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Tau Ceti's New Gibson: Life of a Gibsonite


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Type (Species/Company/History/Other): History

Relevant Dates: 2167 'till 246x (current year)

Basic Description:

A description of the lives of New Gibsonites on New Gibson. A short history of their generations culminating with the most recent one and their daily lives described. This description is done specifically for Humans, if it is accepted, I wholeheartedly invite any lore expert to expand the description of other aliens and their daily lives in Hengsha and NG in general.

Long Description:


                                                                         Life of New Gibsonites
                                                                  ~We all lift, we're all adrift together, through the cold storm, 'till we're lifeless together.~

  Overview

New Gibson is the second exoplanet to be colonized by humanity, shortly after the initial success of Biesel's colonization attempt, in 2167. For information on New Gibson, please see New Gibson.

The following daily life descriptions revolve around a particular generation of the New Gibsonite residents, the most recent one. Generations on New Gibson are described after events on the interstellar stage and not through biological constitution.

Each generation had built upon what the other has constructed, and in true fashion of daring stubbornness and hard work, New Gibson now booms with life. Demonstrating to the universe that its children can flourish even on this insufferably cold and lifeless planet, always surprising her with their zest for life.

                                                                         New Gibsonite Generations

  Generation "Planet-fall": 2167-2275

The first generation of Gibsonites came from the Límíng (Dawn) Colonial ship, it made planet-fall on a large plain next to what is now known as Mount Tian, on a side of the mountain where the sun perpetually "shines" under the twilight that envelops the planet. The EXS's (Exploratory Xeno-Scouts) established a forward operating base that would one day form the foundations of Hengsha Arcology, at the base of the mountain. 

The people who started raising and creating the basic infrastructure and foundation of Hengsha Arcology were not privy to even the most basic of amenities that their future children would benefit from, but they worked knowing that besides the profit they would make from mining this frozen wasteland, their children would also profit from a greater and more stable life in a universe on the brink of collapse (due to the second Trans-stellar Great Depression).

Initially, everyone was living on the landed ship, where the main levels were transformed in living quarters for the first families setting foot on New Gibson. In time, the ship would be completely stripped and integrated in the infrastructure of Hengsha. From time to time, people still find signs of the old ship that brought their ancestors to this planet, a lot of them ending up in the Civilian Memorial Institute of Hengsha.
This generation marked the rise of prominent families of middle-income hardy workers, where a focus on family life, hard work and "keeping busy" kept them from going relatively insane due to the harsh environment they lived in.

  Generation "War": 2276-2345

The second generation of New Gibsonites marked the end of their long years of work on creating the foundations of Hengsha, now rising several kilometers high on Mount Tian. This generation focused on improving their living conditions, raising many of the now culturally acclaimed institutions including:
⦁    The Civilian Memorial Institute of Hengsha, a museum centered around the memory of each families ancestors and their achievements on New Gibson.
⦁    The H.A. Wallace Space Academy, a prominent academy focused on teaching EVA operations, many industrial based studies, and also offering many cultural programs specific to New Gibson. 

Once the children of their first forefathers, now grown engineers, taught and tempered through their work and family culture, the second generation installed the many amenities that make Hengsha a livable (and relatively happy) place to live, such as:
⦁    A variety of parks, small and large, containing many ancient fruit trees from Earth such as or-ange and bana trees.
⦁    A multitude of waterfalls and fountains dotted throughout the station. 
⦁    Wildlife, both real and simulated, mostly located within the parks and nature enclosures.
⦁    VR dome weather implemented in the many domes and ceilings of the Arcology, where each month the entirety of the citizens vote for the next month's weather pattern (going from sunny to rain to overcast or even more exotic types such as the aurora borealis).

 They still function to this day.

Unfortunately, the name of this generation comes from the now infamous First Interstellar War. Although New Gibsonites were spared in some capacity, their fledgling naval industry capacity and prolific EVA-trained operators made them a target for both Sol and Coalition recruitment attempts.

  Generation "Liberty": 2346-2460

The current generation lives under the wing of "freedom" known as the Tau Ceti Assembly. Starting with the creation of Nanotransen and going into the expansion of the industrial complex on Hensha after the discovery of Phoron in the system, this generation has the most freedom, liberty and quality of life of any of its previous generations beforehand.

With the Hengsha Arcology established as the planets capital and major industrial complex, the gibsonites started to finally explore their surroundings. This lead to the creation of a number of small outposts, which include the Blue Mesa Research Facility and the Xerxes outpost.

New Gibson's expansion into unknown territory continues, with brave explorers continuing to risk their lives for fortune and fame to this day.

                                                                            Generation Liberty

The following is a description of all of the different species living in Hengsha Arcology.
                                                                                                                      Humans
⦁    Living in Hengsha Arcology
People live in very modest conditions in Hengsha, they live in 4 to 6 storied high apartment complexes where everyone knows everyone, promoting a sense of "togetherness". Their apartments have 3 to 4 rooms (bathroom, kitchen, 2 dormitories and one sufrajery (dining room). For more information on architectural subjects, please see Hengsha's Architectural Layout and Descriptions.

The families stuck in these apartments help each other any way they can, being naturally handy many of the residents fix their own problems, such as broken lights, a water pipe that need replacing and so on.
Throughout the generations, this bond seems to have only deepened. The buildings usually also play games based on the district names, where each district has a team that represents them in an age old game known as Ais-Kating-Hokay or simply AKH. The AKH is almost a tradition, every resident, young and old, participate in the many matches that play  throughout the year.

Every apartment has access to water, food and heating, each apartment also receives presents from Hengsha's Helman (the leader of the Arcology, a position named after the Captain that first landed on New Gibson) each year to remind them that even he is grateful for their hard labor in keeping the station functional and going strong.

Life is hard, but fair, in Hengsha... for the most part.

⦁    Culture

The architecture of gibsonites is often utilitarian, with steel and composite metals used in their floors and infrastructures. Yet despite this, their buildings are bright and colorful, not to mention well maintained. Each sector has a distinct color combination (blue/yellow or white/green), representing also the flags and emblems of each district's AKH teams.

The color came out of necessity, the first generation did not have the luxury of a VR dome, and to improve their surroundings they had to... brighten the place up! Their grandchildren kept the tradition and integrated it in their culture.

However, even the most utilitarian looking structure, no matter the paint, still looks utilitarian. This was also necessary because, as Hengsha is an Arcology, the structure is worked upwards. To save space, they had to build small and compact. Only recently the gibsonites had started to expand into the reaches of the cold, deep snow of New Gibson.

The cuisine of gibsonites is constituted by hefty, large pieces of meat and a hefty amount of vegetables as well. Some memorable mentions found in an apartment (at any time of day, it can be cooked up relatively fast) are:

- Gup-sub, a soup made out of 3 pieces of pork (usually belly) cubed, mixed with 3 vegetables and a good amount of salt and pepper. A traditional meal that is made quickly and efficiently.
- Mando, a plate of warm and spicy pieces of meat (of diverse off-world locales), together with a sauce which, depending on the family, might be salty, spicy or (Tian forbid) sweet.
- Lemy and Sin Sup, soups ment to be drank by both engineers in EVA missions and residents. One contains vegetables with only one piece of veal meat, the other many pieces of veal meat and only one vegetable, but it has a secret ingredient that raises the body temperature of a human in the frozen nights if left working outside. The secret ingredient is an old earth herb named Ghost-per.
- Lion, a very easy to make bread, usually hollowed out a bit and filled with one of the above soups.
- Fleica, a large piece of pork belly, fried over the grill or put in the oven, served with any type of vegetable imaginable. 
- Gibsonite, a cold ice-cream made of a nutri-paste vegetable mix with a hefty amount of sugar or sweet syrup.

There are also many places on the corner of the streets where at least one family provides nourishment in the form of tightly packed small bits of Fleica wrapped in a thin bun. They are extremely delicious and well received, having spread to most districts and street corners across Hengsha.

The gibsonite cuisine, while not really sophisticated, is similar to their infrastructure. Quick to make and very fulfilling in one sitting. Necessary due to the low amount of supplies that they once had. Currently though, several chefs strive to get the attention of Biesel's Chef Stars to come to Hangsha in an effort to promote their cuisine throughout Tau Ceti.

On another cultural note, the music of gibsonites is mostly up with the times. However, there are many bands that have discovered the interesting concept of Roak-Roll from Earth. As such, each bar and most nights you can hear a couple of bands attempting to reinvent this old earth tradition. 

The most used instruments (shared evenly between the apartments), are a guitaar, a soxo and many industrial sounding instruments (wrenches, crowbars or pings from a GPS locator). Standard instruments, but when the guita-ar is plugged into an electrical outlet, its tunes are extremely comforting for gibsonites.

The young bands are met with a surprising warm success from their younger and older audiences in Hengsha.

Another simpler musical type, similarly popular throughout the station that is tried and true, are songs close to the sounds you'd hear in a machine shop. This type of music resonates deeply with its residents, and an example of how it sounds like can be found here.

⦁    Work

The work culture improved greatly once Nanotransen started to buy out the local industries, however, gibsonites were serious about their health and work ethics even before the corporate firm came to the industrial complex. Their industrial work comes with a very high possibility of death or dismemberment, leading to harsh safety procedures once they enter the industrial complex, and even harsher punishments if procedures are not followed to ensure the safety of you or your coworkers.

Generally however, incidents are few, and the ones that do appear are resolved quickly by the highly professional and well trained EMT's that surround the complex.  

People work in the Hengsha Industrial Complex on welding, construction and EVA testing of different parts of a project's ship. It is hard work and very necessary as the entirety of Tau Ceti depends on the work the engineers do in their shipyards and the repairs they complete in they workshops. Generally, 1/4th of the work is done for Nanotransen, while the other 3/4ths of the workers work mostly "independently", but they move in-between corporations after their contract expires enough that the idea of "loyalty" is translated to whomever pays better and has more days off, gets the most workers.

Nanotransen... still has a ways to go in that department of offers.

⦁    Family Life

Each gibsonite holds their family very closely, and each gibsonite respects their elders, even outside of their families. Indeed, the whole reason they work and strive to do better is to provide their  sons and daughters a good future and start in life. Almost half of the residents are traditionalists that place family first. Most of the residents are accepting of the plethora of alien races that are spread throughout Hengsha and New Gibson. This is because, from their early landfall to their now exploration of the planet, they always relied on themselves and the blood working beside them, times have changed this and the current generation learned to be more accepting to newcomers.

Conversely because of this newfound acceptance, their family life is promoted to be good when in reality many families are just overly ambitious and may seem often impolite due to their outgoing nature. Their children are taught that cooperation and a strong family life is what you need to survive, the idea is reinforced both at home and at school.

Once you step inside a gibsonite's home, you can be struck with an immense sense of belonging, of people working together for a common goal, of children helping their mothers to cook and fathers fixing their children's toys. Truly, a family is all a gibsonite has, however, do not get dissuaded if they act very brash as they do not really understand that well the meaning of personal space or individual space.

⦁    Criminal Elements

Even though New Gibson is forced to accept many races and species (by Biesel's leadership), there have been subversive elements that try to profit from the poor, downtrodden and unlucky enough to seek for  help in the wrong places. This criminal organization has been established since the first generation's landfall, once the initial construction for Hengsha was well underway. They preyed on the people to further their agenda of embezzlement, illegal armament and slavery of synthetics.

The organization works within the bowels of Hengsha's Industrial Complex, beneath the forgotten maintenance halls, pipes and waste distribution centers that create a maze-like environment in the underground. Though relatively small, the organization has alluded the authorities for hundreds of years, they are called: The Trident.

For more information on The Trident criminal organization, please see New Gibson's Trident Criminal Organization history. 

⦁    Ouside of Hengsha Arcology

Outside of Hengsha, there are still many smaller settlements that have expanded due to the recent influx of Nanotransen "funds". This includes the following two settlements:
-    The Blue Mesa Research Facility, it undertakes research in various fields from standard scientific research to spacial radiation, space rocketry, theoretical physics, lasers, experimental propulsion, arcological hydraulics, cyber-robotics, cryoelectricity, xenogenetics, xenozoology, applied mathematics, and a very wide spectrum of research into chemistry and all manner of physics research. The research is mostly conducted in the Blue Mesa Research Facility and includes both pure research and applied science.
-    Xerxes Dome, which contains the larges portion of the  Scay’extiih’aur workers, housing the New Gibson hive-net relay. For more information on Scay’extiih’aur and her brood, please see Scay'extiih'aur's history.

Other minor settlements exist, however they are not large enough to warrant a mention, yet. The people living in these stations usually are provided help, materials and supplies through two ways. 
-    The Underground, a series of underground railways dug through the hardened ice that lead to the two settlements above. They are extremely useful to quickly go in and out of the settlements.
-    The Airstrips, used only if the weather conditions permit, they are used to send emergency supplies, high-ranking officials or emergency response units in special cases.

⦁    Future

New Gibson continues to rise on the intergalactic scene, both because of its unique culture and style of life but also for its ever expanding industrial (and now research) complex. One can only wait and see what will become of the Gibsonites, for all of their flaws, they seem to take on the future and its hardships with a brave stubbornness.

Contact Details (Discord Preferably): MarauderW#9617

New Gibson.png

New Gibson Flags.dmi

Edited by MarauderW
updated family life
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Hello everyone, as I had received good feedback on my last attempt to introduce lore to NG, today I present to you the daily life of a New Gibsonite. A relatively small take on what it is like to live in an Arcology, stuck on an icy planet. I currently have many other descriptions to add to the above application.

But I thought that it is at least relatively ready to be given a first view and of course to get feedback from you all on the above.

Let your thoughts, good or bad, be heard and I shall modify the above post haste, thank you very much for reading everything and I profoundly apologize for the weird formatting.

Edit 1: I have added a paragraph to the music section describing a more minimalist industrial music track that I believe fits the lore of gibsonites. I have also fixed the formatting issues plaguing the app, apologies for the eyesore.

Edit 2: I have added a criminal elements description, referencing the future chapter on The Trident criminal organization, a small but elite crime organization working within the bowels of Hengsha's massive Industrial Complex.

Edit 3: After some consideration, I decided to see if I can come up with a flag for New Gibson's planet. The above attached flag represents the blue and black twilight that envelops New Gibson, together with the semi-circular Mount Tian, upon which the Hengsha Arcology is built. To give more personality and to truly complete the flag, a cog representing both industry and a sort of "steering wheel" (from the ship that brought the colonists initially on NG) was added. Please let me know your thoughts on the design!

Edited by MarauderW
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Guest Marlon Phoenix

Hello,
I like the flag!
I am still skimming this but they have a plucky wild west kinda attitude. Would you want to lean in heavily with cowboy hats and yee-haws and ignoring the federal government cuz they know whats best?

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8 hours ago, Senpai Jackboot said:

Hello,
I like the flag!
I am still skimming this but they have a plucky wild west kinda attitude. Would you want to lean in heavily with cowboy hats and yee-haws and ignoring the federal government cuz they know whats best?

Howdy Jackboot, thanks for the review! I am glad you like the flag. Regarding the wild west attitude, I find it that gibsonites would be indeed very independent and outgoing people, liking to explore and (sometimes) ignoring the rules other people had put on them. I just didn't really convey that because I wanted to separate the life of a gibsonite from what the government does, since generally, they're well of just living and improving their Arcology and explorin' NG.

But leaning heavily on the cowboy aspect just isn't for them I feel. I have two big reasons for this:

  • They live on a cold planet, where Hengsha's interior space requires them to use it to full capacity (because they built it vertically), having pens and other big areas such as a bull pen is a waste of space. Also EVA's could lead to anyone death due to the risk of a storm comin' as a suprize. This also means they want to explore their surroundings and they usually don't follow what the bigwigs in Biesel say.
  • Their culture, because they are heavily industrialized and come from a line of workers, is less about "Joie de vivre" and more practical, as an example of many nordic IRL cultures, they are more into skating, hockey or fishing (where permitted).

However the cowboy idea could definitely work for the inhabitants of the planet Luthien, in Tau Ceti, a desert planet which miiight hold the tradition of "Spaniard/western cowboy" closer to their hearts.

What do you think?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi! This looks incredibly detailed, and I love the amount of passion that's gone into it. I would like to address, though:

  • There are zero mentions of Vaurca or the Lii'dra. I believe the attack in August of last year should be addressed.
  • The issue with redoing or establishing lore for a group that's been around for a while (like New Gibson) means that established characters from New Gibson will need to retroactively change their characters and their experiences to tailor the new lore. I think that it's therefore dangerous to give them such a strong and individual culture without providing some sort of 'out'- like specifying that this is only half the arcology, or similar.
  • I don't like it when a nation or peoples traits are wholly positive. Obviously you mention that there is a criminal underbelly, but as a whole, it seems that individuals from New Gibson are better than your average person: hardworking, conscientious, ethical, honest, willing to improve, family-oriented, skilled, xenophilic and cooperative. This, unfortunately, will create very flat characters. There's no harm in saying that a culture values a specific positive trait- but I believe you should narrow the valued traits to something that can be used to create more interesting characters. For example; focusing on the 'cooperative' trait, which means that characters from New Gibson can show how they no longer attempt to stick out because of fear of being labelled uncooperative, or perhaps they are so happy to have the new cultural freedom that they end up coming across as overly ambitious and impolite. In a similar vain, you note that their food and architecture are both simple and excellent, which reveals a kind of pattern in this rugged cultural superiority.
  • THe flag is cool as fuck

This is clearly a passion project, and is superb. But I think you should focus on giving them flaws. A society like this will spring a lot of 'I stand up for my friends no matter what, I'm anti-authority, and I have no personality flaws' characters, who are not interesting to interact with. This is still stellar, though, and I look forward to seeing how you develop your ideas.

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9 hours ago, Ornias said:

Hi! *snip*

Hi Ornias, thank you very much for the detailed feedback! I have:

  • Added mentions of New Gibson's "traditionalist" families, where they make almost 50% of the current pop.
  • Lessened the qualities of Gibsonites in the family life section and added your suggested in. Please tell me if it's more realistic! :)
  • I have not mentioned Vaurca because I wished to focus mostly on Hengsha, however, I am also afraid of describing them in detail yet, as they are supposed to be mysterious (due to their Queen's characteristically hidden nature). Can you please link/message me the "August" attack? I am new and I can't seem to find info about it, I will add a mention to it as soon as I can!
  • Thanks for the flag feedback! 

I can see now that I was a bit overly optimistic, I kinda wished it to be like this since the universe is already filled with bad things, so I though ehh, maybe if I make these people a bit more cheery it will brighten up the Tau Ceti system. I went overboard badly haha. 

Please feel free to contact me on discord for more feedback. Thank you for your kind words and for reading my app! :)

 

EDIT: I have also updated the flags in sprite format, two banners, one rolled down, one rolled up.

 

Edited by MarauderW
updated with Ornias's changes
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