Colossus

[Citty]

Type (e.g. Planet, Faction, System):Planet

Founding/Settlement Date (if applicable): The late 2200s

Region of Space:Zeta Reticuli

Controlled by (if not a faction):Provisional Colossus Government, Free People's Faction

Other Snapshot information:

-Large, watery, ferrous planet with a crushing 3.2 Gs of gravity.

-Embroiled in a violent civil war.

-Much of the oceans are evaporated, creating a thick, hot, misty atmosphere, especially near the coast.

-A nanotech based virus wreaks the planet, causing genetic diseases in those affected, as well as causing blight in unmodified crops.

Long Description:Once a shining beacon of what other interstellar colonies could only desire to be, Colossus is now a hellhole that has been embroiled in civil war for almost a century, with no signs of it slowing down.

Before the war, Colossus was a large economic hub, with it and it's spaceports being frequently visited and traded at, the latter more so, as humans without proper genetic modification would be subject to unbearable discomfort and eventual injury if they were to land on the planet. Colossus produced quite a large share of diamondoids, and it's large magnetic field coupled with it's gravitational shadow allowed practical antimatter traps to be built in orbit. Industry was booming, and everything from spaceships, to mechs, to canned tea and vegetables were being pumped out in the tens, hundreds, and millions on a regular basis.

Towards the end of the "Golden Age of Colossus", or the late 2300s, public order started to sink. Wage gaps were only growing higher, the planet's resources were already being overexploited, police brutality went unchecked, and the government was allegedly ordering shootings on rallies and protests.

And so the Red Crusaders, later the Free People's Faction, were born. Mixing local ethno-religious appeal with the idea of creating an egalitarian paradise, the Red Crusaders began passing propaganda pamphlets across the western continent of the planet, eventually sparking mass riots, which eventually lead into the occupation of a city by Crusader forces. The city was then quickly annihilated by a massive armored invasion from governmental strike teams. However, the thousands left dead, both civilians and soldiers, were but martyrs for rebels across the planet.

Organized riots quickly boiled away into violent civil war, marked by mass conscription on both sides, mass shelling, and rampant terrorism. The Colossus Government has practically collapsed in on itself, and the Free People's Faction are the Red Crusaders in legacy only, aiming at producing another planetary empire rather than the Marx-influenced state envisioned in the past.

Warfare is marked by more debilitating injuries than deaths, partly due to most warfare operating with small, armored, vertical one man walking tanks, with explosive ordnance, whether it be projectile based or rocket based, being rather impractical to use due to the large gravity well, lasers being far more favored. The mechs are capacitor powered, with no explosive fuel contained.

Within the last thirty years, the Provisional Government has released a nanotechnological plague on Free People's Faction territory, aiming at causing various genetic diseases and disorders, as well as infertility. This, however, quickly spread out of hand, and 65% of the planet's population is afflicted with this blight. What happens next in the war is up to speculation, with both sides considerably weakened from a lack of manpower, as a large number of previous Colossus residents have either fled the planet for Sol Alliance space or have been killed in the violent warfare. News from the planet is highly limited, as most broadcast signals are either too weak to leave the planet's atmosphere or have been snuffed out for being "Crusader propaganda."

I'm terribly sorry if this is a massive wall of text, I'll edit it so that the paragraphs are more apparent.

EDIT: Done.

EDIT: I think I removed all traces of super weaponry.

Edited April 10, 2015 by Guest

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

You don't need nuclear bombardment and proton cannons to wreck a society. Civil strife and civil war do the job just fine, and an entire planet destabilizing until it's a wrecked backwater is something we can achieve without such extreme methods. The Sol Alliance wouldn't allow a colony under it to own proton cannons, or carpet nuke the surface.

A sufficient guerrilla/paramilitary movement would be sufficient as a catalyst to either a sudden descent into civil war or a thundering rumble increasing to a crescendo of violence. But the superweapons used, along with biological warfare, would see a lot of war crime tribunals and a severe response from the Sol Alliance.

My only hard requirements are that the nuclear weapons and orbital superweapons are nixed. If you really feel it's necessary, you can justify to me why a plague is needed, but it'll be a hard sell.

Now for proposals!

I'd imagine this area would be a large source of investment from the Interstellar Aid Corps. The aid workers would operate much like the UN; providing medical and humanitarian relief with refugee camps, while also utilizing investigators and inspectors to monitor possible war crimes by any party, and to protect civilians and keep the galactic community updated on the situation so they can appeal for more funding to help their humanitarian mission. If you think this sounds nice, it'd be lovely to integrate the IAC into it, weaving together this with established organizations already present, if all my prior concerns are satisfied.

All that said, it's very creative.

[Citty]

Alright, I'll drop the mass nuking. The plague was originally intended to be administered to a few rebel settlements to lower morale, but it replicated a few too many times because nanotech, and it didn't have any way of telling a loyalist from a rebel. Also, I love the idea of the aid corps volunteering, and would create interesting stories for sure, with a civil war setting and the punishing gravity.

[Citty]

Edited, removed the superweapons.

[Guest]

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[Guest]

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[Guest]

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