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The fall of Fortuna

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Mon, 2011-10-17 13:02

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

The fall of Fortuna

As a small part of the back-story for a current adventure, some NPCs turned out to be former members of the ruling class of Fortuna, a main belt asteroid. In 2 AF there was a popular rebellion and the NPCs wisely decided to requisition a parked spacecraft, leaving for safer places. It would be fun to develop this back-story a bit more. It is largely unimportant for my adventure, but political upheavals are great adventure seeds/background decoration. Here are a few things that are determined: 19 Fortuna is a fairly resource-rich asteroid, likely colonized by some national state or hypercorp(s) early on. At some point, likely during the 30-40 BF upheavals, it became wholly or partially independent thanks to the Belt Independence Movement. It might have been taken over by a revolutionary worker's council and/or an Argonaut faction. After the Fall popular rebellion broke out - I think we can safely infer that the ruling class by that time had mismanaged things badly enough, were blamed for bad things occurring during the Fall, or some more subtle political machinations led to the shift (influence from the PC? Extropians? the Autonomist Alliance?) At least one of the escapees was a creepy psychosurgeon/social engineering expert responsible for maintaining social cohesion (boy, did he fail!) Any ideas? What happened? Where is Fortuna now? What is Firewall doing? Have fun!

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Tue, 2011-10-18 02:11

Jay Dugger Jay Dugger's picture

Re: The fall of Fortuna

I feel tempted to just steal the whole thing from the Wikipedia articles on Dante Alighieri and the Guelphs and Ghibellines and hide the sources with a little quick sed script. Or, and I've long wanted to do this, a quick Lexicon game. You can read the rules for Lexicon here. Having suggested it, I'll assume interest. The political upheaval and the popular rebellion in 2 A.F. on 19 Fortuna serves as subject. I'll also arbitrarily set semi-weekly turns on Tuesday and Saturday with the following letter groups: 0-9 AB CD EF GH IJ KL MN OP QR ST UV WX YZ This gives a total game length of 7 weeks, again assuming interest. A consistent format for entries would ease reading and play. I suggest something like this. --- Entry's Title Entry's Text - Author's Name See Also: Entry A Entry B Entry C --- Any interest? Reply below with intention to play, and choose an author/scholar to portray.

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Sometimes the delete key serves best.

Tue, 2011-10-18 05:09

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: The fall of Fortuna

Jay Dugger wrote:
Or, and I've long wanted to do this, a quick Lexicon game. You can read the rules for Lexicon here.

Darn good idea! I love this, it reminds me of Genesis, the way my gaming group builds histories, but with a built-in documentation feature (and academic parody).

Quote:
Any interest? Reply below with intention to play, and choose an author/scholar to portray.

I'm in! I'm Shanmughan Ramamurty, professor of political science at Oxford-Shackleton.

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Sat, 2011-10-22 04:03

Jay Dugger Jay Dugger's picture

Re: The fall of Fortuna

Aloysius Badertscher, author and analyst, thinking mostly from Ashoka, Mars.

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Sometimes the delete key serves best.

Sun, 2011-10-23 01:31

Jay Dugger Jay Dugger's picture

Re: The fall of Fortuna

Four fresh NPC scholars, open for play by others. Biography follows the format of name, best known work, from place of origin or affiliation. If you care to play, and please do, write a scholar's biography entry as a separate post. 1) S. R. Haraway, author of Infosocialist Genderism in Mind-State Samples of the Late Pre-Fall, from Titan Autonomous University's School of Transhuman Action 2) LCDR A. Sylvain Lockwoode, author of Equivalent to Insects: Moral Choice in the Face of Extinction and the Effects of Survivor Bias, from the Jovian Republic Navy War College's Fundamental Ethics School 3) Merritt Leo Scranton, Technological Revolutions for Fun and Profit After The Treaty of Uniform Security, from Extropia 4) J. Emlyn Pimentel, Reading Bogucki's Lament For Unknown Earth And Reclaimer Sentiment Among Uplifts, from Planetary Consortium Oversight Office.

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Sometimes the delete key serves best.

Sun, 2011-10-23 16:28

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: The fall of Fortuna

OK, let's do this! --- 19 Fortuna Mining Consortium The 19 Fortuna Mining Consortium was formed in 2058 after the initial unmanned surveys of the asteroid by Lian Astrodynamics had revealed major carbonaceous deposits. Lian Astrondynamics and Naacal formed the consortium to set up a main belt mining colony, with financial guarantees from the China Financial Space Enterprise Capital Credit Guaranty Co. and the United Venture Group. The plan was to exploit the combination of readily available tholins and orbital dynamics to export refined carbon compounds for space construction near Earth and Mars, with an option towards advanced organic industry if the colony proved viable. As the colony expanded, the actual running of the colony was left in the hands of the participating corporations and the emerging local governance: the Consortium mainly represented a legal, Earth-bound backing. This lack of direct oversight made it largely irrelevant in later events, especially after losing control during Carson's Night. The ensuing lawsuits from creditors led to its dissolution. Among the inhabitants the Consortium was mainly referred to as "Barber one side", referring to a Chinese expression meaning that if only one partner is willing while the other is not, the project will not work - referring to the disagreements in top level coordination that so much affected the colony. - Shanmughan Ramamurty See Also: Carson's Night Lian Astrondynamics Naacal ---

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Mon, 2011-10-24 21:40

Jay Dugger Jay Dugger's picture

Re: The fall of Fortuna

--- The 7-10 Split The mining colony on 19 Fortuna attempted to switch from central administration to internal markets early in its history. The slang "7-10 split" referred to the early era's intra-colony factionalism. The seventeen original divisions usually opposed one another in varying coalitions and temporary alliances instead of efficiently competing for the greater good. This made a classic case of mutual self-interest failing to harmoniously align the efforts of all parties. The original divisions were composed of seven major resource extraction sites across the asteroid's surface and ten resource processing, infrastructure, and administrative groups connecting those sites with off-world markets and resources. The resource extraction sites only acted as a bloc during the Thermostat War. They almost never cooperated among themselves beforehand nor afterwards, and were generally vulnerable to side deals offered by the other ten groups. A varying number of Processing & Refining groups turned raw tholins into finished products for domestic use, (such as water, food, and air) and high-value exports. Infrastructure & Physical Plant had thermal management as its chief responsiblity, but also managed data networks and physical transport among the groups. Traffic & Ballistics handled all formal off-colony communications, travel, and operated the mass drivers for export of bulk goods. The remainder of the ten groups, originally Personnel, Research & Development, Housing & Life Support, Community Culture & Welfare, Tools Group, Operations, and Sales, varied over the course of colony history and economic development. - Aloysius Badertscher See Also: Housing & Life Support group Mass driver Thermostat War ---

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Sometimes the delete key serves best.