Thursday, September 9, 2021

The Seeder Initiative

     The Seeder Initiative is a young human polity that arose from the ashes of the old order on the human homeworld of Dirt. The technocrat kings were fearful and petty despots, content to rule their small arcologies, keeping the human homeworld hidden in the endless night. After the revolution, the Seeders took to the stars, only to discover humanity had already escaped the bonds of Dirt long ago. Now the seeders are seeking to reunite the fractured human colonies. They dream of a pan galactic human polity.


Politics 


Immediately after the rebels won the Seeder Initiative was formed as a military Junta to oversee the transition away from the arcolgies of Dirt to the vastness of space. Several years ago the Junta stepped down to make way for a liberal democracy. The chief executive is called the Prime Minister. The legislature is bicameral, split between the Large House for representatives from planetary colonies and the Small House which represents orbitals and outposts. The biggest wrinkle is that Dirt itself is unrepresented and citizens living on its surface cannot vote. This is meant to disenfranchise technocrat loyalists who are unwilling to leave their ancestral arcologies. This is just one more factor that has made Dirt a backwater within the Initiative.


The House of Esk occupies a singular and precarious position within the Initiative. They are one of the few technocrat noble lines to survive the war and they are the only house that joined the rebellion. Their defection marked the beginning of the end of the war, and as a result they were allowed to keep their noble titles and their holdings, including their psychic warsuits and their off planet colonies.  The feudal system is still in place, but it’s fangs have been knocked out with the advent of free travel; already the threat of personnel drain has forced reforms. Still, the authoritarian nature of Esk rankles many in the Initiative; for some, Esk represents everything the war was fought against. Nevertheless, they are part of the Initiative, for the time being at least.  


The Circle of integration, commonly called the Circle, is a ring of scientists and engineers created during the rebellion. Their mandate was to synthesize a unified technological praxis out of liberated technocrat artifacts and texts. They succeeded in some respects but the Technocrat knowledge base was corrupted and degraded by political whims. The circle understands more than the technocrats did, but less than the Empire of Dirt. With the war over and funding drying up, the Circle has moved towards self reliance, creating dockyards and orbital factories. Some in the Initiative worry that the Circle is becoming a breakaway faction,  compounded by fears of transhumanism. Many in the Circle are science mutants who have reclaimed the technologies that were used to create them. After centuries of human modification being taboo, the Circle is pushing that boundary.


The Seeder Defence Force (SDF) is the military wing of the Initiative. The officer corp is almost exclusively veterans of the rebellion while the grunts are mostly green volunteers. Early on it was decided that their focus would be the stars, so there has been a mad rush of ship building. In absolute terms their navy is still small, but every ship they have is a ship they didn’t have before the fall of the Technocrats. The transition between rebel partisans to professional soldiers has been a fraught one, giving the SDF a severe and erratic reputation.


    In order to supplement the still growing SDF, the Seeder Volunteer Force. Composed of merchants and privateers, the SVF is an auxiliary force that deploys when the SDF is otherwise unavailable. In contrast to the perception that SDF commanders are damaged and unpredictable, SVF captains are lauded as the heroic ideal; ordinary Terrans answering the call of duty.  Despite this reputation, they have a dubious, high loss record. Still, they help the Initiative project force across their sphere of influence.


Races


For centuries, humans on Dirt lived in sealed arcologies, isolated islands of civilization in the war torn wastes. Human society on Dirt was mired in a hereditary system of nobility. The direct servants of the Technocrat Kings were lords and ladies who ruled over the peasants . Twenty years ago, that system ended in fire. Humans from Dirt are often driven by the trauma from that event. Even those who weren’t alive then were born into a world shaped by the rebellion. Centuries of repression and isolation have given way to an era of passionate, almost neurotic exploration. A new new era  of possibility, still haunted by the horrors of the past.


    The Flesh 7 are a race of cyborgs with organic bodies and machine brains. They joined the Seeders during the war, when a group of rebels discovered their salvaging enclave Trash Bucket in Dirt’s debris ring. Their support gave the rebellion crucial space supremacy. In return the Flesh 7 were given monetary and technological support in the post-war period. Trash Bucket grew from a small outpost to an orbital city, and it is now the de facto capital of the Seeder Initiative. Though they are widely established across the galaxy, each individual enclave is small and there is little coordination, leading to the Flesh 7 being considered something of an “also-ran” in terms of galactic powers. Ambitious young Flesh 7s see the Initiative as a way to change that. By hitching their cart to humanity, they hope to share in their future empire.


    The Mu-Boll, also known as the twice born, are a recent addition to the Seeder Initiative. Their ancestors were isolated on the Great Station Mu millions of years ago, where they evolved away from sapience, only for that trait to reemerge later. It is believed that the Mu-Boll’s ancestors were in fact a human subspecies, though there is far too much artificial tampering in their genome for that to be known for certain. Regardless, the resemblance between the two species is remarkable. Same body plan, but Mu-Boll are shorter, with larger heads and larger eyes and pointed ears. The Mu-Boll had only recently emerged from their isolation on the Great Station Mu, and alliance with the Seeders seemed like a natural fit. The Mu-Boll prefer living in orbit while humans prefer planet side, meaning they aren’t in direct competition for living space. The greatest source of tension between the two races is the popularity of human meat clone cultures among the Mu-Boll.


    Canineform are human/dog hybrids. They have a tumultuous history with main line humanity. Originally enslaved through instinctual restraints, canineforms rebelled and created their own empire, the Domain of the Master. After thousands of years of uneasy peace with the Empire of Dirt, the two nations found themselves on opposite sides of the Kaiju War. After the Domain of the Master was destroyed, thousands of canineforms  found themselves stranded in the Dirt system. Some became low caste workers in the Technocrat kingdoms, while others lived in the wilds of the planet War. The rebellion upended the old social order, and canineforms were made equal. Their participation in the Initiative is not without friction however. The Seeders have positioned themselves as the inheritors of the Empire of Dirt, directly aligning themselves with the Canineform’s ancient enemy. Some tribes on War still believe the Kaiju war continues, while some Canineform separatists seek to reestablish the Master’s Domain. Still, as a human subspecies, most of the Seeder’s see the Canineforms as fellow terrans and full members of the Initiative. 


    Science Mutant is the catch-all term for humans altered by the technologies of the technocrat kings. It is important to note the term applies to cyborgs as well as genetically engineered humans. Many of the technocrats used their science to enhance the under class of their cities, either for use as laborers or as weapons. Science mutants were seen as the lowest of the low, mere objectified extensions of the technocrats’ will. It is no wonder then that they rebelled. In the new order science mutants have full human rights, but much of the old prejudice remains.


Chunky space

    Chunky Space is a pressing concern for the Seeder Initiative. The house of Oth has retreated here, the last Technocrat noble line to oppose the Seeders. That alone would be enough to draw attention but Chunky Space also promises riches and opportunity. The region is relatively unsettled, making it attractive to an expansionist power like the Seeders. They joined the compact because all the other signatories have significant human populations. They hope to leverage the political good will from the treaty into influence towards their goal of a pan terran polity. Their operational base in the region is the planet Far Sea, a former Esk colony.


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