Earth

[Marlon P.]

Here is my suggestion for a rework of the Earth page, which is pretty messy. It would benefit from being formatted more closely to other planet pages. For example, this section is redundant:

Quote

 

General Information[edit]

System: Sol

Moon(s): Luna

Development level: Extremely High

Capital: N/A

Population (Planetside): 19,160,000,000 (est.)

Population (In Orbit): 987,950,000 (est.)

 

The only information that this infobox provides is the population numbers, the rest is either not filled out or pretty redundant for the playerbase, who are are logged in from earth-bound locations and would know the rest.

Even for alien worlds this infobox is not present.

https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Biesel

https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Mars

https://wiki.aurorastation.org/index.php?title=Medina

Et cetera.

There is also a large inconsistency. The old, and rather bad world map that I made dividing the administration provinces shows the world without the drastic flooding of climate change. The new map currently shows a huge portion of the world landmass being underwater because of apocalyptic climate change. The new map also directly contradicts information present in the section on the enviroment.
 

Quote

[The current healthy ecosystem] was not always the case. From the late 2100s to the late 2200s, Earth was approaching a critical mass in terms of pollution. Global temperatures had risen to the point that the planet was in the early stages of a runaway greenhouse effect, and air pollution blotted out the sun in some areas. Serious health issues due to the environment were especially rampant during this period. The world's rain forests were on the bring of total desertification.

Advances in technology and a massive shift in focus towards restorative and environmentalist policies eventually reversed the negative trend of Earth's environment. Massive terraforming facilities recycled and neutralized pollutants and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Most cities are built to be sustainable, and DNA samples from various extinct species were used to reconstruct and clone them with current technology. Within the span of a century, a vast quantity of the effects of ecological and environmental devastation were nullified, reversed in some cases, and severely dampened at the very least.

My suggestion boils down to formatting it similarly to other existing planets - I will use Biesel as the baseline, and providing lore/improv prompts by having a general overview of cultures that characters can take from. All the information already on the page has been presented in an alternate way. I took a slightly less wiki-clinical tone and cadence for dramatic purposes for the benefit of the reader.

I don't know how to do it on this forum format anymore, but this is where one of those dividing lines would go. Here's my makeshift one:

==========================================

Overview

Earth, the homeworld of humanity, has a terrestrial population of 19.1 billion people, while another 988 million people live in vast orbital habitats as of the 2461 census. In the Aurora universe, the history of Earth diverges from our reality in 1969, when the Cold War took a turn following a war between the USSR and People's Republic of China. While the Cold War thankfully never went hot in the Aurora universe or our own, the massive consequences caused a drastic shift in the direction of human society. More information can be found on the [Timeline of Humanity_Link].

From the 22nd century until 2461 it was divided between over a dozen regional governors who retained ceremonial titles such as "President" or "General-Secretary". Then, in a bid to secure their own power, the now-defunct far-right party of [ATLAS_Link] condensed these sectors into three super-regions, effectively stripping the governors of their authority and consolidating power. It retains these three governors who struggle to administer massive swaths of a world burgeoning with systemic problems and the largest population of any human-settled world.

Uniquely, and adding to the alienation people of Earth feel to their leaders, the capitols of all three of these super-regions as well as the entire Sol Alliance are present in [Unity Station_Link], a sprawling space station that orbits the world. 

Earth's development is both one of the highest as well as one of the lowest in human space, with the incredibly stratified living conditions bringing the average down. However, manipulation in the presentation of the data by corporate interests, who hold a stake in people believing their domination and prominence is a net-positive, leads many to believe Earth has an extremely high rate of development.

Once ravaged by the exploitation of the natural world, the excesses of the past and its near-apocalyptic effect on the world are nearly all eliminated from anyone giving a cursory glance. The average person can't remember which animals have gone extinct or what ecosystem collapsed when or where. Because of a concerted effort by corporate interests, learning about or teaching these things have been and still are passively discouraged or even actively suppressed. This means the average person knows that these events happened in the past.... But was it really that bad? After all, when you look at milk ads on TV you can always see green fields and a content, grazing cow.

=Description and Features

==Mega-Cities and Gardens

For a variety of reasons, since the Industrial Revolution the terrestrial population has historically abandoned the country and towns to migrate to cities that in turn grew larger and larger. Now by 2461 the world is dominated by several Mega-Cities that house the super-majority of the world's population. In contrast, the fertile regions are defined by Gardens. Country-sized agricultural sectors that (almost) seamlessly blend into the environment and managed by corporate-brand AIs and their armies of agricultural robots. The rest of the world's landmass is divvied up between natural parks and the stubborn enclaves that still haven't been fully evicted. The Garden's aren't an agrarian utopia however; the beauty of the natural world may be maintained by a combination of corporate and government interests co-opted and then monopolized the concepts of environmentalism and sustainable farming. They did this to maintain a near-total domination of arable land and urban spaces. If the [Frontier_Link] is where a human might be the most free from mega-corporations, Earth is where they are the most dominated.

==Demographics

Earth in the 25th century is almost as unrecognizable to someone from the 21st century as the 21st century would be to someone from the 17th. Hundreds of years accentuated by the staggering pace of population change following the Second Great Depression. Millions of people over generations fought, collaborated, bickered, compromised, forgot, or celebrated their roots, cultural identities, or heritage. Following the rise of SolGov, national identities of the 21st century faded and morphed into being more of a cultural self-identifier. A character may identify as 'French' even though the nation of France has not existed for hundreds of years. At the same time this person can still be a nationalist for the [Sol Alliance_Link] or any star nation they currently reside in.

In modern times, the sprawling mega-cities gleam with modernity, wealth, and prestige. Outside the mega-cities finely cultivated agricultural estates called Gardens retain the natural beauty of the land while sophisticated AI overseers and synthetic workers maintain incredibly efficient harvests. Natural eco-systems near inhabited spaces may find themselves by a sizable population of clone animals genetically tailored to be the most appealing to tourists and scenic views while being a minimal nuisance to corporate property or customers. Almost all raw resource production has been shifted to off-world factories, leaving things like 'industrial smog' to be something mentioned in textbooks to give students a sense of superiority over their forebears, or seen on field-trips to ecologically devastated areas set aside as examples for future generations. However, with the dominance of mega-corporations there still exists rampant poverty that is simply kept out-of-sight and out-of-mind. Every mega-city has its slums, and every idyllic agricultural estate is bordered by small agricultural towns that struggle to reject corporate dominance. These towns are forced to play by the mega-corporation's rules; even then their entire community could be slapped with a lawsuit and eviction if patented seeds, blown in from a neighboring mega-corporate agricultural project, are found growing without permission.

This state of affairs has lead to the rise of 4 cultural groups mostly defined by class and geography. These are not the only demographics on Earth, and they are rarely literally used by someone to self-identify. They are something that other people would consider you, and give them preconceptions about your character if they are a fellow Earthling. For example, you could be an Aghan High-Urban character, or maybe a Japanese Low-Urban, or simply a Terran Low-Gardener. The culture is something you identify with, while the other is something you could vaguely be seen as.

High-Urbans
The middle and upper classes who live in the gilded districts of Earth's mega-cities. Mag-trains, glittering skyscrapers, organic food, filtered water, fully automated pet grooming centers, and smiling, beautiful faces plastered on the holographic billboards all around them serve to give them the outlook that this is the best time of their life and the best things have ever been. They've cultivated either a willful ignorance or an intentional denial of the darker underbellies of society around them. A High-Urban character might gush about their recent visit to the prestigious museums on [Luna_Link] followed by their review of all the fine-dining "up there" and then stare blankly if the person they're talking to 'kills the vibe' by mentioning they're too poor to visit such places. High-Urbans tend to, but don't always, speak [Tradeband_Link] as a second language while having an Earth accent. Though they may send their children to 'prestigious' locations like {Luna_Link], [Venus_Link], or [Silversun_Link] so the kids eventually pick up the local accent instead. A High-Urban character might come work on the Aurora because it's quaint, their wealthy parents wanted them here, they're actively escaping their parents, or maybe they want an 'adventure' in an 'exotic locale'. 

High-Gardeners
The rural equivalent of High-Urbans. This small demographic is dominated by the middle and upper classes who live in small, refined manors around the world. The life of High-Gardeners are defined by undisturbed meadows, rivers flowing with crystal clear water, blooming fields of flowers, the crispness of autumn air, the dazzling sight of the sunrise over snow-capped mountains, the bounty of an apple grove where they see frolicking deer, flying cars that have their lower halves coated with a holographic finish that has them blend in with the sky for undisturbed cloud watching, fresh fruit and vegetables directly from the gardens, charming letters from mega-corporations thanking them for planting their patented crop this harvest, and hunts with game animals specifically cloned for a riveting time with an ancestral gun that uses quaint and primitive bullets - though with the clone's meat being subpar often the animal is simply disposed of by the garden's AI. A High-Gardener has the same willful ignorance or intentional denial of the plight outside their highly cultivated spaces. A High-Gardener character may have a flowing monologue about the natural beauty of Earth and mention how everyone is able to enjoy it, while in the next breath complaining about Low-Gardeners ruining the view from their personal estate. High-Gardeners tend to, but don't always, speak [Tradeband_Link] as a second language while having an earth accent. Unlike High-Urbans they hold their Earth accent as a source of pride and a show of their connection to the land which their corporate-AI cultivates for them. A High-Gardener character might come work on the Aurora for the same reasons as a High-Urban, though they may be disillusioned by the sterile gray hallways - or even delighted by the novelty; though they may want to put in a potted plant or five to spruce up the place.

Low-Urbans
The lower-middle and lower classes who live in the afterthought districts of Earth's mega-cities. Their life is defined by mag-trains that haven't been cleaned or serviced in awhile, water from the tap with an aftertaste that the authorities keep saying is 'within range', heavily processed fast-foods, restaurants where the food comes from a can found in the back with 10 year old androids that the management is too cheap to replace as the waiters, and giant glitchy generated faces smugly looking down at them from a holographic billboard advertising products specially generated by a simple corporate AI constantly tracking and analyzing the meta-data of everyone within visual range. They're well aware of their lot in life and many either choose to accept it, blame themselves, blame the corporations, blame the government, or believe the sponsored thought-leaders in the media and blame themselves. A Low-Urban character might never see beyond their original mega-city. But even if they do, every location they can afford to visit or move to is all of the same mega-corporation ran franchises copy/pasted as far as the eye can see. Low-Urbans tend to, but don't always, speak Gutter as a second language while having an Earth accent. A Low-Urban character might come to the Aurora to escape the mundane, soulless, and unfulfilling life on Earth and were enticed by the dramatic advertising that [Biesel_Link[ and ]NanoTrasen_Link], now the [SCC_Link], frame the solar system in.

Low-Gardeners
The lower-middle and lower classes who rejected the alienating life of the mega-city, were priced out of it, or who are born into it are known as Low-Gardeners. Despite their best efforts, mega-corporations couldn't privatize every single acre of the entire world - not for the lack of trying - and it's in these slivers of their heritage (or recent relocation following eviction) that Low-Gardeners make due with that they have. Their lives are defined by hand-me-down electric cars, fields of crops growing in rigid rows in tilled soil, giant and ominous farming behemoths the size of houses, roads paved with asphalt 40 years ago then forgotten about, the same three fast-food places everyone else gets, a single local grocery store that hasn't been noticed by Getmore for a buy-out yet, boarded up houses, the smell of fertilizer, the engine hum of illegal crop-dusting planes, a school that constantly leaks in the rain with textbooks that must have had hard-covers once, low paying service jobs, angry cease-and-desist letters from mega-corporations, and notices of utility shut-downs due to unpaid bills with all the bills having been sent to the wrong address. They're often considered the 'hicks' of the world, but a Low-Gardener is usually well aware of their lot in life. However, with zero power to change things, they tend to either rebel, resign to their fate, or leave. A Low-Gardener usually, though don't always, lack a second language and have an Earth accent. A Low-Gardener character might come to the Aurora for the same reasons as a Low-Urban, though they may also have the desire to send money back home in remittances to help their relatives pay the bills, or pay off legal fees from hostile corporate lawsuits or government fines.

Notable Locations

=Garden Regions

==Alexandria-Cairo

Brief information goes here. Brief cultural overview providing character descriptions go here. Suggestion for general clothing choices go here. Suggestions for general food favorites go here.

=Mega-Cities

Doha Al Wakrah

Brief information goes here. Brief cultural overview providing character descriptions go here. Suggestion for general clothing choices go here. Suggestions for general food favorites go here.

History

For a full history of Earth, see the [Timeline of Humanity.]

=================================================

The biggest contribution here from me is the addition of the four demographics. Additional character-generating locations in the form of Gardens and Mega-Cities are something that I'd like others to contribute with since that is more immediate and personal. I personally think it would be interesting if they followed a format of being a mash of multiple locations from the area, showing how things merged together and shifted over time. Sort of like how in colonies the settlers tend to just copy/paste the old names from their motherland around. Or just random places. See: Athens, United States. 

Edited June 29, 2021 by Marlon P.
Clarifying im the one that made the bad map (with the countries on it) and i'm not brazenly insulting someone

[Marlon P.]

On a personal level I decided to sit down and work on this after some conversations with people who are interested in Earth. The talk had me consider my past direction in regards to earth-specific lore development as a mistake. And also eventually a product of being petty because people were going aggressively and constantly ham on the, in retrospect, silly and poorly communicated political boundaries of Earth.

Edited June 29, 2021 by Marlon P.
"as a mistaken"

[Triogenix]

So, I really like this as I've been wanting for an Earth Rework for a while now, given the amount of characters from it and how little lore there was previously on the wiki(most of the good stuff you had to dig through the news for). However, I still have a few questions.

To start, this seems eerily similar to the "theme" of the Eridian Federation, what with the extremely stratified society and corporate dominance, and, while I do not necessarily think this is a bad thing, what does this Earth Rework do different to truly distinguish the characters coming from the planet compared to those coming from the E-fed? I think my primary worry is that people will start playing Earth characters like they're suits or dregs.

Secondly, I don't see much mention of the Solarian Collapse and how it affected the planet, which I think would be a good thing to add, as in, with the formation of the SCA(Solarian Corporate Authority) has megacorporate influence waned on the planet? How do the different types of people on earth feel about the formation of the SCA and the collapse of Sol? Stuff like that would be really interesting to see.

And, on a more personal level, I don't see anything referencing the climate disaster that was caused by Sol's Terraforming system in 2458, as in, how did it affect the gardeners compared to the Urbans? How did the disaster change the views of x people? Is it just being retconned or did it still happen? I personally think it's a very interesting piece of lore that seems to have been forgotten(even more interesting after Violet Dawn) and it would be a shame to not have it expanded upon properly on the Earth wiki page.

That's all I have for now! I may think of other things to ask/comment on later, if so I'll post them here @Marlon P..

Edited June 29, 2021 by Triogenix

[Marlon P.]

Hello, thank you for the response. 

48 minutes ago, Triogenix said:

To start, this seems eerily similar to the "theme" of the Eridian Federation, what with the extremely stratified society and corporate dominance, and, while I do not necessarily think this is a bad thing, what does this Earth Rework do different to truly distinguish the characters coming from the planet compared to those coming from the E-fed? I think my primary worry is that people will start playing Earth characters like they're suits or dregs.

On some level every cyberpunk dystopia is the same. It's the same sort of pieces that you slot together as the foundation then build on that. Every one of the human factions is a different subgenre in that overall genre. For Earth I was thinking about a subgenre we haven't really seen before. Oppressed, oppressor, mega-corporations, corrupt government...

I though that where Eridani white-washes its dystopia with sleek products and sterile white hallways, Earth greenwashes it. The theme I was going for is enviromentalism and sustainability being co-opted by these massive megacorporations. I'll call it ecopunk and hope that doesn't already mean something else. (Edit: it does! And I was super close.)

Another way to see it is that where a Suit from Eridani is actively malicious, an Upper-Urban is maliciously naïve. Where a Suit is exploiting the people in a neon lit office building, an Upper-Gardener is exploiting in a Victorian-themed manor with a lavish Rococo interior. Where a Suit invites you to a smoke-filled dance club to snort cocaine an Upper-Urban invites you to a water-polo game.

Earth characters, if they decide to follow the themes of the four groups here, would have a bit of a different vibe from Eridani. Eridani upperclassmen are slick, professional businessmen from your 80s and 90's cyberpunk. You run into them playing your usual cyberpunk game. Earth's upperclassmen are more like if the stepford wives were vegan. The lower classes of Eridani in terms of the urbans are pretty similar, which is impossible to avoid because they're from the same genre of fiction. The Low-Gardeners though have a wide variety of sources and themes to lift from, since it's a broad stroke. I personally wrote from where I know, since I grew up watching the community I lived in go through the same vibe there. The dystopian horror I pulled from specifically with the, I think twice-mentioned cow analogy was when I realized the cows in this massive, really stinky and nasty dairy cow factory farm in the middle of a desert by this dying drive-by town just down the interstate that we'd drive past sometimes was the company that made a brand of milk where on the carton a cow is grazing on a hill in this idyllic setting. I think there was a sunset behind it. IDK it was decades ago.

Anyway, outside the "vibe", which I think can be more reinforced with a bit more on-the-nose explanation of the ecopunk theme, can have some more layers when mega-cities and gardens are created. Some local flavors. Maybe in one of them everyone really likes eating deep fried blocks of cheese? Who knows!

48 minutes ago, Triogenix said:

Secondly, I don't see much mention of the Solarian Collapse and how it affected the planet, which I think would be a good thing to add

I don't know too much about that to write about it with confidence. I've changed how the already existing information is presented and added the ecopunk theme.

48 minutes ago, Triogenix said:

has megacorporate influence waned on the planet? How do the different types of people on earth feel about the formation of the SCA and the collapse of Sol? Stuff like that would be really interesting to see.

These are fantastic questions that I think the human devs are better equipped to handle. Sorry! Lol. All I can say is that if the main themes are stuck to then there'd be a lot of willful "please let's not get political, have some organic chai tea" from the upper two while the lowers are getting mad at the objective drop in their quality of life.

48 minutes ago, Triogenix said:

And, on a more personal level, I don't see anything referencing the climate disaster that was caused by Sol's Terraforming system in 2458, as in, how did it affect the gardeners compared to the Urbans? How did the disaster change the views of x people? Is it just being retconned or did it still happen? I personally think it's a very interesting piece of lore that seems to have been forgotten(even more interesting after Violet Dawn) and it would be a shame to not have it expanded upon properly on the Earth wiki page.

I could lie and say I forgot about that, but the truth is.... I forgot about that. It's not on the timeline of humanity; that was an article wasn't it? Umm, that would be important information to have... If you can give me a link I'll read it over and include it in the draft. Thank you for bringing that up! Off the top of my head I'd say that mass media is pretty incentivized to gloss over it. Greenwash it even. The low-gardners are probably the most upset and affected but they have no power to do anything about it. But that does make another compelling reason for a low-gardener to come to Tau Ceti.

Edited June 29, 2021 by Marlon P.

[DronzTheWolf]

Please.. Reintroduce Brazil as just plain old lore. I miss Rioliantrio, I miss the Amazon.

For context, there used to be an Earth Provinces page that was forever a WIP. Brazil was one that was actually fleshed out, with this being all I saved before removal:

 

Spoiler

 

Edited July 2, 2021 by DronzTheWolf
I forgot to do a small thing

[Marlon P.]

Doubleposted on accident.

Edited July 2, 2021 by Marlon P.

[Marlon P.]

37 minutes ago, DronzTheWolf said:

Please.. Reintroduce Brazil as just plain old lore. I miss Rioliantrio, I miss the Amazon.

For context, there used to be an Earth Provinces page that was forever a WIP. Brazil was one that was actually fleshed out, with this being all I saved before removal:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Easily added as a Garden province. Looks cool!

[lukebr2]

11 hours ago, DronzTheWolf said:

Please.. Reintroduce Brazil as just plain old lore. I miss Rioliantrio, I miss the Amazon.

For context, there used to be an Earth Provinces page that was forever a WIP. Brazil was one that was actually fleshed out, with this being all I saved before removal:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

i remember part of it as well

• the atmosphere was fucked due to massive pollution until zeng-hu made hospitals to treat lung problems and cleared the CO2
• the culture and principaly music was focused in protest songs and highlighting social issues
• carnival was still a thing
• Rio-São paulo megalópolis

but please do reintroduce Brazil 

[Marlon P.]

I'll fill out the whole subsection on mega-city and garden locations and get more suggestions from the discord human lore channel when/if the main body of the suggestion is accepted. If the human developers are fine with the ecopunk angle then I can get that done pretty quick. 

I skimmed the situations concerned and I think that even with KoTW not much is needed to change, only some added lines about how Earth is even more insular than before due to its influence waning, and a large population of martian and other inner-system expats becoming Lowers due to fleeing to the safety of Earth.

[The7thLain]

Hi, and thank you for your submission for human lore.

Myself and my deputies have looked the proposal over and we have come to the decision that this canonization application will be rejected at this time for the following reasons:
- A society stringently stratified by geography and class is already something that we have in multiple places not just in the lore in General, but in Human Lore as well, with the Eridani Corporate Federation and the Empire of Dominia being two examples. Classes exist in many places, but simply being rich or poor, or urban or rural, is not enough for us to consider this addition worthwhile, as these dynamics would exist in almost every conventional society and the addition of ecological framing or "green washing," as you say above, doesn't really change that fact. There needs to be more substance aside from simply living conditions and relationship with the environment to characterize the culture of these classes. How do they play into the planet's systems? What is their history? The explanation of their lives, while informative of characterizing their experiences, isn't something that we see as definitively unique in our setting, as environmentally friendly or otherwise sustainable technology would have been the norm for many going forwards after the abandonment of fossil fuels.

- The writing about the planet, while large in size, isn't really something that has particularly caught our attention in a way that would make Earth a truly unique and distinctive place in the lore, as say some other places are. Megacities are an interesting concept, however, again, we have these already in our lore in many places such as New Hai Phong, and the newest addition to Human lore, Callisto, a location which is in itself, a very large megacity.

- You mention cultures greatly in this application however you provide little to no explanation for how these cultures, interacts with these classes, aside from saying that a person would identify with culture more than class, yet across all cultures there are still these same four classes, and are again classes defined primarily by wealth and location, without any other sort of unifying affiliate property, which isn't something that we agree with in how a class should be organized.

- Lastly and perhaps most importantly, we do not see this lore as compatible with the current creative vision that the Human Lore team has in mind for Earth's future.

Thank you again for your submission, but this application is denied. 

Edited July 17, 2021 by TheBurninSherman