Mictlan
Mictlan is one of the jewel worlds of the Sol Alliance with a unique, self-developed culture and Earth-like properties across the entirety of its surface.
Measuring proved the planet has a standing temperature of earth circa 226 BC.
Mainland is majorly focused in the upper tropical ring, it was estimated that on average it rains twelve to twenty times a month. Measuring proved the planet has a standing temperature of earth circa 226 BC. The small lands are mainly split islands, with plant life in its initial stages of evolution the planet is mostly compromised of invasive human species. The polar ice caps are so far barren of any life.
The surrounding sea is also home to majorly invasive species steadily pushing the home populace away. Underwater plant life however has proven resilient and remains the only majorly non-invasive demographic. They have quickly adapted to invasive aquatic life and work in suspiciously well coordinated symbiosis which baffles marine biologists to this day. The atmosphere is rich on oxygen and low on nitrogen resulting in sporadic growth of insects and other Arthropods.
Population and Society
As of the most recent census in 2457, the population of Mictlan is 2,851,000 billion.
Societal breakdown is as follows:
54% Mictlanian
34% Other Human Ethnicities
0.9% Skrell
0.2% Unathi
0.1% Tajara
Administration: Mictlan is governed as a democratic republic with a presidential system.
Major Cities
Arequipa
A mainland city and one of the shining jewels of Mictlan, Arequipa houses the national museum, governing body of Arequipa and one of the few spaceyards on Mictlan capable of holding a Zhukov-class carrier. Arequipa isn’t constructed as a traditional city, instead being a collection of large towers called “Canopies”, which can hold upwards of 80 000 people each along with large-scale farms, electro-car parking spaces and cattle farms. Arequipa has an extremely small poverty rating, as most blue-collar workers live out on the sea city platforms having taken to aquaculture, the few that do live in the city usually find themselves in farming and maintenance jobs, which makes their unions quite the political force, due to the fact that Arequipa would simply stop functioning without them.
On the other hand, Arequipa sports a large amount of white-collar workers, office workers, celebrities, entrepreneurs and influencers due to being one of the very few cities on Mictlan directly connected to space. This, however, has also had a large-scale impact on the city's culture. Influenced by outsider ideas, many Arequipa citizens are starting to lose the characteristic interest in recycling and reusability that Mictlan holds. As a result, most Arequipians are often titled as “Ladicios” or “wasters”. Thus many Arequipians find themselves leaving the planet despite their good standing, hoping to escape this “bigoted and restrictive place” and find a new personal freedom among the stars. Many companies including Nanotrasen are happy to oblige, for a small fee.
Sikunda
A sea-rig city, the largest and one of many dotting the surface of Mictlan. Despite it being whipped by torrential rains and large waves daily, Sikunda still manages to boast a sizeable population. Its large platforms are dotted with small buildings, factories and primarily, slums. While jobs are practically everywhere, the amount of money made from fishing, harvesting coral, underwater wood or aquaculture is not large. While Sikunda does have free healthcare and education as does mainland, its large size means these facilities are often filled over their maximum capacity, with the staff often finding themselves burnt out.
However, with the coming of a new chief of police, Lukas Torres, who is regarded by many as a figure of justice and law, the crime rate on Sikunda is steadily decreasing along with it’s overall corruption rate. It is also a host to large scale festivals and parties, with people often coming from mainland to be “Taken by the waves of Sikunda”, as Mictlanians like to say. It’s also been a prime target for contractors, primarily Nanotrasen, hoping to bank on the Mictlanian ideal of re-usability coupled with the low average wage that might seem appealing to the poor city's government.
History
The original colonists of Mictlan never intended to land on this planet, instead, it served as a crash site for their ships, which ran out of resources two years before they were supposed to due to overindulgence and overuse of materials. Ever since then, the government and people of Mictlan had reframed their lifestyles and rebuilt into a new nation that could be proud not because they come from the original earth, but because they're better than their ancestors.
The effort started with large crackdowns on consumption and overuse of non-reusable resources, the blame was mostly placed on the megacorporations, brands, and companies which had come along with the settlers. A general strike led to the nationalization of these companies during the early years of the settlement, during which they also began to build the first infrastructure on this wet rock. Establishing communications with the Sol Alliance came a few years later, and already a local democratic government was formed, along with many industries which invested heavily into aquaculture and recyclable materials, these two industries would come to characterize Mictlan. This coupled with the efforts of the government to establish Mictlan not as a product of Earth but as its own, strong colony, citing the works and ideals of the ancient Simón Bolívar put Mictlan into an unfavorable light with the Sol Alliance, who demanded Mictlan to re-settle to the planet they were originally intended to settle and stop purposefully avoiding the use of phoron and other new technologies. The government of Mictlan answered with a large shipment of Uranium, which they had little use for, and a general statement that the planet was very rich in coal, fish, uranium, and coral and they'd be happy to establish good trade relations with the Sol Alliance. Content with the output of goods, the Sol Alliance fully recognized the colony of Mictlan and has had nothing but good relations with them ever since.
Culture
Mictlan culture is a culture of resourcefulness and recycling. While their crime, pollution and health risk rates are one of the lowest in the whole galaxy, they rank very low in terms of well-being, due to the refusal to use technology that requires phoron in a larger scale than required. Coupled with a hefty tax on anyone importing things such as oil, plastic or other non-recyclable goods this has made Mictlan a very undesirable trade partner for most companies. As a result majority of the population works in aquatic industries, mainly fishing and harvesting of the coral reefs or carbonized wood, leaving a very large lower class which face daily danger on their arcologies as they cannot afford to live on the mainland which is relatively flood-free. In spite of this, people on Mictlan wouldn't have it any other way, as the living conditions are slowly improving due to heavy investment and effort to make re-usable technology as useful as non-reusable. The recent invention of bioplastic has marginally improved the living conditions on Mictlan although corporate lobbyists are preventing its spread onto other planets as it requires materials native mostly to Mictlan.
Mictlanian citizens are some of the most mindful in regards to resources and the environment and have been a strong case for environmentalists everywhere. They are proud of being a colony and have a real drive to remain self-sustaining. As a result, the colonists of Mictlan can come off as cold to plights of other colonies, usually being unsympathetic when other people claim they "need" something non-reusable for their survival.
Mictlanian culture is strongly inspired by its South American roots while considering themselves their own colony, mirroring the relationship between Brazil and Spain in the days of old. Mictlan is thus known for large scale parades and colorful parades despite the pouring rain. Celebrations such as Independence Day or the Day of Founding are almost always completely crowded. The fact that there is a low amount of tourism is welcome by the native population as they severely dislike tourists, due to their usually disruptive behaviour and tendency to litter and disregard the trash laws.
The idea of re-using and recycling is not a simple action for Mictlanians, but a way of living. Thus even arts and music find themselves recycled, Mictlanian movies, games, arts and musics tend to be remixes, recycles or rehashes of already preexisting media from other systems. To the anger of the creators, this is considered perfectly legal on Mictlan and the Sol Alliance does not find it enough of an issue to warrant an intervention. This often means that while a Tau Cetian might hear about the famous franchise "Pigface" a Mictlanian would most likely hear about a certain "Hogface" with strikingly similar characteristics. One of the most famous instances was a popular rewrite of Romeo and Juliet becoming so famous that it replaced the original book in required reading of Mictlanian schools. This has led to a near dead digital and software scene on Mictlan, as developers don't see a point in creating anything since it'll get remixed, remade and recycled anyways.
However, not everyone is on-board with this idea and an anti-cultural group calling themselves, Liberdade de Ganância, who propagate that people should be entitled to their trash, litter and products. Oftentimes they'll purposefully litter or dirty the environment, stating that the government is using the recycling excuse as a way to restrict the freedoms of men and women. For a long time they were considered unpopular punks, but they're starting to pick up with the younger generation. As Liberdade de Ganância are strong proponents of anti-piracy and digital anti-theft laws, many artists and young influencers have come to them for help as they're known for creating a digital protection service, which encodes data, corrupting it if it's downloaded or reposted illegally.
Style
Fashion has always been a part of humanity and the Mictlanians are no exception. With a strong culture of "re-use and recycle" the average worker is actually going to be wearing a temporary clothing mesh, designed to degrade in a week specifically so it can be dropped in an in-home recycler, decomposed into basic materials and re-used into clothing once again. Upper echelons of pay is where issues arise, while many agree that material over-use it bad, plenty of Mictlanian celebrities wear clothing imported from other areas of space. Ultimately however, this issue is so minor and hidden under the fame of those celebrities that plenty of people are willing to excuse such behaviour. While the government punishes such offenses with fines, but the kind of people who can buy a dress from Biesel can easily pay off a few hundred credit fine.
This created a need for individuality, but no means to provide it in the clothing industry. And so people expressed themselves in two ways, masks, piercings and tattoos.
Masks
There is a long standing tradition of masks on Mictlan, usually made of wood and in varied expressions. Mictlanians use these masks for important events, happy ones, painted in bright colors for celebrations or black and white ones, with a sad expression for tragedies both in the family or in public. Protestors, rebel groups and pirates native of Mictlan often adopt these masks, usually with angry expressions, to scare and intimidate their opponents while also hiding their identity while keeping their alignment and intent very clear.
Piercings
Piercings made of smeltable materials are very popular on Mictlan. However, one won't find nose-rings or classic ear-rings on Mictlan, due to the dangers of Mictlan itself the risk of snagging on something is very real and has resulted in studs in particular being very popular. Piercings are also viewed as something for young people, literally, usually at around the age of 25-30 a person is expected to remove their piercings otherwise they might be viewed as "childish". Thus underage piercing is common and even encouraged. Some disagree with this, however, as they view it unfair to the children and a way for parents to "bedazle" their kids without their permission.
Tattoos
Tattoos are viewed as the best way for someone to express themselves. The abundance of aquatic life has lead to tattoo ink solutions based on squid ink become widespread and popular, even endorsed as healthy by certain "physicians" and "health gurus". The most popular motiff is coloring of the whole upper face, right above the nose. It is speculated this originates from an old earthen south american tribe called the Mayoruna. It also bears the same intent, transformation, coloring the upper face in particular is supposed to signify the transformation into a fearsome jaguar. However, other tattoos are also very popular, namely the idea of a "full-body" tattoo, these usually take multiple years and are usually done part by part as the person gets older, each new tattoo denoting some achievement in their life. Phosphorescent tattoos, eye tattoos or even internal organ tattoos are other very popular variants.
Foreign Relationships
Mictlan suffers from heavy discrimination to anyone outside their immediate planet as for many people it's hard to understand the purpose of recyclable materials. This makes Mictlanians seem short-sighted and backwards when in reality they're simply focusing on a new venue of re-usable and environmentally friendly technologies. This however makes Mictlan quite technologically impaired compared other human colonies. Mictlan is disgusted by the flagrant and wasteful use of phoron and compel other governments to focus on a more long-term solution, like attempting K'ois related phoron harvesting.