New Athens - The Defiant New System

New Athens is a relatively young system, insofar as colonizing any system can be ‘young’. The first colonists arrived 2 centuries ago, composed of pirates, workers, and corporatists. It was a bargain struck by three rival groups to work together and beat their more deeply pocketed enemies.

Nothing in particular made New Athens special at the time. It was a system with:

• 3 habitable planets
• 4 additional colonizable worlds (with domes and eva suits)
• 2 gas giants
• 1 asteroid belt

The only special feature? No one had claimed it yet, let alone begun a colony there. It was far enough from well traveled routes that no one had invested the time, capital, and effort to build in the system.

It’s been 200 years since.

Today, New Athens is a thriving system with billions of people - but it’s still a work in progress. The inhabitants have only just begun to scratch the service, to mine valuable minerals, and establish a colony worth living in.

Governance and Law

Just because New Athens is colonized and heavily developed doesn’t mean it’s anything but a wild frontier. This is a lesson outsiders often learn the hard way. The system was built by three factions and it’s governed by 3 separate factions. They set their own laws in what each considers to be their own territory. It can make for a complicated arrangement. What the pirates permit or even turn a blind eye to can earn a jail sentence from the corporatists. What the corporatists excuse can earn a death sentence from the workers and pirates.

Pirate Law

Modern piracy arose as a response to the excessive greed of the corporatists. In a company controlled system, the focus is on profits first and human-decency never. Slavery may be legal at worst and at best? Indentured servitude slapped as a thin veneer on slavery. Consequently, the pirates’ code of law arose as a counter:

If the company-man swindled, forced, and coerced his workers to make a deal- If the company-man stole because his workers had no choice- If the company-man never deserved what he got-

Then we are not stealing, because it was NEVER his to own in the first place. We are offering the company-man the same deal he makes: give us all you have and I WILL GIVE YOU NOTHING in return.

For a pirate, it is legal to take what wasn’t owned. It is also however, illegal to rob from an item’s true-owner. This generally protects the average citizen. They will not do harm to the average person where it can be avoided. In fact, pirate law dictates taking care of their people. There is provisions for everyone: food, healthcare, and shelter. Among the pirates, no one goes completely without.

As for outsiders? The pirates apply the most severe corporatist laws to their targets and enemies: those passing through their territories must pay for permits - based on the value of their goods. Failure to pay is treated with sharp fines and a seizure of all goods - even whole ships, to satisfy the debt owed.

Corporatist Law

The New Athens corporatists aren’t as cruel as their counterparts outside the system, but they’re still not great. Their legal system and governance can at least be summarized to an easy list of bulletpoints:

• A contract is a contract is a contract: A legal agreement is binding and violations will be severely punished.
• Everything has a price: Nothing in life is free. Charge for everything and everything must be paid for. Anything can be bought - even a pardon.
• Profits always come first: The purpose of a person is the pursuit of wealth. Money is the measure of your power and success.

Passage through corporate space is billed. Breathing the air on a corporate planet is billed. Food. Water. Everything has its price and they will be there to collect it. The shakedown rivals the pirates.

Worker Law

Of the three factions, the Workers have the fewest laws and the simplest principals. Their governance is based on democracy, equity, and fairness. It’s just a bunch of hard working people who want to live their lives in peace. Consequently their laws are more about basic human rights and there is little focus on obtaining any kind of wealth:

• Food, Shelter, and Healthcare are a human right.
• Everyone has the choice of an education and a profession.
• Everyone has the right to be secure in their property and home.
• Everyone has a say in our governance.
• Everyone does their fair share of costs and labor.

While these views align closely with the pirates, they differ in one key way:

The workers are fair to everyone. The pirates are fair to anyone but the corporatists.

Economy

A thousand years of advancement and progress failed to kill the mighty financial sector. At the end of the day, Credits remained the driving factor of labor and trade. This is true in New Athens as it is in any other system. Those with money pay for goods and services. Those without provide goods and services to get the money. Each of the major factions has their own role in the economy and the overall structure of the economy.

Mega-Corp Operations

At the very top, the Corporatists own the biggest companies and assets in the system. They own the major retailers, they own the mines and the manufacturers. They run all the major sectors of trade with the other systems. Several of the companies in-system are verticaly aligned and run their own little system-wide monopolies. When the system works its best, the companies build products or harvest resources, trade them out of system, buy goods from out of system, and then sell those to the workers. It’s a smooth, simple, and circular machine.

The dysfunction of this system of course is the power it gives the corporations. They control the flow of goods and resources in principal. In reality, the pirates short-circuit any hope of total control and offer a counter-balance in the system.

Key Industries

Gas Harvesting

The gas giants offer access to a variety of rare and unique elements. Stations in orbit and specialized space craft reach down into the atmosphere to gather, process, and export everything from Deuterium to stable ultra-heavy elements harvested from the planets’ cores. This business provides fuel for ships and useful material for manufacturing.

There is also some significant vulnerability to piracy. A well equipped and daring pirate can dive into the atmosphere to steal some of the raw natural resources. It requires timing and skill to avoid detection or pursuit by the local guard forces.

Ship Building

A recent staple is the craft of fine and advanced starships. The enormous concentration of spacers, be them pirates or skilled workers has given the system a distinct advantage in advanced ship construction. There are technologies fielded here that even the most advanced corporate systems would pay a sharp premium for. An R&D Team known simply as “The Lab” has perfected an ultra-light-weight slinger-drive that can be equipped even to a small starfighter. The Ganymeade Construction Company has built a new line of Draper Class battleships for the New Athens Defense Force, considered to be one of the deadliest class of battleships ever conceived and surpassing the Typhoon Class Battle-Carriers favored by other corporate systems.

Contract Manufacturing

The heavy concentration of well-off, skilled workers has allowed for faster, cheaper, and more efficient manufacturing than in systems relying purely on slave labor. There are higher costs for labor and taxes, but the increased output and quality seems to vastly offset these differences. Resellers in the corporate systems often wait 5 years to have a chance at having their products built in Poli’s Forge City.

Piracy

The pirates have two functions in the economy:

• Thievery
• Competition

Inbound freight that travels through a pirate’s claimed territory is subject to taxes, fees, inspections, and of course a permit. This is standard practice even in corporate systems: you pay the local executive for access to their space. The difference is instead of a company, it’s a pirate crew benefiting. Failure to pay typically means impounded ships and shipments. On occasion, a true enemy of the pirates, a vile corporatist who’s deeds have become known across the stars is caught and put to death. There are some things even money won’t fix.

At the same time, there are pirates who happily provide shipping services, legitimate and otherwise. These pirates typically compete against the local companies, ensuring fair prices and access to the stars. Mixed in with the legitimate passengers and cargo, there’s always some manner of contraband. It is the way of the world - hidden compartments, backroom deals, and secret rendevous over the poles of a random moon.

Workers & Civilians

Everything is built on the efforts from the bottom of the pile. Every day workers and other unconcerned civilians have almost no care for the higher-level view of the system. They pick a line of work, learn a trade, and just spend their days at the grindstone to make a living. As a single entity, no one person has a major effect on the runnings of the economy. As a sum of billions however, the workers are the driving force in the local economy. A single day’s strike would ruin the corporatist balance sheets for months. A boycott can crush any company.

In other systems, such ideas would of course be harshly punished with fire and brimstone from the heavens. Here, the people can and would fight back. A conflict is untenable and the corporations have just had to live with the idea of having happy workers.

Key Sites

Poli

The capitol world of the system, it is an Earth-like planet, with similar enivonrments, 5 oceans, and bio-compatible wildlife. Over the centuries of colonization, several distinct regions and cities have been built up over the world. Each region has its own unique industries and features.

Philadelphia Naval Yards

Built in the image of Old Earth’s own Philadelphia, including a modern take on Independence Hall and a starship’s drive cone taking the place of the original liberty bell. There is one big difference compared to the old Philly: this one is built in a vast salt-flat. There was an ocean here once, but it’s long since dried up. This sprawling metropolis has more in common with Los Angeles than its name sake, at least, geographically.

Atlantis

Conceived as a research station and sold as a unique and one-of-a-kind resort city, Atlantis floats on Poli’s biggest ocean. It is a sprawling mix of submarine and city. The entire structure was built air-tight and designed to survive total submergence to a mile underwater. Its builders claimed this was a safety precaution in case of inclement weather or disaster. As a bonus, it would be a feature to charge guests extra for an underwater cruise. In the time since its construction, the city’s fallen into a fair blend of research and tourism. Boats leave out to watch the local sea-life, submarine tours are available, and the biology lab offers cutting-edge genetic manipulation.

The Parthenon

The Workers dreamed of a city of skill and craft. They dreamed of a place built to the absolute best of their abilities. This would be a place of research, knowledge, commerce, and advancement. It would be a no-effort-spared facility. This floating station orbits Poli, featuring a rare artificial gravity installation, full internal shipyards, and the absolute best and brightest in the entire system. The engineers who live here are the type who spit in the face of god every morning. The universe is their toy to unravel and they will unravel it.

The Slinger

At the very edge of the system sits what appears at first to be a black-hole. It’s not. It’s a space station that creates and sustains a blackhole. This fissure in space-time is used to sling ships across the stars. A ship must approach and maintain a precise course at immense speed. Their own onboard Slingdrive will interact with the gravity well, eventually piercing the fabric of space-time at a given weak point. That ship will be slung at faster-than-light speed across the galaxy. A deviation of even 0.01% can mean a 100 light year detour and certain doom for the crew. No slinger means no second chances.