User:MattAtlas
Venusian History
Initial Settlement
The case of Venus and how its society developed is an interesting one, studied by many sociologists. Curiously, Venus begins not as a colony but as a research hub for the then-fledgling Zeng-Hu corporation in the late 2000s. Many experimental technologies were developed in floating research stations, mainly relating to the fields of hydroponics and the chemical industry. Earth's governments did not pay the scorching planet much attention, since it was rather unsuitable for rudimentary colonization prospects. This situation continues until 2127. The flooding of New York City and the resulting anarchy cause many residing billionaires to choose to leave Earth in advance, and a particular group chooses to leave for Venus for a simple reason: Zeng-Hu's auctioning of its Venusian research stations. These stations were sold to them at an auction at a discount as the fledgling corporation desperately needed liquidity to keep its much more valuable Asian assets afloat.
Over the next decade, these research stations are gradually expanded by their new owners and consolidated into two super-settlements, forming the first proto-aerostats. These aerostats are respectively named after their owners: Binyaria, named after Jie Binya, a young American-Chinese billionaire who recently inherited a massive fortune, and Rathlin, named after François Rathlin, a French entrepreneur and owner of a massive supermarket chain on Earth. Binyaria inherited Zeng-Hu's chemical industry facilities, whereas Rathlin inherited Zeng-Hu's more extensive hydroponics and pharmacy industries. Rathlin was a much more valuable complex and trade quickly flourished there, with the fledgling aerostat becoming a large exporter of grown foodstuffs. Binyaria was in a more difficult position: its chemical industry was not as valuable and, thus, was far more reliant on its owners' investment. Binyarians and Rathliners thus developed a small rivalry around this time around whose aerostat was really the better one, which persists to this day. Nonetheless, the owner of Binyaria, Jie Binya, needed a plan to make Binyaria truly shine.
Binyarian Renaissance
On the 25th of December 2141, the Jie Holocinema Complex is announced in a massive opening ceremony costing in the billions of credits. This grand opening was complete with free tickets for a showing of the most famous Christmas movie at this time, White Snow. It is a revolutionary cinema, an absolutely massive one at that, using state-of-the-art holographic technology to give its viewers a truly out of the world experience. Nothing quite like it existed anywhere else in Human space and it acted as a lightning rod for citizens and tourists alike, which over time slowly became permanent residents. It attracted both rich and poor alike through clever use of advertisements and the inclusion of low-cost and luxury display rooms. More notably, however, it attracted the large media companies on earth. The cinema was so big that it was unmatched in terms of potential opening revenue, and Venusian billionaires were open to paying a fortune for luxury tickets. This led to a slow exodus of media companies to Venus, all competing to get opening-day contracts. It was slow at first, but later snowballed: more investment into the fledgling acting and media industry meant that more companies would move. Eventually, even the titans of the media industry began to move. By the turn of the 23rd century, Venus began rivaling Earth in terms of media. It was not quite dominant yet, however. One last push was needed.
The Founding of the Venusian Stars Institute
Intentionally announced at the turn of the century, on the 1st of January 2200, the Venusian Stars Institute was set from the beginning to be the heart of the Venusian media empire. An absolutely byzantine and gigantic entity, it was created to manage every single tiny bit of Venus' growing media industry. From managing actors to funding media companies, the VSI is the last edge that Binyaria needed to dislodge Earth's dominance in the media sector. Lucrative contracts and clever handiwork behind the scenes resulted in the titans of the media industry finally committing to a move to Venus. These contracts ended up creating luxurious and revolutionary institutes for the big media companies to settle in, their massive skyscrapers dominating the Venusian skyline. All citizens, at this point, would see the emblems of the Venusian media empire when looking up. Gigantic holographic billboards began to claim an unrivaled amount of space in every single alleyway. Social media, which was placed under the purview of the VSI's newly-created Social Leadership Team, began to truly boom around this time as well. Practically every citizen became an avid user of social media from the morning to the evening: the Venusian government often paid companies to give new employees latest-model phones, which came with all sorts social media applications installed and no way to remove advertisements. While this was annoying at first, Venusians ended up accepting this situation eventually. After all, they were free, high-end mobile phones. The money that Venus spent on this was quickly made back through insane amounts of advertisement money: practically every citizen was viewing hundreds and hundreds of advertisements throughout the day. Idol culture began spreading through social media as well, with many falling in ranks behind their favourite media star, yet quick to turn their backs on them whenever the new scandal came out.
The Binyarian Exposé and Cytherea
The reality of the actors' life was much different than what was shown on social media. Their happy lives were often carefully manufactured lies, sold by their privately-hired media marketing teams. Of course, this is knowledge that only the actors themselves would have -- they, themselves, were too busy under the immense pressure of the Venusian entertainment industry. The Venusian Stars Institute's guidelines for actors -- essentially rules that they may not break for any reason -- clamped down harder and harder with every passing year. Newly-implemented beauty standards in 2203' meant that many actors had to resort to expensive, Zeng-Hu sponsored plastic surgery or then-experimental genetic engineering in order to meet unrealistic demands. Many took out extensive loans from the then-up-and-rising Idris banking company in order to afford these expensive Zeng-Hu procedures. These loans were then paid through a gruesome amount of work: actors often had to work grueling work schedules, day after day, just to not be crushed under the interest. This opened up a new, lucrative front for Zeng-Hu: drugs grown on Rathlin could easily be sold to actors on Cytherea, which led to their rampant substance abuse behind the scenes, simply to deal with the stress. This industry is extremely lucrative and Zeng-Hu invested billions and billions into it. The usage of these substances spread to much of the public as well, although it was not yet a worldwide phenomenon.
This situation was unknown to the public until 2217. A Venusian reporting agency, Le Courrier, broke out a story amiably called the Binyarian Exposé. This story was in actuality a 287 page document that detailed the living situation of authors behind the scenes and the unrealistic standards of the VSI, down to every single small detail. Many failed or rejected authors were interviewed to obtain the information needed. Unfortunately, it was far too long and had the opposite effect of what the authors wanted. The VSI's strict control over social media meant that the story was swiftly suppressed by the algorithms. Additionally, many Venusians simply did not care and dismissed the revelations as '[...] washed up artists and B-rate authors making things up [...]'. This was the position held by Anne-Marie Cythère, the most famous actor of this era and an icon of Venus, arguably the first real idol who possessed a massive cult following, mainly on Venus. Those who agreed with her stance were referred to as 'Cythereans' by Earther critics, a term which stuck over time and began substituting the usage of Venusians in common language. It began as a derogative term, but Venusians simply repossessed the word to fit their new identity. This point marks the beginning of Cytherea and Cythereans for historians -- the point where Venusians accepted their new identity.
Additionally, the Exposé resulted in most of the world beginning to accept drug usage -- most simply saw it as just another facet of idol culture, and reasoned that since drinking was fine, substance abuse should be fine, too. The authorities were quickly overwhelmed as there were far too many rising cases of substance abuse and resale for them to handle. This led to most cases being dismissed with either a very light fine or no action taken. Some critics point to Zeng-Hu interference in this process through bribing authorities to grow its markets, but Zeng-Hu has denied all such claims.
As a result of this new identity, less and less Cythereans begin entering skilled trades. Rathlin's hydroponics and pharmacy industries, curiously, were not affected due to them being mostly automated and due to a relative lack of required physical work for their workers. The service industry and connected sectors begin absolutely dominating Venusian statistics, with almost the entirety of Venus' industry being located in Rathlin's hydroponics facilities. Binyaria's chemical industries began to go bankrupt and alarm bells were rang by many, but the government simply did not care. The media was what was making money, not the heavy industries. Soon, this situation would come to a head, however.
The First Interstellar War and the Jie Riots
With the breakout of war for the Alliance, Venusians were conscripted just like the rest. This was, however, not taken amiably by the planet's populace and led to the first ever mass riots on Venus, dubbed 'the Jie Riots', as they took place in the Jie square of the Jie district. Around a million Venusians took to the streets to protest against the war, or at the very least for exemptions for Venusians. Many cried out that 'war's not good for the industry' and unwillingness in general to go fight, as the physical damage would ruin their careers. Historians point to most social media posts bringing attention to the fact that most of the populace simply did not want their beauty to be compromised -- this was a more worrying prospect than death, to most Venusians. These protests were, however, very disorganized as there was no real unifying cause or voice behind them. The Alliance quickly intervened and quelled them, and conscription took place as it normally did in other worlds.
A significant amount of the Venusian working class was drafted -- around 20% -- mostly drawn from those that worked in the heavy industries keeping the planet afloat. Resistance to conscription was significant for most Venusians, who often found ways to outright avoid it. The Venusian government and the VSI were found to be involved in assisting actors, film makers, billionaires and, in general, everyone involved with the Venusian entertainment empire in draft dodging, mainly through clever forging of medical papers exempting them from service for one reason or the other. The entertainment industry continued to prosper or at the very least stay afloat, depending on which economics agency was polled, but everything else began to collapse in a manner of weeks due to the drafting of almost all of the skilled workers. Rationing and austerity were quickly instituted in all aerostats, to the chagrin of the planet’s populace. It would prove to be a difficult decade for Venusians, with many feeling the brunt of poverty and austerity, leading to a large amount of resentment towards the Alliance.
The End of Austerity and the Jintarian Plan
With the war ending, Venus was on the breaking point. The power plants had almost nobody left to work for them except for direly overworked engineers, and most of the populace simply did not want to work these jobs. The situation was especially dire and a new technocratic government was put in charge with a political blank cheque in order to deal with the situation once and for all. This led to the creation of the Jintaria Plan, one of the biggest social engineering feats of human history. Through the usage of the Venusian media conglomerate, many veterans and refugees across the Alliance were invited to hastily fabricated 'cities under cities' in the aerostats. The contracts given to them were quite simple: as long as they worked in their assigned sector, they would have government-provided housing, heating, electricity and appliances. This was a very risky gamble that was quite expensive, but the dice roll succeeded. Many flocked over to the newly created Jintarian strata in order to find a new life, thus providing Venus with the skilled force it direly needed. The situation finally stabilized on the 15th of August 2301 with the end of austerity. Gigantic parties were held everywhere across Cytherea, with it becoming an unofficial holiday, whereas Jintarians mainly took to drinking in pubs and patting themselves on the back.
Jintarian society is an inviting prospect for many refugees and immigrants. It is a patchwork blend of many cultures, who live together sharing the burden of an entire planet. This sole unifying factor leads to a shared sense of brotherhood and duty among Jintarians. This new class finds it hard to scale the ladder, however. It is practically almost impossible for Jintarians to work in the Venusian media industries due to ‘beauty standards concerns’: the fact that most of the Jintarian population has done some sort of trade or physical work in their life, which leads to the formation of minor beauty defects – enough for the Cythereans to reject the prospect of such a person entering the media scene. Some Jintarians opt for extensive plastic surgery to enter the ranks of the Cythereans, but this requires almost half a lifetime of savings and is an exceedingly rare occurrence. These ‘quasi-Cythereans’ are a mixed bag for Jintarians: the most radical view them as class traitors and the ambitious view them as lucky individuals.
Modern History, Cytherea and Jintaria
Venus is, today, labelled as the Queen of Entertainment for good reason. Its entertainment sector is absolutely dominant across the Spur and it is a powerful cultural weapon for the Alliance. It also hosts a developed hydroponics industry in Rathlin -- being a net exporter of food, second only to Ganymede -- and a titanic pharmaceutical industry housed in the very same aerostat, focused mainly on beauty and medical products. Binyaria does not house any sort of industry other than the media, fashion, service and power industries. Many say that everything in Venus feeds Binyaria, which may have a hint of truth.
Venus, curiously, hosts the largest population of Martian refugees in the Spur. Following Violet Dawn, millions of Martians now call Jintaria their home, 98% of which reside in Jintaria. They were invited to work on Venus under similar contracts as the first Jintarians.