Участник:Omicega/Sandbox
| Eridanian |
| H. Sapiens / Human |
 |
| Home System: Epsilon Eridani |
| Homeworld: Akhet, Oran, Amon |
| Language(s): Sol Common, Tradeband, Freespeak |
| Political Entitie(s): Eridani Corporate Federation, Sol Alliance |
The Sovereign Solarian Nation of the Corporate Federation of Eridani, often referred to as the Eridani Corporate Federation or simply Eridani, is a decentralised corporatocracy set in the Epsilon Eridani system. While nominally part of the greater Sol Alliance as a whole, the Federation’s corporate government enjoys an unprecedented level of autonomy compared to other Solarian member states; very few of the Federation government’s policies align with those of the greater Solarian nation. Renowned and reviled across the Spur for the efficacy of its expansive private military concerns and controversial treatment of its own citizenry, the Eridani Federation has become something of a pariah state in galactic affairs. Its three inhabited worlds boast some of the highest population density anywhere in the Spur, with tens of billions of inhabitants calling the Federation their home.
As Epsilon Eridani was originally settled by colonists of West and Central African descent, human characters born in the Eridani Corporate Federation must have names and appearances consistent with the indigenous peoples of these regions, as any human moving to the ECF would assimilate into the dominant cultures and ethnic groups of the Federation. Eridani dregs have developed cultures of abstract or unconventional names, however, and this is tolerated. Only native Eridanians may select the Eridanian accents – employing the suit slang is how a non-native worker might look to integrate, not the accent tag in-game. This is enforceable by server moderators and admins.
Government
As the only true corporatocracy anywhere in the Spur, Eridani is (theoretically) directly administered by three of humanity’s biggest megacorporations: Hephaestus Industries, Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals, and Einstein Engines. The governmental framework is extremely decentralised, and in practice the megacorporations themselves operate through a complex, intricate network of subsidiaries – which themselves often have subsidiaries of their own, each directly administering one or two ‘cities’ across the system. This arrangement, while effective, has led to an odd disconnect between the Eridanian branches of each megacorporation and their branches elsewhere in the Spur. In particular, Hephaestus and Zeng-Hu’s corporate headquarters are often scarcely able to exercise control over their Eridanian branches since the foundation of the Biesel-based Stellar Corporate Conglomerate, which has become a source of concern for these two megacorporations in recent months. Einstein Engines, the only Solarian-aligned megacorporation out of the ruling trio, is thought by many to have had a hand in this recent shift in policy, but no formal accusations have been levied at them as of yet.
Similarly, while nominally part of the greater Sol Alliance (ASSN), the Federation maintains a ‘free economic zone’ across the whole system that has, over the centuries, been nudged bit by bit to become more and more in favour of the corporations themselves. Eridani has therefore become independent in all but name, openly ignoring Alliance-wide laws such as the 2460 Tajara ban and continuing to cooperate closely with the Republic of Biesel. The Federation has therefore become grossly unpopular with the rest of the Alliance’s populace as a whole, although the Sol Alliance’s provisional military government has worked hard to maintain a warm working relationship with the Federation’s authorities.
Due to its corporate government, laws on Eridani are notoriously malleable. Though the Federation pays lip service to numerous interstellar treaties and conventions and maintains a judicial system that appears functional at a glance, the reality is that corporations are free to flout the letter of the law as and when they please. Transgressions are either overlooked entirely by the PMC-run authorities or buried in enough red tape that legal action stalls out. As such, Eridani has become infamous for its attractiveness to unsavoury and unethical business practices – one of several factors that has led to its increasing geopolitical ostracisation. There is no voting or representation given to the Eridanian populace; at most, a workplace ‘survey’ handed out to employees may be used to gauge which changes, if any, are necessary for the local administration.
Life in Eridani
Eridanian Geography
With tens of billions of inhabitants strewn across three inhabited worlds, the most striking thing about an Eridanian citizen’s daily life is how little variation there is. Akhet, Oran, and Amon (officially known as Epsilon EridaniI, II and III respectively) are remarkably indistinguishable from one another at ground level; a citizen could be plucked from one of their smog-choked cityscapes and dropped into another without noticing much more than a change in the local gravity and temperature. Extensive and heavy-handed terraforming has rendered each of Eridani’s three terrestrial worlds monotone but perfectly habitable, imposing upon their biospheres a carefully curated environment free from undue weather patterns or extreme temperatures.
The sheer scale of urban development that has come afterwards, however, has had a profound effect on the terraforming project’s success. After two centuries of runaway construction and the unregulated exploitation of Eridani’s natural resources, the atmosphere of each respective world is heavy with smog, which clings close to ground level in a soupy mass of various colours. Across the surfaces of each world, skyscrapers rise out of the thick fog into the inky blackness of the sky above, their air-conditioned interiors providing a breathable atmosphere to their citizenry. The pollution of Eridani’s worlds has eclipsed even that of New Hai Phong, and outdoor work is now pursued exclusively by robotic workers or those without any other option.
The Eridanian skyscraper, therefore, has become more than just a workplace for the Federation’s citizenry. Formally known as ‘habitation units’, they incorporate residential floors and areas alongside office complexes and call centres, ensuring that the Eridanian citizen has no theoretical need to ever leave their building of birth. The habitation units themselves are further organised into megacorporate ‘cities’, generally held and owned in their entirety by one specific corporate subsidiary. Work is generally just one elevator ride away from an employee’s living and leisure space, which maximises productivity for the corporation at the top of the chain. The Federation’s focus on so-called corporate ‘non-jobs’ has drawn increasing criticism over the past decades, but as the population continues to sprawl across the grey, drab surfaces of each Eridanian world, the crushing weight of office bureaucracy continues to expand.
Eridanian Citizens
Known as Suits to the rest of the Spur, the life of a model Eridanian citizen is simple and regulated. Work takes place seven days a week for upwards of twelve hours a day, with an employee’s income carefully balanced against their expenditure to ensure little to no upward mobility. Prices in Eridani are controlled on an individual level, and everything is paid for in the great Solarian credit. An employee’s consumption of every resource is monitored by the state’s vast surveillance apparatus; the food they eat, the fluids they drink, and the air they breathe are all accounted for and deducted accordingly from their pay. The elevator one rides to work each day comes with a charge, and so does the electricity they use at their workstation. Jobs are frequently mind-numbing and unimaginative; data entry, call centre work, and other rote tasks are emblematic of the Eridanian ‘career path’. Unsatisfactory performance leads to penalties imposed, automatically or otherwise, by an employee’s superiors – in extreme cases, a worker’s contract may even be terminated outright, resulting in expulsion from the habitation unit onto the smog-choked concrete outside.
Augmentation is encouraged at every level of Eridanian society, and even the most body-purist of the Federation's citizens can sometimes be found with an ocular overlay laid behind one or both eyeballs. Due to a lack of regulatory control, advertisements are often invasive and incessant – the fee to opt-out is generally so prohibitive that buying the product outright would cost less, and a user’s augmentations are often used as a vehicle to deliver adware directly into an employee’s field of view or hearing. Augmentations are frequently discounted, offered as grants, or subsidised by the employing corporation (although the cost is always recouped down the line), as each new piece of metal or silicon installed in a worker is another part of them open to more state control. The private military sector is one of the heaviest investors in augmentation technology – free from undue regulation and ethical constraints, the Eridanian model of war as a business has led to the Federation leading the Spur in the field of combat augmentation.
Non-Citizen Eridanians
Aside from the Federation’s official citizenry, however, billions of non-citizens live outside the confines of the crushing corporate system. Referred to as Dregs by the Spur at large, the term has been co-opted by many as a badge of honour rather than a pejorative. Whether an individual was born outside the great Eridanian skyscrapers or sent there following the loss of their job, Dreg society is the polar opposite of their Suit counterpart. Without corporate control or any form of governance from the Eridanian state itself, the Dregs largely inhabit their own sprawling, slum-like conurbations all across the surface of Eridani’s terrestrial worlds. Categorising their form of governance is impossible, as the disposition and inclinations of one Dreg community can be strikingly different from those of its neighbours. Anarchist communes, miniature despotisms, and even some functional democracies have spread themselves from Oran to Amon, and the Dreg world now consists of an immeasurable number of unrecognised micro-states, all of which are mostly ignored by the central Eridanian authorities. The attitude of each of these micro-states can vary considerably, as can the attitude of each corporate ‘city’ towards their officially unrecognised neighbours. Some Dreg and corporate communities are known to engage in limited cooperation, however uneasy; some others, however, are engaged in all-out bloody warfare to undermine or eradicate the other.
The life of the ‘average’ Dreg, therefore, contrasts sharply with that of their Suit counterpart. The air is thick with smog, technology is often backwards and archaic, and independent observers estimate life expectancy to be somewhere in the low forties. Even so, living outside the hellish Eridanian corporate system comes with its own invaluable upsides – Dregs enjoy personal liberty the likes of which very few Suits will ever see, and passage off-world is (ironically) much easier to secure for many Dregs to acquire than a Suit under constant, crushing surveillance. What little remains of the colonists’ native African culture is kept alive in Dreg communities across Eridani, and although much of it has diverged significantly from what the Africans originally brought to the system, it often forms a important aspect of life in Dreg society, as well as acting as a symbol of defiance against the oppressive, corporate non-culture the authorities look to enforce.
Reinstatement
Synthetics and IPCs
The majority of legally registered IPCs in the Federation are owned by corporations. While Eridani does not officially bar synthetics from self-ownership and purchasing their own citizenship in the same manner as a foreign national might, practically speaking this practice is very uncommon. Generally, synthetics are seen as property or equipment for a corporation to utilise, and the ideas of synthetic emancipation are found mostly outside the walled confines of the corporate megacities, among the Dregs. Due to these factors, self-owned and non-subservient IPCs tend to stand out within the cities, but they are far more common among Eridani's non-citizen populace.
IPCs in Eridani's corporate sphere are employed in all walks of life, from the service sector to private military work. High-end restaurants and social clubs make heavy use of Bishop and shell frame positronics to enhance the customer experience, and a select few PMCs build and employ significant numbers of synthetic personnel to bolster their ranks.
Outside the confines of Eridanian corporate society, positronics can be found all across the Dreg-dominated conurbations sprawling across the planets' surfaces. Though the proportion of free IPCs here is greater than in the corporate world, many are still shackled to ownership by Dreg communities or influential individuals. Able to operate freely on the heavily polluted surface of Eridani's worlds, IPCs have a distinct advantage over their organic counterparts when it comes to life outside the megacities. On account of these capabilities, IPCs are frequently seen as akin to luxury goods in Dreg society, and large numbers of synthetics continue to be smuggled out of the cities for resale and reprogramming. Synthetics that manage to acquire their freedom commonly find themselves joining gangs to protect themselves from repossession or disassembly, with some of the more notable examples being the Scrappers.
Corporate Slang
Dreg Slang
History
Colonised in 2095 by settlers from the West African Union (UAO), the near-Sol system of Epsilon Eridani stood out as a prime location for early extrasolar settlement.