From the author: this is a bit of lore for one of the currently-in-progress stories from the Spacers Saga universe, a tale called Petrichor. This story is in many ways an origin point for the entire Spacers Saga universe, given that it deals with the very earliest stirrings of what would become the ICA, the Spacer Corps, and the various corporate and political entities which would shape the destiny of Solar Space throughout the 21st to 26th centuries
The Story of Petrichor
On June 25, 2013, asteroid 2062 Aten hit Phoenix, Arizona. Over two million people died as a result. The fallout included the formation of the Bureau of Special Investigations, an agency devoted to digging into and solving “unorthodox” cases such as the Phoenix disaster itself, which had been blamed on everything from aliens to foreign governments to divine intervention. The years following the Phoenix Event were tumultuous, as a New Cold War birthed a period of heightened tensions between East and West.
Now, thirty-five years after the destruction of Phoenix, the Bureau of Special Investigations has caught wind of a possible new threat vector thanks to the discovery of an otherworldly relic under the retreating Arctic ice in Svalbard. This discovery, made by a young Doctor of Archaeology named Alicia Ricardo, will draw in unproven Bureau agent Thomas Morrow and force him to start chasing down leads. Almost as soon as he arrives, though it is clear that there is something much more complex going on than another hoax.
The team put together to solve this mystery also includes Major Teresa Khorasani of the U.S. Space Force, and Dr. Walter Fujitsu, a physicist with secret knowledge of the Phoenix Event. In their race for the truth, these four ragtag investigators uncover the single greatest lie told in history, a lie so vast that it could bring society to a standstill. For in this future where space is the battlefield of a New Cold War and everyone is looking to cash in on the chaos, our unwilling heroes may be all that stands in the way of World War III…
The Geopolitics of 2049
[An annotated map showing the different affiliations of nations in 2049, and regions of conflict therein]
[A chart providing additional detail on the above map]
May 2049. Thirty-six years after asteroid 2062 Aten leveled Phoenix, Arizona, NATO and the Shanghai Pact face off in a new era of global tensions called the New Cold War. Between lingering instability in Eastern Europe and South America and a series of proxy conflicts in Africa and Asia, diplomatic friction between the global superpowers increases by the month. Sooner or later, something has to give.
The U.S. and NATO still represent the largest economic power on Earth, with the existential threat posed by China and the Shanghai Pact sustaining their long-term growth. But as this ideological conflict escalates, the high frontier of space provides a new arena for the two superpowers to exercise their might and stimulate their economies. Expansion into this new frontier offers an opportunity to seize new resources and new heights of prestige for the two opponents, each of which seeks dominance there.
Regional powers, such as Brazil, India, the South African People’s Republic, and ASEAN maintain order in their own way, as conflicts in Central America, Africa, and Asia leave the world on the knife’s edge. With civil strife in Russia leaving thousands of nuclear warheads within reach of dangerous radical groups, fears of World War III have reached an all-time high. But these are not the only threats facing humanity.
Using technology reverse-engineered from debris left by the Aten asteroid, the Special Intelligence Directorate has militarized the New Space Race under the name Operation Petrichor. On the moon, both sides have deployed special operators into a top-secret standoff to control lunar resources. The threat remains that this currently off-the-record conflict could be revealed to the public back on Earth, sparking a rapid escalation and breakdown in diplomacy that could see the Second Space Race end in nuclear fire.
A Very Cold War
[An annotated map showing the political layout of territory on the Moon as of 2049]
After being dormant for roughly thirty years, the Cold War heated up following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, an event which brought about a massive surge in military funding by the countries aligned with NATO. As China and its allies flooded money into Russia’s military machine to sustain the ongoing proxy conflict, a new power dynamic emerged: on one side, the old North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and on the other, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, an alliance led by China and opposed to the Western nations’ longstanding dominance of global politics and economics.
But that was only the beginning. As the New Cold War ramped up and demand for control of offworld resources grew in the governments of both superpowers, a new arena came into its own. As of 2049, NATO’s Joint Lunar Operations Command and the Shanghai Pact’s Department of Aerospace Security are carrying out a tense cold war of their own across the craters and rilles of the lunar south pole. From bases tucked into the regolith and staffed as much by scientists as by both sides’ elite space force personnel, a secret conflict plays out during the heady years of the Second Space Race. From there each side watches the other, and on occasion, sends out armed patrols to kill their opponents.
As NATO and the Shanghai Pact continue down the treacherous path of military brinkmanship in a contest for control of cislunar resources, especially in light of the ongoing recession sparked by rampant speculation on helium-3 futures following the revelation of fusion power in 2029, some pundits predict that the Second Space Race will end with the outbreak of World War III. The specter of a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan on or around the centennial of the PRC’s founding looms large in the minds of Western soldiers and politicians alike, including those sequestered on the moon’s southern pole.
As NATO soldiers drill under the banner of the Mobilization Enabling Act signed in 2046, a distinct aura of tension has descended upon the Lunar theater of operations. The spacers of the United States Space Force stationed nominally as security at lunar bases such as Grissom Memorial Station keep their weapons handy and maintain a close watch on their mid-range sensor suites, prepared for the day that a random radar blip could turn out to be the start of a full-blown incursion by the Shanghai Pact.
History of the Lunar War
In the early years of the 21st century, a new military-grade sensor launched aboard a deep space telemetry telescope detected highly lucrative metals in the composition of the asteroid 2062 Aten. A mission was hastily organized to secretly fly out and reconnoiter the asteroid for mineral wealth, but the plan to nudge it closer to Earth for a chance to mine this wealth backfired in the extreme. The asteroid hit Earth on 25 June 2013, destroying Phoenix, Arizona and killing roughly two million people in the process. The secret plan was buried and the destruction of Phoenix went down in history as a cosmic fluke - the Phoenix Event.
In the aftermath, as the United States and its global allies sorted through the wreckage and worked to rebuild, they found samples of the mysterious metal initially detected in Aten’s shell. This metal was found to be useful for energy production, including in the first generation of Larsen Aerospace-produced fusion reactors. The first of these went online at noon on 27 August 2029, following a daring wager by maverick aerospace venture capitalist David Larsen that fusion technology would revolutionize the world.
Larsen's Gambit paid off with interest: in 2033, the first humans landed on Mars; in 2038, the first permanent base was established there; and by 2042, the global energy economy was almost entirely dependent on Larsen-style fusion reactors and the boundless clean energy they produced. The developed world became richer than ever by parceling out the energy produced by Larsen’s reactors, and then by licensing their design to unaligned nations which chose to buy in, for the price of opening up trade. As fossil fuel use waned and the economy thrived, it seemed that the future of humanity was brightening up once more.
But 2042 was also the year things took a turn for the worse. Although material from 2062 Aten (the collection and distribution of which was rigorously controlled by the secretive Special Intelligence Directorate) made fusion a reality, it could not actually power the reactions by itself. A source of fuel was needed, and the most common was helium-3. When this resource began to run dry in 2042 thanks to rampant price speculation and overuse, the resulting crash took most of the world into a recession called the Helium Crisis.
Helium-3 is found in small amounts on Earth but is much more abundant on the Lunar surface. This fact led to a sharp increase in military spending by the western, NATO-aligned nations and those with closer ties to the China-led Shanghai Pact, with the long-term goal of securing Lunar resources for their respective economies. In 2045, the NATO Joint Council adopted the Emergency Mobilization Act to enable the rapid development of cislunar military infrastructure. By 2049, the joint forces of NATO, India, and ASEAN had almost sixty armed spacecraft patrolling cislunar space, and almost 1,000 expeditionary forces stationed on the Moon itself.
Then, the unthinkable: Charles Larsen, son of the man who ushered in the Fusion Era, revealed to the public that his father's work was built on a foundation of lies, and that the two million people who had died in the Phoenix Event were killed not by a cosmic act of chance but by an act of foolishness on the part of greedy human politicians and businessmen. Larsen was informed of this treachery by a rogue former S.I.D. agent known only as “Thoth,” and intended to use the revelation to distract from his company’s financial woes.
But best laid plans often go astray. The fallout from the junior Larsen’s revelation was swift. The United States was engulfed by rioting that wracked dozens of cities as long-dormant rage boiled over, and the Shanghai Pact seized on the opportunity to advance their own economic position. In early June, they initiated a pre-planned attack on NATO facilities on the Moon, leading to a full-scale conflict called the Lunar War. Three weeks of bloodshed followed, bookended by the initial Shanghai Pact offensive in June and the signing of a temporary ceasefire on the 27th which only succeeded in bringing a temporary pause to the violence.
For the next five months, sporadic incidents between NATO and Shanghai Pact military forces kept tensions high, and everyone back on Earth in suspense as fears that the conflict would spill over into a terrestrial war (and possibly a nuclear one at that). But all the while, an undercurrent of intrigue had been coursing along that would ultimately bring the conflict to its end–and help to usher in the next era in human history.
Following the Phoenix Event, the politicians left unaware of the true cause of the calamity demanded answers, and moreover a means to address potential future catastrophe. In 2018, five years after the impact, Congress established the Bureau of Special Investigations to oversee the research and analysis of and response to potential threats of a more unorthodox nature. But although the Bureau was founded with the best intentions, its purview soon ballooned to include everything from paranormal activity to little green men.
This scope creep understandably led to the B.S.I. becoming a laughing stock in the more results-minded areas of the U.S. intelligence and security apparatus. But the Bureau’s leaders had ulterior motives for this. After all, they were secretly running the public-facing arm of the Special Intelligence Directorate, and were tasked with both keeping the spotlight off of that organization’s shadowy dealings and with tracking down potential sources of Aten group metals (AGM) which the Directorate fed out for top dollar to build more reactors.
It was a lucrative project, and marvelous in its simplicity. The B.S.I. obscured the S.I.D.’s nefarious goals and the S.I.D. raking in billions in dark money for secretive R&D projects, many of which involved new and marvelous applications for AGM. Some examples included superconductors and quantum chips, while one of the more outlandish entries was a hyper-fast, delta-winged rocket plane capable of flying anywhere in the world in hours to retrieve samples of AGM and bring them back to the laboratories at S.I.D.’s stateside black sites for testing and analysis. If not for the shortage of helium-3, this setup may have lasted decades.
Information on the War
Details:
Date: 8 June 2049 - 22 November 2049 (5 months, 15 days); main combat: 8 June - 27 June 2049
Location: cislunar space (Lunar orbit and various regions of the surface)
Result: Inconclusive (war brought to an end by the Treaty of Jakarta which negotiated a deal giving Shanghai Pact rights to mine Aten Group metals on the Moon in exchange for peace)
Belligerents (NATO):
United States of America
European Union
Republic of Korea
State of Japan
Commonwealth of Australia
South African Union (after 14 June)
Republic of India (after 17 June)
Federal Republic of Nigeria (after 17 June)
ASEAN (non-combat support)
Belligerents (Shanghai Pact):
People’s Republic of China
Russian Federation
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
East African Federation (after 15 June)
Social Republic of Brazil (after 18 June)
Units Involved (NATO):
United States Space Force
European Joint Space Command
Republic of Korea Aerospace Forces
Japanese Space Operations Force
Australian Space Defense Force
Union Aerospace Forces (after 12 May)
Indian National Aerospace Force (after 17 May)
Nigerian Air & Space Command (after 17 May)
Units Involved (Shanghai Pact):
People's Liberation Army Aerospace Force
Russian Space Forces
Korean People’s Army Space Force
Aerospace Forces of the East African Federation (after 15 May)
Brazilian Aerospace Command (after 18 May)
Strength (NATO):
1,782 at initiation
3,276 at conclusion
5,726 in total
Ground forces:
1,138 soldiers at initiation
2,343 soldiers at conclusion
Orbital forces:
644 soldiers at initiation
933 soldiers at conclusion
53 spacecraft at initiation
72 spacecraft at conclusion
101 spacecraft in total
Strength (Shanghai Pact):
2,479 at initiation
4,445 at conclusion
7,625 in total
Ground forces:
1,532 soldiers at initiation
3,104 soldiers at conclusion
Orbital forces:
947 soldiers at initiation
1,341 soldiers at conclusion
71 spacecraft at initiation
96 spacecraft at conclusion
137 spacecraft in total
Casualties & Losses (NATO):
Total:
282 KIA
1,094 WIA
71 MIA
35 spacecraft destroyed
Casualties & Losses (Shanghai Pact):
Total:
356 KIA
1,288 WIA
115 MIA
47 spacecraft destroyed
Summary:
638 KIA, 2,382 WIA, and 186 MIA ● Total casualties: 3,206 (24 percent of total who served) ● 82 spacecraft destroyed, with a crew loss of approximately 40 percent) ● Approximately 64 percent of KIA resulted from combat between orbital spacecraft; 26 percent from ground combat; and 10 percent from accidents
Timeline of a Different Tomorrow
2013: asteroid 2062 Aten destroys Phoenix, AZ, killing over two million people
2014: Special Intelligence Directorate formed in the wake of the Phoenix Event
2017: Larsen Technologic Solutions cultivates post-Phoenix physics research
2018: Bureau of Special Investigations formed to assess Phoenix Event fallout
2019: U.S. Space Force formed to counter orbital threats to American security
2022: Russia invades Ukraine after eight years of steadily increasing tensions
2023: Iranian uprisings lead to a joint American-NATO invasion & occupation
2025: Russo-Ukraine War ends in stalemate following international mediation
2026: NASA and CNSA set up bases on the Moon, starting the Lunar Cold War
2028: Project Petrichor initiated to coordinate the recovery of Aten fragments
2029: David Larsen reveals fusion-based energy production tech to the world
2031: SADI established to oversee the rollout of the Mars settlement program
2033: Joint NASA-ESA mission lands in the Valles Marineris region on Mars
2035: UN initiates talks aimed at ending the foreign military presence in Iran
2038: SADI establishes a permanent research outpost in the Valles Marineris
2042: Global recession hits after speculation on fusion power causes a bubble
2043: Foreign troops leave Iran as the UN organizes a provisional government
2045: NATO passes the Emergency Mobilization Act to organize lunar defenses
2047: S.I.D. begins planning for full militarization of lunar mining operations
2049: B.S.I. Agent Tom Morrow finds himself on the trail of Project Petrichor
The Players in Petrichor
Major Characters
Agent Thomas Morrow:
Demographics: 34 (born August 27, 2014, in El Paso, Texas)
Personal History: joined the Army out of high school under pressure from his father, General Alan Morrow; deployed to Iran twice between 2033 and 2036, during the occupation that followed the NATO-led invasion in 2023; after being wounded by a truck bomb in his second tour, he took online courses during recovery; left active duty in 2039 and joined the Bureau in 2042 after completing a dual degree in psychology and criminal justice; has served as a field agent for more than six years, with an exemplary record and excellent closure rate
Personal Profile: a veteran of the B.S.I. who was inspired to join because of a “close encounter” in his childhood, he has since grown jaded and sarcastic about the subject of his job, as years of investigating bogus claims of alien visitation have worn down his confidence in himself and the choices he has made in life; however, the Svalbard relic dubbed Item 261 will begin to reinvigorate this faded spirit and give him a renewed direction in life
Dr. Alicia Ricardo:
Demographics: 31 (born November 19, 2017, in Sacramento, California)
Personal History: graduated top of her class at age 17, attained a Master’s Degree in anthropology by 22, and a PhD in archaeology by 27; pursuit of high academic achievement won her notice from government review boards for such agencies as NASA and DARPA, but she turned all offers of employment down in favor of pursuing her own goals, namely the research of ancient civilization; departed on an around-the-world trip in the fall of 2046 to pursue these goals, and is currently co-lead on an archaeological expedition in Svalbard
Personal Profile: a talented young anthropologist, linguist, and reported UFO truther who has spent the two years since receiving her doctorate traveling the globe in search of evidence for her belief in the unsupported ancient astronaut theory; her discovery of a strange relic in Svalbard as part of her hunt for a greater truth regarding the cosmos sets the plot in motion, and in many cases, it is her enthusiasm for finding the truth that moves the story along
Major Teresa Khorasani:
Demographics: 38 (born April 3, 2011, in Tehran, Iran)
Personal History: showed aptitude for STEM in primary school; family was forced to flee Iran in 2023 as a result of instability caused by the popular uprising that year; family settled in the United States, where she won an appointment to the Air Force Academy in 2029 and graduated near the top of her class four years later; flew fighter-bomber aircraft during the tail end years of the War in her homeland, but transferred to the Space Force’s Special Investigations wing in 2042 after being grounded due to early onset macular degeneration
Personal Profile: an up-and-coming officer, she has since come to believe that the U.S. involvement in Iran was a colossal mistake, an opinion which has won her little praise from hardline Air Force brass who hold onto old prejudices; since transferring to the Space Force, she has worked to researching and assessing threats to U.S. interests in space and will serve as a military liaison within the team that assembles to investigate Alicia’s find in Svalbard
Dr. Walter Fujitsu:
Demographics: 53 (born July 14, 1995, in San Francisco, California)
Personal History: with both parents dead in a driving accident by the time he was twelve, Fujitsu dove into physics as a lifelong passion; eventually became an expert in theoretical thermonuclear physics, which earned him notice from the Directorate; has spent most of the years since receiving his doctorate in 2025 teaching & researching in this field at CalTech; ran checks on computations for the Directorate early in his professional career, which could be the reason he is kidnapped by their organization part way through the narrative
Personal Profile: an experimental physicist with possible secret knowledge of the Phoenix Event, he was an early consultant for the S.I.D. for a brief period during his postdoctoral studies, which led them to seek him out near the start of Petrichor; after the others rescue him from captivity in one of the story’s pivotal sequences, he will be the brains behind the newly-assembled team’s investigations of the Directorate’s activities
Vernon “Thoth” Morrow:
Demographics: age 60 (born March 22, 1989, in El Paso, Texas)
Personal History: son of Cold War-era CIA officer Alan Morrow, Sr. and younger brother of Army Chief of Staff Alan Morrow, Jr.; joined the S.I.D. in 2019 after losing his wife and unborn child in the Phoenix Disaster; quickly rose through the ranks, but left suddenly in 2041 and officially disappeared; resurfaced following his disclosure of state secrets as “Thoth” in 2043; he has been elusive since then, only emerging to leak more information, although he may be planning a long-game revenge scheme against the Directorate for its role in Phoenix
Personal Profile: a former high-echelon B.S.I. officer who fell off the grid after finding out the truth about Phoenix, he became a diffuser of conspiracy theories, chief among which is the notion that the Phoenix Event has U.S. government ties and that the cover-up is part of a larger conspiracy relating to the ongoing Second Cold War and New Space Race; he will be a key, albeit problematic contact for the Skywatch team as they probe the Petrichor case
Charles Larsen:
Demographics: age 35 (born February 6, 2014, in Hackensack, New Jersey)
Personal History: the only son of aerospace tycoon and fusion energy magnate David Larsen, he was raised in the lap of luxury, and may have developed a narcissistic personality disorder as a result; his father died from a heart attack in 2042, allegedly caused by shame that the fusion energy market he helped to foster beginning in 2029 had crashed; when the junior Larsen took over the family company fully in 2045, he aimed to step out of his father’s shadow by seizing the solar system for humanity, and runs his aerospace empire with that goal in mind
Personal Profile: as the CEO of Larsen Industries, he has come to believe that humanity must become a multi-planetary species at any cost, and uses his nearly unlimited resources to serve that agenda; although a de facto antagonist, as his overriding ambition to control space often puts him at odds with the aims of the protagonists, he will come in handy for Vernon Morrow, who feeds him the secret of Petrichor so that it can reach the world’s ears
Ian Cavanaugh:
Demographics: age 42 (born October 28, 2006, in Chicago, Illinois)
Personal History: went to the Naval Academy at 17, and was commissioned as an officer by 21, then joined DEVGRU at age 23 and deployed four times to Iran and other Middle Eastern hotspots; in his last deployment, he witnessed a covert weapons field test run by the Chinese through one of their Iranian proxy groups, which inspired him to seek out and join the S.I.D. in 2036; has spent the 13 years since rising through the ranks within the Directorate, and now serves as the field commander of all S.I.D. forces assigned to Operation Petrichor
Personal Profile: as the leader of field operations for Operation Petrichor, Cavanaugh is the primary antagonist in the story; he is the truest version of a status quo nationalist, as he has concluded that the United States must take whatever actions are necessary to maintain its status as the dominant global power, even if it means risking World War III; these convictions put him directly at odds with our heroes, who seek to prevent such a cataclysm
Supporting Characters
Major General Luisa Jacoby: the commander of the USSF's Division of Aerospace Investigations, she has spent the entirety of her two years in the post fighting to transform this subdivision of the Space Force into a respected organization; she charges Major Khorasani with being the USSF’s eyes and ears in Skywatch and is very involved in supporting her mission as it becomes more complicated
Senator Janice Sandusky: the chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, who often plays antagonist to Skywatch's mission to investigate the events surrounding Petrichor; though this seems to come naturally from her role in the grand scheme of National Security affairs, her hidden motivations are much more complex and insidious
Operative Colton Bryant: one of Commander Cavanaugh's chief subordinates, who oversees operations at Area 079 ("the Alaska Site"); he reports directly to Cavanaugh and is responsible for wrangling with the Skywatch crew after they stumble across the Site, and then for defending the outpost from Larsen's PMC commandos after they arrive to take control of the site at the climax of the story
Rebecca Shields: as Charles Larsen's assistant, she is party to some of his most closely guarded secrets, including the economic troubles facing his company. This role will see her accompany Larsen on the journey he begins by revealing the secret of Project Petrichor to the public, and allow her to act as a kind of unofficial documentarian of his rise (and eventual fall) which come as a result
Brock Daniels: the head of Charles Larsen's in-house private security firm, Larsen Security Solutions (which could be credibly accused of being a mercenary organization), he will be Larsen's eyes, ears, and muscle in the field, a role which will put him in direct conflict with both the Skywatch Alpha members and the various elements of the Directorate and Black Sun cultists arrayed against them
Major Factions
Bureau of Special Investigations: Born in the aftermath of the Phoenix Event, it was conceived by the S.I.D. as a misdirection to hide the real cause of this catastrophe while also secretly identifying sources of Aten debris for them. It has been a joke in the intelligence community for most of its life, but the discovery of a strange relic in Svalbard is about to change that, as the B.S.I. will soon be forced to team up with the USAF to investigate threats posed by the collision of unscrupulous factions on Earth
U.S. Space Force: Founded in 2019, the USSF was a means with which to address increased foreign presence in space. As of 2048, most of its roughly hundred thousand enlisted spacers and officers are involved in ongoing operations to monitor the skies for dangers that may originate from regions beyond Earth’s atmosphere. Major Khorasani is an officer in the Special Investigations wing and will represent the interests of the Department of Defense as part of the Skywatch Alpha investigation team
Operation Skywatch: A partnership between the B.S.I. and Space Force tasked with tracking down information on Operation Petrichor, its main mission in the story is to stop the Directorate from causing WWIII. This task is made more and more difficult thanks to the S.I.D.’s interference, and that of the Black Sun, and Charles Larsen, and Shanghai Pact, as the conflict over control of the Moon intensifies. The four main characters are part of the operation’s forward field team, Skywatch Alpha
Larsen Aerospace: An aerospace contractor that grew exponentially thanks to its cornering of the fusion market in 2029, it now has branches in virtually every field. Its current CEO, Charles Larsen, is plagued by the economic woes of the Helium Crisis, and upon learning that he has unknowingly profited for years on the secrets being drip-fed out at the behest of the S.I.D., he lays plans to co-opt Operation Petrichor for his own agenda after revealing the Directorate’s dirty tricks to the world
Special Intelligence Directorate: Formed in early 2014 as part of the response to the Phoenix Event, it has in the years since has gained significant, all but unchecked power to leverage against threats to American interests. Its leaders run Operation Petrichor to establish predominantly American control of cislunar “special resources” (i.e. Aten debris materials). This is done both to seek out these elements and to acquire a high ground in the New Cold War which emerged early in the twenty-first century
Order of the Black Sun: Founded by escaped Nazis after World War II, this death cult has infiltrated government & industry to manipulate global geopolitics to their sinister agenda. One such infiltrator is a well-respected U.S. Senator, who will attempt to co-opt the Skywatch program to benefit the Order’s plans. By the late 2040s, it has also caught on to Operation Petrichor and intends to use it as a means to bring about the “final conflict” from which they will emerge as the masters of the human race
End transmission. Fucking perfect.