinpin is an infomorph ecodesigner whose conscious-
  ness is distributed over a mob of smart monkeys. They 
  can often be found in the vicinity of Kanagawa Farms, 
  tending plant beds, or in newly built-out areas of the 
  habitat, helping to install new algae vats and green 
  spaces. Pinpin is a prominent voice in the long-view 
  preservationist movement.
  TEILHARD LIU, PROGRAMMER-ARMSMAN
  A newcomer once asked me why Locus, the strong-
  hold of autonomist anarchism, has a mutual defense 
  pact with a statist government entity like the Titanian 
  Commonwealth. I answered that it’s a practical 
  matter. Until revolutionary change reaches Mars and 
  Jupiter, we need allies. But the questioner also got a 
  detail wrong: Locus doesn’t have an alliance with 
  Titan. Teilhard Liu does.
  For a planetary government to sign a major treaty 
  with an individual isn’t exactly the done thing. But 
  then, Liu is a walking legend. He was a veteran Air 
  Marshal in the Indonesian TNI (air force) when the 
  Fall came. As groundside governments and their 
  accompanying command and control structures 
  collapsed, Liu persuaded, cajoled, and in a few cases 
  coerced commanders from other aerospace forces 
  into forming a unified defense in a broad swath of 
  EIDOLON, ART INSTALLATION AND FIREWALL CROW
  Someone once made the mistake of showing Eidolon 
  this old Earth movie where a little old man poses as a 
  god-like presence by operating machinery from behind 
  a curtain. (This was before AR; people were naïve). 
  Eidolon thought this was the funniest thing they’d 
  ever seen and adopted a similar persona. Since then, 
  Eidolon’s physical embodiment has been a micro-
  gravity interpretation of an ancient Greek temple 
  (think the Acropolis built out in all directions from 
  a center point, with station-keeping thrusters). The 
  entire inside of the temple is an immense cornucopia 
  machine that also teems with disassembler swarms. 
  Usually the temple can be found floating free in the 
  Cone, its dim purple lighting visible from the Shell. 
  Occasionally Eidolon docks on a spar, particularly 
  if they’re working on a project that requires their 
  full attention.
  Eidolon has a reputation as one of the best hacker/
  trackers on Locus, although their weird sense of 
  humor has led them to take the oracular temple 
  schtick a bit far for some tastes. To get Eidolon to 
  work for you, you need to physically visit their temple 
  installation and make a sacrifice. The sacrifice must 
  generally be in the form of an item with a novel 
  or unique design, which Eidolon will then reverse 
  engineer into its library of blueprints and break down 
  using the temple’s disassembler swarms.
  The exception to this rule is Firewall agents, who 
  can call on Eidolon from anywhere in the system if 
  they have sufficient rep with the Eye. Eidolon has 
  sent forks to work Firewall runs from Mercury 
  out to the Kuiper Belt using its temple’s private 
  egocasting capability.
  KUIPER STRAHND, SABATÉ SWARM LEADER
  If Durruti is representative of Locus’s infantry and 
  Teilhard Liu of its artillery, Kuiper Strahnd is the 
  cavalry. A protégé of Liu, Strahnd captains the 
  Exquisite Corpse, an Althauser Huitzilopochtli-
  class destroyer that was disabled and captured in a 
  boarding action during the first Planetary Consortium 
  incursion. Strahnd’s commentary on Liu’s Doctrines 
  expands on the idea of an open source command and 
  control structure.
  Strahnd was an officer in the South African Air 
  Force and fought in the long series of battles to 
  protect the African space elevator from destruction. 
  He’s half Zulu, half Afrikaaner, and escaped Earth in 
  his original body, an olympian. Firewall has debated 
  making overtures to Strahnd on several occasions, but 
  it’s far from clear how he’d respond to an invitation 
  to join.
  MIYOKO BATONGBACAL, HARVESTER
  Batongbacal bailed on an indenture aboard an 
  icepusher by pointing a hacked laser comm array 
  at Locus, attaching her engineering resume to 
  her uploaded persona, and hoping for good luck. 
  Guess she really wanted out. Her specialty is 
  
  62
  AME INFORMATION
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  OUTER FRINGE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  OTHER TROJAN HABITATS
  Locus may be the most well known of the Trojan 
  colonies, but there are many others it pays to 
  know about.
  C SQUAT
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Autonomist Alliance  
  (Anarchist/Disputed)
  Primary Languages: English, Hindi, Spanish
  Population: 500
  This beehive was originally dug out of a C-type 
  asteroid by an Extropian mining outfit, Trojan Metals, 
  in the leading edge of the L4 point. Their plan to 
  expand the mines into a full-blown beehive habitat 
  was halted and the station temporarily abandoned, 
  however, when the company ran into credit-flow 
  issues due to difficulties with other projects, leaving 
  only a handful of security bots to guard it. A group of 
  anarchist and scum squatters promptly disabled the 
  bots, moved in, finished the habitat, and invited their 
  friends. The new residents quickly gained notoriety 
  for hosting energetic punk shows, with people from 
  all over farcasting forks in and choosing from a selec-
  tion of modified pod morphs for micrograv mosh pits. 
  Trojan Metals was less than pleased when they 
  returned to find their colony squatted. The Extropians 
  claim the habitat is their property due to the amount 
  of personal labor they invested in it and that it was 
  not abandoned as they left AIs to guard it. The squat-
  ters could care less about Extropian laws, arguing 
  the beehive was empty and unused until they moved 
  in. Though they did offer to replace the bots and 
  other abandoned hardware, Trojan Metals kept to 
  their demands. The situation remains tense as the 
  Extropians have called upon their security contractors 
  orbit over the Pacific Rim. That was but the first of 
  many campaigns he fought during the Fall. His efforts 
  saved millions. Years later, he was a key actor in coor-
  dinating the defense of Locus during the Planetary 
  Consortium’s incursions.
  Liu’s Doctrines, based on his experiences during the 
  Battle of Earth and subsequent engagements, are the 
  foundational document for all military planning in 
  anarchist space. They focus on adapting the tactical 
  and strategic doctrines of past eras to the near impos-
  sibility of stealth in open space, the challenges of 
  integrating ships with widely disparate capabilities 
  into an effective fighting force, and the uselessness 
  of centralized command and control structures when 
  fighting an enemy like the TITANs. They’re also richly 
  annotated with suggestions on how to deal with every 
  exception to these axioms that Liu could think of—
  and he’s still adding to them.
  Liu rarely makes his presence felt in public, and his 
  place of residence within Locus is unknown. Hackers 
  who’ve tried tracking him have concluded that he has 
  either a preternatural talent for evading surveillance 
  or some very skilled helpers erasing his comings and 
  goings. His most recent known morph is a wizened 
  menton, hale but with no cosmetic modifications to 
  conceal aging. He’s known to enjoy gardening and 
  tai-chi.
  Teilhard Liu’s circle includes almost all impor-
  tant autonomist military and security figures, all 
  of Locus’s prominent citizens, several of Titan’s 
  most powerful politicians and academics, a random 
  sampling of tai-chi practioners from all walks of 
  life, and a tight-knit gardening club of hyperaged 
  Fall survivors. It is unknown how much Liu knows 
  about Firewall.
  CUSTOMS AND OPEN STANDARDS
  Locus doesn’t have laws per se, but Lokies observe 
  several customs.
  PERSONA SAFE HARBOR
  No mind is property (unless it’s into that kind of 
  thing). Any mind received by egocast should be 
  given shelter by the community and a place to run 
  if computing resources are available (provided it 
  arrives clean of viruses). This doesn’t mean that any 
  ego that shows up is entitled to a body, but efforts 
  are made to reinstantiate anyone that wants to be. 
  Nor does it guarantee the safety of cortical stacks 
  and minds already present on Locus. It does mean 
  that intercepting egocast transmissions or secreting 
  away egos that arrive flagged for sanctuary will kill 
  your reputation quickly if you’re caught doing it.
  PUBLIC LIFE SUPPORT
  Modules should contribute atmosphere and heat to 
  keep the spar along which they’re moored habit-
  able. The amount neighbors expect a module to 
  contribute is proportional to the module’s frontage 
  along the spar.
  PEACEKEEPING
  Violence, particularly involving weaponry that 
  might damage communal infrastructure, usually 
  draws a quick response from concerned (and 
  often heavily armed) neighbors. Disputes are 
  moderated by neighborhood councils in accor-
  dance with local custom and with regard to the 
  @-rep of the parties involved. 
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  JOVIAN  TROJANS
  63
  engineering proprietary code. Many of these hacktiv-
  ists work with groups like Anon, Datacide, and Mesh 
  Leaks, as well as other crypto-anarchists around the 
  system. Their local mesh is home to the Exarchia 
  Data Haven and a high number of anonymizers, 
  proxy servers, and similar tools. Due to the number 
  of hacktivist campaigns, denial-of-service attacks, 
  and exploits that originate from this station, it is a 
  frequent target for mesh attacks launched by rival 
  hypercorps, governments, and vigilantes. 
  INTRUDER
  A massive and detailed sculpture crafted by unknown 
  hands, this entire small asteroid has been carved 
  into a head with three unknown faces, one of which 
  does not seem to be humanoid. Up close, the rocky 
  surface has been painstakingly marked with billions 
  of numbers and letters in Roman, Cyrillic, and Greek 
  alphabets, with the only legible word being “intruder.” 
  The symbols are widely believed to be a complex 
  cryptographic code, though the efforts of thousands 
  of amateur and professional cryptanalysts throughout 
  the solar system have failed to break the cipher, 
  leading some to declare it an elaborate hoax. Attempts 
  to run facial recognition software on the faces have 
  also come up blank. Some speculate that further clues 
  may lie buried inside the asteroid, but no one has yet 
  detected any subsurface anomalies.
  LOT 49
  Station Type: Cluster
  Allegiance: Autonomist Alliance (Anarchist/Scum)
  Primary Languages: English, Portuguese, Thai
  Population: 400
  Lot 49 is a small Nuestro shell in a densely popu-
  lated neighborhood in the center of the Greeks called 
  Vonarburg-Shadyside. This station tends to be a cross-
  over point for local traffic, making it a good place to 
  pick up gossip or catch a shuttle.
  RESPECT
  Station Type: Bernal sphere
  Allegiance: Independent (Sapient Uplift)
  Primary Languages: Javanese, Tamil, Spanish
  Population: 3,000
  Respect was founded by uplifts in the sapient 
  faction and their human allies. Unlike mercurial 
  habitats, which are meant primarily for uplifts alone, 
  this colony is specifically intended for humans and 
  uplifts to live together. Most of the residents stem 
  from the inner system, where they became fed up with 
  the second-class status most uplifts were given. Unlike 
  many other Trojan stations, Respect still operates 
  with a transitional economy. As a result, several uplift-
  friendly hypercorps use it as a base for their Trojan 
  operations. It is governed by an elected parliament, 
  who in turn elect a mayor. The current mayor is Jean 
  Priz, a neo-neanderthal chemist.
  Respect’s residents do what they can to integrate 
  humans and uplifts together. In this vein, they have 
  to evict the squatters. The anarchists have, in turn, put 
  out a call for support from nearby autonomists.
  CASA ARTURO
  Station Type: Cluster
  Allegiance: Autonomist Alliance (Anarchist)
  Primary Languages: English, Mandarin, Spanish
  Population: 1,200
  Casa Arturo is a small Nuestro shell devoted 
  to rocket design and courier services. The mining 
  refinieries and shipyards here are impressive given the 
  size. The rocket geeks here love to build, repair, and 
  race new designs, providing many of the ships and 
  maintenance for anarchists in this area of the Greeks. 
  CATAL HAYUK
  Station Type: O’Neill Cylinder
  Allegiance: Independent (Brinker)
  Primary Languages: Kurdish, Turkish
  Population: 3,500
  Not everyone wants to live awash in the roaring 
  cascade of the now and, even for those who do, 
  getting away from it can be therapeutic. A way out 
  is offered by recreationist preserves like Catal Hayuk, 
  a neolithic settlement built in an O’Neill cylinder. 
  Aside from the technology needed to maintain the 
  hab itself, Catal Hayuk offers a way of life identical 
  to that lived by prehistoric humans over 10,000 years 
  ago in Anatolia. 
  Unlike simulspace simulations and temporary 
  regression retreats, though, this adoption of ancient 
  ways is taken to the extreme. The women give live 
  birth to children, sometimes dying in the process. 
  Men engage in rites of passage that can be equally 
  deadly. The population is sleeved in flat morphs, and 
  those who want to join even undergo psychosurgery 
  intended to prevent them from contaminating the 
  primitive society with contemporary knowledge 
  or memes.
  Caring for these voluntary primitives is Merat, an 
  AGI whose motives in sponsoring this habitat are 
  hotly debated. Merat speaks about Catal Hayuk as 
  both a retreat for those unable to adjust to modern 
  life (many of the population are reinstanced) and 
  as a social experiment. It’s the latter that gets some 
  hackles up, even though those who join the colony do 
  so voluntarily.
  EXARCHIA
  Station Type: Cluster
  Allegiance: Autonomist Alliance (Anarchist)
  Primary Languages: English, Greek, Mandarin
  Population: 4,500
  Named after a Greek anarchist neighborhood on 
  Earth, Exarchia is a bustling autonomist station near 
  the trailing cluster of the Jovian L4 point. It is best 
  known as a nexus for anarchist hacktivism. A signifi-
  cant portion of the residents here devote their time 
  to programming privacy and anti-censorship tools, 
  finding exploits in hypercorp firewalls, and reverse 
  
  64
  AME INFORMATION
  NOMIST ALLIANCE
  OUTER FRINGE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  of gender altogether? The inhabitants of Winter have 
  done just that. Winterists sleeve into androgynous 
  morphs and reproduce using exowombs that combine 
  two (or more) parents’ gametes. They don’t have sex 
  in the usual sense. Winterist morphs have a number of 
  non-sexed erogenous zones which those in pair and 
  triple bonds use to pleasure one another according to 
  a monthly hormonal cycle.
  Their unusual lifestyle has made Winterists a 
  somewhat insular group, although small commu-
  nities of them exist elsewhere in the system. The 
  habitat itself is temperate, despite the name, which is 
  borrowed from the work of a pre-Fall science fiction 
  writer who envisioned a similar society.
  MOVEMENTS AND CLADES
  Anarchist social models prevail in the Trojans, but 
  there’s a lot of room within them for diverging views.
  EXOGLOTS
  No one is sure what to make of the exoglots. Their 
  weird, insectoid bodies are roughly bipedal, but 
  with an extra set of limbs above their waists that are 
  jointed so that an exoglot can fold itself in half in 
  either direction. All of their limbs are strong, spindly, 
  and clawed. Their heads resemble nothing so much as 
  that of a huge, black fly. Are they an exhuman faction, 
  a cult, or just a really strange transhuman clade? 
  designed some new sports that specifically make use 
  of the natural talents of multiple species. The most 
  popular, multiball, has been a growing hit on inner 
  system sports feeds.
  TURING
  This former colony was founded by AGIs that fled 
  persecution in the inner system in the aftermath of 
  the Fall. The primary habitat was a processor locus 
  built into the interior of a small asteroid, with various 
  support structures on the surface, including marginal 
  living facilities for biomorphs. The colony was nuked 
  by unknown hostiles in 2 AF, leaving a sizable hole in 
  the side of the asteroid. No one has claimed respon-
  sibility for the attack, but it is widely presumed to 
  have been initiated by anti-AGI extremists or possibly 
  the Jovians. 
  Turing may be deserving of new attention, however, 
  as a recent flyby from an automated freighter picked 
  up signs of activity on the asteroid’s surface.
  WINTER
  Station Type: Cole Bubble
  Allegiance: Independent (Brinker)
  Primary Languages: Arabic, Italian
  Population: 10,000
  Although tranhumanity has largely eliminated 
  gender inequality, some clades feel getting rid of 
  inequality didn’t go far enough. Why not just get rid 
  
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  JOVIAN  TROJANS
  65
  out here. But those who’ve chosen to think in geolog-
  ical time are not as common as one might expect. If 
  transhumans need no longer die, then ensuring that the 
  solar system remains a sustainable environment over 
  hundreds of thousands or even millions of years makes 
  sense. Long-view preservationists regularly weigh in 
  on issues like gas giant mining, asteroid mining, and 
  transhuman expansion onto exoplanets. The math they 
  use to back up their arguments is crazy—but then, old 
  Earth environmentalists sounded crazy to some people, 
  too. And they turned out to be right.
  CRIME IN THE TROJANS
  It’s a given that gardens come with snakes, and ours is 
  no exception. What constitutes crime in the Trojans, 
  however, is a very different matter from elsewhere.
  CARBON REAVERS
  Subsistence asteroid harvesting is a rough way of life, 
  and pirates who jump miners for their goods make it 
  even harder. Its easier to wait until someone else has 
  broken part of an asteroid down and rob them while 
  they’re shuttling the ice, other volatiles, and carbons 
  to their hab than to mine it yourself. Carbon reaver 
  gangs do exactly that. Fortunately, carbon reavers 
  aren’t usually much better equipped for combat than 
  their prey. They’re desperadoes, and a well organized 
  local militia can usually make short work of them. 
  Usually. Unfortunately, more of these gangs keep 
  popping up. Dealing with them is steady work for 
  security freelancers.
  EGO THEFT
  Gangs like the ID Crew and smaller copycats are 
  very active rimward. Smaller egocasting facilities and 
  lots of places to hide mean that they’re a constant 
  nuisance. Luckily, identity thieves are universally 
  reviled out here, and any rumor that they’re operating 
  draws a strong response from the infosec community. 
  Firewall agents be warned, though: this cuts both 
  ways. Intercepting egocasts, hacking backups, and the 
  like will destroy your rep if you’re caught and may 
  even draw a response from vigilantes unless you can 
  publicly prove you were in the right.
  IP ENFORCEMENT
  The Planetary Consortium just doesn’t know when to 
  give up sometimes. Oversight and several corporations 
  have been known to mount punitive strikes against 
  pirates they believe are violating their intellectual 
  property rights in the outer system. Sometimes the 
  strikes are carried out by actual hypercorp agents, 
  other times they put out hits through the Guanxi 
  network or hire the ultimates. Hits are most often 
  called on pirates who’ve transferred Consortium 
  fabber blueprints back to fabber gangs on Mars and 
  elsewhere sunward. IP Enforcement strikes often 
  involve a lot of collateral damage, with little regard 
  for bystanders.
  Their intentions, how they recruit new members, 
  and whether they have any internal organization 
  are unknown.
  A sizable hive of exoglots inhabits a series of 
  modules anchored along Locus’s Foucault Spar. They 
  follow all of the usual customs regarding citizenship 
  scrupulously, supplying a fair share of public atmo-
  sphere along the spar to which they’re docked and 
  adhering to community standards regarding module 
  architecture, production of angular momentum, clear-
  ance between modules, and the like. 
  That said, many of their neighbors are uneasy 
  with them. Locus tolerates them as it tolerates nearly 
  everyone, but other habitats flat out prevent them 
  from docking or taking up residency. Their disturbing 
  appearance and the fact that the never-decoded arti-
  ficial language they use among themselves sounds 
  worryingly like recordings of TITAN headhunter 
  drones no doubt factor in.
  The biggest problem with the exoglots is their 
  refusal to communicate with other transhumans 
  in any way unless absolutely vital. They habitually 
  stealth all personal network signals, appear to use 
  only heavily encrypted VPNs to communicate, and on 
  the rare occasions they do communicate, do so only in 
  terse text messages.
  A few things are known. The exoglots existed prior 
  to the Fall; this is documented. They’re not synths, 
  but probably pods; they consume organic feedstock 
  and atmosphere just like anyone else. The only time 
  they’ve ever been violent is when their modules were 
  invaded. They have no known ties to any criminal 
  activity. And they design stunningly beautiful self-
  modifying nanosculptures, all of which are three-
  dimensional projections of four-dimensional objects 
  such as tesseracts. Trade in these objects is their 
  primary source of rep and credit.
  But what are they doing? Are they idiot savants 
  who’ve cloistered themselves against a confusing 
  universe, or are they exhumans incubating in the midst 
  of their eventual prey? Benedetta Katzenellenbogen is 
  the only transhuman known to have been inside of 
  their hives at Locus. The exoglots wished to consult 
  with her on a building project, but she refuses to 
  speak of what she saw inside.
  LIZARDS
  The lizards are vacuum dwellers. Sleeved in either synths 
  or sealed biomorphs, they make their way as miners 
  and harvesters dwelling in open space. Their ships 
  are usually little more than open trusses with engines 
  attached to them. When they visit a hab, they rarely 
  come inside, instead clinging to the station’s outer skin 
  and deploying starlight focusers to bask in stellar energy. 
  LONG-VIEW PRESERVATIONISTS
  What do you need environmentalism for in a cloud 
  of barren asteroids five AU from Sol? If you think in 
  decades, you don’t. Maybe not even if you think in 
  terms of the next few centuries; there are a lot of rocks 
  
  5
  SATURN
  ATLAS
  Controlled by the Volkov hypercorp, the Volkograd station is 
  an industrial juggernaut. n p. 70 
  5
  SATURN
  ATLAS
  Controlled by the Volkov hypercorp, the Volkograd station is 
  an industrial juggernaut. n p. 70 
  
  BRIGHT
  Turmoil: Acumenic has just conducted a hostile takeover of this so-called intellectual utopia. n p. 71 
  Unfettered Geniuses: This secretive group believes their cognitive atypicality sets them apart from their peers. n p. 72  
  Parallel Processes: Early adopters are testing augmentations that allow groups to share mental processing power. n p. 72 
  AROUND THE SYSTEM
  The Long Array: Radio reception at 5 billion kilometers: good for rescue 
  and spying. n p. 73 
  MeatHab: This habitat began as a piece of performance art—but it may be 
  something more than that. n p. 77 
  iZulu: The infomorph population is double that of the embodied population 
  on this economically disparate settlement. n p. 79 
  Kronos Cluster: A patchwork of armed neighborhoods, Kronos is still a 
  desirable destination for visitors. n p. 83 
  BRIGHT
  Turmoil: Acumenic has just conducted a hostile takeover of this so-called intellectual utopia. n p. 71 
  Unfettered Geniuses: This secretive group believes their cognitive atypicality sets them apart from their peers. n p. 72  
  Parallel Processes: Early adopters are testing augmentations that allow groups to share mental processing power. n p. 72 
  AROUND THE SYSTEM
  The Long Array: Radio reception at 5 billion kilometers: good for rescue 
  and spying. n p. 73 
  MeatHab: This habitat began as a piece of performance art—but it may be 
  something more than that. n p. 77 
  iZulu: The infomorph population is double that of the embodied population 
  on this economically disparate settlement. n p. 79 
  Kronos Cluster: A patchwork of armed neighborhoods, Kronos is still a 
  desirable destination for visitors. n p. 83 
  
  68
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  UTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  Posted by: Ann Carais, Astrobiologist,  
   
  Titan Autonomous University <Info Msg Rep>
  The first thing you need to know about the Saturn 
  system is that it’s big, not just in size. Saturn is massive 
  in terms of industry, population, and habitable space. 
  I mean, yeah, Jupiter is bigger, but rating second on 
  the scale ain’t too shabby either, and Saturn has a lot 
  of positives going for it that its big brother lacks. Its 
  atmosphere is easier to mine than Jupiter’s hellish 
  magnetic fields and the vast ring system is rich with 
  volatiles and capable of sustaining the impressive 
  number of people that call the system home. Plus, the 
  rings are gorgeous eye candy on an astronomical scale, 
  beating out any old red spots any day of the week. 
  With a population in excess of 80 million, Saturn’s 
  neighborhood is the second most populous area of the 
  solar system. Many of the habitats around Saturn are 
  actively expanding and there is incredible potential 
  for future growth. It is the cultural center of the outer 
  system and perhaps the most diverse assortment of 
  egos, cultures, and beliefs to be found anywhere in the 
  universe. Technosocialists rub shoulders with scum, 
  corporate raiders, Extropians, anarchists, uplifts and 
  infomorphs. All of these people somehow manage to 
  not just live together, but to do so considerably more 
  peacefully than either the Martians or the Jovians. 
  That’s not to say that conflict doesn’t exist among the 
  rings, but for the most part it’s a game of shadows, 
  with only occasional flare-ups.
  Part of this is due to the space. Saturn is about nine 
  times the diameter of Earth and ninety-five times as 
  massive, and the rings make it even bigger. They start 
  some 7,000 klicks above the surface of the planet 
  and stretch to 80,000 klicks out. Add in to this the 
  sixty-odd moons and hundreds of moonlets, most of 
  which are nestled in the life-giving rings, and you’ve 
  got a lot of space for a lot of people. And it’s pretty. 
  You can say all you want about the clouds of Venus, 
  the canyons of Mars, or the views of old Earth from 
  Luna, but living among the rings, seeing the sparkling 
  jewels of the other moons and the massive serene 
  presence of Saturn always in the background, this is 
  a sight every transhuman should see at least once in 
  their life. 
  THE TURBULENT GIANT
  Posted by: Byth Swearingen,  
  Commonwealth Investment News <Info Msg Rep>
  For those of us that live in the shadow of Saturn, 
  the massive gas giant is, literally, an everyday facet 
  of our lives. But most of us think little about what 
  actually goes on below the clouds. In fact, Saturn is 
  ripe with opportunities for the savvy investor, if you 
  know how to separate the gold from the dross that 
  is. Saturn, like Jupiter, is a gas giant, though that is a 
  bit of a misnomer. Like it’s larger brother, Saturn also 
  has a rocky core way down in the crushing depths, a 
  core that’s covered with an ocean of liquid hydrogen 
  and helium. All of this is deep, far too deep and 
  too pressurized for even the most advanced mining 
  operations to reach. Instead, we skim the gases at the 
  top of the atmosphere, the stuff that’s easy to get to. 
  Below the methane haze and ammonia ice clouds is 
  a lot of hydrogen and helium, making it an excellent 
  source for volatiles, deuterium, and helium-3.
  The first thing any novice investor looking to break 
  in to the clouds of Saturn should know is that most 
  investment is steady but low yield. If it sounds too 
  good to be true, it probably is. This means the old 
  tried-and-true mining operations are your best bet. 
  For the most part, these are operated by Titanian 
  microcorps, a few wide-ranging inner system hyper-
  corps, and a handful of other local competing players, 
  notably Volkov and iZulu. Of the two, Volkov typi-
  cally sees larger profit margins for investors and 
  operates in typical, respectable hypercorp fashion, 
  even if they are local to the Saturnian system. Though 
  iZulu does not pay dividends in the traditional sense, 
  they amply reward investors who desire to bank some 
  goodwill with many of the autonomist factions that 
  populate the rimward expanse. 
  Most of these mining concerns operate in one 
  of two ways. They either use automated fleets of 
  skimmers that harvest and process elements in the 
  thick soup of the Saturnian atmosphere or they float 
  aerostats equipped with tanks and gas separation 
  equipment in the upper atmosphere and collect the 
  tanks when full. These operations also typically collect 
  scientific data for various studies; Volkov keeps its 
  data proprietary, marketing it to researchers, whereas 
  iZulu and the Titanian microcorps share theirs via the 
  argonauts and open source channels.
  Failure rates in mining operations are small, 
  but not insignificant. If you want no-risk mining, 
  you should invest in a Main Belt or ring opera-
  tion; they may be lower yield, but they are safer. 
  Meteor showers and debris collisions are a regular 
  hazard thanks to the rings. The nature of Saturn’s 
  5
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  SATURN
  69
  they are already massively over budget on the project 
  and actual construction has only recently commenced.
  Finally, there are those investment opportunities 
  that should be avoided. Anyone who tells you they 
  have an excellent plan for habitable aerostats in the 
  upper atmosphere is either dangerously deranged or 
  trying to bilk you out of your hard-earned kroner. 
  This isn’t to say there haven’t been legitimate 
  attempts to build habs on Saturn—there have been, 
  but so far all have failed, some quite spectacularly. 
  The most well-known example of this is probably the 
  Cloud Holm project by Chronos Ventures. You may 
  remember this, the failure of Cloud Holm was big 
  news a few years ago and still ranks as the one of the 
  largest losses of transhuman life since the Fall. This 
  has led most reputable financial advisors, including 
  CIN, to caution clients away from investment in 
  these sorts of enterprises. While rumors persist that 
  new metamaterials will allow potential builders to 
  deal with the inclement weather on Saturn, for now 
  we would advise that anyone who wants to invest 
  in aerostats remain in the Venusian market, and that 
  the opportunities for profit on Saturn are mostly 
  constrained to gas mining operations.
  atmosphere means that electrical discharges are 
  common among the clouds, direct strikes can take 
  down the skimmers and balloons. Storms on Saturn 
  are particularly vicious, with the high winds and 
  lightning combining to create huge, often months-
  long storms. Usually the skimmer swarms and 
  aerostat farms try to avoid these turbulent weather 
  patterns, but every so often they get caught unawares, 
  resulting in significant losses.
  Opportunities also exist in orbital infrastructure 
  to service the gas collection industry. Large refinery 
  projects are always trying to improve efficiency 
  and are in need of capital to finance these projects. 
  Recently, Volkov has been taking bids to build the first 
  in a new generation of skyhooks that will make trans-
  portation of the collected gas much easier. If Volkov 
  is successful, expect many other players in the gas 
  mining industry to follow suit. Many of the micro-
  corps are already seeking financing for such a project, 
  hoping to get ahead of the curve. We at CIN, however, 
  consider this an extremely risky investment since there 
  is no guarantee that Volkov will be able to engineer 
  the skyhooks to do what they want or that this will be 
  a profitable venture since, if reports are to be believed, 
  SOLARCHIVE SEARCH: CLOUD HOLM PROJECT
  RECOVERY OPERATION
  [Incoming Message. Source: Anonymous]
  [Public Key Decryption Complete]
  Per your request, we sent several probes reinforced for 
  high pressure deep into the Saturnian atmosphere, near 
  where the Cloud Holm went down. We were unable to 
  locate any wreckage, but three of the probes were able 
  to detect some anomalous emissions coming from deeper 
  in than we were prepared to go. At this point, the ball is 
  back in your court. I know there’s potentially a lot of money 
  from private insurers in recovering the stacks of some of 
  the luminaries on board, plus the prototype technology 
  that Chronos was using on the habitat. Going deeper in, 
  however, perhaps as far down as the liquid layer, is an 
  expensive proposition. There’s also something about the 
  emissions we picked up that I don’t like the look of. If you 
  squint really hard and really want to believe, sure, maybe 
  they could be coming off a downed habitat, assuming that 
  hab wasn’t torn apart by the weather or crushed by the 
  pressure. If it’s not Cloud Holm that’s down there, though, 
  then something else is making emissions, something trans-
  human—or, perhaps worse, non-transhuman. We know the 
  TITANs were unusually active in this system, and my prefer-
  ence is not to go digging too far. You never know what you 
  might dig up. 
  Cloud Holm was a widely trumpeted 
  project, initiated by Chronos Ventures, a 
  Titanian microcorp, to construct an aero-
  stat in Saturn’s upper atmosphere. The 
  initial plan was for a large aerostat that 
  could house a population of up to 250,000. 
  The project was plagued with delays and 
  minor disasters throughout the construc-
  tion process, however, and only remained 
  financially viable due to also functioning 
  as a gas mining operation. Powerful and 
  highly variable winds posed stability prob-
  lems, combining with other issues to make 
  the original design unworkable. Instead, 
  Chronos Ventures created a revised design 
  that was far more stable, but also much 
  smaller. This new version of the aerostat 
  could support a population of 100,000.
  When major construction finally 
  completed, Chronos invited numerous 
  VIPs and investors to a gala opening 
  event; nearly 6,000 people attended. The 
  Commonwealth’s courts are still settling 
  exactly what happened and who is at 
  fault, but what is indisputable is that 
  Cloud Holm drifted into one Saturn’s 
  megastorms. The resulting high winds 
  began to literally tear the habitat apart 
  and electrical discharges overloaded 
  many of the core systems, including the 
  farcasting facilities. Trapped on a doomed 
  station, only a small fraction of those on 
  board were able to escape on shuttles, 
  lifeboats, and other craft. Nearby skimmers 
  recorded the demise of Cloud Holm as it 
  lost altitude and sank deeper and deeper 
  into the clouds. The incident has served as 
  a cautionary tale for other parties that had 
  hoped to follow in Chronos’s footsteps. 
  
  70
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  UTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  something. An enterprising ego hunter would do well 
  to monitor ringer stopovers at various habitats and 
  pull the surveillance footage to see if they can spot 
  their quarry. Just asking ringers who has secrets to 
  hide is a dead end; ringer culture takes the fact that 
  some of these people are either fugitives or exceed-
  ingly private very seriously. Most ringers keep their 
  personal metadata locked down tight, no one asks 
  about anyone’s past, and volunteering info about 
  yourself or letting someone access your personal info 
  is a major sign of trust. Except for the ultra-paranoid 
  and the weirdest of the mystics, however, ringers 
  help each other out, and almost every ringer has a 
  circle of others with whom they keep in contact or 
  even meet with physically every few weeks. This is 
  partly a matter of survival; someone without people 
  to help them out can easily end up dead out in the 
  rings, and even the most isolationist know it pays 
  to have a few people looking to make sure you’re 
  alive every so often. If you’re there in a suit or a 
  ship, they may help you out if you get in trouble, but 
  they won’t trust you and most of them won’t talk to 
  you—ringers don’t like tourists. If you want to get to 
  know them, you’ll need to become one of them, at 
  least for a few weeks.
  ATLAS
  Posted by: Roberto Alvarez,  
  Firewall Proxy 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  The inner moon Atlas is controlled by the Volkov 
  hypercorp, one of the major players in Saturn’s gas 
  mining industry. 
  VOLKOGRAD
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Independent (Hypercorp/Volkov)
  Primary Languages: Czech, Slovak
  Population: 50,000
  The beehive habitat of Volkograd is dominated 
  by refineries and shipping; the output of fuels from 
  this moon may be the largest in the system. Volkov’s 
  residents are hard-working and fairly prosperous, 
  but there is ongoing tension between the workers 
  and upper management. Any attempts to unionize 
  or otherwise organize have been dealt with harshly; 
  Volkov can’t risk the workers gaining too much 
  momentum, given the support they might gain from 
  the strong autonomist presence in the system. In a 
  bid to ease tensions and increase their employees’ 
  satisfaction, Volkov recently instituted policies for 
  longer vacations, better healthcare, and less restriction 
  on nanofabrication. 
  Fa Jing attempted a hostile takeover of this facility 
  shortly after the Fall. A trail of wreckage from the 
  vicious battle drifts in the moonlet’s wake.
  RINGERS
  Posted by: Sakti Wakashi,  
  Firewall Proxy 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  If people can dream of living someplace, chances 
  are someone is going to want to. The ringers are a 
  perfect example of this. Ringers live within Saturn’s 
  rings—on various moonlets and small rocks or simply 
  out in space among the rings themselves—which is 
  one of the craziest places for people to live, especially 
  since they mostly fly solo or in small group. They all 
  have vacuum-tolerant morphs; the majority don’t 
  even bother with a small pressurized hab. The capa-
  bility to survive vacuum without a suit is essentially 
  a prerequisite for being considered a ringer, at least 
  to other ringers. Synthmorphs, exotic biomorphs, and 
  pods are all common morphs out here, but anything 
  that can survive for a long time in vacuum will do. 
  Ring flier morphs are especially popular, given the 
  magnetic field propulsion provides a nice, if slow, way 
  of getting around.
  If you’re the type to believe various mesh vids, 
  ringers are all either insane, hiding from powerful 
  enemies, fugitives from justice, or eccentric artists. 
  Most of the ones that I’ve met, however, are perfectly 
  ordinary engineers, product designers, and others 
  who work via the mesh in places like the Twelve 
  Commons or even on Titan but choose to live in the 
  rings. It does take a bit of eccentricity to live here, 
  and certainly none of them are the most social and 
  outgoing individuals that you’re going to meet, but 
  the most shocking thing about most ringers is how 
  remarkably normal they are. Most simply like living 
  by themselves, or are the type of person that can only 
  deal with sporadic direct transhuman contact. They 
  subsist mostly off the resources they scavenge from 
  the rings and by trading favors for whatever services 
  they can provide via the mesh.
  Of course, even the most isolated individual feels 
  the need, from time to time, for the company of 
  others. Given the diversity of habitats located in the 
  rings, they have plenty of ports of call from which 
  choose. Some of the most interesting ringers are the 
  ones who regularly stop by Prometheus. None of 
  them advertise it, but it’s likely that some of them are 
  Commonwealth citizens with positions of importance. 
  At least a few are high-level scientists and engineers 
  engaged in the kinds of top-secret projects for which 
  Prometheus is known. From the Commonwealth’s 
  perspective, storing your top-level research talent in 
  Saturn’s rings isn’t a bad idea, since they’re going to 
  be really hard for anyone else to find. All you need are 
  an entangled commlink and occasional check-ins, and 
  you’ve got a very nice set up.
  There are some ringers who choose the life-
  style because they’re hiding out from someone or 
  
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  SATURN
  71
  a hostile takeover. One of the consortium members, 
  Acumenic, bought out the shares of a number of its 
  partners, forced a change in management, and seized 
  control of the project, despite the efforts of the other 
  members to stop it—including Cognite, which still 
  owns a minority share. Acumenic immediately initi-
  ated a new regime that no one was allowed to live 
  in Bright or even visit for more than two days unless 
  they submitted to cognitive tests to prove that their 
  current intelligence is at least one and a half times 
  the baseline maximum. Though a disaffected portion 
  of the on-site Cognite management team switched 
  their allegiance to Acumenic, all other rival hypercorp 
  employees and everyone else that did not meet the 
  new standards was forcibly ejected from the station. 
  I’m told that Cognite’s project lead, Jerome Genet 
  was quite literally expelled out the airlock when he 
  attempted to seize the egocasting facilities with his 
  private security detail. 
  Despite the protest that Cognite lodged with 
  Oversight, I expect that little can and will be done by 
  the Consortium, and I would advise gentle pressure 
  on our part to make this so. The Commonwealth 
  shows little overt interest in making a claim to Bright, 
  despite many Titanians remaining on the station, 
  as their microcorps have very little at stake in the 
  project. The effort to highlight the station as a joint 
  collaboration between the inner system and autono-
  mists, however, may have been irrevocably been 
  marred. Officially, Bright is an independent colony, 
  under Acumenic’s control.
  AN INTELLECTUAL HAVEN
  Acumenic’s stated goal for their actions is to estab-
  lish Bright as an intellectual utopia for innovation, 
  research, and scientific progress. They hope to estab-
  lish Bright as a major outpost for research of all types, 
  in order to elevate transhumanity’s collective intelli-
  gence and reach a smarter, brighter future.
  Though the habitat still operates with a transitional 
  economy, the basic needs of all of the residents are 
  BRIGHT
  Station Type: Hamilton Cylinder
  Allegiance: Independent (Hypercorp/Acumenic)
  Primary Languages: English, German, Mandarin
  Population: 7,000
  To: Dr. Karome Bensadaa Mbariko, Firewall Crow
  From: Mohammed Jiday, Firewall Vector
  Dr. Mbariko, we were finally able to crack the encryp-
  tion on that intercept from the Ozma cell we’ve been 
  monitoring in the Saturnian system. It looks like 
  they are not, as we originally thought, focused on 
  Prometheus or Iapetus. In fact, I think you’ll find this 
  interesting as it sheds some light on what exactly is 
  going on with Bright.
  FIELD REPORT
  Filed by Dr. Alicia Delgado,  
  Agent in Charge, Saturn Station
  While I understand that Cognite is less than 
  pleased with the developments on Bright, I believe 
  it provides us with a prime opportunity to increase 
  our presence in the Saturnian system. It’s also an 
  ideal testing ground for some of Assistant Director 
  Kirilenko’s theories. Bright, as you well know, is one 
  of the shining jewels of the Saturnian system; a nearly 
  complete Hamilton cylinder created from part of 
  Tethys’s Trojan moon Telesto. Its current population is 
  almost 30,000, just a fraction of the millions it should 
  be able to house when fully grown and populated.
  Bright’s nature as one of only a handful of Hamilton 
  cylinders in the solar system makes it noteworthy, but 
  this has recently taken a back seat to the new stan-
  dards for citizenship put in place by the habitat’s new 
  leadership. Originally conceived as a joint project by 
  a consortium of inner system hypercorps, with some 
  aspects subcontracted out to Titanian microcorps, 
  Bright recently experienced what can only be termed 
  SOLARCHIVE SEARCH: ACUMENIC
  An independent hypercorp with 
  operations primarily located in 
  the inner system, Acumenic is a 
  rising name in habitat design and 
  construction. Their recent success 
  can be attributed to taking risks 
  and expanding into markets 
  spurned by other hypercorps. 
  Acumenic is particularly notable 
  for its investment in Hamilton 
  cylinder technologies and for 
  choosing to partner with factions 
  outside the inner system, such as 
  the Titanian Commonwealth and 
  the ultimates, on various construc-
  tion projects. Their willingness 
  to adapt their management and 
  payment structures to reflect 
  the diverse sets of beliefs and 
  economies in the outer system has 
  given them, if not a good reputa-
  tion, at least a sort of grudging 
  admiration among many of the 
  rimward habitats.
  Recently Acumenic has shown 
  interest in expanding their port-
  folio to a wider array of industries 
  including manufacturing, morph 
  design, and biotech. Their business 
  practices have sometimes been 
  critiqued by rivals, and several 
  Consortium hypercorps have lodged 
  formal complaints against Acumenic 
  with the Oversight Directorate.
  Acumenic’s corporate motto is 
  “Building a better world for all.” 
  
  72
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  UTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  this talent towards projects we have an interest 
  in. Second, we can monitor the developments here 
  closely, taking what we need before they are released 
  and possibly deterring or stopping those that 
  are problematic. 
  MENTAL AUGMENTATIONS
  It should come as no surprise that many of Bright’s 
  residents are keenly interested in ways to expand their 
  cognitive abilities even further. Nootropics and mental 
  augmentations are commonplace. 
  A strange and potentially worrisome recent trend 
  on Bright, however, has been the introduction of 
  the parallel processor augmentation. This allows an 
  augmented user to share their brain’s unused mental 
  processing capabilities with other linked users. 
  Currently implanted in almost 1,500 early adopters, 
  the enhancement is growing in popularity on the 
  habitat. All the tests have shown that unlike perma-
  nent linkages like those used by the Synergists and 
  the neo-synergists, short-term links like this result in 
  far less personality bleed. Still, it’s still more than a 
  bit creepy when you see a few dozen of the linked 
  working together, moving and working in perfect 
  harmony. Synchronized dance and team sports are 
  both popular among the linked, and are exceedingly 
  impressive. Current predictions are that the total 
  number of users on Bright will stabilize at 15–25% 
  of the population, but that’s a lot number of people 
  using a technology that may have unforeseen long-
  term effects. The mostly naïve scientists on Bright 
  have not considered the military applications yet, 
  but I anticipated that this would be one of your first 
  questions, so I’ve included the fabrication schematics 
  along with this report so that you can begin field 
  testing immediately.
  UNFETTERED GENIUSES
  One grouping on Bright deserves keeping a close 
  eye on. Calling themselves the Unfettered Geniuses, 
  they have taken over a remote part of Bright and 
  keep mostly to themselves. In fact, some of the other 
  residents of Bright report that the portions of the 
  cylinder claimed by the Geniuses are often closed 
  off to outsiders, something I gather that the rest of 
  Bright is OK with. You see, the Unfettered Geniuses all 
  have some degree of untreated antisocial personality 
  disorders—many are full-on diagnosed sociopaths. 
  These are not people who believe they “suffer” from 
  their condition. Instead, they believe it frees them, 
  allowing them to approach many problems in a way 
  their cognitively “normal” peers cannot. So far, the 
  Unfettered Geniuses have kept most of their projects 
  under wraps. What particularly concerns me, however, 
  is a rumor that they have attracted the interest of some 
  exhumans, including the scientist and war criminal, 
  Abandoned Weakness.
  freely supplied. All residents are also granted a basic 
  monthly stipend, which for most is enough to cover 
  their miscellaneous social and recreational needs. A 
  vast variety of labs, workspaces, tools, and equip-
  ment are made available for the residents to use as 
  needed. Educational services are also provided at 
  a minimal cost, enabling the residents to continue 
  learning and expanding their skill sets. Thus far, the 
  residents of Bright have been free to pursue whatever 
  odd or unusual projects they feel like. The fact that 
  the habitat is at a portion of its capacity means that 
  most are given a reasonable amount of resources for 
  their projects.
  In return, any new discoveries or creations by the 
  residents are considered the intellectual property of 
  Acumenic. According to the habitat’s social contract, 
  half of the profits derived from this research must 
  be reinvested in Bright itself, cultivating even more 
  future developments. In addition, all residents are 
  required to donate the equivalent of one day in 
  every ten to projects that are chosen by a public 
  vote of Bright’s population. The list of eligible 
  projects are always Acumenic initiatives or research 
  subcontracted to them by another hypercorp. Given 
  that Acumenic currently has some of the best and 
  brightest minds in the galaxy at their beck and call 
  with this set up, it is no surprise that they have 
  recruited a number of interested research partners. 
  The hyperbright morph, the parallel processor 
  augmentation, and the miniature plasma engine used 
  on a few new synthmorphs are all designs that were 
  recently produced here. Researchers working on 
  Bright have also been responsible for several recent 
  advances in data compression and improved effi-
  ciency in qubit production.
  While all of the residents are certifiable geniuses, 
  not all of them are focused on important work. There 
  are as many eccentrics creating complex memetic 
  taxonomies of 20th- and 21st-century action heroes or 
  creating exotic low-g beverages as there are people 
  working on creating new high-end morphs, improving 
  qubit production, or attempting to duplicate the 
  Factor’s reactionless drive. Of course, just because 
  a project isn’t considered important doesn’t mean it 
  can’t be wildly popular. Some efforts, like the ongoing 
  project to create the ultimate exemplars of various 
  types of wine and beer gain a fair amount of free 
  volunteer labor simply because many of the locals like 
  the idea and want to help it succeed. Acumenic has 
  found ways to monetize even these minor projects, 
  creating a win-win situation all around.
  There is no question that the elected Council that 
  governs the habitat kowtows to Acumenic—they 
  are all fervent believers in the project’s mandate. 
  Nevertheless, I think Bright presents us several 
  opportunities. First, I believe we can apply pressure 
  to our assets among Acumenic to steer some of 
  
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  SATURN
  73
  There are two primary uses for this sort of reception: 
  discovering emergency broadcasts and spying. The first 
  is a bigger deal than you’d imagine. I was surprised how 
  often someone ends up on some asteroid, comet, or 
  distant moon with a damaged ship and no one looking 
  for them. If a particular portion of the sky is largely 
  clear of radio traffic, the Long Array can pick up a radio 
  booster at five billion klicks. There’s money to be made 
  in rescue and salvage. Even if no one is close enough to 
  get there before someone’s biomorph croaks from lack 
  of air, everyone appreciates having their stack retrieved. 
  That appreciation can equal some significant rep. The 
  crew that operates the Long Array send out bulletins 
  whenever they hear a distress signal. Two outer-system 
  transport microcorps, headquartered on the moon 
  Helene, at Dione’s L4 point, are in the search-and-rescue 
  business and contract with freelancers throughout the 
  system to respond to these emergency signals. 
  Of course, the big news on Dione isn’t astronomy 
  or distress signals, it’s spying. Most of what gets 
  received here is never made public, but there are lots 
  of rumors. Since most highly secure long-distance data 
  either goes via QE comms or entangled farcasters, the 
  Long Array usually intercepts traffic that no one really 
  cares about. Sometimes the collected information is 
  interesting, but just having access to the signals isn’t 
  enough, since they’re usually encrypted, and to get 
  at the good stuff you need to break that encryption. 
  Other intercepts are fragmentary, with only parts of 
  the conversation or data burst received.
  DIONE
  Posted by: Roberto Alvarez, 
  Firewall Proxy 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  Dione’s main habitat, Thoroughgood, is a fairly 
  typical populous outer system settlement, except for 
  the moon’s most obvious feature, the Long Array—
  150 kilometers of radio and microwave dishes and 
  antenna attached to a spar extending from the surface 
  to an orbital station counterweight. 
  THE LONG ARRAY
  Jointly operated by the argonauts and Titanians, the 
  Long Array is designed to send and receive everything 
  from long-wave radio to t-rays. Radio astronomers 
  and SETI researchers seeking sapient life love this 
  bad boy, and it has enough spare capacity to keep 
  most of these scientists very busy. So far, there have 
  been no confirmed SETI radio sources, but I don’t 
  pretend to understand much about cutting-edge radio 
  astronomy; I’ll leave that to my fellow argonauts 
  who are more versed in those areas. However, the 
  Long Array also has some far more immediate uses. 
  First, it can broadcast signals that are easily received 
  anywhere in the solar system. More importantly, it can 
  receive radio signals from all across the solar system, 
  including signals that are normally far too weak for 
  anyone who’s further than a few thousand or so klicks 
  away to receive. 
  
  74
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  UTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  Thoroughgood. People willing to inhabit flats and to 
  act as servants and entertainers to the Jovian enclave 
  are in particularly high demand, and if you want to 
  make a little extra money on the side once you’re on 
  the inside, drop me a line. 
  ENCELADUS
  Excerpted from: Saturnian Economic Diversity Report
  Saturn’s sixth-largest moon Enceladus orbits 
  within the dense inner part of the outermost ring. 
  Geologically active, Enceladus is known for its active 
  cryovolcanoes and water-ice plumes. Aside from 
  beehive and surface settlements, a few modest efforts 
  have been made to explore and colonize the moon’s 
  subsurface waters with small bathyscaphe habitats. 
  Unlike Europa, however, Enceladus does not seem 
  to have a world-spanning ocean, but instead massive 
  water-filled caverns 80 kilometers or more under 
  the surface.
  PROFUNDA
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Autonomist Alliance (Extropian)
  Primary Languages: English, Javanese, Tamil
  Population: 850,000
  Profunda is the most prosperous Saturnian 
  habitat that’s not part of the Commonwealth. 
  The guidebooks describe it as anarcho-capitalist, 
  which elsewhere almost always implies a high level 
  of income disparity as well as a large and often 
  somewhat desperate lower class. That’s most defi-
  nitely not the case here; the rich are very rich indeed, 
  but no local is poor, and nearly all residences have 
  a quality of life far in excess of the system average. 
  The local government is non-existent, all business is 
  conducted through contracts between parties, and 
  failure to make good on a contractual agreement 
  has negative effects on the violating party’s future 
  business dealings. The biggest fish, and the dominant 
  force on Enceladus, is Profunda Corp, for which the 
  city is named. This corporation is by far the largest 
  engaged in mining and refining the abundant organic 
  chemicals on Enceladus. Profunda’s answer to rivals 
  in this field is to ignore small firms and aggressively 
  buy out any that become large or profitable enough 
  to become even a potential threat. 
  Every citizen that lives in Profunda has at least 
  one share in Profunda Corp. Dividends go first 
  to providing living necessities, with more shares 
  bringing a higher standard of living and more wealth. 
  Locals can sell their share, and there are plenty of 
  buyers, but doing so means the seller loses perma-
  nent rights to necessities and has to buy them on a 
  pro-rated basis. Almost no one who isn’t interested 
  in moving elsewhere ever does this. As the mines and 
  refineries expand, the number of shares in Profunda 
  Corp increases; some are purchased by the upper 
  The partnership that runs the array makes all of the 
  collected data publicly available to anyone on Dione 
  that’s interested in it. They are sometimes accused of 
  hiding data on behalf of allies or of being infiltrated 
  by one of many intelligence services. 
  THOROUGHGOOD
  Station Type: Beehive and Cluster
  Allegiance: Autonomist Alliance (Mixed)
  Primary Languages: English, Korean, Mandarin
  Population: 350,000
  Split between a plateau beehive and an orbital 
  cluster, Thoroughgood is an autonomist station run 
  on anarcho-collectivist lines. Thanks to the Long 
  Array, however, Thoroughgood is a cosmopolitan 
  hab, with various groups maintaining enclave pres-
  ences here. There are reps and offices for a dozen of 
  the more important hypercorps, including an entire 
  division of Nimbus that rents access time from the 
  Long Array partnership. Other enclaves represent 
  the Titanians, Extropians, Lunars, and argonauts. 
  Even the Jovians maintain a small and impressively 
  detachment here, though they mostly keep to them-
  selves. The Array has also attracted a couple of less 
  organized groups, including a number of anarchist 
  hacker groups. There are occasional flare ups between 
  the hypercorps and the anarchists, but most parties 
  steer away from overt trouble.
  Though all of the factions have legitimate uses for 
  the Array, signals intelligence is what really interests 
  them. Codebreaking is a competitive industry here, as 
  various groups take the encrypted communications 
  recorded by the Array and attempt to crack them. 
  Some of the parties here have established impressive 
  quantum computing and processing power resources 
  simply to brute-force codes. Some of these simply 
  collect data for their own intel archives, others 
  actively publicize what they crack. The most notable 
  anarchist hacker collective, the Laughing Squids, have 
  embarrassed both the Morningstar Constellation 
  and several of the hypercorps by releasing decrypted 
  communications to the mesh from their crypto opera-
  tions on Dione.
  The encryption and decryption research going on 
  here possibly make Dione the center for crypto in 
  the known universe. This goes both ways, so if you 
  need some good encryption or a cipher you can use to 
  communicate with your intelligence operatives, this is 
  the place to get it.
  All of this combines to make Thoroughgood a very 
  weird place. In public, everyone is exceeding polite 
  and studiously oblivious to others, but paranoid to 
  an extreme in private. Many factions send their most 
  promising intelligence assets to Thoroughgood as a 
  sort of finishing school for operatives. If you have 
  training and experience in these areas, going freelance 
  on Dione is a clear path to success. Taking care of 
  the more mundane needs of the various political and 
  hypercorp enclaves is another significant industry on 
  
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  SATURN
  75
  IAPETUS
  Posted by: Zheng Feng,  
  Firewall Proxy  
  <Info Msg Rep>
  Iapetus is by turns fascinating, breathtakingly lovely, 
  and deeply saddening. 
  Iapetus fundamentally makes no sense. Early in 
  the Fall, almost 200,000 refugees traveled in over-
  crowded ships from Earth to Saturn, or were egocast, 
  if they could afford it. The 5,000 inhabitants of the 
  industrial city of Analect agreed to help them out. 
  While the refugees were in transit, the people in 
  Analect used their tech to fab up a whole lot of living 
  space. For the next few months, Analect was one of 
  the few success stories for transhumanity. Like the 
  Jovian refugee camps, but far less unpleasant, almost 
  200,000 people who got off Earth with their bodies 
  intact started to make a new home. Then, near the end 
  of the Fall, something else arrived at Iapetus. Maybe 
  it was a small TITAN probe, perhaps just a few dozen 
  flecks of nanotech smart dust. Whatever it was, it 
  found Iapetus, and the previously fortunate survivors 
  became some of the last of the TITANs’ victims. 
  The TITANs seem to have been working to 
  transform Iapetus into a matrioshka brain or some 
  similarly massive computation structure. We don’t 
  know why, or why they didn’t finish, or even what 
  happened to them. One day they were simply gone, 
  their defenses inactive, their system decaying. The 
  inhabitants were largely wiped out, many of them 
  converted into monstrous servants that simply died 
  when the TITANS went away. All we have left are 
  questions and numb disbelief.
  A dozen research stations now monitor the partially 
  converted moon from a safe orbital distance. It is not 
  entirely inactive. Strange but infrequent undecipher-
  able transmissions and energy readings are occasion-
  ally intercepted from under the surface layers of 
  computational lattice. Surface features inexplicably 
  change, without any visible meaning or cause. The 
  dead structure gives many of its watchers the feeling 
  that it is haunted.
  Some of the researchers take a hands on approach, 
  establishing outposts in the subsurface ice tunnels. 
  The Titanians, argonauts, Consortium, and a self-
  described “TITAN-busting” anarchist tech collective 
  all maintain bases, operating with strict safety and 
  quarantine procedures. They map the layout of the 
  structural changes, attempt to discern the purpose of 
  the complex layers of circuitry, and even attempt to 
  activate discarded machinery in sandboxed environ-
  ments for study. They search for answers they will 
  never find. Why here? Why such a gruesome fate? 
  What was the TITAN trying to do? What can we do 
  to make sure this never happens again? The attrition 
  rate is high. People disappear, experience things in the 
  tunnels of which they refuse to speak, and have break-
  downs and unfortunate accidents. Something about 
  class, while others are either purchased by prospec-
  tive immigrants or given to especially valuable 
  immigrants by various local corporations or wealthy 
  private individuals. Needless to say, many people 
  would love to move here, but if you aren’t a citizen-
  shareholder, the most you can get is a temporary 
  tourist or work visa. 
  Originally a large but mostly automated mining 
  station, the abundant local resources allowed the 
  few hundred locals to rapidly build a large habitat, 
  which was then primarily settled by refugees from 
  both Indonesia and New Zealand during the Fall. 
  Profunda has a large Southeast Asian Muslim 
  population and at one time boasted the tallest and 
  most elaborate minarets in the Saturnian system, a 
  title recently taken away by Salah. Like most of the 
  truly grandiose local architecture, these minarets are 
  located on the surface. Life in the tunnels is pros-
  perous and no one lacks for space, but the wealthiest 
  inhabitants live on the surface. The surface portions 
  of the habitat primarily consists of large domes where 
  the distinction between lush tropical or temperate 
  parkland and living space has largely been erased. 
  The biggest of these domes is more than 50 kilome-
  ters across and is the single most visible feature on 
  this relatively small moon’s surface. 
  Profunda is also home to some of the system’s 
  premier genetic engineers and morph designers. 
  Genehackers have their pick of employers here. 
  Because the moon has minute gravity, only slightly 
  more than 1% of Earth’s, all of the plants and 
  animals in the parks and tame wilderness areas have 
  been genengineered to deal with the exceptionally 
  low gravity. Naturally, the more successful designs are 
  then sold to other habs, providing income to support 
  even more experimental genetic research. Two of the 
  major triumphs of the Profunda gene designers are 
  the aerial plants, which float using small hydrogen 
  gas bags, and the multitude of small- to medium-
  sized animals that possess the capability and instincts 
  for low-g flight. The semi-sapient cats with gliding 
  membranes and prehensile tails are popular pets all 
  across the Saturnian system, but are also regarded 
  as pests by some people, as they have spread widely 
  since their introduction. 
  While other habitats and hypercorps dominate 
  the trade in exotic morphs or morphs for special-
  ized work environments, the local Glitter Bloc 
  dominates the trade in high-end luxury morphs. 
  Their latest model, the Saturn elite, is merely the 
  latest of a series of major hits that have come out of 
  Profunda. Several sylph variants currently popular 
  on Mars and the ring flier are some of their other 
  more popular designs. The people at Skinaesthesia 
  and Skinthetic don’t like to hear it, but when it 
  comes to really slick high fashion morphs, Profunda 
  is firmly in the lead. 
  
  76
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  UTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  Iapetus drives some people crazy. Maybe it’s a variant basilisk 
  hack, something picked up from direct skin-to-surface contact 
  with certain artifacts. Personnel have reported a compulsive desire 
  to abandon whatever they were doing to walk ever deeper into 
  Iapetus, down the kilometers of twisting tunnels and circuitry. 
  These sponsored researchers aren’t the only ones to come here. 
  Iapetus draws explorers and looters alike. The previous inhabitants 
  were refugees who physically left Earth and most of them arrived 
  with at least a few possessions that are now exceptionally valuable, 
  like all other Earth relics. Records from that time are also exception-
  ally spotty, and so the identities of many of those who died on Iapetus 
  are not known. Recovering proof of identity can sometimes result in 
  a reward from friends or relatives, or at least a modest fee from one 
  of the organizations attempting to tabulate the identities and fates of 
  everyone who died in the Fall. Others breach the travel restrictions 
  here to find some bit of tech they can sell to black marketeers.
  They’ll tell you the pay for explorers is good, but everyone here 
  is crazy, myself most definitely included. For obvious reasons, 
  Iapetus draws singularity seekers like dust on a ruster. Most are 
  fine, as long as you leave them alone, but some are actively hostile 
  towards other explorers, and most “accidents” in the tunnels are 
  their work. Some of the people here simply have a death wish, 
  others are even more obsessed with the TITANs or the Fall than 
  most people, but the majority of us have a far more focused 
  obsession: we want to understand what happened to someone we 
  knew who was on Iapetus when the TITANs arrived and turned 
  the moon into a twisted charnel house. 
  Some underground portions of the moon are still habitable, 
  with both breathable atmosphere and pressure, though the 
  moon’s natural gravity is extremely weak, less than a quarter of 
  Earth standard. Most of the outer portions of this moon seem to 
  have been support structure, cooling arrays, and other secondary 
  aspects to the matrioshka brain. At least in the levels we’ve visited 
  so far, almost all the computational structures have decayed 
  into uselessness. Explorers have returned with a bizarre array of 
  materials dug out of this world’s corpse. The most common are 
  still-functional fragments of the matrioshka brain, with intact 
  circuitry. Also common are small relics from Earth found in odd 
  places, stuck to walls or inside machinery.
  The strangest and most disturbing things we’ve found on 
  Iapetus are the bizarre and disturbing sculptures and portraits. 
  Explorers I know recently found three portrait busts made from 
  the same crystalline materials that the rest of the structure is made 
  of, and I just found a black and white portrait etched into one of 
  the walls. Each is in a different style and is of a different subject, 
  though all reflect subjects in agony or pain. In two cases, we’ve 
  managed to verify that the subject was someone who was on 
  Iapetus when the TITANs took it, but in other cases they have 
  depicted people who died on Earth, or subjects whose identity is 
  unknown. All of these works of art are fairly crude, but clearly 
  done with great care. The strangest thing, however, is that all of 
  them were created within the last five years. You read that right, 
  they were made well after the Fall and well after the departure of 
  the artificial minds that inhabited this world. Is there anyone or 
  anything left alive here? I’m not certain I want to find an answer 
  to that question. By agreement, most of the researchers stationed 
  here do not publicize these works of art, though I’ve heard of 
  singularity seekers and exhumans offering high sums for the few 
  that have been found.
  
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  SATURN
  77
  small discussion to start up on what people thought 
  or experienced. Locals mostly refrain from heated 
  theological arguments, but the discussions can be both 
  intense and fascinating—if you’re into that sort of thing.
  The monks welcome tourists, but expect them to 
  abide by all of the local rules. What recently generated 
  interest in Kiviuq, however, is the neutrino telescope. 
  Several of the mystics here wanted to listen to the 
  universe, and so they built a large neutrino telescope 
  to commune with “the hearts of stars,” whatever 
  that means. This neutrino telescope is specifically 
  designed to listen in on neutrino sources outside the 
  solar system, with electronics that filter out anything 
  coming from inside the orbit of Saturn. They also 
  constructed other neutrino receivers on four of 
  Saturn’s more distant moons, so now they have the 
  second largest neutrino telescope array in the solar 
  system. Not bad for a team of a few dozen monks. 
  They even got special dispensation to “listen” to the 
  data from all of the telescopes when they’re outside.
  While this was only news of passing interest to the 
  mesh, the bigger controversy came a few weeks later, 
  when one of these monks claimed to hear some sort 
  of language in the neutrino flux that they received. 
  Her name is Mirella Kouri, and she is certain that 
  someone out there is saying something. She’s having 
  trouble figuring out the basic concepts, and believes 
  that she’s either uncovered some sort of divine 
  message or something exceptionally alien, and she’s 
  started to gather a bit of a following. None of the 
  software the other monks have let crunch the neutrino 
  data has found anything resembling language or other 
  consistent patterns, but after observing her carefully 
  for a whole month, I’m pretty certain that she’s a 
  gifted async, meaning she may actually be able to find 
  patterns and decipher messages that nothing else can. 
  Since reviewing the data, most mesh pundits 
  dismissed her as a nut, and even most of the locals 
  think she’s simply having visions inspired by the data. 
  I think she’s actually found something,however, but 
  space only knows what she’s found. We need to get 
  one of our own asyncs on this data. Since the contro-
  versy passed, the monks have been keeping their latest 
  batches of data to themselves to discourage further 
  speculation. Their security is a bit underwhelming, 
  though, so I was able to snag a copy. I’m sending it 
  along with this report.
  MEATHAB
  Posted by: Dominus Maximus, Scum 
   
  <Info Msg Rep>
  Station Type: Unique
  Allegiance: Independent
  Primary Languages: Mandarin, Polish, Turkish
  Population: 500
  As I am in the Meat, the Meat is also in me. I partake 
  of the Meat and the Meat sustains me. I sustain the 
  Meat with my presence. The Meat is my everything.
  If you’re thinking of visiting Iapetus, I recommend 
  you think again. If you must come, back yourself up 
  and try to get involved with one of the officially sanc-
  tioned research teams. You can try to sneak your way 
  here, but be warned that the quarantine is still loosely 
  enforced by Titanian drones. It’s also common knowl-
  edge that a few private parties—Firewall included—
  keep an eye on events and comings and goings here, 
  just to make sure no one makes off with an intact 
  TITAN or some other threat.
  KIVIUQ
  Posted by: Sakti Wakashi,  
  Firewall Proxy 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  Kiviuq is a small irregular moon, only 16 kilometers 
  across, on a far orbit, around 110 million kilometers 
  from Saturn.
  KIVIUQ MONASTERY 
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Independent
  Primary Languages: Greek, Russian
  Population: 50
  Out in the big black empty, more than three times 
  further away than the next closest moon, there’s a 
  whole lot of peace and not a lot else. I suppose that 
  it makes sense that someplace this isolated would 
  attract mystics and ascetics, and that’s exactly what 
  happened. Out here, Saturn is about the same size 
  a full moon on Earth used to be, and the sun only 
  provides fairly dim light. Most of what you see is light 
  years away, with the occasional dot of a moon moving 
  past your field of vision. 
  The rules of Kiviuq are clear and simple: to be 
  allowed to visit, you need a morph that can handle 
  vacuum and the cold for several hours and you need 
  to be willing to help out in the common buildings. 
  There are only a little more than a thousand people 
  here, and they’re about evenly divided between synths 
  and bios. Everyone sleeps and eats, for those that eat, 
  in a single large common building, and everyone helps 
  with the upkeep and maintenance, which is easy and 
  takes very little time. In their off time, residents and 
  visitors can do whatever they want, as long as they 
  don’t disturb anyone else. There are no celibacy vows 
  or any sort of similar restrictions. However, for 10 
  hours a day, everyone is expected to go outside and 
  contemplate the universe in silence. Everyone goes out 
  and comes in together, but once outside you’re free to 
  do whatever you feel like. The only limitation is that 
  all mesh signals are blocked outside, so you’re not 
  going to spend this time losing yourself in a vid game. 
  Some people just sit and stare at the stars, others 
  walk or perform various moving meditations, including 
  everything from yoga to tai chi to weird movements I’ve 
  never encountered anywhere else. Everyone is free to 
  interact with the infinite in whatever way they see fit. 
  Also, once everyone comes in, it is common for many 
  
  78
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  UTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  but if I read their kinesics correctly, it was a “we’ll 
  be back” sort of huff. We’ve spotted their ships in 
  the vicinity a few times since then, studying the 
  habitat from a distance. While it seems insane that 
  anyone would seriously want to harm MeatHab, it 
  is becoming increasingly obvious that the exhumans 
  could pose a serious threat.
  MIMAS
  Posted by: Sun Bu’er,  
  Firewall Proxy 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  Mimas is a largely unremarkable icy moon, around 
  400 kilometers in diameter but with a slight ellip-
  soid shape. A half dozen small beehive and dome 
  habitats pockmark its surface, though the largest 
  settlement is Harmonious Anarchy, along with its 
  orbital manufactories.
  HARMONIOUS ANARCHY
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Autonomist Alliance  
  (Extropian/Mutualist)
  Primary Languages: Cantonese, Mandarin
  Population: 500,000
  The more prohibitions there are, the poorer everyone 
  will be.
  The more weapons are used, the greater the chaos 
  will be in society.
  The more that people seek “knowledge” for its own 
  sake, the stranger the world will become.
  The more laws that are made, the greater the number 
  of criminals.
  Therefore the wise person says:
  I do nothing, and people become good by themselves.
  I seek peace, and people take care of their 
  own problems.
  I do not meddle in their personal lives, and the 
  people become prosperous.
  I let go of all my desire to control them, and the 
  people return to their natural ways.
  —Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
  Taoist collectivist anarchism isn’t a way of life that 
  most people desire or even understand, but it works. 
  Since Harmonious Anarchy split off from Fa Jing 
  14 years ago, they have kept Fa Jing’s emphasis on 
  highly efficient industrial design. They are the second 
  largest designer and manufacturer of industrial equip-
  ment outside the orbit of Jupiter, a fact that has made 
  the almost half a million inhabitants of Harmonious 
  Anarchy relatively prosperous. However, like most 
  other mutualist, anarcho-communist, and collectivist 
  habs, this prosperity is distributed fairly equally. 
  Everyone here has a morph and other basic property, 
  as well as a modicum of luxuries, but the taoist ethic 
  eschews ostentatious displays of wealth and the inhab-
  itants of Mimas live fairly spartan lives. 
  And so on, and so forth. All praise the most holy 
  hamburger, we bow before the divine sausage, may 
  the meat gods shower us in meatballs, et cetera, 
  et cetera.
  If you’ve never been to MeatHab before—or, as the 
  faithful insist on calling it, Turn Yourself Into a Giant 
  Mass of Space Meat for Art!—, then you’re in for a 
  treat. Pun intended.
  What started as a bizarre piece of performance art 
  by an unknown transhuman that obviously was way, 
  way ahead of the curve when it came to becoming a 
  habitat has since taken on an existence just as bizarre 
  as its genesis. It probably didn’t expect squatters to 
  move in, but MeatHab is currently home to some 
  500 morphs and easily twice that number of visitors, 
  pilgrims, artists, and scientists on any given day. Most 
  of the permanent residents are artists, anarchists, or 
  scum who dig the unique atmosphere of the place 
  and are content to just bask in the weirdness without 
  trying to read anything deeper into it. But the rest of 
  the lot? Nutters at best, dangerous psychos at worst.
  It’s unsurprising that such an oddity would attract 
  tourists. Certainly there’s little like it in the known 
  universe, and transhumanity has always appreciated 
  a good freak show. But the pilgrims? They’re a bit 
  unexpected. I’ve seen transhumans turn to all manner 
  of belief systems since the Fall, but the Acolytes of 
  Living Meat, those guys are fucking bonkers. Led by 
  a genderless case that refers to itself as the Speaker of 
  the Meat, the Acolytes are all sleeved into non-organic 
  bodies since they don’t believe themselves worthy of 
  the gift of flesh. As near as anyone has been able to 
  cobble together from their theology, they seem to 
  believe that MeatHab was created by a transhuman, 
  but that the habitat was infused with a spark of the 
  divine and attained sapience on its own. It is, liter-
  ally, the avatar of their god or goddess. For the most 
  part, they keep to themselves, kneeling in corners or 
  rubbing oils and lotions into the walls of the habitat. 
  The kicker of this is that MeatHab itself seems 
  to be, well, fucking with them. It sends “signs” 
  to the devout, but seems to do so in such a way to 
  undermine the authority of the current Speaker and 
  its cronies. 
  This is far from the only sign that people have 
  observed that indicates the original intelligence of the 
  habitat is still around and taking an interest in the 
  people living inside of it. If you live here long enough, 
  you’ll get a fairly good sense of how MeatHab feels 
  about you. It may be little things, like how long it 
  takes the maintenance lizards to clean your private 
  area, or the way the doors open and close, but there 
  is definitely a presence there. And it has a clever sense 
  of humor.
  Unless you’re an exhuman, that is. None of us 
  expected a small crew of them to show up, but it 
  seems that a few exhumans decided that MeatHab 
  was of their ilk. They didn’t stay long, though. 
  MeatHab clearly didn’t like the exhumans, and it 
  made that abundantly clear. They left in a huff … 
  
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  SATURN
  79
  process bringing along more than two million info-
  morph refugees from Sub-Saharan Africa. Those 
  infugees with the right mix of contacts and skills 
  received bodies and are doing well on iZulu. Skilled 
  refugees who were also lucky were not physically 
  re-instantiated, but are now active as infomorphs in the 
  iZulu mesh. The rest remain in dead storage, waiting 
  for someone to retrieve them. Many of these frozen 
  egos were adapted to living conditions and technology 
  that were at best fifty years behind the times when the 
  Fall hit, meaning that they may have difficulty coping 
  with transhuman society without a sponsor willing to 
  help them adapt and acquire new skills training. 
  iZulu is essentially two colonies. The first and 
  most obvious is the physical habitat, the second is the 
  virtual colony inhabiting the mesh.
  THE EMBODIED WORLD
  The iZulu habitat population is, in total, less pros-
  perous than most habitats around Saturn. On the other 
  hand, iZulu is also home to some of the wealthiest 
  people in the outer system, indicating a large economic 
  disparity between the classes. With a huge population 
  of active infomorphs clamoring to be re-instantiated, 
  the embodied residents are quite aware that they are 
  a single serious mistake away from losing their morph 
  and rejoining the digital masses. Make no mistake, 
  this can be an exceptionally brutal hab. Here, financial 
  success is considered both a mark of luck and a sign 
  of moral virtue. When someone runs into financial 
  trouble, many of their allies and friends desert them 
  as they seek to isolate themselves from any sources 
  of failure and disgrace. If you’re doing well, however, 
  this can be a fairly sweet place to live, with the luxury 
  areas of the habitat putting even the most decadent 
  Venusian aerostats to shame. Sure, it’s crowded, but 
  you’ve got access to all the latest goods and sufficient 
  raw materials to fab up anything you can fit in your 
  hab module, as long as you don’t think about how the 
  rest of the population is struggling to get by.
  One of the most serious problems here is the belief 
  that family comes first. Most locals are fiercely loyal 
  to their families and closest friends, but everyone else 
  is considered fair game. Screwing a rival, even to the 
  point where they lose everything, even to the point 
  of being placed back into cold storage, is considered 
  acceptable. If you’re not related by blood or marriage, 
  many people will do what they can to rip you off 
  at the first opportunity. In their view, they owe you 
  absolutely nothing beyond the very minimum the 
  law requires, which basically simply boils down to 
  not destroying or stealing each other’s property—at 
  least, not blatantly. This competitive, no-holds-barred 
  ethos results in numerous blood feuds and occasional 
  violence. Many of the private courts that settle legal 
  disputes are notoriously biased and corrupt; it pays 
  to read your contracts carefully, have friends in high 
  places, and make judicious bribes.
  Another of the major complaints made by the 
  lower classes here is the high degree of discrimination 
  For those used to the more traditional Confucian 
  ethic found on many Fa Jing habitats, life on Mimas 
  is a rather jarring contrast. Contrary to the emphasis 
  on masculine aspects of traditional family and hierar-
  chical models espoused by Confucianism, the taoists 
  of Mimas live by the more traditionally feminine and 
  egalitarian ethics described in the Tao Te Ching. This 
  means the highly structured and competitive environ-
  ment of most Fa Jing habs is replaced by what seems 
  to be a whole lot of people doing nothing. Workers 
  wander in contemplation at all times of day, talking 
  quietly in small groups or pairs, moving in and out of 
  different structures, eating when they feel hunger, and 
  sleeping when they feel weary. On Mimas, you do what 
  you wish, not what others tell you. To the consterna-
  tion of our former employer, it works gloriously well.
  Each of the five color-coded cavernous neighbor-
  hoods, based on the classic direction of Chinese 
  mythology, is a unique community. Families form the 
  core of life on Mimas, but the term “family” has a 
  slightly different meaning here. Instead of a genetic 
  bond, families are groupings of choice, bound by 
  mutual interests and support. New immigrants to 
  Mimas are encouraged to explore and talk to as many 
  people as they wish, with the expectation that even-
  tually they will find a family that fits for them. Not 
  everyone does, but that’s OK; Harmonious Anarchy 
  is not for everyone. Those who do find a family, 
  however, gain a social unit that looks after them and 
  cares for them in times of need.
  Despite not having any formal requirements for 
  labor or work, most of the residents of Mimas are 
  highly productive, allowed to choose their own 
  projects and work at their own pace. They nonetheless 
  develop innovative software and are on the cutting 
  edge of industrial design. Hard work and success are 
  rewarded, but a portion of all rewards someone gains 
  goes to their family. Personal displays of wealth are 
  nearly unheard of. Instead, most profits are used to 
  further improve life on Mimas, expand the habitat, 
  or sponsor new egos to join one of the established 
  families on the asteroid.
  PAN
  Posted by: Roberto Alverez,  
  Firewall Proxy 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  Pan is the innermost of Saturn’s moons. It has an 
  irregular walnut shape and is approximately 34 x 
  31 x 21 kilometers. It is uninhabited apart from the 
  iZulu colony.
  IZULU
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Autonomist Alliance (Extropian)
  Primary Languages: Afrikaans, English, Xhosa, Zulu
  Population: 1,100,000
  iZulu was built by anarcho-capitalist South African 
  technocrats who managed to escape the Fall, in the 
  
  80
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  UTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  contracts for infomorph work and the opportunity to 
  egocast to other habitats or resleeve at more reason-
  able rates, and they want to see a plan instituted to 
  re-instantiate all of the infomorphs remaining within 
  10 years, as well as activating the million plus egos in 
  dead storage. The potential for some form of large-
  scale civil unrest on iZulu remains high.
  PANDORA
  Posted by: Ann Carais, Astrobiologist,  
  Titan Autonomous University 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  Pandora is a small inner satellite on a chaotic orbit, 
  but its effect on transhumanity has been quite large, 
  if also chaotic. The location of the original Pandora 
  Gate, Pandora is one of most highly trafficked areas 
  in the Saturnian system. Firewall has documented this 
  moon and its facilities more thoroughly elsewhere, 
  but I will say this: everyone in the system keeps an eye 
  on what goes on here. The Gatekeeper Corporation 
  may have opened up the gate, sharing it with others 
  throughout the system, and the Titanians may still 
  keep a grip on things, just in case, but there is plenty 
  to worry about. A resource like the gate is something 
  no one takes lightly. It could be an excuse for the 
  Consortium or even the Jovians to move in, in order 
  to have tighter control over transhumanity and the 
  solar system itself. It draws extremists and weirdos of 
  every flavor, from singularity seekers to exhumans to 
  religious nutjobs. And then there’s always the possi-
  bility that some alien visitors might take it as open 
  door right into our backyard, or perhaps the TITANs 
  themselves might even show back up (wouldn’t it 
  suck if they had gotten halfway across the galaxy and 
  realized they had forgotten something on Iapetus?).
  Even while Pandora concerns the hell out of us, it 
  is also one of the most exciting things going on in 
  based on ethnic and national ties. The South Africans 
  largely run the show here, specifically the Zulu and 
  Xhosa families who were able to escape the Fall with 
  a large amount of their wealth intact and found iZulu. 
  Because of this, a small number of families have a 
  stranglehold on the upper echelons, meaning that 
  anyone from other tribes or nationalities is a whole 
  lot less likely to have a morph or to have a crappy 
  case and not much else. Inter-ethnic tensions run hot 
  here and occasionally flare into violence. The security 
  contractors tend to be dominated by specific ethnic 
  groups, meaning that they often instigate the cycle 
  of violence. These sorts of tensions seem exception-
  ally archaic to most outsiders, but the local power 
  structure and the desperation of the poor keeps this 
  nonsense from fading away. 
  THE IZULU MESH
  The iZulu mesh is home to 700,000 active info-
  morphs, almost twice the embodied population. A 
  vast simulspace environment has been established 
  for them to dwell in. Virtual Africa is a hyper-real 
  vision of what a fully modern Africa might be like. 
  It’s a wonder of simulspace engineering and program-
  ming and includes options for virtual versions of all 
  of the popular biomorphs, including a wide variety of 
  mental enhancements. The recreational and entertain-
  ment options it presents are endless.
  Nevertheless, many consider Virtual Africa to be a 
  gilded cage. Most of the infomorphs are indentured 
  bitworkers with lengthy contracts in order to pay 
  off the evacuation, iZulu establishment, and Virtual 
  Africa fees with which they are saddled. Most of 
  them harbor a fair amount of jealousy and resent-
  ment towards the physical residents, especially the 
  habitat’s wealthy elite. A few of them have even made 
  a bold political statement, refusing to resleeve when 
  offered an opportunity. They demand better pay and 
  THE DAPHNIS PROJECT
  A growing segment of iZulu’s infomorph popula-
  tion are no longer content to work off their lengthy 
  indentures or to wait for the colony’s elites to 
  resolve the embodiment problem. Instead, they 
  are undertaking an ambitious plan to create their 
  own habitat. Under the dual banners of freedom 
  and cultural preservation, these infomorphs have 
  reached out to a group of Titanian microcorps and 
  sought their help in creating a habitat in the tiny 
  nearby moonlet Daphnis. Their original plan was to 
  create a beehive habitat, but this moon is a rough 
  disk nine kilometers in diameter and six kilometers 
  thick and is an ideal candidate for transformation 
  into a Hamilton cylinder. Today, the ultimate goal 
  of the Daphnis Project is to create more than a 
  thousand square kilometers of a remade Africa that 
  will become home to most of the iZulu infomorphs 
  and a fair quantity of recreated African wildlife. 
  Essentially, the Daphnis Project hopes to make 
  Virtual Africa real.
  It’s an impressively ambitious plan for people 
  who can’t afford bodies or living space on their 
  home habitat, but the Titanians have already 
  taken the proposal to the Plurality and received 
  Commonwealth support. The iZulu leaders are alter-
  nately dismissive and worried about the Daphnis 
  Project. They are unable to do much about it, how-
  ever, not wanting to risk a loss of rep with their 
  autonomist allies or imperil the major gas mining 
  contracts they have with the Commonwealth. 
  n
  
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  SATURN
  81
  off with a good whiskey recipe on their way out of the 
  system, and I’m pretty sure if you poured Phelan’s Ma 
  on a Factor it’d kill the poor bastard.
  Even if that Factor were still alive, it’d be dead 
  for sure if you hit it with Phelan’s Da. Same goes for 
  a lot of transhumans I know too. If the whiskey is 
  divine, and it is, then Phelan’s Da is a beer brewed 
  from cat piss in the devil’s asshole and left to ferment 
  in a cesspit. I use it, after putting on a good vacsuit, 
  to soften up some of the fugitives I bring in if I need 
  some useful intel off of them. I know others that have 
  found it to be a passable drain cleaner and a substan-
  dard engine parts degreaser, but I would never, under 
  any circumstances, recommend drinking it. 
  Of course, paying a visit to Ma and Da Phelan are 
  hardly the only reasons to visit the Recourse. Drugs, 
  weapons, petals, body parts, schematics, anything 
  you could want is here for the trading. Keep in mind 
  though, for the most part your money is no good here. 
  We operate more along a quid-pro-quo system where 
  information in particular is a hot commodity. As the 
  largest entity that makes regular stops at all the big 
  habitats, Phelan’s is a good place to get an overall 
  read of what’s going down on all of Saturn’s moons 
  and habs. It’s also one of the few places where you 
  can make contact with nearly every major criminal 
  cartel in the system, as well as quite a few bit players. 
  There’s no law on Phelan’s, only your reputation 
  protects you, and if no one owes you, and no one is 
  willing to vouch for you, I’d strongly advise being 
  well armed.
  Phelan’s is a literal floating border town on the 
  orbiting, raucous edge of civilized space. Once you get 
  beyond Saturn, there’s very little in the way of what 
  someone from the inner system would call civilization, 
  just anarchists, ultimates, exhumans, and worse. I’ve 
  seen a lot of people that were heading out into the 
  black, but weren’t riding a beam of data, stop over 
  here to grab one last drink before they go off over 
  that edge.
  PROMETHEUS
  Posted by: Mimiko Green,  
  Firewall Informant 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  One of the minor inner moons of Saturn, Prometheus 
  is home to the Commonwealth industrial colony of 
  Marseilles. It is elongated in shape, measuring roughly 
  136 x 79 x 59 kilometers.
  MARSEILLES
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Autonomist Alliance 
  (Titanian Commonwealth)
  Primary Languages: French, 
  Skandinavíska, Vietnamese
  Population: 800,000
  Marseilles was constructed similar to many 
  other beehives built on icy moons and asteroids 
  our neighborhood. People come here seeking adven-
  ture and new beginnings, new mysteries are found 
  that draw our attention, new life is discovered that 
  shows us that we are not alone in the universe. So we 
  cope with the fear and concentrate on the positive. It 
  certainly gives us something to do.
  PHELAN’S RECOURSE
  Posted by: Nils Hamre,  
  Ego Hunter 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  Station Type: Nomadic Swarm
  Allegiance: Autonomist Alliance (Scum)
  Primary Languages: English, 
  Mandarin, Skandinavíska
  Population: 250,000
  Phelan’s eh? Well, sure, I live there, but I’m not sure 
  you’d really call me part of the family, you know? 
  The family—or Family, rather—are, depending on 
  who you listen to, either a bunch of thieving bastards, 
  a god-damned nuisance and blight on the entire solar 
  system, the scourge of the Commonwealth, or the best 
  damn party you’re likely to see this side of Carnivale. 
  Of course, that’s all according to them, other opinions 
  may vary.
  Getting the truth out of the scum that run—
  though infest is probably a better word—Phelan’s, 
  is easy, just ask ‘em. Of course, the truth, to scum, 
  is a very mutable thing, and no member of Phelan’s 
  is under any obligation to respect the truth of any 
  other members. 
  If you listen to the Commonwealth—not that 
  I would, were I you, but they do like a single solid 
  narrative—the good folks of Phelan’s are a melting 
  pot of Irish travelers, Scandinavian viking-anarchists, 
  a former California poet-biker gang, and a bunch of 
  drunken Catholic priests on the lam from the Jovians. 
  Sure, I’ve met plenty of folks that could loosely be 
  said to meet that description aboard Phelan’s. Of 
  course I’ve met thousands of others too, people the 
  Commonwealth leaves out, including more than a few 
  of their own disaffected citizens who find all of their 
  blather about citizenship and politics a waste of time 
  and oxygen. As it stands, there’s over a quarter million 
  egos spread out among 10,000 craft in this swarm, 
  so our diversity program is doing quite well in these 
  parts. One thing that often surprises visitors is how 
  long Phelan’s is; the swarm stretches for over 1,000 
  klicks. All those craft take a long time to pass by, and 
  we’re never in a hurry to go anywhere. After all, it’ll 
  still be there next time if we miss it on this go-round. 
  For me, Phelan’s is the best way to keep in touch 
  with all sorts of people around Saturn, since it goes 
  everywhere that’s worth going to. Most people, 
  whether they admit to it or not, partake of some of 
  the services offered by Phelan’s when the opportunity 
  arises. For most, this is Phelan’s Ma, the best whiskey 
  in the whole god-damned galaxy. I’d say solar system, 
  but let’s face it, it’s highly unlikely the TITANs fucked 
  
  82
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  UTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  Commonwealth almost certainly has an antimatter 
  factory here, but no one will confirm this fact. 
  Approximately one eighth of the population has a 
  high security clearance and works in a well-guarded 
  deep cavern called Maxwell.
  MAXWELL CAVERN
  Maxwell is only accessible via a pair of ultra-secure 
  maglev lines. To get into the train station, much less 
  on either of these trains, your data needs to be on file, 
  and they don’t just rely on mesh data either. You get a 
  blood sample to check your morph and a brain scan 
  to check your ego just to get into that train station. 
  The whole procedure only takes 30 seconds per 
  person, but everyone working in Maxwell must prick 
  their finger and put the circlet on their head every trip. 
  If either one doesn’t match, they are detained until 
  everything is figured out. 
  The station is built away from the rest of the habit-
  able space and has no access from the surface; you 
  must pass through the entire main habitat to get there, 
  and most of the locals are on watch for strangers 
  acting suspiciously. The actual engineers, scientists, 
  and security personnel who work at the Maxwell site 
  are a remarkably secretive bunch. While they visit 
  local shops, nightclubs, and restaurants, they mostly 
  only go there in the company of other high-ranking 
  Commonwealth personnel, and they rarely talk to 
  outsiders in anything but the most casual fashion. 
  The locals who aren’t employed at Maxwell are 
  throughout the solar system: by melting tunnels and 
  chambers into the ice and then insulating them. Since 
  Prometheus is an exceptionally porous body of loosely 
  packed snow mixed with small amounts of rock and 
  metal, however, its interior is filled with large caverns. 
  The major parts of Marseilles were constructed by 
  enlarging these caverns and strengthening them by 
  melting the snow to form a shell of ice between 50 
  and 100 meters thick. After insulating this shell, the 
  cavernous interiors were built up with a maze of 
  corridors and rooms.
  Not all of the caverns are fully developed habitat 
  space. The Ice Gardens are a series of only partly insu-
  lated caves kept at a cool 5 C to keep the ice stable. 
  Genehackers from Profunda were hired to populate 
  these Gardens with cold- and micrograv-tolerant 
  plants and smart animals. These cold but wonderful 
  parks are filled with conifers, snow monkeys, furry 
  snakes, and white owls, and all of the animals are 
  tame enough to be pets. Outsiders mostly haven’t had 
  much experience with large micrograv gardens, and 
  so it takes a bit of getting used to, but it’s impres-
  sively lovely
  Marseilles is home to some 80,000. A signifi-
  cant portion of these work in the large surface 
  refineries, converting the volatiles gathered by the 
  Commonwealth’s gas mining skimmer fleets. The 
  locals are nice people and fairly well off, however, 
  it can be a somewhat odd place to live due to a 
  pervasive air of secrecy. Everyone knows that the 
  
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  SATURN
  83
  forcing thousands of others to live in tin cans and 
  permanently docked ships lashed irregularly to the 
  cluster’s exteriors.
  Kronos began as a mixed Extropian and anarchist 
  settlement. Like everywhere else, it was flooded with 
  refugees and infugees during the Fall. Many of the 
  Extropian ventures here were already bordering on 
  what would be considered criminal territory else-
  where; the influx of survivors brought new waves of 
  desperate and poor individuals, many of them with 
  criminal affiliations of their own. As Kronos grew 
  and expanded, its social order and infrastructure 
  did not do as well. Criminal elements increasingly 
  took advantage of the free environment to dominate 
  commerce; the private Extropian security, legal, and 
  insurance contractors here were simply unable to keep 
  up,with many pulling out or being subverted in their 
  own right. As the gangs began to struggle over specific 
  areas and markets, violent crime skyrocketed. Militias 
  began to aggressively protect the various anarchist 
  enclave borders. As certain gangs did likewise, getting 
  around Kronos started to become a real problem. 
  The dominant Extropian presence, the Kronos Port 
  Authority (KPA), brought in ultimate mercenaries to 
  restore order, but the situation backfired when the 
  ultimates chose to seize control of the port, taking 
  over the KPA themselves. Today, Kronos remains a 
  patchwork of armed neighborhoods.
  KRONOS PORT
  Most people who come to Kronos are there to 
  indulge in something they can’t do at home, and 
  visitors are often worried about how safe it actually 
  is. The first thing you learn when visiting Kronos is 
  that despite various rumors, the port area is remark-
  ably safe. The KPA is run by a group of some of the 
  most brutal ultimates you’re ever likely to encounter. 
  They keep the port safe, because safe is good for 
  tourists and commercial visitors and these are good 
  for business. The KPA is a business-first sort of 
  group. Anyone who threatens or commits violence 
  or property destruction—or looks like they might—is 
  in for a very hard time anywhere near the port. Any 
  locals caught interfering with the port’s peace and 
  safety end up brainhacked into obedience and stuck 
  in a worker pod doing low-level maintenance tasks 
  for the KPA. 
  Thankfully, this risk is almost exclusively a problem 
  for locals. The KPA knows that tourists and other 
  visitors are what keeps Kronos running, and so mostly 
  they just exile troublesome visitors and tell them not 
  to return. If a visitor is an exceptional problem, the 
  KPA may just confiscate their morph and stick the ego 
  in virtual isolation. If you aren’t detonating bombs, 
  smuggling antimatter, or otherwise causing large-scale 
  problems, however, you’ll never see even the KPA’s 
  nasty side. Instead, what you’ll see is remarkably 
  polite port officials, disturbingly helpful worker pods, 
  and a set of rules that you’d better keep in mind. 
  Violence of all sorts is seriously frowned upon and 
  understanding of the high security around the facility, 
  especially since the Commonwealth spends heavily to 
  keep Marseilles in top condition, but there is still a bit 
  of resentment at how much of a distance the Maxwell 
  employees keep.
  I believe the rumored antimatter factory is only 
  part of what’s happening here, and that it’s largely 
  an open secret because it is the only project that the 
  Commonwealth isn’t keeping well hidden. It makes 
  an excellent cover for whatever else is going on here. 
  You don’t have to believe me, but if you hang around 
  the main docks, there’s a hell of a lot of propulsion 
  and fabrication technology arriving that quickly 
  disappears down the Maxwell rabbit hole. You add 
  this up with all the security they deal with on a daily 
  basis,and it’s easy to see that there’s way more than an 
  antimatter factory going on in that cavern. 
  We’re dealing with rumors, but people occasionally 
  let things slip and with the type of tech getting shipped 
  into that cavern—or caverns; who’s to say there is 
  only one? I think it’s safe to say they’re working on 
  some sort of next generation propulsion technology. 
  If it weren’t for the Factors, I’d say that reactionless 
  drives were a fool’s game, but they exist, and some 
  of the gear and scientists the Commonwealth has 
  here might fit that profile. The other idea that works 
  is weapons research. The next step after making 
  antimatter is either tweaking matter so it flips over 
  into antimatter or creating anti-particles out of the 
  quantum foam. Do that at range, even a fairly short 
  range, and you’ve got a very deadly weapon. There’s 
  no proof of any of this; the Commonwealth doesn’t 
  seem interested in allowing any to get out. I’ve heard 
  that people who get too interested in the Maxwell 
  Cavern tend to vanish, sometimes reappearing with a 
  lot less interest in what’s going on here.
  RHEA
  Excerpted from: Travel Saturn Goes to Kronos
  What is there to see on Rhea, Saturn’s second largest 
  moon? Not much, unless you like ice. Lots and lots of 
  ice. That vast expense of ice with more ice is probably 
  why almost no one lives here, except for a few small 
  tin can outposts. Instead, people in these parts have 
  opted for an environment that is a bit more exciting, 
  like say the genuine hive of scum and villainy of 
  Kronos Cluster, in orbit above Rhea’s snowball. 
  KRONOS CLUSTER
  Station Type: Cluster
  Allegiance: Independent  
  (Anarchist/Criminal/Ultimate)
  Primary Languages: Cantonese, Dutch, Turkish
  Population: 950,000
  Kronos’s exterior grapevine look is seductive and 
  misleading. The interiors of this cluster’s modules are 
  dirty and overcrowded. The station desperately needs 
  to grow, but lacks the planning and infrastructure, 
  
  84
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  UTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  cluster. Several have even formed temporary alliances 
  for just this purpose. The ultimates are wise to the 
  threat, however, and carefully ensure that no criminal 
  outfit or bloc gathers enough firepower to threaten 
  their control.
  ANARCHIST ZONES
  The anarchist zones are safe and well armed, but are 
  correspondingly less interesting. If you’re in need of 
  help, they’re usually a good place to find sympathy 
  or even allies. Some enclaves have grown inured to 
  the violence and crime, however, withdrawing into a 
  more isolationist stance and no longer sticking their 
  necks out for anyone outside their local group. Most 
  anarchists try to steer clear of criminal conflicts, 
  though they also have a vested interest in making sure 
  no gang grows too powerful. The gangs occasionally 
  make a point of scalping or lynching “anarchist vigi-
  lantes,” fueling tensions.
  GETTING AROUND
  The one essential that you’re really going to need if 
  you’re headed out of the port and into the portions 
  of Kronos not directly controlled by the KPA is a 
  local guide. Locals make good money as guides, 
  both licensed and unlicensed. The latter is cheaper, 
  but once you get outside the KPA’s area of imme-
  diate influence, the difference between a mugger 
  or kidnapper and an unlicensed guide can be very 
  small indeed. The key to getting the most out of your 
  guide’s services is to be completely honest about why 
  you’re there. They’ve heard every weird, creepy, or 
  disgusting reason many times before, and regard-
  less of what you want, they’ll be able to get you to 
  it faster, easier, and safer than you can. Best of all, 
  the licensed guides have enough contacts with the 
  various criminal gangs that the worst you’ll need to 
  do is pay some modest bribes to safely visit or pass 
  through a gang’s territory.
  There’s only one good reason to hire an unlicensed 
  guide: if you want to find someone. Some people go 
  to Kronos to disappear, some simply arrive and try 
  to vanish, and a good licensed guide may be able to 
  help you find them. Some people, after all, pay the 
  KPA lots of money to make certain they’re not found. 
  The KPA would like to believe that no one outside 
  their leadership knows these people are on Kronos, 
  but people talk, and people especially like to talk 
  about people who don’t technically “exist.” However, 
  if you do manage to get close, all they or one of their 
  KPA guards need do is send the KPA a message to 
  tell your guide to back off. At this point, your guide 
  will do one of two things, depending on how much 
  they like you. They’ll either warn you of the danger 
  or bug out and let the KPA enforcers use your morph 
  for target practice. 
  If you aren’t an idiot, Kronos is worth visiting, and 
  can be relatively safe, but you really don’t want to 
  get between the KPA and their profits. Also, don’t 
  blame Travel Saturn if you come back short a few 
  anything bigger and badder than light pistols, stun 
  weapons, or a flex cutter is going to get confiscated. 
  However, non-violent crimes are a very different 
  matter. As the local mesh informs you the first time 
  you connect on Kronos, most actions that are non-
  violent crimes elsewhere are perfectly legal here. Keep 
  in mind they don’t just mean prostitution, gambling, 
  and dangerously hard drugs. Con artists and pick-
  pockets can practice their trades to their hearts’ 
  content, and many of the latter have tech that allows 
  them to silence your possessions before they begin to 
  yell to you about being stolen. 
  CRIMINAL ‘HOODS
  There are dozens of rival gangs on Kronos, each with 
  their own territory. Despite the fearsome reputa-
  tion, many of these are as safe as the port—like the 
  ultimates, the crime bosses know that scaring people 
  away is bad for business. Criminal enforcers patrol 
  the streets, keeping rival gangs clear and protecting 
  the residents and tourists. Others are less-savory 
  lawless zones where no is safe unless in a heavily 
  armed group.
  The gang zones tend to still operate in Extropian 
  fashion, except that the security contractors and 
  private courts are in service to, or simply replaced 
  by, the dominant cartel. These neighborhoods are the 
  main reason many people come to Kronos, in search 
  of illicit goods or services. This demand is met by 
  thousands of business, which come in two flavors: 
  licensed and unlicensed. Both are perfectly legal here, 
  and, as the old joke goes, the only difference is the 
  cut the KPA gets. Even in the areas the KPA doesn’t 
  directly control, they sell business licenses. Ostensibly, 
  possessing a license means the business is safe and 
  does what it says. Anyone that forges a license or 
  doesn’t keep to the terms it promises must face the 
  wrath of the ultimates. Of course, the licenses cost 
  a fair amount and goods and services provided by 
  licensed businesses are on average almost twice as 
  expensive as unlicensed ones. The gangs all see this 
  as what it is—a KPA protection racket. Some of them 
  comply, some offer their own licenses, many don’t 
  play the game. Unlicensed business can also offer a 
  wide range of services and goods that are frowned 
  upon even on Kronos—if you’re foolish enough to 
  give them a try. Take my word for it—always go 
  licensed on Kronos. 
  The balance of power between the gangs is 
  constantly shifting, but it pays to be up-to-date 
  on who’s who. Right now, criminal outfits like the 
  Messina Sisters and Le Sapeurs are relatively straight 
  shooters, keeping their ‘hoods safe and keeping their 
  customers happy—just don’t get too into debt with 
  them. Gangs like the Vinlanders and Bombacilar are 
  at the lower end—savage animals that will violate 
  your corpse and pop your stack as soon as make an 
  even deal. Many of these gangs would love to oust 
  the ultimates and seize control of the port, viewing 
  that as the first step to achieving dominance over the 
  
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  SATURN
  85
  have found that anarchism and socialism are not 
  that different from the teachings of the Prophet and 
  that seeing to the welfare of all is the noblest of all 
  callings. Because of this, we are seen as corrupted, 
  fallen to the vile and wicked influences and strange 
  ideas of our neighbors by those who have kept the 
  true faith in the inner system. This is complicated 
  by the fact that most of us that have grown up 
  with Salah, shaping it to reflect our dreams, are the 
  younger sons and daughters, the poorer relations, 
  or the hungry, but destitute families that made it 
  off Earth with little but their bodies intact. To our 
  wealthier, and often more pious, cousins from the 
  inner system, we have done all we can and it is now 
  their turn to take over. They sneer at the other resi-
  dents of the Saturnian system and seek to embarrass 
  our brothers and sisters on Profunda by building 
  ever grander mosques and minarets, foolishly 
  hoping that by shouting the loudest, Allah will love 
  them best. 
  If these were the only newcomers, we could still 
  endure, as they are content to build their palaces and 
  places of worship and to look down their noses at 
  those they consider less pious. They have little interest 
  in actually running the habitat. Instead, they would 
  leave us to our beliefs, and we could pass them off 
  as just another thread in the rich tapestry that lives 
  among the rings. 
  But they are not the only ones to have joined 
  us. Far more pernicious are those that only weakly 
  cling to their faith and who have learned the lessons 
  of the Consortium. They have seen that wealth is 
  compounded if you also have a servile and scared 
  populace working hard for your enrichment. My 
  older uncles and granduncles are, quite simply, 
  immortal hypercapitalist oligarchs that see the wealth 
  of the Saturnian system as ripe for the picking. And 
  they are ascendant in their power. Since we opened 
  the gates to new residents, they have been pouring 
  in, dozens a day, hundreds a week, claiming posi-
  tions of power through family ties and long-forgotten 
  financing agreements, pushing the matter of how the 
  habitat should be governed. 
  If you have been watching the Commonwealth 
  mesh feeds at all this month, you would know this 
  has not gone unnoticed. My granduncle, Suhaim Bin 
  Hamad Al Thani, a current executive for Solaris, has 
  reached out to the other heavyweight Consortium 
  interests, advising them to set up shop on Salah. He 
  calls us “open for business” and “the most signifi-
  cant investment opportunity since the Martian land 
  grab.” Considering that Salah will eventually hold 
  millions of residents, the Commonwealth is right to be 
  worried. So far, a significant hypercorporate presence 
  has been kept out of the outer system, but Suhaim’s 
  big flashing invitation threatens to upset that balance 
  of power. Something I know Firewall is concerned 
  about as well.
  possessions or having been conned. These things 
  happen on Kronos; it’s part of the local color. 
  SALAH
  Posted by: Ali Bin Kalifa Al Thani,  
  Firewall Crow 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  Station Type: Hamilton Cylinder
  Allegiance: Independent (Contested)
  Primary Languages: Arabic, Punjabi, Turkish
  Population: 215,000
  Peace be unto you. It is not often that one is asked 
  to speak of his home to others in Firewall, and on 
  those rare occasions when one is obligated to do so, it 
  is usually for reasons that one’s home is in imminent 
  danger of a most dire type. Therefore, it pleases me to 
  be able to tell you of Salah when there is no clear or 
  present danger to the habitat, merely the satisfying of 
  the curiosity of outsiders. 
  I myself have a rather unique relationship to 
  Salah. My grandfather, great uncles, father, and 
  uncles have all been vital in the funding of the great 
  Hamilton cylinder. Even before the Fall we—that is, 
  the Al Thani family of Qatar—were great financiers 
  of efforts to expand ever deeper into space. When 
  approached with an opportunity to build a habitat 
  greater and more grandiose than any previously built, 
  we jumped at it. You see, we have a bit of a reputa-
  tion for desiring to build big. Once the Fall hit, many 
  of us retreated to lands and estates on Mars, Luna, 
  or Venus. We knew, however, that should it work as 
  promised, Salah would be the place we could all come 
  together again, the great diaspora, the Ummah, given 
  once more a place to call our own. It is our fondest 
  wish that Salah, named for the practice of formal 
  worship in Islam and one of the five pillars, will be 
  that place for our people. Even now, however, its 
  future is uncertain.
  One of the two Hamilton cylinders built in the 
  rings of Saturn, Salah was recently deemed complete 
  enough for habitation and is making waves for 
  some decisions made by its leadership. The growing 
  population is evenly split between a variety of people 
  from across the Saturnian system and muslims from 
  some of the most powerful and influential families 
  on old Earth. My family was one of dozens that 
  contributed to the construction of the habitat; most 
  of the money came from various families living in 
  the inner system. Now that Salah is open for immi-
  gration, the various scions of those sunward families 
  are flooding the place. This has, understandably, 
  created some tension.
  On the one side, you have those of us that have 
  labored to build the habitat and who have also built 
  relationships with our neighbors. We understand 
  that the outer system, and Saturn in particular, is not 
  Luna or Venus. To our cousins closer to the sun, we 
  have become strange. Some of us, myself included, 
  
  86
  AME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  UTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  fitted with habitat modules and are a normal part of 
  Godwinhead. However, the rest of the tunnels are not 
  heated though they are usually sealed. Instead, they 
  have a thin breathable atmosphere that comes from 
  a few dozen makers placed strategically throughout 
  the tunnels. Waste heat from the more habit-
  able regions of Godwinhead keep these tunnels at 
  temperatures ranging from –40 to –70 C. This means 
  that anyone with some fairly basic augmentations 
  can live comfortably in these tunnels, and more than 
  a few people do, tapping in to the superconducting 
  power lines the run the length of the tunnels for their 
  basic needs. 
  The official population of Godwinhead is around 
  200,000, but that doesn’t include the almost 12,000 
  people who live in the ice tunnels. They’ve got cold-
  adapted makers using ice and the occasional mineral 
  deposits as raw materials and live in dwellings carved 
  out of the ice or fabbed up from various cold-tolerant 
  materials. They have even excavated a large central 
  market called Bartertown, where all the merchants 
  work in brightly colored tents. This market has 
  become a tourist attraction and has been growing. 
  The ice tunnels are home to artists, eccentrics, fossil 
  prospectors, amateur naturalists, and people who 
  want to disappear but don’t have anyone who is 
  actually interested in chasing them. 
  TWELVE COMMONS  
  (EPIMETHEUS AND JANUS)
  Posted by: Sakti Wakashi,  
  Firewall Proxy 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  Twelve Commons is a neighborhood of anarchist 
  habitats floating on and near the co-orbital path of 
  two icy moonlets, Epimetheus and Janus. The area 
  occupied by these stations is a cloud roughly 20,000 
  kilometers across. Despite the name, the population 
  has expanded beyond the original twelve habitats. 
  Over six million people call the Twelve Commons 
  home. Many of the habitats are focused on particular 
  scientific, technological, or artistic projects; the habitat 
  design is often specific to their needs, resulting in a 
  number of unusual station formats.
  DIY SHIPYARDS
  Station Type: Cluster
  Allegiance: Autonomist Alliance (Anarchist)
  Primary Languages: Arabic, Malay
  Population: 10,000
  The Do-It-Yourself Shipyards are a highly auto-
  mated ship-building facility, capable of handling 
  most small and medium-sized spaceship designs. 
  The worker’s syndicate that operates the station will 
  construct a ship for any other anarchist group on one 
  TETHYS
  Excerpted from: Travel Saturn Visits Godwinhead
  Tethys is a mid-sized moon, approximately 1,060 kilo-
  meters across. It has two co-orbital moons, Tethys and 
  Calypso, at its L4 and L5 Lagrange points respectively.
  GODWINHEAD
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Autonomist Alliance (Anarchist)
  Primary Languages: English, Hindi, Punjabi
  Population: 200,000
  Godwinhead is a nice place to visit, but unless 
  you’re a xenobiologist or an archaeologist, it’s a 
  lousy place to live. Settled by a group calling itself the 
  Rioters, this alarming name belies the placid nature 
  of this community. Yes, there are more than 200,000 
  transhumans living here, many of them self-identified 
  as anarchists, but most people attend the regular town 
  meetings, either in person or via mesh, and there are 
  a number of local festivals that are very popular and 
  involve most of the community. 
  The ship that brought the original colonists to 
  Godwinhead fifteen years ago, the Caleb Williams, has 
  been turned into a kind of living museum, a must-see 
  for both visitors and new residents. Godwinhead was 
  founded after the discovery of tiny extinct micro-
  organisms here by the Caleb Williams’s crew. Using 
  the good will and capital generated by this discovery, 
  they expanded the settlement and bought a large 
  number of morphs, which they offered up to needy 
  refugees willing to work to make a real community. 
  The original Indo-British autonomist culture of 
  the settlement remains largely intact, with the new 
  arrivals integrating their beliefs and practices into 
  the local customs. The locals did an excellent job of 
  attracting people with similar interests and tempera-
  ments. I’m told that Godwinhead is a lot like it was a 
  dozen years ago, except considerably larger.
  The Caleb Williams is the centerpoint of 
  Godwinhead, parked in a cavern at the bottom of 
  the 5-kilometer high Ithaca Chasma, a 2,000-kilo-
  meter trench that wraps almost all of the way around 
  Tethys. The valley wall around it is pockmarked with 
  habitat modules and ice tunnels, with trusswork 
  and cabling stretching across the gap for micrograv 
  ziplines and cable cars.
  Outside of the extinct original settlers of 
  Godwinhead, the Tethyan flatworms, the strangest 
  section of Godwinhead are the ice tunnels stretching 
  out and away from Godwinhead. As part of their 
  search for new frozen life forms, prospectors, 
  explorers, and biologists used plasma drills to create 
  a large network of tunnels, most between three and 
  five meters in diameter. There are more than 3,000 
  kilometers of tunnels. The close-in tunnels have been 
  
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  SATURN
  87
  NGUYEN’S COMPACT 
  Station Type: Cole Bubble (Variant)
  Allegiance: Autonomist Alliance (Anarchist)
  Primary Languages: French, Khmer, Vietnamese
  Population: 80,000
  This Cole asteroid has an unusual design. Rather 
  than having a single spherical interior, it was 
  constructed with a series of interconnecting spherical 
  bubbles, much like Swiss cheese. It is not spun for 
  gravity, making each of the caverns a micrograv 
  environment. The maze-like interior of this station is 
  confusing to most outsiders, requiring entoptic aids 
  to navigate.
  RED EMMA’S DANCE
  Station Type: Track
  Allegiance: Autonomist Alliance (Anarchist)
  Primary Languages: Greek, Italian
  Population: 2,000
  Built on a small asteroid, this entire habitat is set 
  on a rail track, so that it circles around the asteroid, 
  providing light centrifugal gravity. The residents 
  here, following historical anarchist Emma Goldman’s 
  admonition, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part 
  of your revolution,” are dedicated to creative expres-
  sion, particularly music and motion. Specifically, they 
  experiment with new morph designs that are musical 
  instruments unto themselves or that are capable of 
  new and pleasantly aesthetic movements. Each morph 
  tends to be a custom design, one-of-a-kind piece; the 
  performances they are capable when working together 
  are something unseen anywhere else in the solar 
  system. Many musicians and dancers from here travel 
  on tour throughout the various Saturnian anarchist 
  stations, often catching a lift from Phelan’s Recourse.
  SMALL MAJESTIES
  Station Type: Cluster
  Allegiance: Autonomist Alliance (Anarchist)
  Primary Languages: Spanish, Tagalog
  Population: 80
  Small Majesties was founded by a large collec-
  tive of nano-artists, dedicated both to creating 
  nano-scale artwork and designing nanoswarms that 
  made wondrous things. Recently, however, a prank 
  nanoswarm triggered a number of long-buried or 
  ignored grudges and personality conflicts between the 
  residents out into the open, creating a major schism. 
  A situation that would normally lead to a split has 
  turned into a tense stalemate, however, as both of the 
  factions stubbornly refuse to leave. Despite attempts 
  from other outside collectives to negotiate a resolu-
  tion, open hostilities have broken out in the hab 
  numerous times, with each side seizing some modules. 
  More worrisome, however, are reports that the rivals 
  are releasing hostile nanoswarms against each other. 
  Nearby anarchists are attempting to quarantine the 
  situation until it is resolved.
  condition—they help out. The workers here simply 
  love to make ships, and they are constantly tinkering 
  with new systems and designs. When someone wants 
  a ship, they’ll present them with a number of options 
  and handle most of the highly technical aspects. The 
  group requesting the ship is brought in, shown the 
  ropes, and included in the project as much as they are 
  capable. They may help acquire the metals and other 
  raw materials, assist with the blueprint program-
  ming, help operate the manufactories, run testing 
  and quality control, or simply manually help put it 
  together. The goal is to spread ship-building knowl-
  edge among like-minded autonomists. Quite a few 
  unique designs come out of these yards.
  JANUS COMMONS
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Autonomist Alliance (Anarchist)
  Primary Languages: English, French, Spanish
  Population: 900,000
  Janus is a large and prosperous habitat, known 
  among Saturnian anarchist circles for its chemistry 
  labs and creative theatrical productions. Recently one 
  of its districts suffered from an unknown nanoswarm 
  attack that saw hundreds of biomorphs calcified 
  and turned into living statues. No one has claimed 
  responsibility, though local consensus puts the blame 
  on hypercorp agents. Firewall is not yet sure.
  LONG HAUL
  Station Type: Torus
  Allegiance: Autonomist Alliance (Anarchist)
  Primary Languages: English, Hindi, Mandarin
  Population: 20,000
  The anarchists that founded the Long Haul focus 
  on liberating indentures and infugees locked in deep 
  storage in other habitats. These freed egos are brought 
  in batches to Long Haul, where they are given a new 
  body and introduced to anarcho-collectivist ways of 
  doing things. Since many people from Earth have only 
  lived under capitalism, autonomist ways of doing 
  things are sometimes alien. The Long Haul helps get 
  them through this period of adjustment. After one 
  year, the new anarchists are relocated to another 
  autonomist habitat, so a new batch of infugees can 
  be brought in. The Jovians and hypercorps call this 
  place an indoctrination camp, but no one is required 
  to stay. A small percentage do, in fact, decide that the 
  anarchist lifestyle is not their thing, and so they opt to 
  egocast elsewhere and take their chances. There has 
  been at least one instance of inner system ego hunters 
  kidnapping former infugees from Long Haul; the 
  person in question made contact with long lost family 
  in the inner system, but the relatives were convinced 
  they had fallen into the hands of cultists and sent 
  mercenaries to “rescue” them.
  
  6
  GEOGRAPHY
  Titan’s deep ice is covered by a dense layer 
  of clouds and smog and crisscrossed by 
  rivers of methane and ethane. n p. 91 
  MICROCORPS
  These corps vary in how much autonomy they 
  are allowed, but one thing is a constant—
  microcorp employees must continually re-invest 
  their salaries in social projects. n p. 103 
  6
  GEOGRAPHY
  Titan’s deep ice is covered by a dense layer 
  of clouds and smog and crisscrossed by 
  rivers of methane and ethane. n p. 91 
  MICROCORPS
  These corps vary in how much autonomy they 
  are allowed, but one thing is a constant—
  microcorp employees must continually re-invest 
  their salaries in social projects. n p. 103 
  
  TITAN
  CRIME
  Titan’s socially liberal policies regulate instead of restrict, 
  and most criminal activities are non-violent. n p. 100
  GOVERNMENT
  Titan is a parliamentary direct cyberdemocracy.
  PLACES TO GO
  Longueil: Home to Bloc Québécois de Titan, a group of French-Canadian separatists that practice 
  “bioconservatism of the soul.” n p. 109
  Commonwealth Hub: Titan’s prime spaceport, orbiting synchronously above Nyhavn. n p. 109
  Mankell: With powerful communications gear, Mankell broadcasts Titanian content sunward and 
  captures broadcasts from the inner system, with full support of the Pirat party. n p. 109
  Current Composition: Five political parties currently hold ministry seats. n p. 99
  Social Democrats: The centrist party currently holds the most seats on Titan. n p. 98
  A-Bloc: This anarcho-communist confederation has been working to destabilize the Plurality in recent years. n p. 96
  Pirat Party: The Piraten advocate for government transparency, freedom of information, and economic openness. n p. 98
  TITAN
  CRIME
  Titan’s socially liberal policies regulate instead of restrict, 
  and most criminal activities are non-violent. n p. 100
  GOVERNMENT
  Titan is a parliamentary direct cyberdemocracy.
  PLACES TO GO
  Longueil: Home to Bloc Québécois de Titan, a group of French-Canadian separatists that practice 
  “bioconservatism of the soul.” n p. 109
  Commonwealth Hub: Titan’s prime spaceport, orbiting synchronously above Nyhavn. n p. 109
  Mankell: With powerful communications gear, Mankell broadcasts Titanian content sunward and 
  captures broadcasts from the inner system, with full support of the Pirat party. n p. 109
  Current Composition: Five political parties currently hold ministry seats. n p. 99
  Social Democrats: The centrist party currently holds the most seats on Titan. n p. 98
  A-Bloc: This anarcho-communist confederation has been working to destabilize the Plurality in recent years. n p. 96
  Pirat Party: The Piraten advocate for government transparency, freedom of information, and economic openness. n p. 98
  
  90
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  Yet, I have never felt so alive as on that march. 
  Before the Fall, we believed we had made the 
  physical world a safe and easy place for ourselves. 
  It was seldom that we were truly tested. What Titan 
  lacked in big, picturesque threats—we had neither 
  cell-cooking ionizing radiation nor rampant cryo-
  volcanism to contend with—it more than made up 
  for in weather. Mean surface temperature during 
  our journey from Aarhus to Nyhavn was –190 C—a 
  cold spring. We encountered one violent lightning 
  storm—a terrifying experience given the lack of 
  shelter—and managed to avoid several others. It also 
  rained many times, something you’ll currently experi-
  ence nowhere else in the solar system—never mind 
  that the rainfall was liquid methane.
  In the wilds, everyone was an island. One stayed in 
  one’s suit on a trek with no vehicles. Portable shelters 
  that could withstand surface temperatures of –180 
  C were still bulky affairs in those days, and we’d 
  opted against them. The only shared contact occurred 
  during rest periods, when we’d link our suits to a 
  portable life support pod to balance out suit chemical 
  reservoirs. The rest periods themselves were arbitrary. 
  The Titanian day and year are identical—about fifteen 
  standard days long. Titan always shows the same face 
  to Saturn; the unaltered haze, faintly illuminated by 
  light reflected from the planet, was a constant.
  Sounds reached us in our suits, an unfamiliar sensa-
  tion to those accustomed to being suited in vacuum. 
  Titan’s thick atmosphere blocks virtually all sunlight, 
  but carries sound better than Earth’s atmosphere due 
  to its density. The howl of wind, the occasional rain, 
  the faint crunch of ice and carbon grit underfoot, 
  and one’s own respiration were the only noises. The 
  trekkers conversed hardly at all, nor did we distract 
  ourselves much with the mesh. Concentration was 
  everything; any of a hundred small mistakes could be 
  deadly. We reached what is today the metropolis of 
  Nyhavn after a trek of twelve weeks, but the stark 
  isolation of the journey had made it feel much longer. 
  Removing one’s suit after that long was like hatching 
  from an egg.
  With three major cities and myriad smaller settle-
  ments, Titan doesn’t lack for civilization. We’ve 
  mastered much. But when all’s said and done, we 
  are fragile little beings. When the airlock closed 
  behind the last of our team on completing the trek to 
  Nyhavn, shared exaltation cut straight through our 
  weariness. We’d survived a trial none of us would 
  ever have faced in our staid academic lives back on 
  Earth. Titan’s gift to us, one we all received during 
  the First Settlement, was the unforgiving certainty that 
  our physical environment was something we might 
  endure, but never master.
  TRUE NORTH
  Posted by: Magnus Ming,  
  Titan Autonomous University 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  From Aarhus to Nyhavn is a journey of 3,000 kilo-
  meters—an easy jaunt by suborbital, but, if one can 
  spare the time, best done on foot. One doesn’t learn to 
  respect a world gazing down on it from orbit. Titan’s 
  wilderness is one of the harshest environments in 
  the solar system, one that humbles our transhuman 
  hopes for a material order that will succumb readily 
  to attempts to tame it. There is much beauty to be 
  found in the untamed coastlines of the hydrocarbon 
  lakes, the drifting dunes, the play of methane 
  clouds overhead.
  I have never felt so transient and insignificant as 
  on my first trek, decades before the Fall, from the 
  tiny research station at Aarhus to the new colony 
  site at Nyhavn. A catastrophic equipment failure 
  had caused us to lose communications with Nyhavn, 
  which at that point was an entirely automated 
  outpost in the process of being constructed by 
  robots. New settlers were to arrive in six months’ 
  time, and the base at Aarhus was too small to 
  support them. It was vital that the Nyhavn base be 
  ready to receive them.
  Vicious spring storms had destroyed one of our 
  aircraft and critically damaged the other, and we 
  were unwilling to risk our few precious rovers on 
  uncharted terrain. Eleven of us set out on foot to 
  restore communication and finish preparing Nyhavn 
  for habitation. Our LOTV we kept in reserve in case 
  it became necessary to abandon the surface. The 
  arriving colony ship carried enough supplies to both 
  re-provision the first team and seed the second colony, 
  but only in combination with ice and other volatiles 
  harvested from the surface. The possibility that we 
  would have to scrub the colonization mission and 
  return both teams to Earth (very slowly, in cryo) hung 
  over all of us.
  Today, I hike the rugged hills around Aarhus and 
  sail methane skiffs on Ontario Lacus for recreation, 
  but in those days, any overland journey was a deadly 
  serious business. To look backward at hundreds 
  of kilometers of identical, trackless aeolian ridges, 
  each in profile the same perfect sine wave as the one 
  preceding it, and to look forward at another hundred 
  kilometers of the exact same landscape, broken only 
  by the occasional sawtooth ridge of rock and ice, 
  knowing one must somehow cross all of it … it tugged 
  at one’s sanity, even given the rational knowledge that 
  one was well provisioned with the technology needed 
  for physical survival.
  6
  TITAN
  
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  TITAN
  91
  compounds (like asphalt and paraffins) on Titan is 
  steady work, but finding lodes of metal will make 
  one’s reputation overnight. Titanian engineers use 
  metals sparingly, avoiding them completely whenever 
  possible. Aerogel, diamond, fullerenes, and other 
  carbon and silica-derived materials prevail. Where 
  metal is used, it’s frequently foamed or worked into 
  strong, light structures to use as little as possible.
  Titanian prospecting in the Main Belt creates 
  further friction with the Planetary Consortium and 
  the Jovians. Mars, Jupiter, and Titan all vie for big 
  strikes, because transporting a large, rich metallic 
  asteroid is cheaper than multiple smaller claims. 
  The Extropians, perpetually open for business, have 
  no qualms about jumpin a claim. This, along with 
  the diplomatic factors in play and the predations of 
  pirates, means that Fleet spends a great deal of time 
  guarding the ore freighters of the Commonwealth 
  Merchant Marine.
  DEMOGRAPHICS AND LANGUAGES
  Titan has 60 million citizens. While its culture 
  bears strong influences from the original, mostly 
  Scandinavian settlers, Titan is a true melting plot, with 
  virtually every old Earth ethnicity and every trans-
  human species represented. Uplifts and AGIs hold full 
  citizenship and legal rights in the Commonwealth, 
  and indentured servitude is illegal. Although synth 
  morphs are somewhat uncommon here, one duty of 
  the Ministry of Justice and Equality is to advocate 
  for citizens sleeved in synths or pods in cases 
  of discrimination.
  Titan’s original settlers, myself included, repre-
  sented the North Atlantic Consortium, a think tank 
  drawing mostly from universities in Scandinavia, 
  Finland, and Canada. Seventy percent of the 
  original settlers spoke one of the Nordic tongues. 
  Even in those days, nationalism was no longer 
  the done thing, but with the spread of Mandarin 
  and English, linguistic preservationism was a 
  popular meme.
  GEOGRAPHY AND RESOURCES 
  Imagine how old Earth’s landscape would have 
  looked if one removed plant life from the equation. 
  All of the other forces that shaped Earth shape Titan 
  also. Mountains and volcanoes rise due to tectonic 
  shifts in the icy crust and cryovolcanic upwellings 
  from our planet’s water-ammonia mantle. Wind and 
  waves carve beautiful aeolian ice forms and twisting 
  coastlines. Rivers and streams of methane and ethane 
  crisscross vast areas of the planet, draining into lakes 
  as large as some of Earth’s seas.
  Titan is covered in a dense haze of clouds and 
  carbon smog. This atmosphere, thicker and more 
  massive than earth’s, displays complex weather 
  patterns that change with the seasons. The combi-
  nation of dense atmosphere and low gravity makes 
  high-altitude winds extremely hazardous for aircraft. 
  Winds in the lower atmosphere tend not to be as 
  fierce, allowing transhumans to fly with arm-mounted 
  wings and to sail on the methane lakes.
  Most of Titan is covered by rolling, icy terrain. 
  Thin layers of gritty ice and carbon soil form here 
  and there, but with no vegetation to anchor the soil, 
  it drifts constantly, forming seas of dunes that end 
  only when broken up by mountain ranges. The huge 
  swaths of dark terrain one sees from orbit are mostly 
  covered by shifting carbon dunes.
  The hills and mountains are themselves of ice. 
  One would call them glaciers on Earth, but Titan’s 
  deep cold ice, never subjected to the Sun’s warmth, 
  behaves much more like rock. Only in the depths, 
  tens of kilometers below the surface, where tidal 
  warming from Saturn and the presence of ammonia 
  have kept it liquid, does water exist. Water is 
  Titan’s magma, shoved periodically to the surface 
  by tidal bending. These effusions yield cryovolcanic 
  eruptions—rarer than elsewhere rimward, but still 
  frequent enough to have rewritten Titan’s surface.
  Titan possesses the chemistry to support life in 
  abundance, but metals are incredibly rare here. 
  Prospecting for silicates and exotic carbonaceous 
  METAL PIGS
  Fullerite plating made from aggregated diamond nano-
  tubes. It’s in our sidewalks, fuckers: compressive strength 
  like nature never bothered with. Also carbon nanotubes. 
  Nanotubes, everywhere, and not the crappy kind kids on 
  Jupiter design for science projects. No: beautiful, multi-
  walled nanotubes, honeycombs nested in honeycombs. 
  Fucking honey-flavored, sp2-bonded masterworks, all out 
  of carbon silt from the dunes. MWNTs bring the tensile 
  strength. You can make sidewalks, space elevators, or a pig 
  sticker out of this carbonaceous beehive dream shit.
  So why the fuck do we need so much metal? The oldsters 
  say it’s strategy—secure it, conquer it, deny it to the 
  Consortium. The microcorp mavens cite industrial needs. 
  Pig logic. Heard of the Commonwealth Strategic Metals 
  Reserve? Hundreds of thousands of tons of metal, stashed 
  away in Skathi and other places. Fleet’s very quiet about it. 
  We don’t need as much as they claim for molecular-width 
  circuitry, foil shielding, or reactor containment.
  It’s all an owner’s game, pissing on asteroids and 
  stretches of the ITN because we just can’t help pissing on 
  things. Pig logic. Fuck pig logic. Now that you know better, 
  stop voting for this expansionist metal mining bullshit.
  —Momo von Satan, Tech Commentator, Monster Raving 
  Goblin Cock News Network 
  
  92
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  THE NORTH ATLANTIC CONSORTIUM
  So Titan’s benevolent founders come from Earth on a 
  mission of peace and enlightenment, settle their new world 
  in a spirit of cooperation, and found the Commonwealth to 
  govern their like-minded fellow citizens, leading them into 
  a new age of knowledge and shared prosperity. Just me, or 
  do they sound a lot more like bodhisattvas than your typical 
  tenure-grubbing university professors?
  The North Atlantic Consortium was supposedly a group 
  of intellectuals from countries working on a shared problem: 
  they were developed, rich nations situated on real estate 
  that was freezing over due to climate change. Even with the 
  technology to survive on that real estate, over the long run 
  they’d become pauper nations. They’d run out of the hydro-
  carbon resources and fisheries that made them wealthy, 
  they wouldn’t be able to farm, they’d become completely 
  dependent upon imports, and they’d suffer a brain drain 
  from their best minds moving south.
  The NAC Titan project explored a radical solution: colo-
  nizing a world with even worse weather, but where wealth 
  in the form of hydrocarbon energy literally rains from the 
  sky. The Titan colonies started as a serious but modestly 
  scaled experiment, but when the Fall came, the NAC nations 
  quickly went all in. Titan’s population grew from two million 
  to sixty million in the decade between the Fall and the 
  present day.
  You won’t find much hard evidence of the North Atlantic 
  Consortium. The oldsters from the First Settlement speak 
  fondly of that noble experiment, but apparently they lost 
  all the paperwork in the Fall. But if you mine the data 
  enough, you start to see connections. Microcorps for which 
  the first records all begin on the same day of AF 0 start the 
  trail. Some of them—Maersk-Varner, Torvick Aerospace, 
  Dansk Ecosphere Informatics (DEI)—are rumored to have 
  ties to, among other entities, the pre-Fall central bank of 
  Finland; Danish and Canadian genetics firms; business elites 
  throughout Scandinavia; and the Danish, Norwegian, and 
  Swedish royal families. A total of eighteen microcorps hold 
  a grandfathered-in status called Section Three, exempting 
  them from the usual transparency regulations and Plurality 
  governance. None of them are well known—Gatekeeper 
  is not among them—but they’re all old, established, and 
  generate tidy incomes that go, well, we know not where.
  Equality for the polity? To a degree. Your average working 
  stiff on Titan lives like a king (or an autonomist) compared 
  to the beleaguered workers of Mars. But there’s still an elite 
  hiding behind the curtain, and though they might not be as 
  greedy as inner system oligarchs, make no mistake: the NAC 
  settlement of Titan was carried out to protect their interests.
  —Balthazar Grimes, A-Bloc dissident 
  
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  TITAN
  93
  were infected with the virulent Höðr virus. Höðr 
  was a destructive, polymorphic virus designed by 
  the TITANs themselves to erase data and sew chaos. 
  Aside from causing the loss of millions of uploaded 
  egos, Höðr got loose in planetary networks, where it 
  annihilated stored data by the exabyte before it could 
  be contained.
  Meanwhile, Titanian industry, which until then 
  had produced little in the way of military hardware, 
  worked feverishly to build defenses. Titan’s rudi-
  mentary orbital defense grid was expanded and 
  hardened. Fleet grew from a small tactical force of 
  a few dozen customs cutters to an armada of capital 
  ships capable of projecting force throughout the 
  outer system. But the enemy never quite arrived. The 
  Battle of Iapetus comprised little more than several 
  skirmishes with TITAN killsats followed by surface 
  bombing raids. The TITANs never counterattacked in 
  any substantial way, and by the time Commonwealth 
  marines made planetfall, the TITANs had mysteri-
  ously abandoned their matrioshka brain project. The 
  only other major military engagement during the 
  Fall was Operation Jotunhammar, Fleet’s operation 
  to secure heavy metal supply lines from the Main 
  Belt. Most of the fighting during Jotunhammar was 
  against Jovian ships trying to jump claims rather 
  than the TITANs.
  THE LOCUS CONFLICT
  Having lost few ships in the fighting against the 
  TITANs, the Commonwealth emerged as a major 
  power post-Fall. Debate in the Plurality weighed the 
  benefits of expansionism (advocates tried to call it 
  “protectionism”) versus detente with our anarchist 
  neighbors. Some argued that the autonomists could 
  never stand against renewed hostilities with the 
  TITANs, while others felt that Titan must concentrate 
  on strengthening its own defenses and resleeving 
  infugees. In the end, the latter argument carried 
  the day.
  Then the Planetary Consortium attacked Locus, 
  using alleged anarchist claim jumping in the Main 
  Belt as its casus belli. Public opinion on Titan 
  considered this outrageous, little more than a thin 
  excuse to lash out at so-called intellectual property 
  violators. Despite ideological differences with the 
  anarchists, most on Titan saw the Consortium as 
  the real enemy.
  The Plurality closely followed reports of the battle 
  from the Titanian military attaché at Locus and 
  various journalists. The reports portrayed a surpris-
  ingly well-coordinated defense, followed by the 
  Consortium fleet retreating in disarray. 
  The repulsion of the invasion permanently silenced 
  those who still argued for Titan to absorb its neigh-
  bors into the Commonwealth. Now the Plurality was 
  calling for mutual defense pacts with the autono-
  mists. When a second Martian expedition attacked 
  Locus, the Titanian Fleet fought alongside the anar-
  chists, handing the Consortium a resounding defeat. 
  We settled on Skandinavíska, a register of Danish 
  spoken by Icelanders, because of its mutual intel-
  ligibility with Swedish and Norwegian. As the 
  official language of the Commonwealth govern-
  ment, the majority of Titanian citizens are fluent in 
  Skandinavíska, and almost everyone understands 
  at least a bit of it. Other languages widely spoken 
  include all of the Nordic tongues, Finnish, French, 
  English, and Mandarin. Lastly, an interesting bit of 
  trivia: what are thought to be the last handful of 
  surviving native speakers of Scots Gaelic and Faeroese 
  hold Commonwealth citizenship.
  HISTORY
  We lost so much in the Fall that it beggars description, 
  but our greatest loss may have been our knowledge 
  of history. More than any other transhuman faction, 
  Titanians are obsessed with history. Rarefied disci-
  plines such as cliometrics and cliodynamics enjoy 
  prominence in our university faculties, and history 
  holds a huge slice of mindshare in the Titanian media. 
  The interests of my university students are illustra-
  tive. When I was young, it was sexy to be an artist, a 
  musician, or a game designer. Today, it’s the students 
  of history whose beds are never empty on a weekend 
  night—and that is all to the good.
  FIRST SETTLEMENT
  I’ve already described the times of the First Settlement 
  in my account of the trek from Aarhus to Nyhavn. 
  They were eventful, dangerous, and extremely uncom-
  fortable. Such is the lot of pioneers. Yet during this 
  time, we also established the Plurality and laid the 
  foundations of Titanian society.
  NORTHERN DIASPORA
  Prior to the Fall, Earth’s northernmost nations, 
  with the conspicuous exception of Russia, bought 
  in heavily to transhumanism. Climate change on 
  Earth had disrupted ocean currents that once kept 
  northern Europe warm and livable. The populations 
  of Scandinavia, Canada, and other northern countries 
  had huddled into overcrowded, frozen conurbations, 
  and now they left them in a mass migration for Titan. 
  Our world was just as cold and much darker, but 
  Titan offered opportunity and rich natural resources.
  For the egovasting transhumanist migrants, dozens 
  of Titan-adapted exotic morph configurations were 
  on offer. Older Titanians will remember (perhaps 
  without much fondness) oddities such as the linnorm, 
  sildeflokk, and trold morphs. It took the Fall to bring 
  bipedal humanoid forms back into vogue.
  THE FALL
  Titan was a major destination for infugees, particu-
  larly from NAC countries. Where elsewhere the Fall 
  was a physical struggle, on Titan it was a computer 
  war. The second wave of infugee uploads to reach 
  Titan through the relays, about 3.5 million egos, 
  
  94
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  POLITICAL PARTIES AND ELECTIONS
  Titanian law severely restricts the activities of political 
  parties. While voting blocs can and do emerge in the 
  Plurality, using a party organization to channel social 
  money or reputation for the purpose of swaying 
  actions of the Plurality is illegal. In practical terms, 
  Titanian political parties only exist during ministe-
  rial elections.
  Prior to the elections, everyone who wishes to 
  participate in the vote must declare for a party. 
  Anyone may create and register a party, but in order 
  to nominate candidates for office, a party must repre-
  sent at least 1% of the electorate. Once parties are 
  formed, the Plurality tallies their sizes to determine 
  the number of ministerial posts each party may hold 
  at the end of the election. For example, the Social 
  Democrats, currently making up 40% of the elec-
  torate, are allowed at most five ministries.
  After the tallying of party size comes much debate 
  and strategizing, followed by nomination of candi-
  dates and primary elections. A party may decide to 
  put forward no candidate for a given post, conceding 
  that post to other parties. They may also form coali-
  tions, casting votes for another party’s candidate.
  Elections are held every four years, though the 
  Prime Minister has the power to dissolve government 
  and call for elections sooner. Elections take place one 
  post at a time, starting with the Prime Minister. The 
  order in which ministers are elected is prescribed by 
  the constitution and may only be altered if a new 
  ministry is added or the portfolio of an extant ministry 
  changes substantially. In each round of elections, the 
  candidate with the most votes (not a majority, but 
  simply the most votes) wins that post. However, 
  once a given party has elected its maximum number 
  of ministers, its membership may no longer vote in 
  subsequent elections (hence the practice of putting 
  forward no candidate in a given election and either 
  supporting another party or abstaining altogether).
  It would be possible in this system for a party to 
  split into numerous splinter parties and effectively 
  take more than its share of posts, but the judiciary 
  The doctrine of “diverse economies; one alliance” 
  remains the majority opinion in the Plurality today.
  AGE OF ACCELERATION
  Since the Locus Conflict, Titan keeps an uneasy peace 
  with the Consortium and the Jovians. Normalized 
  diplomatic relations led to the opening of Titanian 
  embassies to all major inner system governments. 
  Only the Jovians continue to conduct diplomacy 
  remotely; they’re reluctant to allow modified humans 
  aboard their habitats.
  GOVERNMENT
  Titan is a parliamentary direct cyberdemocracy. 
  The Constitution of the Commonwealth establishes 
  a legislative branch composed of the entire adult 
  population, an elected executive branch to administer 
  the government, and an elected judiciary to arbi-
  trate interpretation of the law. The constitution also 
  includes a comprehensive declaration of transhuman 
  rights and a few ground rules for governance, such as 
  the order in which cabinet ministers must be elected.
  THE PLURALITY
  The Commonwealth’s legislative branch is the 
  Plurality (also called either Alþing or Pluralitet 
  in Skandinavíska), a tightly monitored public 
  forum and voting system operated by the Ministry 
  of Information.
  Every citizen past the age of majority may cast 
  votes when the Plurality is in session. Except during 
  emergencies, sessions occur weekly, although debate 
  on issues goes on constantly. Most Titanians rely 
  heavily on their muses to track issues in which they’re 
  interested, research proposed legislation, and remind 
  them when it’s time to vote on a given issue. The 
  average Titanian votes at least twice a week, encour-
  aged in part by publicly available statistics on every 
  voter’s level of participation in votes and forums and 
  the loss of reputation sometimes suffered by unen-
  gaged voters.
  WHAT REALLY HAPPENED AT LOCUS?
  [Excerpted Transcript from Monster Raving Goblin Cock 
  News Network’s talking heads program, “Chewy Gristle 
  Commentary Hour”]
  The Cock: MING TELL LIES ABOUT LOCUS INCURSION 
  IN NEW HISTORY ACCOUNT.
  Momo von Satan: Your accusation, while intriguing, 
  lacks credibility. How about some fucking evidence on 
  that, Cock? By the way, for those not on drugs, the Cock is 
  referring to Professor Magnus Ming’s recent series of posts, 
  Counting Memory, on the occasion of the ten-year anniver-
  sary of the Fall.
  The Cock: MING NO MENTION SOCIALIST INTERPLAN-
  ETARY MEME WARFARE.
  Momo von Satan: The rumor that the Interplanetary 
  deployed propagandizing oneironanites prior to the conflict 
  was most likely contrived by eunuchized Extropian basement 
  trolls looking for a fast hit of rep. This infographic behind me 
  showing that thousands of bloggers mentioned pro-technoso-
  cialist dreams in posts before the battle proves nothing.
  The Cock: LIIIIIIEEEES!
  Momo von Satan: Silence, Cock. I’m trying to conduct 
  fucking journalism here.
  [End Transcript] 
  
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  TITAN
  95
  Metamorphosis. The agent politely suggested that 
  the sentinel convey to her superiors Fleet’s compli-
  ments—along with a warning not to overstep 
  themselves where Titanian citizens or military assets 
  are concerned.
  As long as Fleet continues to observe their policy 
  of destroying TITAN military equipment wherever 
  found, I don’t see this as a problem. If only more 
  of my colleagues on Mars and out in the Kuiper 
  Belt agreed.
  MINISTRY OF JUSTICE AND EQUALITY
  This ministry oversees the planet-wide Commonwealth 
  Police, the Security Police (Titan’s domestic intel-
  ligence service), the Judicial Police (security at court 
  and penal facilities), and the Special Section on 
  Transhuman Rights (tasked with ensuring equal treat-
  ment for pods, synths, uplifts, and AGIs). Hackers 
  accustomed to watching in amusement as Martian 
  police infosec specialists chase their tails, be warned: 
  Titanian law allows the police to freely recruit info-
  morphs, most of whom are quite zealous in pursuing 
  their duties. I’ve had to pull strings for more than one 
  sentinel team after their hacker underestimated the 
  Commonwealth Police.
  Another complication for sentinels is that the 
  Security Police, or at least their upper echelons, are 
  aware of Firewall. While sympathetic toward many 
  of Firewall’s goals, the police remain police. Sentinels 
  identified as such should expect to be extensively 
  debriefed, at minimum. Fortunately, no Firewall 
  operations planet-side on Titan to dat have resulted 
  in major damage or loss of life. I hope to keep it 
  that way.
  The current Justice Minister is Nadifa Samakab 
  Geeddi, a diaspora-era Danish settler of Somali 
  descent. Geeddi was a lawyer for many years before 
  entering government, prompting a number of fox/hen-
  house quips at her election.
  closely monitors party formation and may declare 
  that a given party lacks credibility if it looks as if its 
  formation is an attempt to game the election system.
  CABINET AND MINISTRIES
  Day-to-day governance of the Commonwealth falls 
  to the Prime Minister and a cabinet representing the 
  twelve current ministries. One never knows when 
  the Ministry of Infrastructure or the Ministry of 
  Education might prove pivotal in a Firewall assign-
  ment, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll discuss the minis-
  tries with which sentinels are most likely to interact.
  MINISTRY OF STATE
  Aside from running Titan’s offworld embassies and 
  conducting diplomacy, State operates the Civilian 
  Intelligence Directorate. CID doesn’t run ops on 
  its own. Rather, its mission is to recruit, train, and 
  support civilian intelligence specialists, most of whom 
  are analysts and cryptographers. Actual command of 
  operations falls to Fleet Intelligence.
  MINISTRY OF DEFENSE
  The Titanian Commonwealth Fleet, Marines, Coast 
  Guard, and Merchant Marine fall under the Defense 
  Ministry. Fleet is Titan’s air force and space navy, as 
  well as the service in charge of the planet’s orbital 
  defense grid. Fleet Intelligence, supplemented by civil-
  ians from the CID, is Titan’s primary foreign intel-
  ligence service. The Marines are Titan’s ground and 
  infantry force; we have no separate army. The Coast 
  Guard, responsible for patrolling Titan’s hydrocarbon 
  lakes, is the only surface naval force in the solar 
  system. The Merchant Marine is a semi-militarized 
  fleet of microcorp-operated traders and support ships. 
  Defense also regulates but doesn’t directly control the 
  militias of the three major Titanian cities.
  Jens Møller, the current Minister of Defense, came 
  to government after a highly decorated career in Fleet 
  that saw him rise to the rank of Chief Air Marshal. 
  Møller arrived during the First Settlement. Initially a 
  hardline supporter of establishing a protectorate over 
  the anarchists, he changed his position after the Locus 
  Conflict. I can’t say I’ve ever felt warmly toward the 
  man. He’s a strange fit with politics, but he’s as good 
  as one could hope for in a soldier. He and his wife, a 
  prominent medical researcher and also an early settler, 
  have a modern relationship; both are frequently seen 
  about Nyhavn with younger companions.
  Fleet Intelligence (and by extension, the CID) 
  is aware of Firewall. While not necessarily hostile 
  toward Firewall, they have wide latitude in dealing 
  with the organization, particularly outside of Titanian 
  jurisdiction (on planet, Firewall agents must be 
  handed over to the Security Police).
  Several months ago, a Fleet Intel agent on Extropia 
  approached someone they correctly believed to be 
  a Firewall sentinel and showed the sentinel their 
  reports on a number of recent Firewall missions, 
  including the incident aboard the scum barge Ecstatic 
  NADIFA GEEDDI
  Geeddi’s worse than a fox. She’s a wolf at the 
  door. Geeddi was Victoire Gagnon’s counsel for 
  years before stepping into the limelight herself, 
  which means she’s a committed member of the 
  Technosocialist Interplanetary, no matter how 
  much she downplays the connection publicly. 
  Oh, she’s got a lighter touch than inner system 
  security forces. The Security Police don’t go for 
  bundling people off in vans; ain’t their style. 
  But you can be damned sure that she’s using 
  her position to keep tabs on anyone who’s 
  prominent in the A-Bloc.
  Offworlders big into autonomist politics, be 
  warned: you’ll be watched here.
  —Balthazar Grimes, A-Bloc dissident  
  
  96
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  The main function of local governors is to train, 
  equip, and command local militias. Every citizen must 
  perform three years of civil service upon reaching the 
  age of majority (currently set at twenty-five for cogni-
  tive baseline humans, although the law provides for 
  drafting younger citizens in time of war). Most serve 
  in one of the branches of the military.
  Titan’s readiness in the event of a TITAN attack is 
  exceptional, equaled only by the ultimates, Jovians, 
  and some anarchist polities. Upon completing service, 
  all citizens are required to keep militia gear in their 
  home and qualify annually with their weapon. 
  The standard militia armament is effective against 
  human infantry but optimized for fighting hostile 
  machine life: an assault rifle with meshed sights 
  and status interfaces but manual control interfaces. 
  Militia rifles are equipped with smart magazines 
  firing standard, armor-piercing, and jammer rounds. 
  Militia members also receive a suit of body armor 
  and a commlink. It is illegal to take militia gear out 
  of storage unless the militia is called up, the militia 
  member is actively training, or a clear and present 
  civic emergency arises. Exceptions are also made in 
  cases of self defense. Violent criminals have their 
  militia status revoked.
  Designated nano-warfare specialists are addition-
  ally equipped with military-grade nanobot counter-
  measures. The Plurality has stopped short of allowing 
  heavier weaponry, although it was considered in the 
  aftermath of the Fall.
  SOCIOPOLITICAL MOVEMENTS
  Planetary Consortium media feeds propagate a view 
  of Titanians as austere intellectuals living in voluntary 
  poverty, perhaps noble in their intentions, yet hope-
  lessly naïve and stubbornly hostile toward progress. 
  This vilification glosses over the dense complexities 
  of political and economic life in the Commonwealth. 
  Participation in cyberdemocracy, a preference for 
  consensus over conflict, and respect for Janteloven (the 
  old Scandinavian ideal of self-effacing egalitarianism) 
  are all powerful memes. But sixty million people can’t 
  agree on everything.
  A-BLOC
  Dozens of anarchist groups exist on Titan, most of 
  them peopled by youthful agitators chafing under the 
  constraints of a state that was entrenched well before 
  they were born. Of these, only the A-Bloc possesses 
  any credibility (or poses much threat, depending on 
  whom one asks). The A-Bloc is a confederation of 
  anarcho-communist groups from around the planet 
  who seek the establishment of permanent autono-
  mist enclaves in undeveloped regions of Titan. They 
  have been unable to garner sufficient support for this 
  project, despite a few surprise election victories that 
  have resulted in anarchist cabinet ministers.
  Their leader is Anatole Mok, whose Faction Noire 
  de Titan (FNT) is most active in New Quebec. Mok 
  MINISTRY OF SCIENCE
  The Science Ministry operates roughly a dozen insti-
  tutes and administrations devoted to basic research, 
  including the Institute of Health and Transmortality, 
  the Commonwealth Physics Institute, and the Space 
  Exploration Administration. It also coordinates 
  research efforts among universities, enforces research 
  transparency at microcorps, and ensures security of 
  scientific sites through the Commonwealth Science 
  Police. The current Minister of Science is Pedro 
  Transfinity of the Pirat party, the first AGI ever elected 
  to government.
  The Ministry of Science is of interest to Firewall 
  because it has not always been uniform in its 
  approach to dealing with TITAN artifacts and alien 
  technology. This ministry is involved, with Fleet, in 
  investigating the TITAN matrioshka brain project 
  at Iapetus. Science also includes the Institute of 
  Xenoplanetology, which has returned a number of 
  alien artifacts to Titan after safety screenings that 
  were less than hermetic.
  MINISTRY OF BIODEVELOPMENT
  Aside from habitat biosphere development and public 
  health, this ministry’s largest concern is adminis-
  tering Titan’s massive public resleeving program. 
  Biodevelopment regulates the dozen or so microcorps 
  that design and grow morphs in the sprawling body-
  works of New Quebec. This ministry has regularly 
  been plagued by charges of low-level corruption due to 
  the heavy involvement of various criminal syndicates 
  in the morph industry. The current minister, Marcus 
  Mackenzie, is viewed as a white knight—but he’ll have 
  a tough job ahead of him when he starts cleaning house.
  Titan’s One Body per Mind policy means that 
  Biodevelopment enforces massive production quotas 
  for standard-model hazer morphs. Synthmorphs 
  are rare on Titan. Even in occupations that require 
  a synth, it’s far more common for a user in a 
  biomorph to operate them by telepresence. The 
  sheer number of morphs produced represents an 
  irresistible opportunity for crime syndicates. The 
  notorious St. Catherine Tong, the ID Crew, the Night 
  Cartel, and numerous local gangs have fingers in 
  Biodevelopment’s operations.
  JUDICIARY
  Judges and magistrates serve five-year terms and may 
  not belong to political parties. The full Plurality votes 
  for individual judges. Most citizens use their muses to 
  collate a list of judges whose past findings accord with 
  their preferences.
  COUNTIES AND MUNICIPALITIES
  Titan is divided into fourteen counties and three 
  municipalities (the three big cities: New Quebec, 
  Aarhus, and Nyhavn). Titanian law limits the scope 
  of local governments. The Prime Minister appoints a 
  governor to each county and municipality, but they 
  must be ratified by Plurality voters living in the area. 
  
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  TITAN
  97
  could accomplish some terrifying feats of organic 
  engineering with little danger of being observed.
  MUTUALIST AND FREE MARKET MOVEMENTS
  The Extropian branch of anarchism has its proponents 
  in the Plurality, and there is even a Free Market party 
  that espouses moving the economy toward inner-system 
  hypercapitalism. Neither movement has many adherents, 
  but coalitions and protest votes mean that one or the 
  other party occasionally elects a minister to government.
  OLIGARCHS
  When I was a young man, before shipping out to 
  Titan, I frequented the bars in Oslo that played 
  Beijing gang metal. If you’re old enough to remember 
  the style, I had the anti-facial recognition tattoos, the 
  choppy hair and fur coat—the whole package. I prefer 
  not to think about how many drugs we pumped into 
  our bodies the night after my team was chosen for 
  the Titan expedition. All of which is to say, I cherish 
  my memories of youthful rebellion, even when I find 
  them embarrassing.
  Regarding the oligarchs: my hope is that they’re 
  just going through a phase. Their elaborate costumes 
  are pure youth culture: tight white leather, codpieces 
  and shoulder pads, glittering jewelry, and morphs 
  sculpted to appear starved even by hazer standards. 
  Their argot is full of Slavic loan words (they call 
  themselves oligarhov) and peppered with diminutives 
  that sound like baby talk. Their penchant for huge, 
  sleek cars on a world where getting around is best 
  done by microlight or personal wings is a strange, 
  wasteful affectation.
  These youths are of voting age, however, and they 
  represent a challenge to our tidy system of state 
  entitlements and public capital. They argue fiercely, 
  if inexpertly, for a system with fewer checks on 
  how individuals use their earnings. They charge the 
  older generation with fostering inertsii—economic 
  inertia. They’re the flip side to the A-Bloc, agita-
  tors for Martian capitalism and glittering excess. 
  Interestingly, they’re fiercely opposed to the mutualist 
  camp of anarchism. They want ownership, with a 
  legal framework that entitles it, not red markets or 
  contract law administered by a freelance judiciary. 
  They further argue that Titan should expand and 
  absorb its autonomist neighbors, and rail angrily 
  against transfer of Titanian “intellectual property” to 
  anarchist microfacturers.
  What they’re really up against is not the Plurality 
  and the microcorp system, but Titanian culture. I’m 
  sure for many of them, both the clothes and the 
  political opinions are just fashion, part of the constant 
  youthful hunt for sex partners. But in reading a few of 
  the oligarch diatribes to the Plurality, and in talking 
  with students who identify with this culture, I detect 
  a keen intelligence stretching in its sleep of which I 
  am wary. Could our own youth eventually change 
  the Commonwealth in a direction the Planetary 
  Consortium cannot?
  served as Minister of Biodevelopment—capably, I’ll 
  allow—for a year at one point. He campaigned on 
  a populist platform of greater emphasis on public 
  resleeving programs and trait upgrades to existing 
  publicly funded morphs.
  In recent years, A-Bloc has veered toward brink-
  manship, voting in a way intended to destabilize the 
  Plurality. They’ve succeeded mostly in exacerbating 
  tensions between other factions and decreasing 
  support for their own proposals. This is unfortunate 
  for Commonwealth-anarchist relations and worrying 
  to those who support continued military entente 
  with Locus and the Autonomist Alliance. Some have 
  even gone so far as to suggest that Mok is an agent-
  provocateur in the pay of the Planetary Consortium. I 
  don’t credit this conspiracy theory, as Mok is far too 
  public a figure for the alleged Consortium ties to have 
  escaped scrutiny, but many do. That said, I wouldn’t 
  expect to see him in cabinet again any time soon.
  HULDER
  It might come as a surprise that anyone could live as 
  a nomad on Titan, but there are stranger things in 
  the solar system. The hulder do, though, ranging the 
  dunes and gritty plains of the Titanian wilds, pros-
  pecting for exotic chemicals, and keeping herds of 
  Titanian caribou. Their morphs are biological on the 
  inside, derived from homo neanderthalensis, but from 
  without they resemble a long-legged, barrel-chested 
  great auk in a hard suit. They’re easily mistaken 
  for synths.
  Their sure-footed caribou, similarly armored, dwell 
  in an AR hallucination of Earth’s tundra, their instinct 
  to graze on grasses and lichens translated by chemical 
  sniffers into a continual hunt for carbonaceous 
  compounds, which fractal fingers and intakes in their 
  exterior muzzles then harvest.
  The hulder themselves partake in this illusion 
  only when resting from their labors. The rest of 
  their time is spent watching over the herd, building 
  windbreaks, making complex ice carvings that are 
  prized by art collectors, and doing knowledge work 
  via their mesh inserts. The hulder, though physically 
  reclusive, participate actively in the Plurality and 
  operate several microcorps. Not surprisingly, they’re 
  fierce preservationists.
  Hulder and caribou physiology is highly complex 
  and relies heavily on nanotech. The herd and their 
  transhuman companions depend upon each other; 
  periodic link-ups to communal chemical reservoirs 
  and makers are needed to balance out individuals’ 
  chemical reserves. This system is not 100% self-
  sufficient, requiring roughly annual visits to nearby 
  settlements to replenish a herd’s chemical reserves.
  The hulder, while not inimical to other transhu-
  mans like the exhumans, should probably be watched 
  more carefully than Firewall has the resources to do 
  at present. Their extreme reliance on nanotech and 
  their physical isolation make them ideal hosts for the 
  exovirus. A hulder exsurgent with a herd of caribou 
  
  98
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  PIRAT PARTY
  The Pirat party has been a voting bloc in the Plurality from its 
  inception. A direct descendant of Earth’s transnational Pirate 
  parties, the Piraten advocate for government transparency, 
  freedom of information, and economic openness. While they’ve 
  never been a majority party, “intellectual property is theft” 
  remains a powerful meme in the Commonwealth. They constitute 
  a key swing vote in many elections and an important coalition 
  partner for other parties.
  PRESERVATIONISTS
  Titan can never be terraformed in the usual sense. We’re too far 
  from the sun, and too much of our world consists of ices and 
  liquids that would be lost to the void over the long run if our 
  world warmed substantially. The thin haze of our atmosphere 
  is a tenuous thing on a world with so little gravity, and terra-
  forming would disrupt the processes that replenish it. And then 
  there is the matter of Saturn’s magnetosphere. We spend much 
  of the short Titanian year orbiting through Saturn’s magnetotail. 
  Without our dense atmosphere, the surface radiation dose would 
  be intolerable.
  Nevertheless, the issue of launching some type of terraforming 
  effort surfaces regularly in the Plurality, and the preservationists 
  are its primary opponents.
  The other issue of major interest to Preservationists is exploi-
  tation of resources. Draining methane lakes and excavating the 
  carbon dunes could have long term consequences for our plan-
  etary climate. Not surprisingly, how serious those consequences 
  are depends on whose simulations one looks at.
  The preservationist mandate is a very different thing on 
  Titan than in other parts of the system. With no life to protect, 
  it may come as a surprise that Titan has any preservationist 
  movement, but we Titanians live in a hard-won accord with the 
  harsh climate of our planet. Upsetting the balance could have 
  tragic consequences in the long run. Moreover, the Titanian 
  wilds are precious to those of us who’ve learned to love the 
  strange beauty of ice dunes and methane lakes. With the loss of 
  Earth, beauty is something of which transhumanity can never 
  have too much.
  SOCIAL DEMOCRATS
  The center party in Commonwealth politics, the Social Democrats 
  comprise most of the electorate and stand for the current Titanian 
  status quo. The social democratic way is an attempt to balance 
  state ownership with some of the benefits gained from market 
  capitalism through the microcorp system.
  SOCIALISTS
  The socialists are Titan’s left-wing statist party. They form the 
  second largest voting bloc in the Plurality. Their key differences 
  from the Social Democrats are on microcorp policy and foreign 
  affairs. They generally support tighter regulation of microcorps, 
  with more ties to government ministries. A minority of the party 
  also supports tightening restrictions on drug, alcohol, and food 
  consumption for citizens sleeved in state-provisioned morphs, an 
  idea that even the Social Democrats find appalling.
  
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  TITAN
  99
  TECHNOSOCIALIST INTERPLANETARY (TSI)
  This is the final struggle 
  Let us group together, and tomorrow 
  The Interplanetary 
  Will be transhumanity 
  —Chorus to L’Interplanétaire
  The TSI comprises a small but influential group 
  of voices in the Plurality who favor promoting the 
  Titanian political and economic model in inner system 
  polities (and in some cases, among our anarchist 
  neighbors). Not a fractious youth movement like the 
  A-Bloc or the oligarchs, the TSI has its field opera-
  tives, but its upper echelons operate as a think tank. 
  While not shying from revolutionary propaganda, its 
  most potent tools are economic simulations, memetic 
  forecasting, and various applications of game theory. 
  Notable members (all of whom were First Settlement 
  colonists) include retired Fleet Sky Marshal Anders 
  Wu, former Minister of Finance and Labor Victoire 
  Gagnon, and Provost Maja Ming Sorenson of Titan 
  Autonomus University (who, in the interest of full 
  disclosure, was my wife for twenty years).
  Since the Fall, discourse in the Plurality strongly 
  favors social democracy at home and realpolitik 
  abroad. We intervened at Locus out of practical 
  necessity, not out of a desire to spread the Titanian 
  THE COMMONWEALTH GOVERNMENT, AF 10
  Because the Titanian constitution requires that all ministers be elected at once, the composition of the 
  Titanian government can turn on a dime. One result of proportional election of ministers is that the two 
  big parties, the Socialists and Social Democrats, tend to focus on holding key ministries like State, Defense, 
  and Justice, while less powerful ministries like Culture tend to go to the minor parties. However, occasional 
  chinks in the shifting coalitions between the Social Democrats, the Socialists, and the Pirat party mean that 
  occasionally a coalition of minor parties voting together can grab a key ministerial post.
  What follows is one possible configuration for the Titanian cabinet, with Social Democrats holding 40% 
  of the vote (5 posts max), Socialists 30% (4 posts), Pirats 15% (2 posts), A-Bloc 7% (1 post), Mutalists 5% (1 
  post), and Free Marketeers 3% (1 post). Note that under the Titanian constitution, the elections occurred 
  in the order listed here. To secure the Trade ministry, the Social Democrats put forward no candidate for 
  several of the intervening elections. The Free Market party, though eligible for one cabinet post, could not 
  muster enough votes to secure one.
  Ministry 
  Party 
  Minister
  Prime Minister 
  Social Democrat 
  Hjalmar Torssen
  State 
  Socialist 
  Claudine Trudeau
  Defense 
  Social Democrat 
  Jens Møller
  Information 
  Social Democrat 
  Natalya Iversen
  Labor and Finance 
  Social Democrat 
  Heikki Virjonen
  Justice and Equality 
  Socialist 
  Nadifa Samakab Geeddi
  Science 
  Pirat 
  Pedro Transfinity
  Energy 
  Socialist 
  Mo Li Fengsdottir
  Biodevelopment 
  Socialist 
  Marcus Mackenzie
  Education 
  A-Bloc 
  Anastasie Mok
  Trade 
  Social Democrat 
  Yusef Eriksson
  Infrastructure 
  Mutualist 
  Qasim Ibsen
  Culture 
  Pirat 
  Erika Lemminkäinen 
  n
  TSI TIES TO NAC MICROCORPS
  Professor Ming’s right about one thing: the 
  Technosocialist Interplanetary hides its tracks well. 
  Hard to say what they’re up to. I don’t credit the 
  accusations that they’re trying to bring Epimetheus, 
  Janus, and Enceladus into the technosocialist fold. 
  Twelve Commons is no more likely to go for a statist 
  regime than the Trojans, and Enceladus is too closely 
  aligned with Extropia. Maybe if anyone were saying 
  the same about Mimas and Harmonious Anarchy, I’d 
  buy it—but they’re not.
  More interesting is the persistent rumor that the 
  TSI uses Section Three microcorps associated with 
  the old North Atlantic Consortium to convert TSI 
  supporters’ kroners into credits, whence they’re used 
  to support the Interplanetary’s schemes sunward. If 
  they’re really monkeywrenching the Martians, cool, 
  although misappropriation of state resources by 
  a hyperaged elite exploiting a legal loophole still 
  doesn’t sit well. If it came to light that they were 
  using those resources rimward on anyone other than 
  the Jovians, though, it would be … awkward.
  —Balthazar Grimes, A-Bloc dissident  
  
  100
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  to New Quebec. Its meeting hall was on the Rue St. 
  Catherine. Many Chinese had found jobs as inspec-
  tors and handlers in the clone vats. Following the Fall, 
  Guanxi operators subverted the tong, first by using 
  intimidation to get workers to look the other way, 
  later by directly taking it over.
  The tong’s main rackets include diverting morphs 
  from Titan’s public resleeving program for private 
  resale, resleeving kidnapped egos in stolen morphs to 
  work as slaves or sex workers, and installing illegal 
  biomods (such as poison glands, which are illegal on 
  Titan) on otherwise legal morphs.
  The St. Catherine Tong is more than a small time 
  cartel of skin thieves. The gang has aspirations to 
  diversify, and they’ve aroused our interest with 
  alarming regularity of late. A cache of TITAN war 
  gear was retrieved from one of their safehouses amid 
  the cloning vats recently, its provenance unknown. 
  I’ve had sentinels pursuing some disturbing leads 
  that suggest that it came from Iapetus or somewhere 
  in the Titanian wilderness. Although there were no 
  outbreaks of TITAN activity on Titan itself during the 
  fall, large swathes of the wilds are still uninhabited.
  The tong has a reputation for staging brutal public 
  assassinations of enemies and doesn’t shrink from 
  inflicting collateral damage on bystanders. Their 
  bosses and enforcers act as if they were unafraid of 
  being apprehended. This is in part because they’re 
  incredibly hard to track; they have an endless supply 
  of new morphs and top-notch facilities for augmen-
  tation and cosmetic modification. Conversely, their 
  enemies face some particularly unpleasant options 
  for resleeving if captured. One boss, Luc Hoi, is 
  rumored to keep a tank full of cyberbrain-equipped 
  koi housing the egos of former rivals.
  REBOOT GANGS
  Not everyone resleeved under the One Body per 
  Mind policy wants to integrate into Commonwealth 
  society. Nyhavn in particular has a large underclass 
  of working people who haven’t resolved themselves 
  to the loss of Earth, don’t wish to participate in the 
  Plurality, and won’t adapt to the reputation economy. 
  Some of these people turn to crime, joining reinstanced 
  gangs such as the Wipes, the Freebeers, and the Jokers. 
  model to other polities. Most Commonwealth 
  citizens would agree that autonomist space is 
  anarchist because anarchism responds best to the 
  economic realities facing widely scattered habitats. 
  They would not be so charitable toward the inner 
  system’s predatory brand of capitalism. Even in the 
  inner system, however, the Commonwealth finds it 
  can partner with some entities—like the academic 
  consortiums with which we collaborate on solar 
  research. Keeping the peace with the Planetary 
  Consortium, while not an ideal state of affairs, does 
  allow us to reap the benefits of trade and knowl-
  edge sharing. The Technosocialist Interplanetary is a 
  minority, but one whose opinions carry much weight.
  Abroad, the TSI supports dissident groups in the 
  inner system, particularly on Mars. Which groups 
  it supports is a matter of rumor; TSI’s due dili-
  gence methodology prior to providing patronage is 
  rigorous, with an eye toward establishing a group’s 
  ability to keep its ties to TSI secret. It also backs 
  microcorps whose activities compete disruptively 
  with inner system hypercorps. TSI members own ten 
  percent of Gatekeeper Corporation, were backers 
  of the failed Scoop project, and invest in icepushing 
  and asteroid mining microcorps that undercut 
  Consortium prices. 
  Not surprisingly, the Planetary Consortium 
  considers the TSI a hostile organization; local groups 
  supported by TSI are often targeted for crackdowns. 
  Close association with the TSI is a fast path to being 
  denied a travel visa to Mars or Mercury, unless one 
  happens to be a diplomat—and the Plurality has 
  been very cautious about appointing anyone from 
  the TSI to a Mars-bound legation in recent years. 
  Lunar and Venusian security forces have yet to deny 
  TSI members entry, but they take a keen interest in 
  their activities.
  Firewall avoids recruiting from the Interplanetary. 
  The organization’s high profile draws too much atten-
  tion, both from hostile security forces abroad, and 
  from Titan’s own Security Police, who have had to 
  investigate several assassination attempts on promi-
  nent TSI members in recent years.
  CRIME
  Titan is socially liberal. Forking, open microfac-
  turing blueprints, and most drugs are legal, their 
  use regulated by reputation and custom rather than 
  law. Violent crime is uncommon, with much of it 
  accounted for by mental health issues rather than 
  typical criminal motives. The ubiquity of heavy 
  armament among the populace may account for this, 
  along with the difficulty of committing crimes using 
  an easy-to-trace, government-issued weapon.
  ST. CATHERINE TONG
  Based in New Quebec and strongly associated with 
  morph trafficking, the St. Catherine Tong started as a 
  harmless benevolent society for Chinese immigrants 
  REBOOTED
  So I have to vote every six hours, I’m expected 
  to clean recycling vats in the name of ‘commu-
  nity,’ and I live in a cold dark hell hole at the ass 
  end of the solar system? And that’s the good 
  life? The fuck is wrong with these people? I’d 
  rather spend sixteen years as a robot slave on 
  Mars. Then I could work off my indenture, get 
  rich, and own a bunch of pleasure pods with 
  big tits. That’d be the life. This is a bunch of shit.
  —Nils Högarn, Rebooted gang leader 
  
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  TITAN
  101
  and related conditions among ethnic Scandinavians 
  made its way into the hazer gene line, and it’s proven 
  startlingly difficult to eliminate. While habitats tend to 
  be very well lit and the hazer morph’s enhanced vision 
  augmentations compensate somewhat, the perpetual 
  gloom outside is still more than some can bear. Recent 
  years have seen several high profile cases involving 
  grisly murders committed by people in high-stress 
  occupations or stationed at far-flung outposts.
  At least one of these murders, though, was more 
  than a case of someone snapping due to environmental 
  stress. I refer you to the report of our sentinel, a 
  psychologist employed by the Commonwealth Police.
  MEDIA
  Titanian media outlets are a bit of a paradox. On one 
  hand, all are state-owned microcorps. On the other, 
  the wide variation of tastes among the voting audience 
  means little homogeneity among them. They range 
  from staid news programs presented by old-fashioned 
  suited anchorpeople to the downright bizarre.
  PLURALITY AGGREGATOR CHANNELS
  The closest thing Titan has to traditional news 
  programs, the PACs report on current events and 
  debates in the Plurality in a video blog format. 
  PAC-1 and PAC-2, the main Social Democrat and 
  Socialist news vlogs, strongly resemble anchored news 
  programs of a century ago. Others, like PAC-9, the 
  Pirat party vlog, look less like blogs and more like the 
  allusive, reference-saturated image boards of the early 
  21st century, with links to legislation peppered here 
  and there.
  Though largely a nuisance at present, there is some 
  concern that Consortium agents-provocateurs could 
  organize these gangs into a more dangerous force.
  KRON KARTELYEI˘
  The flow and use of the Titanian kroner is heavily 
  regulated in a way designed to encourage investment 
  in Plurality-chartered microcorps. It’s a currency 
  that is invested but rarely spent. Loopholes exist, 
  however, and several semi-legitimate banks specialize 
  in exploiting them. Once kroners move out of the 
  microcorp system, they’re real money, a liquid asset. 
  Sometimes desperate Titanians needing credits in 
  other parts of the system make deals with these banks 
  (many of which go badly for the person trying to 
  change their money).
  Other times, the Kartelyeı˘ are involved in what 
  amounts to little more than wire fraud. They’re red 
  market operations, often with their central hubs 
  located in places like Phelan’s Recourse or Extropia. 
  Short of sending Labor and Finance Ministry strike 
  teams to exact vendettas against the Kartelyeı˘, there’s 
  little that can be done about their operations.
  The Kartelyeı˘ do have agents on the ground. Few 
  have ever been charged successfully with involve-
  ment in money laundering; Kartelyeı˘ VPNs are a 
  tough hack. The Kartelyeı˘ are largely of Russian or 
  Ukrainian ethnicity and, in addition to banking, run 
  almost all of the chess boxing leagues (legitimate and 
  otherwise) on Titan.
  GLOOM, COLD AND MADNESS
  Titan’s mental health services, unfortunately, keep very 
  busy. The high incidence of seasonal affective disorder 
  EXOVIRUS: VITTRAD STRAIN
  I was assigned to examine the suspect in a murder at Halsskär, 
  a remote island on a lacus in the Belet region. I was one of a 
  panel. Our purpose: to determine whether the subject, Ernst 
  Valikko, was fit to stand trial. Valikko served as carbon mining 
  engineer on a team of four; the others were technicians. 
  Halsskär sits atop rich deposits of asphalts and other complex 
  carbonaceous compounds, and the team had been mining 
  from the island down into the ice under the lake bed.
  Valikko killed and dismembered the rest of the team 
  using a stunner and an assortment of mining equipment, 
  taking two unawares in their bunks and the third down 
  in the tunnels. After dismembering them, he burned off 
  their faces and most of their skin but didn’t bother with 
  their cortical stacks. Two of the four victims were so badly 
  traumatized by their deaths that it seems unlikely they’ll be 
  capable of giving testimony against their attacker.
  Valikko wouldn’t willingly look at other people for more 
  than a few seconds. The only way to interview him was 
  through a teleoperated synth, at which point he haltingly 
  explained the change he’d begun to see in other people. 
  At first I assumed he was hallucinating, but Ernst Valikko 
  actually sees the effects of entropy on the transhuman body 
  in magnified and horrific detail. A tiny broken capillary on 
  my nose affected him the way viewing a hideous deformity 
  would a normal person.
  Valikko could identify minor genetic defects and ailments 
  in the people around him with complete accuracy simply by 
  glancing at them. He could also see structural flaws, mate-
  rial stress, and minor damage in physical objects around him, 
  although this aspect of his ability didn’t affect him in the 
  way that looking at people did.
  Blood work confirmed that Valikko had become infected 
  with a hitherto unknown exsurgent virus strain. The Vittrad 
  strain, as I haved dubbed it, bears some similarity to Watts-
  MacLeod. Valikko’s ability to perceive entropic effects 
  in living and non-living material is essentially an async 
  power—but one over which he has no control.
  Once Valikko’s infection was confirmed, his morph was 
  destroyed and his stack turned over to Fleet Intel for storage. 
  The question of how an exotic exovirus strain infected Ernst 
  Valikko in the Titanian wilds remains unanswered.
  —Karsten Hauer, Sentinel, Titanian Wilderness 
  
  102
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  by another transhuman. The show consists of von 
  Satan’s sardonic commentary on current events punc-
  tuated by The Cock’s subhuman ravings. MRGCNN 
  has garnered wide critical praise despite its bizarre 
  content. Fans of the show, “ragers,” obsessively 
  analyze each clip when it comes out, attempting to 
  find the cleverly encrypted easter eggs that often 
  accompany it. Many of the easter eggs are hidden XP 
  tracks featuring Momo von Satan: Momo standing in 
  a waterfall of milk, Momo vivisecting the governor 
  of Valles-New Shanghai and feeding him to school 
  children, and similar bizarre scenarios only vaguely 
  related to the news.
  CAPITALISM TODAY WITH OLIE AND YULIA
  Capitalism Today is a stream of consciousness vlog 
  with embedded snippets of XP. Plenty of inner system 
  media makes it out to Titan. Capitalism Today 
  makes memetic salad out of it, mashing up Martian 
  simulspace games, songs, and reality shows with VR 
  projections of the hosts, Olie and Yulia, to create a 
  nightmarish landscape of violence, polished speeches, 
  and consumer lust. This type of commentary through 
  juxtaposition is common in Titanian media. When the 
  assumption is that the viewer’s muse has already filled 
  them in on all of the facts of the day, it’s an interesting 
  interpretation of them that makes the reputation of 
  media presenters.
  ENTERTAINMENT AND RECREATION
  Numerous microcorps focus entirely on sports, 
  gaming, music, drama, and other forms of entertain-
  ment. Titan’s most popular pastimes are football 
  (adapted for Titan’s low gravity by enlarging the 
  goalie’s box slightly and adding a second ball to keep 
  things interesting) and augmented reality roleplaying 
  games (descended from the long tradition of live 
  action roleplaying in the Nordic countries). I have 
  trouble at my age keeping track of trends in music, 
  but lately my students have been playing music 
  that sounds like 2050s revival bhangra married to 
  Swedish polskas. Other popular activities include 
  competitive pole dancing, chess boxing, pre-Fall 
  period dramas, hiking and sailing in the wilderness, 
  and lugeboarding (similar to skateboarding, but 
  done in a 100-meter-deep half pipe excavated in 
  the ice).
  MONSTER RAGING GOBLIN COCK NEWS NETWORK 
  (MRGCNN)
  MRGCNN is currently the most popular comedy 
  news program on Titan. The presenters are Momo 
  von Satan, a diminutive, gothed-out Japanese woman, 
  and The Cock, an AR projection of a red-eyed, 
  toothy-mawed, venous gray penis wearing a horned 
  Viking helmet. It is unknown whether The Cock is 
  von Satan’s muse, an AGI, or a puppet controlled 
  
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  TITAN
  103
  PAGAN SEED
  Pagan Seed is a New Quebec body fashion house. 
  They grow high-end morphs like sylphs and olym-
  pians, but their main business is faces. The sheer 
  number of hazers grown in New Quebec introduces 
  the risk of physical looks being too similar. Morph 
  psychologists have known for some time that too 
  much facial homogeneity in a population raises 
  the risk of mental health problems, so Pagan Seed’s 
  function is to constantly tweak gene lines according 
  to a facial diversity algorithm, assuring that no two 
  hazers look too much alike.
  VAKKER ORDNANCE WORKS (VOW)
  VOW is Titan’s premier arms company, specializing 
  in drone swarms and ship-mounted weaponry. VOW 
  is another Section Three microcorp founded by early 
  colonists. The full extent of its wealth is unknown, but 
  based on the size and quality of its R&D facilities, it 
  must be vast. In recent years, VOW has been lobbying 
  the Plurality (so far without success) to allow it to sell 
  arms to the Morningstar Constellation, an unusual 
  position in that both the Socialists and the fringe Free 
  Market party support it.
  SCIENCE
  Between the Ministry of Science and various micro-
  corps, Titan produces an immense amount of scientific 
  knowledge, none of which ends up locked away in 
  hypercorp IP filings. At the same time, Titanian science 
  projects in areas like recovered Titan technology 
  and high-energy physics are a source of concern to 
  Firewall. Some of the most interesting projects are 
  discussed here, but these are only a small sampling.
  INTERSTELLAR SPACE EXPLORATION
  Titan is the only government in the solar system 
  with an interstellar space program employing sub-
  light space travel rather than Pandora Gates. The 
  Space Exploration Administration’s first interstellar 
  mission, the Crystal Wind, is transgressing the Inner 
  Oort Cloud on its way to Barnard’s Star. Another self-
  replicating seedship probe, the Aubade, which will use 
  antimatter-catalyzed nuclear-pulse propulsion to reach 
  Proxima Centauri, is nearly complete.
  SEA also provides spacecraft for Pandora Gate 
  exploration. Several SEA designs for modular craft 
  designed to be broken down to pass through the 
  small openings in the Gates and reassembled on 
  the other side are now considered old standbys 
  among gatecrashers.
  IMMORTALITY PROGRAMS
  Transhuman bodies still age and die, and more impor-
  tantly, most transhuman egos develop mental health 
  problems in extreme old age. Titanian immortality 
  research currently focuses on geriopsychiatry—finding 
  and treating the causes of the so-called “immortality 
  blues.” At the same time, basic research in longevity 
  MICROCORPS
  Microcorps vary in the degree of autonomy allowed 
  for in their charters. Some operate as virtual exten-
  sions of the policy makers in their affiliated ministries. 
  Such is the case with the microcorps operating the 
  New Quebec clone vats, whose day-to-day opera-
  tions are closely tied to production quotas set by 
  the Ministry of Biodevelopment. Others, such as 
  Gatekeeper, are only partly owned by the Plurality. 
  Finally, there are the Section Three microcorps, whose 
  activities receive considerable Plurality oversight, but 
  whose finances are not subject to the same transpar-
  ency as other microcorps.
  The biggest difference between microcorps and 
  hypercorps is that Titanian kroners earned working 
  at a microcorp can’t be spent; they can only be 
  re-invested. Therefore, microcorp employees are 
  motivated not by money, but by reputation. This in 
  turn serves to reinforce Janteloven (in short, “don’t 
  think you’re better than us”), because a good repu-
  tation tends to be earned through consensus rather 
  than competition.
  ABRAMSEN MUNSCH BOXLEITNER (AMB)
  AMB is a Section Three microcorp and one of several 
  consultancies that advise the Plurality on economic 
  development and long-term strategy. Economic 
  reports from AMB and a handful of other firms exert 
  a powerful influence on how the Plurality votes. The 
  founder, former Finance and Labor Minister Snorri 
  Abramsen, now in reclusive semi-retirement, is famous 
  as architect of the Titanian economic system. While 
  widely credited with being the brains behind Titanian 
  prosperity, AMB is also the bête-noire of conspiracy 
  theorists obsessed with the NAC and Section 
  Three microcorps.
  GATEKEEPER
  The best known of Titan’s microcorps, Gatekeeper 
  operates the original Pandora Gate on Saturn’s 
  moon Pandora. Gatekeeper has been extensively 
  reported upon elsewhere, but it’s worth nothing that 
  Gatekeeper is not a Section Three microcorp, nor are 
  the majority of its shares owned by the Plurality.
  ISAACSON MAUER OGEMBE (IMO)
  IMO is a quiet but highly influential law firm that 
  represents offworld interests such as Lunar reputa-
  tion banks, Extropian mining concerns, and Venusian 
  aerostat construction companies. Rumor has it that 
  some of the “Extropian” companies are actually 
  fronts for Martian hypercorps. If this turned out 
  to be true, and if IMO knew who they were really 
  dealing with, Commonwealth law would require that 
  their charter to do business be immediately revoked. 
  The principals of the firm would likely face criminal 
  charges as well. IMO keeps such a low profile, 
  though, that a Plurality inquiry into their dealings is 
  currently unlikely.
  
  104
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  on Nyhavn do connect the capital to the northern part 
  of the Xanadu region, to carbon-rich Belet in the west, 
  New Quebec in the east, and Aarhus in the south.
  Even with the best transhuman technology, insula-
  tion and heating are major challenges, and the energy 
  expenditure to keep the domes warm is considerable. 
  The climate inside is usually humid but cool, rarely 
  more than 10 C. Plants and animals are either chosen 
  from hardy species or bioengineered to tolerate 
  cool temperatures.
  The upper airspace within domes is mostly kept 
  clear of buildings, allowing for an orderly grid of 
  flyways. Buildings tend to be tall, narrow, and tightly 
  spaced for more efficient energy usage, but regular 
  breaks in the buildings for public parks prevent 
  Titanian cities feeling too claustrophobic.
  NYHAVN
  With twelve million inhabitants under its four domes, 
  Nyhavn is the gem of the Commonwealth and the 
  largest transhuman habitation rimward of Mars. 
  Rising from the hills of the Xanadu region, Nyhavn 
  was sited for proximity to the equator and to the 
  plateau of nearby Mt. Kristiansund, an ideal site for 
  eventual construction of a space elevator. Viewed 
  from a distance through the planetary carbon haze, 
  Nyhavn’s domes, with their constant air traffic, 
  remind those who can remember of jars of fireflies, set 
  out by a child to ward off the dark.
  NEIGHBORHOODS
  Nyhavn’s neighborhoods consist of four domes, a 
  variety of other surface works, and a vast network 
  of underground tunnels. Several major rail corridors 
  and highways/flyways, busy at all hours, connect 
  the domes.
  GREAT NYHAVN
  Nyhavn’s massive central dome, several kilometers 
  across, is nearly as large as that of New Shanghai on 
  Mars, and pierced in a dozen or so places by elegant 
  blue spires that reach skyward from the ground below. 
  Great Nyhavn is a business and residential district 
  where aerial traffic runs between towering buildings, 
  but it’s also the Commonwealth’s public showpiece, 
  with sports stadiums, parks, restored colonization 
  equipment from the First Settlement, and museums 
  taking pride of place.
  Great Nyhavn is heavily planted with trees, mainly 
  conifers, and cut through by numerous canals and 
  small lakes. Banks of lights power plant photosyn-
  thesis, and in turn the great conifers yield a consider-
  able percentage of the dome’s breathable atmosphere. 
  Other life support methods like algae vats and CO2 
  scrubbers supplement the trees.
  This sort of heavily planted biosphere is repeated 
  throughout the city, as well as in most of Titan’s 
  other settlements. Although algae vats are more 
  efficient oxygen producers, the psychological 
  benefits of bright lighting and vegetation justify the 
  treatments continues, the current goal being to keep a 
  morph alive to 200 years of age.
  Some of the physical immortality research is ques-
  tionable. As soon as I can assemble a team with the 
  right qualifications, I plan to have sentinels investi-
  gate the rumor that TITAN biotech used to modify 
  humans into drone slaves on Iapetus was transferred 
  to one of the immortality research groups.
  THE LARGE COLLIDER
  Ringing Titan’s north pole like a monumental 
  orbital halo, the Large Collider, at 1,000 kilometers 
  in circumference, is the biggest particle accelerator 
  ever built by transhumanity. The Collider was only 
  recently completed and has been tested successfully 
  but not yet put fully online. Able to speed particles to 
  velocities attainable by no other scientific apparatus 
  in existence, it promises to enable new and profound 
  discoveries in high energy physics.
  MEMETIC CIVIL DEFENSE
  How does one harden a polity not just against the brutal-
  ities of war, which many populations have prevailed 
  against during human history, but against the doubts and 
  fears that come with them? By mathematically modeling 
  the effects of various memes on feelings of safety and 
  well being, psychologists seek to develop civil defense 
  memes: ideas that inoculate against an aggressor’s hostile 
  memes. Ironically, this line of research is another area 
  of concern to Firewall, because researchers have taken a 
  page from the books of Martian advertising firms, using 
  iterative virtual worlds and accelerated consciousnesses 
  to arrive at faster results.
  CITIES
  Titan’s cities each have their own architectural style 
  and distinctive look, despite similarity in the practical 
  design details. Where cities on other worlds tend to be 
  shaped by terrain and climate, all Titanian cities have 
  a common set of problems to overcome, and their 
  layouts reflect this.
  Titanian cities are domed, although virtually all of 
  the light in them comes from inside. Titan is a dark 
  world in the visible spectrum. Almost all Titanians 
  have enhanced vision augmentations, and we keep 
  them open to a very broad spectrum of light and elec-
  tromagnetic energy. The visual culture has picked up 
  on this, and much of Titanian clothing, architecture, 
  and AR graphics can only be fully experienced by 
  those sensitive to radiation beyond visible light.
  Domes are lenticular, not hemispherical, their edges 
  supported by massive outer walls of ice shaped into 
  wide cylinders. The ice is in turn reinforced with skel-
  etons of carbon struts to prevent the weight of the 
  dome from slowly deforming it. Tunnels and flyways 
  connect domes within cities, tube railways connect to 
  nearby settlements. Because air and space travel are so 
  cheap, Titan’s rail and road systems don’t yet connect 
  all settlements. However, trunk rail lines converging 
  
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  TITAN
  105
  in the event of another TITAN attack or large-scale 
  civil emergency, it’s designed to act as a command and 
  control center for the planet.
  The buildings inside are bunker-like, with indepen-
  dent life support in case the dome is breached and 
  heavy nanowarfare countermeasures. Copper wiring 
  and primitive computers, too simple to fall prey to 
  TITAN mesh attacks, connect Old Nyhavn to similar 
  communication centers in every major habitat on 
  the planet. Voice communication is provided by a 
  hardened, pre-information age telephone system run 
  off an analog (yes, analog!) switchboard system. The 
  guts of this system, along with backup controls, are 
  half a kilometer under the ice. Every Titanian citizen 
  trains on this equipment during their civil service term.
  It may seem incredibly paranoid to maintain a system 
  like this, one based on technology even the Jovians 
  would view as neolithic. But while slow and primitive, 
  the system was battle tested aboard Fleet’s ships on a 
  smaller scale during the Fall, and it works. Titan is a 
  cyberdemocracy, and the Old Nyhavn backup system 
  means that even in a full-on infopocalypse, our govern-
  ment can maintain a minimal level of functioning.
  Kilometers below Old Nyhavn is Lake Nyhavn, 
  a tidally warmed lake of water and ammonia 
  that the original settlers tapped to bootstrap 
  biosphere development.
  Embassy Row in Old Nyhavn holds most of the 
  embassies of offworld powers, although a few 
  (notably the Planetary Consortium trade legation and 
  the embassy of Elysium) are instead located in Great 
  Nyhavn, closer to the media and microcorp offices. 
  For most inner-system powers (and the Jovians), 
  Nyhavn is the only place in the outer system where 
  they have embassies. This makes Nyhavn the obvious 
  meeting ground for anyone who has business with 
  sunward polities that can’t be accomplished remotely.
  NEW KØBENHAVN
  Built after Great Nyhavn but before Telemark City, 
  New København stands directly south of Great 
  Nyhavn, astride the route of the North Xanadu-
  Aarhus rail lines. New København is densely built. 
  Apartments fill the upper stories, while microcorp 
  facilities—labs, microfacturies, and offices—pack the 
  lower ones. New København also has a large popula-
  tion of the working reinstanced due to its proximity 
  to the Skyport and the rail yards, and many of the 
  microcorp facilities contain specialized teleoperations 
  centers for workers running synthmorphs outside.
  SKYPORT NYHAVN
  The Skyport is Titan’s busiest short haul spaceport, 
  with flights to orbit and to almost every settlemnt on 
  the planet with an airstrip. Atmospheric craft fly under 
  power, but many orbital ships use their rockets only 
  for re-entry. Titanian gravity makes it more efficient to 
  use catapults or mass drivers to fling a ship into orbit.
  Military and police ships also berth at Skyport, 
  although they’re rarely visible from the tarmac except 
  energy expenditure. The main argument at present 
  is between those who favor powering the system 
  by burning hydrocarbons and the preservationists, 
  who advocate switching over to fusion and other 
  energy sources as quickly as possible.
  Titan’s media have made Great Nyhavn their home 
  ground. Although the business of government is 
  conducted primarily in Old Nyhavn and on the mesh, 
  important media channels like PAC-1 and PAC-2 have 
  offices here, as do the local bureaus of many offworld 
  media outlets. 
  The constant presence of news, entertainment, and 
  sports figures has led to some of the most conspicuous 
  application of Janteloven in the Commonwealth. Not 
  only do Nyhavners deem it extremely déclassé to 
  acknowledge the presence of a celebrity, the celebrities 
  themselves actively avoid being treated in public as 
  figures of note. One mesh personality, whose popularity 
  had waned, quipped that she didn’t mind so much; she 
  enjoyed being able to joke with her barista without 
  everyone around assuming she was being conde-
  scending. On Titan, to be a celebrity is acceptable only 
  in simulspace; on the ground, one must be a citizen.
  TELEMARK CITY
  The newest of Nyhavn’s four big domes, Telemark City 
  rises to the east of Great Nyhavn. The Plurality built 
  Telemark City to help accommodate the massive number 
  of Commonwealth citizens being resleeved under the 
  One Body per Mind law. The law mandates minimum 
  standards of housing for the reinstanced—no ware-
  housing them in underground warrens, for example. 
  One sees little of the squalid blandness that prevails in 
  working-class Martian housing. The neighborhoods of 
  Telemark City are a riot of color and embellishment, 
  encouraged in part by public fabricators and by recent 
  public enthusiasm for pre-industrial handicrafts.
  Telemark city is nearly full. Another habitation 
  dome north of Great Nyhavn is already being planned 
  as the public resleeving system catches up with the 
  backlog of people still in dead storage from the Fall.
  All is not well, though. Here and in many sections 
  of New København, the reboot gangs represent a 
  social time bomb for Titan. Martian economists scoff 
  at the One Body per Mind law, and from the stand-
  point of a political and economic system that places 
  capital over compassion, they are absolutely correct. 
  A massive number of the reinstanced don’t have the 
  skills to make reputations for themselves, so they turn 
  to the only social network that has a use for them—
  Guanxi. Open violence in Nyhavn is uncommon, but 
  the police stay very busy.
  OLD NYHAVN
  The first and smallest dome, Old Nyhavn houses 
  government ministry offices and very little else. This 
  is the least active and bustling of the domes, yet all 
  Titanians are familiar with it, because almost everyone 
  spends part of their civil service term here. Old 
  Nyhavn is largely mothballed for day-to-day use, but 
  
  106
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  Though never proven, sabotage has long been 
  suspected as the reason for the Scoop’s failure, and 
  a repeat of that disaster would be a terrible blow to 
  morale in the Plurality. 
  AARHUS
  Under the spreading boughs of an immense, bioen-
  gineered oak on the campus of Titan Autonomous 
  University squats a blocky, gray-white dumb matter 
  hab module. Now roped off and marked with a 
  plaque, it was the first human structure built on 
  Saturn’s moons, and my home (along with twenty-two 
  of my colleagues) for five years. Aarhus, city of univer-
  sities and hydrocarbon powerhouse of the south polar 
  region, now boasts three hab domes, each a kilometer 
  and a half in diameter, housing five million citizens.
  Situated on the shores of the immense Ontario 
  Lacus and closely proximate to dozens of other 
  sizable hydrocarbon lakes, Aarhus is fantastically 
  wealthy in energy and exotic chemicals. Yet the native 
  preservationist movement is so strong that almost 
  none of the city’s energy comes from hydrocarbons. 
  Aarhus’s domes are arranged in a triangle, with the 
  northeast and southeast domes directly on the lake 
  shore, while the western dome faces a smaller lake, 
  Holmgard Lacus. The southern run of the North 
  when landing. Most launch directly from fortified 
  hangars dug into the ice.
  Skyport looks like an incomplete dome from a 
  distance, surrounded by a thick, cylindrical barrier 
  wall of ice similar to those ringing the domes. The 
  barrier wall serves as a windbreak, a way of slowing 
  the drift of ice and carbon silt onto the tarmac, 
  and additional fortification for the military assets 
  berthed there.
  TYSKA LACUS
  Tyska Lacus is a good-sized methane lake, 120 kilome-
  ters across at its widest point, but also shallow, with a 
  depth of at most 3 meters in most spots. The lacus is 
  used for recreation, with methane skiff sailing a popular 
  sport, but hydrocarbon extraction is what brings 
  the most transhuman activity. A large refinery draws 
  methane and ethane from the lake, whence it flows 
  along a pipeline to Nyhavn. Hydrocarbons from Tyska 
  Lacus supply about 30% of Nyhavn’s power, but at a 
  price. The early belief that rainfall would keep up with 
  transhuman demand hasn’t panned out, and the lacus is 
  now half a meter shallower than when we arrived here.
  SPACE ELEVATOR CONSTRUCTION SITE
  Depending upon whom one talks to, the space elevator 
  is either a victory for the preservationist movement 
  over those who wanted to simply keep burning hydro-
  carbons to send rockets up, a waste of social money, 
  or a benchmark of Titan’s continued maturation as a 
  great power in the solar system. In any case, construc-
  tion should be completed in about a year.
  The site already boasts rail and road connections, an 
  ice shield wall like that encircling Skyport, and ground-
  side fabrication facilities for the cable. Meanwhile, in 
  orbit, work proceeds at a brisk pace to stabilize and 
  prep the counterweight, a sizable ice asteroid.
  Security around the site is some of the tightest on 
  the planet. Everyone remembers the failure of the 
  Scoop project, a megastructure designed to skim 
  gas directly from the atmosphere of Saturn without 
  mining drones. XPs of the Scoop’s main intake 
  shearing off from its counterweight and tumbling 
  silently downward to be engulfed in the yellow fog 
  below still see playback during Plurality debates and 
  on news programs whenever someone wishes to make 
  a point about the hubris of one of our mega-projects. 
   THE WARRENS
  If you want to live off the grid but in the 
  conurbation, you go down. Don’t even 
  have to dig; that’s been done for you. 
  Nyhavn’s got dozens of kilometers of 
  subsurface tunnels. Some were made by 
  early carbon prospectors, some to pump 
  liquid water up from Lake Nyhavn, and 
  some still get used for pipelines, feedstock 
  lines, and automated cargo transport. 
  There’s geothermal bore holes, too; they 
  experimented with using the temperature 
  difference between the surface and Lake 
  Nyhavn as a power source long ago.
  Aarhus and New Quebec got big tunnel 
  networks, too. Most of these passages are 
  unused, with little or no surveillance. They 
  got no breathable atmosphere, and they’re 
  cold, though not as cold as the surface. Still, 
  people live down here—people who don’t 
  want to be bothered. And there’s always 
  rumors that the gangs, tongs, and Section 
  Three types keep some of their secrets hid 
  under the ice.
  —Balthazar Grimes, A-Bloc dissident 
  THE TENOR OF THE DEBATE
  [Excerpted transcript of MRGCNN Field Report 
  from Bremerhaven neighborhood of University City,  
  6 November AF10]
  Momo: I’m coming to you live from the rapidly 
  congealing pool of blood shed by anarchist 
  student Rada ˇCustovic´, whose femoral artery 
  was severed by a vibro-knife cut just minutes 
  ago in this popular night spot. The assailant’s 
  identity is unknown, but sources in the crowd 
  believe her to be a student affiliated with the 
  oligarchs movement who quarreled with ˇCustovic´ 
  over today’s Plurality deliberations. Citizens who 
  won’t stand for this shit are encouraged to start 
  tracking spimes and bring this bitch to bay.
  The Cock: KILLING PEOPLE FOR THEIR BELIEFS 
  IS AAAWWWESOOOOMME!
  Momo: Fuck you, Cock. Clearly it is not. 
  
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  TITAN
  107
  compounds for export to other parts of the planet. 
  A wide web of roads and local rail systems connect 
  to this dome, and nearby, the squat shield wall of 
  Skyport Aarhus rings an area several kilometers in 
  diameter. Half a kilometer distant, farther down the 
  lake shore, is the immense, blocky mass of the Old 
  Powerhouse, now abandoned save by urban explorers 
  and the hardiest of squatters.
  Under the dome, Kulstofbyen is a mixture of housing 
  and industry. The population combines students, 
  industrial workers, and energy microcorp employees. 
  Kulstofbyen is also known for aquaculture. Little 
  oceans have been excavated beneath its streets, some 
  of them farming fish that were extinct on Earth even 
  before the Fall. This biological treasure is more than a 
  foodstuff; it’s also of great interest to aquatic habitats 
  seeking new species to balance their ecosystems.
  OULU
  Oulu, the western dome, nicknamed the Blue City, is 
  the seat of government, microcorps (who flock here for 
  the wellspring of student talent), and political organiza-
  tions. Several prominent organizations within the pres-
  ervationist movement, including Citizens for the Wilds 
  and the Commonwealth Preservation Front, center 
  their operations amid its famously azure towers and 
  apartment blocks. Oulu boasts parks, a stadium, several 
  of the city’s other universities, and the Morpharium—a 
  museum of transhuman bodies, including restored 
  synthmorphs and biomorphs kept in medical stasis.
  There’s also a red light area, the Ecstasy District, 
  although it’s not what an offworlder from sunward 
  might expect. Drink and drugs flow freely, but there’s 
  very little of what one would call prostitution, with 
  sex clubs the norm instead. Exotic dancing, and in 
  particular pole dancing, is a popular competitive sport, 
  with categories for all genders and species. Audience 
  members are expected to publicly share data from their 
  biomods, allowing the judges to measure the specta-
  tors’ collective arousal during each act. Of course, no 
  money changes hands; dancers compete for reputation.
  The Ecstasy District lost a bit of its sheen for some 
  several months ago when a sexually transmitted wild 
  nano-plague ran rampant in the district, infecting 
  thousands over the course of a few nights. Fortunately 
  it turned out not to be TITAN-related, but the district 
  is a perfect cauldron for this particular type of 
  machine life problem to brew.
  NEW QUEBEC
  Third largest of Titan’s cities, the two domes of New 
  Quebec, each a kilometer and a half wide, are home 
  to one and a half million people. New Quebec lies 
  on the Carbon Prairie, a plain the in the Aaru region 
  covered by wind-shaped dunes that roll in vast reaches 
  of sine waves across the landscape. The region gets 
  its name from its rich and diverse chemical resources. 
  Montmorency Lacus, a collapsed cryovolcano whose 
  remains form a 20-kilometer-wide crater lake, is 50 
  kilometers from the city. The region is rainy, and the 
  Xanadu—Aarhus maglev rail runs through the 
  western dome to its terminus in the southeast dome.
  Aarhus’s readiness in case of renewed hostilities 
  with the TITANs is a mixed bag. The militia is as 
  good as any city’s, but thanks to extremely low crime, 
  the Aarhus Police have more experience breaking up 
  student parties that get out of hand than responding 
  to serious emergencies. To Aarhus’s benefit, though, an 
  unusual number of Firewall agents, myself included, 
  base themselves here.
  UNIVERSITY CITY
  University City, the northeast dome, is the physical hub 
  of Titan Autonomous University (motto: “Onward. 
  Upward. Outward.”) and our (usually friendly) rival 
  Titan Technological Institute, a major engineering 
  school. Aarhus has over a dozen institutions of higher 
  learning, most located here, although several are in 
  the other domes. Because delays in radio communica-
  tion between the outer system’s widely scattered habs 
  hinder long-distance learning, the practice of going 
  away to university hasn’t died out as it has sunward. 
  More than 20% of Aarhus’s population are students, 
  many of them offworlders.
  University City, and indeed most of Aarhus, is 
  densely built up. Few streets accommodate vehicles 
  larger than scooters, but almost every building has 
  public roof access, a landing pad, and a place to 
  fold and rack microlights or personal wings. Larger 
  buildings have landing pads big enough to take small 
  powered aircraft.
  The universities are heavily involved in the Science 
  Ministry’s many projects and with microcorp research. 
  The ministry’s Science Police are in evidence at most 
  key university research facilities, as are officials from 
  Nyhavn and officers from Fleet (the latter not always 
  without protest). Both students and faculty tend to be 
  strongly political. Every Titanian social movement has 
  its proponents, and the argonaut faction has strong 
  representation, as well.
  Aside from academia, University City is home to 
  many artists and entertainers. Players immersed in 
  augmented reality LARPs are such a common sight 
  that few people pay them any mind despite their 
  oft-outlandish costumes. Several large buildings in 
  the district are devoted to this activity, although the 
  Aarhus Police sometimes take notice when the play 
  involves taking petals.
  Weird tech-driven art happenings and student 
  pranks are common distractions here. Even student 
  tricks bear watching sometimes, as attested by the 
  recent out-of-control reproduction of tiny, venomous 
  marmosets released by Titan Tech students as a prank. 
  The marmosets were not to have been venomous; 
  hunting them all down took weeks.
  KULSTOFBYEN
  The symmetry of the outer ice wall of Kulstofbyen, the 
  southeast dome, is broken by the Refineries, a cluster 
  of huge, blue structures that process carbonaceous 
  
  108
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  of a long-standing truce with the St. Catherine Tong. 
  The tong leaves the Kartelyeı˘ alone, and in return the 
  money launderers don’t so much as set foot in Lavalle. 
  The Kartelyeı˘ would rather talk with their money and 
  influence than their knives. Their chess-boxing opera-
  tions are only borderline illegal, anyway. They know 
  how to collect what they feel they’re owed, though, 
  and they’ve spirited more than one debtor off for a 
  long and uncomfortable talk in simulspace.
  Chess boxing itself is a fascinating sport. Described 
  but never practiced by a pre-Fall French comic book 
  artist, fans eventually turned it into a real sport. The 
  concept is simple: rounds of boxing alternate with 
  a period of chess play. Each boxer must pursue a 
  coherent strategy whilst being pummeled into inco-
  herence by their opponent. Variants exists, the most 
  popular being Muay Thai alternated with German-
  style board games, but the big bets always ride on the 
  classic chess/boxing combination.
  LAVALLE
  Lavalle’s most important feature, both locally and 
  from the perspective of the entire Commonwealth, 
  is the massive bodyworks occupying kilometers 
  of caverns beneath this dome. Reboot gangs are a 
  nuisance in the poorer neighborhoods here, but it’s 
  the major syndicates that keep police inspectors and 
  local militia commanders awake at night. The body-
  works produce thousands of morphs per day and are 
  the engine powering Titan’s massive public resleeving 
  program. They’re also the engine powering an ongoing 
  and sometimes intense war between the St. Catherine 
  regular fall of ethane and methane feeds Montmorency 
  Cascade, a dramatic 200-meter-high carbonfall that 
  drains the Lacus into a wide-spanning alluvial system, 
  whence the Quebecoise pump much of their fuel.
  Though even this city is safe compared to places 
  like Kronos Cluster or Little Shanghai on Mars, it’s 
  the most dangerous on Titan, and the one of most 
  concern to both Titanian authorities and Firewall. Both 
  the fearlessly violent St. Catherine Tong and the more 
  subtle Kron Kartelyeı˘ carry on major operations here.
  For all that, New Quebec is a charming city, 
  combining the necessities of Titanian habitat planning 
  with embellishments meant to evoke the cities of 
  Canada on pre-Fall Earth. The two main domes, 
  Trudeau-Macalester to the north and Lavalle to the 
  south, stand quite close to one another, with only 
  about 100 meters of highway/flyway tunnel needed 
  to connect them.
  New Quebec’s preparedness in the event of a 
  TITAN attack is high. The police and militia are 
  seasoned and fearless from regular actions against 
  criminal gangs, and ironically, the gangs themselves 
  might form a significant, if untrustworthy, force of 
  resistance to an attack. Of course, it’s the gangs, with 
  their unscrupulous collecting of questionable tech-
  nology, who are most likely to unwittingly create a 
  problem in the first place.
  TRUDEAU-MACALESTER
  The Kartelyeı˘ chess boxing rings are all in this dome 
  (and indeed, one won’t find so much as a gym for 
  boxing in the southern dome, Lavalle). This is by dint 
  
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  TITAN
  109
  Stykkishólmur as a favorite destination on inter-term 
  breaks. It’s all amusement and diversions until someone 
  goes berserk and has to resleeve after an axe fight.
  ORBITALS
  Titan’s low escape velocity makes bringing construc-
  tion materials and supplies to orbit easy. About a 
  hundred permanently occupied space habitats and 
  thousands of satellites orbit the planet. Many are 
  small cluster habitats, components in the planetary 
  defense grid, or stripped-down orbital manufacturing 
  facilities, but others approach the size of small cities.
  COMMONWEALTH HUB
  Titan’s main space port maintains a synchronous orbit 
  above the capital, Nyhavn. Home to a permanent 
  population of 200,000, the Hub is similar in design 
  to the Nuestro shells common in the Jovian Trojans, 
  but with massive open internal spaces for berthing 
  spacecraft. Titan has no skyhook or space elevator, so 
  the Hub is also home to a massive fleet of LOTVs and 
  tugs for shuttling materials, people, and equipment to 
  and from the surface.
  CAPTURED MOONLETS
  After the Locus Conflict, the Plurality funded a project 
  to capture three of Saturn’s small retrograde moons—
  Phoebe, Skathi, and S/2007 S 2 (later renamed 
  Abramsen after the noted economist)—and outfit 
  them as orbital defense installations. The capture of 
  the three was possibly the most ambitious orbital 
  engineering project ever undertaken by transhumanity, 
  requiring an unprecedented expenditure of antimatter 
  to maneuver the three so that they formed a stable 
  L1-L4-L5 system orbiting Titan. Many opposed the 
  plan due to the risks from an accident, but it was a 
  success, despite at least one attempt at sabotage.
  Phoebe is the largest of the three by orders of magni-
  tude, a heavily cratered mass of rock and ice, and 
  serves as home port for Fleet. The other two moonlets, 
  Skathi and Abramsen, are much smaller and very icy. 
  All three bristle with armaments, comm relays, and 
  sensor equipment. Deep silos on Phoebe designed to 
  house interplanetary high velocity antimatter missiles 
  were dug but never armed, and may we hope the 
  Plurality never again feels the need for such a deterrent.
  MANKELL
  Mankell is a mid-sized cluster hab, home to 50,000 
  people. It’s an important microgravity manufacturing 
  center, as well as a media hub. Mankell boasts some of 
  the most powerful and sensitive civilian comm gear in 
  Titan’s orbit, which it uses both to pirate inner system 
  media and to broadcast Titanian content to sunward. 
  Experia regularly files complaints about Mankell to 
  the Titanian embassy on Mars, to no avail. As long 
  as the Pirat party is an important voting bloc in the 
  Plurality, the chance of Titan accommodating hyper-
  corp intellectual property laws is virtually nil.
  Tong and their offworld rivals, the Night Cartel and 
  the ID Crew. The shifting alliances among the three big 
  gangs and a host of smaller operators are behind New 
  Quebec’s reputation for corruption and violence.
  Lavalle’s remaining populace are a tough lot of morph 
  vat technicians and miner/harvesters who prospect the 
  land outside. Given their surroundings, they’re a remark-
  ably hospitable lot—as long as one doesn’t start asking 
  too many questions about who’s on the take.
  SETTLEMENTS
  Outside of the big cities, numerous smaller settlements 
  dot Titan’s surface, oases of warmth and light in the 
  dark, frozen haze of the wilds.
  HUVUDSKÄR
  The hulder maintain this small methane/ethane 
  processing station on the shore of Kraken Mare in 
  the far north. Although the station has few permanent 
  residents, hulder from all around the region regularly 
  come and go from it. Ethnographers hoping to study 
  hulder culture in less extreme surroundings than the 
  open wild often come here.
  LONGUEIL
  The Bloc Québécois de Titan (BQT) is a small sepa-
  ratist group of several thousand French Canadians, 
  mostly Fall evacuees, who live on several hundred 
  square kilometers of land in the Belet region. The 
  main settlement, Longueil, is built into a headland 
  at the end of a small peninsula in Vänern Lacus. The 
  area settled by the BQT can only be reached from the 
  outside by off-road vehicles or air, but the BQT has 
  cut and maintains their own roads in the area.
  The BQT’s dominant meme is an unusual fork of 
  bioconservatism, but an isolate group on Titan can’t 
  afford full-on bioconservatism. So the BQT practices 
  “bioconservatism of the soul.” The BQT uses modern 
  medicine and bio-augmentation as much as mainline 
  Titanian society—up to the point of backing up 
  and resleeving. Soul bio-cons have no problem with 
  transhumanism as long as no one is cheating death. 
  Unfortunately, since most transhumans have been 
  resleeved, egocast, or brought back from the dead 
  at least once in their life, this still means that, to the 
  BQT, the rest of transhumanity are a bunch of copies, 
  their original selves long dead.
  STYKKISHÓLMUR
  I blame all of the depictions of Titanians in horned 
  helmets by our detractors from other factions on this 
  roughnecked mining town in the Belet region. Far 
  from the big cities, amusement outside of the mesh is 
  hard to come by, and visitors are few. So the people 
  of Stykkishólmur, partly to alleviate boredom and 
  partly to attract tourists, began fabricating and sailing 
  Viking longboats on the nearby methane lacus. Frankly 
  I find this ridiculous, but my students, particularly 
  the offworlders from the Trojans and elsewhere, rate 
  
  URANUS
  7
  AT A DISTANCE
  Skimmer Society: This far from the inner system, some 
  take it even further from established habitats. n p. 112
  URANUS
  7
  AT A DISTANCE
  Skimmer Society: This far from the inner system, some 
  take it even further from established habitats. n p. 112
  
  MANY ORBITS 
  Oberon: The most accessible Uranian moon;  home to spaceport Chat Noir 
  and the Fissure Gate. n p. 114
  Titania: This tourist and Xtreme sports destination faces increased conflicts 
  as its popularity grows and mysteries remain unsolved. n p. 114
  Ariel: Rich in volatiles, this heavily cratered moon is closely guarded by the 
  ultimates. n p. 123
  THE ULTIMATES 
  Xiphos: Inside the rings of Uranus, this habitat is an industrial and scientific powerhouse. n p. 117
  The Ultimates Declaration: Those that seek to be the best live by this credo. n p. 116
  The Challenge: Those that seek to be the best live by this credo. n pp. 118–120
  Eternal Struggle: The inner workings of this group of aspiring philosopher-kings. n p. 121
  MANY ORBITS 
  Oberon: The most accessible Uranian moon;  home to spaceport Chat Noir 
  and the Fissure Gate. n p. 114
  Titania: This tourist and Xtreme sports destination faces increased conflicts 
  as its popularity grows and mysteries remain unsolved. n p. 114
  Ariel: Rich in volatiles, this heavily cratered moon is closely guarded by the 
  ultimates. n p. 123
  THE ULTIMATES 
  Xiphos: Inside the rings of Uranus, this habitat is an industrial and scientific powerhouse. n p. 117
  The Ultimates Declaration: Those that seek to be the best live by this credo. n p. 116
  The Challenge: Those that seek to be the best live by this credo. n pp. 118–120
  Eternal Struggle: The inner workings of this group of aspiring philosopher-kings. n p. 121
  
  112
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  Posted by: Iftikhar Quraini, Gatecrasher 
   
   
  <Info Msg Rep>
  I first came to Uranus when I was nineteen.
  I was born on Earth. When the troubles came my 
  parents spent everything they had to get me out. 
  Everything. I still remember the drive to the clinic 
  where they uploaded my mind, the twisted feeling in 
  my gut knowing that I would live and my father and 
  mother wouldn’t. I was eleven.
  I was egocast to Mars where Cognite was nice 
  enough to take me in. As a virtual slave. When I finally 
  freed myself from the grip of the hypercorps, I decided 
  to move as far away from the sun as I possibly could. 
  The inner system hadn’t been good to me. I wanted 
  out, I wanted to get as far away from that life as 
  possible. Uranus fit the bill perfectly.
  Let me tell you about my new home. The last planet 
  in the solar system with any serious population lies 
  just a shade under three billion klicks from Sol. The 
  planet’s extraordinary color comes from the methane 
  in its atmosphere, tinting the clouds a shade that is 
  half blue and half green, like a clear tropical sea on a 
  warm summer day.
  Not that anything about Uranus is warm. Mean 
  cloud temperature is a couple hundred degrees south 
  of zero. Cold.
  Of course, none of this makes the planet unique. In 
  fact, Uranus has a twin: Neptune. The last planet is 
  slightly smaller than its sibling but also slightly more 
  massive. Both worlds have rings and plenty of moons. 
  It turns out they’re not identical twins, though. 
  There’s one big difference. The Uranian equator 
  is inclined 98 degrees to the its orbit. That’s right. 
  Uranus makes its long journey around the sun on 
  its side. Each of its poles gets 42 years in the sun, 
  followed by 42 years of darkness. It’s magnetic field 
  is also tipped over, nearly sixty degrees from the plan-
  etary equator. Uranus is the only planet in the solar 
  system other than Venus that rotates backwards, east 
  to west.
  How did all this happen? Billions of years ago 
  Uranus was the victim of a terrible cataclysm. A plan-
  etary-sized object smashed into it, knocking it over.
  Which gives me a certain sympathy for this frozen 
  world. All Uranus is doing is trying to hold it together 
  after a disaster of epic proportions.
  Something we all know a little bit about.
  CAVEATS
  The planet’s disastrous early history plagues the 
  system to this very day. Most interplanetary travel 
  is confined to the ecliptic, the common orbital plane 
  of the solar system. But Uranus’s extreme inclination 
  makes orbital insertion complicated. Instead of gently 
  firing thrusters to set orbit, ships making port around 
  Uranus have to engage in a short, furious burn to 
  swing into the system’s orbital plane. Usually the 
  maneuver is more or less automatic … if you have the 
  fuel to spare. And as long as your navigation system is 
  functioning properly.
  If your nav software crashes while you’re making 
  your approach, you’ve got problems. This is not an 
  insertion you can eyeball. Aside from the more than 
  two dozen moons and all the orbital habitats, Uranus 
  has thin but dark rings that extend all the way out to 
  100,000 klicks. You don’t want to plow through all 
  that garbage at a substantial velocity. It doesn’t take 
  much more than a dozen kps to turn a snowball into 
  a lethal projectile.
  CLOUDTOPS
  Not only is Uranus literally far from the inner system, 
  but it’s also metaphorically distant. There’s little trace 
  of the Planetary Consortium out here. Uranus is 
  dominated by autonomists and anarchists and even 
  ultimates. All this and the odd brinker, too. (And I do 
  mean odd.)
  Most of the system’s people can be found on the 
  moons Oberon or Titania or living on an orbital 
  habitat. There’s a whole weird ecology, however, 
  living at the top of the Uranian atmosphere. Everyone 
  calls them skimmers, because their principal 
  economic activity is skimming volatiles (hydrogen, 
  helium-3, methane, water) out of the Uranian atmo-
  sphere with remotely operated sleds or aerostat gas 
  collection farms.
  Turns out, Uranus isn’t too bad a place for aero-
  stats. Jupiter has deadly radiation and Saturn and 
  Neptune have killer winds, but here the magneto-
  sphere is mild (a hull is sufficient protection) and 
  wind speeds are only half that of Saturn. There are 
  also fewer storms and they don’t last for decades. 
  Add in lower gravity and a cheaper escape velocity 
  with an atmosphere full of useful volatiles, and you 
  have a recipe for Uranus making one of the best gas 
  mining outposts in the system.
  SKIMMERS
  Skimmer society is filled with misfits and loners, 
  people living in mini-aerostats that drift on the wind, 
  going wherever Uranus will take them. Some of these 
  vessels are big enough to support a few hundred 
  people. Others are only big enough to support a 
  family or a single, lonely soul.
  Who are these skimmers? By far the biggest portion 
  of them are brinkers, isolationists hiding from the rest 
  of the universe. Turns out Uranus is a good place to 
  7
  URANUS
  
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  URANUS
  113
  its infancy, but there are stories that the project has 
  already built some beautiful open-air garden and 
  larger animal adaptation is on the way.
  BELOW THE CLOUDS
  The skimmer culture provides much-needed raw 
  materials to the rest of the system. It also serves as a 
  relief valve, bleeding off those people too maladapted 
  to live in harmony with their fellow Uranians. Perhaps 
  unsurprisingly, many skimmers are prone to exagger-
  ated stories, weird beliefs, and conspiracy theories. 
  Chief among these are tales of weird things spotted 
  among the clouds.
  hide. First off, it’s big. The planet’s 51,000-kilometer 
  diameter gives it a lot of surface area. That’s a lot of 
  haystack to search if you’re looking for a particular 
  needle. Second, it’s isolated—between 8 and 30 AU 
  from Saturn, its closest well-populated neighbor. 
  Finally, for a hole in the wall, there’s plenty of 
  resources and even a touch of civilization.
  So it’s not a bad place for brinkers to hunker down. 
  Some are religious seekers, people who can’t quite 
  believe the new realities the universe has thrown their 
  way over the past ten years. Or they come from a faith 
  where the established holy figures let them down and 
  now they’ve gone to the very edge of the system to 
  try and figure out how to make sense of it. Others are 
  former infugees who didn’t integrate well into autono-
  mist society or broken people fleeing broken lives and 
  hoping Uranus is the place they can put the pieces 
  back together. Then there are those running away 
  from terrible secrets—or terrible crimes. You have to 
  run far to escape your past. For some, nineteen astro-
  nomical units is far enough.
  The biggest group of brinkers are people who 
  believe The End Is Nigh. Many barely escaped Earth 
  and the horrors they saw shattered their minds. 
  These people are the most dangerous inhabitants 
  of the clouds, because they are waiting on apoca-
  lypse, whether it comes in the form of aliens, the 
  Exsurgent virus, or another runaway singularity. 
  They are clinging to a tiny scrap of safety.
  Which is not to say that everyone that lives among 
  the clouds is a crackpot. There are many perfectly 
  normal people that have embraced the skimmer life-
  style. Some of them will even talk to outsiders. 
  VARUNA
  Station Type: Aerostat
  Allegiance: Independent (Brinker)
  Primary Languages: Hindi, Punjabi, Wu
  Population: 1,000
  The only large, populated aerostat is Varuna. It’s an 
  independent habitat run by an elected council, oper-
  ating with a transitional economy, though there is a 
  small mutualist enclave. A few hypercorp reps work 
  here as individual mobile offices, most of them buying 
  volatiles from the skimmers. A small number of indie 
  scientists have set up shop here too, studying Uranus 
  and engaging in other work.
  One of the most interesting research projects is 
  working on creating a free-floating oxygen-free 
  biome that could colonize the clouds of gas giants. 
  If such an experiment were successful, it would open 
  up huge swaths of territory to transhuman civiliza-
  tion, expanding the livable area of the solar system by 
  several orders of magnitude. The scientists are basing 
  their research on the Earth species Spinoloricus cinzia, 
  a millimeter-long creature found in anoxic regions of 
  the Mediterranean before the Fall. These tiny multi-
  cellular creatures’ mitochondria were replaced by 
  organelles that acted as hydrogenosomes—allowing 
  them to live without oxygen. The research is still in 
  NINE FRAMES
  At first, it’s nothing but dark cloudscape, great 
  billowing towers of hydrogen only dimly lit by the 
  far sun. The camera’s plunging towards those clouds, 
  racing toward the flat top of a massive light blue 
  cumulonimbus. The massive formation goes on and on 
  and on, big enough to swallow a habitat. Big enough 
  to swallow the nucleus of a comet.
  Hydrogen skimmer zeta tau one seven six four is in 
  trouble. Engine failure alerts flash. The craft has lost 
  attitude control. It’s going down.
  Then there’s nothing but dull blue as the skimmer 
  plunges into the cloud, its camera still reporting its 
  pointless demise.
  Five seconds. Ten. Twenty. The skimmer dives 
  through the cumulonimbus and into a deeper, thicker 
  cloud, this one tinged with yellow from ammonia and 
  organic compounds. Pressure alarms flash. The descent 
  goes on forever. Nothing but speed and cloud as 
  gravity works its deadly will. Then—
  STOP. A shadow at the edge of the frame or maybe 
  a dark patch of especially dense organics.
  STOP. The shadow doubles in size, taking up the 
  bottom, left corner of the frame. A shadow of what?
  STOP. The thing grows again. What is it?
  STOP. It’s not a shadow. There’s a bright spot right 
  there. Definite variation in pixel brightness.
  STOP. Bigger again. More detail. It can’t be another 
  skimmer. Skimmers aren’t supposed to be down 
  this low.
  STOP. The skimmer must be moving towards the 
  object. It’s big enough to show an edge.
  STOP. The camera’s poor resolution makes the edge 
  look jagged, but look past the saw-tooth pattern and 
  you can imagine a smooth arc. Is it artificial?
  STOP. Definitely light and dark patterns now. The 
  object fills the image. The bright portion is triangular.
  STOP. And then—
  You stop the frame-by-frame analysis and sit back. 
  Then you go back through it all over again, asking 
  yourself the same question. You can almost imagine 
  that white triangle is shaped a little like a shuttle. And 
  in that last frame—
  Did it move? 
  
  114
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  FUTURE STATIONS
  Not everyone out here subscribes to the anarchist 
  credo, however. A group of Extropians looking 
  to exploit the gate’s market potential complained 
  for years that the overzealous security and Chat 
  Noir’s lack of complete spaceport amenities were 
  not good for attracting future shipping business. 
  They’re currently raising capital to build a twin pair 
  of stations that will travel in a long, elliptical orbit 
  around the moon. The orbit is carefully mapped 
  out so neither station passes over the gate and one 
  station will always be available to an incoming ship 
  without having to burn inside Oberon’s orbit. Called 
  Graupner Alpha and Beta, the twin stations are 
  intended to encourage the gate’s free market trade 
  while reducing the risk. The anarchists of Love and 
  Rage are, to put it mildly, less than thrilled about this 
  plan. The fundraising and initial attempts to secure 
  raw materials for the stations has been beset with a 
  string of suspicious failures. When asked to comment 
  about this, the anarchists typically shrug and happily 
  tell you “accidents happen.”
  COBWEB
  Perhaps the strangest mechanism on the small moon 
  is the spider-walking farcaster. Because it is least 
  effected by the Uranian magnetosphere, Oberon is 
  best positioned to send and receive egocasts without 
  interference. The Oberonian farcaster station, named 
  Cobweb, is mobile, moving about the surface of 
  the satellite to enhance signal reception. Anyone 
  egocasting in to visit Chat Noir that lacks @-rep 
  and hasn’t been vetted in advance is directed here 
  for security screening. Though small, the station 
  can accommodate about fifty. It sits on a massive, 
  building-sized, arachnid-like walker frame. Currently 
  it is located in the crater Othello, near the moon’s 
  south pole, but as Uranus continue on its journey 
  around the sun, the farcaster will skitter out of the 
  crater and move northward, following the voice of the 
  inner system.
  Use of the farcaster is limited due to tight security 
  around Oberon. No amount of money can buy 
  you a farcast, only being in good standing with the 
  autonomists and calling in a big favor will do, or 
  being personally invited by a member of the Love 
  and Rage collective, the argonauts from Lear, or a 
  member of the Gelderloos collective that oversees 
  the farcaster.
  TITANIA
  Allegiance: Mixed (Anarchist/Brinker/Hypercorp)
  Primary Languages: English, Mandarin, Russian
  Population: 10,000
  The largest of the Uranian moons at 1,600 kilometers 
  in diameter, Titania is most notable for an impres-
  sively long canyon and a population that is able to 
  think outside the box.
  Most of these are bunk: hallucinations, sensor 
  glitches, ploys for attention, and stories to frighten 
  skimmer kids. Then you realize there’s evidence. 
  Some skimmers have recordings of when they 
  detected strange thermal plumes and encrypted 
  comms below them in the deep clouds. It’s wise to 
  ignore the ravings of lunatics, but I’m not so sure 
  they’re wrong—especially after I reviewed the camera 
  feed from a lost skimmer craft that went down in the 
  equatorial band. Someone’s down there, hiding in the 
  well of Uranus’s atmosphere, someone who doesn’t 
  want us to know they’re there. I have my suspicions, 
  and I know plenty of brinkers that will tell you their 
  theories after a few pints. Hypercorp black labs. 
  Anarchist WMD bunkers. TITAN machines. A secret 
  Factor base. As for any evidence as to what it really 
  is, well, if you’ve got some, Firewall would like a chat 
  with you.
  OBERON
  Allegiance: Autonomist Alliance (Anarchist)
  Primary Languages: English, French, Mandarin
  Population: 10,000
  It’s likely you’ve already heard of Chat Noir, Love 
  and Rage, and the Fissure Gate. There’s more to the 
  tenth largest moon in the solar system, however. One 
  thing that makes Oberon unique is its distant orbit. 
  Swinging around Uranus at a radius of well over a 
  half-million kilometers, it’s the big planet’s most 
  distant moon. Oberon’s placement in the Uranian 
  system leads to a couple of implications.
  First, Oberon is the only moon that isn’t fully 
  cloaked by the Uranian magnetosphere. Due to the 
  odd shape of the planet’s magnetic field, Oberon 
  actually dips in and out of the magnetosphere during 
  its orbit. As a consequence, it is the single best place 
  to study variations in field strength and observe how 
  the wildly changing magnetic flux affects the moon. 
  A small argonaut base of a few hundred souls built 
  in the equatorial crater Lear does just this, garnering 
  raw scientific data that can be gathered nowhere else 
  in the solar system.
  The second implication of Oberon’s position is 
  that it is the easiest moon to reach by ship—large, 
  well away from the rings, at least partially free of the 
  twisting madness of the planet’s magnetic field. This 
  reality has made Chat Noir the primary stopover for 
  ships inserting into the Uranian system.
  Unfortunately, the presence of the gate makes 
  every arriving vessel a potential threat. Chat Noir has 
  prepared itself for a surprise attack by arming itself to 
  the teeth, restricting airspace over the gate, and thor-
  oughly scanning incoming ships. A lot of traffic comes 
  this way to take advantage of the gate, most of it from 
  autonomist habs and other friendly groups, but Love 
  and Rage isn’t afraid to warn off any craft they have 
  suspicions about. After the second warning, they shoot. 
  If necessary, they’ll apologize later.
  
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  URANUS
  115
  MESSINA CHASMA
  Starting with absolutely nothing, the people of Titania (who 
  locally calls themselves Titaniots to distinguish from the tech-
  nosocialist Titanians) built Messina Chasma into one of the 
  few genuine tourist destinations beyond the orbit of Saturn. 
  Originally catering to younger anarchists and Extropians 
  seeking a thrill, the mesh clips of amazing jumps into the 
  chasma went viral a few years ago, prompting media and sports 
  hypercorps to get in on the action. The canyon gives the illusion 
  of danger around which the Xtreme sports industry is built—
  without the actual danger. Titania’s low surface gravity (.04 g) 
  lowers the potential energy available to X-athletes—as well as 
  the potential damage.
  Especially popular is bridge-diving off the Cross-Rift 
  Suspension. Divers drop off the bridge, accelerating at a mere 
  0.38 meters per second. The acceleration is slow, but it’s a long 
  way down—fully half a kilometer. By the end of the 51-second 
  drop, the divers are falling at nearly 70 kph—and then they’re 
  pulled back up by the elasticity in the carbon fiber cables tied 
  to their ankles. It’s one hell of a ride.
  It’s not all camaraderie and good times, however. The 
  increasing presence of media crews, inner system tourists, 
  X-athletes, and hypercorp representatives is creating friction 
  with the local autonomists. For the most part, this conflict 
  has remained in the realm of the occasional drunken brawl 
  and shouted insults. The local collectives would prefer the 
  hypercorps not be on Titania, but as long as they’re not 
  actively hostile, they’re welcome to do as they want. Most 
  of the problems have come from X-athletes trying to market 
  their bad boy/girl reputation by going after the Consortium’s 
  favorite scapegoats, the anarchists, to show how badass they 
  are. The clips where they get their bad asses handed back to 
  them by their intended targets are just as popular in anar-
  chist feeds.
   XTREME
  Fast. Dangerous. On the edge.
  There’s one name in Xtreme sports that says it all.
  Messina Chasma.
  1,500 kilometers long, the chasm stretches across Titania’s 
  ugly, gray face like a scar. Every last centimeter of it is a mind-
  blowing experience unlike anything else in the solar system.
  Skate across frozen ammonia polished to a nearly frictionless 
  sheen in Lake Emma, a three-klick impact crater transected by 
  the valley. Go diving off the Cross-Rift Suspension, where you’ll 
  drop a half kilometer into the dark. Upload into one of our super-
  conducting sled bots and hurtle down a hundred kilometers of 
  the High Valley Run. Scale the cliff face at Eaton Wall, one of the 
  most difficult technical climbs this side of Valles Marineris.
  Come visit Messina Chasma for the thrill of your life.*
  Contact the Titania Travel Bureau for further details
   
  [YES]/[NO] 
  *Free resleeving services provided with every package.  
  Sorry, no morphs can be accepted without a working 
  cortical stack.
  
  116
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  LAKE EMMA
  Experia and a few other media corps have branches 
  out at Lake Emma, where they broadcast all the 
  moon’s Xtreme sports. It’s a sweetheart deal for the 
  hypercorps since the anarchists aren’t interested in 
  monetizing the sport. Of course, their signals are 
  immediately pirated and rebroadcast to any hab that 
  wants it outside the inner system, so most curious 
  parties are able to indulge anyway. Not all of the 
  autonomists are too keen on this, though, since these 
  broadcasts allow the corps to hype Titania throughout 
  the solar system, boosting the moon’s tourist trade 
  and drawing unwelcome inner system interest.
  THE VORY
  Behind the scenes lurks another presence on 
  Titania. A Russian Vory mob outfit, one of the few 
  not absorbed into the Night Cartel, operates out 
  of Lyod, skimming its share of the profits that spill 
  into the canyon. Calling themselves the Brotherhood 
  Without Emotions, they’ve tried repeatedly to expand 
  their influence but have been staunchly opposed by 
  the anarchist communities. They have recently started 
  providing support for some of the hypercorp opera-
  tions, investing in good will that they hope to leverage 
  in the long term to consolidate a hold over the moon. 
  The Brotherhood is a canny investor, plowing its 
  profits into businesses that are likely to be winners 
  and using its muscle and political connections to force 
  open still more opportunities.
  URSULA
  Ursula is a large crater near Titania’s south pole. It’s 
  surrounded by smooth plains, except where its cut by 
  the Belmont Chasma. The main crater is 135 klicks 
  across, but there is a circular pit near its center that 
  has a diameter of 20 kilometers.
  The people of Titania awoke one morning to 
  find heavy thermal plumes emanating from Ursula’s 
  central pit. The residents of Ursula have had almost 
  no contact with their neighbors on the chasma, which 
  makes the rest of Titania suspicious.
  CROSSING
  Like the Xtreme sports attractions, most of Titania’s 
  population hugs the edge of the chasma. The largest 
  city is Crossing, with a population of nearly 2,000 
  souls. Crossing is the site of the Cross-Rift Suspension, 
  a massive bridge five kilometers long that links the 
  eastern and western sides of the chasma. The polymer 
  composite bridge is painted a bright canary yellow, 
  which makes it a stunning sight when Uranus is rising 
  in the background. Crossing is the autonomist city that 
  first popularized bridge diving, and most of the pioneers 
  of the sport still reside here. Offworlders who are willing 
  to abide by Crossing’s collectivist work ethic, which 
  means pitching in where needed, and who have a good 
  reputation with autonomists are welcome in the city. 
  LYOD
  Lyod anchors the northern end of the chasma and is 
  responsible for the production of most of the moon’s 
  land crawlers. Populated primarily by resleeved 
  infomorphs who fled a dying Russia during the Fall, 
  Lyod is one of the few remaining centers of Orthodox 
  Christianity in the transhuman world. Currently Lyod 
  finds itself in control of the Titaniot land transporta-
  tion market, a position threatened by an anarchist 
  plan to build a maglev line that runs a third of the 
  length of the canyon. The residents of Lyod are more 
  brinker in their mentality than autonomist, and inner 
  system types prefer their transitional economy to the 
  anarchist zones. Nimbus operates a small egocasting 
  and resleeving facility here that most of the hyper-
  corps use when they need to get someone to Titania.
  XUE
  Xue is an anarchist town a hundred kilometers 
  west of Crossing whose principal business is the 
  spaceport. It’s also home to several industrial fabbers 
  and has the largest resleeving facility on the moon. 
  Xue is smaller than either Lyod or Crossing, but is the 
  fastest-growing population center along the chasma, 
  since most anyone who needs anything beyond basic 
  supplies on Titania has to come through the town.
  THE ULTIMATES
  I stand apart, for I rely on myself.
  I stand above, for I do not fall.
  I look within, to see the need for growth.
  I look beyond, to face new challenges.
  I move ahead, to claim the future.
  I rise, for I am worthy.
  I am Ultimate.
  —The Declaration,  
  made upon recognition as an Aspirant.
  You have survived. Where billions of others have fal-
  tered, you have fought through the fall of humanity 
  and endured the birth pangs of transhumanity. For that, 
  you are to be congratulated. That is all, congratulated: 
  a fleeting acknowledgement of a past accomplishment.
  So, now what? Spend your days working to afford 
  nights in a VR paradise? Shuffle through immortal-
  ity caring about which XP stars are doing what to 
  whom? Then what—some new distraction? Why? 
  So many live with scales on their eyes, blind to the 
  potential and promise surrounding them, because 
  they are too lazy to take it.
  
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  URANUS
  117
  Xiphos, turning the old station into the core of a 
  newer Hamilton cylinder—the first built outside of 
  the Saturn system. Observers believe this upgrade has 
  been completed, making Xiphos one of the largest and 
  best-appointed habitats outside the Main Belt. Some 
  also suspect that Xiphos may be capable of moving 
  under its own power. Running almost 5.5 kilometers 
  long and just over 1 kilometer in diameter, the station 
  takes its name from an ancient Greek double-bladed 
  shortsword used as a close-quarters weapon, and the 
  habitat itself is similarly purpose driven. Orbiting 
  just inside the R2 ring, it benefits from this natural 
  defense, making it hard for attackers to approach 
  and ensuring that anything that does is exposed to 
  the station’s significant long-range weaponry. If an 
  attacker actually managed to make it inside the reach 
  of the wide defensive net, the station itself bristles 
  with an array of surface defenses and is guarded by 
  short-range killsats and dozens of wings of high-
  performance fighter drones.
  Unlike other cylinders that devote the majority of 
  their space to accommodations and the associated 
  support infrastructure, Xiphos is predominantly an 
  industrial and scientific facility that houses extensive 
  research and development capabilities. The ultimates 
  have spent the past decade gearing up to take the 
  creation, testing, and manufacture of the morphs and 
  military equipment their survivalist ideology calls 
  for in-house so they won’t be beholden to corps or 
  lose control of their designs. Ultimates new to the 
  philosophy might be surprised to learn that Xiphos 
  also houses a number of museums, civic monuments, 
  and meditation spaces devoted to the growth of an 
  unique culture and tradition for the faction. Notable 
  among these are a set of genuine Chinese “scholar 
  stones” in a contemplation garden, the parade 
  grounds used for training exercises, and the Armory, 
  a cavernous hall displaying a collection of arms and 
  armor from pre-Fall Earth, including an authentic 
  ancient Greek xiphos. By far, the most important 
  and frequently used location is the colosseum, an 
  extravagant, fully-enclosed dome that is supposedly 
  Firewall hasn’t done much better at piercing the 
  mystery. We’ve learned that the Ursula group is a 
  brinker apocalyptic cult that calls itself Messiah’s 
  Children. The cult is secretive and hostile to 
  outsiders, using home-cooked genetic modifica-
  tions and psychosurgery to maintain a close-
  knit community.
  I’ve been able to track long-haul automated ships 
  coming and going from the base. At least one of these 
  ships seems to been carrying living cargo, leading 
  some to hypothesize that Ursula is a waystation on 
  some kind of cult underground railroad. That still 
  doesn’t explain what they’re doing below the surface, 
  though. Wild rumors circulate that they found another 
  gate, but it seems unlikely that there would be two 
  gates in such close proximity. There’s a raging debate 
  going on in the anarchist communities about how to 
  deal with them. Most favor leaving them alone, but a 
  few are seriously concerned they may pose a risk to 
  the rest of the moon and may also be keeping some 
  residents against their will.
  Regardless Firewall, and the locals, would love to 
  know more about just what they hell they’re doing in 
  there. Anyone who could get in and out with the data 
  would rack up some major favors.
  XIPHOS
  Station Type: Hamilton Cylinder
  Allegiance: Ultimates
  Primary Languages: English, German, Hindi
  Population: 10,000
  Originally commissioned as an O’Neill cylinder nearly 
  twenty years before the Fall, Xiphos’s technology 
  was considered groundbreaking and well ahead 
  of the curve at the time of its creation. It was also 
  unique in that the superstructure was built in orbit 
  around Mars and then towed, over a period of years, 
  to its location in the rings of Uranus. Not content 
  with this old tech, the leader of the ultimates, Manu 
  Bhattacharya invested heavily with personal wealth 
  garnered before, during, and after the Fall to expand 
  You seek. What, you may not know, but you 
  have the strength to search for more where the 
  rest of transhumanity says “we have enough.” 
  You realize that being better is not good 
  enough, not when you can be the best. For that, 
  you are to be recognized, and so I challenge 
  you: Be better than you are. Understand that 
  there is more to do than can ever be done, yet 
  declare to yourself and the universe that you 
  are undaunted and resolute. Tell me you are 
  capable, know it to be true, and prove it. Claim 
  your position as one of the ultimates … or don’t.  
  Continue on, subject to the whims of others who 
  own your body and control your fate. Whine 
  impotently at the actions of each leader or gov-
  ernment that you blame for your life. Squander 
  the opportunity the rest of transhumanity fought 
  the TITANs for, and died to give you, and hope 
  that the skill of others will save you again in 
  the future. 
  Ultimates are the uncommon few. Many are not 
  fit to join us. Which are you?
  —Excerpt from The Challenge,  
  by Autarch Katalin Asztalos 
  n
  
  118
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  the faction. The colosseum routinely overflows as 
  any ultimate who can makes the trip to compete or 
  watch the games, participate in debate, and strive for 
  recognition of new levels of personal achievement. 
  Respected members perform and teach master classes, 
  showing and sharing the fullest extent of their skills. 
  Heavy betting and other, more debauched, physical 
  activities are allegedly common during the games, 
  as the ascetic strictures most ultimates observe are 
  abandoned for a few days of celebration among those 
  they deem equals and comrades. Appearances and 
  speeches by the autarchs and Manu, the Demiurge 
  himself, to open and close the games are always high-
  lights for the attendees. Their words and actions are 
  capable of producing any environmental effect up 
  to and including lethal atmospheres and radiation. 
  Though officially meant to allow observation of 
  combat testing of morphs and gear, it’s an open secret 
  that Xiphans regularly hold events that can’t be called 
  anything other than bloodsport. 
  The three-day annual Olympics are the closest the 
  ultimates have to a holiday and the heart of their 
  budding civic culture. Some of the games are broad-
  cast publicly via the mesh, displaying the martial 
  prowess of the faction for potential clients. The activi-
  ties surrounding the games themselves are unknown, 
  as non-ultimates are never allowed on Xiphos, but 
  are equally, if not more, important to those within 
  THE FIRST STEPS TOWARDS PERFECTION
  A common misconception holds that ultimates are 
  hardass mercenaries with a thousand-yard stare 
  and a yen for obsessive biomodding. While it’s 
  true they are typically more combat-capable than 
  the average transhuman, believing that’s all they 
  are can be dangerous. Ultimates literally see them-
  selves as a breed apart, and their near obsession 
  with the pursuit of physical and mental perfection 
  has deep ideological roots. They model themselves 
  to be philosopher-kings and warrior-ascetics that 
  are accomplished in all areas. To them, life is an 
  active, explicit struggle for survival. Fitness not only 
  guarantees the right to exist, but the right to self-
  determined superiority over the less-fit “zeros” and 
  “genetrash” that don’t share their beliefs. Most 
  transhumans, when they think of the ultimates 
  at all, believe them to be a fairly recent, post-Fall, 
  movement. But understanding the movement from 
  its pre-Fall origins is key to unlocking the role it 
  could play in transhumanity’s future.
  Before the Fall, much of Earth’s population was 
  still engaged in an ongoing battle to adapt to the 
  resource scarcity created by extreme climate change, 
  numerous small wars, and skyrocketing inequality. 
  Small wars over resources—primarily water—were 
  common throughout the equatorial regions. The 
  strong survived and the weak died of deprivation. 
  The ultimates’ founder, Manu Bhattacharya, began 
  as a mercenary leader in the Indian subcontinent. 
  He quickly became a kingmaker when he realized 
  that those in power paid better than those rebelling 
  and that being on the winning side brought with it 
  many favors that could be called in later. His success 
  on the field, connections with multinational forces, 
  and work as a security contractor for various corps 
  and governments quickly allowed this charismatic 
  and intense man to establish his own private military 
  company, Ultimate Security. Wealth, access, and 
  exposure followed, allowing Manu to both influ-
  ence and be influenced by a broad range of thinking 
  as he codified his beliefs. His personal philosophy 
  of relentless self-improvement, evolutionary fitness, 
  and preparedness mixed with objecivist thinking, 
  free-market capitalism, Confucian philosophy, and 
  even the divine right of kings that he encountered 
  in his research and business dealings. He argued that 
  the most capable can and should rise to power and 
  must exercise it as they see fit in order for humanity 
  to advance, even if it means taking action that vio-
  lated the freedom or sovereignty of less-fit others. 
  Debates over the ethics of genetic engineering 
  and voluntary gene therapies also shaped his views. 
  Bhattacharya viewed the benefits of new technol-
  ogy uncolored by any religious morality and saw it 
  as an unalloyed good. If one can improve, one must. 
  The alternative is oppression or death. Putting aside 
  any advantage, either out of some misguided sense 
  of morality, sense or honor, or desire for fairness 
  was the path of fools and the naïve. Manu used 
  his visibility to argue what would become the core 
  tenets of ultimate ideology: informed, voluntary, 
  and consensual editing of the human genome and 
  mind, no matter how radical, was ethical so long as 
  it made positive changes in capability. Bhattacharya 
  viewed forced genetic selection and editing as no 
  different than birth control or corrective gene 
  therapies meant to treat disease or prenatal defor-
  mities, since it was informed decision-making to 
  benefit the future. His opinion was that humanity 
  had too narrow a concept of sickness and infirmity. 
  Traits that could be enhanced, should be enhanced. 
  The herd is only as strong as its weakest member, 
  so every individual must continually improve or 
  the growing promise of immortality would only 
  create successive waves of unfit elders, senescent 
  fools rooted in sentimentality and outdated moral 
  codes. Any polity or organization that could, must 
  institute measures to improve its constituents or it 
  would be out-competed by others over time. People 
  who self-select to be inferior have the freedom to 
  
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  URANUS
  119
  that the contractees are almost all Fall infugees and 
  would have little or no skill running state-of-the-art 
  hab systems, and long range scans show most of the 
  work on the new habitat areas are being conducted 
  by automated drones. Given the ultimates’ belief that 
  Fall victims were unfit for survival, more disturbing 
  possibilities are raised about use as slaves or test 
  subjects for morph designs, psychosurgical techniques 
  to perform and resist mental and VR torture, or 
  experiments with exhuman or TITAN remnant tech. 
  Noting that the purchase of tens of thousands of 
  indentures seems almost indiscriminate, others suggest 
  the ultimates may recreating some pre-Fall scenario or 
  wargaming parts of the Fall itself.
  eagerly discussed and dissected in the days immedi-
  ately afterwards.
  Xiphos is also noteworthy due to growing rumors 
  about the dramatic increase in the ultimates’ purchase 
  of infomorph indentures since the opening of the 
  station. Although transaction records are publicly 
  available on IndEx, the Planetary Consortium-
  managed indenture exchange and registry, all of the 
  contract terms are sealed until after the indenture has 
  completed service. A comfortable explanation is that 
  the ultimates are using the indentures as cheap, semi-
  skilled labor to run the vast and complex systems 
  for Xiphos or to conduct the construction of the 
  Hamilton cylinder. This seems unlikely, however, given 
  choose, but must accept that they are also limiting 
  their capabilities and the rights to exercise them.
  Bhattacharya put these views into effect within his 
  organization from the start. Ultimate Security opera-
  tives could divert wages with a company match to 
  pay for biomods and implants to boost their capa-
  bilities. Those who pushed their bodies beyond 
  normal human limits got fast-tracked for promotion 
  and command. Casualties received some of the best 
  care in the world and often came out of treatment 
  with additional enhancements. Within a decade of 
  establishment, Ultimate Security fielded entire units 
  of the first true transhumans and was working with 
  their employees directly on growing and training 
  the next generation via company-backed genefixing 
  and child-rearing programs. Bhattacharya himself 
  invested huge sums into early research and develop-
  ment on digitized consciousness. Some of the earli-
  est developed cortical stacks were tested by Ultimate 
  Security operatives in combat situations.
  At the same time, Manu himself established 
  a popular personal following. His extreme per-
  sonal regimen of fasting, meditation, and sur-
  vival excursions to some of the harshest climates, 
  with little or no survival gear, earned him many 
  admirers and imitators. Soldiers within Ultimate 
  Security respected and followed him loyally 
  and were exposed to watered-down versions of 
  Bhattacharya’s asceticism as part of their normal 
  routine. Personal discipline was made a hallmark 
  and prerequisite for advancement in the firm. Even 
  though they were accused on many occasions of 
  using excessive force, Ultimate mercenaries were 
  never once charged with the type of graft and cor-
  ruption that plagued other mercenary outfits. Their 
  reputation was that they would get the job done, 
  efficiently and quickly, as long as you didn’t ques-
  tion their methods.
  Of course Ultimate Security also got dragged 
  through the muck as investigative journalists 
  published dozens of reports detailing human rights 
  abuses and war crimes committed by the organiza-
  tion against civilian populations and enemy com-
  batants. Bhattacharya was always quick to respond 
  that such actions were the work of bad elements 
  or those who had not fully internalized the warrior 
  ethos, though his explanation that such acts against 
  “lesser people” would be unconscionable to a true 
  warrior did little to mollify his opponents. In the 
  years immediately prior to the Fall, the leadership 
  of the organization were formally charged with 
  crimes against humanity by a toothless International 
  Criminal Court, but never brought to justice, after 
  evidence emerged that a commander had ordered 
  all of the residents of a mental hospital in India 
  executed for being “unfit” human beings.
  Presciently, Bhattacharya also advocated for 
  immediate and aggressive extraterrestrial coloni-
  zation, as even a transhuman population would 
  have too much demand for Earth’s badly-damaged 
  environment. He proved his convictions by start-
  ing the planning and pre-construction of a habitat 
  in Earth orbit named Struggle in 24 BF. With the 
  publication of his seminal work, Eternal Struggle, 
  Eternal Growth in 17 BF, Bhattacharya laid out a 
  codified set of ideals and organization for a model 
  society that would promote self-improvement and 
  reward those that maximize their potential. In 13 
  BF, Struggle was opened for initial occupancy and 
  adherents of the movement began to migrate to 
  the station. Supporters celebrated their freedom 
  from the needless restrictions of their inferiors 
  while detractors decried the establishment of a 
  crypto-fascist state and a cult of personality around 
  a war criminal who was using Struggle to avoid 
  having to answer for his actions back on Earth. 
  Despite the criticism, Ultimate Security officially 
  moved its headquarters to Struggle and several 
  thousand self-styled ultimates made the trip to 
  start their new society. 
  n
  
  120
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  ULTIMATES IN ACTION AND REPOSE
  During the Fall, the ultimates came into their 
  own. Many saw the Fall as eschaton and gladly 
  stepped forward to see if they were fit to survive. 
  Stories abound among ultimates, in some cases 
  supported by Solarchive files, that Manu and his 
  autarchs all led battalions in some of the worst 
  fighting on Earth, including the evacuation of 
  Sydney, the destruction of the TITAN war machine 
  factory in Beijing, and as part of the final defense 
  of the last space elevator. Though the ultimate 
  casualties were significant—almost 80% of those 
  that saw action by some estimates—the fact that 
  they survived at all and even succeeded in several 
  major evacuation efforts bought them enough 
  new notoriety that their ranks saw net growth as 
  a result. Though their Struggle habitat was lost to 
  a TITAN attack, there were other outsystem habi-
  tats with significant ultimate presence that were 
  spared, leaving the ultimates well-positioned to 
  quickly establish themselves as a stable political 
  entity. They initiated an active effort to recruit 
  from militaries that had lost their backing state, 
  so those that came to the faction post-Fall were 
  some of the most capable survivors. Within a year 
  after the final Fall of Earth, the ultimates were 
  stronger than they’d ever been, enjoying a surge 
  in popularity and setting up lucrative contracts 
  for mercenary work throughout the system. Ever 
  the canny leader, Battacharya rebranded the 
  ultimates, tossing aside the corporate structure 
  that had been necessary when dealing with Earth 
  governments and softening some of the harder-
  edged philosophical tenets, at least in public. This 
  decreased tensions with many of their more col-
  lectivist neighbors and positioned them as a non-
  hypercorporate alternative to outfits like Direct 
  Action and Gorgon. Though a tiny minority of the 
  transhuman population, they became a dispro-
  portionally influential player in rimward politics. 
  In the decade since the Fall, though, the ulti-
  mates have lost much of that momentum. Their 
  resources have been spread thin across projects 
  like the establishment of facilities at Aspis, 
  Xiphos, Ariel, and Eris and increasing response 
  capability and presence throughout the system. 
  The brief swell of popularity vanished as the ulti-
  mate disregard for those they viewed as too weak 
  or shortsighted to adopt their philosophy became 
  fixed in the public eye and as relations soured 
  with the Autonomist Alliance and the Titanians. 
  The loss of so many of the original pre-Fall 
  ultimates also damaged the camaraderie and 
  inclusion that the founders and first members 
  shared, so new recruits face a distinct separation 
  from their ideologues and founding members. 
  There has also been a steady loss of candidates 
  who have washed out, finding that their indi-
  vidualist leanings can be more easily indulged 
  among the Extropians, who don’t require the 
  same level of physical and mental commitment.
  The appeal to individualists does naturally 
  limit the adoption of a shared culture, and oper-
  ational demands have also pulled the faction 
  in different directions. The permanent military 
  installation at Pharos and the large numbers of 
  ultimates that spend significant time away from 
  Aspis and Xiphos don’t have the same access to 
  core leadership. Although these activities give 
  the faction very important access to a gate and 
  keep the credits and favors coming in, there 
  were simply too many individuals for the pre- 
  and early post-Fall organization to maintain its 
  earlier cohesion. 
  Distinct strains of thought have also come 
  into being, as the founding ideals are continu-
  ously elaborated and debated away from Manu 
  and his inner circle. Exceptionalists hew closely 
  to Bhattacharya’s original thought and current 
  dissatisfaction with the rest of transhumanity’s 
  shortsightedness. They profess a long-term plan 
  to establish a separate civilization beyond the 
  gates so ultimates would be free of other trans-
  humans’ weakness. Self-styled overhumanists are 
  the most aggressive in their disdain for non-ulti-
  mates. Internal debates led by Myron Chalmers 
  question how much longer they should tolerate 
  the less fit “genetrash” before taking action to 
  rule outright since they are more advanced indi-
  viduals; their condescension is responsible for 
  much of the current ultimate stereotype of being 
  judgmental and arrogant. Bridging the two view-
  points are the iconics, led by Katalin Asztalos, 
  who argue that the ultimates’ philosophy should 
  lead by example and continue to engage with 
  broader transhuman culture to bring more vol-
  untarily converts. All sides agree, however, that 
  other transhumans are weaker than they could 
  be and that weakness is an ongoing threat in a 
  universe where TITANs still lurk. The ultimates 
  must be ready to carry on civilization after the 
  next inevitable Fall. 
  n
  
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  URANUS
  121
  STANDING AMONG GIANTS
  In order to maintain stability and promote participa-
  tion, the successful organization of skilled individual-
  ists depends on a mutually beneficial social hierarchy. 
  This must recognize personal achievement and clearly 
  separate degrees of authority and levels of inclusion 
  to establish a core of “true believers.” To foster this, 
  the ultimates have developed a symbolically dense 
  system of formalized titles and awards that they 
  use to denote an individual’s physical and mental 
  acumen. The division between the mental and physi-
  cal spheres is deliberate: an ultimate recognized for 
  their rhetorical brilliance won’t be given command 
  of an ops team clearing out an exhuman hive, nor 
  will a champion athlete be given a leading role in 
  contract negotiations for a gatecrashing operation. 
  One of the strengths of the faction lies in the explicit 
  acknowledgement that one person is not an expert 
  on all areas; indeed, many outsiders are surprised 
  at how collaboratively ultimates approach planning 
  and strategy. Competing viewpoints and areas of 
  expertise are brought in specifically to foster genuine 
  disagreement and debate, and only those positions 
  that can overcome such opposition are deemed 
  worthy of use. Once a strategy is in place, however, 
  all parties involved are expected to support it to their 
  best ability and work smoothly under the guidance 
  of the appointed leadership. It is on the director of 
  an endeavor to see it succeed, though, as ultimates 
  have little patience for failure of any kind and do not 
  hesitate to hold those in high position accountable. 
  Anyone leading should have the wherewithal to iden-
  tify and overcome any situational difficulties or they 
  don’t have the right to lead.
  Deliberate obscurantism through the use of uncom-
  mon languages, coded profile information, and 
  encrypted AR displays keeps non-ultimates unaware 
  of the specifics, but allows fellow factionists to imme-
  diately recognize one another and help organize 
  themselves around acknowledged expertise as any 
  situation demands. Deliberately taking cues from 
  a mix of military and religious traditions, different 
  types of titles are employed, acording to the realm 
  of endeavor. Standard military rankings are awarded 
  based on active combat operations and the devel-
  opment of skills such as weapons training, vehicle 
  piloting, squad tactics, security procedures, and field 
  medicine. Intellectual, philosophical, creative, and 
  technical achievements are usually recognized with 
  more esoteric titles drawn from meditative religious 
  traditions and Greek and Chinese culture. These 
  are awarded based on rhetoric, social refinement, 
  artistic endeavors that depend on control such as 
  calligraphy and sculpture, and scientific or technical 
  knowledge. Such specialized titles are only used very 
  formally, either as a show of respect and deference 
  to a superior of extreme achievement in a given field 
  or as part of the occasional ceremonies observed by 
  ultimates as a group. Casual reference and interac-
  tions use a common nomenclature of rank based on 
  overall standing within the faction blended from all 
  achievements in any sphere:
  Aspirants have no recognized accomplishments 
  and are those just joining the movement. They have 
  proven themselves committed to the philosophy and 
  possess useful skills and basic personal competence. 
  Typically they will have only read The Challenge and/
  or Eternal Struggle, Eternal Growth and have little other 
  exposure to the core philosophy. They are put in 
  touch with an exemplar to act as a mentor.
  Initiates are ultimates that show significant skill in 
  several valuable areas and have proven themselves 
  useful to the faction. Not yet wholly absorbed into 
  the movement out of fear of spies and infiltrators, 
  initiates are only exposed to certain select works. 
  They are slowly integrated into the faction by other 
  ultimates through involvement with field work that 
  places the initiate in real physical and psychological 
  danger to weed out the unfit.
  Exemplars have already proven themselves and often 
  act as mentors for aspirants and initiates. Exemplars are 
  successful and proven in their areas of primary compe-
  tence and are often deeply engaged in building skill in 
  other areas. Those with this level or recognition often 
  act distinctly distant, condescending, or proselytizing 
  towards non-ultimates. Should they request it, they may 
  be granted occupancy on Xiphos or another ultimate 
  habitat. Exemplars are most often encountered by 
  others as squad commanders of other ultimates.
  Ducti serve as the operational heads of major proj-
  ects such as morph design, hab governance, memetic 
  propagation, and direct large-scale military operations 
  command. They are all highly accomplished individuals 
  and often have very high standing outside the ulti-
  mates as well, as their responsibilities to the faction 
  require long-term planning and routine dealings with 
  non-ultimates. Their skills alone set them in the upper 
  reaches of transhuman achievement.
  Autarchs are the tiny handful of individuals who 
  serve as the directors of the faction’s ideological, 
  technical, military, and political strategy. These are 
  the transhumans universally recognized as important 
  thought leaders, innovators, and luminaries in their 
  fields. All current autarchs are founders of the move-
  ment and are known to have been alive since at least 
  60 BF. They are the philosopher-kings that other ulti-
  mates aspire to be.
  The Demiurge is the undisputed ideological leader 
  of the movement, Manu Bhattacharya. His words are 
  pearls, his attacks do not miss, he weeps at beauty 
  and laughs at war. He dares you to surpass him. 
  n
  
  122
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  ULTIMATE ATTITUDES
  To: Donovan Astrides
  From: Sukhbataar Batu
  I am sorry my friend, but there is no way I 
  can help you gain access to Xiphos. Even were 
  you not a notorious anarchist and troublemaker, 
  it is forbidden for any non-ultimate to visit. As 
  to your offer to join us if it would gain you 
  access, I am afraid this is also not possible. 
  While I have no doubt as to your fitness and 
  ability to survive, it is not one shared by 
  my fellows. 
  In regard to your second question—how do 
  we view other groups of transhumans?—this 
  is complicated. I would say this varies, we 
  are not some hive-mind, all thinking as the 
  Demiurge does, believing as he dictates to us. 
  Individuality is a core aspect of our being, and 
  judging others by their actions and words is 
  stressed over reliance on rumor or stereotype. 
  That being said, there are certain attitudes 
  that prevail among my brothers and sisters.
  For those such as you, the anarchists, the 
  scum, and autonomists, we see you as survivors, 
  but not like us. You are tenacious survivors, but 
  so is the cockroach. Worse, you are weaker 
  than the cockroach, as you allow the sick, the 
  infirm, and the unfit to live among you and 
  even procreate.
  While we work for the hypercorps, we do 
  not respect them. Any being so given over 
  to the acquisition of material goods at the 
  expense of self-development is unfit and 
  worthy only of scorn. The same applies to those 
  such as the Extropians.
  We view both the Titanians and the Jovians 
  as clinging to failed, antiquated models of 
  social organization. They are rooted in a past of 
  states and services, one that will doom them as 
  the weakest among them will drag them into 
  the abyss.
  As for the others? Those so-called brinkers 
  are lost and broken people, it is better that 
  they never existed. Criminals, of all stripes, 
  are parasites on the social body and should 
  be exterminated whenever encountered. 
  And the rest, those who cling to a provincial 
  attitude, rooted in a place like Mars or Venus 
  and unable to see the larger picture, we ignore. 
  Soon enough, the tide of history shall wipe 
  them away, showing the error of clinging to a 
  tiny part of the wide universe when the legacy 
  of transhumanity is written in the stars of 
  other galaxies. 
  
  7.
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  URANUS
  123
  Possible explanations are easy to come by, and 
  none of them bode well for non-ultimates. Ariel’s 
  harsh, cold environment is somewhat analagous 
  to many other outsystem moons—or nearby ice 
  moons like Oberon, home of the Fissure Gate—and 
  even some large asteroids, making it a ready-made 
  staging ground for wargames. Others claim that 
  the head of operations for Ariel, Autarch Myron 
  Chalmers, is using it as an R&D facility for experi-
  ments deemed too dangerous to perform on Xiphos 
  or that other ultimates might disapprove of. Given 
  Chalmers’s disdain for non-ultimates, there is a fear 
  he may be using the facilities as a harsh prison for 
  captives or internal dissenters, for researching TITAN 
  or exhuman artifacts, or for developing or refining 
  new WMDs. There also exists the dim possibility 
  that the ultimates may be preparing some option to 
  deliberately destabilize the subcrustal tidal action and 
  destroy the moon itself, either to deny others access 
  to the moon, as a proof-of-concept for planet-busting 
  weapons, or as a way of creating a debris field that 
  would significantly impact cargo access to Uranus. 
  Given the near-obsession with survivability in the 
  movement, there would also be value to preparing 
  Ariel as a fall-back position to use if Xiphos were 
  ever compromised.
  ARIEL
  Allegiance: Ultimates
  Primary Languages: English, Hindi, Mandarin
  Population: 2,000
  Less than 1,200 kilometers in diameter, Ariel is a small 
  moon that is half rock and half ice. The moon is most 
  noted for its cratered surface and the long, smooth rift 
  valleys that were likely carved out by flowing liquid, 
  most likely ammonia, methane, or carbon monoxide. 
  The moon has little strategic value within the Uranian 
  system, but it is rich in volatiles and the tidal heating 
  it endures makes them relatively easy to extract. 
  Most outsiders assume the ultimates on Xiphos want 
  a second source of CHON that’s more reliable than 
  that offered by the skimmers, which certainly fits the 
  survivalist and self-reliance profile of the movement 
  as a whole. Ariel’s resources are not enough to offset 
  the massive amount of funds and time the ultimates 
  have sunk into establishing a base there, however, 
  even if the bulk of those resources have gone into 
  the construction of Xiphos. The same tidal heating 
  also makes the moon very tectonically active, yet the 
  developments there have all involved extensive subter-
  ranean excavation that would be unstable and costly 
  to maintain. Further, the mining operations that are 
  nominally the reason for the base would require at 
  most a few hundred personnel to run, yet close to two 
  thousand ultimates are stationed on the moon.
  THREAT ASSESSMENT REVIEW: ULTIMATES
  Fellow reviewer,
  To recap: since Firewall’s inception, the ultimates have 
  been viewed with caution. The hyper-individualistic ideology 
  of the faction makes their plans difficult to divine to outsiders. 
  Our attempts to get an infiltrator recognized as an exem-
  plar with access to solid intel have also failed. None of our 
  operatives who came to us from the ultimates have shared 
  anything of note, and when—despite very vocal protests 
  from myself and other reviewers—attempts have been made 
  to forcibly extract information from backups, we’ve never 
  found anything to elevate the organization to an action-
  able risk. After some newly acquired data from [insufficient 
  access], however, we feel it is a priority in the short term to 
  deploy direct operations with Watts-McLeod assets.
  The ultimates’ current system-wide PR push to recapture 
  some of the factions’ former good will spur recruitment 
  should be viewed as a peacetime buildup of forces. There 
  is growing internal consensus that if the ultimates were to 
  seize control of both the Fissure and Discord Gates, they 
  would likely be able to make and solidify permanent gains 
  in exploration, colonization, research, and military prepared-
  ness. The likely scenario is that Chat Noir would be hit first, 
  given Oberon’s proximity to Xiphos. It’s no secret that the 
  ongoing control of the Fissure Gate by their “inferiors” in 
  Love and Rage is a thorn in their side for many ultimates. 
  Likewise, the ultimate base on Pharos puts them in a prime 
  position to move against Go-nin.
  Once in control of two gates, the danger exists that the 
  ultimates could move to seize all of the gates within the 
  solar system. This would be difficult, and would require 
  forceful access through a chain of linked extrasolar gates, 
  but is in the realm of possibility. The high proportion of 
  ultimates involved in gatecrashing missions via all of the 
  known gates provides them with ample opportunity to 
  scout targets.
  This scenario could be a major x-risk. The ultimates could 
  become the sole extrasolar power at a stroke. Though other 
  factions would doubtless contest any such action, the 
  initial assaults could very well succeed, and as a result the 
  ultimates could at the very least destroy a gate in order to 
  deny it to their enemies. Though gate destruction is theoreti-
  cally temporary, it could put the ultimates in control of all of 
  the operating gates for many months at least. It is worth 
  noting that very few exoplanet colonies are likely capable 
  of putting up a strong enough defense against the ultimates 
  on their own. 
  In the event of another x-threat being realized while the 
  ultimates control the gates, they could be the only ones in a 
  position to leave and could theoretically shut out the rest of 
  “unfit” transhumanity. 
  
  NEPTUNE
  8
  PLACES TO CRASH? 
  Gate prospectors and other hopefuls have yet to find a gate within the 
  system—but the rumors just won’t stop. n p. 126
  GLITCHED
  20,000 infomorphs populate Glitch—a seriously enhanced 
  environment with ongoing radical experiments. n p. 128
  WITHIN THE TROJANS
  Hawking: Space drive research is the focus of this venture. n p. 131
  Ilmarinen: A melting pot for oddballs, Ilmarinen sports a unique (lack of) 
  atmosphere for a habitat. n p. 132
  NEPTUNE
  8
  PLACES TO CRASH? 
  Gate prospectors and other hopefuls have yet to find a gate within the 
  system—but the rumors just won’t stop. n p. 126
  GLITCHED
  20,000 infomorphs populate Glitch—a seriously enhanced 
  environment with ongoing radical experiments. n p. 128
  WITHIN THE TROJANS
  Hawking: Space drive research is the focus of this venture. n p. 131
  Ilmarinen: A melting pot for oddballs, Ilmarinen sports a unique (lack of) 
  atmosphere for a habitat. n p. 132
  
  HIDING ON THE EDGE 
  Some travel to Neptune to hide, others to reinvent 
  themselves. Brinkers, survivalists, and paranoid 
  freaks hunker down here, also. n p. 126
  FREE
  Newcomers to Free are promised just that—
  free morphs in exchange for labor. A good deal, 
  on the surface … n p. 130
  HIDING ON THE EDGE 
  Some travel to Neptune to hide, others to reinvent 
  themselves. Brinkers, survivalists, and paranoid 
  freaks hunker down here, also. n p. 126
  FREE
  Newcomers to Free are promised just that—
  free morphs in exchange for labor. A good deal, 
  on the surface … n p. 130
  
  126
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  Posted by: Adam Mooljee,  
  Firewall Sentinel 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  Few people are ever going to travel this far out; 
  there’s not much reason to, and the options for 
  getting here are either an expensive egocast or a 
  remarkably long journey by spaceship. Out here, 
  you’re also seriously out of touch. News from the 
  inner system takes four hours to reach Neptune 
  by light speed. If you want to keep up-to-date, be 
  prepared to burn some serious qubits while you’re 
  here. Other than the occasional extreme tourist or 
  researcher, there are three major reasons people 
  visit Neptune: Glitch, Ilmarinen, and Mahogany. 
  In a more general sense, almost everyone comes to 
  Neptune for one of two reasons: to hide or to join 
  or start a community of people (to use this term in 
  a particularly broad sense) who are exploring the 
  limits of sapient existence. Both Uranus and Eris 
  have gates, Neptune doesn’t and so is rarely visited 
  by anyone who isn’t considering immigrating there. 
  HIDING
  There is a lot of laying low going on this far out, but 
  there are many different reasons behind it. Despite 
  various vids telling stories of desperate fugitives 
  egocasting or taking a ship to the edges of the system, 
  most people who simply want to avoid pursuit find 
  a convenient scum barge or a place in the Belt, the 
  Jovian Trojans, or Saturn to hole up in. One of the big 
  advantages of not going too far out is that there are 
  a lot of people and habs to vanish in and so tracking 
  someone down is hard. 
  Less than 100,000 people inhabit the region 
  around Neptune, compared to the millions in the 
  Belt, so vanishing is much more difficult. Instead, 
  what you have out here are people determined to 
  reinvent themselves and to get away from everyone 
  and everything that might either recognize them or 
  remind them of their past. That’s a fairly unusual 
  subset of people. It is far more likely to consist of 
  people running from themselves than fugitives fleeing 
  from justice or rivals. 
  There’s the other sort of hiding, of course: people 
  bunkering down out of concern over potential or 
  imagined threats. The survivalist meme is surpris-
  ingly popular out here. Neptune and its Trojans are 
  a popular destination for brinkers. You’re far out 
  on the black emptiness, and there’s no gate around 
  for TITANs or alien invaders to come pouring 
  out of. I’ve heard all manner of crazy stories from 
  people here about how the Planetary Consortium, 
  the Titanian Commonwealth, or even the anarchists 
  are secretly run by TITANs. Most of these people 
  either expect some sort of trouble to come from 
  the gates or continued work on AGIs, while others 
  simply have never gotten over the trauma of the 
  Fall and can’t believe the TITANs aren’t waiting 
  somewhere to finish the job. I’d love to be able to 
  say all of them are wrong and crazy, but none of 
  us can, and so maybe they’ll still be around long 
  after everyone else has suffered some hideous 
  fate. Paranoia and conspiracy theories are practi-
  cally a hobby around Neptune, especially among 
  the brinkers.
  GATE RUMORS
  Since there are Pandora gates around Saturn, 
  Uranus, and Eris, there are more than a few 
  people living around Neptune who wonder if 
  there isn’t one here too. Performing an organized, 
  thorough, and relatively fast search of the various 
  moons would take more funds and organization 
  than anyone out here can muster, but there is no 
  shortage of desultory gate prospectors and more 
  than a few rumors of gates or buried anomalies 
  that might be gates. Triton, with its cryovolcanoes 
  and occasional seismic activity, is the most common 
  site for such tales. Every month or two, someone 
  attempts to confirm a possible discovery there. 
  Since none of the other Pandora gates have been 
  found on a planet’s largest moon, however, most 
  people speculate that if one exists it will be found 
  on one of the other seven inner moons, with most 
  bets on either Nereid or Proteus. Except for Triton, 
  though, all of these moons are small enough that 
  it is likely a surveyor would have found any such 
  gates by now. It’s always possible that there’s a gate 
  buried too deep to easily spot, but efforts to find 
  one are built more on hope than rational expec-
  tation. Some Neptunians hope eagerly that one is 
  found, since it would make the planetary system 
  far more prosperous and influential. Of course, not 
  everyone wants that to happen. The brinkers don’t 
  want to attract too much attention and some of the 
  more radical mercurials want to be left alone to 
  pursue their own strange destinies without inter-
  ference from outsiders. Naturally, there are some 
  locals who believe that a gate has been discovered, 
  but that its existence was covered up. Until I see 
  evidence to the contrary, however, I’m betting that 
  there isn’t one around Neptune. 
  8
  NEPTUNE
  
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  NEPTUNE
  127
  or mesh traffic out—zero. Attempting to is grounds 
  for immediate exile. They have several repeater 
  antennas in the upper atmosphere so they can receive 
  radio broadcasts, but can’t transmit. Instead, the only 
  communication is via quantum farcasters linked to 
  one of the habs from which they are willing to accept 
  egocasts. From there, messages can be broadcast to 
  the internal mesh normally.
  In my limited time there, I never got a good grasp 
  on what Mushroom was for or who was backing 
  it. The residents had a hard-bitten anarchist vibe, 
  they were very cognizant of x-risks posed to trans-
  humanity, and they clearly have connections with 
  the scum, but what they hope to gain by hiding in 
  Neptune’s atmosphere remains a mystery.
  JAQUES
  Station Type: Aerostat
  Allegiance: Independent (Brinker)
  Primary Languages: Unknown
  Population: 5,000
  While I was on Mushroom, I talked to several 
  people there who had returned from an even deeper 
  aerostat that’s closely allied with Mushroom. Known 
  as Jacques, after some Earth undersea explorer or 
  other, it’s down in the deep and completely opaque 
  water ice clouds, where the pressure is around 50 
  atmospheres. You can’t build a hab that can survive 
  that environment without equalizing the pressure, and 
  in air that sort of pressure is too high for anything but 
  synths, so the hab is filled with water and inhabited 
  only by aquatic morphs. The residents get to live in a 
  fish bowl surrounded by a high pressure atmosphere 
  and if anything goes wrong, they swiftly become one 
  with the compressed water and methane ice below 
  them. The one consolation is they’re deep enough 
  that the external temperature is actually habitable, 
  which also means that the station is invisible to all 
  IR scans and deep enough that no other sorts of scans 
  are going to find them. You can’t detect Jacques from 
  orbit, and you’d need an insanely tough ship to get 
  close to the station, so these brinkers are very well 
  hidden. The only way to get to Jacques is to egocast 
  from Mushroom. I wasn’t allowed to visit the habitat, 
  it is supposedly only for people who are hard-
  core brinkers. 
  I obviously don’t have much intel to work on here, 
  but I overheard something on Mushroom that makes 
  me wonder about Jaques. None of the three people 
  who’d been there were willing to talk about it, but 
  one made a comment to another that made it sound 
  like some of the inhabitants were not there voluntarily 
  or were prevented from leaving. My guess is either 
  that they are either using slave labor or they won’t 
  let anyone who might say anything bad about them 
  leave. In either case, I think there’s something nasty 
  going on down there, and maybe someone should 
  take a look.
  NEPTUNIAN AEROSTATS
  Unlike the folks lurking out in the Oort Cloud or 
  the various dwarf planets like Pluto or Eris, Neptune 
  and its moons has an abundance of resources of all 
  sorts—and there is also a gas giant to hide in. Ever 
  since Morningstar declared Venusian independence, 
  far too many people are crazy about aerostats. 
  Now we have a couple here, in what’s perhaps one 
  of the craziest places to consider them. Neptune’s 
  atmosphere is the most dangerous of the gas giants, 
  with massive dynamic storm systems and raging 
  wind speeds that can exceed 2,000 kph—that’s 
  nearly supersonic. It’s an impressive feat that any 
  aerostats have survived here at all. Of course, the 
  people living here actually have a good reason for 
  building them.
  MUSHROOM
  Station Type: Aerostat
  Allegiance: Independent (Brinker)
  Primary Languages: Cantonese, English, Russian
  Population: 1,200
  I recently visited Mushroom, which is one of at 
  least two aerostats in Neptune’s atmosphere. It was 
  quite a trip to get there; the inhabitants lend new 
  meaning to the word paranoid. To leave Mushroom, I 
  needed to agree to have the details of its location and 
  how to contact it deleted from my memory. All I know 
  now is that it’s deep in the clouds of ammonia and 
  hydrogen sulfide, where outside pressure is around 
  three atmospheres. This is not a tourist hab or really a 
  place that anyone sane wants to spend any time. The 
  local gravity is 15% higher than Earth, the outside 
  environment is ludicrously cold, and the pressure in 
  the interior of the habitat is also three atmospheres. 
  That’s narcotic to biomorphs without mods. However, 
  it’s also not the worst Neptune has to offer. 
  From orbit, Mushroom takes a lot of careful work 
  and no shortage of luck to find. Taking a ship to the 
  station, even if you knew where it was, would be a 
  challenge. I’m told it is well armed and the residents 
  are more than happy to blow any trespassers out of 
  the sky. The only way to visit is to egocast in from 
  someplace run by people they trust. Stations that are 
  in good with Mushroom are Phelan’s Recourse, Lot 
  49, and at least two scum swarms that mostly spend 
  time out beyond the orbit of Jupiter. You need to 
  know the right people to make contact. Everyone 
  who egocasts into Mushroom is run through psycho-
  surgery; if your reasons for coming don’t look good 
  enough or there’s anything off about you, you’re 
  immediately bounced back to where you came from. 
  Mushroom is fairly small, holding only around 
  1,200 or so inhabitants. Keep in mind, I’m taking the 
  word of some very strange and not very forthcoming 
  people for this data. Mushroom is a very odd hab, and 
  exactly as paranoid as you’d expect. There is no radio 
  
  128
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  Even if you’ve spent a good bit of time as 
  an infomorph, there’s no easy way to describe 
  Glitch. The first thing you realize is that it’s an 
  incredibly rich and seriously enhanced environ-
  ment. The instant you arrive you’re smarter and 
  thinking faster than ever before. However, there’s 
  a lot more than enhanced thinking going on there. 
  They aren’t doing anything like the neo-synergists 
  or anyone else who’s trying to make some sort of 
  hive-mind, but between the cognitive speed-ups 
  and the high bandwidth, communicating with 
  other residents of Glitch isn’t like talking in meat-
  space—or even like communication in any other 
  infomorph environment. 
  The standard communication protocols here 
  include easier conveyance of emotions, thoughts, 
  memories, and perceptions. Sharing a memory with 
  someone else or temporarily linking your thoughts 
  with theirs is as easy as opening a voice or full 
  sensory channel. Sure, anyone can do this anywhere 
  with a modern mesh architecture, but nowhere near 
  this easily or this fast. The subroutines are suffi-
  ciently slick that all of this takes no more effort 
  than saying hi to someone, and that’s both strange 
  and amazing. It’s also addictive. Anyone who 
  NEPTUNE ORBIT
  Posted by: Raisa Geld,  
  Firewall Sentinel 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  The presence of both Glitch and Mahogany have 
  made Neptune a magnet for the more exotic mercu-
  rials, as well as for others who seek to go well beyond 
  the boundaries of ordinary transhumanity.
  GLITCH
  Station Type: Processor Locus
  Allegiance: Independent
  Primary Languages: English, Japanese, Russian
  Population: 20,000
  Glitch is the largest and most well-known processor 
  locus. It has no embodied residents; everyone is 
  an infomorph.
  Glitch accepts visitors as long as they pass a few 
  fairly simple memory and personality examinations. 
  They screen for smart and imaginative people who 
  work well with others. Most of the people they 
  accept either bounce on out of here pretty quickly or 
  they never leave. It looks like I’m going to be in the 
  second category. 
  
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  NEPTUNE
  129
  TRITON
  Triton is the largest of Neptune’s moons, dwarfing the 
  combined mass of the rest. It has an unusual retro-
  grade orbit, opposite that of Neptune’s, indicating it 
  was captured from the Kuiper Belt. It is believed to 
  hold an ocean underneath its mantle of ice, much like 
  Europa, but this has never been explored. It remains 
  geologically active, with cryovolcanoes and a tenuous 
  nitrogen atmosphere.
  AFRIK
  Station Type: Torus
  Allegiance: Independent (Mercurial)
  Primary Languages: Dutch, French 
  Population: 3,000
  Afrik is a mercurial attempt to create an artificial 
  engineered wilderness in orbit around Neptune’s 
  moon, Triton. Lacking the funding and access to the 
  full gene libraries of hypercorps like TerraGenesis 
  meant that the original plans to recreate a mixture 
  of pre-Fall African jungles and savanna had to be 
  scrapped. Instead, the designers are establishing an 
  ad-hoc, cobbled-together, tropical ecosystem that 
  contains plants and animals derived from Central 
  and South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. At 
  first glance, the interior of Afrik looks completely 
  wild, with infrastructure carefully built into the 
  landscaping. Interior construction is still underway, 
  however, so there are some gaps and areas that are 
  completely devoid of occupation.
  Almost all of the animals and flora introduced 
  here have been heavily engineered. To fill in some 
  of the gaps in this ecosystem, the designers added a 
  mixture of entirely created animals and plants, and 
  even a few designs based on alien life forms found on 
  several exoplanets. The various trees in the jungles 
  and savanna are far more than just trees. In addition 
  to producing excellent wood, they pump up drink-
  able water from the forest floor and provide several 
  different types of edible fruit on a single tree. They 
  are also technological marvels, with active nanotech 
  circuitry growing into the wood that provides mesh 
  access, detailed sensor readings of the surrounding 
  area, and even sometimes nanofabrication options. 
  Amidst the tall grasses in the savanna, the few 
  isolated trees and the huge termite mounds serve the 
  same purpose. The entire ecosystem creates its own 
  mesh network, where even tall grasses contain a 
  few small, embedded sensors, processors, and trans-
  ceivers. Every animal in the forest also carries some 
  sensors and transceivers. This mesh network allows 
  users access to a detailed real-time picture of the local 
  ecosystem. Any biological problems are noticed as 
  soon as they happen, as is any attempt at vandalism 
  or infiltration. 
  spends much time on Glitch is going to have trouble 
  interacting with outsiders. 
  With 20,000 other residents to communicate 
  with, and absolutely no lag-time on information 
  transfers, Glitch becomes your entire world—and 
  it’s an impressive one. Currently, there are a dozen 
  planets simulated down to a level of detail well 
  beyond the limits of perception. However, what’s 
  going on here is a whole lot stranger than what it 
  looks like from the inside. Glitch has a dedicated 
  farcaster link with Bright in the Saturn system and 
  another to Ilmarinen over in Neptune’s L4. Most 
  of the locals don’t bother communicating directly 
  with anyone from either hab; the lag and lack of 
  bandwidth makes communication too alien, but 
  Glitch constantly shares data with both habs. 
  Radical infomorph enhancement is one of the 
  major projects going on here. I haven’t gotten 
  close to anyone at the top of that particular initia-
  tive, but it’s well funded and has highly skilled 
  people working on it. While many of the cognitive 
  researchers on Bright are currently focused on 
  allowing individuals to become part of temporary, 
  ad-hoc mental processing networks, here the goal is 
  more about self-contained individual enhancement 
  through a series of software upgrades to cognitive 
  processing. There are rumors that one team is trying 
  to turn infomorphs into something like seed AGIs, 
  and that sounds like something that’s well worth 
  looking into. I’ll see what I can find out. 
  MAHOGANY
  Station Type: Disc
  Allegiance: Autonomist Alliance (Mercurial)
  Primary Languages: English, Indonesian, Spanish
  Population: 4,000
  Mahogany has set the standard for uplift and 
  mercurial habitats, inspiring many others to estab-
  lish their own colonies. Their efforts to establish a 
  mercurial society, free from human intervention, 
  has been a rousing success. Notably, Mahogany’s 
  neo-avians are not content to isolate themselves 
  from the rest of transhumanity; they remain 
  actively involved, with residents engaging in more 
  widespread scientific, political, and social initiatives 
  across the solar system. 
  NEPTUNIAN MOONS
  Posted by: Adam Mooljee,  
  Firewall Sentinel 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  Neptune has thirteen moons, four of which orbit 
  within the ice giant’s thin ring system. Most of these 
  are only sparsely inhabited.
  
  130
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  cheap morphs and the opportunity to earn better 
  morphs, and the rest are stuck in synth and case 
  morphs that contain various override switches and 
  other limitations.
  These people also have involuntary psychosurgery 
  to make them content with their lot. The people in 
  bios and pods can earn better morphs, but the rest 
  don’t want better morphs—they just want to work 
  themselves down to bare synth muscle and be praised 
  for their ceaseless effort. There are stories that the 
  Consortium tried this sort of crap six or seven years 
  ago and gave it up because bad PR started leaking 
  out—and on account of some seriously problematic 
  side effects. I don’t know what those side effects are, 
  but we’ve got mind-slavery here, and if these fuckers 
  can make it work, it’ll spread. 
  Free’s made a name for itself by providing the 
  kind of sophisticated data analysis and complex 
  design strategies that were performed by AGIs 
  before the Fall. Now, AGI is illegal in pretty much 
  all inner system habs, and hiring people to perform 
  this sort of data mining and manipulation is expen-
  sive. Free’s made a nice profit undercutting local 
  talent in the Consortium and other places where 
  AGIs are illegal.
  Most of their contracts are new, but with the 
  payments starting to roll in, Free could make a big 
  push for growth, and we really don’t want to see this 
  place get a major influx of immigrants or to start 
  spreading their poison to other habs. The chink in 
  their security is that they’re so eager for work, they 
  don’t check the credentials on potential clients—or 
  those posing as such—too close. I got in and out 
  without a hitch.
  But I’m waxin’ political, and that ain’t what I got 
  paid for. So, demographics. Free has a total popula-
  tion of around ten thousand, and the general layout 
  is a clear reflection of the local politics. The habitat 
  is a beehive dug into the surface of Neptune’s moon 
  Proteus, and the deeper you go, the better things get. 
  The areas near the surface are either hard vacuum or 
  helium and are home to the synths living in drasti-
  cally Spartan conditions. If you ask them, they’ll all 
  The inhabitants consist of various uplifts in a 
  variety of morphs. The most common are neo-homi-
  nids, hyper-gibbons, some ripwings, and even a few 
  scurries. A handful of neo-avians live here, but most 
  prefer the open spaces of Mahogany. 
  PROTEUS
  Posted by: Jake Carter,  
  Firewall Proxy 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  I don’t leave Mars much, but when I do, small and 
  boring-ass moons of Neptune such as Proteus are not 
  usually where I choose to go. Unless there’s a good 
  mystery, that is.
  FREE
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Independent
  Primary Languages: Arabic, English, Italian
  Population: 10,000
  I’ve had my nose to the ground for some missing 
  Martian infomorphs the last few months, and now 
  I’ve found ‘em. They’ve been spirited off to a tiny 
  hellhole called Free, way out on the fringe.
  “Gather data. Look for evidence of x-threats. Don’t 
  interfere.” Balls, man. I want intervention on this 
  one. If I don’t get it from Firewall, I’m calling in the 
  Movement. My cousin Young-Ja’s got a crew of futeisha 
  badasses who’d love to take a break from street actions 
  and train jobs and shut down this bad news farm.
  This hellhole promises morphs for everyone, with 
  better morphs coming with proof of superior ability. 
  I can tell you right now that’s a load of shit—we’re 
  looking at slavery here. The locals buy Martian inden-
  tures and then enslave the ones who don’t measure up 
  to their criteria for citizenship.
  I don’t understand all the technical-ass criteria 
  they use for these decisions. Some of it involves 
  having useful skills and an appropriate tempera-
  ment, but there are other criteria that the locals keep 
  secret. The upshot is around 5% of all immigrants 
  get fairly basic but nice morphs like splicers or 
  bouncers, another 15% get worker pods and similar 
  THE LARISSA TRACKS CONTROVERSY
  A few months ago, controversy erupted when a 
  lone brinker, surveying for a Pandora gate, claimed 
  to find evidence of alien visitation on Neptune’s 
  moon Larissa. According to the documentation, the 
  brinker found scorch marks, nonhuman footprints, 
  and other signs of a landing etched into the cold 
  regolith. What might have been passed off as 
  the signs of another brinker’s passage at a quick 
  glance, however, showed clear signs that they were 
  much, much older: hundreds of thousands of years. 
  Researchers from Ilmarinen visited the site and took 
  their own readings. Though their results were not 
  entirely conclusive, they do seem to verify the age 
  of the tracks and marks as being placed before the 
  evolution of humans. Naysayers abound, of course, 
  with many claiming that the entire thing is an elab-
  orate hoax set up by brinkers with too much time 
  on their hands. Tourists have already been making 
  pilgrimages to the site, despite concerns about con-
  tamination of archeological evidence. The site has 
  also drawn even more explorers to Larissa, hoping 
  to find other signs or even alien relics stashed away 
  somewhere on or within the cold, icy moon. 
  n
  
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  NEPTUNE
  131
  It’s just how Mars would be if there were nobody 
  around to throw monkeywrenches. I’m thinkin’ we 
  should import some.
  THE NEPTUNIAN TROJANS
  Posted by: Adam Mooljee,  
  Firewall Sentinel 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  Most people don’t realize that the Neptunian Trojans 
  outnumber the asteroids in the Jovian Trojans by 
  an order of magnitude. While a lot of these are just 
  clumps of dirt and ice no more than 10 klicks in 
  diameter, there are fewer small asteroids here, as they 
  fragment into dust more easily. The amount of aster-
  oids over 100 kilometers in diameter is significant. 
  What this means is that the Neptunian Trojans are 
  big but sparsely populated neighborhoods. In other 
  words, the perfect place to hide out. Most of the 
  habitats out here are small tins and beehives full of 
  brinkers and other eccentrics. It’s uncommon to find 
  one with more than 500 inhabitants, and most have 
  less than 100.
  HAWKING
  Station Type: Beehive/Cluster
  Allegiance: Independent (Hypercorp)
  Primary Languages: Arabic, English, German
  Population: 3,000
  Hawking is a joint hypercorp scientific venture 
  dedicated to practical research of novel and hypo-
  thetical space drives, particularly those involving 
  tell you that luxuries would distract them from their 
  work and that they all love their work. Ask as many 
  as you like; you’ll get exactly the same spiel.
  Below that, you get some heavy-duty airlocks with 
  armored walls and doors and the sorts of sensor suites 
  and concealed defenses normally found on high-secu-
  rity installations. This is where everyone who still has 
  an intact mind lives. The next few levels are mostly for 
  pods and look like most other mid-range habs you’ve 
  seen. The primary difference is the mixture of fear and 
  hope. Some of the people here are horrified by what’s 
  going on, but not so much that they’ll risk trying to 
  do anything to stop it. My guess is that anyone who’d 
  stand up to what’s going on ends up mind scrubbed 
  and stuck in a case.
  Even deeper in, you get the areas where the 
  biomorphs live. Down there, you can see that while 
  it’s small and fairly new, Free is doing pretty damned 
  well for itself. Of course, when each resident has the 
  work of a dozen people supporting them, it ain’t 
  surprising they’re living fat. The elite have high-end 
  cornucopia machines, ubiquitous smart materials in 
  walls and furnishings, and top-of-the-heap personal 
  energy and raw material budgets.
  Even then, there’s a pecking order. The people in 
  charge plan to stay that way. Even in the high-status 
  areas, the local leaders have all the cornucopia 
  machines locked down from printing any weapons 
  other than knives. The only unrestricted fabbers are 
  personally owned by the local oligarchs. If you want 
  to procure a nice morph or serious bio-mods, you 
  gotta know somebody.
  SECRET SHIPYARD
  To: <encrypted>
  From: Adam Mooljee, Firewall Sentinel <Info Msg Rep> 
  I’ll send an image when I get one, but I thought I’d 
  make a report first. I was talking with a group of neo-
  primitives who want to build their own faux Eden out on 
  one of the rocks in Neptune’s L4 point. They sent out a 
  swarm of small autonomous mapping probes to do their 
  own survey of the asteroids they had in mind because 
  they don’t trust the official data. One of their people said 
  that they found something odd on one of those bodies 
  there, something that doesn’t match up with any known 
  records. They want to sell the info and thought I might be 
  a likely buyer. 
  My informant, a woman named Chylie, showed me the 
  image, but only after I disabled all my recording methods—
  these neo-prims are a seriously secretive bunch, but you see 
  that a lot out here. I saw a single frame of a deep crevice 
  in one of the smaller asteroids, a body only around 30 or 
  40 kilometers in diameter. The probe’s angle was such that 
  it recorded a partial image of the bottom of the crevice. It 
  revealed what looked like a single huge ship. I couldn’t 
  tell without data analysis, but it looked like a high-speed 
  transport of some kind, probably over a kilometer long. I 
  saw some parts that looked like an antimatter drive, but 
  there were a number of engine components that I didn’t 
  recognize. The edges of the crevice were in the way at 
  various points. The ship also had the look of being under 
  construction or going through heavy maintenance.
  The problem is that the probes the neo-prims used were 
  pretty old and they only managed to get a few useful shots 
  with telescopic lenses. They didn’t show me the others, but 
  they claim they show evidence of half a dozen of these ships, 
  all similar. Chylie said that a later probe got a partial image 
  of the same crevice 14 hours later and it showed up as less 
  deep and empty of any ships. Whoever’s building this thing 
  presumably got it back under hiding. 
  My guess? Either someone’s playing with experimental 
  drives or someone’s building a fleet for interstellar travel. 
  Why they’re hiding it out here is anyone’s guess—but it 
  bears looking into. I hope the neo-prims actually have 
  hard data on the rock’s identity, some of those old probes 
  have larger error bars on their location figures and there 
  are more than 100 bodies at Neptune’s L4 that match this 
  asteroid’s specs. 
  
  132
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  ILMARINEN
  Station Type: Beehive/Cluster
  Allegiance: Independent (Anarchists/Argonauts)
  Primary Languages: English, Farsi, Mandarin
  Population: 7,000
  Egocasting to Ilmarinen is a bit of a surprise to 
  anyone who hasn’t done their research. They have 
  a high-grade egocaster and deluxe facilities for 
  fabbing and personalizing morphs, but every morph 
  available for rent or purchase has vacuum and low-
  temperature adaptations at minimum. The ability to 
  tolerate hostile environmental conditions is consid-
  ered a requirement here; they charge you for these 
  mods and won’t let you sleeve if you aren’t willing 
  to accept them. Also, if you’re here for more than a 
  short visit, most locals think you’re both cheap and 
  foolish if you don’t upgrade to better temperature and 
  vacuum tolerance or just go with a synthmorph. The 
  few visitors who arrive by spaceship are also expected 
  to have the same adaptations. The general opinion 
  seems to be that anyone who lacks these adaptations 
  is too foolish to survive here and will be too much 
  trouble to deal with.
  When you actually get inside, all these rules make 
  sense. By the standards of the rest of the system, 
  Ilmarinen is a place that’s remarkably casual with 
  pressure and temperature. The people here make 
  certain that any place containing delicate possessions 
  or plants have stable and well-protected environ-
  ments; most of the locals really like plants. Major 
  portions of the habitat, however, have an inert atmo-
  sphere, no atmosphere, or are extremely cold. Most 
  locations that don’t contain anything too delicate 
  are designed to drop pressure or temperature if it’s 
  convenient or useful. I once saw a small fire break 
  out one of the common areas when a fire-spinning 
  performance in a bar went drastically wrong. Some 
  sirens went off, then the automatics dumped the 
  atmosphere while pumping in –30 C helium. The 
  fire was out in a couple of seconds, and most of the 
  locals just held onto something and drank up before 
  their drinks froze. It took almost 20 minutes before 
  the area contained breathable atmosphere again, and 
  no one considered this worthy of comment. That’s life 
  on Ilmarinen. 
  Coming from Luna, this place is a bit shock. Like 
  most of the rest of the system, most Lunars do their 
  best to ignore the fact that swift and icy death waits 
  outside thin walls. The residents of Ilmarinen do a 
  whole lot less ignoring. The general attitude is that 
  they’re living in space, far out where the sun doesn’t 
  provide much in the way of warmth, and so they’d 
  better accept and deal with this fact. It’s also a 
  haven of morphological freedom. While there are a 
  fair share of morphs that superficially look human, 
  there are plenty of novacrabs, exotic pods, xu fu, 
  and swarmanoids.
  The situation gets even stranger when you start 
  attempting to describe exactly who lives here. You 
  almost never find anything like this sort of eccentric 
  propulsion via negative energy, negative mass, exploi-
  tation of the dynamic Casimir effect, or even inflating 
  space-time itself. The facility is large and well-guarded 
  and reputably is home to some of the best theoretical 
  physicists of our time. It’s not entirely clear who is 
  backing the project, though ExoTech’s Morgan 
  Sterling is rumored to be one of the main investors. 
  The facility is already gaining an “Area 51” type of 
  reputation among local brinkers, who speculate about 
  different unusual phenomena and unusual ships they 
  claim to have seen in the area and how it is related to 
  the research. 
  SAVANT SYNTHMORPH n p. 187
  
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  NEPTUNE
  133
  architecture in Glitch received patches designed by 
  a Ilmarinen techs, and relations between the two 
  habitats have been very close ever since. There’s 
  a whole lot of concentrated and enhanced mental 
  processing power over in Glitch, and being able to 
  set even a small portion of it on a particularly tough 
  design or materials science problem is part of what 
  allows the best techs at Ilmarinen to accomplish some 
  of what they do. Researchers from Ilmarinen regularly 
  send forks over to Glitch to get advice, and there’s lots 
  of neutrino com traffic between the two.
  This segues nicely into the reason I was here. The 
  folks in Ilmarinen are expert problem solvers, but 
  a few of the problems they’re asked to solve aren’t 
  very nice. One of the project teams, called Azure Sun, 
  has done work for both Xiphos and Free. I haven’t 
  been able to discover exactly what these projects 
  entailed, but anything for either of those habs is 
  likely to be nasty. The rumors I’ve heard about the 
  mental enslavement hacks they use in Free sound 
  fancy enough that they may have had some help. Also, 
  according to a report I’ve seen—which may just have 
  been bragging—Azure Sun also helped design some 
  of the data security protocols and weapon targeting 
  systems for Xiphos. I’m going to try to turn one of 
  the members of this team and see if I can gain access 
  to details of the work they’ve done. If I fail, then 
  likely the only way to get this data will be some sort 
  of snatch-and-grab of the data or one of the team 
  members. I’m also recommending that the agent we’ve 
  got over in Free look into the connection with the 
  Azure Sun design team.
  It’s also worth noting that it was explorers from 
  Ilmarinen that first discovered the Discord Gate. 
  Many of the locals are still sore about the way Go-nin 
  stole it away from them. Many of them are not the 
  type to forget a grudge or turn their cheek to such an 
  act of aggression. No one openly talks about taking 
  the gate back, but I’d bet my morph that someone 
  here is making plans.
  diversity in the inner system. You’ve got hackers, 
  makers, techies, brinkers, semi-professional conspiracy 
  theorists, radical morph hobbyists, mystics, and poets. 
  The locals largely divide themselves into subcultures 
  that are often fractious, cliquish, and sometimes 
  impressively hot-tempered, but outside of these divi-
  sions, the locals cooperate quite closely with one 
  another. It’s easy to see why: anyone who doesn’t feel 
  like being social can find their own rock to live on, 
  either alone or with a few dozen like-minded fellows. 
  Ilmarinen is where the more social and cooperative 
  elements of our oddball and reclusive Neptunian 
  Trojan culture end up. 
  The other reason that people in the outer system 
  end up in Ilmarinen is work. Many outer system 
  habitats are focused on either exemplifying some 
  ideology or on self-sufficiency. In short, they’re all 
  about mining raw materials and keeping things fixed 
  up while they play various exotic social or political 
  games among themselves. Ilmarinen is named after 
  a mythological smith, and is well named. It’s the 
  main hub for research and design out beyond Saturn, 
  attracting a number of skilled outer-system techni-
  cians, designers, and engineers. Creating tech and 
  augments that work in environments where tempera-
  tures start at –150 C and go down from there is no 
  easy task. Recent upgrades in various cryonic temper-
  ature tolerance augmentations for biomorphs are the 
  most well known of the recent products to come out 
  of Ilmarinen, but they are far from the only ones. The 
  savant morph was crafted here as a proof-of-concept 
  that synthmorphs could be loaded with intelligence 
  augmentations to the same level as mentons; savants 
  are now one of the most popular shells in the hab. 
  A number of perfectly ordinary pieces of technology, 
  from smart rope to grip pads, have had minor tweaks 
  from Ilmarinen techs to help them work better in 
  extreme low-temperature conditions. 
  The residents of Ilmarinen work closely with Glitch, 
  despite the distance. Some of the initial software 
  THE BRINKER WAR
  Brinkers are not exactly a homogenous group, and 
  many of them have competing or even hostile 
  ideologies. They sometimes clash over mining and 
  homesteading claims, deals gone sour, or even 
  unfortunate romantic liaisons. Sometimes, they 
  even go to war.
  The “brinker war” currently ongoing in Neptune’s 
  L5 Trojans began when an asteroid with a small tin 
  can hab module owned by an extended family of 
  Malaysian sikhs crossed into the territorial range 
  claimed by a bunker of Canadian survivalists. The 
  survivalists claim they issued several warnings and 
  fired several warning shots, but the sikhs, who 
  couldn’t really control the asteroid’s trajectory, say 
  the former Canadians simply lobbed a missile over 
  and destroyed the hab. The family responded by 
  seizing a nearby automated mining outpost used 
  by the survivalists, and it went escalated from there. 
  Several small habs and a few dozen deaths later, the 
  rivals are now engaged in full-blown hostilities. The 
  main stations of both are equally well armed and 
  dug in, so the strife has settled to periodic waves 
  of drone and missile strikes that are downed before 
  they inflict too much damage. Both enemies have 
  also been shooting down attempts by the other side 
  to re-supply, leading to chronic shortages. The sikhs 
  are allegedly attempting to hire some ultimates to 
  resolve the conflict, but others in the region believe 
  that the survivalists have a few secret weapons they 
  haven’t quite grown desperate enough to use. 
  n
  
  OUTER 
  FRINGE
  MARCHING IN TIME 
  Alpha Plus: Every resident of Alpha Plus is altered to 
  fulfill a specific societal role. n p. 137
  OORT CLOUD 
  From 2,000 AU to the edge of the sun’s gravitational pull.
  Evangelium: Hub to the Resurrectionists, those who are trying to 
  create a simulspace version of heaven. n p. 144
  Tyche: This remote planet is always under observation but 
  argonaut probes will not reach it for decades. n p. 145
  Tycho Brahe: Out’sters coast in this fleet of mostly disabled ships, 
  all created from the original Tycho Brahe fabber. n p. 145
  OUTER 
  FRINGE
  MARCHING IN TIME 
  Alpha Plus: Every resident of Alpha Plus is altered to 
  fulfill a specific societal role. n p. 137
  OORT CLOUD 
  From 2,000 AU to the edge of the sun’s gravitational pull.
  Evangelium: Hub to the Resurrectionists, those who are trying to 
  create a simulspace version of heaven. n p. 144
  Tyche: This remote planet is always under observation but 
  argonaut probes will not reach it for decades. n p. 145
  Tycho Brahe: Out’sters coast in this fleet of mostly disabled ships, 
  all created from the original Tycho Brahe fabber. n p. 145
  
  9
  KUIPER BELT 
  Ice and dust, the Kuiper Belt is home to hundreds of planetoids, 
  thousands of asteroids, rare minerals, and more.
  Markov: The argonaut stronghold is only known and 
  accessible to a few. n p. 140
  Whiskey: This independant habitat bills itself as one of the last 
  outposts of frontier capitalism. n p. 141
  Eris: Go-nin, with ultimate assistance, controls Eris and, thus, 
  access to the Discord Gate. n p. 142
  THUNDERSTRUCK
  Bolters: A bioconservative faction that practices programmed cell death, to 
  ensure death at an unknown point in the future. n p. 139
  9
  KUIPER BELT 
  Ice and dust, the Kuiper Belt is home to hundreds of planetoids, 
  thousands of asteroids, rare minerals, and more.
  Markov: The argonaut stronghold is only known and 
  accessible to a few. n p. 140
  Whiskey: This independant habitat bills itself as one of the last 
  outposts of frontier capitalism. n p. 141
  Eris: Go-nin, with ultimate assistance, controls Eris and, thus, 
  access to the Discord Gate. n p. 142
  THUNDERSTRUCK
  Bolters: A bioconservative faction that practices programmed cell death, to 
  ensure death at an unknown point in the future. n p. 139
  
  136
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  Posted by: Atalee Bonedanse,  
  Firewall Scanner 
   
  <Info Msg Rep>
  Welcome to the deep black. If you’ve come to the 
  fringe looking for friends, turn back now. This is the 
  darkest, coldest, loneliest part of the system. 
  Most of the natives guard their secrets closely and 
  don’t take well to visitors. Agents are advised to 
  keep their curiosity in check and mind their manners. 
  Out here, a corpse in the recycler doesn’t raise too 
  many questions.
  Next to privacy, the major industries of the fringe 
  are research and prospecting. Most of the fringe is too 
  inaccessible for commercial exploitation. Life is more 
  a matter of survival than profit, so the hypercorps 
  keep out. It’s only when they want to do something 
  really dangerous or anti-social that you’ll find them 
  skulking around.
  Despite the difficulties, a few places have found 
  ways to get by, offering freedom from the strangle-
  hold of the inner system. At the request of your proxy, 
  I’ve pulled some files of notable locations that may 
  relate to your work. These documents are for your 
  eyes only—even most of Firewall isn’t aware of half 
  of the stuff that’s buried out here on the fringe.
  OUTER SYSTEM NICHES
  The rimward side of the solar system is vast. Even 
  when you account for the major planetary systems, 
  the Belt, and the various Trojans, there’s a lot of space 
  out there still, and not all of it is empty. If someone 
  9
  OUTER FRINGE
  A WORD ON BRINKERS
  Transhumans have established themselves in the most 
  desolate corners of the solar system, often specifically 
  for the isolation. While these people span the gamut 
  of experience and motivation, a few of the dominant 
  factions are listed below.
  CONSERVATIVES AND RETROGRESSIVES
  Isolation, especially in Earth-like habitats and exo-
  planets, is favorable to bioconservatives, neo-prim-
  itives, and retrogressives. Any place with constant 
  life support, gravity, and protection from radiation 
  can support a low-tech lifestyle. Most of these colo-
  nies are forced to be exclusive, else they risk being 
  overrun by custom-designed neighbors with superior 
  equipment. Some individuals have found themselves 
  living a retrogressive lifestyle as a career choice. Out 
  on the fringe, materials are too rare and precious for 
  equipment to just be replaced as needed. Specialists 
  in older technology and methods can expect plenty 
  of business servicing antiquated equipment, assum-
  ing they can get there.
  CULTURAL GROUPS  
  AND UNUSUAL MEMES
  Solitude offers the opportunity to fully immerse one-
  self in one’s creativity or obsessions, be it creating a 
  “neural map” of the solar system or living as a pet cat 
  served by an army of robotic butlers. These habitats 
  fully explore the particular fetishes, interests, beliefs, 
  or lifestyles of their group, sometimes to the point of 
  ejecting anyone who breaks paradigm. Artists, inven-
  tors, and fashion houses also benefit from the brinker 
  life, as prohibitive distances and secret stations make 
  it difficult for rivals to steal designs and well-to-do 
  clients are charmed by the romantic ideal of life in 
  the seclusion of the abyss. The best known cultural 
  brinker group is Carnivale, before it went mainstream, 
  but other examples are Qo’noS, the invitation-only 
  virtual Star Trek environment hosted in Olympus, and 
  House of Hedgehogs, asteroid sculpture gallery of 
  the industrial artist CB-04.
  EXPLORERS AND SCIENTISTS
  The fringe is a frontier, and it has attracted its share 
  of explorers and scientists, working diligently to pre-
  pare the way. As civilization follows the trailblazers, 
  so they continue out into the black. Research stations 
  are scattered throughout the system; some pursuing 
  wild hypotheses and studying natural phenomena, 
  others evading competitors, law enforcement, or 
  lynch mobs. Most gatecrashing missions prioritize 
  establishing a scientific outpost, and habitats experi-
  menting with highly destructive experiments are 
  necessarily isolated in case of an accident. Isolation 
  obscures many brinkers pursuing questionable ends, 
  and Firewall has a long database of black-budget labs, 
  many with high-level sponsoring, engaging in all 
  manners of unethical and dangerous research.
  RELIGIOUS COLONIES AND CULTS
  Spiritual beliefs and moral living are sometimes sti-
  fled under the culture and laws of heathens. Isolation 
  permits the persecuted and spiritually inclined to 
  live in closer harmony with their creator or spiritual 
  guide, whatever form he, she, it, or they may have. 
  Unfortunately, isolation also creates unhealthy 
  
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  OUTER FRINGE
  137
  undergo yearly evaluations and conditioning sessions 
  to ensure that their programming remains intact.
  While considered a nightmare by many autonomists, 
  no one was coerced into joining Alpha Plus, and the 
  station regularly draws new recruits who look forward 
  to having the burdens of indecision and individuality 
  stripped from their lives. The habitat is certainly a 
  model of efficiency and harmony, with no appreciable 
  crime or discontent, and a seemingly happy population. 
  Though no one is in theory prevented from leaving the 
  habitat, no one wants to because of their conditioning; 
  the station does occasionally send out ships to acquire 
  supplies or mine necessary raw materials.
  CONCH
  Ship Type: ITN Cycler
  Allegiance: Independent (Brinker)
  Primary Languages: Mongolian, Portuguese, Spanish
  Population: 2,500
  The Conch is a refugee ship, assembled during 
  the Fall, that follows the Interplanetary Transport 
  wants to find a nice, quiet little spot to do their thing, 
  there are plenty of options: unoccupied Lagrange 
  zones, the centaurs zipping through gas giant orbits, 
  and other erratic asteroids and comets on highly 
  elliptic and inclined orbits, just to start. 
  ALPHA PLUS
  Station Type: Bernal Sphere
  Allegiance: Independent (Brinker)
  Primary Languages: English
  Population: 15,500
  Stationed at the Sol-Uranus L3 point, Alpha Plus 
  is an attempt to create a perfectly ordered society. 
  Each of the residents—all of whom voluntarily 
  joined—has been psychosurgically and genetically 
  modified to fulfill a predetermined social position. 
  Everyone is shaped to play their role in society and all 
  are quite good at what they do—in fact, they would 
  have a difficult time doing anything else. Any ambi-
  tions, desires, abilities, or personality traits not in line 
  with their position have been weeded out. Residents 
  feedback loops, sometimes guiding even upstand-
  ing groups into strange and destructive rituals. A 
  few spiritually guided groups have sought out loca-
  tions especially close to their source of inspiration, 
  commonly the sun, Factor ships, alien artifacts, and 
  deep space. Some temples and cult habitats actively 
  lure new members to their ranks.
  SOCIO-POLITICAL GROUPS
  Disliking their government or cultural restrictions, 
  many brinkers have opted to establish colonies to 
  practice things their way. Some of these are proof-
  of-concept experiments, like rotating leaderships 
  where every resident serves a term or all-lesbian 
  stations with no men. Others are enclaves for 
  groups that suffered persecution or prejudice, such 
  as AGIs and uplifts. Brinkers suffer from a poor rep-
  utation in part due to the number of these isolated 
  outposts that have become corrupted or twisted. 
  These include instances of brinkers purchasing 
  thousands of infugee egos and destroying those 
  with undesirable racial or religious backgrounds, 
  forced-breeding programs, and uplift experimenta-
  tion, all allegedly in pursuit of the ideal society.
  SURVIVALISTS
  Having learned a sharp lesson from the Fall, sur-
  vivalists seek to remove themselves from the risks 
  of system-wide disaster, attack, or infection. As 
  individuals, they range from the prudent to the 
  crackpot and are unified only by their readiness, 
  self-sufficiency, and healthy distrust of outsiders. 
  A few have taken it upon themselves to warn the 
  “Pollyannas” in the rest of the system about the 
  dangers of nanotech, hypercorps, alien threats, and 
  so on. It is suspected a number of the hyper-elites 
  keep forks and supplies in survivalist enclaves. For 
  Firewall agents, a survivalist habitat can sometimes 
  be the best refuge against danger.
  THE WEALTHY
  Few cherish their privacy like the hyper-elites. 
  While rarely brinkers themselves, they are long-
  term planners and cautious about their options, 
  in the manner of survivalists. Others simply main-
  tain private and secret residences where they can 
  engage in unpopular or illegal business, indulge in 
  a hedonistic or harmful lifestyle, or simply relax.
  OUT’STERS
  “Out’ster” is a broad category applied to all those in 
  the extreme outer rim that are “unknown.” They 
  have thrown themselves into the abyss and left 
  transhumanity behind. They aren’t overtly threat-
  ening enough to be considered exhuman (yet). As 
  a rule, they shun transhuman contact, though it 
  is unknown if this is out of fear or lack of inter-
  est. We’ve asked, but none have answered. Many 
  out’ster colonies are well on their way to shedding 
  transhumanity like an old skin; not to become 
  something better, just something very different. 
  Perhaps due to the shroud of mystery around them, 
  (likely groundless) rumors hint that they’ve learned 
  to communicate across the vast emptiness of space, 
  have developed cultural groups of their own, and 
  are pursuing goals outside of our understanding. n
  
  138
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  NEW SARPALIUS
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Planetary Consortium (Disputed)
  Primary Languages: Arabic, French
  Population: 4,000
  This colony was the primary initiative of a new 
  hypercorp seeking to establish a base for corporate 
  research and mining operation just prior to the Fall. 
  Built on a 65-kilometer-diameter centaur asteroid, it 
  was largely populated by Algerian vacworkers. When 
  the company management were lost during the Fall, 
  the habitat’s local managers decided to take control 
  and run it as their own. The workers had other ideas, 
  however, and a bloody but short strike and revolt saw 
  the station declared as an autonomist outpost, named 
  simply Sanctuary. Over the years, the colony took in 
  refugees and established itself as an anarchist-oriented 
  stopover for outer system traffic.
  The situation took another turn just a few months 
  ago, when a well-armed insurgency seized control of 
  the habitat, renamed it, and declared its allegiance 
  to the Planetary Consortium. A Consortium-backed 
  mercenary unit took up a defensive posture around 
  the station just a few weeks later, well before the 
  nearest autonomists could rally support. A raging 
  debate on how to deal with the matter is ongoing in 
  autonomist circles; some are reluctant to act given 
  that the coup seems to have had the support of a 
  majority of the residents, many of whom had grown 
  Network, a gravitationally determined, meandering 
  path through the solar system that requires very little 
  in the way of fuel, but is quite slow. Originally packed 
  full of primarily Brazilian and Panamanian refugee 
  families, the social order aboard the cycler quickly 
  became dominated by rival gangs. Things took a step 
  to the weird in 3 AF, when the hyperelite Lhagva 
  family stepped in and purchased the ship, completely 
  buying out and replacing the command crew. Three 
  idle socialite sons of the Lhagva oligarch, who had 
  become an embarrassing thorn in the family’s side 
  and were wanted in the Consortium for a number 
  of criminal charges, were willingly exiled to the 
  Conch for ten years. These brothers—Bold, Batkhuu, 
  and Battulga—quickly bought off the gangs and 
  proceeded to transform the Conch’s desperately poor 
  residents into their private social experiment. While 
  the core crew remains remotely aloof and in service 
  to the Lhagva oligarch, the three brothers engage in 
  a constantly shifting battle of power, making and 
  breaking alliances, and using the population for their 
  own purposes. 
  The Conch is currently drifting on the ITN on 
  course to reach the Saturnian system in three months. 
  The social order aboard the ship has devolved to 
  feudal levels, with residents currently competing to 
  stay in the brothers’ graces to avoid being placed 
  in a lottery that could see them “voted off the ship” 
  via airlock.
  
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  OUTER FRINGE
  139
  years. These particular bolters feel that transhumanity 
  is moving so fast that they would rather “check out” 
  early, before things get too weird, the TITANs return, 
  or some other techno-disaster strikes.
  A rumor currently circulating the mesh, however, 
  indicates that some of the bolters who joined the 
  habitat immediately after the Fall have now rethought 
  their position on dying, particularly given that the 
  TITAN threat seems to have subsided and transhu-
  manity is growing more prosperous. The Governing 
  Council is, however, refusing to allow these people to 
  leave or resleeve.
  KUIPER BELT (30–55 AU)
  Lying just past the orbit of Neptune is a disc of ice 
  and dust known as the Kuiper Belt. It is home to 
  over a hundred planetoids, including Pluto, Haumea, 
  and Eris, and thousands of asteroids large enough to 
  conceal a habitat. Most Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) 
  are a mix of ice and rock which pre-date the genesis 
  of the sun. Though sparsely populated, most trans-
  human activity takes place in the “classical” Kuiper 
  Belt, between 42 and 48 AU, where frozen volatiles, 
  complex organic molecules, and rare minerals are 
  more easily harvested.
  Habitats here are sporadic and politically dispa-
  rate. They are often carved from the inside of larger 
  asteroids and use thick layers of ice for structural 
  support and shielding from radiation and impacts. 
  Vast distances between them necessitate complete self-
  sufficiency. The further a habitat is from the sun, the 
  more dependent it becomes on mining to provide for 
  fusion and chemical power generation. Heavy metals 
  are scarce, limiting industry, conventional construc-
  tion, and the adoption of new tech.
  Duplex and high-density transmissions are limited 
  by their range. A lack of effective communication 
  has prevented political and cultural unification and 
  created a wide variety of reclusive niches. Exhumans, 
  criminals, anarchists, ultimates, out’sters, and 
  brinkers have all found the isolation of the belt 
  ideal to their pursuits. Piracy has grown in some 
  corners, due to reliance on automated craft between 
  poorly defended habitats. Social order is tempered 
  with paranoia, and enforced through the barrel of 
  a gun. Failed and abandoned habitats are relatively 
  common, set adrift and left to rust among the frozen 
  bodies of the belt.
  disillusioned with local anarchists. Others point to 
  evidence that the takeover has the hallmarks of a 
  long-planned operation, possibly involving the 
  transfer of hundreds of supporters to the colony over 
  a period of years. Though this reeks of conspiracy, it 
  does seem that an element within the Consortium 
  has taken a keen interest in the affair, pouring 
  substantial funds into supporting the coup. The 
  question is: why?
  THUNDER ON THE HORIZON (10370 HYLONOME)
  Station Type: Beehive and Track
  Allegiance: Independent (Bioconservative)
  Primary Languages: Burmese, English, Hindi
  Population: 3,000
  Ensconced on a 70-kilometer-wide centaur asteroid, 
  this station was founded by a bioconservative faction 
  with a nuanced outlook. Believing that death is a 
  natural, meaningful, and desired thing, bringing more 
  sanctity and reverence to life than immortality, they 
  were still eager to avoid the frailty, loss of cogni-
  tive ability, suffering, and burdens to others that 
  come with natural aging. In their view, the ideal life 
  is one lived in full health for a respectable period 
  of around 100 years, after which death comes as a 
  lightning bolt out of the blue, suddenly and without 
  the contrivance or social pressure that might come 
  with a planned death. Known as “bolters,” these 
  moderate bio-cons deliberately install a system of 
  whole-body apoptosis, or programmed cell death, so 
  that they will simply and rapidly drop dead at some 
  variable point in the future, with only a few minutes 
  warning. Bolters also typically eschew uploading 
  and resleeving and advocate a deliberate decelera-
  tion of technological progress to more cautious and 
  safe levels, without holding the religious baggage or 
  extremist views common to other bioconservative 
  tendencies. Thousands of them are spread throughout 
  transhuman society. 
  The founding bolter residents of Thunder on the 
  Horizon took this a step further. Everyone who 
  voluntarily enters this habitat must submit to an 
  apoptosis system, no resleeving is allowed, and no 
  one is allowed to leave without the express permis-
  sion of the Governing Council, which usually only 
  grants leave for missions vital to the habitat. The 
  residents here are expected to live out the rest of 
  their days peacefully and happily, until they suddenly 
  drop dead at some point between now and the next 5 
  GETTING TO THE FRINGE
  Rim habitats like Whiskey are a necessary stop-over 
  for anyone egocasting to the Oort cloud without 
  the benefit of qubits. Safe egocasting to the Kuiper 
  Belt from within the solar system can take any-
  where from 3 to 80 hours on average, depending 
  on the point of origin. Egocasting out to the Oort 
  Cloud, however, can be completed in no less than 11 
  days without risking serious ego corruption. Travel 
  by antimatter couriers from the inner system to the 
  inner Oort Cloud takes, at minimum, ten years. 
  n
  
  140
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  rim. Markov’s secrecy and impressive computing 
  capabilities have made it the home to a number of 
  sensitive argonaut experiments, in both virtual 
  and physical laboratories, in the fields of propul-
  sion, Lorentzian manifolds, quantum mechanics, 
  biomechanics, cognitive science, and other cutting-
  edge areas. 
  Publicly available specs indicate a series of coiled 
  tunnels and caves, dug from the inner, rocky core of 
  a large asteroid or planetoid. Most of the interior is 
  flooded with a perfluorocarbon suspension, which 
  hides the low-density characteristic of the habitat and 
  provides thermal dissipation for the massive computer 
  cores. Markov hosts the Library, the primary backup 
  archives for the argonauts. The servers are also home 
  to the Medean Apollo project, a massive data-gath-
  ering and pattern-matching predictive service that has 
  earned the faction’s paramilitary arm, the Medeans, a 
  reputation for precognition. 
  The majority of Markov’s population is made up 
  of infomorphs and AGIs. Biomorphs customized for 
  the cold can survive in the perfluorocarbon stew with 
  only minor implants. 
  HABITAT ON THE ROCK (35 AU)
  Station Type: Cluster
  Allegiance: Independent (Brinker)
  Primary Languages: English, Mandarin
  Population: 2,500
  Addison Hütz’s great dream was for transhumanity 
  to experience the widest, most prized and unique 
  collection of music, art, Earth paraphernalia, and 
  exotic items in the universe (for a modest fee). Hütz’s 
  HAUMEA (35 AU)
  Station Type: Beehive and Tin Can
  Allegiance: Criminal (Ma˘feˉng gang)
  Primary Languages: Cantonese
  Population: Unknown
  The glistening white surface of Haumea is marred 
  by a massive red crater, the site of an ancient collision 
  which sent the planetoid into a dizzying four-hour 
  rotation. Bloody gouges around the interior of the 
  crater mark a small mining camp. The camp is the 
  home base of the Ma˘feˉng gang, a group of miners, 
  pirates, and full-time opportunists. Ma˘feˉng scratches 
  out a meek living from the rock, but its main interest 
  lies in brutal raids against anyone unlucky enough to 
  get close. In support of their operations, Ma˘feˉng has 
  set up sensor stations and defensive batteries on both 
  of Haumea’s moonlets. 
  The dwarf planet’s eccentric orbit, rotation, lack of 
  reported mineral wealth, and presence of aggressive 
  pirates has made it commercially unappetizing. It is 
  rumored that Haumea is the location of the closely 
  guarded argonaut stronghold, Markov, though the 
  presence of the Ma˘feˉng gang makes inquiries difficult, 
  and similar rumors of other KBOs have proven false. 
  MARKOV
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Argonauts
  Primary Languages: English, French, German
  Population: 3,000
  The location of Markov is known only to the 
  highest ranking members of the argonaut faction. The 
  habitat is the faction’s primary stronghold in the outer 
  THE FUSSER DIAMOND
  # Start Private_Room #
  # Active Members: 2 #
  1 The crew is getting really nervous now. We fucked up 
  two jobs after we got that damn diamond, and now 
  power in the main hab is flickering on and off. Before 
  you say anything, yeah, we checked it out. Generator, 
  filters, circuits, software … everything is fine.
  2  I never took you for superstitious, Agon. Is this going 
  to pose a problem? 
  1 Of course not. But you didn’t tell me I’d be dealing 
  with something like this. There’s only one presolar 
  diamond this big, and it doesn’t take an AGI to do a 
  mesh search. Fuck that forged-in-the-breath-of-a-
  dying-star bullshit. How about the Nabokov, the Atlas, 
  and the Sho-Ri?
  2  What about them?
  1 Let’s start with the Nabokov then. Bunch of skim-
  mers find the diamond, dust it off, ship it out to a 
  buyer. A week later, the ship’s guidance systems fail 
  on re-entry and it makes a new crater on Hydra. And, 
  get this, none of their egos could be resleeved. All 
  corrupted. The buyer, some rich bastard looking to buy 
  his wife’s attention, has it sent to her ship. Turns out 
  she’s lubing up some geriatric and the guy goes nuts. 
  He has her ship infected with a nanoplague. Guess 
  who isn’t showing up at the glitterati balls anymore? 
  Mrs. Rich Bastard. 
  2  That is simply speculation. Next you’ll be telling me 
  you put on your pants and now the stars are falling.
  1 Don’t give me that. You and me both know what 
  happened to the previous owners. That ain’t specula-
  tion. But the worst is the Sho-Ri. A bunch of sc#$!——
  / Agon.Izer has been disconnected. 
  / Agon.Izer has joined #Private_Room
  1 Fuck, another surge. This power problem is wreaking 
  havoc on the computers. 
  2  This is very disappointing. 
  1 Look, we’ll take care of it, just make sure to be there 
  on time. So what if it does sink ships? What are you 
  going to do with it?
  2  Hah, I suppose we’ll just have to keep it on a planet. 
  I’m sure nothing bad would happen then. 
  
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  OUTER FRINGE
  141
  back rooms, and the stink of poorly maintained 
  morphs. Visitors know it for poker, prostitutes, and 
  the privacy to enjoy both at the old Earth-style 
  saloon, Terminal.
  A score of hypercorps benefit from the relative 
  peace and accessibility offered by the station, main-
  taining offices there. Whiskey is also a major node in 
  Firewall, known to house several proxies and much 
  of Firewall’s local intelligence-gathering capabilities. 
  The habitat is surrounded by a cloud of free-
  floating gun batteries. Clusters of heavy communica-
  tion equipment are stationed ten kilometers off either 
  end of the habitat. Whiskey is maintained by an anon-
  ymous executive council, which works to enforce the 
  habitat’s independence. The Intelligent Design Crew 
  and the locally grown Boulanger Family compete for 
  dominance in the local markets. The executive council 
  does not interfere with the conflict as long as collat-
  eral damage is kept to a minimum.
  FROZEN DREAMS (48 AU)
  Ship Type: Zapotec-class Medium Mining Ship 
  (Comet Chaser)
  Allegiance: Independent (Brinker)
  Primary Languages: English, Swahili
  The comet chaser Frozen Dreams made headlines 
  nearly a year ago, when it was found drifting in space, 
  its crew missing. Investigators discovered remnants 
  of a foreign nanoswarm with a structure alien to any 
  known line of nanotechnology. Very little information 
  about where the swarm was picked up exists, as the 
  silicon and carbon in the ship’s computer systems was 
  chemically eaten out, rendering servers useless, and no 
  other logs exist. Soon after the discovery was publi-
  cized by the argonauts, various factions laid claim to 
  Frozen Dreams. For now, the ship is being held by 
  dream became reality in Habitat on the Rock. Part ice 
  castle, part scrapyard, it is considered a work of art 
  in its own right. As curators acquire new materials 
  and architectural plans, Habitat on the Rock takes 
  on its own life and sprouts further from its original 
  asteroid foundation.
  Most of the old-Earth collection is made up of 
  quality replicas, many hand-made, but a few items 
  have been validated as original artifacts. The exotic 
  collection purportedly includes Factor and other alien 
  cadavers, a zoo of genetic samples, fragments of the 
  original K-T asteroid, and a captured TITAN. Vast 
  libraries of digital music and simulspace environ-
  ments are available to the public for free.
  Habitat on the Rock is in the black and white 
  markets for collectibles. Curators hire out to free-
  lancers to collect specific targets. Outside of the 
  museum grounds, the habitat is entirely off-limits 
  to visitors. The area is well defended and luxurious, 
  with an inexplicably high volume of traffic. The 
  cost of maintaining the collection far outstrips its 
  income. Analysts have suggested Habitat on the 
  Rock either has a private benefactor or runs a secret 
  secondary business.
  WHISKEY (37 AU)
  Station Type: Torus
  Allegiance: Independent
  Primary Languages: English, Hindi, Mandarin
  Population: 12,500
  Whiskey is one of the last outposts of frontier capi-
  talism. Residents say it is the farthest civilized station 
  in the system, though both claims are questionable. 
  Lax governance has grown industries around the 
  making and loss of quick money. The runt habitat is 
  crammed to the coil guns with polyglot marketplaces, 
  THE REYES SIMULATION
  Firewall has recently received a distress call from 
  a derelict out’ster ship, the Scylla. The message 
  describes an experiment, started by the ship’s owner 
  Edward Reyes, which is currently active on the ship’s 
  servers. Reyes has created a diverse, sprawling, and 
  extremely deadly series of simulspace environments. 
  His intention was to evolve himself to his peak 
  mental capabilities by using the fastest, simplest, 
  and most brutal methods available. 
  Reyes uploaded himself into the environment 
  and began the simulation. Every five days, egos 
  within the simulation are forked four times, with 
  each fork bearing a random mutation. The entire 
  environment operates at maximum time accelera-
  tion and actively evolves and randomizes to present 
  new threats. Reyes added a dirty twist to the sce-
  narios: any egos that die in the environment are 
  permanently deleted. It is not clear how long the 
  simulation has been running, but it was one of 
  Reyes’s own forks who managed to hack the com-
  puter system and send the SOS signal.
  The ship is believed to be completely uninhabited 
  except for Reyes, and it is unknown whether or not 
  he is still active in real space. The number of egos 
  within in the simulspace house of horrors is not 
  known, but it is speculated that the simulation has 
  been running long enough for the population to be 
  split into multiple competing factions.
  Egocasting to the Scylla is not possible, limiting 
  Firewall to a physical courier. Unfortunately, eight 
  months of travel makes for forty years relative time. 
  It is unlikely the original survivors will be alive by 
  the time Firewall arrives, and it is not clear what 
  may have evolved by then. 
  n
  
  142
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  the argonauts for further study. Concerns over a possible second 
  attack are pressuring researchers to shift the experiments from 
  virtual to physical environments, though appropriate controls 
  have not yet been fully established. 
  PLUTO (48 AU)
  The largest object in the classical Kuiper belt, Pluto is still small 
  enough to fit in the space between Elysium City and Airy-0 Crater 
  on Mars. The dwarf planet holds a few valuable nuggets of heavy 
  metals in its rocky core, for anyone willing to mine through 
  hundreds of kilometers of ice to get to it. Pluto is accompanied by 
  Charon, broadly called its moon, but the two are a binary object, 
  pirouetting around a shared point in space. Pluto and Charon 
  support a small group of mining colonies, mostly independent, 
  who alternate from allies to enemies and back again on the turn 
  of the cosmic wind. Pluto has a small number of moonlets, which 
  is where entrepreneurs go to die when they can’t compete.
  TULIHÄND (48 AU)
  Station Type: Cluster
  Allegiance: Independent (Brinker)
  Primary Languages: Estonian, Russian
  Population: 9,000
  Balanced between the tidally locked faces of Pluto and Charon 
  is the private mining station, Tulihänd. The habitat oversees the 
  largest mining and comet-catching operation on the outer rim. 
  Massive crawlers strip-mine local planetoids and Kuiper Belt 
  objects, extract ore, minerals, and organics, and launch them 
  back to Tulihänd. After refinement, the raw materials are nano-
  forged into automated scows and launched to the next collection 
  point. Despite automated defenses and secrecy around launch 
  timetables and buyers, the scows leaving Tulihänd are popular 
  targets for pirates. 
  Tulihänd residents have a reputation for bellicose saber-rattling 
  and bluntness, but a strong work ethic. The persistent threat of 
  insiders sabotaging operations for profit has made the inhabit-
  ants chronically suspicious. Conflicts between management and 
  labor are common. A suggestion of wrongdoing is enough for 
  invasive questioning and neural mapping by management. Agents 
  operating in the area are suggested to undergo memory editing, 
  to prevent the possible leakage of sensitive information. Despite 
  expectations, outside threats have bound Tulihänd into a tight 
  technosocialist republic.
  ERIS (55 AU)
  Eris is the dark jewel in Go-nin’s crown. Seized from the anarchist 
  Ilmarinen commune, the planetoid is littered with the remains of 
  several major battles over control of the Discord Gate. Go-nin, 
  with the assistance of the ultimates, currently hold the dwarf planet 
  and gate, though ownership is still a matter of contention. Go-nin 
  manages the infrastructure and habitat, Torii, while the ultimates 
  provide the military strength and orbital firepower to hold it.
  The interior of the planetoid is worm-eaten with twisting 
  tunnels. Most of the tunnels are believed to already have been 
  discovered and mapped, but occasionally when parties are 
  dispatched after disappeared personnel, new passages are revealed. 
  Other than a few trawling miners and automated roving 
  surveybots, the surface of Eris is serene and abandoned. A net of 
  orbital surveillance stations and ordinance watch the skies within 
  
  9.
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  9
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  9
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  9.
  OUTER FRINGE
  143
  PHAROS
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Ultimates
  Primary Languages: English, Greek
  Population: Unknown
  The only visible features of Pharos are the massive 
  weapons batteries that dot several of the known 
  entrances. Not much is known about this fortress of 
  the ultimates. All attempts at penetration have failed, 
  sometimes gruesomely. Ultimates kept in captivity 
  universally corrupt their own stacks and terminate 
  themselves before a proper interrogation can be 
  conducted. What is known is that its tunnels run the 
  entire length of the moonlet, and are reinforced and 
  defensible against siege. 
  SEDNA (88 AU)
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Independent (Criminal/Dead Eye Society)
  Primary Languages: Arabic, Hindi
  Population: Unknown
  Sedna was once believed to be the furthest-reaching 
  object in the solar system, with a highly elliptical 
  orbit that takes it halfway to the Oort Cloud. Pre-Fall 
  nations spent millions to plant a flag on it. After the 
  Fall, Sedna was left a forgotten rock, commemorating 
  a dead nation. Sedna was officially claimed by the 
  Jovian Republic, though they did nothing but plant a 
  new flag on it, and it was promptly forgotten about. 
  In 6 AF, the planetoid and its antiquated research 
  probe were re-appropriated by the pirate family, the 
  Dead Eye Society. Under them, Sedna is aggressively 
  mined for its heavy and unstable elements.
  HAVEN (120 AU)
  Station Type: Torus
  Allegiance: Independent (Brinker) 
  Primary Languages: English
  Population: 1,000
  Eight years after the Fall, the pirate craft Shive 
  atomized a small anarchist habitat in the Neptunian 
  Trojans, killing two thousand transhumans. Firewall 
  agents captured the ship and tracked the design and 
  production of the weapon back to the brinker habitat 
  Haven, on the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt.
  500,000 kilometers for anything larger than a baseball 
  and for the tell-tale blaze of distant battleships.
  TORII
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Independent (Hypercorp/Go-nin)
  Primary Language: Japanese
  Population: 20,000
  Torii has sprung up around the massive crater 
  where the Discord Gate originally exploded. The 
  habitat is a spartan but sprawling web of under-
  ground caves designed to protect against threats 
  coming from both without and within the habitat. 
  The greatest threat comes from exhuman war parties 
  intent on claiming the gate. It is also feared that other 
  parties interested in controlling the Discord Gate have 
  their eyes on Torii, hoping to exploit the tensions 
  between Go-nin and their ultimate mercenaries. 
  Torii is tightly controlled by Go-nin security and 
  squads of ultimate mercenaries. Go-nin struggles 
  to balance the needs of security against those of 
  commerce. The conflict has squeezed luxury and 
  freedom in the middle. Personnel are subjected to 
  constant hormone monitoring, black box transmit-
  ters, and frequent interrogations. Nevertheless, gate-
  crasher subculture thrives in the distant corridors of 
  the habitat. Gatecrasher bazaars are active in some 
  of the lower caves and around the spaceport, among 
  bars and theaters. Despite security, corruption in the 
  habitat is still too common to be ignored.
  DYSNOMIA
  Dysnomia, Eris’s only moon, hangs as a sword of 
  Damocles over Eris. It is home to Pharos, a major 
  stronghold of the ultimates, particularly their over-
  humanist faction, and is heavily defended against 
  outsiders. It is the ultimates’ primary defense grid for 
  the area, carrying an arsenal of nuclear and antimatter 
  missiles, and passes over Torii once every two weeks. 
  Its close orbit to Eris and its size has earned 
  Dysnomia the nickname “Little Sister” by Go-nin 
  employees. This is just one of the outward signs of 
  the political tensions between the ultimates and their 
  hypercorp employers.
  SOLARCHIVE SEARCH: SILVER PINIONS
  An engineered, silicon-based life form, silver pinions 
  are the only known plant life specifically adapted to the 
  Oort Cloud. Once a spore germinates on a compatible 
  asteroid, the pinion sprouts long branches supporting 
  parabolic, reflective, micron-thin leaves, focusing the 
  distant light of the sun on a single point at the core of 
  the organism. The mirrored leaves magnify sunlight 
  by a factor of over a million. Mature organisms are 
  kilometers across, converting the asteroid directly into 
  life-supporting leaves. When space debris punches 
  through the leaves, self-replicating spores may be 
  carried to new environments. Preservationist groups 
  have publicly protested the introduction of these inva-
  sive organisms, and several organizations have spoken 
  out regarding the unintended consequences of seeding 
  the solar system with weeds. As of yet, no one has taken 
  credit for the development of the silver pinions or made 
  any significant move towards eradicating them. 
  
  144
  GAME INFORMATION
  URANUS
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  JUPITER
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  hundreds of thousands of professional and amateur 
  telescopes, watching for the return of the TITANs or 
  the arrival of Factor lighthuggers.
  WISDOM (2,500 AU)
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Independent (Brinker) 
  Primary Language: Wu
  Population: 350
  Built around an abandoned habitat, Wisdom has a 
  population of 350 egos, all identified as female, with 
  a singular exception. The habitat holds Benevolent 
  Husband Charles Lin as its figurehead, and the 
  remaining population is officially made up of his 
  wives. The number of wives has exceeded Lin’s needs 
  and abilities, but the marriage tradition has been 
  codified into law by the habitat’s de-facto ministers 
  and enforced equally on residents and visitors. The 
  unusual family structure has made Wisdom famous for 
  its provocative social art and has produced a number 
  of famous bloggers, Lin included, as they describe the 
  struggles of a family surviving on the edge. 
  Because egocasting to Wisdom requires marriage, 
  immigration is tightly controlled and decided by 
  community discussion. Information leaving the 
  habitat is heavily restricted. Firewall has recently 
  taken an interest in Wisdom as the possible location 
  of Captain-Doctor Lidiya Vorobyov and two of her 
  executive designers, known to be TITAN-subverted 
  agents and accused Fall criminals.
  THE NEST (3,000 AU)
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Independent (Exhuman)
  Primary Languages: Unknown
  Population: Unknown
  The Nest is an exhuman creation, infested with 
  an ecosystem of arthropod biomorphs designed to 
  survive deep space without the use of technology. 
  Research has identified over forty individual genomes. 
  Individuals have shown limited intelligence, but the 
  complexity of the community suggests either a social 
  intelligence or a dominant consciousness deeper 
  within. All encounters with the Nest have been hostile. 
  The Nest is hurtling away from the solar system at 
  40 kilometers per second. While this is far too slow 
  to reach another system in the immediate future, the 
  Nest has already spawned two children colonies on 
  neighboring asteroids. Firewall is concerned this 
  particular strain of exhumans may become a powerful 
  presence in the Oort Cloud before transhumanity can 
  establish a toe-hold here. 
  EVANGELIUM (3,000 AU)
  Station Type: Beehive
  Allegiance: Independent (Brinker)
  Primary Language: English
  Population: 400
  The primary hub for the budding Resurrectionist 
  religion, Evangelium serves as a cathedral and science 
  Haven was established in the heat of the Fall by the 
  now-defunct deep-space mining corporation, EMC. 
  After the TITANs attacked, EMC took their best and 
  brightest, sealed themselves inside of their habitat, 
  and put the rest of the system under quarantine. 
  Not much information has been gathered on Haven. 
  The habitat blocks all wireless communication. They 
  still deal with a few ships in the area, all people they’ve 
  been working with since before the Fall. And they’re still 
  paranoid. From what we can gather, they believe the 
  TITANs have won the war and have infected the entire 
  inner system. Now they’re designing weapons of mass 
  destruction. Question is, do they intend to use them?
  THORNE (850 AU)
  Station Type: Cluster
  Allegiance: Argonaut
  Primary Languages: Mandarin
  Population: 570
  The Thorne is a high-capacity radio telescope and 
  transmitter, one of the foremost interstellar astronomy 
  labs in the system. Located almost 5 light days from 
  the sun, it is the largest observatory outside of the 
  heliosphere. It supports a nanomesh collector dish 
  with an additional cloud of micromachines, providing 
  a reflective area in excess of thirty-five square kilome-
  ters. The Thorne is gradually canvassing the night sky 
  and transmitting the data to public feeds for analysis. 
  The Thorne is the subject of recent media hype due to 
  the new craze of vanitycasting, where people egocast 
  forks of themselves to the stars or into deep space 
  in hopes of being retrieved by distant aliens. While 
  it’s acknowledged that the likelihood of a vanitycast 
  being successful is low, the practice has won the argo-
  nauts a lot of positive reputation.
  THE OORT CLOUD
  The Oort Cloud is a sphere of dust and asteroids that 
  extends to the edge of the gravitational reach of the 
  sun. The difficulties of life without infrastructure in the 
  Kuiper Belt are compounded in the Oort Cloud. Because 
  of this, the transhuman population in the Oort Cloud 
  is less than 15,000, almost all restricted to a handful of 
  ships and research outposts within the Inner Oort Cloud.
  The Inner Oort Cloud, from 2,000 to 5,000 AU, 
  marks the outermost expansion of transhumanity. 
  Several millions of asteroids are documented, ranging 
  from a few meters to 2,000 kilometers across. 
  Resources include ice, organics, minerals, and, due 
  to heavy exposure to cosmic wind, a number of 
  rare elements including lithium and boron, though 
  commercial mining is unfeasible. 
  The Outer Oort Cloud extends to 150,000 AU 
  from the sun to interstellar space. The Outer Oort 
  Cloud has been the subject of significant scientific 
  scrutiny as the frontier for astronomy, physics, and 
  space flight. Only three pre-Fall probes have breached 
  the area; it otherwise remains beyond the reach of 
  transhumanity. The Outer Oort Cloud is scanned by 
  
  9.
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  9
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  9.
  OUTER FRINGE
  145
  Fall. The out’ster colonists have since utilized the 
  probe’s nanofabricator to extract resources from 
  several deep space objects and build additional ships 
  and upgrades.
  The swarm is made up of sixty-eight ships. The 
  inhabitants live in simulspace environments or sleeve 
  directly into the ships themselves. Due to the scarcity 
  of power, ships normally coast, mostly disabled. 
  Even within the group, ships are highly isolationist. 
  Fragmentary reports suggest the out’sters spend much 
  of their time in simulspace worlds, in quiet obser-
  vance of outer space, or in hibernation. Ego-mixing 
  on ships is common, causing psychoses such as 
  dissociative identity disorder, weak ego boundaries, 
  false memories, and social disorders. Contact with 
  the swarm is unusual, but has revealed a complex 
  mythology orienting around the belief in an unknown 
  intelligence active in the cloud.
  NÍNGJÌNG (30,000 AU)
  Ship Type: Automated Probe
  Allegiance: Jovian Republic
  Primary Languages: None
  Population: 0
  The Níngjìng probe is the most distant artifact of 
  pre-Fall humanity. It is currently 31,846 AU from the 
  sun and is still semi-functional due to novel upgrades 
  by software engineers and auto-repair systems. Its 
  payload includes a suite of intelligence-gathering tools. 
  The Jovian Republic somehow acquired the commu-
  nication protocols and maintains tight control over 
  the probe, with polymorphic encryption and military-
  grade anti-intrusion software. Communication with 
  the probe has stepped up significantly over the past 
  few months; Firewall investigations have failed to 
  determine the source of interest.
  TYCHE (50,000 AU)
  Discovered before the Fall, Tyche is a “cold Jupiter” 
  that orbits the sun with a perihelion of 50,000 AU. 
  Pre-Fall myths held that Tyche was the fabled planet 
  Nibiru, believed by UFOlogists and end-time proph-
  esies to be responsible for the end of life on Earth. 
  Because of its remoteness, only a single probe has 
  been sent to Tyche, and the results brought more ques-
  tions than answers.
  The planet challenges current categorizations of 
  exoplanets. Its mass is four times that of Jupiter, but 
  its volume is one fifth, with an average atmospheric 
  temperature of –261 C. It is veiled in a heavy, murky 
  ammonia atmosphere that blocks visual observa-
  tions beyond a few hundred kilometers. Given its 
  density, the core of the planet is believed to either 
  be much larger than any previously discovered 
  gas giant or containing an inordinate amount of 
  heavier elements. 
  The planet is subject to near-continuous observa-
  tions. Argonauts have sent a pair of probes, but 
  neither will reach Tyche for several decades yet. 
  Despite the attention, Tyche has kept its secrets well.
  lab. Researchers live, work, and worship on the 
  interior of the 120-kilometer-wide asteroid, with the 
  goal of “resurrecting” all humans and transhumans 
  since the beginning of history into a simulspace 
  version of heaven. Research studies on Evangelium 
  center around quantum reconstructive ego retrieval. 
  The Resurrectionists have achieved minor advances 
  in egocasting techniques, but all outsider accounts 
  indicate they have fallen short of their ambitious 
  goals. Still, concerns have been raised over accounts 
  that suggest Resurrectionist researchers have reduced 
  safeguards in order to achieve their goals.
  ICS-201 CRYSTAL WIND (4,000 AU)
  Ship Type: Colony Seed Ship
  Allegiance: Titanian Commonwealth
  Primary Languages: English, 
  Mandarin, Skandinavíska
  Population: 8,000
  The Crystal Wind is currently breaching the Inner 
  Oort Cloud on its way to Barnard’s Star. Funded by 
  the Plurality and a small number of private investors, 
  it was built at the Titan shipyards with a unique 
  engine design that required millions of person-hours 
  for construction. A single ticket on the seed-ship 
  costs a small fortune, giving rise to speculation as to 
  the identities of many of the anonymous passengers. 
  Paparazzi and analysts have speculated that the forks 
  of several major inner system figures are on board, 
  perhaps hoping to establish themselves beyond the 
  reach of Pandora Gates and TITANs.
  The Crystal Wind is planned to be the third ship to 
  arrive at Barnard’s Star, following a Von Neumann 
  machine and a processor locus ship of first-generation 
  infomorph homesteaders in cold storage. The trip is 
  anticipated to take around 800 years, during which 
  all of the passengers will use either simulspace time 
  dilation or hibernation. The passengers are cele-
  brating their final few months in civilized space with 
  a prolonged gala, including a long list of socialites 
  and entertainers. As the ship passes beyond 5,000 AU, 
  the over-sized recreation decks will be ejected and the 
  secondary fusion boosters will ignite, pushing the ship 
  beyond effective egocasting range.
  IOCC-226 TYCHO BRAHE (8,000 AU)
  Station Type: Swarm
  Allegiance: Independent (Out’ster)
  Primary Languages: English
  Population: 460
  Tycho Brahe is the farthest known ship/habitat in 
  the solar system. It was originally launched before 
  the Fall as a versatile automated research probe. It 
  was breached by the Gorillas, a group of anarchist 
  hacktivists seeking to liberate it from government 
  control. Following much scandal, funding for the 
  project was cut. Access to the probe was bought and 
  stolen many times, sometimes simultaneously, until 
  the first homesteaders uploaded themselves directly 
  into the computers and shut off access during the 
  
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  10
  ANARCHISTS 
  At their core anarchists oppose social, economic, 
  and political hierarchies. n p. 153
  AUTONOMIST ORGANIZATIONS
  Fissure Gate Task Force: Along with the Love and Rage Collective, coordinates resources, 
  projects, and personnel for extrasolar missions.  n p. 150
  Open Science Initiative: Creates educational tools, distributes research, and attempts to 
  keep science in the hands of the people. n p. 152
  Contact: Establishes protocol for alien contact. n p. 152
  Collectivists: The majority of anarchists identify with this egalitarian movement. n p. 160
  Anarcho-transhumanists: So-called “blue” anarchists use technology to further anarchist ideals. n p. 160
  Insurrectionists: As long as inequality exists, insurrectionists think that anarchists need to go further to stop it. n p. 160
  Primitivists: Industry and technology lead to opression; these extremists support population reduction and small-scale tribes. n p. 161
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  10
  ANARCHISTS 
  At their core anarchists oppose social, economic, 
  and political hierarchies. n p. 153
  AUTONOMIST ORGANIZATIONS
  Fissure Gate Task Force: Along with the Love and Rage Collective, coordinates resources, 
  projects, and personnel for extrasolar missions.  n p. 150
  Open Science Initiative: Creates educational tools, distributes research, and attempts to 
  keep science in the hands of the people. n p. 152
  Contact: Establishes protocol for alien contact. n p. 152
  Collectivists: The majority of anarchists identify with this egalitarian movement. n p. 160
  Anarcho-transhumanists: So-called “blue” anarchists use technology to further anarchist ideals. n p. 160
  Insurrectionists: As long as inequality exists, insurrectionists think that anarchists need to go further to stop it. n p. 160
  Primitivists: Industry and technology lead to opression; these extremists support population reduction and small-scale tribes. n p. 161
  
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE 
  POINTS OF UNITY 
  These four points bind the Alliance’s 
  factions together. n p. 150
  SCUM 
  Dropouts: How a culture of hedonistic drifters 
  came to be. n p. 169
  Nomadic Black Markets: The scum bring their 
  illicit services and goods to anyone that will 
  take them. n p. 171
  Freak Show: Notable scum swarms. n p. 172
  EXTROPIANS 
  Legacy: Descended from the first 
  transhumanists, Extropian beliefs fuse futurism, 
  rationality, and free market ideologies. n p. 163
  Contractual Society: In Extropian society, laws 
  and security are a matter of contracts. n p. 164
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE 
  POINTS OF UNITY 
  These four points bind the Alliance’s 
  factions together. n p. 150
  SCUM 
  Dropouts: How a culture of hedonistic drifters 
  came to be. n p. 169
  Nomadic Black Markets: The scum bring their 
  illicit services and goods to anyone that will 
  take them. n p. 171
  Freak Show: Notable scum swarms. n p. 172
  EXTROPIANS 
  Legacy: Descended from the first 
  transhumanists, Extropian beliefs fuse futurism, 
  rationality, and free market ideologies. n p. 163
  Contractual Society: In Extropian society, laws 
  and security are a matter of contracts. n p. 164
  
  148
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  Posted by: Lucida Parsons,  
  Firewall Proxy 
  <Info Msg Rep>
   
  To hear the Consortium media stooges tell it, anar-
  chism, Extropianism, and technosocialism are passing 
  fads, short-lived political “experiments” dreamed 
  up by a handful of malcontents in the aftermath of 
  the Fall to keep the “legitimate governments” of the 
  system from making a smooth transition to ruling 
  everything from Sol to Eris. But you know how 
  it is with media stooges, they never met a fact they 
  couldn’t spin into a lie.
  While it’s true that autonomists weren’t major 
  players in solar affairs prior to the Fall, we’re not 
  newcomers by any means. While the oligarchs and 
  CEOs were polishing their rockets and thinking up 
  new ways to fork an indenture into a few more years 
  of cheap labor, we were taking the new tech and 
  discarded masses and figuring out ways of breaking 
  down both to make a better world for everyone. Our 
  goal was to build up a more resilient society that 
  could deal with things like the Fall and come out 
  stronger than before.
  And that, dear listener, is what really scares the 
  Consortium more than anything else. We were the big 
  winners of the Fall. Nearly every other group found 
  themselves diminished, weakened, or on the verge of 
  extinction after the TITANs struck, but we were ready 
  and able to take a disaster and turn it around, liber-
  ating millions and providing the basis for a strong and 
  enduring confederation of societies among the most 
  hardscrabble and desolate areas of the solar system. 
  That scares them.
  If we can take a punch to the gut like the Fall and 
  not just stand back up, but punch back, and keep 
  punching for another ten years, what does that say 
  about old tired political and social systems like the 
  ones you see on Mars and Venus, ones that are rent 
  with division and on the verge of boiling over with 
  rebellion? We’re the bogeyman of the inner system 
  for good reason: we are the future, the onrushing 
  tide of change and liberty that will wash away the 
  corruption and selfishness of the past, casting off the 
  norms and shackles that have kept transhumanity 
  down and prevented us from realizing our full poten-
  tial. We represent the chimera of the future, that 
  ever-changing, multi-headed beast that is adaptable 
  and fierce. This is who we are, the future, and we’re 
  already here.
  AN ALLIANCE OF EQUALS
  The first thing to understand about the Autonomist 
  Alliance is that it is not a government, or even an 
  alliance of governments. There’s no one in charge, no 
  standing military, no laws enforced on its members. 
  There are no figureheads, no headquarters, and very 
  little in the way of institutions. It is best described 
  as a mutual aid and defense pact, a network by 
  which any autonomist-identified habitat, group, or 
  even individual can call upon others for assistance 
  and protection.
  FINDING AUTONOMY
  The seeds of the Alliance were already spread 
  throughout the outer system before the Fall. The 
  rimward areas were still very much frontier space, 
  with vast distances between astronomical bodies and 
  no encompassing legal authority. Various libertarian-
  minded entrepreneurs, adherents to the Extropian 
  philosophy, were already laying claim to territories in 
  order to found their own anarcho-capitalist utopias, 
  free from taxation and other government restrictions. 
  The availability of nanofabricators and fuel mass 
  increased the survival viability of small habitats and 
  stations even near the outermost planets. Disgruntled 
  and idealistic employees, indentures, and convict 
  workers went AWOL from their assignments, taking 
  their employers’ assets with them, confident that the 
  costs of tracking them down over such vast distances 
  would deter pursuit and retribution. Political dissi-
  dents and open source advocates funded small drone 
  ships to establish robotic outposts, establishing the 
  first darknets and infomorph/synthmorph data havens 
  and brinker colonies. Their numbers were small, their 
  resources limited, but these frontier settlers were just 
  the first wave.
  For the most part, the hypercorps active in the 
  outer system were content to leave these rebels and 
  outcasts alone. Resources and space were readily 
  available enough that there was very little in the way 
  of conflicting interests and engaging in hostilities was 
  not exactly a good profit model. The same was true of 
  the various nation-states from Earth, who were even 
  further behind in their colonization, exploration, and 
  resource exploitation initiatives, hampered as they 
  were by ecological crises, petty wars, budget issues, 
  and unruly populations back home. Most govern-
  ments of the period took the long view, believing 
  that they would slowly but surely conquer the solar 
  system at their own pace, and so they could wait and 
  reintegrate the various rimward settlers when the 
  appropriate time came. They did not anticipate the 
  TITANs ruining their plans.
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  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  149
  on Earth did serve to focus the attention of the states 
  and corporations inward, however, leaving even 
  more room for the burgeoning autonomists to grow, 
  network, and solidify their infrastructure. More than 
  a few remote outposts found themselves suddenly 
  liberated as the governments and businesses that 
  owned and controlled them simply ceased to exist. 
  Others were seized by rebels confident they were too 
  remote and inconsequential to face retribution.
  The rimward autonomists also sprang into action, 
  pushing their networks to the limit to accept infugees 
  and refugees from Earth. Though the powers of the 
  inner system were often reluctant to allow egos to 
  pass and potentially swell the ranks of their adver-
  saries, most habitats were already overwhelmed and 
  had no choice but to pass off the excess. Rather than 
  forcing these infugees into virtual slavery or cold 
  storage, most autonomist stations did what they could 
  to re-life their guests. Many of these re-instantiated 
  people adapted eagerly to the autonomist economy, 
  where they had all their basic needs met, were not 
  forced to sell their labor to survive, and could pursue 
  their interests at leisure.
  Even as the TITANs disappeared and the dust of 
  the wars on Earth was settling, the hypercapitalist 
  oligarchs were already considering the threat this 
  rag-tag network of radicals, free-thinkers, criminals, 
  and drop-outs posed to their dominance of the solar 
  system. The memetic warfare began almost immedi-
  ately, with the autonomists demonized as a threat to 
  the transhumans surviving the Fall thanks to their 
  unrestricted technologies and anarchistic mindsets. 
  Hysterical demagogues accused the autonomists 
  of trading in intellectual property stolen from the 
  struggling creatives, engineers, and programmers of 
  inner system habitats. The former owners of rimward 
  habitats that had liberated themselves came calling, 
  demanding their property back. When the residents 
  refused, mercenary units were assembled and the 
  autonomists were threatened with military action. 
  Financial liens were placed on infugees transmitted 
  to autonomist habs for outrageous retroactive 
  “farcasting fees.” Embargoes and blockades were 
  placed on stations that refused to comply with inner 
  system economic demands. In many habitats in and 
  around Earth, Luna, Venus, and Mars, left-wing activ-
  ists and sympathizers were rounded up and accused 
  of conspiring with outer system terrorists—or worse, 
  the TITANs. Autonomists were often lumped together 
  with uplifts and AGIs as a triumvirate threat to 
  humanity’s future by biochauvinists and bioconserva-
  tives. Tensions rose and sporadic conflicts flared.
  It was at this point that various anarchist, 
  Extropian, scum, brinker, and other stations estab-
  lished the mutual aid and defense pact that came to be 
  called the Autonomist Alliance. A simple set of Points 
  of Unity bound these often-fractious factions together, 
  unified against the threat posed by inner system and 
  Jovian powers. Though simple and direct, these Points 
  One of the few Earth powers (aside from the North 
  and South Americans colonizing Jupiter) to buck the 
  trend was the North Atlantic Consortium, an alliance 
  of Scandinavian nations that launched an ambitious 
  plan to colonize Titan. Bringing along a techno-
  socialist mindset, these early Titanians often found 
  their interests more closely aligned with the various 
  rimward radicals than the hypercorps or other Earth 
  powers. Their habitats were one of the few locations 
  where the various sub-factions all met to trade, share 
  information and resources, and socialize.
  As the Fall neared, however, tensions began to 
  rise. More and more future-minded visionaries on 
  Earth began to realize the opportunity the frontier 
  presented. New projects were launched to estab-
  lish yet more colonies, while more and more egos 
  found ways to transmit themselves to outer system 
  outposts. Though scattered and small, these autono-
  mous outposts were growing in number and size 
  and becoming less isolated. The defection of the 
  Hydrogen’s Promise habitat was the first sign of a 
  major shift.
  Hydrogen’s Promise was a Reagan cylinder in 
  orbit around Jupiter owned by an American multi-
  national named Destiny Metals and Fuels. In 3 BF, 
  the contract labor (many of whom were convicts 
  from Earth) seized the station in a wildcat strike, 
  claiming that Destiny had been shorting the crew 
  on anti-radiation meds. Though Destiny claimed the 
  laborers were just looking for a way to break their 
  contracts, they did not have the means to immediately 
  deal with the strike. By the time an American warship 
  was dispatched to quell the uprising, the syndicalist 
  worker’s council established by the strikers had 
  already signed a deal with an Extropian arms dealer, 
  Nathan Samuels, who had outfitted the station with 
  state-of-the-art defensive batteries. A few well-placed 
  warning shots staved off the Americans, who were 
  reluctant to simply bombard the habitat from a 
  distance. Hoping to divert the incident from devolving 
  into a tragedy, a group of Titanian settlers stepped in 
  to mediate the conflict, bringing striker delegates and 
  Destiny negotiators to the meeting table. Though the 
  discussions were contentious, the Titanians managed 
  to drag them out for several years—at which point 
  the Fall occurred, Destiny ceased to exist, and the 
  workers’ ownership of the cylinder became de facto.
  The Hydrogen’s Promise incident is notable as one 
  of the first situations when the various autonomist 
  proto-factions united and worked together. It also 
  served as a stark example of workers’ power and 
  the difficulties the hypercorps and governments had 
  in keeping their remote outposts under firm control, 
  sparking several similar strikes and rebellions in the 
  years to follow.
  When the Fall came, the outer system was largely 
  spared by the TITANs, with the exception of their 
  takeover of Iapetus and a handful of isolated 
  outbreaks that were (mostly) contained. The crisis 
  
  150
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  to implicit goals held by most Alliance factions and 
  participants, such as securing and growing autonomist 
  society, limiting the power of the Consortium, the 
  Junta, and similar authoritarian powers, and so on. 
  With the exception of a handful of Joint Resolutions, 
  few of these are committed to in writing.
  The Joint Resolutions are a set of statements the 
  Alliance has put forth as “policy” in accordance with 
  its Points of Unity. Anything may be proposed to the 
  Alliance as a resolution, granted that it is backed (digi-
  tally signed) by at least 500,000 unique autonomists. 
  Such resolutions are put forth to a public referendum 
  vote via the mesh, in which any sapient agreeing to 
  the Alliance Points of Unity may vote. A simple three-
  fourths (75%) majority of votes is required to pass 
  (for voting purposes, alpha forks are only considered 
  unique and separate sapients after 6 months of diver-
  gence; beta and lesser forks do not get a vote).
  To date, only a score of resolutions have passed, 
  and most of these did so with near-unanimous votes. 
  The first Joint Resolution passed was a simple decla-
  ration condemning the imperialistic aggression of the 
  Planetary Consortium after the Second Battle of Locus 
  and calling on autonomists everywhere to express 
  support and solidarity to resist its hypercorp expan-
  sionism. Similar resolutions have passed, condemning 
  the repression of uplifts and AGIs and affirming their 
  rights as sapients. Notably, a resolution to condemn 
  indentured servitude as slavery was narrowly defeated 
  by an organized Extropian memetic campaign. Not all 
  resolutions have been condemnatory; in a nod to their 
  radical roots, one Joint Resolution marked May 1st—
  May Day—as an official Alliance holiday. Another 
  positive resolution threw Alliance support behind 
  the Love and Rage Collective and their gatecrashing 
  exploration, research, and colonization missions.
  AUTONOMIST ORGANIZATIONS
  Several Joint Resolutions have led to the creation of 
  task forces to carry out the declared decisions. Only 
  a few such task forces exist, and they are all staffed 
  by volunteers. Though they operate in accordance 
  with the resolution’s mandate, they have no distinct 
  authority unto themselves.
  One of the best examples for this is the Fissure Gate 
  Task Force, which coordinates resources, projects, and 
  personnel for extrasolar missions with the Love and 
  Rage Collective. FGTG groups can be found on most 
  major autonomist habitats where they recruit new 
  of Unity are notable for referring to “all sapients” 
  rather than “transhumans” or “people,” making it 
  clears that uplifts and even AGIs were included in 
  their vision of a free society.
  The Alliance faced its first real test with the first 
  Battle of Locus, when the Planetary Consortium 
  directed a small fleet to seize the anarchist stronghold, 
  allegedly to protect against claim-jumping in the Main 
  Belt and to shut down a nexus of intellectual property 
  infringement, but really in the hopes of weakening 
  the autonomist movement. The anarchists had been 
  expecting this for some time and had skillfully duped 
  the Consortium’s intelligence gathering efforts. The 
  fleet met an unexpectedly heavy and sophisticated 
  resistance and was forced to withdraw after several 
  ships were severely damaged. Though the Consortium 
  had been bloodied in the skirmish, everyone knew this 
  was just the first move, and a much stronger response 
  was anticipated. While there were many who felt the 
  autonomists had no chance of standing against a 
  coordinated military attack from the inner system—or 
  the Jovians, for that matter—the outright aggressive 
  nature of the assault sparked anger across the outer 
  rim, spurring many autonomist groups to solidify 
  their support for each other.
  When the Consortium launched a second attack 
  fleet against Locus a few months later, the battle 
  was exponentially more brutal. The hypercorp ships 
  were more numerous and better prepared after their 
  previous defeat, but the anarchists had bolstered 
  their defenses and gained a number of allies. Various 
  anarchist, scum, Extropian, and even brinker crews 
  from around the outer system had brought their craft, 
  hoping to get in on the fight. They still would have 
  been outnumbered and outgunned, however, if not 
  for the arrival of the Titanian Fleet. Knowing that the 
  Commonwealth would be targeted soon after the anar-
  chists, the Titanian Plurality had chosen a side, offi-
  cially becoming a part of the Autonomist Alliance. The 
  Consortium fleet was routed, and a clear message was 
  delivered that the Alliance would not capitulate easily.
  ALLIANCE GOALS
  Being a simple sum of its constituents, and given the 
  distaste most autonomists have for hierarchy and 
  power, the Alliance has no set agenda or goals per 
  se. There is, in fact, considerable resistance towards 
  making the Alliance anything more formal or orga-
  nizational than it already is. At best, one can point 
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE POINTS OF UNITY
  • We demand autonomy, self-organization, and 
  self-governance for all sapient beings.
  • We support direct democracy and forms of 
  organization where sapients collectively decide 
  their own future.
  • We promote mutual aid and reciprocating 
  altruism between sapients.
  • We affirm the right to engage in self-defense 
  against oppression and coercive authority and 
  stand in solidarity with sapients so attacked. n
  
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  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  151
  DETERRENTS
  1 So you don’t believe the Second Battle of Locus is what 
  kept the Consortium from taking over the outer system?
  2  Not for a second. They may have lost the battle, but they 
  still retained far superior military strength. I’ve heard 
  many people say that an anarchist society would never 
  last because it would be vulnerable to outside aggression, 
  to military action from states. Well, the anarchists are 
  outgunned, but it doesn’t matter, because there are other 
  deterrent factors.
  1 So what, in your opinion, is actually keeping the 
  Consortium, or the Jovians, or even the Lunars or 
  ultimates from claiming the outer system as theirs and 
  seizing it?
  2  I can think of several, but let me point out a few 
  specific incidents that I think will highlight my points. 
  First, you might remember there was another military 
  action right around the time of the Second Battle of 
  Locus, where hypercorp mercs went after the habitat 
  Hydrogen’s Promise.
  1 Yeah, I recall that. They bombarded it, blew it up, didn’t 
  they? Killed thousands?
  2  Sort of. The mercs actually won the space battle, though 
  just like Locus, they weren’t expecting the anarchists to 
  be so well-armed—turns out a lot more mil-spec space 
  defense blueprints ended up in liberated autonomist 
  nanofabbers after the Fall than anyone realized. They 
  actually seized the habitat, though resistance was so 
  stiff inside that they were still engaging in house-to-
  house fighting over a week later, even after dropping 
  the breathable atmo levels on day one. The kicker was, 
  they never had as full control of the hab as they thought. 
  When it finally became clear the cylinder was taken, the 
  anarchists triggered a scorched-Earth policy. They nuked 
  the whole damn thing. Destroyed the entire habitat, the 
  merc marines, and a substantial chunk of the merc fleet 
  as well.
  1 Holy fuck. That’s one way to make a statement.
  2  It was a clear lesson on how super-empowering tech-
  nology has changed warfare. The anarchists were willing 
  to fight to the last and die, because they were backed 
  up elsewhere. Even the smallest habitats could be 
  armed with devastating weapons, thanks to unrestricted 
  nanofab. Not only could they prevent the Consortium 
  from seizing stations, they could make each and every 
  military action an excessively costly affair. Conquering 
  the rim wasn’t an option, the Consortium could at best 
  hope to destroy all the habitats from afar and kill all the 
  autonomists, but then they would have to rebuild. And 
  would they ever get them all?
  1 OK, I can see how that would make them rethink 
  their strategy.
  2  There’s more. Take a look through the news archives 
  around that time, keeping a specific eye on incidents 
  within the Consortium. There were a lot that stand out. 
  An indentured riot and habitat takeover in Lunar orbit. 
  The assassination by drone of a connected hypercorp 
  CEO on Venus. Spacecraft sabotage in Martian orbit. A 
  nanoplague released on Progress that targeted a specific 
  designer line of morphs favored by Planetary Congress 
  representatives. The hacker group Anon taking down 
  the Planetary Stock Exchange for 2 days straight. I could 
  go on.
  1 So, lesson #2: the anarchists were bringing the war home.
  2  That’s right, there were clear signs that a protracted war 
  with the outer system would have been largely unpopular 
  and would have decreased stability and safety within 
  core Consortium habitats.
  1 OK, I can see that, but that might just be the cost of 
  conquering the solar system. Once the autonomists were 
  wiped out, they could focus on regaining control at home.
  2  Possibly, but there’s more. The same week as the Second 
  Battle of Locus, there was an unusual incident in Jovian 
  space. A private corvette was targeted and destroyed 
  by Jovian fighters while making a slingshot maneuver 
  around Jupiter. The Jovians claim the ship never paid the 
  levy to pass through their space and ignored communica-
  tions and warnings; Consortium records disagree on that 
  point. Oh, and the corvette happened to be carrying Fa 
  Jing’s top rep to the Hypercorp Council itself. Whoops.
  1 So the Jovians were sending a message?
  2  That’s my take on it. The Jovians stick to themselves 
  on most affairs, and they don’t like the autonomists of 
  course, but they also don’t like the idea of the Consortium 
  seizing control of most of the system. Locus isn’t too far 
  off from Jovian space, so this may have been their way of 
  telling the Consortium to stay out of their backyard. Or 
  maybe, just maybe, even the Jovians realized that starting 
  another war when 95% of transhumanity was just wiped 
  out wasn’t the best idea. Either way, they expressed their 
  dislike for the Consortium’s military adventurism.
  1 Heh, I doubt any Jovian would ever admit to siding with 
  the autonomists, but I admit to seeing the logic there. 
  Even with all of these factors, however, I’m not fully 
  convinced the Consortium wouldn’t just go for it anyway.
  2  Well, there are other potential considerations, but they 
  are sketchy and unsubstantiated. I’m not sure they’re 
  worth taking into account.
  1 This isn’t that Factor conspiracy theory again, is it?
  2  I think a lot of people are willing to believe that the 
  Factors are meddling in transhuman affairs—and given 
  some of the rumors, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised 
  myself. Sure, maybe they threatened to intervene if 
  transhumanity started warring with itself, but I doubt it. I 
  think it’s more likely they’d simply step back and wait for 
  a victor to emerge.
  1 Oh, let me guess. Is it that other craziness, the meme 
  about the alien doomsday weapon the anarchists found 
  out beyond the Fissure Gate?
  2  Ha, no I chalk that one up to anti-autonomist propaganda. 
  No, the rumor I’m thinking of specifically has to do with 
  a certain … group of rumored intelligences. Let’s just say 
  their name starts with “P” and rhymes with “TITANs.”
  1 I have no idea what you’re talking about.
  2  I hope for both of our sakes that is true. 
  
  152
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  research and new designs, coordinating research 
  between different science teams, archiving science data 
  on the mesh, and evaluating safeguards to prevent 
  scientific projects from growing into x-risks.
  One small but growing task force is simply known 
  as Contact. Delegated to train transhumanists in 
  astrosociology, exobiology, and first contact protocols, 
  most Contact affiliates can be found at Chat Noir or 
  Portal, working with various gatecrashing teams and 
  prepared for the contingency of making contact with 
  alien life. Contact teams also negotiate on behalf of 
  various autonomist groups and habitats with the 
  Factors on their semi-regular visits.
  AUTONOMOUS FACTIONS
  There’s a saying that among any 3 autonomists you’ll 
  find 4 separate factions. Though everyone knows that 
  the anarchists, Extropians, scum, and Titanians are all 
  part of the Autonomist Alliance, this is a simplified 
  notion. In truth, each of these groupings is composed 
  of numerous sub-factions, delineated by fine ideolog-
  ical positions that are sometimes opaque to outsiders. 
  Some sub-factions are so distinct that they do not 
  actually adhere to the Alliance’s Points of Unity, 
  though a lack of formal organization often makes this 
  difficult to pin down except with specific individuals. 
  There are also many self-identified autonomists who 
  decry these factions altogether, sometimes counting 
  themselves as brinkers, Barsoomians, or adhering to 
  some smaller socio-ideological sub-set instead.
  gatecrashers, coordinate research efforts, and acquire 
  needed supplies for transfer to Chat Noir.
  Another interesting example of a resolution-founded 
  task force is the Open Science Initiative (OSI). This 
  project’s mandate is simple: put science in the hands 
  of everyone. The OSI syndicate works closely with 
  the argonauts around the outer system, creating new 
  science education tools, spreading the results of recent 
  SPECIAL OUTREACH
  To: <encrypted>
  From: <encrypted>
  Everyone thinks the autonomists are too 
  disorganized, too decentralized, to have their 
  own spy networks. They are wrong. A leaderless 
  initiative of cells exists throughout autonomist 
  space, dedicated to keeping an eye on ideo-
  logical enemies, archiving and correlating intel 
  data, and sharing it with other autonomists 
  that need to know. Some of them run sophis-
  ticated communication intercepts and network 
  intrusion centers. A few dedicate themselves to 
  going deep undercover and infiltrating hyper-
  corp or government organizations. It is almost 
  certain that these cells share data with CRAM 
  and similar insurrectionist cells. 
  
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  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  153
  therefore seek a social system that abolishes authority 
  and power relationships to maximize freedom 
  and equality.
  MISCONCEPTIONS AND REALITY
  Thanks to capitalist propaganda over the centuries, 
  the definition of anarchism has been distorted and 
  anarchists demonized. So let’s clear up some common 
  misconceptions. First, though anarchism and anarchy 
  are sometime used interchangeably, anarchism is not 
  chaos. Anarchists do not defy organization; they seek 
  horizontal methods of working together that minimize 
  hierarchies and give everyone involved an equal say. 
  They are not even opposed to rules, as long as such 
  rules are collectively decided upon by those that 
  ANARCHISTS
  Posted by: Pablo Dolgoff,  
  Anarchist 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  To the average citizen of the Consortium and other 
  sunward polities, the anarchists are are the bogeymen 
  of the rim planets, widely misunderstood and feared 
  as terrorists and insurgents. This is to be expected, as 
  anarchism rejects both capitalism and the state and so 
  is as opposite of hypercorp ideologies as you can get.
  What do anarchists believe? In simple terms, we are 
  opposed to social, economic, and political hierarchies. 
  At its core, anarchism is a critique of power and how 
  it is used to exploit and oppress others. Anarchists 
  INNER SYSTEM AUTONOMISTS
  Not all autonomists live on the far side of the Belt. 
  Squirreled away in the nooks and crannies of the 
  inner fringe are a few small anarchist outposts, 
  quietly doing their thing while keeping a low pro-
  file—and playing safe haven for anarchist travelers. 
  More tolerated—and thus more in the open—are 
  a handful of Titanian-allied stations and some 
  larger Extropian colonies. Quite a few autonomist 
  spacecraft also go about their biz, particularly scum 
  swarms and Extropian merchants. These ships occa-
  sionally run into red tape and legal hassles, particu-
  larly if the authorities have reason to suspect any 
  links to subversive activities. More than a few ships 
  have been seized as a matter of “security.”
  Among the citizens of various core system polities, 
  numerous self-identified autonomists live, work, 
  and thrive. Most are careful about declaring their 
  allegiances too openly, less they face extra scrutiny 
  or worse. Public sentiment towards autonomist 
  memes varies wildly from hab to hab, or sometimes 
  just person to person. Consortium and LLA habs 
  are known to restrict travel options for autonomist 
  sympathizers, and anarchists especially are subject 
  to the occasional “disappearance” or rendition, par-
  ticularly if any saboteurs or guerrilla cells have been 
  active lately.
  Autonomists traveling to the inner system usually 
  expect and prepare for the extra scrutiny and hassle 
  they know they will face. Certain black market oper-
  ators have a thriving biz in providing new identities 
  and backgrounds for such folks—sometimes these 
  are even legitimate, coming from stations that have 
  very lax policies about citizenship.
  One of the biggest challenges to autonomists visit-
  ing the transitional economies is simply adaptation. 
  More than a few anarchists easily forget the fun-
  damentals of that whole private property thing, so 
  they end up in trouble for theft when they wander 
  off with someone else’s stuff. Autonomists also tend 
  to be a bit naïve about crime—or expecting help 
  from random passers-by—and are sometimes specifi-
  cally targeted by gangs looking for an easy mark. n
  OUTER SYSTEM CAPITALISTS
  The rimward portion of the system is a helluva big 
  place—more than enough room for autonomists 
  and hypercapitalists to exist side-by-side without 
  getting in each other’s way. Despite the preconcep-
  tion that the rim is “autonomist space,” thousands 
  of hypercorps conduct business in the outer system, 
  via both physical and virtual presences. There are 
  also dozens of habitats that claim allegiance to the 
  Consortium, the LLA, Morningstar, or their particu-
  lar hypercorp overlords. The expanses of the rim are 
  considered a nice remote place for oligarchs who 
  like to make their private residences as far from the 
  proles as possible, and the sights out towards the 
  deep black draw roaming gangs of bored socialites 
  looking for the next thrill.
  Inner system folks are largely tolerated on autono-
  mist habs as long as they respect local customs. They 
  almost always require some hand-holding until they 
  get a grasp on how things work. They might be 
  watched more closely, especially if they have ties to cer-
  tain intelligence-gathering or mercenary outfits. The 
  attitudes they get from local autonomists will range 
  from pity to curiosity to uncaring or loathing. The big-
  gest stumbling block they face is lack of rep, and too 
  few are willing to put in the effort to build up a good 
  score. Most get by on low rep until they leave. 
  n
  
  154
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  get your info from many sources, be skeptical of the 
  tellers, and find your own path through the stories.
  Anarchism as a concept has been around since 
  ancient times, ever since the first peasant or thrall 
  of some power-hungry lord or priest first thought 
  “What makes him better than me?” Many primitive 
  societies were in fact anarchistic, operating with gift 
  economies or similar need-based systems. Both the 
  Greeks and the Chinese had words for it, and even 
  then those in power warned against “the masses.” The 
  idea that people could organize themselves without 
  creating institutional inequality was something those 
  ancient despots feared back in the days when all they 
  had to retain order were groups of thugs bought off 
  with extra privileges and irrational beliefs that some 
  cosmic power barely within our ken had set forth an 
  immutable order that decreed some should rule and 
  others grovel in subservience.
  For centuries, anarchism was an idea that fright-
  ened the monarchs who liked to use force to stamp on 
  citizens who dared question their authority. Modern 
  anarchism, as a fully realized political philosophy that 
  questioned those basic assumptions of rule and power, 
  grew up out of the death throes of the European 
  monarchies in the 18th and 19th centuries. The other 
  siblings of the revolutionary period—democracy, 
  socialism, and communism—got more play in the 
  years that followed, but anarchism too was growing 
  and spreading its wings. Though anarchists seized the 
  moment in many struggles—the Paris Commune, the 
  radical unionism that brought the 8-hour workday, 
  the Ukrainian peasant uprising in the Russian 
  Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the Zapatistas of 
  Chiapas, to name but a few—it failed to hold ground 
  for long. According to some, anarchism was too 
  revolutionary for the times, too egalitarian for even 
  the radical democrats of France and America, and 
  too challenging to the authority of the ideologues and 
  vanguardists of the various communist revolutions.
  Working against the anarchists in these early years 
  was that it was an age of technologies of expansion, 
  growth, and immensity. The problem of the day was 
  not finding out how to let small communities govern 
  themselves, but how to link them in to ever-larger 
  polities to harness the economies of scale. Capitalism 
  was reaching an apex, promising a wave of economic 
  prosperity that would raise all up with it to a new era 
  of wealth. Against this rising tide, anarchism seemed 
  quaint and backwards, unable to compete against 
  capitalism’s entrenched totality. Some anarchists even 
  grew reactionary, turning against technology, blaming 
  it for increasing human oppression and facilitating the 
  pillaging and destruction of the natural world.
  The decades before the Fall saw a shift back in 
  anarchism’s favor. The ongoing eco-catastrophes and 
  crises within capitalism on Earth were leading to 
  widespread inequality, social fragmentation, and radi-
  calization. As governments failed and began to spiral 
  out of control, citizens and communities rose up. Both 
  follow them, as opposed to being decreed on others 
  from above. Anarchists do not believe in might-is-
  right, survival-of-the-fittest, anything-goes social 
  disorder. They believe that cooperation is a better 
  survival strategy among sapients than competition.
  Detractors often like to say that anarchism looks 
  nice in theory, but that it wouldn’t work in practice. 
  After all, someone will shirk their collective duties, 
  or step in and take charge, or resort to murder and 
  rape with no rules to stop them. Putting aside for a 
  moment the numerous practical methods anarchists 
  wield to collectively deter anti-social behaviors, 
  this is a question of ethics and social responsibility. 
  Anarchists do not rely on threats of punishment in 
  Hell or violence from government thugs to back up 
  their moral behavior, they simply recognize that as 
  social creatures, it is in our own selfish best interests 
  to treat those with whom we deal with the same 
  respect as we wish from them. This is not idealism, it 
  is a pragmatic approach to how most people already 
  live their daily lives.
  All that shit you’ve heard about human nature 
  being selfish, self-centered, greedy, and generally 
  willing to screw over our fellow being in order to get 
  ahead? It’s just that: shit. Your average hypercorp 
  exec may like to wax rhapsodic about their favorite 
  animal and how they’re totally like that animal 
  because they’re the biggest, baddest apex predator 
  out there, willing to cut the throat of the guy next to 
  them for a handful of credits. Well, that sociopathic 
  crap isn’t how things really work. Humans exist as 
  a species because we’re able to cooperate, to share, 
  and to communicate information with each other 
  that helps us all out. Put another way, the core of the 
  hypercapitalist inner system is a certain pessimism 
  that people are bastards, rotten to the core, and will 
  sell you out given a chance. I don’t know about you, 
  but this isn’t the kind of world I’d want to live in. Our 
  view is a much more optimistic one: people will, given 
  even half a chance, help each other out and do what 
  they can for each other. This isn’t to say we live an 
  idyllic life free of crime or want or hardship, but only 
  that when these things happen we tend to aid each 
  other, even when it’s not our problem, because we 
  know that when it is our problem, those other people 
  will step up to help us out.
  FINDING OUR ROOTS
  Anarchism in its various forms has a long history, 
  going back well before the Fall. It helps to understand 
  where we came from, the mistakes and the lessons 
  of the past, and how we got to the here and now. 
  Mind you, you don’t need to know this history to be 
  welcome among us. Hell, plenty of anarchists live in 
  complete ignorance of our historical roots. There are 
  also many different versions of the story I’m gonna tell 
  you—that’s part of what we are, a collection of stories 
  all told from different perspectives. There is no one, 
  singular true account of the past. It is always better to 
  
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  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  155
  because they want to. Everyone has a body if they 
  want it, oxygen if they need it, and freedom as long 
  as they don’t oppress others. Our medical clinics 
  and educational resources are available to all. This 
  is the basis of our society, and anything less would 
  be a barbarity, the stripping away of human dignity 
  for the benefit of a few. We gladly do without jeweled 
  trinkets and rare mineral-encrusted status symbols so 
  that everyone may fabricate the essentials.
  The new anarchist credo, “From each according to 
  their imagination, to each according to their need,” 
  is an old quote by Marx reworked and repurposed 
  for the times we now find ourselves in. What this 
  means is that within anarchist spaces, the basic 
  needs of everyone are provided for: shelter, clothing, 
  food, water, air, education, healthcare, and security. 
  Nanofabrication and other advanced technologies 
  make this automatic and readily available. On anar-
  chist habs, community nanofabbers are everywhere 
  and unrestricted. This leaves us to use our time to 
  follow our desires in creative endeavors.
  It is a common fallacy among capitalists that 
  anarchists are lazy. They are right in that anarchists 
  reject work—that is, the compulsory devotion of life 
  to production and consumption, the prostitution of 
  our labor in return for a small percentage of what 
  it is worth. Instead, anarchists voluntarily pursue 
  their own interests, “working” on projects that they 
  find personally fulfilling, creative, or supportive 
  of others. Many devote their lives to expertise in a 
  particular field, proving that the desires to create, 
  excel, and to devote themselves tirelessly to projects 
  are not unique to societies which force people to 
  work. Without the need to increase production and 
  profits, of course, most anarchists only “work” for a 
  few hours a day, dedicating the rest to leisure. Those 
  that do “work” often game-ify the process to make it 
  more entertaining.
  What about menial work? Thankless jobs that no 
  one wants to do? Who gets to clean out the sewage 
  filter traps and scrape the barnacles off the habitat’s 
  hull? That’s what AIs and robots are for, my friend. 
  If a sapient’s involvement is required, there’s usually 
  someone willing to do the grunt work voluntarily, or 
  more commonly, a group of volunteers will rotate an 
  assignment. Such a sacrifice is almost always rewarded 
  with positive reputation boosts.
  With everyone on an anarchist habitat having 
  everything that they need, money and similar systems 
  have been abolished. All property beyond the level of 
  personal possessions is considered to be communally 
  owned. If something is in limited supply, its use is 
  rotated among people that need/desire to use it (with 
  a simple AI handling the schedule). If you need to 
  jump the line to get access to something rare in an 
  emergency, or need to use something that’s important 
  to the community as a whole (like taking a shuttle or 
  spaceship), your rep will be a large factor in whether 
  the locals decide to fulfill your request or not.
  communism and democracy had been disgraced by 
  past failures, turning many towards anarchism. The 
  populist protests of these groups won them many 
  recruits, but they also resulted in mass imprisonments, 
  especially for the anarchists who were much more 
  willing to use direct methods of confrontation.
  Many of these convicts ended up as indentures on 
  hypercorp space projects. There they found them-
  selves working among scientists, engineers, and other 
  technical professionals, many of whom had been 
  happy to leave behind cultures on Earth that were still 
  stifled by religious doctrines and social conservatism 
  and were sympathetic if not supportive of anarchist 
  ideals. Still other anarchists took to space as a new 
  frontier for their projects that was outside of govern-
  ment/corporate control. Together, these groups laid 
  the groundwork for anarchist habitats to come. Mesh 
  and nanofabrication technology now made it easier 
  than ever to live equally, without need, apart from 
  government or corporate domination. A new way of 
  life arose in the outer system, drawing many to it.
  When the Fall came, these anarchists embraced 
  everyone, turning no infugees away. Unlike the inner 
  system polities, which are always seeking ways to 
  control their populations, the anarchists promised 
  new lives and new bodies to everyone—and they 
  delivered. Though we’ve had our share of problems 
  and growing pains—no system is perfect—most anar-
  chist habitats have flourished.
  FROM EACH, TO EACH
  Many travelers from the core habitats are taken 
  aback by the nature of anarchist habitats. Though 
  we are often dismissed as utopian, our ways are not 
  the capitalist ideal to which many of them aspire. We 
  have no private habitats that are paradises for the 
  privileged few, where the stinking masses are kept 
  out. Our practices are an inversion of the way most 
  non-anarchists are taught to think about the world. 
  We do not idealize wealth and power, the acquisition 
  of rare goods, or the ability to make others do your 
  bidding whether they will it or not. Those beliefs, the 
  ideologies of the inner system, hold that we are all in 
  competition and the only way to get that better life 
  is by crushing your peers beneath you, climbing ever 
  upwards, leaving your lessers behind. They are the 
  philosophical basis for a system that elevates a lucky 
  few to dizzying heights of wealth, risen to the level of 
  celebrities to lord their riches over the rest, held forth 
  as aspirational models to the less fortunate. These 
  people are the enemy, the opposite of everything we 
  believe in.
  Instead we look not up but down, to those who 
  have less. We measure the worth of our society not on 
  the wealth and opulence of the richest and most well-
  to-do, but on the least fortunate, the least able, and 
  those who have had to do without. In our habitats 
  everyone eats, everyone has a place to sleep, everyone 
  has work that they do, not because they must, but 
  
  156
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  On a larger scale, these small bodies network 
  together in a decentralized, confederated fashion. 
  When a decisions affects an entire syndicate, confed-
  eration, or similar assembly of groups, the individual 
  groupings and members are polled in the same manner 
  as local decisions. The algorithms and programming 
  for these decision networks are very sophisticated, 
  enabling anarchist groups across the solar system to 
  coordinate efficiently and quickly—quite often more 
  rapidly than hierarchical command structures.
  CRIME AND JUSTICE
  So you’ve arrived in your first anarchist hab and, like 
  most first-timers, you may be put off by the fact that 
  there are people wandering around with weapons 
  hanging from their hips or that the corner fabber’s 
  menu lists “Molotov” under its directory of cocktail 
  choices. Or maybe you’re visiting a scum barge and 
  are offered a cutting edge narcoalgorithm right as 
  you step out the airlock. Or your muse gets pinged 
  with the newest Experia OS, the one that’s still in beta 
  back on Venus, and you may get to wondering, “Is 
  this legal?”
  Anarchism doesn’t mean “do whatever the hell you 
  want.” We have rules—not laws, but rules, guidelines, 
  suggestions for behaviors. The difference is, unlike a 
  law, they are mutable and often change from situation 
  to situation. Also our rules are something we have 
  arrived at by consensus, unlike the laws of many other 
  habitats, which are often made by those in power to 
  protect their interests without any feedback from the 
  people who will be subject to those laws. Everyone 
  in an anarchist habitat has had a say in the rules that 
  will affect them.
  With no money and no need, there is no motiva-
  tion to pursue many of the crimes that are common 
  in inner system habitats, such as theft. With no 
  laws, there is little in anarchist habitats that counts 
  as crime. Nevertheless, there is occasionally “rule 
  breaking” and anti-social behavior. Interpersonal 
  violence is, of course, frowned upon, though small 
  scale scuffles, such as a fight between friends, are 
  surprisingly tolerated and viewed as a private personal 
  dispute. Sometimes, people just need to brawl to get 
  it out of their system. Murder or other savage attacks 
  are taken more seriously, as is any sort of large-scale 
  destruction. Most anarchist habitats have collectively 
  decided to ban WMDs out of simple common sense.
  As a general guideline, anarchists consider ego 
  crimes to be far more serious than violent offenses. 
  Forknapping, non-consensual psychosurgery, cyber-
  brain or infomorph hacking, involuntary mental 
  manipulation—these are the sort of things that will 
  get a mob of angry locals on your neck right quick.
  Who responds when infractions occur? The 
  community does. With no prohibitions on weapons, 
  your average anarchist tends to be fairly well armed, 
  and many will intervene if they see someone needing 
  help or some other antisocial activity in progress. 
  NO GODS, NO MASTERS
  So, how does it actually work? Who makes decisions? 
  Who calls the shots? Who enforces the rules? Simply 
  put, we all do. Everyone affected by a decision has 
  a say in it. This may sound like a nightmare, but it’s 
  simply an organizational issue, easily facilitated by the 
  mesh and our muses.
  At the smallest level, anarchists organize themselves 
  in groups appropriate to the location, interest, or 
  project. Community assemblies, worker’s councils, 
  project co-ops, affinity groups, various collectives, and 
  similar bodies are each composed of their participants. 
  Everyone in these groupings is on equal footing; 
  there are no formalized hierarchies, and informal 
  hierarchies are intentionally discouraged. Leadership 
  positions are sometimes granted, particularly in situ-
  ations where quick decision-making is essential or 
  a coordinating person is needed, but these are only 
  enabled by universal vote and their decisions are 
  subject to immediate critical peer review and possible 
  recall. When interacting with other groups, delegates 
  are elected to convey the groups’ decisions. Such 
  delegates are not representatives, meaning that they 
  are not empowered to make decisions on the group’s 
  behalf, and must similarly answer to their peers.
  Decisions within groups are made most often by a 
  consensus process that seeks out unanimity, though 
  some groups settle for two-thirds or even simple 
  majority on contentious issues. Objections to a stated 
  proposal are discussed, potentially leading to amend-
  ments that reflect such concerns. Those with minor 
  disagreements are often content to let a proposal 
  pass, as long as their dissident views are reflected in 
  the record. Major disagreements that are unable to 
  be resolved can sometimes lead to a division within a 
  group, with those objecting leaving. This sort of split 
  is considered a feature, not a bug—when such diver-
  gent opinions are held, it is often better for people to 
  go their separate ways. Proposals, discussion, polling, 
  and voting are quite often handled entirely online, in 
  real-time. Many anarchists have trained their muses 
  to respond to these matters automatically according 
  to their preferences, to provide them with regular 
  summaries, and to notify them only of major issues 
  that deserve closer personal attention.
  STAR HIKE
  Star Hike is the mesh service that facilitates travel 
  between anarchist habitats, especially in local 
  neighborhoods of space. Via Star Hike, you can 
  easily hook up with a spacecraft crew that is 
  going your way. If you’re taking a shuttle on a 
  one-way trip, Star Hike is an excellent resource to 
  ensure the shuttle has return passengers and isn’t 
  heading back to its home station empty. 
  n
  
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  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  157
  doesn’t give you wealth, nor does it give you authority 
  over others unless they grant it.
  Creative expression is more common in our 
  habitats, a benefit of more leisure time. Our walls 
  are covered with artwork, murals, or simply graffiti 
  because many of us feel that blank walls equal blank 
  minds. Sculptures, entoptic designs, and eclectic AR 
  sensory feeds abound. Impromptu theater and musical 
  jam sessions are not an uncommon occurrence in 
  public areas. Flash mob pranks, MARGs, and other 
  group games are popular and widespread.
  Private residences are not bought, but are assigned 
  by a housing AI according to availability. Most 
  stations feature common living areas for travelers and 
  itinerants. These range from bunk-bed barracks to 
  coffin capsules to individual quarters depending on 
  available space.
  You won’t find the private sensor nets common 
  elsewhere, of course, but ubiquitous surveillance is 
  common and transparency is the order of the day. In 
  our society, there aren’t any big secrets regarding day 
  to day stuff. Most people’s lives are open books. If 
  you’re the sort of person who craves privacy, keeps to 
  yourself, and carefully constructs a false persona to 
  display to the world, you’re going to have some issues. 
  While most of your neighbors aren’t really going to 
  obsess over where you go and what you do, if you 
  present one account and then try to hide or lie about 
  the truth, it’s going to get around and make people 
  suspicious, and also make them wonder what else 
  you may be lying about. It’s not that we don’t have 
  privacy, but we don’t have it in the way you do in the 
  inner system. You can keep to yourself, but that only 
  goes so far, and attempts to lie or falsify your actions 
  usually come back to bite you in the ass.
  You’ll likely see a bit more variety among morphs, 
  bio-mods, and accessories in anarchist habs. 
  Individuality is prized over uniformity, so you won’t 
  see as many of the cookie-cutter cosmetic looks. 
  There’s also no stigma to running around in a clanker 
  or unusual chimeric design. In fact, synthmorphs are 
  incredibly common due to their versatility. One major 
  change from the inner system is that many biomorphs 
  here are modified to be equipped with cyberbrains 
  rather than biological models. This enables easier 
  forking and resleeving.
  Forking also doesn’t suffer from inner-system limi-
  tations. Many people fork for days or simply keep a 
  fork companion on hand for all purposes. Alphas are 
  not considered property and forcing one to re-merge 
  against its will is considered offensive. Most anar-
  chists, however, do not consider beta forks to be fully 
  sapient—though this is challenged by some, and some 
  stations treat betas as they do alphas.
  Uplifts and AGIs are both considered sapients and 
  treated as equals in anarchist societies. Though there 
  is some lingering AI paranoia from the Fall, most 
  AGIs find they are accepted and treated as people 
  on anarchist habs. In recent years, there has been an 
  Most anarchist areas have volunteer militias that 
  can be quickly mustered when needed to act in the 
  community’s self-defense, backed up by a comple-
  ment of heavily armed and armored security drones. 
  Similarly, volunteer collectives also man the weapon 
  systems that defend their colony from outside aggres-
  sion. Most anarchist stations also practice transpar-
  ency in public areas, enabling locals to keep an eye 
  on potential problems. You might be able to print up 
  some plastic explosives at that corner nanofab, but 
  the entire local community will be alerted to the fact 
  that you are doing so.
  When it comes to crime and conflict, anarchists also 
  have a much different take on resolution. The most 
  immediate thing is that pissing off other anarchists 
  can very quickly tank your rep score. “Punishment” 
  for crimes is largely considered a barbaric holdover 
  from the past. If someone is acting in an anti-social 
  manner, odds are there is a reason for it and they need 
  help. A typical anarchist response will be to select an 
  impartial group of peers from the affected community 
  to assess a situation, with rehabilitation and conflict 
  resolution overseen by volunteers from a community 
  crisis center as the preferred method of handling 
  offenders. Justice is also held as important, and the 
  opinion of the person who is the victim of a crime 
  is strongly considered. Anarchists have no prisons, 
  so an offender is expected to comply with a commu-
  nity’s judgment of their own free will. Those that 
  don’t—or who are repeat offenders—will be rewarded 
  with a quick ticket off the habitat and temporary or 
  permanent exile. Some stations are known to ban 
  those exiled from allied colonies. Only in the most 
  extreme cases—mass murder, treason, slavery—have 
  some anarchist communities been known to condemn 
  someone to permanent death.
  DAILY LIFE OF AN ANARCHIST
  So what’s day-to-day life like in an anarchist colony? 
  Pretty much the same as it is everywhere else, except 
  you won’t have a boss breathing down your neck, rent 
  to pay, or cops staring you down. We work less, play 
  more, treat each other like equals, and have largely 
  forgotten about weird fetishes like consumerism. 
  There are other ways in which we diverge from 
  inner system lifestyles, but many of them are subtle 
  and nuanced.
  Sex does not suffer from the social stigmas and 
  guilt that still linger in the inner system, nor is it 
  commodified. People are fairly open about their kinks 
  and desires. Relationship-wise, most anarchists tend 
  towards polyamory. Marriage is rare, though some 
  couples still opt for long-term monogamy. Group rela-
  tionship arrangements are growing more common.
  Skill and expertise are still valued among anar-
  chists, though it doesn’t come with the elitist privi-
  leges common elsewhere. Being good at what you do 
  might get you more rep and prestige and probably 
  means people will listen to your opinions more, but it 
  
  158
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  if it shot up overnight. Some of these take the rep 
  boost as an invitation to act like jackasses since they 
  can get away with it a lot more easily; it just goes 
  to their head. Thankfully, the problem is usually 
  short-lived and self-correcting, as their rep eventually 
  gets trounced.
  Second is integrating outsiders—particularly 
  short-term visitors. Some inner system socialite brats 
  have made a fun game out of visiting anarchist habs 
  under fake identities and taking advantage of the 
  lack of laws and police to act like complete hooli-
  gans and create some sort of ruckus before quickly 
  leaving. Even if they get caught, they usually just 
  get expelled anyway. While a nuisance, the same 
  problem occasionally pops up with other outsiders 
  who take advantage of how our society is more open. 
  This is basically a failure of accountability—among 
  anarchists, we can keep tabs on who’s a jerk in our 
  communities and exert social pressures to keep 
  them in line. With outsiders, that recourse is gone 
  as soon as they leave. We don’t want to treat every 
  non-anarchist that visits as a potential problem, 
  but we’ve learned to collectively keep a closer eye 
  on them, give the infiltration of Stellar Intelligence 
  agents and hypercorp saboteurs.
  We face other challenges too. Since our habitats 
  are often physically isolated and focused on commu-
  nalism, local residents sometimes develop cliquish 
  influx of both AGIs and uplifts to the positive envi-
  ronments of the outer system.
  PROBLEMS WITH ANARCHY
  Though we paint a rosy picture of life in anarchist 
  colonies, we’d be remiss if we said it was perfect. We 
  have our share of problems and difficulties, though 
  most of these are at least acknowledged and addressed 
  rather than ignored or institutionalized.
  Foremost among our challenges is the creeping 
  nature of informal hierarchies. Even though we create 
  organizations designed to counter the accumulation 
  of power, sometimes we grow lax, or fall back into 
  old habits ingrained on Earth, or simply fall prey to 
  deceptive persons. Sometimes this enables individuals 
  to amass a sort of social leverage over others. On 
  a recent trip to another hab, I had the pleasure of 
  dealing with an unhappy man who had entrenched 
  himself in the local bureaucracy to the point where 
  he was exerting influence over the morphs available 
  for new arrivals to resleeve in. The bastard actually 
  had the gall to try to coerce me into committing some 
  dirty work for him before giving me the morph I 
  requested. I did it, and then I exposed him. While he 
  took a rep hit, I fear that the locals failed to take it 
  seriously, and he still holds on to that position.
  The same problem occasionally pops up with people 
  who have accumulated a high rep score—particularly 
  
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  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  159
  a rep dump. A lot of us toiled under shitty economic 
  systems prior to the Fall and remember the way 
  we were treated by our “betters,” so many of these 
  spoiled brats are lucky if all they encounter is a lack 
  of sympathy.
  Equally self-entitled are those whose upbringing or 
  culture instilled in them a sense that they were better 
  due to their gender, ethnicity, sexual preference, or 
  physical ability. Welcome to the future assholes, none 
  of that shit matters anymore. That you were born a 
  fully able hetero cis white male in the States doesn’t 
  mean dick to me or any of the rest of us. It’s not who 
  you were, or what you’re used to, but how much 
  you’re willing to contribute to the collective. Tolerance 
  for prejudice of any sort is thin on anarchist habs.
  There are others that don’t fit in. People that just 
  can’t get over the need to hoard things, even when it’s 
  more than they can possibly use themselves. People 
  that get off on ordering others around. Sociopaths. 
  Misanthropes. Loners. We have our own outcasts 
  that live on the fringe, getting by with meager rep 
  scores and as little participation in collective affairs 
  as possible. They are tolerated, and sometimes pitied, 
  but as long as they don’t mess with others, they are 
  left alone.
  It sometimes takes new arrivals—recently unar-
  chived infugees, escaped indentures, exiled crimi-
  nals—some time to fully grok how we anarchists 
  do things and adjust to the collectivist lifestyle. We 
  try to smooth over their integration with orientation 
  sessions and helper AIs. Some collectives and syndi-
  cates go out of their way to “adopt” the noobs and 
  show them the ropes. Some of them are afraid their 
  past lives will make anarchists reject them, particu-
  larly if they were a cop, banker, or criminal. For the 
  most part, we try to give everyone a chance to start 
  over. It’s only how you act and who you present 
  behaviors towards outsiders. Confined to the rim, 
  without armies of indentured slaves at our disposal 
  like the capitalists have, we sometimes run short on 
  fuels, metals, or other critical resources. Lacking any 
  central authority to force agreement, local schisms 
  sometimes escalate into larger conflicts. These issues 
  are widely recognized, discussed, and worked against.
  Finally, there’s the ever-present challenge of super-
  empowering technology. Since we don’t restrict tech 
  like the hypercorps do—and in fact, with our open 
  science programs, make it even more available to 
  everyone—there’s always the chance that someone 
  will endanger those around them. On the positive 
  side, since the tech is more widespread, it also enables 
  us to collectively enact countermeasures more quickly, 
  though this usually just limits the damage. To some 
  degree, our tech enthusiasts, experts, and scientists all 
  police themselves, but the environment we foster has 
  occasionally attracted exhumans, singularity seekers, 
  or other sociopaths.
  ANARCHY FOR EVERYONE?
  Even we admit, anarchism is not for everyone. 
  There are plenty of people for whom this type of 
  life sounds like a version of hell, and honestly we’d 
  just as soon not have them here either. When you get 
  down to it, we only really want people who want to 
  be here. Unfortunately, many people grew up under 
  capitalism and can’t hack the paradigm shift or have 
  other … behavioral issues that would just make them 
  perennial flies in our otherwise communally harmo-
  nious ointment.
  First among those who have trouble adjusting to 
  life among the anarchists are egos that were born into 
  privilege and entitlement. They quickly learn that we 
  don’t give two fucks about any of that shit and acting 
  like you know better or are better is a quick way to 
  ANARCHO-FASCISTS
  By Ji Ligong,  
  Posted to Your Opinion: Your Voice, Experia News Net
  “Fuck them, fuck ‘em all. Those anarchists? Yeah, they talk 
  a good game about freedom of expression and the rights of 
  individuals but, really, it’s all bullshit. And, no, this isn’t just 
  sour grapes because they kicked me out, alright? I wasn’t 
  doing anything wrong but apparently I got their panties in 
  a bunch because they accused me of anti-social crimes and 
  of violating the rights of a sapient. Over a fucking fork? Can 
  you believe that shit?
  OK, so yeah. Let me start over, tell you how it went down. 
  First thing you gotta know is that I know that I’m a deviant. 
  Yeah, yeah, I like what I like, that’s why I didn’t bother 
  trying to even apply for citizenship on Mars or somewhere 
  else, I figured it would just be a matter of time before I got 
  scooped up and thrown in prison. But I heard the outer 
  system was different, like anything goes there, you know?
  So I found this little hab, run by some ex-scum, and you 
  know how they like to party, yeah? So I figured it’d be right 
  up my alley, my kind of pervert right? But, no, turns out that 
  if you’re the kinda guy that likes to take forks of people 
  and turn them into virtual pleasure slaves, that’s not OK. So 
  much for anything goes! And, like I said, they’re forks! Not 
  even real goddamn people! Who the fuck cares if I do sick 
  shit to your fork! Of course I wasn’t going to ask them for 
  the fork, I’m not stupid, I know I’m a sick fuck. But I figured, 
  hey, anarchists, they’re anything goes sorts. Not so much as 
  it turns out. The fact of the matter is that they’ve kinda got a 
  real stick up their asses about rights and self-determination 
  and that kinda shit.
  So fuck ’em. They’re just as bad as some of those 
  moral communities you see popping up on the hinter-
  lands of Mars. 
  
  160
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  INSURRECTIONISTS
  The prevailing consensus among anarchists is that 
  they should be continuing to actively fight for the 
  liberation of everyone—in particular, those who are 
  still living under the oppressive regimes of the core 
  planets, the Jovians, and elsewhere. Anarchists across 
  the solar system provide material aid when possible to 
  free unions, worker’s cooperatives, mercurials, hack-
  tivists, and other anarchist and lefty groups that are 
  working for social change in their respective polities—
  particularly those that seek to set up a dual power 
  structure, laying the groundwork for a new society in 
  the shell of the old. While they support social struggles 
  elsewhere, however, rimward anarchists are wary 
  about actively entering into direct conflicts with these 
  governmental powers. Some argue a fine line must be 
  trod between solidarity and putting the existing gains 
  they have made at further risk. Clandestine support 
  and memetic campaigns are preferred to open warfare. 
  According to some viewpoints, it is the duty of the 
  oppressed to liberate themselves.
  The insurrectionists go further. They think the 
  current focus of anarchists everywhere should be in 
  liberating the people living under hypercorp domi-
  nation. They believe that as long as any inequality 
  exists, no anarchist should be content with the gains 
  that have been made. They also consider the system 
  to be in a state of undeclared war between the inner 
  and outer factions, and to that end they rail against 
  the core planet powers, the Jovians, and the ultimates, 
  constantly agitating for overt direct action against 
  the oppressive regimes that are still in existence in 
  addition to ongoing covert efforts. They point out 
  that this is not just a matter of liberating others, but 
  of protecting the Alliance itself from inevitable aggres-
  sion by their militaristic and autocratic neighbors. 
  Many are also critical of the Titanians for being too 
  hierarchical and the Extropians for exploiting people 
  with their capitalist enterprises.
  yourself to be among us that we care about. If you’re 
  leaving behind a corp job or a life as a Martian ranger 
  and you want to start over with no one knowing? 
  Good for you, we won’t hold it against you.
  ANARCHIST SUBFACTIONS
  As you might expect, anarchists are an opinionated 
  bunch. Though most of us work as a united front, 
  there are a few distinct groupings within our big 
  extended family identified due to their outspoken 
  stances on a handful of issues.
  COLLECTIVISTS
  The vast majority of self-identified anarchist habitats 
  are collectivist in ideology and practice. Also known as 
  anarcho-communism, libertarian socialism, anarcho-
  syndicalism, or just plain anarchism, collectivist 
  anarchism argues in favor of egalitarianism and the 
  abolition of hierarchies, money, property, and wage 
  labor. Though various tendencies exist within the 
  collectivists, they mostly boil down to minute differ-
  ences in organization and focus (syndicalists favor 
  ordering society around the workplace, for example). 
  The black flag or red-and-back flag is their symbol. 
  Most anarchists who don’t favor broad-scale collec-
  tivism have gravitated towards the scum or mutualist 
  Extropians instead.
  ANARCHO-TRANSHUMANISTS
  Along with being collectivists, most anarchists, if 
  pressed, would probably espouse something close 
  to what is now called blue anarchy, or anarcho-
  transhumanism. They believe broadly in using anar-
  chist principles along with transhuman technologies 
  to structure a new, more equal society. Blues see the 
  current proliferation of anarchist habitats as realiza-
  tion of this new anarchist dream, and the increasingly 
  ubiquity of cheap, easy-to-use fabrication technologies 
  as the means to spread it to more willing habitats. The 
  anarcho-transhumanists and anarcho-primitivists hold 
  opposite and hostile viewpoints.
  OF ISMS AND PRIVILEGES
  Anarchism has always been critical of the vari-
  ous “-isms”: racism, sexism, homophobia, clas-
  sism, speciesism. It has also drawn connections 
  between these prejudices and the larger oppressive 
  institutions of hierarchy and power (government, 
  capitalism, patriarchy, religion, etc.), and noted 
  how certain segments of society were granted 
  privileges in order to keep the less privileged 
  strata down. Though uploading, genehacking, 
  and resleeving technology broke through many of 
  these prejudicial attitudes, most anarchists remain 
  cognizant of the lingering effects. For example, 
  anarcha-feminists point out how egos in male 
  morphs find it easier to adopt leadership roles and 
  tend to be extended more privileges—in a subtle, 
  but measurable way—than egos in female morphs. 
  In certain cultures, morphs with specific ethnic fea-
  tures are treated differently due to lingering racism, 
  and so on. Though no anarchist would ever call 
  for non-consensual psychosurgery, some anarchists 
  have deliberately opted to attempt to excise these 
  biases from their own minds. Experimentation with 
  other morphologies, to “walk a mile in their shoes,” 
  is common practice. 
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  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  161
  their finding to the collective(s) with whom they are 
  working. If asked to, they will also supply a resolution 
  to the groups or people that brought them on.
  What really set this group apart, however, was their 
  willingness to hunt down and capture people that had 
  fled to inner system polities. They have on several 
  occasions captured egos that were wanted on suspi-
  cion of being hypercorp saboteurs. These operations 
  often turned messy as the Marshals were not adverse 
  to inflicting significant damage against hypercorp 
  assets in pursuit of their targets. This led to the group 
  developing a reputation that was fanned by sensation-
  alist inner system media exposes. In response to these 
  reports, the syndicate adopted the name of the Black 
  Marshals Brigade.
  One secret to the Marshals’ success is that many 
  of them come from backgrounds where they worked 
  for hypercorp security or mercenary groups. As an 
  offshoot of their other projects, the Brigade also 
  assists in training anarchist collectives on maintaining 
  a good security culture. According to rumors, the 
  Marshals work with Special Outreach, maintaining 
  a database of suspected hypercorp informants and 
  infiltrators within anarchist space.
  BLUE ROSE
  Blue Rose is an informal network of experienced 
  insurrectionist anarcho-transhumanists, most of 
  whom were active militants fighting to liberate 
  anarchist spaces in the outer system before the Fall. 
  Having seen many of their dreams realized, they have 
  turned their minds towards fostering revolution in 
  the inner system and Jovian Republic. Though rarely 
  involved in direct action anymore (with a few notable 
  exceptions), their intellectual efforts are exerted 
  towards undermining the memes of their opponents, 
  analyzing the current state of the authoritarian polities 
  for weaknesses, and developing actual revolutionary 
  strategy to overthrow them.
  Several members of Blue Rose are also promi-
  nent chrome advocates, a fact that unsettles some 
  supporters (and other members).
  THE CHARCOAL TOWER
  This loose confederation of intellectuals, scien-
  tists, and think tanks operates the largest informal 
  open educational project in the system. They have 
  programmed thousands of tutor AIs, training 
  programs, and skillsofts. Unlike traditional education 
  systems, they do not focus on standardized tests and 
  abstract learning; most of their programs are designed 
  to create a hands-on, practical learning experience 
  that requires interaction with real-world situations 
  and enables a student to learn at their own pace and 
  along their own primary areas of interest. The Tower 
  also publishes a number of abstracts, theses, and 
  studies that counter the more established intellectual 
  efforts of the Consortium and the Junta’s think tanks. 
  The Tower has close ties with the argonauts.
  PRIMITIVISTS
  The primitivists believe that all of industrial and 
  technological society is coercive and oppressive. 
  They argue that hierarchy and domination began 
  with the invention of agriculture itself and cannot be 
  eliminated until we return to a small-scale society of 
  hunter-gatherer tribes. Though they abhor the TITANs 
  and the destruction of the Fall, they believe that trans-
  humanity’s population reduction is a positive step 
  that needs to be taken even further. Most primitiv-
  ists seek to establish colonies of like-minded people 
  on habitable exoplanets, or work with the reclaimers 
  to re-take the Earth. A few, however, actively agitate 
  for the destruction of both the Planetary Consortium 
  (and other governments) and the Autonomist Alliance. 
  These extremists are responsible for numerous acts of 
  sabotage and terror around the solar system.
  ANARCHIST GROUPS OF NOTE
  A few collectives, networks, and other anarchist 
  formations stand out.
  ALL QUEER
  All Queer is a network of anarchists that pinpoint their 
  gender and sexual identity as outside of the confines 
  of straight, binary norms. An outgrowth of radical 
  queer groups that countered oppression before the 
  capability to resleeve created a massive social shift, All 
  Queer argues that biases still exist against people that 
  have non-binary gender identities or sexual orienta-
  tions outside of the mainstream. More than just coun-
  tering phobia and privilege—in both autonomist and 
  capitalist societies—All Queer opposes assimilation 
  and instead promotes the idea that all of transhuman 
  society needs to be—and is well on its way towards 
  being—thoroughly genderfucked. All Queer activists 
  have been instrumental in designing morphs, bio-mods, 
  and psychosurgical hacks that explore a wide range of 
  sexual biology, orientation, and practical activities.
  BLACK MARSHALS BRIGADE
  Notorious within the inner system, this syndicate 
  had a humble beginning. It started as a simply named 
  Volunteer Adjudication Collective, composed mainly 
  of people trained in psych backgrounds and social 
  work who offered themselves as a third-party conflict 
  resolution service. They were of particular use for 
  incidents when two or more collectives had a dispute 
  where an outsider opinion was needed. Over time, 
  they developed an investigatory capacity, as they were 
  frequently called in to handle a dispute that could not 
  be settled internally or that was muddied by contra-
  dictory information or missing facts. They developed 
  a rep for satisfactorily resolving a number of high-
  profile mysteries and disputes.
  Much like a police investigator, only volunteer and 
  with no legal authority behind them, members of this 
  group are brought in to ferret out the most accurate 
  account of any given situation and then present 
  
  162
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  LINGG’S WORDS
  Another insurrectionist network like CRAM, but 
  smaller and with far less local involvement, Lingg’s 
  Words is an insurrectionist cadre cell network active 
  around the solar system. The Words, however, focus 
  on fighting battles that aren’t being fought by anyone 
  else, especially in situations where the anarchists can 
  take risks that local oppressed populations cannot. 
  They target the corporations, government officials, 
  and military assets they consider to be the most 
  oppressive or an active threat to anarchist holdings. 
  Though less numerous and active than CRAM, Words 
  cells have pulled off a number of devastating attacks 
  and pioneered the modern tactic of fork “suicide” 
  bombing. Citing the ubiquity of backups, they have 
  no qualms with collateral damage.
  LOVE AND RAGE
  The guardians of the Fissure Gate, this group works 
  extensively with the autonomist Fissure Gate Task Force 
  to expand anarchist/autonomist exoplanet operations.
  SABATÉ SWARM
  Though there is no official anarchist space naval force, 
  the Sabaté Swarm is the next best thing. Effectively a 
  volunteer militia of anarchist spacecraft crews, drone 
  operators, and sensor specialists, the swarm stands 
  ready to be called into action should an anarchist 
  colony come under attack. Lacking a centralized 
  organization, the swarm adheres to Tielhard Liu’s 
  Doctrines for its space combat strategy and tactics. 
  Among their ranks are a few military ships that 
  survived the Fall, with their crews either mutineering 
  afterwards or simply finding themselves without a 
  government to serve. More recently, a group of AGIs 
  defected from their work in a Starware shipyard in the 
  Belt, bringing a recently constructed frigate with them 
  CIENFUEGOS REVOLUTIONARY  
  ANARCHIST MOVEMENT (CRAM)
  CRAM is the largest insurrectionist network, 
  composed of anarchist groups embedded within 
  non-autonomist polities and their supporters in 
  anarchist space. These groups employ a wide range 
  of open-source insurgency tactics, encouraging dissent 
  and revolution as appropriate to the local situation. 
  Sometimes this amounts to little more than supporting 
  existing social movements, spreading memetic 
  campaigns, lending material support, and doing what 
  they can to turn up the heat. In others it involves 
  actively establishing anarchist-oriented counter-insti-
  tutions and unions, building an infrastructure for the 
  new economy while cultivating a culture of resistance 
  to the transitional/old one. Along with these efforts go 
  tactics such as militant demonstrations, labor strikes, 
  sabotage efforts, hacktivist campaigns, and other 
  creative but illegal actions. In a few instances, CRAM 
  groups have engaged in armed struggle, including 
  bombings and assassinations, though they seek to 
  limit the casualties to their actual enemies and don’t 
  just wage indiscriminate attacks, which could mean 
  losing popular support. CRAM is officially outlawed 
  in the Consortium, Jovian Republic, and Lunar-
  Lagrange Alliance. They have significant influence on 
  both Mars and Luna and are in good standing with 
  Barsoomian groups.
  COMPANY OF EQUALS
  A band of refugees and political dissidents from 
  mainland China started this assembly of collectives 
  on Mars before they were ousted by the Consortium. 
  Now scattered across the solar system, they are 
  notable for their melding of anarchist and Taoist 
  thought, seeing the natural order of the universe as 
  being simultaneously harmonious and in a constant 
  state of change due to the flux of opposing and 
  dynamic forces. Most Company collectives make it a 
  point to live in non-anarchist habitats, and so they 
  often serve as crash space, local guide, and general 
  waystation for anarchists traveling to other polities 
  and in need of assistance. Likewise, they have also 
  helped to funnel indentures, dissidents, uplifts, and 
  AGIs out to seek asylum on anarchist stations.
  JOVIAN ANARCHIST CELLS (JAC)
  This underground group operates in Junta space, 
  quietly seeking to be a thorn in the side of the Jovian 
  regime. If Jovian media feeds are to be believed, JAC 
  members are regularly arrested and imprisoned. 
  The JAC makes a great bogeyman for propaganda 
  purposes, something the anarchists willingly embrace. 
  Their logo, an impish figure holding a candle to a 
  burning Jovian Republic flag, is a common—if tempo-
  rary—sight on spray-bombed habitat walls, along 
  with the slogan “JAC up the Junta!”
  LOUIS LINGG’S WORDS
  I repeat that I am the enemy of the “order”of 
  today, and I repeat that, with all my powers, so 
  long as breath remains in me, I shall combat it. 
  I declare again, frankly and openly, that I am in 
  favor of using force. I have told Captain Schaack, 
  and I stand by it ,“if you cannonade us, we shall 
  dynamite you.” You laugh! Perhaps you think, 
  “you’ll throw no more bombs;” but let me assure 
  you I die happy on the gallows, so confident am I 
  that the hundreds and thousands to whom I have 
  spoken will remember my words; and when you 
  shall have hanged us, then—mark my words—
  they will do the bomb throwing! In this hope do 
  I say to you: I despise you. I despise your order, 
  your laws, your force-propped authority. Hang 
  me for it! 
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  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  163
  THE FIRST TRANSHUMANISTS
  While author FM-2030 may have been the first to 
  really identify the concepts behind transhumanism, it 
  was Dr. Max More who defined the term and created 
  an ongoing dialogue with others through his Extropy 
  Institute, mailing list, magazine, and conferences. Dr. 
  More defined “extropy” as the opposite of entropy, 
  or “the extent of a living or organizational system’s 
  intelligence, functional order, vitality, energy, life, 
  experience, and capacity and drive for improvement 
  and growth.” Early extropians developed a futur-
  istic outlook based on the proactionary principle, 
  emphasized rational thinking and optimism, and were 
  acutely interested in the possibilities of life extension, 
  AI, nanotechnology, cryonics, space exploration, 
  robotics, uploading, and more. The vast majority 
  of these early transhumanists held a libertarian or 
  anarcho-capitalist political viewpoint, though the 
  transhumanist movement soon expanded and devel-
  oped a more technoprogressive agenda.
  Among the hypercapitalist CEOs and management 
  who pushed our species’ expansion into space were 
  a number of self-described libertarian transhuman-
  ists. A dedicated group of these idealists, including 
  prominent libertarian billionaires Hayek Taggart 
  and Petra Thiel, united forces and established a new 
  corporation, Extropy Now, with the explicit intent 
  of establishing the first independent outpost in the 
  solar system. Diverting many of their personal assets, 
  they staked a homesteading claim on the asteroid 44 
  Nysa, previously mined and recently abandoned by 
  Triple Peaks Prospecting, one of Taggart’s many Belt 
  resource exploitation ventures. Naming it Extropia, in 
  honor of those early thinkers and activists, they estab-
  lished a society that operated entirely on a free market 
  basis with interactions mediated by social contracts. 
  Over time, numerous other Extropian outposts were 
  founded. Extropia remains the largest, and to this 
  day serves as an ideological neutral zone between the 
  inner and outer system factions.
  EXTROPIAN FACTIONS
  While Extropianism continues to be dominated by 
  libertarian-minded folk, there are a number of smaller 
  factions that are deserving of note.
  ANARCHO-CAPITALISTS
  The dominant libertarian/anarcho-capitalist tendency 
  among Extropians has a few central tenets. First, it is 
  opposed to government intervention (as well as collec-
  tivist systems, which they claim defy individual liber-
  ties). In their view, the free market is the ultimate self-
  guiding force. Rather than taxation, social services are 
  provided by voluntarily-funded competitive businesses. 
  Laws are replaced by private legal services that regulate 
  social and economic activity. Anarcho-capitalists 
  embrace the non-aggression principle, which states 
  that any sort of threats or violence against another 
  violates that person’s right to self-determination.
  to join the swarm. Observers are still watching to see 
  if Starware will attempt to repossess their ship.
  ZERZAN’S BROOD
  The most famous bioconservative anarcho-primitivist 
  tribe, this group has claimed responsibility for a 
  number of attacks on nanotech facilities, mesh 
  servers, and bio labs. They have stated their hatred 
  of all things technological and seem willing to target 
  anarchist scientists and engineers just as quickly as 
  hypercapitalist ones.
  ANARCHIST VIEWS ON OTHERS
  Broadly speaking, most anarchists are friendly but 
  critical of the other autonomists—with the excep-
  tion of the non-mutualist Extropians, who are widely 
  loathed. The Titanians are considered a benevolent 
  neighbor that needs to be watched closely lest they 
  turn. The scum are kin in spirit, though their hedo-
  nistic ways and lack of organization and account-
  ability are critiqued. The mutualists are viewed 
  positively, if quaintly. Most anarchists consider the 
  term anarcho-capitalist to be an oxymoron, believing 
  capitalism to be inherently oppressive.
  Outside of the Alliance, most anarchists take no 
  issue with the rank-and-file populations of other 
  polities, unless they happen to be conservative or 
  bigoted. The leaders, officials, and elites of these other 
  factions are viewed as parasites that eventually must 
  be removed if transhumanity is ever to be completely 
  equal and free.
  EXTROPIANS
  Posted by: Mizar Alcor,  
  Firewall Sentinel 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  Let’s face facts. Most of the other members of the 
  Autonomist Alliance don’t like us much and, honestly, 
  we’re none too fond of y’all either. For the most part 
  you see us as capitalistic sleazebags who’d sell our 
  own mothers for a cut in a high yield mining opera-
  tion. Yeah, there are certainly some Extropians who 
  are like that. In general, though, we prefer to see 
  ourselves as realists, people who recognize that neither 
  the flawed hypercapitalism of the inner system nor 
  the foolishly optimistic collectives of the anarchists 
  really work. Instead, we like to think of ourselves as 
  exploring a more pure form of capitalism, a truly free 
  market that also has a care for the happiness of people 
  and is not solely built upon the assumption that for 
  some to profit others must suffer. The degree to which 
  happiness, self-determination, and lack of suffering 
  are stressed express themselves in slight differences 
  internal to our faction. The fact of the matter is that 
  we have a long tradition of philosophical debate 
  regarding these matters, so it’s natural that this 
  history expresses itself even internally and despite the 
  advances we’ve made.
  
  164
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  Within Extropia, the objectivists are often pushing 
  for closer ties with the inner system powers and 
  expanded hypercorp involvement on Extropia. They 
  also maintain quite good contacts with the ultimates, 
  seeing them as slightly misguided fellow travelers.
  UTILITARIANS
  Not to be too biased here, but as someone with 
  utilitarian tendencies I tend to think we get it the most 
  right when it comes to the particular combination of 
  liberty, determination, and happiness. The way we see 
  it is that our natural inclination is towards trade and 
  exchange, barter and competition. We do what we can 
  to maximize our pleasure while limiting pain, making 
  these decisions along rational lines based upon our 
  experiences. Trying to suppress our natural rational 
  interest in pleasure and happiness, whether with talk 
  of collectives and sharing or forcing others to serve 
  our will against their own, violates our natural desires 
  and inclinations.
  Utilitarians would never consider forcing our will 
  upon others, so we tend towards a policy of neutrality 
  when it comes to both our anarchist cousins and the 
  hypercorporate robber barons. Our sympathies do 
  tend to ally us more towards the anarchists, however, 
  since we see them as merely deluded in their assump-
  tions about human nature. The hypercapitalists on 
  the other hand are well aware that they are robbing 
  others of their natural rights to self-determination and 
  happiness but seem to care not at all. They are the 
  sorts that give capitalists a bad name, so we hope that 
  by allying ourselves with the Autonomist Alliance we 
  can gently influence others by our example.
  ISOLATIONISTS
  The loners of our little crew are happiest when they 
  are left alone and allowed to do what they want. 
  Probably the most libertarian in the traditional sense 
  of the word, all they want is to be left alone to do 
  whatever their little hearts desire. Of course, this can 
  often mean dangerous acts that put others at risk, but 
  that pretty accurately sums up daily life on Extropia. 
  Among the Extropians, they are most often silent on 
  internal matters, preferring to settle business with a 
  minimum of fuss. The one area they do feel strongly 
  about is our membership in the Alliance—they argue 
  that we should abandon it and go on our own. 
  Similarly, many also argue for their own Extropian 
  currency that is separate from the credit of the 
  inner system.
  CONTRACT ECONOMICS AND SECURITY
  Similar to anarchist habitats, we Extropians have 
  no government, no police, and no laws. We are not 
  collectivists, however. Central to our philosophy is 
  the sanctity of self-ownership and private property. 
  Everyone owns themselves and what they make. Along 
  with this is the right of original appropriation. You may 
  Though left-wing on economics and government, 
  many anarcho-capitalists swing to the right on social 
  issues. The prejudices against AGIs and uplifts, for 
  example, are common among libertarians, as are 
  views on forking.
  MUTUALISTS
  Also known as free market anarchists, mutualists hold 
  the strange position of being pro-free market but anti-
  capitalist. Ideologically, most mutualists are closer to 
  anarcho-communists than anarcho-capitalists, except 
  that they believe in private property and money. They 
  oppose the monopoly that banking systems have on 
  issuing credit and the way banks profit by charging 
  loan interest on money that never belonged to the 
  bank in the first place. The core of their system relies 
  on mutualist cooperative banks. These banks are 
  owned by their customers, with each person having 
  an equal share and one vote. These banks issue an 
  alternative currency called mutual credits (m-credits). 
  M-credits are created and issued for each transac-
  tion—essentially acting as an interest-free loan. Most 
  mutualist banks place a cap on how low a negative 
  balance can go, to ensure that no one runs one up 
  and then leaves; those that leave a negative balance 
  for too long are also likely to suffer a reputation hit. 
  These banks exchange m-credits for regular credits on 
  a 1:1 basis, enabling the mutualists to interact with 
  the larger Extropian economy.
  Mutualists tend to act as intermediaries between 
  libertarian Extropians and collectivist anarchists. 
  Mutualist banks often work deals with anarchists 
  who need credit in exchange for rep, favors, or other 
  resources. Likewise, mutualists often broker deals 
  between Extropians and anarchist habitats. As a rule 
  of thumb, they often refuse to work with non-Extro-
  pian capitalists. Mutualist collectives often operate 
  free clinics on Extropian habitats for those who are 
  down on their luck.
  OBJECTIVISTS
  If there’s one group within the Extropians that even 
  most Extropians don’t like, it’s the objectivists. Taking 
  self-interest to extremes, they often rub most people 
  the wrong way due to the fact that their brand of 
  libertarian philosophy stresses extreme self-interest 
  and seems to encourage the active screwing over of 
  anyone and everyone.
  An objectivist will tell you that they’re simply doing 
  whatever makes them happiest; unfortunately, this 
  means their happiness often comes at the expense of 
  others, making them hard to get along with. Perhaps 
  unsurprisingly, objectivists don’t tend to find them-
  selves outside of Extropia or the inner system. The 
  reputation-based habitats do them no favors and 
  they tend to find the very idea of a reputation-based 
  economy that depends upon cooperation and commu-
  nity values to be offensive.
  
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  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  165
  taking only as much time as evidence acquisition and 
  discovery entails.
  Most freelance judiciaries are part of larger legal 
  associations such as the Extropian Legal Guild, the Free 
  Bar Association, or the Mutualist Code. The law firms 
  in these organizations usually adhere to the same legal 
  code, though some participants hold their own distinct 
  judicial viewpoints on certain matters. These groups 
  also have pre-set arrangements with each other for 
  handling common legal disputes and different interpre-
  tations. This makes it an easy matter to resolve cases 
  even when two parties subscribe to different free courts.
  As always, a few exceptions exist. Some private 
  judges have rather esoteric takes on some legal matters. 
  Though amicable resolutions with other courts are 
  usually made, it sometimes takes longer and may rely 
  more heavily on an individual’s rep. A few outlier law 
  firms exist that refuse to recognize any legal codes but 
  their own. This can be problematic in arbitration, as 
  Extropian custom is that both individuals must volun-
  tarily agree to a court’s authority; and some jerks just 
  refuse to recognize any but their own. The private 
  court Evolutionary Apex, for example, refuses to grant 
  legal recognition to uplifts, and so draws a biochau-
  vinist customer base. Hardliners like this usually find 
  their reps take a hit if they push it too far.
  Legal conflicts are typically resolved with financial 
  restitution penalties and an accompanying rep score 
  slap. More serious matters can result in forfeiture of 
  property. Extreme crimes (brainhacking, torture) can 
  result in indentured servitude, exile, or even time in a 
  virtual prison. This latter option is rare, but several 
  private prison concerns have contracts with legal 
  services on the larger Extropian stations.
  If one party in a legal arbitration refuses the 
  judgment settlement, all bets are off. Most private 
  courts and security contractors will refuse to protect 
  a client or property that has an outstanding judicial 
  order against it. Legal services will subcontract with 
  a bounty hunter and authorize an arrest or property 
  seizure. Even if the subject flees the habitat, they may 
  find themselves hunted if the penalty is severe enough.
  SECURITY CONTRACTORS
  On Extropian colonies, security services are your 
  private police force. In addition to being on call via 
  the mesh, the better contractors have security bot nests 
  strategically placed around a habitat, able to respond 
  to an emergency within minutes or even seconds. There 
  are no limitations on the firepower these services can 
  deploy, though they are of course liable for collateral 
  damage. If you’re wealthy, can afford the premiums, 
  and don’t mind being buried in post-incident litigation, 
  however, some services offer protection plans that will 
  literally hold nothing back in your defense.
  Extropian habs are actually fairly safe—we do follow 
  the non-aggression principle after all—but if you start 
  wreaking havoc, you can bet someone will return fire. 
  occupy any place that is not already occupied and in 
  use by another, and you may transform it as you wish.
  The foundation of our society is one of free 
  contracts. Individuals are free to enter into any contrac-
  tual agreements that they see fit, as long as all parties 
  are participating voluntarily and without coercion. 
  Social services that would normally be provided by a 
  government (in capitalist polities) or available to all 
  (in anarchist zones) are instead handled as contractual 
  business arrangements, facilitated by the free market. 
  Insurance, healthcare, education, protection, trans-
  portation, backups, and just about everything else are 
  privatized and available at market-determined prices. 
  Many other aspects of life, from social relations to 
  employment, are also handled as contracts.
  At the core of this system are free-market legal 
  systems and private courts. Every contract specifies 
  the legal code by which the signatory bodies agree 
  to abide and the courts to which they grant judi-
  ciary authority.
  This state of affairs is sometimes confusing to non-
  Extropians, so let me give you a few tips. The first 
  thing anyone should do upon arriving at an Extropian 
  habitat (preferably before you step foot upon it) is 
  subscribe to a private legal service. This policy will 
  protect you from torts (damage claims) and other 
  legal matters. If you dent someone’s bot, steal their 
  maker, shoot their dog, get shot by them, or break a 
  contract, your private court and their private court 
  will get together and pass a judgment settlement that 
  both of you are expected to observe.
  Easy, right? Well, that’s just the legal side. You also 
  want to make sure you protect your ass with private 
  security, health emergency, and backup coverage. Our 
  entry portals are bombarded with AR adverts offering 
  all manner of services, but your best bet is to do some 
  online research and contact a provider with a good 
  rep. You also want to score a provider with complete 
  coverage. While most security and emergency services 
  have quick-response drone silos all over a hab, on 
  larger habitats you sometimes find smaller or newer 
  services that only cover a specific neighborhood.
  PRIVATE JUDICIARIES
  Each Extropian habitat has a number of commercial 
  legal services that may be employed. Each of these 
  private courts has their own legal code, with its own 
  fine interpretations of various aspects of Extropian 
  legal principles, so it’s important to pick one in line 
  with your outlook. They also provide insurance 
  against tort claims and legal damages, which is 
  usually the largest expense—spurious micro-torts are 
  a common and notorious hazard in Extropian spaces.
  Almost all judgments handled by a free court are 
  facilitated by an AI (and sometimes AGI or info-
  morph). Given that most legal proceedings take 
  place via the mesh, micro-torts are typically handled 
  in a matter of seconds with longer criminal charges 
  
  166
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  We absolutely believe in self-defense. Most security contracts have 
  a provision that enables other customers of that service to come to 
  your aid if you are attacked. Mess with one person, and you might 
  quickly have a whole armed neighborhood after you, on top of the 
  security bots. Sure, you can try to bury any posse interventionists 
  with torts later, but unless you have a god-like judicial AI on your 
  side, you are unlikely to have any luck with that.
  In addition to reactive protection, most security providers will 
  investigate any harm done to your person or property after the 
  fact. This includes seeking retribution in conjunction with your 
  private court.
  Word to the wise: it’s dangerous to go without a security policy. 
  A few criminal gangs are known to scan visitors to Extropian 
  habs and target those who they determine lack protection.
  EMERGENCY MEDICAL/REPAIR SERVICES
  The last thing you want is to end up bleeding out in some back 
  alley with no medical services on call—though you can usually 
  arrange a contract quickly in an emergency, why take the risk? If 
  you get incapacitated or killed and haven’t arranged for someone 
  to look after you, you better hope a good samaritan comes along, 
  otherwise your corpse will simply get scavenged by whomever 
  finds it. In some cases unclaimed bodies/possessions are remanded 
  to a judiciary service that will hold you for a short period to see 
  if anyone wants to claim your stack/possessions (for a fee, of 
  course), before they simply liquidate you and your stuff or return 
  it back to the finder.
  EMPLOYMENT CONTRACTS
  In Extropian stations, anyone is free to sell the fruits of their 
  physical or intellectual labor. Everyone is a freelancer. Work 
  services are almost always contracted with specific terms and 
  conditions laid out. Depending on market conditions, employ-
  ment benefits can range from almost nothing to substantial.
  Some contracts are essentially equivalent to indentured servi-
  tude. Though rare, these are sometimes embraced by individuals 
  in serious debt or in need of large sums of money. Some inden-
  tures result from contract violations, as settled by private courts. 
  Other autonomists—particularly anarchists—are highly critical of 
  these forms of voluntary slavery. Most fail to see that indentures 
  still have legal protections as outlined in their contract. Plus, that 
  whole voluntary part.
  FREE BANKING
  Extropian banks—and even individuals and businesses, for that 
  matter—often issue their own currency, backed by whatever 
  standard they choose to put forth (qubit distribution being 
  primary, with the Planetary Exchange, energy credits, antimatter 
  production, and others sometimes used). The amount of different 
  micro-currencies currently active within our habitats can be stag-
  gering. Thankfully, our AIs excel at exchange rate calculations, 
  making transactions mostly seamless. Occasionally, however, you 
  may run across a currency that does not exchange well in the local 
  environment or has been suddenly and catastrophically devalued, 
  so be careful what you trade in.
  
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  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  167
  To avoid claims of holding government or monopoly 
  control over the habitat, Extropy Now’s charter and 
  rental agreements ensure viable living conditions 
  and habitat security for a century. Furthermore, the 
  charter places a lien against the company’s other 
  assets should Extropy Now fail to meet its commit-
  ments to the habitat denizens. On top of that, the 
  majority of the habitat maintenance and life support 
  services are contracted out to other businesses. This 
  has served to create a stable free market environment 
  with enough trust to draw other anarcho-capitalists 
  to the colony.
  Numerous variations on this rental model exist 
  across the solar system, with one or multiple corpora-
  tions contracting for the necessary services. In a few 
  isolated cases, the habitat is owned outright by a 
  single individual rather than a business entity.
  NOTABLE EXTROPIANS
  Whereas anarchists downplay figureheads and leaders, 
  we Extropians recognize the success and influence of 
  some of our more prominent citizens.
  HAYEK TAGGART
  Taggart comes from an old-school industrial dynasty 
  on Earth. His family made billions in oil extraction 
  and refinement operations. They were often vilified 
  for their involvement in environmental damage while 
  they poured money into the coffers of lobbyist groups 
  and think tanks that denied climate change and 
  fought against industry regulations and eco protec-
  tions. Taggart left these industries—and the world 
  they poisoned—behind, becoming an early entrant 
  in the field of asteroid mining and one of the first 
  of the hyper-elites to own his own private habitat (a 
  small Cole bubble, still operational in Earth orbit). 
  Raising his already massive wealth to staggering 
  levels, Taggart continued to fund libertarian groups 
  and opposition to restrictions of offworld hyper-
  corp operations.
  INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
  Anarcho-capitalists have some stringent disagree-
  ments about copyright and patents at times, but 
  the current trend prevalent in most of our habitats 
  opposes them as stifling to innovation. This means 
  that you are unlikely to come across a legal service 
  that attempts to enforce IP controls, though there 
  are some stations that are exceptions to this rule. 
  For businesses, this means they must be on the ball 
  to properly exploit their new developments before 
  some leaner and more eager contender tries to steal 
  their thunder.
  The IP issue is one of the main stumbling blocks 
  that keeps many non-Extropian hypercorps from 
  doing business on our habitats. Ventures based on 
  piracy are rampant in our colonies, and the inner 
  system oligarchs fume about our unwillingness 
  to place controls on these activities. Many inner 
  system criminal cartels specifically take advantage of 
  Extropian environments to facilitate their counter-
  feiting and piracy operations, hosting them where the 
  hypercorps cannot reach them.
  RUNNING THE HABITATS
  One question that arises about Extropian holdings 
  is: who handles the essential habitat functions that 
  normally fall under the purview of government 
  authorities or communal control? Specifically, who 
  owns the habitat itself, who runs life support, manages 
  space defense systems, maintains the hull, and so on?
  Most Extropian habitats follow the model estab-
  lished by Extropy Now when it founded Extropia. 
  Technically speaking, Extropy Now claims ownership 
  of 44 Nysa and simply rents space and air to those 
  that live there. It manages the habitat itself, charging 
  a moderate rent to any individuals and companies 
  that use space within for housing, business, or other 
  purposes. Visitors are also charged a minor entrance 
  fee, covering 3 months of these services, and repeat-
  edly billed on a monthly basis if they stay longer.  
  OUTLAW ECONOMICS
  The Consortium and inner system polities portray 
  Extropian stations as hotbeds of criminal activity. 
  From their point of view, this is certainly justified. 
  Violation of intellectual property rights is a major 
  concern to transitional economy hypercorps, and 
  they go to great lengths to mitigate piracy and 
  counterfeiting. Extropians not only take the oppo-
  site view, but they actively protect and promote 
  IP infringement. Numerous Extropian individuals 
  and corporations cooperate and work with groups 
  that are outlawed in many inner system habitats. 
  Reverse-engineering and counterfeit goods mini-
  facturing are successful business models, as are the 
  smuggling operations that get these products into 
  inner system habs.
  The shadiness attributed to the Extropians also 
  extends from their willingness to trade in markets 
  that are considered black or gray. Arms, drugs, nar-
  coalgorithms, hacking software, AGI programming, 
  pod manufacturing, questionable genetic mods—
  these are commonly produced in Extropian freeholds, 
  far from legal restrictions that would make them 
  economically unfeasible. This alone would not be a 
  problem for the inner system, except that these prod-
  ucts have an unnerving way of finding their way into 
  distribution channels across the sunward planets. n
  
  168
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  EXTROPIAN CORPORATIONS
  Most Extropian legal philosophy is based on the 
  sovereignty of the individual. Corporations are legal 
  entities, but only so far as they are a contractually 
  bound association of individuals that have pooled 
  their capital. Corporations have no legal protections 
  from torts or other special privileges; any damages 
  assigned are applicable to all of the individuals that 
  own/comprise the corporation, according to the terms 
  of their contract.
  The lack of legal and IP protection scares off most 
  non-Extropian hypercorps from conducting business 
  on Extropian habs—leaving some markets ripe for 
  expansion. On the other hand, the risks are consid-
  ered worth it as a trade-off for the lack of taxation 
  and freedom from restrictive legislation found in some 
  other polities.
  EXTROPY NOW
  The hypercorp behind the formation of Extropia and 
  the de facto owner of 44 Nysa, EN’s primary purpose 
  is to maintain, protect, and profit from the habitat. 
  Rumors indicate that EN is currently looking toward 
  establishing a new major Extropian settlement on an 
  extrasolar world, though it remains unclear what gate 
  would be used to connect or if a location has already 
  been chosen.
  GORGON DEFENSE SYSTEMS
  Gorgon began as an Israeli-South African arms 
  venture that later profited heavily from providing 
  “collision defense” systems to other hypercorps for 
  spacecraft and habitats, allegedly to protect against 
  meteors. One of the initial businesses to assume 
  residence on Extropia, the corporation quickly 
  moved their headquarters there (and made sure to 
  arm it well). Before the Fall was even over, Gorgon 
  was offering service contracts to suddenly leader-
  less military units and quickly snapping up physical 
  military assets on the cheap. They have since estab-
  lished arms factories, shipyards, storage depots, and 
  training facilities across the solar system. While their 
  gear and personnel are solid, their pricing is often 
  undercut by sleeker competitors.
  Gorgon’s Medusan Shield subsidiary is likely the 
  most widespread private security contractor across 
  the far-flung Extropian stations.
  INSEC
  Despite a low public profile, InSec has a notorious 
  reputation as one of the most productive zero-day 
  exploit vendors. InSec contracts with several teams of 
  highly skilled hackers—many of them infomorphs—to 
  research and find previously unknown and unpatched 
  software vulnerabilities, which it then sells off to 
  governments and corporations at premium rates 
  (currently starting at 100,000 credits and going up, 
  depending on the particular exploit). Critics decry 
  this service as helping authoritarian regimes oppress 
  After a falling out and protracted legal battle 
  with his brother, Charles, Taggart teamed up with 
  Petra Thiel to fund Extropy Now. Though Taggart 
  has played a prominent financial role in Extropia’s 
  founding, he has left Thiel to take much of the spot-
  light. Taggart continues to be involved in business 
  affairs throughout the solar system, though he takes 
  care to avoid any public involvement. Both anarcho- 
  and hyper-capitalists criticize Taggart for playing both 
  sides of the fence, while others consider this a wise 
  move. He is believed to reside in a private station 
  elsewhere in the Main Belt.
  PETRA THIEL
  A venture capitalist and hedge fund manager, Thiel 
  invested in numerous hypercorp start-ups and played 
  a key role in expanding transhumanity’s presence 
  in the solar system as well as capitalizing on break-
  throughs in various transhumanist technologies. After 
  founding Extropy Now, Thiel brought in other inves-
  tors and hatched the plan to establish Extropia.
  Thiel has infamously claimed that the inner system 
  is a lost cause, pulling most of her investments from 
  non-Extropian corps (burning several bridges with 
  former hyperelite allies) and increasing her stakes in 
  numerous Extropian technology corporations. She has 
  recently taken an active interest in extrasolar explo-
  ration, but remains a visible figurehead and active 
  participant in Extropia’s affairs. She has raised some 
  controversy by claiming that the male sex is no longer 
  needed in transhuman society, arguing that male 
  aggression and patriarchal tendencies are a detriment 
  to our continued development as a species. She also 
  regularly criticizes other autonomist tendencies and 
  has had several heated public arguments with Carson 
  Tucker about the uselessness of being part of the 
  Autonomist Alliance.
  CARSON TUCKER
  For many decades before the Fall, Carson Tucker was 
  the preeminent mutualist philosopher and economist, 
  laying the intellectual groundwork for how a free 
  market society would work. Seeing an opportunity 
  with the founding of Extropia, Tucker convinced 
  a sizable number of mutualists to emigrate there, 
  establishing free market anarchist enclaves alongside 
  the growing anarcho-capitalist capital. Despite ideo-
  logical differences, Tucker contributed significantly 
  to the core legal foundation upon which most free 
  courts base their judicial codes. He was also influ-
  ential in gathering widespread Extropian support for 
  the Autonomist Alliance, despite some vicious public 
  debates with Thiel and other prominent anarcho-
  capitalists that oppose it. He remains vocal and 
  active in Extropian matters, though he is considered 
  somewhat of a firebrand by his libertarian peers for 
  his continual memetic assault on the shortcomings 
  of capitalism.
  
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  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  169
  non-disclosure and no compete clauses. On the other 
  hand, Skinthetic design labs are considered one of the 
  most creative and intense places a biogenetecist can 
  work, and the genetic archives at their disposal are 
  massive, so the trade-off is often considered worth it.
  EXTROPIAN VIEWS ON OTHERS
  Extropians believe that both the hypercapitalists 
  and the other autonomists restrict freedom. In our 
  view, the hypercapitalists do not practice true free 
  trade, and their governments are based on force and 
  lies. The collectivists, however, also impinge on indi-
  vidual freedom by abolishing property and requiring 
  everyone to make sacrifices to the collective. The 
  exception to these views are the mutualists, who are 
  more akin to anarchists in their perceptions of others.
  SCUM
  Posted by: Spam del Psycho,  
  Scum Engineer 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  We scum are the x-factor of the Alliance. Primarily 
  anarchist in character, our politics lean more towards 
  individualism. We take more of an anything-goes, 
  fuck-’em-if-they-can’t-take-a-joke attitude towards 
  life, the universe, and … well, just about everything. 
  Internally, we are probably more fractious and 
  conflicting than any of the other autonomist factions. 
  We rarely pose our own Joint Resolutions, though 
  we’ve supported most of those raised by others.
  Among the autonomists, we scum enjoy a rather 
  unique position. Like the Extropians, we are a bridge 
  between the outer and inner system. Where the 
  Extropians are more of a gateway between cultures, 
  however, many of our scum flotillas spend months 
  or years traveling the inner system, hopping from 
  habitat to habitat. This gives us a unique perspec-
  tive not shared by the rest of the Alliance members. 
  It’s not just the sunward part of the system that we 
  wander, either—we have more direct contact with 
  other factions than probably any other. Because we 
  often operate outside of official channels, we also get 
  glimpses into the inner workings of many habitats 
  and cultures that no other outsiders come close to. 
  A lot of people think the scum are losers, but they 
  have no idea how much dirt we’ve collected on the 
  rest of you.
  GROWING IN THE CRACKS
  The scum have been around since well before the Fall. 
  Our roots stem from the very first group of orbital 
  workers that decided they didn’t want to go back 
  down the gravity well when their contract was up, 
  but they didn’t want to work their asses off for some 
  crappy corp gig neither. These scrappy types found a 
  way to survive in the niches of Earth orbit’s booming 
  space economy, usually by freelancing odd jobs and 
  scavenging anything they could get their mitts on. 
  their populations, not to mention increasing overall 
  mesh insecurity by not reporting software flaws to 
  be patched.
  MUTUAL CREDIT
  Mutual Credit is the largest mutualist bank, with 
  over 150,000 customer-owners. This bank recently 
  suffered a massive and nearly-devastating assault on 
  its computer systems that would have crippled it had 
  they not had top-notch backup and security practices. 
  Though no one has claimed responsibility for the 
  assault, some claim it was an attempt to undermine 
  support for mutualist practices. If true, the attack has 
  had the opposite result, as the mutualist movement 
  has rallied support behind one of their most impor-
  tant institutions.
  PRIVATEER PRINT
  Privateer is brazenly open about their business model: 
  breaking the encryption on trademarked blueprints 
  sold by Consortium corps and reselling them for 
  cheap to everyone else. Sporting the jolly roger in their 
  logo, Privateer contracts several top-notch cryptogra-
  phers, codebreakers, and programmers. Some cracked 
  designs are sold publicly, others are sold direct to 
  other hypercorps or criminal cartels to minifacture 
  counterfeit goods. Several inner system corporations 
  and business associations have singled out Privateer 
  as the flagship for pirate and counterfeiting activities, 
  declaring war on the Extropian corp. Privateer offices 
  have regularly suffered viral mesh attacks, direct 
  physical sabotage, and even two cases of cognitive 
  nanoviruses targeting their core staff.
  SCRYE
  This software-driven data intelligence firm is a 
  descendant of one of Thiel’s earlier corporate ventures 
  in integrating and analyzing massive data sets. That 
  particular project, contracted by several governments 
  and corporations for data mining and intelligence 
  purposes, was co-opted by the TITANs during the 
  Fall, who used its resources against Earth’s popula-
  tion. According to some insider accounts, Scrye makes 
  use of numerous breakthrough techniques copied 
  from the TITANs, particularly in the way of predic-
  tive analytics, though the hypercorp publicly denies 
  this. Scrye is currently contracted with a number of 
  Extropian corps to keep a close eye on the finances, 
  resources, and activities of their inner system hyper-
  corp rivals.
  SKINTHETIC
  Skinthetic is known for their cutting-edge and unusual 
  morph designs, particularly those that push the 
  boundaries of taste and utility. Lesser known is the 
  fact that Skinthetic employment contracts are harsh 
  even by Extropian standards—their genehackers 
  are typically bound to lengthy employment periods, 
  virtually isolated working conditions, and strict 
  
  170
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  adapted to the times, and through frequent contact 
  with other scum travelers, transformed into scum on 
  their own. Today there are hundreds of scum flotillas 
  around the solar system—no one can say for sure 
  how many. Dozens of these are huge, with hundreds 
  of ships. Many others are small, composed of simply 
  a dozen or so.
  SCUM SOCIETY
  Scum society is best described as tribal, with each 
  ship crew an individual tribe. On larger ships or 
  LaFrance rigs, the population tends to be divided 
  among different groups much like families or clans. 
  Though anarchistic, we are not as collectivist-minded. 
  We are egoists that pursue relationships that are in 
  our personal self-interest, and we abandon them when 
  they no longer suit us. The communalist obsession 
  with organization is far too stiff, static, and formal for 
  our affairs. We live for ourselves, in the now, without 
  rules that require sacrifices or bind us to others. 
  Among our kind, we don’t tolerate bullies, despots, or 
  anyone that wants to control others, but beyond that, 
  it’s each for their own.
  The various tribes, crews, clans, families, and other 
  groups are tied together by common interests, and 
  sometimes by blood. Our social systems are otherwise 
  ad hoc. Many crews elect a leader, but their authority 
  rests on their ability to convince the others to respect 
  it. Others will operate collectively, but only as long 
  as we have a common purpose. We tend not to waste 
  too much time hashing out disputes. If they can’t be 
  settled by heated words or spilled blood, we move on. 
  Reputation handles the rest.
  There are some things that no scum will tolerate. 
  Coercion. Mental manipulation. Torture. Rape. Brain 
  hacking. Slavery. These are offenses that will get 
  you airlocked, and no one is likely to bother with 
  your backup.
  GONZO LIFE
  When you’re living a meter from vacuum with limited 
  resources and surviving on your wits and chutzpah, 
  you gain a solid appreciation for the good things in 
  life. In fact, you live the fuck out of your life, because 
  your homeworld just got overrun by machines and 
  you might pick up a brain-melting nanoplague 
  tomorrow. Plus there are these nifty mind-bending 
  drugs and wares available from your neighbor, the 
  “clinic” down the corridor will do almost anything 
  you want to your body, just to see if they can, and the 
  morph you’re sporting makes almost everyone around 
  want to have sex with you—quite possibly at once.
  Body modification is one of the hallmarks of scum 
  culture. Remember that many of our early trailblazers 
  were corporate indentures, often convicts. Bad prison 
  tattoos of the non-nano variety were a common sight, 
  and many original scum still keep them as a badge of 
  honor. The liberty to adorn our bodies as we pleased 
  came hand in hand with the freedom we granted 
  Given the restrictions a lot of the corps put on gear 
  taken into orbit, a black market economy was inevi-
  table. Some of them got ahold of their own spacecraft, 
  others set up their own hideaways—which eventually 
  drew others. As we expanded outwards, these drifters, 
  itinerants, smugglers, and wanderers followed. Before 
  long, we had space crusty punks, homeless vagabonds, 
  and cut-throat opportunists wandering all over the 
  solar system—just because they could.
  Our defining moment came just a few years before 
  the Fall. A group of 20 or so indentured Chinese 
  vacworkers—all former convicts—were simply aban-
  doned out in the Belt. The asteroid they were left on 
  was mined out, the valuable equipment already lifted 
  away, and the corp that owned them simply decided 
  they weren’t worth the fuel mass to pick up and 
  relocate. They weren’t even left a fabber to survive 
  on. Lucky for them, a small drifter ship stopped 
  by right about the point they were getting ready to 
  murder each other for the last few days’ worth of 
  food. The drifters strained their own life support 
  resources to haul the vacworkers to the next nearest 
  mining operation—a two-week, hellish trip. When 
  they arrived, the manager in charge flat refused to let 
  them in, infamously proclaiming “I will not let you 
  scum on board!” The numerous miners underneath 
  him—many of whom were itinerant vacworkers—
  took one look at each other and shoved the manager 
  out the airlock. The manager’s recorded message, and 
  the story along with it, went viral among workers and 
  wanderers throughout the solar system. The scum 
  meme stuck, and before long, drifters everywhere 
  were using the term for themselves among their own 
  kind. Soon, everyone was using it.
  When the Fall came, we scum stepped in and pulled 
  our weight when it came to getting people off Earth. 
  We were already experts at MacGyvering space ships, 
  habitats, and functional systems out of whatever was 
  available. If it weren’t for our help and expertise, 
  thousands would have fallen back into the atmo when 
  their engines failed or suffocated in space. Our ranks 
  were also swelled by the massive amount of refugees. 
  Entire ships full of survivors were being denied entry 
  to every habitat they went to—some habs went so far 
  as to destroy those that attempted to dock anyway. 
  With nowhere else to go, thousands had no choice 
  but to group together, share what meager resources 
  they had, and wander about scrounging for more. 
  Anything that could be converted into living space—
  ship wrecks, pieces of shattered habitats, discarded 
  fuel tanks or supply modules—was salvaged, 
  converted, and attached to a tug for towing. Many 
  ship crews also found that the governments or CEOs 
  they had formally worked for no longer existed; these 
  too drifted aimlessly.
  Over time, these refugees accumulated into a 
  number of swarms. Many were already accompa-
  nied by self-identified scum, and soon they too were 
  integrated into our nomadic lifestyle. Others simply 
  
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  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  171
  whether that’s a unique piece of art, an illegal 
  weapon, or rare element feedstock for nanofabbers. 
  We supply and serve the black markets that thrive 
  between habitats.
  Much of the credits, resources, and favors we 
  gather is turned right back around and spent in ways 
  that benefit the swarm. Repairs, new ships, fuel mass, 
  new tech: we buy what we need and move on.
  NOMADIC DEALINGS
  The arrival of a scum swarm in nearby space is cause 
  for celebration or alarm, depending on your point 
  of view. Even—or perhaps especially—in the most 
  conservative and repressed habitats, people look 
  forward to the excitement and culture we bring. Every 
  scum swarm has troops of musicians, performers, 
  artists, and exhibitionists of every stripe conceivable 
  that are always looking for new audiences. We bring 
  the party like no other, and everyone knows it. Even 
  normally isolationist brinker stations welcome us; on 
  the fringe, it’s nice to see a crowd of new faces every 
  once in a while.
  Even more than the carnivals, our customers relish 
  the goods we bring. New drugs, brainbenders, XP, 
  morphs, bio-mods, pirated blueprints, prototype 
  electronics, bots, weapons, information, and even 
  ships—we have it all. Our services are also in high 
  demand: programming, hacking, psychosurgery, 
  protection, thuggery, companionship, sex, kink play, 
  dwarf tossing; the list is endless. The bureaucrats and 
  officials condemn our “contraband smuggling” and 
  “black markets,” but illegality is relative. We have 
  no laws to break and owe allegiance to no authority. 
  Anyone is welcome to do do business with our 
  swarms. Getting whatever you buy back onto your 
  station, past the watchful eyes of your police and 
  overlords, however, is your problem—though we can 
  often help with that too. Truth be told, many habitats 
  turn a blind eye to traffic to and from our fleets; we 
  provide a much-needed safety valve for societal pres-
  sures, after all. The people in power also find us useful 
  for their own purposes, so they are willing to keep 
  security lax to deter eyes on their own affairs. Each 
  colony is different, of course. For every station with 
  open arms, there is another that goes into extreme 
  lockdown when we come near. The most repressive 
  regimes have too much to lose by letting our kind 
  near their populations. This is why no swarms bother 
  to venture near Jovian Republic colonies.
  Perhaps the most significant currency we trade in 
  is favors. We scum are fantastic social networkers, 
  and we offer many things that our clients would 
  prefer others not to know about. This allows us to 
  rack up credit with people all over the solar system, 
  which comes quite in handy when we need to bypass 
  certain legalities, cut through red tape, or acquire 
  things of importance for our swarms. It also helps us 
  to recruit people to act as fronts for our interests—in 
  this way we can strike deals via middlemen with the 
  ourselves to roam and live apart from authority and 
  mainstream society. Morphological alterations for 
  living in micrograv were common and useful—and 
  why stop there? As our collective resources grew, the 
  options for modifying ourselves increased. Extreme 
  and unusual body-mods became a source of pride, 
  a rejection of the bland, lifeless, consumer-focused 
  corpse of a society we all came from. What was 
  taboo or poor taste in sterile corporate habs became 
  celebrated in our swarms. You didn’t need to be a 
  skilled genehacker to modify a morph on our ships, 
  you just experimented. If it failed, you went back 
  in the vat and tried again. We embraced individu-
  ality and diversity, goaded each other towards more 
  extremes, pushed the available technologies to the 
  limit. What most outsiders don’t realize is how much 
  of our efforts are focused not on resleeving into new 
  exotic morphs (though this is, of course, explored ad 
  nauseam), but on modding the skins we have. Because 
  many of us were refugees from Earth and we do 
  much of our traveling the old-fashioned way (without 
  egocasting), a surprising number of us scum still have 
  our original bodies—though you might not guess 
  from looking at them.
  We didn’t stop with our bodies. Our minds are 
  just as fair game. Mental adjustment is a far trickier 
  prospect, however, too dangerous to play with as a 
  hobby, unless you really enjoying cranking through 
  forks. Skilled psychosurgeons have a hallowed place 
  in our ranks, they are our shamans, our priests. 
  Along with them come the chemists, programmers, 
  and assorted drug-dealers that provide the tools for 
  altering our minds and expanding our perceptions. 
  Finding new ways to get high and new ways to expe-
  rience the world is our culture’s favorite participa-
  tory sport.
  Our libertine attitudes are enmeshed in all aspects 
  of our society. The way we live together, fuck each 
  other, communicate, socialize, play, and work—all 
  are open to experimentation. Everything is possible, 
  nothing is prohibited. Cross-species relationships? 
  Mass forking? Group orgies? Male pregnancies? 
  Vacuum raves? Consensual multi-ego merging? 
  Indescribable fetishes? You’ll find it all, and more.
  Can’t you wait to dive in?
  SCUM ECONOMICS
  Among our swarms and tribes, we do not use money. 
  Most basic resources are public and shared. People 
  keep private property in varying degrees. As a unit, 
  however, we watch out for each other. No one starves, 
  no one dies from want or suffers from lack of aid or 
  attention. Like other autonomists, one’s reputation 
  matters in major dealings.
  When it comes to outsiders, we handle things differ-
  ently. Non-scum must pay us for goods and services, 
  or barter in kind. Because our flotillas survive by 
  trading between habitats, we are always on the 
  lookout for things that will be valuable elsewhere, 
  
  172
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  anyone who can find a way on board. The tricky part 
  is usually finding someplace to sleep and stash your 
  stuff; almost all of the good and comfortable places 
  have long since been claimed. If you’re lucky or have 
  a solid rep, you’ll score a recently vacated common 
  room berth and a storage locker. Otherwise, you’ll 
  be getting used to sleeping with the whine of the air 
  circulation fans or the septic smell of the overworked 
  recycling systems.
  It’s not uncommon for habitats to dump their 
  unwanted convicts and outcasts on a passing swarm. 
  We take all types, and they usually fit right in. Heck, 
  we sometimes do the same to them.
  Cargo shipments are as common as travelers. 
  We’ll haul just about anything, for a price, no ques-
  tions asked. Most fleets have standing arrangements 
  with various cartels, smugglers, and even clandestine 
  hypercorps to move their goods along certain routes.
  NOTABLE SCUM FLEETS
  Scum ships and swarms tend to take names that 
  are more akin to phrases. While each fleet has 
  its own distinct character, a few specific ones are 
  worth mentioning.
  CARNIVAL OF THE GOAT
  The flagship for hedonism and creative body 
  switching, the Carnival is known even among the 
  scum for the sexual deviancy of its residents. This 
  swarm has attracted some of the most artistic bio-
  sculptors in the system, who compete with each other 
  to devise outlandish and interesting bio-mods. While 
  you can find morphs with two penises or a pair of 
  extra tits on the back in any swarm, the Carnival’s 
  bod-modders scoff at such lack of inventiveness, and 
  will point you towards their latest creations with their 
  stream of auto-erotic, self-penetrating, multi-orifice, 
  unending orgasm, and distance ejaculation features. 
  Morphs have been sculpted to enhance and explore 
  third party never knowing they were negotiating with 
  the scum.
  When a scum fleet enters the regional proximity of 
  a habitat or world, we typically egocast representa-
  tives ahead of time to establish contact, set terms, and 
  negotiate events and deals. If officially unwelcome, 
  we will use darknet channels and link up with the 
  colony’s more open-minded residents. As the swarm 
  draws nearer, shuttles and small spacecraft begin 
  making trips back and forth, transferring people and 
  physical goods. It is far too costly in fuel terms for 
  our larger ships to actually stop and dock at each 
  habitat, so instead we simply fly by. This usually 
  leaves a window of about a week for craft to easily 
  and economically travel back and forth. For larger 
  worlds and moons or important habitats, the swarm 
  may sometimes enter a parking orbit and stay longer, 
  but usually our visits are brief and intense.
  TRAVELING WITH THE SCUM
  Our flotillas offer a chance to travel “off the grid.” 
  Though slow, the payoff in anonymity and being able 
  to carry any cargo you like is worth it to many parties. 
  Some passengers simply prefer taking the leisurely 
  road, and the company is good. The nomadic lifestyle 
  is also a great way to experience the solar system and 
  its diversity of habitats.
  Getting a lift with a swarm is simply a matter of 
  finding a crew willing to take you on board. If you 
  have skills, be they practical or creative, it is often 
  easy to work your way. Scum are not particularly 
  picky about passengers; new faces are a welcome 
  change. Stiff corporate types, biocons, and ultimates 
  may face a challenge, but even these can usually find a 
  crew that will take their cred. Discretion is customary; 
  no one will pester you about your past or activities, 
  though we love to hear a good tale.
  Almost every scum fleet has an overcrowded larger 
  ship or barge-towed LaFrance rig that is open to 
  RED MARKETS
  The capitalists have black markets; autonomists 
  have red markets. Given the lack of laws among 
  anarchists, Extropians, and scum, there is no ille-
  gal merchandise or services to incite a demand. 
  There are, however, goods and intangibles that 
  are uncommon, unpopular, or proscribed by local 
  custom: experimental technology, bioweapons, 
  secrets, violence, rep network gaming, blackmail 
  material, private sensor nets, ego trading, personal 
  privacy hacks, certain hard drugs, and so on. Since 
  autonomists find many of these things distaste-
  ful or threatening, those that trade in red market 
  products do so secretly so as to avoid a backlash, hit 
  to their rep, or worse.
  Red markets are often perpetuated by the same 
  cartels that operate in black markets elsewhere. 
  Many red marketeers even conduct their transac-
  tions with credits, though favors and simple barter-
  ing are also used. Guanxi reputation is predominant 
  in red market deals, far more so than @-rep. Most 
  notably, violence—or the threat of violence—is 
  what backs most deals. Bad faith trades almost 
  always result in violent retaliation, rather than more 
  traditional autonomist methods of accountability. 
  Failing to damage those that cross or cheat you is 
  much more likely to hurt your reputation than dou-
  blecrossing or cheating someone yourself.
   
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  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  173
  almost every conceivable fetish, plus a few inconceivable ones. 
  Carnie scum are prolific resleevers, many trying out a new skin 
  on a daily basis. Some go even further, experimenting with 
  multi-ego cohabitation, ego-merging, and similar mind and 
  body games.
  The Carnival circulates primarily through the Main Belt, 
  occasionally veering out towards Mars or the Jovian Trojans. 
  Residents rotate through various leadership positions for the 
  swarm, ensuring that no one accumulates too much authority.
  FOOL ME ONCE ...
  Winding a meandering path among the rimward planets, 
  this swarm had a reputation for interest in artificial intelli-
  gence, having accepted a sizable number of exiled former AI 
  researchers into their ranks after the Fall. Though many of the 
  scum scientists openly declared their desire to learn from the 
  mistakes in previous AI research, it was clear that others were 
  eager to continue delving into areas that other factions had 
  made illegal or socially unviable. Drawing a number of AGI 
  refugees and singularity seekers to their ships, the fleet had a 
  sudden and disastrous split in their ranks just a year ago—one 
  that left a sizable portion of the fleet disabled or destroyed after 
  serious fighting. The battle saw a third of the survivors leaving 
  the swarm. Rumor is that the exiles have formed their own 
  exhuman outpost in the Neptunian Trojans.
  GET YOUR ASS TO MARS
  Endlessly circling between Mars and Titan, flying by a variety 
  of habitats in between, this swarm is known for hosting the 
  yearly Scum Olympics. Scum, spectators, and anyone brave 
  enough to throw in egocast to the fleet for a rotating mix 
  of eclectic games such as hull running, void jumping, keel-
  hauling, micrograv soccer, gangbangs, crowd surfing, fork 
  boxing, mech wrestling, capture the flag, and missile riding.
  GLITTER IN THE DARK
  Roaming in the outer system, the Glitter fleet is notable for 
  actually towing a small functional Bernal sphere with them, 
  possibly making it the only scum swarm with a majority of 
  residents that live with gravity. The majority of this swarm’s 
  residents are infugees from Indonesia and other former 
  Southeast Asian and Micronesian states, including a sizable 
  number of members of the Bugis tribe, who recognized five 
  gender identities in their culture even before resleeving made 
  fucking with gender notions par for the course. With the Bugis 
  leading the way, the Glitter scum embraced experimentation 
  and have taken exploration of alternative gender and sexual 
  identities to a new level, going further than many other 
  elements of scum and genderqueer anarchist culture.
  LICK ME I’M DELICIOUS
  This fleet has the stated goal of visiting every planet, moon, 
  and habitat in the solar system. Having visited a significant 
  percentage of inner system stations, they are now working 
  their way to a few remote outposts before hitting the Martian 
  Trojans. The swarm’s founder, Gremlin Jane, has an impressive 
  XP collection of herself posing on the hull or surface of every 
  station they have passed with a black flag in hand.
  
  174
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  Our ministerial officials are more equatable to sanc-
  tioned bureaucrats than privileged elites; they are 
  not under the influence of money or even political 
  party platforms.
  Like our anarchist and scum allies, Titanians 
  largely share resources and everyone has what they 
  need. The difference is that we do have a monetary 
  system, of sorts. Rather than self-organizing into 
  collectives, co-ops, or syndicates as the anarchists 
  do, we Titanians initiate projects as self-organized 
  microcorps. Any Titanian may petition the Plurality 
  to start a microcorp and ask for resources, measured 
  in kroner. Every Titanian working for a microcorp 
  is “paid” a salary in kroner, but the sole purpose of 
  this social currency is to reinvest in other microcorps 
  and other Commonwealth-backed projects. In effect, 
  the productive activity of our society’s workers, in 
  total, determines the government budget, and each 
  worker then allocates their share of that budget 
  as they see fit. Thus our society’s resource invest-
  ments are tied directly to the labor and interests of 
  our people.
  Unlike our allies, we Titanians have laws—and 
  police and courts that enforce them. As our laws 
  are determined by the direct majority vote of our 
  population, however, they serve our people’s interests. 
  We have no rich elites or privileged upper classes to 
  manipulate the legal system and police in support of 
  their agenda.
  Despite our differences with other autonomists, we 
  stand solidly behind the Alliance’s Points of Unity. 
  The new economy and new society of our rimward 
  alliance is the key to transhumanity’s future; we stand 
  united against the conservative and capitalist interests 
  of the old world.
  MILITARY STRENGTH
  The Commonwealth is the only Alliance entity with a 
  standing military. Though our naval forces are small 
  compared to what other polities can field, we are 
  certainly capable of playing a decisive role in engage-
  ments, as the Second Battle of Locus proved. Though 
  other autonomists are critical of the potential danger 
  of a centralized military force, our populace is under-
  standably cautious about its protection and safety 
  given recent events in transhumanity’s past.
  TITANIAN VIEWS ON OTHERS
  We Titanians hold the view that we are the bedrock 
  for transhumanity’s future. The experimentation of 
  the scum and anarchists has its uses, but eventually 
  we need to get down to actually building a popular 
  and progressive future. In the meantime, the biocon-
  servatives, hypercapitalists, and pseudo-fascists pose 
  an imminent threat that we must be vigilant against. 
  Eventually, most likely sooner rather than later, 
  technological progress will force even more changes 
  to their societies, bringing them on par with our 
  own enlightenment.
  THERE’S NO GOING BACK
  This flotilla is home to a group of scum called the 
  anachronauts, who attempt to recreate a variety of 
  historical settings or, more accurately, alternative 
  interpretations of these past visions. Each ship is 
  dedicated to a specific theme. For example, the Gear 
  Knight recreates Arthurian medieval culture, but with 
  synthmorphs. The Ronin explores the days of the 
  Japanese shogunate, but with cyberpunk-noir cyber-
  netics. The Sassy Wench is predictably pirate themed, 
  but with only women. Their LaFrance rig, The Keep 
  on the Borderlands, is designed as a fantasy RPG 
  dungeon, with the residents taking on roles as specific 
  monster tribes. The anachronauts take their character 
  personas very seriously, and expect visitors to play 
  their roles appropriately.
  SCUM VIEW ON OTHERS
  The scum view towards almost everyone else can be 
  summed up in one sentence: Get the stick out of your 
  ass. The anarchists are generally an OK lot, except 
  when they get all moralistic or get off on one of their 
  collective responsibility riffs. Everyone else needs to 
  drop their hang-ups and their pants and learn how 
  to party. There are too many experiences to be had 
  to waste time on maximizing profits or finding all of 
  the answers. We already have everything we need to 
  live life to the max, all the way until the heat death of 
  the universe.
  TITANIANS
  Posted by: Magnus Ming,  
  Proxy 
  <Info Msg Rep> 
  I’ve written extensively on Titan and its history and 
  political makeup for Firewall before, so I will simply 
  summarize the most relevant points here.
  The Titanian Commonwealth is the only hierar-
  chical, government entity among the Autonomist 
  Alliance’s four main factions. Our technosocialist 
  viewpoint simply holds that a cooperative economy—
  that is under the direct democratic control of the 
  population, mind you—is the best way to manage 
  social ownership of our resources, and that a duly-
  elected government and judiciary are more efficient 
  for managing and protecting such a system.
  Make no mistake, like other autonomists, we 
  Titanians have learned to be critical of authority and 
  people in power. That is why the legislative branch 
  of our government is controlled by all of us. Every 
  single Titanian is part of the Plurality, and we each 
  have a vote in the decisions that shape our society. All 
  of our decisions are vigorously discussed and debated 
  in the Plurality’s online public forums, with votes 
  scheduled several times a week. While we do grant 
  authority to the members of the Ministry, our elected 
  executive branch, their operations are confined by 
  the legislative limits the Plurality places upon them. 
  
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  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  175
  the corporation’s mining operations have been re-orga-
  nized under communist leadership, with a Three-Year 
  Plan underway to transform everything over completely 
  to the new economy. Though the Carajás Communist 
  Vanguard has proclaimed adherence to the Autonomist 
  Alliance’s Points of Unity and pledged to relinquish 
  their authority once their plan is completed, many 
  autonomists are concerned that popular Vanguard 
  Leader Gisele Vargas may decide to extend the plan—
  and her authority—in a bid to keep power.
  PANARCHIST FEDERATION
  The Panarchist Federation is a grouping of eighteen mid-
  sized and small habitats in the Main Belt, Jovian Trojans, 
  and Neptunian Trojans. The panarchists employ a system 
  where each resident and visitor chooses the govern-
  ment system to which they wish to be bound. Typical 
  choices include Consortium cyberdemocracy, Titanian 
  technosocialism, Queen Xenu’s Galactic Monarchy (a 
  local favorite), modern shariah (given a sizable Muslim 
  residency), mutualism, or anarchy, though choices will 
  vary from station to station. Each type of government 
  (or lack thereof) provides protection and other services 
  to its citizens and is considered to functionally overlap in 
  the same jurisdiction with the others. A Political Bureau 
  keeps track of each person’s membership and sorts out 
  any jurisdictional conflicts. Though some habitats have 
  naturally evolved enclaves for each of the major govern-
  ment types, they usually intermix.
  STAR CRYPT
  This crypto-anarchist venture is the most technically 
  sophisticated and well established data haven in the 
  solar system. No one knows where Star Crypt is 
  located, but it is widely assumed to be hosted on a 
  wandering spaceship, most likely somewhere in the 
  Main belt. Star Crypt utilizes a network of communi-
  cation link buoys scattered around the solar system to 
  obfuscate its encrypted communication channels. Star 
  Crypt is dedicated to archiving data of all kinds, no 
  matter the source, without censorship. Its databases 
  include an impressive amount of pre-Fall information 
  from Earth, backups of the Mesh Leak archives and 
  similar services, and a constantly growing assortment 
  of other information, from confidential hypercorp files 
  to gatecrashing logs to undeciphered Factor commu-
  nication intercepts.
  OTHER AUTONOMISTS
  Posted by: Lucida Parsons, 
  Firewall Proxy 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  Outside of the main factions, there are many smaller 
  groupings that align themselves with the Autonomist 
  Alliance’s Points of Unity, ranging from individuals 
  to spaceship crews to groupings of allied habitats. 
  The range of socio-political diversity is actually 
  quite striking, given the intentionally loose spectrum 
  covered by the Points. The rimward edge of the solar 
  system has cultivated a number of political and social 
  experiments, and these continue to grow in number.
  Here are a few interesting and notable examples of 
  Alliance supporters that fall outside of the anarchists, 
  Extropians, scum, and Titanians:
  COMMON SENSE NETWORK
  This network of small habitats and outposts is scat-
  tered throughout the solar system. Each continues 
  to operate as part of the transitional economy, but 
  with a basic income guarantee for their residents. 
  This enables them to interact seamlessly with hyper-
  corps and travelers from transitional or old economy 
  polities, without sacrificing their economic freedom. 
  Common Sense habitats are individually governed by 
  a directly democratic local council, in keeping with 
  autonomist principles. Most of these stations are small 
  enough (usually a few hundred residents or less) that 
  they have a small-town feel.
  NOVO CARAJÁS POPULAR SOCIALISTA
  Until recently, this small Cole bubble in the Main 
  Belt was the headquarters of Carajás Mineração e 
  Metalurgia (CMM), a formerly Brazilian asteroid 
  mining hypercorp. CMM was noteworthy for its heavy 
  use of indentures, many of them sleeved into cheap 
  case morphs. CMM had a policy of not giving their 
  indentures freedom, instead offering them the option of 
  relocating to the Carajás bubbleworld to be resleeved 
  into flats, where they continued to slave away as an 
  underclass to the corporate elites. These policies came 
  back to bite them in the ass, and in 9 AF a vanguard 
  group led a communist insurgency in a general strike 
  and revolt, seizing control of the habitat and airlocking 
  the company’s board of directors. The colony as well as 
  BARSOOMIAN AUTONOMISTS
  Some people lump the Barsoomians in with the 
  Alliance. It’s certainly convenient for boardroom 
  types on Mars to conflate their primary opponents 
  with each other for equal opportunity mud-sling-
  ing. Truth is, the Barsoomian Movement is far too 
  disorganized and umbrella-like to really say. There 
  are plenty of Barsoomians that just want a Mars 
  free from hypercorp control, but that doesn’t make 
  them collectivists. Sure, there are some anarchists 
  and others in the Movement that align themselves 
  with the Alliance’s Points of Unity and wave the 
  red-and-black flag, but the Movement is far too 
  diverse and varied to go any further than that. The 
  two are on good terms, however, particularly since 
  various Alliance groups make a habit of supplying 
  their Movement friends with material aid. 
  n
  
  176
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  The good news is you don’t need your money 
  anymore, and that your good deeds will be rewarded. 
  Spiffy eh? The bad news? Well, not so bad as it turns 
  out: you’ll no longer be able to buy your way out of 
  any old scrape or legal entanglement. If you’re an 
  asshole, it has definite repercussions, but since I’m 
  willing to think the best of most people we’ll just 
  assume that you’re not the sort of people who’d do 
  such things in the first place.
  If you’re not familiar with our way of doing things, 
  this little primer course should help you avoid any 
  major pitfalls and trashing your rep to the point 
  you’re no longer extended life support privileges in 
  a hab.
  Now there are several kinds of rep, but for our 
  purposes I’ll mostly be talking about @-rep since 
  many, if not most, of the habs out past the Belt use it 
  for determining privileges. A lot of what I have to say 
  applies to other rep networks too, though.
  Almost all social networks will quantify your repu-
  tation as a fluctuating numerical value. The actual 
  scale used varies from network to network, but the 
  same basic principles apply: when you get positive 
  feedback, your rep score will go up; when you get 
  negative, it will go down. So to build your rep, you 
  want to do things that will get people throwing 
  positive feedback at you and avoid being a dick or 
  otherwise trashing your score. Simple, eh?
  REP: WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
  Now, right away, you need to purge the idea from 
  your head that your rep score is just another form 
  of currency. This isn’t digitized social credit we’re 
  talking about here, you don’t “spend” your rep score 
  like money. Your rep score is simply a metric by which 
  others will judge you—particularly if they don’t know 
  you personally. If you’re asking for a favor, looking for 
  info on a mutual acquaintance, claiming an emergency 
  need to jump in line, or asking for use of a collective 
  or community’s limited shared resources, your rep 
  score will play a factor when it comes to questions of 
  if, when, and for how long.
  Let’s get down to the practicalities. If you’re in 
  non-Extropian autonomist space (mutualists aside, 
  Extropians are excluded from this example since they 
  normally still use money), most of the basic things 
  you need can be gotten for free, no matter what your 
  rep. Food, clothing, and even basic tools, electronics, 
  and weapons can be acquired from publicly acces-
  sible makers, common cafeterias, community storage 
  lockers and warehouses, and upcycling centers. As 
  long as your rep isn’t non-existent or so low that 
  people view you with suspicion, no one will bat an 
  eye at you taking what you need. If it looks like you’re 
  hoarding or up to no good, though, someone might 
  ask some questions.
  Now, if you’re in need of something that’s beyond 
  a basic, daily need, you can probably still get it, but 
  possibly not right away, especially if it is particularly 
  REPUTATION ECONOMIES
  Posted by: Lucida Parsons, 
  Firewall Proxy 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  There’s a saying on anarchist habitats: “No one is 
  wealthy but everyone is well off.” This, along with the 
  liberties granted to uplifts, AGIs, indentures, and other 
  stigmatized populations, is why we continue to grow 
  and prosper. As recently as even forty or fifty years 
  ago anarchists, Extropians, and other radicals were 
  tiny minorities, numbering perhaps a few million egos 
  all together. We lacked the critical mass to make our 
  ideas a reality and to build the kinds of sustainable 
  communities that our past detractors derided as pipe 
  dreams or worse.
  It was not as though people were all that better 
  off in the old economies, but there is a certain social 
  inertia to stick with what you know, even if it means 
  living in crushing poverty. Everyone else is doing 
  it, and hey, your neighbor’s sister’s daughter knows 
  someone who won the lottery just last year and has 
  moved to one of the uptown enclaves, so people do 
  get out of their miserable slums. At least that’s what 
  we told ourselves. Plus the anarchists would come 
  through and try to stir people up and all they ever 
  seemed to get for their trouble was jail or shot. It’s 
  awfully hard to go against people’s natural aversion 
  to getting shot.
  When those first few habitats went online out 
  past the Belt, though, the ones with the convicts and 
  crazies and dreamers, they had a chance to put in 
  place something new, something we’d talked about 
  but never really been able to try. Part of it—and 
  sure, the anarchists will try to tell you all of it—was 
  a grand social experiment to test out these ideas 
  in a wild new frontier. But a large part of it was 
  also practical.
  Those first habs had no banks, no financial institu-
  tions, no money, and no one in the inner system was 
  going to do business with them. What they did have 
  were needs for basic staples at first, and then enter-
  tainment and socialization later. So they developed a 
  crude barter economy and welded a social networking 
  platform on top of it to keep track of who was honest 
  and who was a cheat, of what was owed and what 
  had been freely given.
  REPUTATION 101
  Posted by: Professor Whuffie, Faculty at the Open 
  Autonomous Teaching Lab 
  <Info Msg Rep>
  Right-o, so I’ve been asked to explain the “new 
  economy” to all you poor degenerates who have 
  been living in the backwards-ass inner system under 
  hypercorp crony capitalism and also for those of you 
  who have just recently been reborn into our brave new 
  world. So, for both groups I have some good news and 
  some bad news.
  
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  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  177
  to use your rep to pull some favors. If you’re looking 
  for something customized with unusual enhance-
  ments, then you’re essentially asking a favor from 
  the modders at the local biohacking space, and so are 
  subject to their whims, ongoing project demands, and 
  so forth. Alternatively, you can try and connect with 
  someone that has the morph you want and talk them 
  into switching out for you; again, your rep will matter. 
  This is another reason so many autonomists go for 
  biomorphs with cyberbrain mods, though—makes for 
  quicker and easier resleeving.
  One problem the Alliance has is that a lot of folks 
  hear that we are giving away morphs for free, which, 
  in a way, we are. When they pay their last dime to 
  egocast out here, however, they find they’re not well 
  suited to the anarchist lifestyle and they can’t build 
  up the rep to get sleeved in something they want, so 
  they get pissed off and complain that we’re running a 
  scam. Really, all we’re doing is making sure the people 
  we rub elbows with every day in our little tin cans are 
  people we know are good neighbors, people we can 
  get along with.
  When it comes to other scarce items, well, these 
  things are usually considered the communal property 
  of the local residents. In order to use, borrow, or take 
  it, custom is that you need to convince the locals of 
  your need. This may mean that you need to wait for 
  them to poll through a collective decision, particularly 
  if you’re an outsider. This is where your rep will really 
  matter—if you’re running in the lower digits, odds are 
  you will get refused. Specifics will of course matter. 
  Plan to bring it back soon? Putting it in harm’s way? 
  Using it for a good cause? You may get what you 
  want, but it may come with restrictions. And if you 
  don’t follow through on your commitment, you may 
  have a whole habitat come hammering at your rep.
  You won’t always be relying on your rep for things 
  either—the barter of specialized information, favors, 
  and other intangibles relies heavily on how others 
  view you. This may seem shocking, but if you’re the 
  jerk who never helps clean up the hab, never helps 
  your friends move, and is generally known as a lazy 
  lout, you will find that others are less inclined to go 
  out of their way on your behalf.
  PINGS AND DINGS
  The bulk of reputation comes from tiny little micro-
  interactions we all go through on a daily basis: 
  talking to someone in a corridor, sharing a ride in a 
  lift, waiting in line for lunch, or just playing a game 
  over the mesh. All of these are chances for someone to 
  make an impression, either favorable or unfavorable.
  For the most part, the vast bulk of our daily interac-
  tions go unremarked upon. A few instances each day, 
  however, we make an impression, positive or negative, 
  on someone else. This then gets posted as feedback 
  to our online public profiles. If you do something 
  polite, kind, helpful, creative, or interesting, it may 
  impress someone who decides to ping your profile, 
  complex, unusual, useful, large, or rare. For example, 
  a station’s vacsuits are often scheduled for use, pre-
  reserved by people using them for work or a walk 
  under the stars. Heavy machinery or specialized lab 
  equipment might be in use for an ongoing project, 
  meaning you have to wait until they’re done. This 
  usually just means your name goes on the list and 
  you wait your turn—and also that you are expected 
  to pass it on to the next person in an appropriate 
  time frame. For high-demand goods, however, an 
  AI might be assigned to evaluate the weight of each 
  query for use. This is where your rep can matter. 
  If you’re a high-rep tech specialist with numerous 
  ongoing projects, odds are you can get away with 
  requisitioning some particular gear more often and 
  far longer than some mid-rep hobbyist who wants to 
  use it on stage for his punk band’s next gig. Your rep 
  can also be useful if you want to slip past the queue 
  in these situations. If you’re claiming a pressing need, 
  you better have a solid rep to back it up, otherwise 
  people likely won’t be too keen on letting you squeeze 
  in out of turn.
  Now, you may have heard it said that we’re a post-
  scarcity economy, which is partially correct. We’re 
  working on making it completely correct, but for now 
  there are a few things that are in short supply: habit-
  able space, bodies, manufacturing-intense things such 
  as spacecraft, and exotic things like antimatter and 
  qubits. Certain hand-made and artistic works also fall 
  into this category.
  As a collective unit, we autonomists have always 
  supported the principle of a body for each mind. That 
  means we aim to let everyone who wants a body to 
  have one. Circumstances matter, however, so this may 
  not always be an immediate thing, nor does it mean 
  you will get the body you want. The way we swing it, 
  everyone gets at least processing space for their ego, 
  so if you’re happy being a disembodied infomorph, 
  then no problem. Processing resources are trivial at 
  this point and we can easily and cheaply make more 
  if the need arises. But if you want a body and a place 
  to lay it down at night, you may very well be adding 
  your name to a waiting list. If you want a special or 
  customized morph, that waiting period can stretch 
  even longer.
  Now now, all of this sounds much worse than it 
  is. Right now there isn’t much of a crunch any more 
  to get a decent morph. Hell, most autonomist habs 
  have racks of splicers, bouncers, and synths on hand 
  for just about anyone, along with common room 
  space for you to crash. The difficulty comes when you 
  want something fancier. See, your everyday ordinary 
  anarchist doesn’t have much need for the wild and 
  crazy specialized morphs of the inner system, espe-
  cially luxury models like sylphs. Getting anything 
  non-standard can be a challenge, particularly if the 
  habitat is small. Specialized morphs are often allo-
  cated by a local collective for special duties, so if 
  you’re looking for something specific you may have 
  
  178
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  pro-social ways in order to reap the rewards of our 
  good behavior on our reputations, and the threat of 
  negative sanctions should keep all but the most repro-
  bate from acting in a completely antisocial manner.
  It’s worth noting that each social network has 
  different methods of weighing positive and negative 
  feedback, partly to avoid efforts to game the network. 
  Some allow pings and dings in various levels of 
  severity. The amount of gain or loss inflicted from 
  a single person is usually limited over a certain time 
  period. Likewise, pings and dings from people that 
  are within your close social circles usually carry less 
  weight than people you interact with rarely or never, 
  to counter friendship biases. Networks like Fame rate 
  feedback from high-rep sources more heavily than 
  low-rep ones, in line with their classism and elitism.
  Another thing to consider is that in these times, 
  with our constant surveillance and deep but search-
  able archives, our past history can continue to impact 
  our reputation even years down the line. Those that 
  have provided great public services to the Alliance, 
  and whose deeds have been spread widely, enjoy 
  significant good reputation wherever they may find 
  themselves, even years after the fact. On the flip 
  side, our past errors can often follow us for a long 
  raising your net positive rating by a tiny amount. On 
  the other hand, if you are rude, inconsiderate, lazy, 
  boring, etc., that too may be noticed and your profile 
  may get dinged, which will lower your net rating by 
  a tiny amount. People sometimes intentionally post 
  positive or negative feedback, but usually the process 
  is handled by our muses, which have long been 
  trained to reward or reprimand as appropriate.
  The actual process of pinging and dinging is instan-
  taneous via the mesh, with the resulting changes 
  viewable by anyone in real time. You don’t actually 
  need to know the person you are affecting, you just 
  need access to their network profile, which most 
  people broadcast publicly. Most networks allow you 
  to anonymously register your up or down vote, partly 
  to avoid retaliatory dings. In theory, this is meant 
  to allow bystanders to reward or punish relatively 
  minor everyday occurrences. The desired effect is to 
  encourage good, polite, rewardable behaviors and 
  curtail the anti-social selfishness and rudeness that is 
  seen as maladaptive to anarchist society.
  These everyday rep changes are minor—it takes 
  literally hundreds to make a significant effect on 
  your reputation—but over time they can add up. 
  Obviously the point is that we behave in generally 
  GAMING AND GRIEFING
  It was inevitable that someone would find a way 
  to exploit and misuse the reputation economies. 
  A range of abuses were in fact expected and con-
  trolled for, but an ongoing back and forth continues 
  between social network programmers and various 
  parties interested in undermining the system—par-
  ticularly when profit is involved.
  The most sophisticated rep network attacks 
  involve widespread hacking of member accounts, 
  usually via sophisticated AI-managed botnets. These 
  unsuspecting users are then manipulated into ping-
  ing or dinging a target’s rep, usually according to an 
  algorithmic scheme that helps avoid detection from 
  the social network’s fraud detection AIs. A number 
  of criminal cartels and hacker groups (and more 
  rarely, government/hypercorp spooks such as Stellar 
  Intelligence) run mass infiltration schemes par-
  ticular for this purpose, even marketing rep boosts 
  towards socialites, public officials, and others that 
  benefit greatly from maintaining high scores. These 
  rep botnets are also rented out to boost support for 
  specific memetic campaigns. Some cartels also pay 
  off willing unscrupulous people to provide feedback 
  according to their direction in exchange for micro-
  transaction kickbacks. A few go so far as to mass 
  create fake AI-managed “sock puppet” accounts 
  that go to great lengths to interact with each other 
  as real people would. Though much harder to set 
  up, these sock puppet networks are exponentially 
  harder for social network security to ferret out.
  The practice of “griefing”—an extended form 
  of online harassment—has become an especially 
  pernicious danger. The same hacker and criminal 
  networks used to boost someone’s score can also be 
  used to drive a target’s rep down. The most expert 
  of these campaigns bleed the target slowly and 
  intermittently over a long time frame. Larger scale 
  operations may also involve a full-on smear cam-
  paign using multiple media feeds in an attempt to 
  cause a rapid crash. Intense campaigns might also 
  involve hacking the accounts of the target’s friends 
  and allies, then using these to offer increasingly 
  negative testimonials, achieving the double goal of 
  causing a reputation drop and making the target 
  feel as though their closest friends and allies are 
  abandoning them.
  Many proponents of the reputation system would 
  have you believe that griefing is something only 
  made possible by the old school capitalist econo-
  mies. They claim that once these economic systems 
  wither and die, the process of griefing will disap-
  pear as well. There may be some truth to this, given 
  the monetary incentive behind most griefing cam-
  paigns, but there will doubtless be antisocial and 
  maladjusted elements that continue to grief even 
  after capitalism has disappeared. 
  n
  
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  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  179
  More accurately, what the FOAF aspect of the repu-
  tation system does is tabulate a measure of centrality 
  for a given individual based upon the eigenvectors 
  of the relational ties in any given relationship. This 
  also means that your reputation is not just affected by 
  your immediate friends, but also by the FOAF effects 
  of their friends, and the friends of their friends.
  This means that a sudden precipitous drop in repu-
  tation for a single individual can spread outwards 
  like a ripple, negatively affecting the reputations of 
  thousands indirectly connected to them. The opposite 
  is also true, with sudden celebrity or notoriety having 
  a halo effect on those with a tie to the suddenly 
  famous ego. The downside of this, especially on other 
  reputation networks such as CivicNet and Fame, is 
  that a sudden drop in reputation may result in a chain 
  reaction of de-identification with formerly close asso-
  ciates, dropping the now unpopular ego out of their 
  reputation network to block the contagion of negative 
  feedback. Unfortunately, this in turn causes a further 
  decline in the initial ego’s reputation.
  FOAF does illustrate an ongoing problem with rep 
  systems, in that people who are socially awkward tend 
  to be penalized. Some systems (@-list and RNA) try to 
  account for this, but networks like Fame consider it a 
  feature, not a bug.
  I DON’T CARE ABOUT MY BAD REPUTATION
  A lot of inner system visitors have trouble with the 
  idea that their rep actually matters and that money 
  isn’t worth shit here. While most people don’t have 
  trouble keeping a good rep—after all, it only really 
  requires that you act like a decent person—some 
  people find it challenging not to express their innately 
  antisocial behavior patterns. For these people, 
  spending time aboard an autonomist hab can be a 
  major pain in their ass. Some of them cease to care. 
  These drop-outs can continue to eke out a life on 
  the outskirts of our communities, but I doubt it is a 
  fulfilling one.
  There are dangers to running with a low or 
  negative rep score, especially on small habitats. If 
  local morph availability happens to run low, the local 
  community may decide that whatever skin or shell 
  you’re walking around in should be reclaimed and 
  redistributed to an ego that will be a more productive 
  member of their community. Even as infomorph, a 
  low rep score may mean that you’re confined to mesh 
  areas where you won’t bother other egos and where 
  you have minimal control of anything outside of your 
  own processes.
  Sounds harsh? Maybe. But we’re not interested in 
  indulging the selfish whims of petulant spoiled hyper-
  corp execs here. This is a collective society, which 
  means everyone pitches in, and everyone is equal and 
  expects to be treated that way. If you want special 
  treatment, you’re going to be waiting a long time, 
  likely in mesh isolation, until you can get some non-
  autonomist hab to accept your immigration request.
  time, and continue to drag on our reputation. Even 
  publicly repudiating past bad acts can take time to 
  filter through the mesh.
  TESTIFY
  Of far more importance to your reputation are the 
  long-form testimonials that come from others. More 
  than a simple up or down vote, testimonials can 
  provide significant insight into why someone chose 
  to boost or slap your rep. These provide more details 
  about your deeds as well as the reasoning inspiring 
  those to reward or punish you.
  Every social network handles testimonials differ-
  ently. Some (such as Fame and RNA) only allow testi-
  monials to be posted by those within your immediate 
  social circles: your friends, co-workers, family, and 
  neighbors. Others allow anyone to post, providing a 
  glimpse of one’s interactions from the perspectives of 
  complete strangers. These more disconnected views 
  are sometimes less prominent, requiring more effort 
  to dig up, especially if they are negative. Some testi-
  monials can also be hidden from anyone who isn’t 
  explicitly given privileges to view them.
  The vast majority of testimonials are positive in 
  nature, but they can also be shockingly negative, 
  especially if you’ve done something naughty, or 
  really screwed over one of your friends. The positive 
  comments count for much less positive reputation 
  gain than you’d think, though they still contribute 
  quite a bit to your positive rep. Negative testimonials 
  on the other hand can be quite damaging and cause 
  rapid and permanent drops in reputation.
  FACTION MATTERS
  This may seem obvious, but disparate groups and 
  cultures perceive things through different lenses. If you 
  go off and publicly ridicule a hypercorp CEO, your 
  @-rep is bound to get a boost, but your CivicNet score 
  might well tank. If you pioneer a new chemical process 
  certain to help in terraforming, the feedback from other 
  scientists you get on RNA is bound to be good, while 
  the preservationists on EcoWave are bound to take a 
  more hostile view. Even within factions, reactions may 
  vary. Your Extropian friends may upvote your @-rep 
  when you sign that deal to buyout an inner system 
  hypercorp, but the anarchists in your social circles are 
  bound to give you a hit for your capitalist ways.
  FOAF
  Finally, there is the friend-of-a-friend process (FOAF), 
  which uses the close relationships you have to build 
  an aggregate measure of reputation based upon those 
  relationships. Basically, your reputation is affected by 
  the company you keep. If you normally socialize with 
  the kinds of people who wouldn’t be welcome at most 
  anarchist habs, then your rep is going to be affected 
  correspondingly. If you keep company with those who 
  are good and helpful citizens, you will benefit from 
  that association.
  
  LONG-DISTANCE TRAVEL
  This far out, physical travel is measured in months or years. n p. 182
  ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS
  Asteroids, hostile atmospheres, radiation, the carbon haze of Titan—
  The outer system is not kind to the unprepared. n p. 183
  GAME INFORMATION
  NEW MORPHS
  Harsh and varied locales require specialized morphs. n p. 185
  LONG-DISTANCE TRAVEL
  This far out, physical travel is measured in months or years. n p. 182
  ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS
  Asteroids, hostile atmospheres, radiation, the carbon haze of Titan—
  The outer system is not kind to the unprepared. n p. 183
  GAME INFORMATION
  NEW MORPHS
  Harsh and varied locales require specialized morphs. n p. 185
  
  11111111
  
  182
  182
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  This section provides rules on environmental hazards, 
  new morphs, and new gear relating to the areas 
  described in Rimward.
  TRAVEL TO THE OUTER EDGES OF 
  THE SOLAR SYSTEM
  Quantum farcasting transmissions (p. 314, EP) travel 
  roughly at the speed of light. It’s possible to send a 
  message almost anywhere in the solar system in at 
  most half a day, and usually just a few hours or even 
  minutes. Transmitting from the sun to Neptune, at the 
  edge of the Kuiper Belt, a distance of ~30 AU, takes 
  just over 4 hours. Transmitting from the inner edge of 
  the Kuiper Belt to the edge on the opposite side of the 
  sun takes just over 8 hours. These are minimum times 
  for a one-way transmission, however, and do not 
  account for message size, retransmission of corrupted 
  data, (de)compression algorithms, and time lost to 
  route around sources of radiation interference. 
  The Egocasting/Farcasting Time table lists minimum 
  farcast transmission times. Egocasting via quantum 
  neutrino farcaster uses the same minimum time 
  frames, but given the size and complexity of ego 
  transmissions and other mitigating factors should on 
  average take 10 times as long. An egocast from the sun 
  to Neptune, then should take ~40 hours, not 4. For 
  truly fast egocasting, expensive QE communicators 
  must be used (p. 315, Eclipse Phase).
  Spaceships take considerably longer to reach the 
  furthest edges of the outer system. Travel between 
  points in the inner system and the Main Belt is rela-
  tively swift and easy, averaging between a week and 
  just over a month. A journey from Luna to Saturn 
  only requires 23 days by an antimatter-powered 
  courier or a bit over 12 weeks via a standard trans-
  port. Out beyond Saturn, however, travel times stretch 
  into many months or even years. 
  The Ship Travel Time Table (p. 183) provides rough 
  distances (in AU) and travel times (in days) between 
  the main points of the solar system. They were 
  calculated given average distances between the two 
  points when they are at right angles to each other in 
  relation to the sun. Gamemasters should be extremely 
  flexible with these numbers, given the needs of their 
  campaign. Orbital variations could easily double these 
  values or reduce them by half and could fluctuate over 
  the course of a campaign. For the more slow-moving 
  orbits of the outer planets, however, travel times are 
  unlikely to change significantly in the time period 
  encompassed by a campaign. 
  The calculated values assume the ship takes the 
  time to accelerate up to a good velocity, coasts along 
  for most of the trip, and decelerates near the end 
  point. A ship that is already moving at high velocity, 
  such as pulling a slingshot maneuver at the starting 
  point, will have a slightly reduced travel time. The 
  same also applies to ships that do not need to decel-
  erate and stop at the end point, simply passing it by. 
  Ships that burn fuel all the way through the trip (half 
  to accelerate, half to decelerate) will also arrive more 
  quickly. Likewise, ships that must manage their fuel 
  resources more carefully, burning less to increase/
  decrease velocity, will take longer.
  The default travel times listed on the table are for 
  standard transports (p. 349, EP). Fast Transports 
  (p. 194) and destroyers (p. 348, EP) make the same 
  journey in roughly half the time. Antimatter couriers 
  (p. 347, EP) reduce the time down to a quarter, but 
  antimatter is quite expensive, and couriers can only 
  carry small amounts of cargo. One major advantage of 
  traveling via a courier is that passengers are safe from 
  pursuit or attack until they near their destination. This 
  can be especially useful when traveling to Neptune or 
  Eris, since the combination of being untouchable for 
  several months and the immense distances involved 
  means that only the wealthiest and most dedicated 
  enemies are likely to attempt to continue to pursue 
  a fugitive on one of these vessels. However, cargo 
  transport is far more common than passenger travel. 
  Given the distances and expense involved, cargo that 
  is transported over long distances is likely to be both 
  rare and valuable. Qubits, antimatter, unique artifacts, 
  and various rare elements or difficult-to-manufacture 
  materials are the most common items shipped to the 
  edges of the solar system. For this reason. raiders 
  GAME INFORMATION
  11
  EGOCASTING/FARCASTING TIME
  JOURNEY
  DISTANCE 
  (AU)
  MINIMUM
  TIME
  Sun to Mercury
  0.4
  3 minutes
  Sun to Venus
  0.7
  6 minutes
  Sun to Earth/Luna
  1
  8 minutes
  Sun to Mars
  1.5
  13 minutes
  Sun to Main Belt (Center)
  2.7
  23 minutes
  Sun to Jupiter/Jovian Trojans
  5.2
  43 minutes
  Sun to Saturn/Titan
  9.6
  1 hour, 20 minutes
  Sun to Uranus
  19.2
  2 hours, 40 minutes
  Sun to Neptune/Neptunian Trojans
  30.1
  4 hours, 10 minutes
  Sun to Eris
  55
  7 hours, 40 minutes
  1 AU = 8.3 light minutes. Distance and times are approximate 
  and subject to orbital variations.
  For standard egocasting times, multiply the listed time by 10.
  
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  183
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  GAME INFORMATION
  183
  space at terminal velocity, requiring a Free Fall Test to 
  stay rooted to the surface.
  Dust can be a real issue on asteroids, particularly 
  during a mining operation or when operating a 
  vehicle. Any sort of activity that stirs up the regolith 
  can result in a cloud of dust that impairs visibility (a 
  –10 to –30 modifier), clings to sensors and surfaces, 
  chokes moving parts, and generally coats everything 
  and becomes a nuisance. This dust is also extremely 
  abrasive and can easily ruin slight or sensitive equip-
  ment. Attempting to move without stirring up dusk 
  requires an Infiltration Test (–20 if running). Dust 
  clouds can take anywhere from seconds to hours to 
  settle, depending on the size of the asteroid/moon. 
  Dust must be carefully removed before entering 
  a habitat, as it can damage a biomorph’s lungs if 
  breathed. Dust sometimes accumulates in pools that 
  can fill trenches and crevasses, up to several meters 
  deep and wide. Escaping from this thick, clinging 
  soup would require a Climbing or Free Fall Test with 
  an appropriate modifier.
  The moons of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, as well 
  as numerous outer-system asteroids and comets, are 
  primarily composed of—or at least covered in thick 
  layers of—ice. This ice is usually mixed with dirt, 
  rock, clay, and metals. This ice is sometimes porous, 
  however, and more unstable than a rocky mantle. 
  Geological activity on moons like Io, Europa, and 
  Triton can cause stress fractures in the ice as well as 
  create extremely chaotic ridged terrains that are diffi-
  cult to pass.
  Given the small diameter of asteroids and moons, 
  the horizon on them appears very close. It is easy to 
  lose line-of-sight over short distances.
  DISTANCE FROM THE SUN
  From Saturn on out, the distance from the sun makes 
  solar-powered energy impractical. Devices that rely on 
  sunlight to (re)charge will not regain power. Likewise, 
  occasionally strike ships venturing out beyond 
  Saturn. Since even the stealthiest raiders cannot hide, 
  most raiders take comfort in the fact that unless they 
  become too costly; they are simply too far away for 
  pursuit to be practical. 
  Slow vessels like bulk carriers and scum barges take 
  a much longer time to cross the same distance as a 
  standard transport. As a general rule, gamemasters 
  should double their travel time. These slow ships are 
  rare outside the orbit of Saturn, because such vessels 
  would take several years to reach Uranus and more 
  than a decade to reach Eris. 
  ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS
  The particular environments of the outer system can 
  pose some interesting challenges to characters.
  ASTEROIDS AND SMALL MOONS
  Small bodies in space can be difficult to traverse. The 
  terrain of asteroids and small moons can vary from 
  thick regolith dust to rocky craters to an icy mud 
  slurry and is often littered with craters, ridges, and 
  rocky debris from past collisions with other objects. 
  Small bodies can be composed of rubble and ice 
  loosely held together by gravity, making for treach-
  erous footing. Unseen crevasses and caves can pose 
  a danger to unwary travelers. At the gamemaster’s 
  discretion, walking over challenging terrain should 
  apply a –20 modifier, as if running. Particularly diffi-
  cult areas may require a Complex Action and a Free 
  Fall or Freerunning Test to cross, with failure meaning 
  the character falls or is stuck.
  These small bodies have minimal gravity and so 
  are considered a microgravity environment (p. 199, 
  EP). This means that falling is usually not a dangerous 
  affair and so unlikely to inflict damage. Any sort of 
  running or jumping on the surface, however, runs the 
  real risk of a misstep sending the character off into 
  SHIP TRAVEL TIME
  JOURNEY
  MERCURY
  VENUS
  EARTH/LUNA
  MARS
  MAIN BELT JUPITER
  SATURN
  URANUS
  NEPTUNE
  ERIS
  Mercury
  —
  0.8/18
  1.1/21
  1.6/25
  2.8/36
  5.2/56
  9.5/94
  19/176
  30/271
  68/580
  Venus
  0.8/18
  —
  1.2/22
  1.7/26
  2.8/36
  5.2/56
  9.5/94
  19/176
  30/271
  68/580
  Earth/Luna
  1.1/21
  1.2/22
  —
  1.8/27
  2.9/36
  5.3/57
  9.5/94
  19/176
  30/271
  68/580
  Mars
  1.6/25
  1.7/26
  1.8/27
  —
  3.1/38
  5.4/58
  9.6/95
  19/176
  30/271
  68/580
  Main Belt
  2.8/36
  2.8/36
  2.9/36
  3.1/38
  —
  5.9/63
  9.9/97
  19/176
  30/271
  68/580
  Jupiter
  5.2/56
  5.2/56
  5.3/57
  5.4/58
  5.9/63
  —
  11/107
  20/185
  30/271
  68/580
  Saturn
  9.5/94
  9.5/94
  9.5/94
  9.6/95
  9.9/97
  11/107
  —
  21/193
  31/280
  68/580
  Uranus
  19/176
  19/176
  19/176
  19/176
  19/176
  20/185
  21/193
  —
  36/323
  71/627
  Neptune
  30/271
  30/271
  30/271
  30/271
  30/271
  30/271
  31/280
  36/323
  —
  74/652
  The first value before the slash is the average distance in AU.
  The second value after the slash (in red) is the average travel time in days.
  Times listed are for standard transports. For destroyers and fast transports, divide the time by 2. For antimatter couriers, divide by 4.
  Distances and times are averages, subject to current orbital positions. 
  
  184
  184
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  conditions indefinitely, at least at the upper ocean 
  levels, down to a pressure depth of 500 atmospheres. 
  Synthmorphs with the adaptation can sustain regular 
  operation down to 2,500 atmospheres.
  The real danger, however, is sudden changes in 
  pressure. A biomorph dropped from a normal trans-
  human environment (1 atmosphere of pressure) into 
  the subsurface depths would be crushed, and even a 
  synthmorph might be damaged. To properly transi-
  tion, the biomorph must be slowly acclimated to 
  increasing pressure levels. This process is lengthy, 
  however, taking about 1 day. For this reason, most 
  undersea habitats cater to a specific environment; only 
  synthmorphs such as the cetus (p. 185) have an easy 
  time transitioning between the two. In habitats with 
  mixed environments, resleeving facilities are often set 
  up so that an ego can be transferred into a morph 
  already situated in the other pressure environment.
  Unlike Earth’s oceans, these subcrustal oceans are 
  colder at the top, just above freezing (around –20 
  C, given the salinity), and warmer at the bottom, as 
  they are heated at the ocean floor by geothermal vents 
  (around 10 C). “Warmer” in this context, however, 
  still equals quite cold by human terms. Water also 
  draws heat away from the body much more than air, 
  making even standard temperature tolerance mods 
  ineffective. Any biomorphs operating in these frigid 
  deep water environments require temperature toler-
  ance (improved cold), detailed on p. 166, Sunward. 
  Synthmorphs handle the temperature without issue. 
  Ceres, Enceladus, and Europa are the only bodies 
  with subsurface oceans that have been colonized, 
  however, they are not the only planetoids/moons 
  with deep water. Callisto, Eris, Ganymede, Oberon, 
  Orcus, Pluto, Rhea, Sedna, Titan, Titania, and Triton 
  are all thought to have subcrustal oceans, heated by 
  radioactive decay and tidal stresses. These waters are 
  found below the crust at depths of over 100 kilome-
  ters, however, and in some cases over 200 kilometers 
  down. No transhuman missions have yet visited 
  these dark waters—at least, none that have been 
  publicly announced.
  TITAN’S CARBON HAZE
  Titan’s thick atmosphere blocks light so thoroughly 
  that imaging the surface using light is impossible, 
  even from orbit. Communications gear based on 
  lasers, including laser-based quantum farcasters, can’t 
  signal from ground to orbit on Titan. Within the 
  atmosphere (on the ground or in flight), any device 
  relying on light to gather or communicate information 
  or to generate an effect has its range and area of effect 
  reduced to 1/10th. This includes light-based weapons 
  like dazzlers, nanoswarms controlled by laser links, 
  laser-guided munitions, and even exotic threats like 
  vision-based basilisk hacks.
  Because of this, almost all devices microfactured for 
  use on Titan rely on radio signals instead of lasers. 
  Assume that any gear whose description gives a choice 
  between using lasers and radio for communication 
  plant life will not acquire enough sunlight for photo-
  synthesis. This distance can sometimes be compen-
  sated for with large focused mirror arrays, but it is 
  usually easier to rely on other power and food sources.
  GAS GIANT ATMOSPHERES
  The thick atmospheres of the system’s gas giants pose 
  a number of hazards. Winds can reach up to 400 kph 
  on Jupiter, 900 kph on Uranus, an impressive 1,800 
  kph on Saturn, and a near-supersonic 2,100 kph on 
  Neptune. Massive cyclonic storms are common on 
  all of the planets. Attempting to fly a ship, drone, or 
  morph through these atmospheric disturbances should 
  require Pilot Tests with heavy modifiers. Lightning 
  strikes in these atmospheres can be devastating, 
  inflicting heavy damage and possibly disabling elec-
  trical systems.
  An unprotected biomorph in a gas giant’s upper 
  cloud layers would suffer from from the toxic atmo-
  sphere (p. 201, EP) and severe cold. The deeper ones 
  goes, the more the atmospheric pressures and temper-
  atures increase, eventually becoming unbearable. 
  A biomorph delving down into a gas giant’s high-
  pressure layers may suffer from afflictions common 
  to deep sea divers: nitrogen narcosis, oxygen toxicity, 
  and high-pressure nervous syndrome. If they ascend 
  too quickly, they may also suffer from the bends. 
  It is important to keep in mind with these dangers, 
  however, that a disabled craft or morph will sink 
  into the atmospheric depths where it will be certainly 
  crushed by the pressure. Heavy winds and storms 
  should therefore be used to encourage the drama 
  of a mission of a scene, with failed rolls resulting in 
  problems that must be fixed, rather than delegating an 
  entire team to death because of a missed roll … unless 
  they’re really asking for it, of course.
  JUPITER’S MAGNETOSPHERE
  The radiation from Jupiter’s magnetosphere poses a 
  major threat to biomorphs and even synthmorphs, 
  vehicles and spacecraft that travel within its bound-
  aries. Unshielded transhumans can become danger-
  ously irradiated in a matter of days or even hours, 
  depending upon location. This remains a long-term 
  danger with lightly shielded craft and habitats. For 
  information on the magnetosphere’s effects, see 
  Magnetic Fields, p. 200, EP, and Radiation, p. 201, EP.
  SUBSURFACE OCEANS
  The undersea oceans of Ceres, Enceladus, and Europa 
  are noteworthy for their incredible pressures, and 
  temperature ranges, and complete lack of natural light.
  The waters of these subsurface depths are crushed 
  under the weight of the ice above them (ameliorated 
  by the lesser gravity). Pressure starts as high as 200 
  atmospheres at the top of these oceans, reaching 
  as high as 2,500 atmospheres at the ocean floor of 
  Europa. The deeper seas of other moons see even 
  greater pressures. Biomorphs with hydrostatic 
  pressure adaption (p. 188) can operate in these 
  
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  185
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  GAME INFORMATION
  185
  Ceres and Europa. Capable of moving quickly under-
  water, the morph can also operate outside of water in 
  the atmospheric portion of habitats. Cetus morphs are 
  slightly smaller than arachnoids.
  Enhancements: Access Jacks, Basic Mesh Inserts, 
  Chemical Sniffer, Cortical Stack, Cyberbrain, 
  Direction Sense, Echolocation, Enhanced Hearing, 
  Enhanced Vision, Extra Limbs (8), Headlights, 
  Hydrostatic Pressure Adaptation
  Mobility System: Submarine (4/36), Walker (4/20)
  Aptitude Maximum: 30
  Durability: 40
  Wound Threshold: 8
  Advantages: 8 Limbs, +5 COO, +5 SOM, +5 to one 
  other aptitude of the player’s choice, Armor 8/8
  CP Cost: 45 
  Credit Cost: Expensive (minimum 40,000+)
  COURIER (SYNTHMORPH)
  This synthmorph was specifically designed to 
  fly between the many moons and habitats in the 
  Saturnian system. It is used by both couriers and 
  smugglers throughout the outer system. This morph 
  appears to be a roughly humanoid head and torso 
  set on a conical base, with a total height of 1.5 
  meters, that makes it look rather like a four-armed 
  chess piece. This base contains both the morph’s 
  ionic propulsion system, which doubles as a plasma 
  sail in space, and an internal rocket. This miniature 
  metallic hydrogen rocket is specifically designed for 
  low thrust. It provides an acceleration of up to 0.25 
  g, allowing the morph to take off and land on all 
  moons and other small bodies in the solar system. 
  This engine can operate for a total of one and a half 
  hours before it requires refueling. The morph’s 
  four slender arms fold flat against its torso 
  when it is in flight. Its extensive sensor 
  suit is useful for both navigation and 
  various covert purposes. 
  Enhancements: Access Jacks, 
  Basic Mesh Inserts, Chemical 
  Sniffer, Cortical Stack, Cryonic Protection, 
  Cyberbrain, Direction Sense, Enhanced Vision, 
  Extra Limbs (4), Grip Pads, Headlights, Hidden 
  Compartment, Internal Rocket, Lidar, Magnetic 
  System, Mnemonic Augmentation, Plasma Sail 
  Implant, Radar, Retracting/Telescoping Limbs, 
  T-ray Emitter. 
  Mobility System: Ionic (12/40), Thrust Vector (8/40)
  Aptitude Maximum: 30
  Durability: 30
  Wound Threshold: 6
  Advantages: 4 Limbs, +5 COO, +5 INT, 
  +5 REF, +5 to one other aptitude of 
  the player’s choice, Armor 6/6
  CP Cost: 70
  Credit Cost: Expensive 
  (minimum 40,000+)
  employs lasers. Gamemasters may wish to have 
  players specify whether their character’s gear uses 
  radio or laser systems prior to adventures on Titan, 
  particularly if they acquired their gear offworld.
  Tight-beam laser communications offer greater 
  security than radio because they’re directional. 
  Secure facilities and military ships in the Titanian 
  sphere compensate for this by making extensive use 
  of fiberoptic lines, microwave links, VPNs, quantum 
  communications, stealthed signals, and active moni-
  toring. All Titanian capital ships carry tight-beam 
  neutrino communicators. The Commonwealth has a 
  reputation for government transparency, but Fleet’s 
  bleeding-edge neutrino-band security protocols are 
  among its handful of vigorously guarded state secrets.
  The combination of thick atmosphere and low 
  gravity on Titan make even human-powered flight 
  very easy. Aircraft, personal transporters, and smart 
  wings are common and popular methods of getting 
  around on Titan.
  NEW MORPHS
  This selection of morphs includes designs customized 
  for rimward locales. At the gamemaster’s discretion, 
  these may be allowed during character creation.
  CETUS (SYNTHMORPH)
  The cetus, named after a mythological sea monster, 
  was designed for deep sea activity and is capable of 
  operating under extreme pressure and cold. It is a 
  favored morph for use in the undersea domains of 
  CETUS SYNTHMORPH
  
  186
  186
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  HAZER (BIOMORPH)
  Hazers are tall, fine-boned morphs, lightly muscled 
  but heavily insulated against loss of body heat. Even 
  with all of their augmentations, hazers can’t survive 
  exposure to the frigid atmosphere of Titan—but they 
  can handle it slightly longer than other morphs. Hazers 
  tend to be fair and slender, with chiseled features. Some 
  have features so angular or elfin that their beauty is 
  alien and unsettling to other human phenotypes. 
  Striking Looks and Uncanny Valley are both common 
  morph traits.
  Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, 
  Cortical Stack, Enhanced Vision, Radiation Sense, 
  Respirocytes, Temperature Tolerance (Improved 
  Cold; p. 166, Sunward)
  Aptitude Maximum: 30
  Durability: 35 
  Wound Threshold: 7
  Advantages: +5 COO, +5 WIL, +5 to two other 
  aptitudes of the player’s choice
  CP Cost: 35
  Credit Cost: Expensive
  HULDER (BIOMORPH)
  Hulder are engineered for survival in the Titanian 
  wilds. In silhouette, their bodies resemble a long-
  legged great auk, though viewed up close, the 
  resemblance to a bird ends. Hulder have no feathers, 
  but rather smooth, rubbery charcoal or black skin 
  covering a thick layer of nano-augmented blubber. 
  What resembles a thick bill from a distance is actually 
  a seamless protrusion of the face, packed with sensory 
  augmentations. Hulder stand 2 meters tall and weigh 
  on average 135 kilograms. Their sensory organs, 
  webbed feet, and fingers are all cybernetic.
  Hulder can only tolerate temperatures hospitable to 
  baseline transhumans for short periods of time. In the 
  open, they must balance their bodies’ chemical reser-
  voirs with other hulder and caribou once per month 
  or with a chemical reserve pack. A typical band of 2–6 
  hulder and 10–20 caribou can go about a year before 
  having to visit a hab or a station like Huvudskär to 
  replenish chemical reserves.
  Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, 
  Bioweave Armor (Light), Cortical Stack, Digging 
  Claws, Direction Sense, Enhanced Vision, Long-Term 
  Life Support, Oxygen Reserve, Radiation Sense, Swim 
  Bladder, T-Ray Emitter, Temperature Tolerance (Cryonic)
  Aptitude Maximum: 30
  Durability: 40
  Wound Threshold: 8 
  Advantages: +5 SOM, +10 WIL, +5 to one aptitude 
  of player’s choice
  Disadvantages: Temperature Intolerance (Warm)
  CP Cost: 50
  Credit Cost: Expensive (Minimum 40,000+)
  HYPERBRIGHT (BIOMORPH)
  This morph is an attempt by a research team on Bright 
  to create a successor to the menton, making it the 
  FENRIR (SYNTHMORPH)
  Named for the monstrous wolf of Norse legend, the 
  fenrir is one of the most imposing combat morphs 
  ever developed. It is found only in the armed forces 
  of the Hyoden city-state on Callisto (though black-
  market blueprints/copies are rumored to be available 
  elsewhere). A massive, squat quadrupedal morph 
  designed to be operated by up to six egos simultane-
  ously, the fenrir is more akin to a super-heavy tank 
  than a regular morph. It is possible that a single ego 
  could fill all six ego slots at once through the use of 
  alpha forks, but this has never been tested. The 
  most common weapons mounted are linked 
  HEAP and/or plasmaburst seeker launchers, 
  exoatmospheric plasma beam bolters, and 
  machine railguns loaded with AP rounds.
  Note: This morph is unique in that it 
  allows more than one ego to use it at the 
  same time. Ego Sharing may be purchased 
  for this morph an additional four times, 
  for a total of five additional egos. 
  Enhancements: 360-Degree Vision, 
  Access Jacks, Anti-Glare, 
  Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical 
  Stack, Cyberbrain, Direction 
  Sense, Ego Sharing (1), 
  Enhanced Hearing, Enhanced 
  Vision, Extra Limbs (4), 
  Heavy Combat Armor,Lidar, 
  Mnemonic Augmentation, 
  Pneumatic Limbs, Radar, 
  Structural Enhancement, 
  T-Ray Emitter, Weapon Mount 
  (External, Articulated, 8)
  Mobility System: Walker (4/20), 
  Thrust Vector (4/12)
  Aptitude Maximum: 35
  Durability: 70 (80 with 
  Structural Enhancement)
  Wound Threshold: 14 (16 with 
  Structural Enhancement)
  Advantages: 4 Limbs, +5 REF, 
  +5 COO, +10 SOM, +5 
  to one other aptitude of 
  the player’s choice, Armor 
  16/16 (32/32 with Heavy 
  Combat Armor) 
  Disadvantages: Large target 
  (+10 to hit)
  CP Cost: Not available at 
  character creation
  Credit Cost: Expensive  
  (rare and restricted; 
  minimum 100,000+)
  HAZER BIOMORPH
  
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  187
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  GAME INFORMATION
  187
  SAVANT (SYNTHMORPH)
  This morph was developed on Ilmarinen as proof 
  that synthmorphs can also be useful to scientists and 
  engineers. This strangely elegant morph lacks the 
  disturbing mimicry of humanity found in synth and 
  steel morphs. Instead, the ovoid head with its elegantly 
  minimalist face looks more like an artistic sculpture 
  than a metal version of a real human head. 
  Enhancements: Access Jacks, Basic Mesh 
  Inserts, Cortical Stack, Cyberbrain, Eidetic 
  Memory, Hyper-Linguist, Math Boost, 
  Mnemonic Augmentation
  Mobility System: Walker (4/20)
  Aptitude Maximum: 40 (COG and INT), 30 
  (all others)
  Durability: 40
  Wound Threshold: 8
  Advantages: +10 COG, +5 INT, +5 SAV, +5 SOM, +5 
  to one other aptitude of the player’s choice, Armor 
  8/8
  Disadvantages: Social Stigma (Clanking Masses) trait
  CP Cost: 65
  Credit Cost: Expensive (minimum 40,000+)
  SELKIE (BIOMORPH)
  Selkies look like a human-seal hybrid, and in fact their 
  genetics are aquanaut with heavy splices of seal traits. 
  Their arms are standard human-shaped, but their legs 
  are fused into a pair of hind flippers for powerful 
  swimming. On land, they can stand but have difficulty 
  moving, as they must flop, roll, or hop like a seal. They 
  are adapted for the lack of air, deep cold, and crushing 
  pressure of subcrustal seas.
  Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, 
  Cortical Stack, Echolocation, Enhanced Hearing, 
  Enhanced Vision, Enhanced Respiration, Gills, 
  Hydrostatic Pressure Adaptation, Swim Bladder (p. 
  152, Gatecrashing), Temperature Tolerance (Improved 
  Cold; p. 166, Sunward), Toxin Filters
  Aptitude Maximum: 30
  Durability: 40
  Wound Threshold: 8
  Advantages: +5 COO, +10 SOM, +5 to one other 
  aptitude of the player’s choice, +10 Swimming skill
  Disadvantages: Movement Rate of 1/4 on land
  CP Cost: 55 
  Credit Cost: Expensive
  OUTER SYSTEM MORPH VARIANTS
  Many morphs previously described in other Eclipse 
  Phase books are used in outer system environments, 
  often tailored with modifications specific to the locale.
  BIOMORPHS WITH CYBERBRAINS
  The cultures of the outer system are far more 
  accepting of forking and regular resleeving. For this 
  reason, many biomorphs in the outer system are 
  equipped with cyberbrains rather than organic brains 
  by default. This makes the resleeving process quicker 
  (less than a minute as opposed to an hour) and makes 
  most intelligence-enhanced morph ever created. Work 
  on the hyperbright morph has been plagued with 
  difficulties, as the designers attempt to push technical 
  limits, creating a morph that can work at peak effi-
  ciency without distraction for long periods of time. 
  In an effort to create a morph that proves their design 
  and earns some positive reputation for their project, 
  the creators took short cuts that caused the morph 
  to have several distinctive and potentially annoying 
  quirks, including an inherent need for drugs to stabi-
  lize its exotic neurochemistry. The result is a morph 
  that is instantly recognizable by the brightly colored 
  bony crest along the skull that helps cool its brain. 
  Despite its quirks, the hyperbright has gained a small 
  following among a number of scientists and engineers, 
  especially since it has been optimized for use in the 
  low-g environments of the outer system. When created 
  or used on Bright, this morph is usually also fitted 
  with the parallel processor nanoware (p. 189). 
  Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, 
  Circadian Regulation, Cortical Stack, Eidetic Memory, 
  Endocrine Control, Grip Pads, Hyper-Linguist, Math 
  Boost, Mental Speed, Prehensile Feet
  Aptitude Maximum: 40 (COG and INT),  
  30 (all others)
  Durability: 35
  Wound Threshold: 7
  Advantages: +15 COG, +10 INT, +5 WIL, +5 to one 
  other aptitude of the player’s choice
  Disadvantage: Addiction (minor, to comfurt), Fast 
  Metabolism (p. 165, Sunward), Uncanny Valley
  CP Cost: 70
  Credit Cost: Expensive (Minimum 40,000+)
  RING FLYER (BIOMORPH)
  Designed for use in Saturn’s magnetic field, this exotic 
  biomorph is also occasionally used around Jupiter, 
  Uranus, and Neptune, as well as having limited use 
  in the Jovian Trojans and Main Belt. Easily recogniz-
  able with its slender limbs and round-backed torso, 
  this morph can survive indefinitely in space, acquiring 
  oxygen, water, and trace organic materials from 
  the particles of Saturn’s rings. It can also maneuver 
  around any planet with a magnetic field, flying swiftly 
  and easily in any of these environments. 
  Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, 
  Bioweave Armor (Light), Cortical Stack, Enhanced 
  Respiration, Enhanced Vision, Gas Jet System, 
  Grip Pads, Hibernation, Long-Term Life Support, 
  Medichines, Oxygen Reserve, Plasma Sail Implant, 
  Prehensile Feet, Radiation Tolerance, Temperature 
  Tolerance (Cryonic), Vacuum Sealing
  Aptitude Maximum: 30
  Durability: 30
  Wound Threshold: 6
  Advantages: Bioweave Armor (Light, 2/3), Limber 
  (Level 1) trait, +5 COG, +5 COO, +5 REF, +5 to 
  one other aptitude of the player’s choice
  CP Cost: 70
  Credit Cost: Expensive (Minimum 40,000+)
  
  188
  188
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  TITANANIAN VARIANTS
  Commonly encountered morphs on Titan include:
  Titanian Fliers: Lunar fliers (p. 162, Sunward) 
  augmented with temperature tolerance (improved cold; 
  p. 166, Sunward). CP and Credit Costs remain the same.
  Titanian Olympians: Often used by athletes and 
  outdoor workers, these are standard olympian 
  biomorphs augmented with temperature tolerance 
  (improved cold; p. 166, Sunward). CP and Credit 
  Costs remain the same.
  NEW NEGATIVE MORPH TRAITS
  The following Negative traits may be available 
  to starting character morphs at the gamemas-
  ter’s discretion.
  TEMPERATURE INTOLERANCE (WARM) (MORPH TRAIT)
  The morph is adapted for extreme cold and has diffi-
  culty dissipating body heat in temperatures tolerated 
  by normal transhumans. When exposed to vacuum or 
  temperatures above 5 C for more than 10 minutes, 
  the character suffers a –10 modifier to all actions. At 
  10 C, increase the modifier to –20. At temperatures 
  above 25 C, the character may suffer 1d10 DV per 
  hour exposed from overheating, at the gamemaster’s 
  discretion. These effects can be nullified by wearing a 
  vacsuit, the application of some sort of cooling system, 
  or returning to a suitably cold environment. 
  Bonus: 10 CP
  WHOLE BODY APOPTOSIS (MORPH TRAIT)
  This morph has been genetically programmed to 
  suffer a sudden and lethal massive cellular failure at 
  some point in the future, usually within a given 10 
  year period, though it is possible to target a specific 
  date, give or take a few months. This modification is 
  favored by bioconservatives that wish to live healthy 
  and die quickly and “naturally.” The cellular failure 
  takes about 10 minutes to complete, giving the char-
  acter time to stop what they are doing, send any final 
  messages, or commit any other final acts. This trait 
  may only be applied to biomorphs (including pods). 
  Apoptosis may not be initiated voluntarily.
  Bonus: 0 CP
  NEW GEAR
  This gear is commonly used in specific areas of the 
  inner system, as noted. At the gamemaster’s discretion, 
  it may be purchased during character creation just like 
  other gear.
  NEW BIOWARE
  These implants follow all of the standard rules for 
  bioware given in the Eclipse Phase core rulebook.
  HYDROSTATIC PRESSURE ADAPTATION 
  (PHYSICAL AUGMENTATION)
  The morph is capable of operating under extreme 
  pressure conditions. Biomorphs (including pods) with 
  it substantially easier to fork. The drawback is that 
  cyberbrains are vulnerable to hacking (p. 261, EP).
  Biomorphs with this option have Access Jacks, 
  Cyberbrain, Mnemonic Augmentation, and an 
  optional Puppet Sock. Increase CP Cost by 5; Credit 
  Cost remains the same.
  CEREAN VARIANTS
  Biomorphs on Ceres must be capable of handling 
  the ammonia content in the water in addition to 
  the pressure. 
  Cerean Aquanaut: As the aquanaut biomorph (p. 
  150, Gatecrashing), but equipped with hydrostatic 
  pressure adaption (p. 188). CP and Credit Costs 
  remain the same.
  Cerean Neo-Cetaceans: Neo-cetaceans modified for 
  survival on Ceres also have gills, hydrostatic pressure 
  adaption (p. 188), temperature tolerance (improved 
  cold; p. 166, Sunward), and toxin filters. Increase CP 
  Cost by 10; Credit Cost remains the same.
  Cerean Octomorph: Favored by the Hidden 
  Concern, Cerean octomorphs are equipped with 
  eelware, hydrostatic pressure adaption (p. 188), 
  temperature tolerance (improved cold; p. 166, 
  Sunward), and toxin filters. Increase CP Cost by 10; 
  Credit Cost remains the same.
  EUROPAN VARIANTS
  Various biomorphs have been adapted to survive in 
  the intense pressures and deep cold of the subsurface 
  Europan waters. 
  Europan Aquanaut: As the aquanaut biomorph (p. 
  150, Gatecrashing), but equipped with hydrostatic 
  pressure adaption (p. 188). CP and Credit Costs 
  remain the same.
  Europan Uplifts: Neo-cetaceans and neo-octopi 
  are natural fits for the Europan environment. 
  Any of these morphs (including the takko) can be 
  modified for survival on Europa, adding hydrostatic 
  pressure adaption (p. 188) and temperature tolerance 
  (improved cold; p. 166, Sunward). Increase CP Cost 
  by 5; Credit Cost remains the same.
  Europan Orca: The greatest success to date is the 
  Europan orca, a cetacean uplift that upgrades the 
  neo-orca with carapace armor, eelware, enhanced 
  vision, hydrostatic pressure adaption (p. 188) and 
  temperature tolerance (improved cold; p. 166, 
  Sunward). Increase CP Cost by 10; Credit Cost 
  remains the same. These are especially useful as 
  undersea guards or mercenaries.
  OUTER SYSTEM SYNTHMORPHS
  Given that social attitudes toward cases and synths 
  (and similar low-end shells) are not as prejudiced in 
  autonomist and some other outer system cultures, 
  gamemasters may wish to disallow the Stigma: 
  Clanking Masses negative trait in campaigns based 
  primarily in these areas. To balance this out, gamemas-
  ters may require these morphs to take the Uncanny 
  Valley negative trait instead.
  
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  GAME INFORMATION
  189
  duration of the linkage. These bonuses only apply when 
  the users are linked. Users must possess the mental 
  speed augmentation to use this implant. While the 
  implant is active, the character’s Trauma Threshold is 
  reduced by 1. To avoid possible personality bleed-over, 
  users are advised to use this augmentation for no more 
  than six hours per day. [High]
  PLASMA SAIL IMPLANT (PHYSICAL AUGMENTATION)
  This augmentation installs a miniature plasma sail in 
  the morph. This implant includes a potent battery-
  powered superconducting magnet and a tank holding 
  sufficient compressed hydrogen to allow the plasma 
  sail to operate for three months. This implant allows 
  the user to fly through space with an acceleration of 
  up to 0.01 g, though beyond the orbit of Saturn the 
  solar wind becomes too faint to provide any accelera-
  tion. In open space, this sail can achieve a maximum 
  velocity of 80 kilometers per second, but can only be 
  used to accelerate away from the sun (tacking can 
  be used to sail toward the sun, but at a maximum of 
  10 kps). It can be used to maneuver in any direction, 
  however, as long as the user is within a planet’s strong 
  magnetic field. Within 70,000 km of Earth, 3,000,000 
  km of Jupiter, 1,500,000 km of Saturn, 450,000 km 
  of Uranus, or 500,000 km from Neptune, the plasma 
  sail allows the user to maneuver freely and to land on 
  and take off from any moon with a surface gravity of 
  less than 0.05 g. Using it requires Flight skill. This is a 
  relatively large implant and produces a characteristic 
  humpback shape on almost all morphs. [Expensive]
  NEW NANOWARE
  These implants follow all of the standard rules for 
  nanoware given in the Eclipse Phase core rulebook.
  LONG-TERM LIFE SUPPORT
  The biomorph is adapted for harsh environmental 
  conditions and can survive for long periods of time 
  as a closed system thanks to symbiotic bacteria 
  and nanomachines. This augmentation allows any 
  biomorph or pod to recycle air, food, and water for up 
  to one year. This augmentation’s implanted miniature 
  maker allows the morph to process ice and various 
  simple organic chemicals into air, water, and food. The 
  morph need not eat or breathe but must ingest about 
  five kilograms of ice and carbon grit per day. It must 
  also balance out or replenish chemical reserves once 
  a month, either by exchanging with other similarly 
  augmented morphs or applying a Low-cost chemical 
  reserve pack. [Expensive]
  NEURAL ENHANCERS
  This active nanotechnology bonds with the morph’s 
  neural structures, creating a series of specialized 
  cognitive subprocessors that enhance the user’s 
  intelligence. It provides users with a +5 modifier to 
  COG. However, enhancing intelligence is a difficult 
  process and this enhancement is based on techniques 
  used on existing morphs. It has no effect if used on a 
  this mod can withstand up to 500 atmospheres; the 
  synthmorph equivalent can handle up to 2,500 atmo-
  spheres. The morph can also acclimate to changing 
  pressures more quickly and is immune to oxygen 
  toxicity, nitrogen narcosis, and the bends. [Expensive]
  RADIATION TOLERANCE (PHYSICAL AUGMENTATION)
  This mod may only be installed in morphs with 
  medichines. The biomorph’s DNA is redundantly 
  encoded and vital tissues are actively replaced. 
  Additionally, vital systems are protected with special 
  shielding sleeves and blood filters, and many chemical 
  processes are reinforced against disruption. The 
  morph can survive radiation exposure thirty times as 
  effectively as if unaugmented. [Expensive]
  TEMPERATURE TOLERANCE (CRYONIC) 
  (PHYSICAL AUGMENTATION)
  The morph is treated as having the Temperature 
  Tolerance bioware (p. 305, EP), but the addition 
  of both an integral nuclear battery and specially 
  bioformed insulation allows this morph to indefi-
  nitely tolerate temperatures as low as –200 C without 
  harm as long as the morph is in an atmosphere with 
  a pressure of less than 0.1 atmosphere. In a dense 
  atmosphere, like that of Titan, the morph can endure 
  temperatures as low as –120 C. [High]
  WINTERIST (PHYSICAL AUGMENTATION)
  The character has the androgynous appearance and 
  non-sexual erogenous zones common to inhabitants 
  of Winter hab (p. 64). The character has a monthly 
  hormonal cycle driving their desire for erogenous 
  contact. The character also produces fertile gametes 
  once a month in accordance with this cycle, but 
  these must be harvested through a medical procedure 
  and placed in a Winterist exowomb in order to be 
  fertilized. This augmentation can be added to any 
  biomorph but may not be taken in combination with 
  the sex switch augmentation or any other augmenta-
  tion directly linked to the character’s sex. Characters 
  with this augmentation are immune to the effects of 
  tailored pheromones. [Low]
  NEW CYBERWARE
  These implants follow all of the standard rules 
  for cybernetic implants given in the Eclipse Phase 
  core rulebook. 
  PARALLEL PROCESSOR (MENTAL AUGMENTATION)
  A modified derivative of the neo-syngergist hypermesh 
  link, this augmentation allows users to link their 
  minds together together in a manner similar to parallel 
  processing computers, allowing them to borrow 
  processing power from other linked egos to solve intel-
  lectual problems. In addition to automatically providing 
  the appropriate teamwork bonus for the problem (to a 
  maximum of +30) without the others needing to take 
  any actions, as long as three or more users are linked 
  together, each user also gains a +5 COG bonus for the 
  
  190
  190
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  EGO SHARING (PHYSICAL MODIFICATION)
  This enhancement allows more than one ego to access 
  the internal systems and controlling functions of a 
  single synthmorph, bot, or vehicle at one time. Each 
  ego requires its own cyberbrain. Command respon-
  sibilities are usually divided into appropriate sectors 
  of control. For example, one ego is responsible for 
  physical movement, another handles data analysis, a 
  third operates weapon controls, and so on. Each ego 
  acts on its own Initiative; the morph may only move on 
  one ego’s action and each weapon system and enhance-
  ment may only be actively used by one ego per Combat 
  Turn, though other egos may passively access data from 
  enhancements and systems used by others. Morph 
  aptitude modifiers and bonuses from enhancements 
  apply to all egos equally. No Speed-boosting enhance-
  ments may be used with this morph. [Expensive]
  SMART WINGS (PHYSICAL MODIFICATION)
  This augmentation consists of a smart material coating 
  on the morph’s arms. With a Quick Action, the synth-
  morph can extend or retract smart-material wings 
  with a wingspan of 8 meters. In normal atmospheric 
  pressure, the synthmorph can fly at speeds of up to 
  100 kph as long as the surface gravity is less than 
  0.15 g. They may also be used for gliding (see Gliding 
  Membranes, p. 166, Sunward). When retracted, this 
  augmentation is hidden. This mod is very common for 
  synthmorphs on Titan and in various large low gravity 
  habitats throughout the outer system. Large or heavy 
  morphs may not use it. [Low]
  morph that has a COG modifier of +10 or more. This 
  augmentation can be used on biomorphs, pods, and 
  synthmorphs. [Expensive] 
  NEW ROBOTIC ENHANCEMENTS
  These alterations follow all of the standard rules 
  for robotic enhancements given in the Eclipse Phase 
  core rulebook and are only available to synthmorphs 
  and bots.
  All of the bioware, cyberware, and nanoware 
  listed above, with the exception of radiation toler-
  ance, winterist, and long-term life support, are also 
  available as robotic enhancements (and thus may be 
  incorporated into synthmorphs).
  CRYONIC PROTECTION (PHYSICAL MODIFICATION)
  Even synthmorphs can have difficulty with the cryonic 
  temperatures found in the outer system. While almost 
  any synthmorph can operate normally for at least an 
  hour at these temperatures, longer exposure can cause 
  materials to get brittle and joints to lock up, especially 
  in an atmosphere thick enough to conduct heat away 
  from the morph. This augmentation uses the morph’s 
  nuclear battery to slightly warm its surface, while also 
  coating the morph with a thin layer of insulation. 
  Cryonic protection allows synthmorphs to operate 
  indefinitely in the coldest temperatures found in the 
  solar system. [Low]
  FENRIR SYNTHMORPH n p. 186
  
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  GAME INFORMATION
  191
  PLASMA SAIL
  This backpack and harness operates in the same 
  manner as the plasma sail implant (p. 189). [Expensive]
  SMART MANIPULATORS
  When not in use, this device resembles a small five-
  kilogram backpack. It contains a nuclear battery, 
  advanced smart materials, and an AI that allows users 
  to operate this device as easily as their own arms or 
  legs. When activated, the device can create a wide 
  array of tools and manipulators. It can sprout a pair 
  of wings that allow the user to fly at speeds of up to 
  100 kph in one atmosphere or more of pressure if the 
  gravity is 0.15 g or lower. It can also create gliding 
  membranes that duplicate the augmentation with 
  the same name (p. 166, Sunward). In addition, the 
  device allows the user to create a number of highly 
  flexible limbs equal to their COO/5, which can each 
  reach as far as seven meters. Each of these limbs can 
  be sculpted to end in a hand, grip pad, cyberclaws, 
  knife, shock baton, flex cutter, or any tool that can be 
  created by the wrist-mounted tools augmentation (p. 
  309, EP). Alternatively, each limb can duplicate the 
  abilities of a length of electronic rope (p. 332, EP) up 
  to 30 meters long that can end in a grip pad if desired. 
  These items are very popular with users who work in 
  zero gravity or very low gravity environments. [High] 
  PETS
  This is a sampling of animals unique to the outer 
  system. Aquarium pets, marmosets, and squidlings all 
  receive the small target modifier (–10 to hit in combat).
  AQUARIUM PET
  Not so much a pet as a prison, aquarium pets are 
  transgenic aquarium animals such as koi, plecos, or 
  axolotls that have been implanted with a ghostrider 
  module. The ghostrider module has no control over 
  the animal’s body but is fully wired into its sensorium 
  as if it were living a real-time XP recording. An ego 
  “sleeved” into an aquarium pet experiences being a 
  fish, from the sensation of swimming to autonomic 
  drives such as hunger and urination. Many of these 
  sensations, such as the pleco’s rasping at the soft 
  aquarium wood to which it clings with its sucker-like 
  mouth or the koi’s constant rifling of filthy bottom 
  gravel with its mouth, are deeply revolting to most 
  transhumans. In addition, the animals used often have 
  good hearing, meaning the sleeved ego can make out 
  conversations outside the tank.
  ARMOR MODS
  Armor mods are detailed on p. 313, EP.
  STASIS MODULE
  This modification may be applied to any type of 
  vacsuit or other fully enclosed suit of armor. When 
  activated, it places the wearer in a medical stasis, 
  preserving the body and mind. Characters in stasis 
  cannot act and are considered unconscious. This 
  module may be linked to the user’s mesh insert 
  medical sensors, triggered to activate if the wearer’s 
  Durability drops below a pre-set threshold. [Low]
  EVERYDAY TECHNOLOGY
  These devices are commonly used throughout the 
  outer system.
  DUST REPELLENT
  This smart material spray prevents electrostatic dust 
  from adhering to surfaces. It is commonly deployed 
  on visors, sensors, windows, joints, moving parts, and 
  other areas that could be covered or jammed up by 
  dust from asteroids, moons, Mars, and so on. One can 
  is enough to cover a single car-sized vehicle or eight 
  human-sized morphs. [Trivial]
  FLYING VEST
  This garment consists of a thick vest containing a 
  large battery, a miniature electric turbine on the back, 
  and air intakes and exhausts at the shoulders and 
  waist. Thrust from this turbine allows the wearer to 
  fly, but only in low gravity environments in an atmo-
  sphere. In a gravity no more than 0.14 g it allows the 
  wearer to fly at speeds of up to 40 kph, and in gravity 
  less than 0.1 g, the wearer can fly at speeds of up to 
  100 kph. This vest is soft and highly flexible, but is 
  also several centimeters thick and the turbine makes a 
  small but visible hump on the wearer’s back. This vest 
  has a mass of 9 kilograms and can operate for 4 hours 
  before it must be recharged. [Moderate]
  FRACTAL GLOVES
  These gloves are designed to fit over a humanoid 
  wrist and hand to duplicate the effects of the fractal 
  digits robotic enhancement (p. 31, EP). The gloves 
  also include micro-cameras that allow wearers to 
  clearly see the objects they are manipulating, dupli-
  cating the effects of nanoscopic vision (p. 311, EP). 
  [Moderate]
  PETS
  ANIMAL
  COG
  COO
  INT
  REF
  SAV
  SOM
  WIL
  INIT
  SPD
  DUR
  WT
  DR
  LUC
  TT
  IR
  Aquarium Pet
  1
  10
  5
  5
  5
  5
  5
  2
  1
  2
  1
  3
  10
  2
  20
  Poisonous Marmosets
  5
  20
  10
  15
  5
  5
  5
  5
  1
  25
  5
  37
  10
  2
  20
  Squidling
  5
  15
  10
  20
  5
  5
  5
  6
  1
  5
  1
  7
  10
  2
  20
  Titanian Caribou
  5
  10
  10
  10
  5
  20
  10
  4
  1
  30
  6
  45
  20
  4
  40
  
  192
  192
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  muzzles contain chemical sniffers to detect the carbo-
  naceous compounds upon which they “graze” and 
  fractal fingers for breaking down ice, rock, and carbon 
  grit. [Medium]
  Skills: Freerunning 60, Fray 50, Perception 60, 
  Unarmed Combat 50
  Attacks: Antler (1d10 - 2) DV
  Implants: Enhanced Smell, Enhanced Vision, 
  Fractal Digits, Long-Term Life Support, Temperature 
  Tolerance (Cryonic)
  ROBOTS
  These shells follow the rules for bots given in the 
  Eclipse Phase core rulebook.
  AEROSTAT
  These balloon platforms are used on planets or moons 
  with atmospheres. They rely on buoyant gases for lift, 
  but are propelled with turbofans. 
  Research aerostats are loaded with sensors and 
  scientific analysis equipment, usually to analyze atmo-
  spheric conditions. [High]
   Enhancements: Access Jacks, Chem Sniffer, Laser 
  Link, Lidar, Radar, Radiation Sense, Telescope 
  Surveillance aerostats are equipped with sensors 
  and surveillance packages, serving as an eye in the sky. 
  They are also used for exploration and surface terrain 
  mapping. [High]
   Enhancements: Access Jacks, 360-Degree Vision, 
  Enhanced Vision, Image Recognition Software, 
  Laser Link, Radar, T-Ray Emitter
  Mining aerostats are deployed on the gas giant 
  planets, loaded with equipment to extract specific 
  volatiles from the atmosphere, which are then stored 
  in pressurized tanks. These tanks are either picked up 
  periodically or equipped with a rocket to launch into 
  orbit for collection when full. [High]
   Enhancements: Access Jacks, Chem Sniffer, Gas 
  Collection Gear, Laser Link, Storage Tanks
  DEFENSE PLATFORM
  This robotic weapons platform is designed as a 
  defensive system for small habitats, mining claims, 
  brinker colonies, and similar small settlements. They 
  are often placed in orbit around an asteroid or small 
  moon to guard against encroaching intruders. They 
  are also sometimes entrenched in physical perimeter 
  locations. Defense platforms are equipped with two 
  AIs with Beam Weapons 40, Fray 40, Kinetic Weapons 
  40, Perception 40, and Seeker Weapons 40. The beam 
  weapons are continuously powered by the platform’s 
  Aquarium pets are physically helpless, as the ego 
  cannot control the animal. The animal behaves 
  instinctively, avoiding nets with a Fray skill of 40 
  in water, flopping around helplessly out of it. The 
  ghostrider module imposes no modifiers to the ego’s 
  mental stats and is usually connected to a cortical 
  stack, but it has no access to control interfaces.
  Egos unwillingly placed into an aquarium pet must 
  make a WIL x 2 Test when first “sleeved” and every 
  week thereafter. The ego takes 1d10 SV on a failed 
  test. If the aquarium pet dies with the ego in it, the 
  ghostrider module ceases running and may only be 
  re-instanced from the cortical stack (if any). Most 
  aquarium pets have a DUR of 1 or 2. The ghostrider 
  module and stack take up enough space in these 
  creatures that an observer who makes an Academics 
  (Biology) Test or a Perception Test at –20 realizes the 
  animal contains implants, though they won’t know 
  what kind of implants. [Low]
  Skills: Fray 40, Swimming 60
  Implants: Access Jacks, Cortical Stack (optional), 
  Ghost Rider Module
  POISONOUS MARMOSET SWARM
  A Titan Tech prank that got out of hand, these 
  bands of ten-centimeter-tall poisonous primates 
  were thought to have been eradicated, but it’s always 
  possible some got away. [Medium]
  Skills: Climbing 80, Fray 60, Infiltration 50, 
  Unarmed Combat 50
  Attacks: Bite (1d10 ÷ 2) – 1 DV
  Implants: Poison Gland (BTX), Swarm Composition
  SQUIDLING
  Favored by some uplifted octopi as pets (and by 
  others as snacks), squidlings are .25-meter-long 
  squid adapted for air breathing, their natural water 
  jet locomotion replaced by powerful jets of air, much 
  like octomorphs, for micrograv propulsion. Most 
  lack ink sacs, these being a hazard in space habitats. 
  They aren’t exactly affectionate, but they instinctively 
  shoal with octomorphs for protection and will eagerly 
  devour any scraps dropped to them. [Low]
  Skills: Fray 60, Free Fall 60, Unarmed Combat 40 
  Attacks: Beak (1d10 ÷ 2) - 1 DV, AP +1
  Implants: Enhanced Smell, Enhanced Taste
  TITANIAN CARIBOU
  Companions of the reclusive hulder, Titanian caribou 
  have dark, blubbery skin similar to the hulder them-
  selves. Both males and females have antlers. Their 
  ROBOTS
  BOT
  PASSENGER 
  CAPACITY HANDLING
  MOVEMENT 
  RATE
  MAX  
  VELOCITY ARMOR DURABILITY
  WOUND  
  THRESHOLD
  DEATH 
  RATING
  MOBILITY 
  SYSTEM
  Aerostat
  0–4
  −0
  4/20
  100
  —
  20
  5
  40
  Microlight
  Defense Platform
  —
  −20
  8/40
  NA
  16/16
  250
  50
  500
  Thrust Vector
  
  8.
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  8.
  8.
  8
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  8
  .
  8
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  .
  8
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  8
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  8
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  .
  8
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  8.
  193
  11
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  1
  1
  .
  1
  1
  .
  1
  1
  .1
  GAME INFORMATION
  193
  six anchoring cables with a reach of ten meters. These 
  cables are designed to either spike into dirt, rock, 
  or ice or use grip pads to fasten to an appropriate 
  surface, with the intention of keeping them anchored 
  should they accidentally drift off into space or kick 
  off with enough force to reach a terminal velocity. 
  The cables shorten or lengthen as needed to give the 
  wearer slack and the freedom to move around. If 
  the user moves a distance farther than one cable can 
  reach, it will retract that cable and immediately deploy 
  another. The device always keeps at least three cables 
  anchored at a time. [Low]
  ROBOTS AND VEHICLES
  These shells follow the rules for bots and vehicles 
  given in the Eclipse Phase core rulebook.
  DEEP SEA SUBMARINE
  This mini-submersible is capable of carrying four 
  passengers and a small amount of cargo all of the way 
  to sea floor on Europa. Moving on propellers powered 
  by a small reactor, it can provide life support for the 
  crew for 1 week. [Expensive]
  Enhancements: Access Jacks, Cryonic Protection, 
  Headlights, Hydrostatic Pressure Adaptation, 
  Maker, Radio, Sonar
  DIVING EXOSKELETON
  This hardsuit-like exoskeleton enables the wearer 
  to swim in the high-pressure depths of subsurface 
  oceans. The legs are equipped with swim fins that 
  and enhances the user’s own leg movements. The 
  arms are held into penguin-like swimming fans, but 
  are mechanically powered and mentally controlled, 
  as their flapping motion is not a natural form of 
  swimming for humans. The built-in maker can 
  provide food, water, and atmosphere for the wearer 
  indefinitely. [Expensive]
  Enhancements: Access Jacks, Cryonic Protection, 
  Fixer Nanoswarm, Headlights, Hydrostatic 
  Pressure Adaptation, Maker, Radio, 
  Sonar, Utilitool
  nuclear battery, while the ammo bins hold up to 1,000 
  rounds of ammo and 50 minimissiles. [Expensive]
  Enhancements: 360-Degree Vision, Access Jacks, 
  Anti-Glare, Chameleon Skin, Cryonic Protection, 
  Ego Sharing, Heavy Combat Armor, Hyperspectral 
  Imager (p. 153, Panopticon), Radar, Radar 
  Absorbent (p. 149, Panopticon), Super-Wide 
  Cameras (p. 153, Panopticon), 6 Weapon Mounts 
  with 2 Exoatmospheric Particle Beam Bolters, 2 
  Seeker Rifles (HEAP and Plasmaburst), 2 Railgun 
  Machine Guns
  SURVIVAL GEAR
  The following gear may be of use in surviving some of 
  the outer system’s more extreme environments.
  HIBERNATION POD
  In the outer system, distances are long and conditions 
  are harsh. In emergencies, individuals may be isolated 
  for weeks or months. To avoiding running out of life 
  support or suffering the effects of extreme cold and 
  severe boredom, users can rely on this device. Before it 
  is activated, this pod comes in a small pouch containing 
  a miniature nuclear battery, a supply of medical stasis 
  nanobots, life support foam, and an emergency broad-
  cast transmitter. This pouch has a mass of 3 kg and is 
  approximately the size of a thick hardback novel. To 
  active it, users open it, pull the smart material fabric 
  around themselves, and activate the nanobots and the 
  foam. Within 2 minutes, the device becomes a rigid pod 
  1 meter wide and thick and 2.4 meters long, filled with 
  both the now solid foam and the user. The user can 
  choose to either become unconscious or radically slow 
  down their thoughts. The pod automatically awakens 
  the user within one minute of entering a habitable 
  atmosphere or if they receive a message. This device 
  works on all biomorphs and pods and keeps them safe 
  for up to one decade. Lacking the need for food or air, 
  synthmorphs do not require this device. [Moderate]
  SMART ANCHORS
  This harness is worn by a user but operated by a 
  built-in AI. When activated, the harness deploys up to 
  VEHICLES
  VEHICLE
  PASSENGER 
  CAPACITY
  HANDLING
  MOVEMENT 
  RATE
  MAX VELOCITY
  ARMOR DURABILITY
  WOUND 
  THRESHOLD
  DEATH 
  RATING
  Deep Sea Submarine
  4
  −20
  4/20
  30
  30/30
  250
  50
  500
  Diving Exoskeleton
  1
  —
  4/20
  30
  15/15
  60
  12
  120
  Diving Sled
  2
  −20
  4/16
  20
  5
  40
  8
  80
  Fast Transport
  120/200
  —
  NA
  NA
  20
  750
  150
  1,500
  Methane Skiff
  6
  −10
  4/40
  60
  5/5
  125
  25
  250
  Outsystem Hover
  6
  +10
  8/32
  150
  30/20
  150
  30
  300
  Outsystem Skimmer
  8
  +20
  12/200
  NA
  20
  320
  80
  640
  Titanian Cargo Copter
  32
  —
  4/40
  150
  20/20
  250
  50
  500
  Utility Helicopter
  8
  +10
  8/40
  200
  20/10
  150
  30
  300
  
  194
  194
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  OUTSYSTEM HOVER
  Most vehicles designed for use on airless worlds 
  have limited ranges because they are rockets that 
  must carry along all of their fuel. However, with the 
  exception of Io, all of the large and medium-sized 
  outer system moons have large amounts of ice and 
  other frozen volatiles on their surface. This vehicle 
  employs a small reactor to convert both stored water 
  and any local frozen volatiles into hot gases that it 
  uses to propel itself. Using steam from its water tank 
  to become airborne, the vehicle’s underside contains 
  powerful heating elements that flash frozen volatiles 
  on the ground beneath it into warm gas that the 
  vehicle then uses to move itself along.
  Because it is surrounded by a cloud of roiling gas, 
  this vehicle uses radar and t-ray sensors for naviga-
  tion. Except for brief periods where it relies on stored 
  reaction mass and can reach an altitude of up to 30 
  meters, it flies at a maximum altitude of 3 meters 
  above the ground, and it has a top speed of up to 
  150 kph over any terrain. On any moon with either 
  a thick atmosphere or where the surface is mostly ice 
  or other frozen volatiles like frozen carbon dioxide 
  or nitrogen, it can fly indefinitely. These vehicles are 
  pressurized and contain life support that functions 
  as long as the vehicle is resupplied with ice or other 
  oxygen-containing substances at least once a month. 
  The most common version of this vehicle holds six 
  passengers and a small amount of cargo, but larger 
  and more expensive versions also exist. [Expensive]
  Enhancements: Access Jacks, Cryonic Protection, 
  Laser Link, Radar, Radio
  DIVING SLED
  This deep sea sled can pull along 2 passengers or 1 
  passenger with cargo. [Low]
  Enhancements: Access Jacks, Cryonic 
  Protection, Headlights, Hydrostatic Pressure 
  Adaptation, Sonar
  FAST TRANSPORT
  These are ordinary standard transports (p. 349, EP) 
  with smart material hulls that restructure to double 
  the amount of hydrogen carried, allowing the ship 
  to make the journey twice as fast. The downside of 
  reconfiguring a standard transport in this fashion is 
  that it can only carry 120 passengers instead of the 
  normal 200. 
  METHANE SKIFF
  Essentially sailboats, methane skiffs usually come 
  in a catamaran configuration, with two sleek, flat 
  hulls for stability. Since only hulder morphs can 
  survive prolonged immersion in Titan’s methane 
  lakes, stability is key. Hazers and other morph types 
  generally wear vacsuits when sailing methane skiffs. 
  Piloting a methane skiff requires a special skill, Pilot: 
  Sailboat. [High]
  Enhancements: Access Jacks, Cryonic Protection, Radio
  OUTSYSTEM HOVER
  
  8.
  8.
  8.
  8.
  8
  .
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  8
  .
  8
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  .
  8
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  8
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  195
  11
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  .1
  GAME INFORMATION
  195
  early families to be exploited due to being one of the 
  closest clusters to Earth, it has largely been bypassed 
  in recent years for better prospects. To date, no large 
  habitats have been developed in this silicate-rich 
  section of the Belt. Most stations number only a 
  handful of egos, and an unusually high number of 
  wanted criminals have been known to seek shelter in 
  the abandoned mining stations and decrepit outposts 
  of this area. 
  Both the Gefion and Nysian families (home to 
  Ceres and Extropia, respectively) are Extropian 
  strongholds and a focal point of the anarcho-capitalist 
  free market. 
  The cluster with the honor of having the highest 
  rate of piracy falls to the Griqua family in the outer 
  Belt region. A statistically high number of auto-
  mated ships have been raided and even hijacked 
  when passing by or through these asteroids, strongly 
  suggesting the presence of several pirate bases here.
  While not a true family in that they do not 
  originate from the same body, the Hildas follow a 
  unique orbital path that takes them in succession 
  near the Jovian Trojans, Jovian Greeks, and an 
  aphelion point opposite to Jupiter. The Hildas are a 
  favorite for autonomists of various stripes, particu-
  larly anarchists. 
  The Hungaria family is just inside the innermost 
  edge of the Belt, the closest dense cluster to Mars. 
  Known for its high inclination, this grouping is 
  popular among those that like to keep to themselves. 
  Numerous brinkers, cults, secretive hypercorp labs, 
  and opulent private residences can be found here.
  The outer-orbit Tirela family has a reputation for 
  being the “Bermuda Triangle” of the asteroid belt. 
  There have been an unusually high number of both 
  ship and individual disappearances here, including at 
  least one small cluster habitat (they may simply have 
  been towed elsewhere). In one of the more notable 
  incidents, the small Zuniga torus was found entirely 
  deserted, its residents missing without any sign of 
  having left.
  RUNNING THE JOVIANS
  There are many ways to handle the Jovian Republic 
  in a campaign. As superficially presented, the Jovians 
  are portrayed as bad guys, both for their throwback 
  attitudes towards transhumanity, their militaristic 
  ways, and their fascistic government. It is certainly 
  easy to play this up by highlighting their expansionism 
  and belligerence towards other polities, their slingshot 
  taxation and invasive naval patrols, or the way they 
  repress their own populations and commit civil rights 
  violations. This villainous empire niche is often impor-
  tant for certain scenarios—nobody minds shooting 
  space Nazis, right?
  On the other hand, you can also present them 
  in a more nuanced fashion. At its core, the Jovian 
  mission is about saving humanity from extinction—
  an agenda with which even Firewall can agree. Given 
  OUTSYSTEM SKIMMER
  Powered by a small fusion reactor, this vehicle 
  contains as a miniature plasma rocket that’s designed 
  to produce up to 0.25 g thrust by lowering efficiency 
  and increasing reaction mass use. Skimmers can use 
  either hydrogen, methane, or water as reaction mass, 
  allowing them to swiftly and easily refuel on almost 
  any moon. They are also quite small, being lentil-
  shaped disks eight meters in diameter and five meters 
  thick. Skimmers can carry up to eight passengers 
  and twelve tons of cargo. They can typically make a 
  journey of up to one million kilometers in 10 hours, 
  with fuel left to take off or land from any moon, 
  asteroid, or other small body in the solar system. 
  These vehicles are popular with couriers, smugglers, 
  traders, and other residents of the outer system. Their 
  life support functions for 30 days before it requires 
  additional input, but they are rarely used for one-way 
  journeys longer than five million kilometers, which 
  take two full days. [Expensive, min 60,000]
  Enhancements: Access Jacks, Cryonic Protection, 
  Laser Link, Radar, Radio
  TITANIAN CARGO COPTER
  This massive dual-rotor helicopter takes advantage of 
  Titan’s thick atmosphere and low gravity. It is unable 
  to fly anywhere else in the solar system, including 
  Earth and Venus. It can carry 15 tons of cargo or 30 
  personnel. [Expensive, Minimum 40,000+]
  Enhancements: Access Jacks, Cryonic Protection, 
  Laser Link, Radar, Radio
  UTILITY HELICOPTER
  This is a standard helicopter design from Earth, 
  deployed on Titan. It is commonly used for cargo and 
  personnel transport, medevac, ground/air assault, and 
  command/control. [Expensive]
  Enhancements: Access Jacks, Cryonic Protection, 
  Laser Link, Radar, Radio
  OTHER SECRETS AND NOTES
  The following ideas expand on some of the material 
  introduced in earlier parts of this book. As always, 
  gamemasters should feel free to alter or even ignore 
  this material as best fits their campaign settings—espe-
  cially if they know their players have read this section 
  of the book.
  ASTEROID FAMILY NEIGHBORHOODS
  Given that the asteroids within a family tend to 
  cluster together in their orbits, making it easier to 
  travel between habitats in the grouping, each tends 
  to develop cultural characteristics similar to other 
  regional “neighborhoods” in space. A few of the more 
  noteworthy families and their dominant cultures are 
  noted below. 
  The Flora family orbits in the inner portion of 
  the Main Belt, nearest to Mars. Though one of the 
  
  196
  196
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  upon its expansionist plans and seeks to solidify its 
  control over these unruly city-states. Either habitat 
  would likely have a difficult time competing with 
  the Junta’s military might, but they could certainly 
  make the engagement costly for the Jovians, 
  and possibly force the situation to devolve into a 
  protracted campaign where Jovian occupying forces 
  must fight against insurgents using asymmetric 
  warfare tactics.
  JOVIAN TROJANS DISTANCES
  The Trojan L4 and L5 points are 5.2 AU from Jupiter. 
  On average, that’s a farcasting time lag of 43 minutes. 
  This places the Trojan points about 9 AU from each 
  other, for an farcasting time of 75 minutes. The 
  Trojans are spread out, however, each occupying 26 
  degrees of Jupiter’s orbit, roughly 2.5 AU in length, so 
  these times can vary by around 10 minutes.
  Travel by ship between the Trojan Points and 
  Jupiter by standard transport is 56 days, give or take 
  a week. Travel between the L4 and L5 points takes 90 
  days, give or take a week.
  IMMIGRATING TO BRIGHT
  In rule terms, individuals must have a current COG 
  score of 30 to be eligible for citizenship on Bright 
  (p.  71) or even to stay there for more than two 
  standard days. All visitors are tested upon arrival, but 
  the test only requires a brief brain scan lasting several 
  minutes. Individuals displaying scores of 40 or higher 
  will usually be offered various incentives like priority 
  access to goods and facilities to make Bright their 
  home for at least a few months. 
  POLITICS AND THE TRADE IN  
  DEUTERIUM AND HELIUM
  Helium-3 fusion became popular several decades 
  before the Fall, because it was the only type of 
  fusion that did not release free neutrons and thus 
  required far less nuclear shielding that would even-
  tually become radioactive. However, four years ago, 
  researchers on Titan developed a method of creating 
  fusion reactions that insured that 95% of deute-
  rium-deuterium fusion reactions were the variety 
  that released no free neutrons. As a result, almost 
  all modern fusion reactors built in the last few 
  years use deuterium-deuterium based fusion. These 
  reactors can be easily refueled from any source of 
  hydrogen, such as gas giant atmospheres or the 
  abundant ice found on almost every outer system 
  moon. However, a number of older fusion reactors, 
  especially those built before and during the Fall, are 
  still powered by helium-3. As a result, gas mining 
  for helium-3 is common around all of the gas giant 
  worlds, especially Saturn, where the combination of 
  relatively low gravity and abundant helium make it 
  an ideal choice. Gas miners from Saturn also send 
  cargo shipments of helium-3 to older settlements 
  the availability of super-empowering technology 
  in Eclipse Phase, and how close transhumanity has 
  already come to being wiped out, their fundamental 
  concerns are widely shared. However, whereas other 
  factions view technology as a tool that can also 
  save transhumanity and even look optimistically 
  toward the future, the Jovians take a more extreme 
  approach to the matter. In their ideology, security is 
  more important than personal liberties and techno-
  logical progress is a potential danger that must be 
  restricted, no matter that doing so costs human lives. 
  The methods they choose to pursue their mission are 
  designed to provide them with the utmost control 
  over humanity’s precarious situation, yet it also 
  opens the door to potential abuses of power. By 
  presenting the positive and sympathetic elements of 
  the Jovian cause alongside the negative and terrifying, 
  the Jovians become a more complete and multi-
  faceted entity.
  These dual characteristics can be highlighted in 
  your campaigns. The Jovians can be brought in as 
  allies to Firewall in many missions, given their joint 
  desire to deter x-risks, but tensions may arise over 
  specific tactics and end goals. Or they may start off as 
  enemies, only to come to terms with the characters in 
  order to stave off a mutual threat; though by working 
  with the Jovians, the characters risk legitimizing their 
  other actions. Alternatively, a campaign can be run 
  inside the Republic, dealing with the tensions and 
  conflicts inside Jovian society. The bioconservatives 
  themselves are not united, split between the prag-
  matism of the Junta’s mostly atheist leadership and 
  the reactionary doctrines of the religious masses. The 
  technology-banning CBEAT also competes against the 
  Republic’s own corporations and medical workers, 
  both stymied by lack of progress. Poor Jovians must 
  face lives in septic habitats, with limited rights, and 
  without the luxuries shared by most other societies, 
  all in the name of security from threats they may 
  never see.
  JOVIAN MILITARY CONFLICT
  The ongoing escalation of tensions between the 
  Republic and the city-states of Callisto, particularly 
  Hyoden and Gerðr is ripe for plot material. This 
  could be a campaign based on political maneuvering, 
  spycraft, and behind-the-scenes sabotage, as the rival 
  factions seek to undermine each other and gain advan-
  tage. The Republic is eager to derail Hyoden’s stability 
  and cultural diversity and could seek to subvert its 
  leadership and create scandals to drive people away. 
  Likewise, the people of Hyoden are eager to weed out 
  Jovian infiltrators and gain new allies. The Jovians 
  are also eager to know if the reports about Gerðr’s 
  Planning Council seeking to go independent are 
  true—something that even many native residents are 
  unsure about.
  Either of these campaigns could easily transform 
  into a military operation, as the Republic acts 
  
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  197
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  GAME INFORMATION
  197
  of them similar to arachnoids or flexbots, inhabited 
  by egos that were forcibly uploaded by the TITANS.
  All of these survivors have experienced at least 
  some memory loss. Most only retain fragmentary 
  memories of their life before the Fall. Some of the 
  synthmorph minds consist of jumbles of memories 
  and personality traits from several uploaded 
  minds that have become connected together into 
  a single new, if often fairly damaged mind. Most 
  of these new minds have no idea that they are not 
  the remnants of single individuals. While they all 
  know that they have lost much of their memory, 
  few worry about the fact that the sequence of their 
  memories makes no sense because these memories 
  come from several different people.
  Some of the survivors are dangerously insane and 
  attempt to attack anyone who approaches them. 
  They remember at least some of their existence 
  under the control of the TITANs and are utterly 
  terrified of all outsiders, assuming that anyone 
  from outside Iapetus must be another agent of 
  the TITANs come to destroy or enslave them. As 
  a result, the inhabitants of Iapetus either flee from 
  outsiders or attempt to kill or capture them. Those 
  who kill outsiders often attempt to make use of 
  their gear and to eat the remains of biomorphs. 
  Others coerce and torture their victims into 
  revealing the TITANs’ plans or seek to convince 
  captives that they are now free and can hide from 
  the TITANs in the depths of Iapetus. Almost none 
  will even consider the idea that any outsiders are 
  actually free-willing transhumans who survived 
  the Fall.
  PORTRAITS
  The current inhabitants of Iapetus are the creators 
  of the mysterious portrait sculptures and paintings 
  and facilities in the Main Belt. Ongoing tensions 
  between the Planetary Consortium and the Titan 
  Commonwealth prevent Saturn-derived helium-3 
  from being used on Mars. 
  IAPETUS
  The outer hundred kilometers of Iapetus are 
  now completely abandoned, but intelligence still 
  lurks within this moon. Deep in the warrens that 
  wind through the many layers of computronium 
  and other inexplicable TITAN-created technolo-
  gies, a small remnant of the previous population 
  remains. While this world once harbored more than 
  200,000, today it is home to slightly less than a 
  1,000 strange and unusual beings. Some of these 
  survivors are exsurgent worker drones—former 
  transhumans twisted into alien monsters—that did 
  not self-destruct or die off when this moon’s guiding 
  intelligence vanished. The vast majority of Iapetus’s 
  population was transformed into tissue cultures 
  grown to feed the drones, but only after their minds 
  were uploaded by the vast intelligence that once 
  dwelled here. A few of these uploaded individuals 
  were downloaded into bizarre synthmorph bodies 
  that served as mobile semi-independent extensions 
  of the TITAN’s vast mind.
  Most of the biological creatures here survive by 
  eating from the tissue culture vats and makers that 
  they have managed to maintain, and a few raiders 
  subsist via cannibalism. These exsurgents come in 
  a wide variety of forms, including a small number 
  of whippers and wrappers (p. 370, EP) and a large 
  number of the “fractal trolls” described in Into the 
  White (p. 4), but most have never been seen before; 
  a few are unique. Most have been adapted to 
  survive in the vacuum and cold of Iapetus’s tunnels. 
  The remainder are the strange synthmorphs, many 
  OPTIONAL RULE: ULTIMATE REP
  As an ultimate achieves greater self-actualization 
  and naturally spends more time working and 
  living with fellow adherents, their standing 
  within the movement becomes much more 
  important than other reputation networks. 
  Although an ultimate still maintains a presence 
  on other social networks, their philosophy deval-
  ues those interactions and exchanges. To reflect 
  this, ultimate characters may make use of the 
  special Networking: Ultimates skill and U-rep, a 
  special Ultimates-only faction reputation score. 
  U-rep favors can be used to call in expertise on 
  almost any skill, for military gear, resleeving, and 
  morph services, or for travel to and from stations 
  with a significant ultimate population. 
  The ultimate ideology views the use of rep 
  and favors differently than other networks. 
  Calling in assistance must be carefully consid-
  ered. Each individual is expected to succeed 
  of their own abilities. While the use of favors 
  is an accepted and common part of that pur-
  suit, such favors are expected to be used for 
  execution of tasks outside the character’s own 
  competency. Favors in areas that the requester 
  is known to have skill in may take a penalty on 
  the Networking: Ultimates Test at the game-
  master’s discretion. Further, as the ultimates 
  are a distinct minority outside of their bases on 
  Aspis and Xiphos, it may be difficult to call in 
  favors on the fly, as individuals with the needed 
  skills may need to egocast into a location 
  before they would be of any use. Forethought 
  and planning for the future are, as ever, hall-
  marks of the movement. 
  n
  
  198
  198
  GAME INFORMATION
  AUTONOMIST ALLIANCE
  JUPITER
  URANUS
  TITAN
  OUTER FRINGE
  SATURN
  NEPTUNE
  JOVIAN TROJANS
  MAIN BELT
  MEATHAB
  MeatHab is an ego that has sleeved into a habitat 
  (p. 172, Panopticon). The original ego is still present 
  but prefers to keep a low-key approach towards most 
  of the inhabitants. At his core, MeatHab is someone 
  looking for peace through a strange but gentle accom-
  modation of the flesh. However, MeatHab is some-
  thing of a prankster, apt to playfully mess with those 
  who try to communicate with him. He is definitely 
  amused by the many attempts to interpret what 
  he’s done.
  While MeatHab itself is not a bad guy, there are 
  all sorts of things that can go wrong for him. Corps 
  want a piece. Artists want him to somehow be part of 
  what they’re doing. Exhumans wrongly interpret him 
  as being in their camp, when in reality MeatHab is a 
  very humane soul who happens to enjoy having his 
  insides full of a lot of other transhumans. Perhaps the 
  most serious threat to MeatHab are the exsurgents 
  who see the massive living habitat as a vessel waiting 
  to be filled with their twisted desires.
  PROMETHEUS’S SECRETS
  Titan’s antimatter factory on this small moon is 
  almost an open secret, but it also remains one of the 
  highest security installations in the outer system. Part 
  of the reason for this security is that the antimatter 
  is only one of Titan’s secret projects occurring on 
  Prometheus. Marseilles is also the Commonwealth’s 
  primary high-energy research facility. It is home to 
  several small and largely speculative projects including 
  attempts to duplicate the Factors’ reactionless drive 
  and create weapons that cause small amounts of 
  matter to spontaneously convert to antimatter at 
  significant ranges. Neither project has made much 
  progress, but because they are both theoretically 
  possible, research continues.
  The two largest and most well-funded research 
  projects occurring on Prometheus both involve 
  attempts to create high-power reaction drives. One 
  project is an attempt to create quantum black holes 
  to be used for reaction drives and power generation, 
  and the other is an attempt to transform matter into 
  energy by inducing proton decay, which would enable 
  reaction drives to significantly exceed the velocities 
  and efficiencies of current antimatter drives without 
  the necessity of manufacturing or transporting 
  antimatter. Both projects are far from complete, but 
  researchers have made significant progress and are 
  hopeful that they will succeed within a few years.
  The antimatter factory and the research area are 
  each located in large caverns that have been trans-
  formed into beehive installations. Both are approxi-
  mately 30 kilometers from the inhabited portion of 
  this moon and 20 kilometers from one another. The 
  hope is that if there is a serious industrial accident 
  in either cavern, the other cavern and the inhabited 
  that explorers have recently found. Many of these 
  beings long for contact with the pre-Fall world, 
  before the horrific transformation of their minds 
  and bodies. These artistic pieces can be considered 
  an attempt to make their shattered memories more 
  concrete, perhaps even an attempt to share them with 
  their fellows by creating images of themselves and 
  people they knew well. These images are made of 
  local materials, since the inhabitants have no means 
  to make the tools or materials needed to create more 
  standard forms of art. 
  RESCUE
  If someone could remove one of these morphs from 
  Iapetus, the occupant could eventually be resleeved in 
  a normal morph, but the lack of a cortical stack and 
  the exotic nature of the modifications the TITANs 
  made to these victims’ minds and bodies applies 
  a –20 modifier to all attempts to upload, resleeve, 
  and fork. These subjects also suffer from the Edited 
  Memories, Mental Disorder, and Neural Damage 
  traits (pp. 149–150, EP). Almost half of the inhab-
  itants of Iapetus are effectively new, partial egos 
  that would require extensive work to make stable 
  and sane, but the remainder are people from before 
  the Fall who may have amnesia and neurological 
  damage, but who can eventually become much of 
  who they once were.
  FRACTAL TROLL
  These pale and hideously deformed former humans 
  are two meters tall, though they stand with a hunched 
  gorilla-like posture, with elongated forearms and 
  massive clawed wrists. They have two extra sets of 
  smaller arms, one pair jutting out from the back 
  shoulders and the other extruding directly from the 
  chest. These smaller pairs of hands are equipped with 
  fractal digits. Though capable of surviving in vacuum, 
  many of them are still equipped as their human forms 
  were when they were transformed.
  COG
  COO
  INT
  REF
  SAV
  SOM
  WIL
  MOX
  20
  20
  40
  30
  10
  40
  15
  —
  INIT
  SPD
  LUC
  TT 
  IR
  DUR
  WT
  DR
  14
  2
  —
  —
  —
  55
  11
  83
  Skills: Fray 55, Free Fall 40, Freerunning 50, Infiltra-
  tion 30, Perception 60, Unarmed Combat 70
  Implants: Access Jacks, Basic Mesh Inserts, Claws, 
  Direction Sense, Enhanced Smell, Enhanced Vision, 
  Fractal Digits, Muscle Augmentation, Nanoscopic 
  Vision, Oxygen Reserve, Prehensile Feet, Puppet 
  Sock, Temperature Tolerance (Cryonic), Toxin 
  Filters, Vacuum Sealing
  Attacks: Claws (1d10 + 7) DV, AP –1; Fractal Gouge 
  (1d10 + 4), AP –8
  Notes: Armor 8/8, Edited Memories, Mental 
  Disorder, and Neural Damage traits
  
  8.
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  8.
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  8
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  8
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  8
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  8
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  199
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  GAME INFORMATION
  199
  NEPTUNIAN TROJANS DISTANCES
  The Neptunian Trojan points are on average 30.1 AU 
  from Neptune, for a farcasting time lag of 4 hours, 10 
  minutes. This places the Trojan points about 52.1 AU 
  from each other, for an farcasting time of 7 hours, 13 
  minutes. Like the Jovian Trojans, these are spread out 
  across 30 degrees of Neptune’s orbit, so these times 
  can vary by up to 2 hours. 
  Travel by ship between the Trojan Points and 
  Neptune 271 days, give or take a few months. Travel 
  between the L4 and L5 points takes 400 days, give or 
  take a few months.
  ILMARINEN MORPHS
  All morphs available on Ilmarinen (p. 132) have either 
  Low Pressure Tolerance or Vacuum Sealing enhance-
  ments, plus either Temperature Tolerance (Improved 
  Cold or Cryonic) for biomorphs or Cryonic Protection 
  for synthmorphs. Enhanced Respiration and Oxygen 
  Reserve are also common.
  TRANS-NEPTUNIAN DISTANCES
  Given the vast distances involved, locations in the 
  Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud present a challenge 
  for use as a campaign setting. Specific habitats and 
  locales may be used, but their isolation means that any 
  attempts to communicate or travel elsewhere is going 
  to mean a serious time lag at best, a gap in the time 
  frame of months or years at worst. This means that 
  characters will not be able to easily send off forks or 
  egocast elsewhere to gather information or aid, at least 
  in a hurry. Likewise, if they are in need of physical 
  support, their allies are likely going to be many hours 
  away at best, and may not arrive by ship until many 
  months after the situation is resolved. Keep in mind 
  that a request for aid must first travel the distance to 
  the requestee, then the response will take an equal 
  time coming back, not to mention any time getting 
  ready. This can, of course, also work in the player 
  characters’ favor if they are dealing with someone 
  who happens to have powerful allies; no one likes to 
  be caught alone in the far reaches of the system.
  There is always the possibility of playing a 
  campaign that intentionally spans the lengths of years 
  (or even decades!) as the characters physically travel 
  around the extreme outer rim, either as explorers/
  investigators, comet herders, or cargo farhaulers. 
  Hibernoids and synthmorphs are favorable for such 
  long-term travels. The characters would need to deal 
  with the fact that their rivals and enemies might move 
  faster than them in some cases, perhaps egocasting 
  ahead (or traveling via a faster antimatter powered 
  ship). The campaign would also need to account for 
  the fact that the rest of the universe would continue 
  along at its usual speed—and given the pace of tech-
  nological advancement with transhumanity, this might 
  mean that some things are unrecognizable by the time 
  they return from a journey taking years.
  areas of this moon will survive intact. All of these 
  technologies being researched have serious potential 
  as weapons of mass destruction, which is one of the 
  many reasons that the Titanians keep them secure—
  and why outside groups like Firewall, the Jovians, and 
  Project Ozma might be interested.
  TITANIAN VOTING AND REPUTATION
  How someone votes in the Plurality doesn’t gener-
  ally affect reputation, but whether they vote does. 
  Titanians traveling abroad, serving with the military 
  or security forces, in dead storage, or in poor health 
  are excused from participation, but everyone else is 
  expected to vote and weigh in occasionally on forums. 
  A character from the Titanian faction who doesn’t 
  spend at least one hour each week following Plurality 
  business and voting on measures may be subject to 
  @-rep penalties at the gamemaster’s discretion. 
  A good rule of thumb is that a character who drops 
  out of political life without informing associates that 
  they will be away (or being recognized as missing by 
  the authorities) loses @-rep at a rate of 1 every two 
  weeks. Unfortunately, being away on a secret Firewall 
  mission isn’t a good excuse for not voting (though 
  being able to claim convincingly that one was doing 
  work for the Commonwealth is). 
  Given the complexities of bookkeeping and the 
  many situational modifiers to such rep loss, game-
  masters are encouraged to be even handed. The idea 
  is not to penalize characters for going on missions but 
  to simulate the fact that the Commonwealth doesn’t 
  tolerate political apathy from citizens.
  TITANIAN MUSES
  Due to the need to keep their owners apprised 
  of goings on in the Plurality, Titanian muses 
  commonly have the following skills: Academics: 
  History 60, Academics: Political Science 60, Interest: 
  Parliamentary Procedure 60, and Profession: Law 
  60. A common muse upgrade, the Plurality package, 
  contains all of these skills and may be acquired from 
  several Titanian microcorps at a cost of [Moderate].
  ULTIMATE RANKS
  In character terms, these are the basic requirements 
  for each level of ultimate rank (see Standing Among 
  Giants p. 121):
  Aspirants: At least two skills at 50+. Networking: 
  Ultimates skill becomes available at this rank.
  Initiates: At least three skills at 60+. U-rep 1–20.
  Exemplars: At least three skills at 70+ and four other 
  skills at 50+. U-rep 21–60.
  Ducti: One skill at 80+, ten or more at 60+. U-rep 
  61–80.
  Autarchs: One skill at 90+, twelve or more at 70+. 
  U-rep 81+
  
  200
  A
  Acumenic 71
  Anarchists 153
  Artificial Economies 26
  Asteroid
  Family Neighborhoods 195
  Mining 16
  Movement 54
  types 18
  Asteroids 19
  Autonomist Alliance 148–179
  Anarchist Groups 161–163
  Anarchists 153
  Anarchist Subfactions 160
  Extropian Factions 163–164
  Extropians 163
  Extropians and Outlaw Economics 167
  History 148–149
  Notable Extropians 167
  Other Autonomists 175
  Red Markets 172
  Reputation Economies 176
  Scum 169–174
  Scum Fleets 172–173
  Titanians 174
  Autonomist Organizations 150
  B
  Bright
  Immigrating to 196
  Brinkers 136–137
  c
  Callisto 47
  Casa Arturo 63
  Catal Hayuk 63
  Church, Catholic 37
  The Holy See 46
  Cities on Titan 104–108
  Aarhus 106
  New Quebec 107
  Nyhavn 104
  Crime
  and anarchist habitats 156
  in the Trojans 65
  on Kronos 84
  on Titan 100–101
  The Hidden Concern 21
  the Night Cartel 28
  the Nine Lives crew 26
  D
  Doctrines 61, 62
  E
  Economies, Artificial 26
  Eris 142
  Europa
  Government 50
  Morphs 49
  Exoglots 64
  Extropia 25
  Golden Helix 25
  Extropians 163
  Extropian Corporations 168
  History 163
  g
  Game Information 182–197
  Gear 188–195
  Armor Mods 191
  Bioware 188
  Cyberware 189
  Everyday Technology 191
  Nanoware 189
  Pets 191
  Robotic Enhancements 190
  Robots 192, 193
  Survival 193
  Vehicles 193
  Golden Helix 25
  Government
  Europa 50
  H
  Habitats
  Afrik 129
  Alpha Plus 137
  Amalthea 46
  Aspis 20
  Bright 71
  Casa Arturo 63
  Catal Hayuk 63
  Ceres 20
  Conch 137
  C Squat 62
  Europa 48
  Evangelium 144
  Exarchia 63
  Extropia 22
  Free 130
  Frozen Dreams 141
  Ganymede 46
  Gerðr 47
  Glitch 128
  Godwinhead 86
  Habitat on the Rock 140
  Harmonious Anarchy 78
  Haumea 140
  Haven 143
  Hawking 131
  Hyoden 47
  ICS-201 Crystal Wind 145
  Ilmarinen 132
  in Main Belt 19–29
  Intruder 63
  Io 47
  IOCC-226 Tycho Brahe 145
  iZulu 79
  Jaques 127
  Kiviuq Monastery 77
  Kronos Cluster 83
  Legba 26
  Locus. See Locus
  Lot 49 63
  Mahogany 129
  Markov 140
  Marseilles 81–82
  MeatHab 77, 198
  Mushroom 127
  New Sarpalius 138
  Níngjìng 145
  Nova York 26
  Pallas 27
  Phelan’s Recourse (Swarm) 81
  Profunda 74
  Respect 63
  Salah 85
  Sedna 143
  Starwell 28
  The Holy See 46
  The Nest 144
  Thorne 144
  Thoroughgood 74
  Thunder On the Horizon 139
  Torii 143
  Tulihänd 142
  Turing 64
  Twelve Commons. See Twelve Commons
  Tyche 145
  Varuna 113
  Volkograd 70
  Whiskey 141
  Winter 64
  Wisdom 144
  Habitats, Main Belt 19
  Habitat Types 56
  Nuestro Shells 57
  Reagan Cylinders 33
  Hazards 183
  Asteroids 183
  Gas Giant Atmospheres 184
  Jupiter’s Magnetosphere 32
  Jupiter’s Magnetosphere 184
  Lack of sunlight 183
  Small Moons 183
  Subsurface Oceans 184
  TITAN ruins on Iapetus 75–76
  Titan’s Carbon Haze 184
  Hypercorps
  Acumenic 71
  I
  Interplanetary Transit Network 55
  J
  Jovian
  Military Conflict 196
  Jovian Republic, The 32
  Jovian(s)
  and bio-ethics 37
  and Transhumanism 34
  citizenship 38
  enemies 44
  Factions 43
  Government 38
  media 39
  moons 46
  Security Council 41
  Security Council Intelligence 46
  Jovians
  running the 195
  Jovians and
  anarchists 45
  The Autonomist Alliance 44
  the Planetary Consortium 45
  Jovian Trojans
  distances 196
  Natural Resources 55
  Jupiter
  Irregular Moons 51
  Magnetosphere 32
  moons 32
  K
  Kuiper Belt 139–144
  L
  LaGrangian Transport Network 55
  Locus 58
  architect 60
  characters 60
  customs 62
  Customs 62
  locations 59
  Neighborhoods 59
  notable citizens 60
  Lot 49 63
  M
  Main Belt
  Habitats 19
  travel within 17
  Moons, Jovian 46
  Moons, Jupiter’s 32
  Moons, Jupiter’s Irregulars 51
  Moons, Neptunian 129–131
  Proteus 130
  Triton 129
  Moons, Saturn’s
  Atlas 70
  Dione 73
  Enceladus 74
  Iapetus 75, 197
  Kiviuq 77
  Mimas 78
  Pan 79
  Pandora 80
  Prometheus 81
  Prometheus’s Secrets 198
  Rhea 83
  Tethys 86
  Titan. See Titan
  Moons, Uranus’s
  Ariel 123
  Oberon 114
  Titania 114
  Xiphos 117
  Morphs 185
  Cetus 185
  Courier 185
  Fenrir 186
  Hazer 186
  Hulder 186
  Hyperbright 186
  Ilmarinen 199
  on Europa 49
  Outer System Morph Variants 187
  Ring Flyer 187
  Savant 187
  Selkie 187
  Morph Traits, Negative 188
  N
  Natural Resources 55
  Deuterium 196
  Helium 196
  Neptune 126–133
  Pandora Gate Rumors 126–133
  Neptunian Aerostats 127
  Neptunian Moons 129–131
  Proteus 130
  Triton 129
  Neptunian Trojans, The 131
  neutrino telescope 77
  Nuestro shell 57
  o
  Oort Cloud, The 144–145
  Orbitals around Titan 109
  Captured Moonlets 109
  Commonwealth Hub 109
  Mankell 109
  Outer Fringe 136–145
  P
  Pandora Gate Rumors 126–133
  parallel processor augmentation 72
  Pluto 142
  R
  Ringers 70
  Roman Catholic Church 37
  The Holy See 46
  s
  Saturn
  natural resources 68–69
  size 68
  Saturn’s Moons
  Atlas 70
  Dione 73
  Enceladus 74
  Iapetus 75
  Kiviuq 77
  Mimas 78
  Pan 79
  Pandora 80
  Prometheus 81
  Prometheus’s Secrets 198
  Rhea 83
  Tethys 86
  Titan. See Titan
  Scum 169
  Secrets and Notes 195
  Settlements on Titan 109
  Huvudskär 109
  Longueil 109
  Stykkishólmur 109
  Sociopolitical Movements
  on Titan 96–100
  spying 73
  T
  The Kuiper Belt 139–144
  The Long Array 73
  The Neptunian Trojans 131
  The Oort Cloud 144–145
  The Seventeen-Minute War 33
  The Ultimates 116
  history 120
  Titan 90
  Cities. See Cities on Titan
  Crime 100–101
  Demographics 91
  Geography 91
  Government 94
  History 93
  Languages 91
  Media 101–102
  Microcorps 103
  Natural Resources 91
  Orbitals. See Orbitals around Titan
  Science 103–104
  Settlements. See Settlements on Titan
  Sociopolitical Movements 96
  TITANs 149
  Transhumanism
  and Jovians 34
  Travel 182
  Egocasting 182
  Farcasting 182
  Neptunian Trojans Distances 199
  Spaceships 182
  Trans-Neptunian Distances 199
  within Main Belt 17
  Trojans
  crime 65
  organizations 64
  Trojans, Neptunian 131
  Twelve Commons 86
  DIY Shipyards 86
  Janus Commons 87
  Long Haul 87
  Nguyen’s Compact 87
  Red Emma’s Dance 87
  Small Majesties 87
  U
  Ultimates, The 116
  history 120
  Unfettered Geniuses 72
  Uranus 112–123
  and the Planetary Consortium 112–123
  Skimmer society 112
  Uranus’s Moons
  Ariel 123
  Oberon 114
  Titania 114
  Xiphos 117
  v
  Virtual Worlds
  Glitch 128
  The iZulu Mesh 80
  W
  Winter 64
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Eclipse Phase/1st edition/Eclipse Phase 1e - Rimward - The Outer System - A Location Sourcebook For Eclipse Phase [v1.0].pdf