User:The Stryker/Sandbox
| REGION - LIBERTY'S CRADLE | ||
|---|---|---|
| This location is centered in the Liberty's Cradle region. | ||
| The beating heart of the modern Coalition of Colonies, Liberty’s Cradle is home to many of the Coalition’s most developed and influential worlds. In contrast to the Solarian stereotype of the frontier as a decivilized wasteland populated by roving bands of pirates and petty warlords, Liberty’s Cradle is a prosperous and safe region which has a higher standard of living than much of the former Middle and Outer Ring possessed prior to the Solarian Collapse of 2462. Post-Collapse the area has continued to prosper and, now that it dwells far behind the Coalition-controlled Weeping Stars, is more secure than it has ever been before.
Orepit, Himeo, Xanu Prime, and now Konyang are located in Liberty's Cradle. | ||
Originally established in 2305 as a Solarian Alliance Outer Ring planet, The Democratic People's Republic of North North Konyang, colloquially known as North Konyang is presently one of the more distant outposts under the Coalition of Colonies after its independence in 2462. North Konyang’s capital city Suwonyang, the largest settlement on the planet, is built upon a natural formation that defines most of North Konyang's geography: islands with large interior mountains that feature lush, but soaking wet, coastal jungle regions. North Konyang was initially a relatively average Outer Ring settlement intended to export water, before the discovery of mysterious, deactivated drones in 2407 led to a robotics boom occuring on the planet that lasted well into the 2450s. The North Konyang of today is a planet renowned for its robotics industry, though some of its initial luster has faded in the years following its boom. Water, however, remains a key industry - the planet has a remarkably low salination level, meaning that essentially all of its water is drinkable. North Konyang Solarian Common, or North Konyang Common, is the most used language on the planet inside and outside of major population centers. Due to its proximity to the Coalition of Colonies planets, Coalition member planets often import water from North Konyang. In major cities and universities, Tradeband can be found being spoken, though it remains rare. Speakers of the language are generally from off-planet, moving to North Konyang during its robotics boom. North Konyang almost completely lacks valuable minerals due to intensive mining efforts carried out by drones—whose source remains unknown—hundreds of years before it was colonized.
Because of the ethnic make-up of North Konyang's original settlers and assimilation of immigrants into the native population during the first AI boom, human characters born on North Konyang will have appearances consistent with the people of China, the Korean Peninsula, and Japanese Islands. Only native North Konyangers or North Konyang-made IPCs may select the North Konyanger accent. This is enforceable by server moderators and admins.
Life on North Konyang
The North Konyang of the 2460s bears little resemblance to the minor colony of 2305. Expansive cities dot its islands, with everyday life flowing very similarly to other advanced societies abroad. However, cities outside of the more famous robotics research and production centers have a lower standard of living, with most being employed in water-related industries or manufacturing jobs. Even worse, many of these former "boom towns" of the robotics industry are entering into a spiral of decay due to an inability to continue to maintain their buildings and utilities due to the sheer price of importing materials from offworld, which has led to a flight from small to moderate sized urban centers into major industrial cities - worsening an already-existent problem of overcrowding.
A lack of raw materials on the planet means that prices on fabricated goods are often exorbitantly high, only kept down by generous government subsidies. Most North Konyangers in the large cities own a small apartment - often called a "shoebox studio" - at best, with only the extremely rich having buildings of their own. Streets, already chaotic due to the quickly-built nature of North Konyang's urban centers, are typically snarled in traffic due to overcrowding. The snarled traffic is, in an odd way, a symbol of pride for some North Konyangers. The mere fact that they have enough vehicles to have traffic issues is, compared to the rest of the outer ring, a symbol of the prosperity that has resulted from the planet's robotics industry.
Life on less populated islands and areas is generally regarded as more carefree, with coastal villages being relatively self-sustaining and free from the complicated stresses and cramped environments found in cities. Such settlements are dedicated almost entirely to aquaculture, farming fish and algae, as well as moss. Surprising as it may be, many IPCs find themselves in these communities, finding work in manual labour or in the fields. It is not uncommon for a village to possess a repair shop and charging stations dedicated to synthetics. Much care is also given to keep the traditions of the original colonists alive, with old rituals and festivals thriving and sometimes only found in the rural villages. The government is very supporting of such customs, not only for the planet’s cultural heritage but also as an important tourist attraction.
North Konyang’s high population density and disparity in standards of living have only been worsened by waves of refugees from the Human Wildlands. Plentiful reserves of food and water have ensured that the planet remains a popular destination for anyone attempting to escape the conflict now gripping the Sol Alliance despite a lack of resources or infrastructure to take care of them. The quick solution of North Konyang’s government came in the form of very harsh immigration laws. The bare minimum of aid is provided, with food, water, and basic shelter offered in refugee camps controlled by the army on sparsely populated islands. From there, refugees await their relocation to a different Coalition planet. Although those with special skills, especially in the fields of robotics or agriculture, are often sponsored by North Konyanger corporations to gain residency, the vast majority of them are regarded with mistrust or condescension; being seen as threats to the harmony of North Konyang, or as freeloaders.
Local businesses exist on the planet, and in some cases, may even thrive, but are more than often eclipsed by Einstein Engines. The megacorporation owns a number of subsidiaries on the planet in many different sectors, most notably, Terraneus Diagnostics, which regularly bankrolls and invests in government initiatives in exchange for their continuous presence, retaining of their original research facilities and control over the vaults, even if IPC production and exports are now handled by state run companies. They occasionally butt heads with Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals, especially in the realm of IPC research, though the former retains minimal influence when compared. The Terraneus facilities on the planet mainly handle shell research and positronic brain production for export to the Coalition.
History
The once Solarian planet of North Konyang was first discovered in 2278 by a long-range scouting probe, but was initially passed over for colonization due to the Interstellar War and the aftermath of the Second Great Depression. By 2298, the Solarian Alliance realized that more expansion was needed in the outer ring of its control to ensure its claims and keep a close eye on the Coalition of Colonies Systems near its frontier. By the start of the 24th century, efforts were underway to colonize the planet, with the first settlers setting foot on the planet in 2305, founding the city of Suwonyang. These settlers were primarily pulled from Earth's more economically depressed areas. Colonists from East Asia were tapped in particular, lured to the frontier of Solarian space by the promise of a better life.
These initial settlers to North Konyang rapidly realized two things. First was that the planet was almost completely freshwater, which was a massive boon for the original colonists. Second was that the planet almost completely lacked valuable minerals, with preemptive drilling operations finding paltry amounts of iron, and evidence of collapsed mining tunnels. The reason for this utter lack of resources would not be discovered until 2404, when a surveying team uncovered a technologically advanced drone of unknown origins within a partially collapsed mining shaft. Though corroded by centuries underground, the drone was intact enough to be brought back to a facility in the nearby city of Point Verdant, and reported to Sol government authorities. Sol auctioned off the rights to the drone, with Einstein Engines winning the bid. The drone was transported to a Terraneus Diagnostics prefab facility built on North Konyang which then took on the project.
Despite the lack of minerals, the nigh-unlimited supply of freshwater, clean air, and arable, if limited, land led to a decently sized colony centered mainly around agriculture. Keeping in line with its original purpose as a listening post for the Sol Navy, the 58th Fleet was stationed in the colony, resulting in a modest but prosperous shipping industry to sustain it. Its position along the border with the Coalition was one of the factors that led to the construction of a bluespace gate decades later.
Over the following years, Terraneus Diagnostics engineers and scientists in Point Verdant gradually began to piece together more and more about the drone. By 2405 carbon-dating had placed the drones within the Skrellian Glorsh era, though the true source would remain unknown and their designs failed to match with any previously known robotics. On their part, the skrell refused to comment on the matter, dismissing it entirely. More drones had been found in the intervening years, all in various states of disrepair. After centuries of exposure to nature there was simply not enough to salvage the AI routines of the machinery. Mining equipment was improved by analyzing the construction of the drones but the true crown jewel, the AI on-board, remained frustratingly elusive. However, in 2406, everything changed through utter happenstance.
In the middle of the dry season a Terraneus survey team searching for more drones to pick apart stumbled across an odd structure: a cave blocked off by an airlock of titanium. Aware that the planet was home to the mysterious mining robots, they cautiously opened the door to see what was on the other side. On the other side of the door were rows upon rows of preserved mining drones sealed inside a climate-controlled repair bay for centuries of inactivity. The severity of this discovery was immediately apparent to them. Words were had with the governor of North Konyang by the local Einstein Engines representative, and it was decided to keep the drones a very closely-guarded secret - with only select Terraneus and government officials even being aware of their existence at all, let alone what was being done with them.
The Terraneus research team worked feverishly, though in secret, for months upon months. Staff were quietly shipped in from offworld in order to not alert outside observers, and the team continued to work upwards of eighty hour weeks in order to crack the drones. In mid-2407, they achieved one of the most remarkable breakthroughs in recent scientific memory by cracking the AI algorithms of the drones. Information of this moved rapidly from the local Einstein Engines office up the corporate chain and moved equally rapidly up the government's chain from provincial office to Sol itself. The information spread like wildfire, and humanity now had the secret of AI despite not truly knowing from where or who these machines came from. This was little more than a footnote to the Nralakk Federation - to them, these AI were crude and hardly approached the machines that had driven their civilization to ruin.
The robotics boom of North Konyang caused a variety of benefits and harms to the previously marginal outer ring planet. The economy ballooned massively, as did its standard of living and industries. North Konyang moved from a rural backwater that exported food and water to a high-tech planet that still exported basic goods, but primarily focused upon robotics. Megacorporations flocked to the planet: Einstein Engines, already present through Terraneus, rapidly secured dominance over the planet; Hephaestus Industries struggled with Einstein dominated competition before selling its factories over to local government control in 2427; and Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals, despite its skrell benefactors, purchased rights to examine the planet's biosphere from Einstein. The fact that their prosthetic limbs were originally designed on this planet has been stated to be a "happy coincidence" by its board. Due to the mass arrival of corporations, jobs were readily available - the planet was booming.
But, not all was well. The rapid expansion of North Konyang's industries and cities had overtaxed the limited bureaucracy on the planet to the breaking point, and architects were in short supply. Urban planning on North Konyang is estimated to be some of the worst in Alliance space outside of New Hai Phong as a result, with cities such as Point Verdant often having haphazard roads running through them and districts smashed together with no apparent rhyme or reason - a legacy of corporate jockeying for areas of interest, and the municipal corruption that came with it. There are countryside facilities originally utilized for drone research and retrieval that have, in recent years, fallen into disuse and disarray. Such facilities often dot the mountains and foothills of North Konyang, slowly being overtaken by nature - sometimes with unfortunate results when these facilities have been improperly stripped of dangerous materials. The environment also suffered in areas where drones were found - jungles were cut or burnt away by corporations in order to get at the precious drones below, prefab buildings were orbitally dropped and erected, and landing zones were cut into the landscape itself. Many colonists on North Konyang, which made their livings off of exporting water, became frustrated with this. They were almost universally ignored by the local government, which was (and is) receiving a great profit from the booming robotics industry.
Though the robotics boom has declined since its peak in the late 2440s, it remains a large employer on the planet. North Konyang produces many of both the brightest roboticists and two of the most renowned robotics universities in the Coalition of Colonies- the Suwonyang Solarian Institute of Robotics Research, a now independent university, and the Point Verdant Terraneus Institute of AI Research, a corporate university - can be found here, along with their famous rivalry. There is even talk of the Point Verdant Institute rivaling Solis Cognito in recent years, much to the joy of its sponsors. Hydroponics - in the form of waterfarms and literal water - remains an important, though secondary, industry on North Konyang.
As the phoron crisis worsened and Sol’s collapse grew nearer, tensions could be felt throughout the middle and outer colonies. Following the departure of the 58th Fleet from Solarian space, North Konyang entered a five day period of silence. Once communications were reestablished, North Konyang declared itself an independent state, seceding from the Alliance and joining the Coalition of Colonies shortly thereafter. Although the planet’s liberal view on synthetics has made for easy integration with the Coalition of Colonies, tensions between North Konyang and Burzsia have been observed.
Now, as a free North Konyang comes out to the world stage, strong government initiative has seen its large synthetic factories nationalised, rapidly introducing legislation to establish the relationship with Einstein Engines. While they still are the dominating megacorporation on the planet, Einstein has lost most of its heavy industry, though still retaining the important research facilities around the vaults, as well as a good portion of software and positronic brain creation.
Government
North Konyang is organized as a federal parliamentary democracy headed by a ceremonial Glorious President, the former colonial governor Hyun Kyung-Ho being elected to the position after independence. The prime minister is elected by the free citizenry every four years, and is the leader of the governing party in the Parliament of North Konyang.
Due to the geographical isolation of many of its islands, its cities developed as mostly independent regions. As such, it is now organized along the same lines, the planet being divided into five largely autonomous Prefectures, each headed by an elected Governor and a government-appointed Prefect for federal matters. Although there are laws at the federal level, prefectures are given a great deal of autonomy when running day to day affairs, each having its own legislature and executive. For instance, each region often maintains its own public services, with the central authorities only stepping in when the local government has proven unable to meet the standards set by federal law or the constitution. The most prominent piece of federal legislation in effect is the equality of synthetics and organics.
The legislative branch is comprised of the Parliament of North Konyang, seated in the capital city of Suwonyang. Elections are held every four years with parties contesting the 300 seats. Members of Parliament are elected on a prefectural level, each prefecture assigned a fixed number of seats based on population. This arrangement, while seen as satisfactory by the majority, is regularly criticised by the politically active IPC community in the country as “biased and unfair”.
Planetary politics are found on both a national and prefectural level, with almost every party running in local and national elections. Polarisation is fairly limited, the vast majority of North Konyangers rejecting the extreme views put forward by radical political movements in the country that tend to be marginalised. IPC politicians do exist and are found in every major party, though most can be seen sitting with the National Party of North Konyang, a pro-synthetic movement, run by and representing the interests of the IPC population, currently leading the opposition with a large 32% of the vote.
North Konyang and the Coalition
Shortly after its independence in late 2462, North Konyang successfully applied for membership in the Coalition of Colonies in order to gain steady trade partners and better protect itself after the sudden collapse of the Sol Alliance. Readily accepted owing to their strategic position and innovative robotics industry, the planet’s relationship with its new partners quickly flourished based off of a mutually beneficial exchange of resources and information - North Konyanger engineers, scientists, and technical designs now finding themselves prized throughout the Coalition. Common goods traded between the planets include vast amounts of moss, seaweed, and algae to feed lesser-off colonies, particularly in the Frontier, in exchange for raw materials. The planet’s military also finds itself frequently consulted when dealing with border patrols in the Solarian Wildlands, owing to their familiarity with the rest of the Alliance.
Despite the rosy relationship North Konyang now shares with the Coalition, the planet has refused to compromise on the topic of citizenship, insisting that Coalition citizenship only grants temporary access to the planet, the local government being given the authority to bar or allow all entrants. This move has been cited by observers as driven by the sudden influx of refugees and IPCs from the Sol Alliance, while others cite North Konyanger cultural closed-off attitudes as the government’s motives.
Consequently, outside of tourists and refugees, North Konyang only accepts residents and citizens under the following criteria:
- Residents must have a work visa, only furnished by online, off-planet request when sponsored by a North Konyang-based employer, or have family on the planet.
- In order to apply for citizenship, a resident needs to have lived on North Konyang for 10 years, be financially self-sufficient, and have committed no felonies.
- Organics and IPCs are equally eligible to apply for residency or citizenship.
Military
North Konyang’s military, also known as the People's Army of Konyang, was first formed shortly after the colony’s independence from personnel of the former Solarian garrison. As a result, it carries a lot of the traditions of the Solarian Armed Forces. Bolstered by conscription laws requiring both organic and synthetic citizens one year of mandatory service, the KAF possesses Army, Navy and Space branches. IPCs are actively recruited and accepted into the military, mostly forming their own units. This segregation is justified by the government as based solely on the differentiating capabilities, logistical needs and skills between man and machine. Lately, they have begun testing strategic phoron-based superweapons, although many observers in both the Alliance and Coalition doubt they will have any success.
That claim does hold true to an extent, with IPCs taking a more active role in special forces formations, dealing with operations requiring levels of precision and focus that artificial intelligence can easily provide. A famous example is the army’s Mechatronic Corps, an elite unit utilising large, leftover battle mechs retrofitted for a pair of pilots. Such a force is unique in the Coalition, and is often used abroad in operations under broader CoC military command. Mixed infantry units of conscripts do exist, fielded in border patrol tasks or assigned garrison duty.
Notably for a 25th century military, the Navy maintains a very large aquatic force which it uses to patrol the vast oceans of the planet. Regularly described as more of a coast guard than a military arm, it is more geared for domestic policing than combat, consisting mostly of ships acting as launching points for many smaller, coast guard type patrol vessels. that patrol the vast expanse of the planet’s waterways and launch military aircraft.
Its spaceborne element consists of obsolete vessels donated by Coalition planets, partially brought up to a modern standard by the planet’s technology and manufacturing sector. In 2463, the KAF’s main tasks include protecting the Republic from pirates and policing the large influx of refugees from the Human Wildlands, regularly pushing them to other planets within the Coalition as per North Konyang’s strict migration laws.
Crime and Law Enforcement
National Police
Despite its federal nature, the main law enforcement agency on the planet is the National Police, formed after North Konyang’s independence from the merging of a number of local and specialised agencies under the then Solarian authority. One major change since then has been the introduction of synthetic officers in all positions and ranks, while also creating special divisions suited best for them. Police gear remains rather antiquated for the era, the force still using old Solarian equipment and stocks from the colonial garrison, meaning that much of the tactics and thinking remain unchanged. Considered tame by Alliance standards, the National Police places an emphasis on preventative policing, building rapport with local communities, and relying on a sense of civic duty from the populace to perform its duties. Despite this, the National Police has nonetheless received criticism for occasional incidents of corruption and brutality, mostly against synthetic citizens. This is more common in remote departments and conservative prefectures, where the sudden inclusiveness of synthetic officers with equal pay and opportunities is seen as a threat. Such incidents aside, government efforts for the modernisation of the National Police are ongoing.
The police is subject to the Ministry of Public Safety in Suwonyang and is organised at the national level, with local departments answering to the assigned hierarchy in their prefecture. Special divisions are deployed to deal with various policing duties, their size ranging from a whole new branch to Special Robotics detachments specialising in detainment of volatile synthetic suspects. The largest of these subdivisions and arguably the most important, the Coast Guard is the maritime arm of the National Police, operating a fleet of shore and sea patrol vessels in their mission to enforce the law at the huge array of islands and in North Konyang’s waters. As the planet is surrounded by oceans, the Coast Guard has proven itself essential to the battle against smuggling and piracy while also assuming search and rescue duties during flooding, tsunamis and other catastrophes. The National Police has also gained Coalition-wide acclaim for its Special Robotics Division - a task force known for its expertise in detaining IPC without causing permanent damage.
Organised Crime
Benevolent Guild
The Benevolent Guild is a criminal organisation operating primarily within the decrepit, dark shadows of New Hong Kong. Originating as a mutual aid society for low income and forced penal colonists shipped into New Hong Kong by the Alliance government, it developed into a ruthless crime syndicate with strong ties to the local lower class community. From the start, the tightly knit communal and familial ties have played an important role in preserving the gang’s power and shielding them from police action. Only in recent years has any meaningful progress been made, the allocation of governmental resources and the increasingly violent and profit-oriented tactics of the Guild having alienated much of the younger generation, chipping away at the once widely popular support.
Starting with extortion and loan sharking, the Benevolent Guild rapidly expanded into gambling, drugs and violent crime such as kidnapping both in New Hong Kong and in New Kowloon. It is not uncommon for synthetics that find themselves victims of the group’s loan shark tactics to be ‘collected’ as collateral damage and subsequently carted off to whichever corner of the Orion Spur where their new owners await them usually at a far cheaper rate than elsewhere. One of the few institutions on North Konyang refusing to admit synthetics owing to a deeply conservative and spiritually esoteric internal ideology, a pragmatist outlook often compels them to deal with and even cooperate with IPC politicians, police and rival gangs. Connections with criminal organisations in the wider Spur have been confirmed to exist, as various crime syndicates in X