///From the author: this is a good bit of lore to back up an in-progress project called Infinitum, which entails a band of outer system miscreants and vagabonds. Many of them refugees from or outcasts of the Centauri War, a proxy conflict between the Martian Federation and the Solar Union which dragged on for nearly thirty years. The story begins when they are contracted for a supposedly simple passenger mission which spirals into a race against time to prevent all-out war...
The Setting:
The story of Infinitum opens in 2539, a hundred and fifty years after the Frontier Wars. Most of the original characters of the Frontier Wars era are long dead, and a major theme of the plot of this second sequel series is whether or not their legacies have stood the test of time. For example, Matt’s tenure as President of the Solar Union, Lex’s stint as Fleet Marshall, Sam’s time wandering Solar Space as leader of the Journeymen, and Daniya’s status as Ambassador from the Zharan Collective have made a profound impact on the social order of the 26th century, as have the unforeseen consequences of their actions.
An example is the Martian Federation, an outgrowth of political squabbles that hit a flashpoint after Matt Cavanaugh (d. 2486), Alex Fujikawa (d. 2491), and Sam Taskaro (d. 2495) passed away. Following the Kuiper Wars (2465-2589), which saw the various powers of Solar Space fighting among and over control of the countless worlds of the vast outer solar system, a rogue MARSCOM Colonel named Sanyar Galvani led the Crimson Revolution and seized power in 2492, turning Mars into an imperialist military dictatorship. Following this, elder statesman Jade Cavanaugh, Matt’s granddaughter, stepped in to mediate a return to order before disappearing in 2497, leading some to speculate that the Chancellor’s followers had her removed as an obstacle to his consolidation of power and Mars leaving the Solar Union in 2498.
The Federation then tightened its hold on space under its control and punished any neighbors who opposed their expansion, as well as resistance cells believed by Galvani and his inner circle to be funded by the Solar Union. This period of conflict ratcheted up tensions in Solar Space, especially as the Union organized its peacekeeping forces into a defensive posture and deployed them to the outer solar system to safeguard their allies there. Ultimately, this tension catalyzed the Centauri War (2501-2527), another proxy conflict fought across the outskirts of Solar Space for almost three decades that originated as a dispute between the Martians and the Solar Union over control of trade routes to and from Alpha Centauri.
By the mid-2520s, though, even Chancellor Galvani could see that his dreams of a Martian Empire were out of reach. In 2526, he accepted the Solar Union’ proposed cease-fire, bringing about a return to the Status Quo Antebellum: each side would return to its pre-war borders and would pitch in on the establishment of a mutual defensive zone between their territories, called the demilitarized zone (DMZ). More than a decade after these negotiations concluded, a tense peace is maintained at the cost of a few hundred peacekeeper’s lives per year, especially as disagreements over interstellar trade routes crisscrossing the Demilitarized Zone in the Centauri Cluster continue to stoke tensions between both superpowers.
The Federation then tightened its hold on the inner system, claiming that its actions were in the best interest of Solar Space. This period saw increasing tensions between the Solar Union and the Martian Federation, culminating in the Centauri War. This conflict, which originated as a dispute between the Martians and the Union of Titan over access to outer system trade routes and resources, ended with the establishment of the demilitarized zone (DMZ), a secured border that would delineate their holdings in interstellar space and which would be nominally secured by the Centauri Space Patrol.
More than a decade after the war ended, this tense balance of power is maintained at the cost of a few hundred peacekeeper’s lives per year, especially as disagreements over trade routes crossing the Demilitarized Zone in the interstellar regions continue to stir up tensions between both superpowers. Now, after twelve years of peace, the only question on most people's lips is which side will blink first, and plunge Centauri space back into turmoil...
(The Fool's Errand cruises past a moon in the Alpha Centauri system)
The Story:
The main character is a Martian expatriate named Jason (usually referred to as “Jay”), who captains a merchant vessel called the Fool’s Errand. His crew is a motley assortment of spacers drawn in by the promise of easy paydays and no questions asked about their murky pasts. He hides his own from all but his closest associates, and gives his trusted crew members the benefit of the doubt about theirs, as his history contains a nine-year stint in MARSCOM, where he was a crewman in the Martian Federal Navy and saw combat action during the Interstellar War. He keeps his past to himself, especially the reason why he deserted and went on the run when news of the war’s end came in 2527, and avoids bringing up the War.
Jay’s crew consists of First Officer “Servo”, a vintage zharan spacer; pilot/navigator Kalena, an expat from a reclusive Kuiper Belt commune who left because of an outgoing nature (that sometimes gets the crew in trouble due to her gambling debts); Remez, a Plutonian ex-mercenary who now serves as chief of security & cargo operations; and Cleo, a peculiar cloned being from the once extinct (and recently revived) alien race called the T'Larai, who communicates with hand signs and telepathy and acts as the ship’s engineer. Together, this group of vagabonds, misfits, and outcasts chart a haphazard course through the Kuiper Belt in search of odd jobs to keep their ship fueled up long enough to make it to the next port.
The main plot initiates when the Fool’s Errand and crew arrive at a refueling outpost at the edge of the Demilitarized Zone (as free nation merchants, they have the right-of-way to cross the border when needed with minimal risk). Jay is contacted by Harland Bridger, a friend and fellow merchant captain, about a potential business opportunity. When Jay meets up with Bridger, he finds himself approached by an odd stranger: Lira, a zharan member of the enigmatic Journeyman sect of vagabond warrior-sages. This stranger offers a one-way passenger transport mission for a large reward. After returning to the Errand, Lira introduces him to the client under her protection, who turns out to be none other than Tamara Hawkins.
Hawkins is a descendant of the roughly twelve thousand people sent out in 2274 as part of Project Wayfarer, which aimed to establish a permanent human presence in the Alpha Centauri system. Raised to be a diplomat, she ventured to the Sol System as part of a peace delegation in 2517 and became an instant celebrity as the “woman from another star,” feted around Sol after she arrived in 2525. She disappeared in 2528, after the Treaty of Triton was adopted, and is rumored to have ventured back to Centauri space on her own. Now she comes to Jay and his crew with a special mission: to take her and her bodyguard to Talvan, the seat of the Centauri government, to deliver a message she hopes will prevent all-out war.
This message involves the discovery by Martian scientists of a method to break the light barrier by manipulating the warp-drive style tech derived from studies of Precursor data. If this development proceeds unchecked, the Martians would be able to go anywhere they wanted, spreading their would-be empire far and wide and affecting causality violations along the way, thereby throwing the time-space continuum into chaos as a result of their ambitions. Hawkins hopes to bring news of this to the Solar Union in time to prevent Mars from starting a war which she believes Chancellor Galvani will incite to cement Mars’ place as the sole human superpower in the galaxy. To this end, she charts the Fool’s Errand as a makeshift passenger ship through hostile space, with Martian agents and bandits on their tail right the way along.
The Major Factions:
The Martian Federation
Population: 2.3 billion (approx. 1.4 billion live on Mars)
Capital: Federal Central Authority; located in Galvani City, Mars (population: 26.1 million)
Government: one-party parliamentary federation (Supreme Chancellor - Sanjay Galvani)
Affiliation: itself (officially split from the Solar Union in 2498 after two years of tension)
Notes: arising from the Crimson Revolution of 2492, the Federation is notable in that it took the already simmering militarism and expansionist tendencies of the United Nations of Mars and followed them to their logical conclusion. The eventually eventually escalated into the Centauri War (2501-2527), which saw the Martians fighting to wrest control of the extrasolar regions from the Solar Union
The Solar Union
Population: 5.8 billion (approx. 2.7 billion live in Jupiter & Saturn sectors)
Capital: The Presidium; located in Alexandria, Ganymede (pop: 7.1 million)
Government: constitutional federation (Prime Minister - Danyelle Hakusembe)
Affiliation: itself (successor to the Interplanetary Cooperative Administration)
Notes: the Union was the chief organizing power for much of Solar Space during the 25th century, a paradigm shift which sparked the rise of militant nationalism on Mars. This led to the ascent of Chancellor Sanjay Galvani and the birth of the Martian Federation, which then became the primary opponent of the Union for control of the Kuiper Belt and beyond
The Smaller Players:
The Jovian League
Population: 867 million (inc. 121 million on Ganymede)
Capital: Alexandria, Ganymede (population - 7.1 million)
Government: constitutional federation (Prime Minister - Ganado Solara)
Affiliation: Solar Union (one of two main components of the Union)
Notes: after the Frontier Wars ended, Callisto and Ganymede, both former strongholds of the Alliance, grew in power until they were nearly equal to Mars and Titan. Thanks to the Kuiper Wars (2465-2489), the revitalized Galilean Union became a major player in the new power structure of Solar Space, and by the time Sanyar Galvani led the Crimson Revolution in 2492, it was a superpower in its own right
The United Republic of Titan
Population: 765 million
Capital: Samarkand (population - 29.7 million)
Government: constitutional federation (Prime Minister - Regina Vidal)
Affiliation: Solar Union (one of two main components of the Union)
Notes: Titan was one of the main superpowers in Solar Space by the end of the 25th century, a paradigm shift which heralded the rise of deeply resentful and militant nationalism on Mars. This in turn led to the ascent of Chancellor Sanjay Galvani and the birth of the Martian Federation, which then became the primary opponent of the Solar Union for control of the Kuiper Belt and beyond
The Commonwealth of Uranus
Population: 297 million (approx. 74 percent live just on the moons Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon)
Capital: Taurus City, Oberon (population - 4.7 million)
Government: federal parliamentary republic (Prime Minister - Grace Neumeier)
Affiliation: mixed (backs the Solar Union, but welcomes Martian business)
Notes: inspired by the needs of the Mars-Titan War (2292-2297), Uranus was sought after for its vast supplies of hydrogen and helium. It was a major source of these and other resources during the Frontier Wars, and became rich enough through its alliance with the ICA that it was a major power in the outer system by the time tensions raised again between Mars and Titan in the early 26th century
The Federation of Neptune and Triton
Population: 146 million (64 million of them on Triton)
Capital: Unkulunkulu, Republic of Uhlanga (population - 5.3 million)
Government: federal presidential republic (President - Ralen Monteca)
Affiliation: officially neutral (backed the Kuiper Liberation Front during the War)
Notes: despite being a relatively small player prior to the Frontier Wars, the Neptune sector acted as a major stepping stone for refugees seeking shelter in the Kuiper Belt. By the era of the Kuiper Wars, Neptune and Triton had cemented their role as the gateway to the Kuiper Belt, and hosted the Triton Accords (2524-2526) which helped to establish peace between Mars and the Solar Union across extrasolar space
The Republic of Acheron
Population: 10 million (highest in the Kuiper Belt - majority live in the "bridge city" of Acheron)
Capital: Port Acheron, Pluto (population - 3.4 million)
Government: unitary constitutional presidential republic (President - Yuta Cantacheros)
Affiliation: none (maintains neutrality as the Kuiper Belt's original "free state")
Notes: despite only emerging in the mid-23rd century, the Republic of Acheron had grown into a powerhouse of outer system politics by the time of the Frontier Wars (2371-2398). When the interstellar regions erupted into the Centauri War in 2525, it was the richest and most populous of the “free republics” having sprung up there, and became a major hub for extrasolar expatriates in the postwar era
The Interstellar Regions:
The Centauri Union
Population: approximately 2.17 billion (70 million humans and 2.1 billion Y'Varis)
Capital: de facto is Aurora City, Talvan
Government: constitutional federation (Prime Minister - Jacques Herrera)
Affiliation: neutral (officially unaligned)
Notes: established in 2447, the Centauri Union was set up on the model of the Solar Union which preceded it. When the Centauri War began in 2501, its leaders found themselves in the unenviable position of having to balance the needs of their citizens with the overarching influence of the Solar Union and the rival Martian Federation which had moved in to stake its claim to Centauri resources
Governments of Talvan
The Republic of Talvan
Population: approximately 840 million (18.2 million human & 820 million Y'Varis)
Capital: Aurora City, Aurora district (population: 2.4 million)
Government: constitutional multi-party republic (President - Annika Dufresne)
Affiliation: Centauri Union (official); Solar Union (unofficial)
Notes: as the first colony established outside of Solar Space, Talvan has been at the forefront of interstellar colonization efforts for more than 200 years. During the Centauri War, it also saw considerable fighting between militia forces aligned with both the Martian Federation and the Solar Union. The Republic has been working to rebuild since the war ended in 2527, with the ongoing support of the Solar Union vital to its long-term success and defense against the Federal Protectorate of Talvan
The Federal Protectorate of Talvan
Population: approximately 330 million (11.5 million human & 320 million Y'Varis)
Capital: Utopia, Utopia district (population: 1.1 million)
Government: federal one-party colonial republic (Governor - Henri Leblanc)
Affiliation: officially a colonial protectorate of the Martian Federation
Notes: the FPT was established at the outbreak of the Centauri War by decree of Chancellor Galvani, and raised an official military force (the Federal Army of Talvan) by 2503. It was also the unofficial conduit by which weapons flowed from the Martian Federation to the various militias operating in the Talvani badlands. By 2539, a decade of peace has allowed the FPT to rebuild its infrastructure, although it still focuses a significant amount of its national funds on defense spending
This is fucking wonderful. You did an outstanding job on the graphics, and I so enjoy the breakdown of each world. Please always make more of these.