Characters
Kepler (Kep) / Zahra (Z) — A Guide of the Local Yaping GuideGuild, assigned to orient incoming interstellar travelers to their current RTS, after awakening from stasis after a number of years in transit. Assumed identities of Lara, Ancara, Zahra and Mara for various contracts.
Hohenhoff (Hoff) — Kep’s GuideGuild representative. Socially awkward around women, planted agent of Parumbra in the GuideGuild.
Hiko — Kep’s Grav+ trainer. Part time bouncer, Nutritionist and model building hobbyist.
Aizada Nazereva — TravelGuild Commissioner for Yaping station.
Gogan Peregrina (Pipa) — Diplomatic envoy aboard the Binținți, tasked with new contact with the governing organization of Terra to restart relations after a millennium.
Aestival Ițach — Captain, wave physicist & Astrogator of the Binținți. Pipa’s partner.
Organizations/Companies
TeaHaus — a social setting to meet and drink tea.
CathaHaus — a cafe that serves Catha based products.
Parumbra — Politically independent corporate state stationed on Hilda. They have public offices at each Hub and many of the extra-Solar systems. They specialize in technological research, development and patent acquisition, specifically related to interstellar drive systems.
Guilds
organizations that control various aspects of employment. There are no strict monopolies, but there are sub-legal agreements between guilds preventing direct competition, thus effecting local monopolies.
GuideGuild — The GuideGuild controls the contracts of each Guide, and has legislated that any transit arriving from out of system is required to sign a contract with the guild to acclimate and orientate arriving travelers to the local RST. There is a GuildHaus on each major station, and hub. The GuideGuild is a subsidiary of the TravelGuild.
ShippingGuild — Controls the exchange and movement of goods intra-system and between star systems. Sometimes things get lost.
TravelGuild — Like the shipping guild, but with people. Often with just as much grace.
BankingGuild — Controls the trading value of Solar Credits across all known systems. Indirectly affects the power and influence of all other guilds.
HostGuild — Controls all hospitality services, from hotels to housing.
Historical Background
Before the advent of interstellar travel and commerce, the Diotan Federation consolidated power across what had formerly been known as Europe and Asia, with the majority of influence seated in the Eastern state of Zhongguo and the Southern state of Bharat. The former influence of the Western states was left to decay amid in-fighting.
1530 years ago, technology was developed allowing interstellar travel, albeit with significant travel time.
Dacia was the first kingdom to secede from the Diotan Federation and Terra, selling out and abandoning the majority of their citizens for the promise of their own system.
Many nations, religons and ethnic majorities followed their pattern, leaving Terra and the underprivileged behind.
Technology
Travel
Light Surfing — The primary process of traveling at light speed, ships “surf” super-spectral light waves emanating from every star.
Ramjet — The secondary mode of acceleration for interstellar travel, an electromagnetic “scoop” funnels interstellar hydrogen into a compressed fusion drive. Combining Ramjet and Light surfing allows a vessel to achieve speeds of just over light speed.
Dual Wave Surfing — The initially accidental practice of riding the intersection of two oblique light waves to achieve even higher velocity.
Communication
Communication is mainly kept in system as a comlaser can only transmit information and media at the speed of light, making it slower than interstellar travel. News from other systems comes in with each arriving transit, and such is treated as a trade good, something to be allocated to the privileged.
Personal
Terminal — built into higher-end living spaces and various locations in every public space, they are information hubs to connecting to various nets and feeds.
Personal Link (pLink) — an optional, but ubiquitous ocular implant that allows secure connection to the nets and feeds via series of blinks, winks, twitches and gestures.
Locations
Wang Yaping Interstellar Hub (Yaping) — An interstellar waypoint hub that is connected to Bellerophon via elevators and cables. An obvious division of class and culture from the lower class Bellerophon. Named after the second woman in space from Zhongguo, Terra.
Keturah — A gas giant planet that Hektor/Yaping share an orbit with, courtesy of its forward Lagrange point known as the Greeks.
Hektor — A lesser planetoid settled by miners, stationed in the forward Lagrange point of Keturah. The former miners
Terra — The original home of humanity. Now under heavy travel and immigration restrictions and general quarantine. Few people who did not originally come from Terra every travel there.
Scorpius — A planet 22 light years from Sol in the star system Yeni Antakya.
Scorpius B — The second station above Scorpius, populated mainly by Coptic settlers.
Hilda — A large asteroid and home of Parumbra. Hilda’s orbit brings it alongside Marduk and Hektor every 12 standard years.
Cygnus 3 / Surorile — (soo’Ror-ee-lay) The original destination of the Decebal, first colony ship out of Sol, originating from Dacia. A trinary system of two orange dwarfs and a red dwarf, hence the locally designated name “Surorile” or “The Sisters”. 582 light years from Sol
Goga — An M-class planet in the Surorile system, settled by Dacic diaspora nearly 1300 years ago.
The Binținți — (been’Tseents) An interstellar liner originating from Goga in the Surorile system. Previously unknown design and technology.
Hera Station — Formerly Ceres, the only dwarf planet inside the orbit of Marduk and claimed by the UGS. Now the largest non surface connected station in Sol System and the largest algae farming colony.
Terms
Catha — a lesser hallucinogenic consumed usually as a tea, popular with Coptics from Scorpius.
RST — Real Space Time. The subjective present.
RT — Relative Time. The time that a traveler experience during interstellar travel.
Stasis — Standard for second class travelers, and all travelers in transit coming from out of system.
Grav+ — A type of gym marketed toward people moving to or working in high gravity locations. Includes specialized gravity rooms and bone density supplementation.
Comlaser — highly focused communication laser used for in system communication.
Torrens Subterfluens (Fluens) — The undercurrent of neutrinos flowing through and between various star systems, discovered by Gogan Andrei during the transit of the Carol, and confirmed by his great-great-granddaughter Gogan Porșă. Observable and navigable only through the Remastra Device.
Remastra Device — from “remigio astra” (rowing the stars), the device invented to astrogate the Curent.
Dacic Council — The governing body of Goga and the Dacic people. As a tribunal representing Science, Religion and the People, they have the power to control any and all aspects of Dacic life.
Rascala — A group of influential business owners and scientists on Goga that oppose the Dacic Council’s imperialism and stance on expansion and trade
System Name Changes
Earth — Terra
Moon — Luna, and it’s capital city Neumond
Mars — Huoxing (invaded and held by Zhongguo)
Jupiter — Marduk
Saturn — Shani (claimed by Bharat)
Titan — Himayat (claimed by Bharat)
Ceres — Hera (Claimed by the UGS)
China — Zhongguo
India — Bharat
Romania — Dacia
Region from Pakistan to Mali — Abramic Union (claimed Ganimedes (Ganymede) and the Greeks. Renamed Jupiter to Marduk)
Europe + Asia (without Pakistan and Middle East) — Diotan Federation, disintegrated in 2610CE
Germany/Austria/Switzerland/Belgium/Poland — Unified Germanic States (UGS). Formed after the disintegration of the DF to combine forces to claim Ceres/Hera