Dominian Security and Law
Where the Empire of Dominia conquers, its laws — both civil and religious — follow. While religious laws are enforced by the Tribunal Investigations Constabulary and the vaunted Inquisitrix, civil law enforcement is handled by a variety of agencies under the umbrella of His Imperial Majesty’s Constable Service. Those who fill the ranks — from the humble patrol constable to the agents of the Imperial Intelligence Directorate — are as diverse as the Empire and come from all of its economic backgrounds. Across the Empire the Imperial Constable is, for many subjects, the most immediate sign of Moroz’s control over its colonies and people.
History
The modern security forces of Dominia trace their origins to a humble beginning: the ship security forces of the colony ships sent to Moroz. In what would become the Imperial Alliance, vessel chief of security Hermann Strelitz — the founder of the great house — forged his security team into first a municipal police force, then a multi-municipality constabulary as their colony expanded. The other two landing sites — what would become the Holy Kingdom of Domelkos and the Confederated States of Fisanduh — followed suit, creating a foundation for the future as they grew alongside these nascent states and the new faith of Tribunalism.
With the declaration of the Empire after the War of Moroz these forces were unified into His Imperial Majesty’s Constable Service, also known as the Imperial Constabulary or HIMCS. It expanded as the Empire grew, establishing offices on both newly-colonized and newly-conquered worlds. The Empire’s early history saw the creation of its first intelligence service, His Majesty’s Imperial Intelligence Directorate (HMIID), simply known as the Directorate. Intended at first to combat insurgent groups in Fisanduh it quickly grew into a counterintelligence and spying service, observing and reporting what the Constabulary could not.
In the contemporary Empire the Imperial Constabulary is divided between the Core, where it is the only form of secular police aside from the Imperial Fisanduhian Gendarmerie (a paramilitary force only active in Fisanduh), and the Frontier, where it often shares jurisdiction with the Imperial Army’s military police. Beside it, the Tribunal Investigations Constabulary hunts religious offenders and even chases them abroad at times. Behind the veil of secrecy, the Directorate hunts spies and dissidents alike, with all three agencies answering to different members of the cabinet. Above them all, the Imperial judicial system works to interpret laws made by the Emperor and his cabinet, prosecute those who violate His Majesty’s laws, and send the guilty to prisons. Dominia may not be a free society, but — if nothing else — it can at least be secure.
The Imperial Court System
While the Empire is an authoritarian and stratified state by its nature, it is not without its laws. Dominia is a bureaucratic state where laws are written and enforced by a developed legal system consisting of courts, law enforcement agencies, and prisons. While a judge may be a noble, no noble — even one who governs a province — has the authority to arbitrarily pass judgment. Under secular civil law all Dominian citizens have the right to counsel and right to privacy of their persons and property, with police requiring a warrant to search unless the officer has reasonable suspicion or there is a clear danger. However, those arrested do not have to be read their rights or informed of their charges. Under military law a person may be detained, searched, and questioned without a warrant — there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.
The Imperial Legal System
The modern Empire is governed by three distinctive sets of judicial codes: civil, religious, and military who in theory hold purview over different crimes. In practice their jurisdictions often overlap — at times confusingly — and cooperation is not always perfect. Furthermore, the punishment one receives can vary greatly between the three codes: a Ma’zal who strikes a soldier in a barfight on Sun Reach my find himself sent to prison for years by a military court, while a Jadraner who strikes another Jadraner in a street fight in Durres, Novi Jadran, may only receive time served pending his trial.
The civil and religious judges of the Empire are mostly nobles or Secondaries of Morozian descent, with Jadranic nobility and urban commoners forming a minority of justices — mostly those in the frontier. A lawyer may be drawn from any social class, but the most prominent and influential are often nobles themselves. Unsurprisingly, the Imperial nobility often receive preferential treatment in non-criminal matters by the courts — particularly if they are associated with a great house — and very often win their cases, assuming they are not obviously guilty or the crime is not a severe one such as murder or a deliberate violation of the Edicts. Civil trials involving the nobility are, thus, often settled out of court by the involved parties through settlements, or sometimes by a duel if the matter is deemed to be more one of honour than criminal code — though this is rare.
Criminal cases that do go to non-religious criminal court generally have a very high conviction rate, with upwards of 90% of criminal cases ending with a successful conviction. This is, in part, because Imperial courts operate under a presumption of guilt that defendants must rebut. Some foreign legal observers have claimed the high conviction rate of Imperial courts is a sign of injustice in the system, as many of the best lawyers — those who would be able to get their clients out of criminal convictions — are unaffordable to most Ma’zals, who must instead rely on court-provided Imperial Advocates for their defense. Many instead take plea agreements with the courts, accepting a lesser charge — and their guilt — in exchange for avoiding further prosecution. Civil and criminal trials do have juries of peers (a group of ten, decided through a random selection of individuals in good standing on their Mo’ri’zal) and these individuals ultimately decide if the accused is guilty or not guilty.
Imperial military courts (known as tribunals within the Empire) in theory only enforce the Imperial Code of Military Justice (ICMJ) for serving military personnel. In reality there are, particularly on the frontier and especially on Sun Reach — where a weak constabulary relies on Imperial Army military police to supplement its ranks - many areas where Imperial civilian and military judicial codes intersect and overlap. Further complicating matters, the Imperial Constabulary has no jurisdiction over the voidspace controlled by the Empire: instead, this is the sole domain of the Imperial Fleet’s military courts. Military tribunals are much harsher than civilian courts and, notably, do not involve a jury. Instead, a panel of three military judges decides the fate of the accused, with the accused being represented by a military lawyer.
Goddess-Touched and the Imperial Justice System
Agents of the Tribunal said to be able to scry the Goddess’ truth and commune with Her, the Goddess-touched form a unique aspect of the Imperial criminal justice system and are found in both the courts and His Imperial Majesty’s Constable Service. They are liaised by the Tribunal — which officially certifies their abilities and confirms them to be theologically accurate — to the Service and the courts where they serve as specialist seers and oracles who offer assistance to the more mundane tasks of mortal justice.
Imperial law considers the divination-based testimony (known officially as “divinely augured indirect evidence”) of a Goddess-touched as a witness in a trial, as it comes from her communion with the Goddess, to be unimpeachable — it is, after all, the word of the divine Lady of Moroz. To question it would be to question Her, which is tantamount to sacrilege. But for the Goddess-touched, to lie is to wrong divinity Herself — a dire sin which breaks Her edicts. It is said She, in Her great power and wroth, will strike down any of Her gifted who use their powers to condemn the innocent. Those who are called to testify in a case typically arrive with their eyes covered by a red cloth featuring the Tribunal’s eye — a gesture which symbolizes they are blind to the concerns of the material world, but able to perceive Her truth while others cannot.
The Service often seeks out Goddess-touched who are able to reach into the Kingdom of Moroz and beseech the Goddess to let them pull the truth from the mouths of the dead — a rare ability even amongst those already-rare gift of being Goddess-touched. These women are known as thanatological specialists, and travel from precinct to precinct assisting in the most critical investigations — dead constables, murdered notables, and potential serial killers. The nature of their abilities, and how they carry out the task of pulling information from the dead, are closely guarded by the Tribunal and Service alike. No outside source has ever recorded a thanatological specialist in action, and if their knowledge does extend beyond the veil remains unknown. The lack of cross-examination for these witnesses, as they are dead, means their testimony is not considered sufficiently incriminating on its own — it is often used as a basis for investigative leads, but not enough to secure a conviction wholesale.
Imperial Law Enforcement Agencies
His Imperial Majesty’s Constable Service
Civil law enforcement in the Empire is primarily handled by the sworn officers of His Imperial Majesty’s Constable Service (HIMCS), a multi-planet agency with offices on every planet of the Empire which answers to the High Seneschal of His Majesty’s Justice, with occasional assistance from the Directorate or TIC. Officers of the Service are generally known as constables regardless of gender, and are drawn from all classes of Dominian society. Urban officers are known as constables of the city watch while their rural counterparts are known as constables of the land, taking their name from the Dominian term for an administrative region of a planet: a province.
The Service is headquartered in Nova Luxembourg, Moroz and organizes its branches on a per-planet basis, with each world of the Empire having its own sub-constabulary and there existing an overall division between the core and frontier of the Empire, due to a belief the Imperial Frontier would require a different type of policing than the core worlds. Each sub-constabulary is led by a Constable-in-Charge (2C), who holds authority over an individual planet’s constabulary and answers to the high seneschal. Below the 2C are Superintendents, who command a district — either urban or rural — and command the precinct Constables, who command rural urban precincts. Below them are captains, who supervise urban stations, and marshals, who supervise rural precincts. Below them are the constables, constable sergeants, lieutenants, and inspectors who form the rank-and-file of the Service.
An Imperial constable’s uniform varies from planet to planet, with Morozian constables and their shakos looking different from Jadranic constables and their fur coats and kepis, and so on. All have a badge on their upper left shoulder which displays the district they are assigned to and sits above their rank insignia. Their basic equipment is relatively standardized: every constable at least carries a stun baton — often bought from Zavodskoi Interstellar to replace earlier truncheons — and a handgun, generally a semi-automatic pistol or a revolver, has non-lethal equipment such as a taser and chemical spray, and wears a reliable multipurpose protective vest designed to resist handgun rounds, blunt weapons, and knives. They also carry their badges of office: a silvered treutduro carrying a laurel in its mouth, set against the standard of House Keeser.
For a Ma’zal with only a primary school education (or less) and few opportunities abroad, a life spent in the Service is often a ticket to further opportunities for their family without the dangers of the military. Aside from the Imperial Army, the Service is one of the few agencies where a Ma’zal can excel, with several having become 2Cs. Recruits are sent through an academy on their respective planet (or nearest by if their planet does not have an academy, where upon completion of their training they swear an oath to the Emperor and are assigned the rank of Constable. After graduation and assignment to their duty station, they are seconded to a more experienced officer. Those who are found to show promise often become inspectors — the Service’s equivalent of a detective — or sergeants — who direct squads of constables. The Service makes an effort to keep graduating classes geographically close to one another in an effort to create bonds between constables, and this has been relatively successful. Constables are often very loyal to one another, willing to answer calls for support from other departments and assist one another in times of crisis.
However, this “brotherhood of constables” conversely makes allegations of abuse — or corruption — by constables notoriously difficult to prove due to a desire for constables to close ranks and protect their own when threatened. Constables serving on the frontier — particularly in rural areas — have much less oversight than their counterparts in the core, and can expect charges of excessive force, intimidation, and corruption to be dropped, or barely investigated, so long as they remain loyal to the Empire and carry out its goals. They are sometimes regarded as no better than another gang by residents of the frontier, and back talking a constable as a Ma’zal is a quick way to a beating and a stay in prison — often on charges one did not commit. To the constables this is simply the nature of things: their comrades-in-arms and the Service’s honor are more valuable than any Ma’zal’s teeth, or ordinary civilian. Everyone from the foot patrol, the radio car, or the station-house is to make it home at the end of their shift, no matter how much violence it may take. And if you kill one of theirs, you should expect the same in return — a trial by badge, not jury, with a guaranteed sentence of death, no matter how long it takes.
Urban Constables
Constables of the City Watch keep the peace in the built-up urban areas of the Empire, from the slums of Sun Reach to the venerated avenues of Nova Luxembourg. They tend to be better-paid and better-equipped than their rural counterparts, and are responsible for urban precincts in Dominian cities. Their salaries and equipment are, in theory, paid for by taxes from the city itself. In reality, wealthy benefactors — often nobles — make donations to the watch in return for benefits or preferential treatment ranging from charges being dropped to the businesses of rivals being discovered to be housing illegal goods and seized. While rare in the Imperial Core, which is better-funded, this kind of patronage-based corruption is commonplace in the Imperial Frontier, where constabulary precincts will become private agencies of wealthy nobles or businesses — or megacorporations such as Zavodskoi — in order to stamp out rivals through legal channels. The colonial administration has made little real efforts to stamp out this system, as its members — drawn from Morozians and wealthy urban Jadraners — often directly benefit from it, using constables to harass the native inhabitants of a region out of wealthy districts and into marginal spaces. It is commonly said the last honest city watchman one will encounter on the frontier is the Jadranic constable responsible for checking one’s documents as they board their flight to Sun Reach.
City constables typically work in groups of at least two mounted in a motor vehicle, though foot patrols may be larger — up to five or six constables led by a sergeant or officer — and are generally deployed to crack down on crime waves, or on dissent (real or suspected). In times of crisis the city constables can count on their Heavy Response Force (HRF), a special weapons and tactics force primarily used for anti-riot purposes which is issued Imperial Army equipment. In exceptional crises, they will not hesitate to call upon the Imperial Army to intervene.
While they are often the friendly face of the Empire’s laws in the built-up and peaceful cities of core worlds such as Novi Jadran and Moroz, the humble constable — baton in one hand and handgun in the other — is the first man the Empire deploys to crush and burn away dissent. From him, it only escalates.
Rural Constables
Stationed everywhere from the bucolic countryside of Domelkos, Moroz, to the sweltering mangrove villages of Sun Reach, the rural constables keep the Empire’s peace. Known as Constables of the Land, they are less equipped and often less numerous than their urban counterparts, with some frontier villages only having two or three constables — and many of those being part-time or seasonal. An exception to this are rural constables of Novi Jadran known as Constables of the Duke, who are housed in barracks near major rural noble holdings — they are full-time professionals and better equipped than other rural police, using mostly Zavodskoi Interstellar equipment. On Moroz and other worlds of the Imperial Core the rural constables are similarly professionalized, but do not live in communal barracks away from their homes.
Typical rural constables on the frontier, and in the core, are less prone to corruption than their urban counterparts. They, after all, generally live in the villages and townships where they work, rather than being housed in a barracks in another neighborhood or living outside of their precinct’s jurisdiction. Living alongside and coming to recognize your charges makes one hesitant to employ violence, or corruption, against them, and helps lead to more trust in the community of the Empire. They cover far more terrain than their urban counterparts and much of it is often rough, requiring them to abandon the motorized cars of most constables for pack animals such as the Morozian tenelotes.
A notable divergence from this rule are Novi Jadran’s nobility-aligned constables — sometimes known as Ducal constables after their formal title. They live in barracks alongside their rural noble patrons, who fund them, and carry out their liege’s wills. Ducal constables are far more corrupt and violent than their urban Jadranic counterparts, and are a key part of the noble patronage system that dominates the Jadranic countryside. They crack down on any dissent brutally, having been given nearly free reign by their patrons to do so, and are known to brutalize non-ducal village constables if they attempt to stop them. Any wrongdoing — assuming it benefits their patron — is written off as simply a part of their regular duties. After all, only the Goddess is flawless and perfect. The village constables of Novi Jadran are few and far between, numbering far less than the ducal constables and with far worse equipment. It is often all they can do to police their villages, and their authority crumples at the sight of a ducal constable.
Constables-in-Charge of the Service
The 2Cs of the Service represent the best of the best — in theory — of the Empire’s policing system. These individuals supervise entire planets’ civil law enforcement services and answer to the High Seneschal directly. Some of them are among the highest-ranking commoners in the modern Empire. While high-ranking they lack the prestige of their counterparts in the Tribunal Investigations Constabulary, who are often nobles from wealthy families. However, all 2Cs are able to play the Empire’s to an extent, balancing the whims of various interest groups more powerful than they are while supporting their constabulary.
Seung Hyeong
Born on 25 July 2401 into a Secondary family long associated with the Imperial Palace, Seung Hyeong has been the 2C of Moroz since 2445 and has led an exemplary career in charge of the Empire’s capital, all while cultivating a friendly relationship with the royal family. 2C Hyeong is seen by many as the friendly, mustachioed, public face of the entire Service, often appearing at public events and holidays alongside the high seneschal and Emperor. Less publicly, he and the Imperial Constabulary of Moroz are deeply involved with the Imperial Intelligence Directorate and dissidents captured by the ICM often disappear into Directorate custody, never to be seen again.
Madelyn Caddick
Born 14 January 2433 and adopted by Huiling Zhao as a ward in 2441, Madelyn Caddick is the only Reacher to ever become a 2C. She entered into the Imperial Constabulary of Zhurong after graduating university and rose rapidly in the ranks despite her humble birth and age — which has made some wonder if the redheaded Ma’zal is an instrument of Huiling’s influence rather than her own person. As 2C of Zhurong since 2463 she has seen further cooperation with the Fleet’s armsmen and overtures to Solarian policing agencies, positioning herself and her constabulary as a go-between for extraditing Solarian pirates and deserters captured by the Fleet to the Alliance — something only possible due to her good relations with the Fleet, and her patron.
Suhuba Ojukwu
Born 12 February 2421, Suhuba Ojukwu is a native of Alterim Balteulis with a long, successful career in the Service. A gifted administrator and diplomatic by nature, Ojukwu was tapped for 2C due to his strong relations with the planet’s unathi communities. Regarded as fair and even-handed, if somewhat boring as a person, Ojukwu is almost constantly accompanied by several interpreters for the various languages of the Empire’s unathi communities and is considered a subject matter expert on their culture — a rare trait that makes him both valuable and hard to replace.
Qi Bao
Born 27 March 2419 to a middle-class farming family on Alterim Obrirava, Qi Bao joined the Service at 18 and has spent his entire life in it. Becoming 2C is, to him, the natural conclusion of a sterling career spent in service of the Empire, and he has steadily worked to ensure the planet’s constabulary is held to the same high standards he holds himself. Bao is an incredibly private man who has only become more withdrawn from public life after his daughter — his only child — was deemed Goddess-touched by the Tribunal and taken from his home. While a great honour to many, it is said to have given him immense grief.
Luka Hranj
Born 22 March 2411 to an upper-class urban family, Luka Hranj entered into the Imperial Jadranic Colonial Constabulary as a fresh university graduate and has been its 2C since 2459. Hranj is an urbanite and often feuds with the rural nobility — viewing them as engaging in corruption and crime, then using their titles and influence to hide from justice — and urban dissident movements — viewing them as ungrateful for what the Empire has given them. He only manages to keep his position — despite widespread dislike of him — through the high seneschal’s influence. 2C Hranj has a reputation as being incorruptible yet incredibly demanding, and his headquarters is known for its high turnover rate. Rumors indicate he may step down when the Emperor dies and retire, ridding the rural nobility of a thorn in their side. It is commonly said he was born incapable of feeling joy, and has never been seen smiling under his mustache or laughing.
Félix Moulin
Born on 09 September 2423 to middle-class Morozian factory managers, Félix Moulin entered into the Service later in his life after a decade in the Imperial Army as an officer. 2C Moulin is a man of perfectly sufficient, workmanlike skills given a role which requires an exceptional mastery of his craft, and has not been successful in cracking down on corruption in the Imperial Reacher Colonial Constabulary’s urban branch, nor has he removed the Army’s significant influence over its countryside. He is rumored to be involved in the extensive system of donation-based patronage on the frontier, with his constabulary being desperate for money and seemingly more than willing to bend the rules to make ends meet.
Service-Tribunal Relations
The Tribunal Investigations Constabulary (TIC) is, on paper, meant to work closely with their civil counterparts in the pursuit of justice — particularly in matters concerning edict breakers, extraditions, and heresy. In practice the Ma’zals and Secondaries of the Service often find themselves at odds with the “Ticks,” a term they use to refer to TIC personnel originating in reference to how many Service personnel feel the TIC is a parasite sucking their funding and work away. The TIC often look down upon the Service and demand they take a secondary role when both agencies respond to a situation, and many Lieutenants and Captains chafe at the TIC’s longstanding mandate to handle any and all cases involving extradition from abroad to the Empire. On the Imperial Frontier TIC constables are often seen as less harsh and more preferable to Service constables, with TIC personnel being better-funded — drawing their salaries and expenses from the state church — and less prone to corruption. This has further worsened TIC-Service relations on the frontier, and many investigations by the TIC into suspected heresy and witchwork there are often stymied by the carelessness and neglect — deliberate or otherwise — of the local constables.
Imperial Army Military Police
Mostly seen in the Imperial Frontier, the military police (MPs) of the Imperial Army are the enforcers of Imperial Code of Military Justice (ICMJ) and a major part of ensuring the Imperial Army’s continued discipline. Sometimes referred to as “Dorothea’s Dogs” by irritated soldiers, MPs are reputed to be incorruptible and extremely harsh in their treatment of those suspected — or found — breaking the ICMJ. They are often the first enforcers of Imperial justice encountered by recently conquered people, before the arrival of the Imperial colonial administration. Once a civilian administration is set up they are generally removed from authority over civilians. However, there are many examples of MPs having authority over civilian populations in areas designated military significance, such as the surrounding countryside of military installations. Another example is the Imperial Fisanduhian Gendarmerie, which sits somewhere halfway between a constabulary and a military unit.
Trained to deal with often-armed military personnel, MPs are not hesitant to use violence and intimidation against civilians they are assigned to police. They are often more harsh against civilians, who know little of military law and discipline, and MPs shooting confrontational civilians dead is not an uncommon occurrence in recently-conquered areas of the Imperial Frontier. Against other soldiers they are less violent — as Army personnel have been trained to possess an understanding of discipline — but no less harsh, but tend to reserve a lighter touch for noble officers. For the often-Ma’zal Jadraners who make up MPs, to harm a noble officer who has committed anything but truly egregious crimes is a short path to a dishonorable discharge and disgraceful post-military career where they are denied opportunity after opportunity.
As they are soldiers who serve as law enforcement, they wear the typical military uniforms of the Imperial Army with a brassard that designates them as a MP.
The Imperial Intelligence Directorate
The Directorate, as it is commonly known, is the internal and external intelligence service of the Empire, handling everything from wiretapping dissidents to spying on the Greentree Government on Xanu. It is an exceptionally secretive organization, with little known about its internal operations, and the average Dominian citizen knows little of its capabilities and nothing of what it is planning at a given moment. The Directorate, it is said, is the Empire’s eyes in the darkness — and the knife hidden behind its back.
The Directorate’s only publicly-stated goal is to ensure the continued safety and stability of the Empire. Rumors have long circulated that it and its reclusive Director, Baronet Alojzia Molnarova, have informants in every household, business, noble family, ship, and barracks in the Empire, and maintain extensive files on every citizen — and non-citizens of interest — hidden in a vault under Nova Luxembourg. The Directorate and Solarian Interstellar Intelligence Bureau are rumored to work together. Officially, nobody is certain how much material both nations send one another or if they send any at all. On the other side, the Directorate and Biesel Security Service Bureau have an intelligence-sharing agreement concerning activity by, “groups aligned against interstellar peace.” Dominian exiles in the Republic have long clamored for this agreement to be dropped, claiming it is a cause for their higher chance of death by “accident.”
Little is known about how the Directorate recruits its personnel, or who is recruited. Some rumors claim its first personnel were directly recruited from the Confederated States Intelligence Service (CSIS), the security agency of the Confederated States of Fisanduh, in an exchange of clemency for service known only to Emperor Godwin. Officially, Directorate records maintain it was established during the War of Moroz by Godwin Keeser, who would later become the first Emperor of Dominia, and only published after the war’s end. Some claim Directorate agents use gene editing, voice training, and extensive disguise work to become anyone necessary for their operations, with a fringe conspiracy theory claiming they have had a hand in assassinations from Xanu to Unity Station.
What is known publicly is that Directorate personnel are called Officers of the Directory and work out of locations known as “stations,” though the location of these are unknown. Most Imperial embassies are assumed to have a Directorate presence, even if it is not officially stated. With many of the Directorate’s actions presumed to bend, and often break, the laws of the Empire and the Fourth Edict, these stations are known by the public to have assigned clergy capable of offering spiritual counsel and advice, and occasionally blessing an otherwise illegal action which will benefit the Empire — for the Morozians are, after all, Her chosen people, and She must occasionally see them pick up the sword in their defense. For this, a sin committed in service can easily be absolved.
Prisons
The prison system of the Empire is primarily the jurisdiction of the Constable Service, aside from the brigs of the military and the hidden interrogation sites of the Directorate. They are the last to receive funding, being given what remains after the “proper” constable service – its enforcement branch – is satisfied. To offset this, Dominion prisoners are charged a tax to their Mo’ri’zal to raise funds for the prisons of the Empire – and this tax can be quite steep, with some offenders reduced to ruinous levels of Mo’ri’zal after their release. The guards of these facilities, known as Prison Constables, are often Ma’zals and are paid less than their counterparts in the “real” constable service, which leads many to accept bribes and look the other way as family members bring well-off prisoners goods from the outside world.
Prisons on Sun Reach are generally regarded as the worst in the Empire, with overcrowded conditions, sweltering heat, and the constant presence of insects and other vermin. Other frontier prisons are hardly better, with many lacking the funding for basic necessities and being overcrowded with dissidents and criminals awaiting trial. In Novi Jadran, and the broader Imperial Core, conditions are better as prisons – and their guards – are better funded. However, rural Jadranic prisons often lack modern amenities such as electricity or running water – a massive discomfort in the tundra environs of the planet.